Apocalyptic Forecast - Chapter 13
Chapter 13: The Smell of A Gigolo’s Pheromones
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It was completely silent inside the office of the Special Affairs Bureau.
“You lost them?”
Ai Qing sat in her wheelchair, looking at the man sweating behind his desk. “Are you telling me you lost two grown people, just like that?”
“It can’t be helped. We only got a few shots of their side profiles from the security cameras on the streets, and they were wearing masks too. There was no way to tell where they came from. As for this photo…”
The man looked at his desk, where there was the image of a man tied to a chair. It only made his headache worse. He pointed at the bridge of the nose and the cheekbones, saying, “You can clearly see that he has had plastic surgery done here, and not too long ago, too. It won’t be easy to find him.”
“If everything was so easy, the world would’ve been at peace for a long time now.”
Ai Qing was not bothered by brainless excuses like that. She pointed at the white powder in the plastic bag and asked, “What about this thing? Do we have any new leads?”
“Uh…” The man visibly hesitated.
“Is that so?” Ai Qing looked disappointed. “If you can’t catch them with the power of New Ocean, I’ll just have to report it to the Astronomical Association…”
When that lid was removed, though, if anything less than pleasant was found, then things would really end up far from pleasant.
“Cough cough cough, no, that’s not what I mean.” The unlucky chap who had clearly been pushed out here to take the fall hurriedly shook his hands. He did not dare to act hard to get at all. “It’s not that we don’t want to cooperate, it’s just that unregulated psychedelics mixed with elementium is just too common. We can’t trace its origins at all.”
“Hm?” Ai Qing frowned.
“Its main effect stems from that elementium, but too many border relics can create something like this, and it’s just too easy to change up the composition. There are already several dozen types that we’ve found circulating the market, and if we investigate with the Astronomical Association’s databank of illegal substances, we might even end up finding ten thousand types.
“After all, the abilities of Ascenders and those products from hell don’t adhere to common sense at all. That’s why we’re really powerless to handle this.”
The man wiping away his sweat had fully embraced their pathetic inability.
“Since you’re not capable of it, why did you have to go dragging us down?” Ai Qing pulled back her disappointed gaze, and the man heaved a sigh of relief.
After she pushed the door open, however, Ai Qing turned around and asked suddenly, “Since there are so many things you can’t do, I’m sure you would definitely help when it comes to things that you can, right?”
“…Yes, that’s right.”
The man behind the desk stared for a long time before he inwardly cursed out those useless pieces of trash who never got their work done. After he made sure to note down this grudge they owed him, he forced a smile. “We’ll definitely give you our full cooperation.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.”
The door closed.
…
“Music!”
In the dimly-lit room, there were two figures curled up against each other on the couch, whispering sweet nothings. One of them raised a hand and snapped his fingers.
Hence, Huai Shi began to play his cello in the corner of the room, his expression completely blank and numb.
In his bag, the emotionless Book of Destiny wrote, “On my first day working with Liu Dongli, he made me play for him. One day, I’ll make him pay for this.”
That was right. This was Huai Shi’s first day as a gigolo.
In order to earn a living, he had fallen from a graceful cellist to Liu Dongli’s personal BGM player. They worked as a pair, one selling his body and the other his art. Soon, they would become curly-haired V-necked superstar gigolos… As if!
‘Other people get personal bodyguards, so why the heck am I getting personalized by my bodyguard?’
Sleeping in the same house was one thing, but he insisted on going to work together too!
Was that really necessary?!
If it were not for the threat to his life and the daily fee of eight hundred bucks that Ai Qing gave him, he would have gotten up and left ages ago.
Now, however, he was probably stuck with this gigolo until this incident was over.
Huai Shi’s demands really were not all that high. He could take the fall, while they jumped into the flames.
Once this was over, everyone would part ways and unanimously pretend that nothing ever happened. It would be best if they never had anything to do with each other again.
After he sent that stupid crow away too, he could restart his life and use the cheat code that he had finally activated to reach the pinnacle of his life. He would achieve his dreams of marrying a fair, pretty and wealthy wife, counting so much cash that he broke several dozen cash counters, and becoming so famous that he was turned into a pretty girl in a gacha game.
Halfway through his baseless fantasies, he was astute enough to suddenly hear the quiet sobs from the couch.
The alcohol and sad cello music made the woman in Liu Dongli’s arms break, succumbing to the sorrow in her heart. She sobbed out loud and held Liu Dongli’s hand.
“In my heart, I’ve always… always thought of you as my son… I’m sorry I kept hiding it from you, but if my son were alive, he would surely… surely be as old as you are now…”
Huai Shi sniggered quietly, and Liu Dongli’s professional smile stiffened somewhat.
After he finally sent the client away, he turned back and immediately saw the jest in Huai Shi’s expression.
“Oh ho—”
Huai Shi considered him and sighed from the bottom of his heart. “Do I smell the true essence of gigolohood?”
“Stop spouting nonsense out of your butt!” Liu Dongli rolled his eyes. “What you’re smelling is my pheromones! I already slept with her so many damn times, but somehow I became her son!”
“Tsk-tsk, isn’t this when you’re supposed to say you’re comforting lonely ladies and warming their hearts? Then you’ll change my mind about gigolohood as a profession…”
“I suspect you might have a problem up here.” Liu Dongli gave him a sideways glance and pointed at his brain. “No matter how nicely you put it, gigolos are only selling their smiles and their bodies. There’s nothing fancy or mighty about it.”
“You seem to be having fun with it, though?” Huai Shi blinked, and his gaze turned pitiful again. “Could it be that you’re actually into older ladies?”
“As if!”
Liu Dongli gave him a look of utter contempt. “Do you really think everyone’s as flat broke as you are? Back then, I used this face to earn as much as I wanted. Within a few days, I had forty million…”
Huai Shi stayed calm. “I see. And then?”
“…And then I was caught,” Liu Dongli said drily. “That woman personally apprehended me. After that, she said if you like swindling women out of their money so much, you should just go be a gigolo. I’ll be free once I manage to return all the money I cheated off of them.”
Huai Shi was flabbergasted. “So you actually went and became a gigolo?”
“What choice did I have? Let them send me to the border? My ability only works on humans. If I go there, I’ll definitely die.” Liu Dongli smoked his cigarette, frustrated. “Do you think you could shake your head if they had a gun stuffed in your mouth? I nearly wet myself!”
At that point, Huai Shi was extremely curious, so he approached Liu Dongli and asked in a whisper, “Didn’t you use your ability then?”
Liu Dongli’s expression wilted even further, and after a long time, he finally forced out the words.
“I used it, but it was no use.”
“Wait, did you use it or not?!”
“I did, but it didn’t work at all.”
Liu Dongli shook his head, defeated. “After that, I kept thinking back on it. I did use it, and because I wanted to run away, I even amped it up ten times! When I used that ability, she should’ve fallen madly in love with me…
“It’s so ironic, isn’t it? Her name’s Ai Qing1, but love means nothing to her. Nothing at all.”
“Urk…”
Huai Shi compared that to the woman he had met a few days ago, and it left him a little stunned. “Are you sure you’re describing a person and not Armored Godzilla?”
Eventually, Liu Dongli looked at him like he was an idiot. “Are you kidding? She’s the leader of the Astronomical Association in New Ocean. She’s an invigilator with the power to temporarily boss every Ascender around.
“Godzilla is nothing compared to her. If you offend Godzilla, you’ll just die a painful death, but if you offend her, you’ll face a fate worse than death!”
As the two of them chatted, they walked out of the club’s back door and now they were on the streets, looking for a place to eat.
Liu Dongli was paying for the meal.
He could not take any more of the noodles in boiled water they ate at Huai Shi’s place.
“If I don’t eat meat soon, I’ll end up digesting my own abs…” Liu Dongli patted his stomach narcissistically. “Shall we have hotpot?”
Huai Shi gave him a look and said darkly, “I hear that eating too much hotpot will make your butt hurt.’
Liu Dongli paused and realized that this little b*stard was insinuating at something else. He could not help but lift his leg and give that dirty-mouthed punk a good kicking.
Eventually, he could get that slight off his mind, so they went home after a simple meal of noodles. Liu Dongli even complained that walking was tiring, whining that he wanted to drive to work the next day.
“Hey, it’s already twelve.”
Huai Shi walked down the road, yawning. “Can’t you leave work earlier? I’m only seventeen this year, bro. I’m still growing!”
“Are you now? You look like you’re about done. Where else do you intend to grow?” Liu Dongli scoffed. “Besides, no gigolo works in the day. I already skipped the second half of my workday for you!”
He even rubbed his fingers as he said that, asking Huai Shi to guess how much he could have earned.
Huai Shi’s expression immediately turned strange, and he turned back to look at Liu Dongli for a long time before suddenly asking,
“Does that mean my earlier statement was asking you to repent your sins?”
“…Get lost!”
While he was getting his butt beaten in the middle of the road, Huai Shi heard the sound of a crow’s wings flapping. A black crow landed on a tree in front of him, and it turned around to look at him.
For some reason, Huai Shi suddenly felt a chill.
Thanks to the crow’s tip, he abruptly turned his head to look behind him.
At the very end of the long and quiet suburban street, the dim street lights illuminated a hunched figure, crouching silently on a fire hydrant.
It raised its somewhat ridiculous ape mask.
Its cold eyes watched them intently.
…He was finally here!
Almost instantly, Liu Dongli reacted and pushed Huai Shi behind him with his left hand, stuffing his handbag into Huai Shi’s chest.
His right hand reached into his pocket and grabbed the weapon in the holster.
His feet rapidly retreated.
At the same time, there was the sharp shriek of scraping metal from the bottom of the Vicious Ape’s feet.
As those sharp claws slowly built momentum, the fire hydrant was torn apart like thin paper. The figure leaped up and pounced at them, a pillar of water shooting from the destroyed hydrant in its wake.
Huai Shi stumbled backward and looked around him in a panic, but while he was terrified, he could not help but be grateful for one thing: Thank goodness that thing decided to attack them here.
If they had walked a little further, there would be no more street lamps… Liu Dongli’s ability may not work at all in the pitch-black darkness.
Before Huai Shi could think of anything else, the Vicious Ape howled as it zipped through the sky. In an instant, it was ten steps away from them.
As for Liu Dongli, he was already standing directly under the streetlamp.
He raised his hand and combed the hair in front of his forehead, giving the Vicious Ape a small smile.
In the blink of an eye, an ability that Huai Shi could not use was activated, and using Liu Dongli’s face as an intermediary, the ability was reflected right into the Vicious Ape’s eyes.
Suddenly, its movements stiffened and it fell from the sky.
It could not move.
It could barely even breathe.
Liu Dongli did not dare to let his guard down, though. He raised the gun in his hand and aimed at it, pulling the trigger. Amidst the loud blast, Huai Shi suddenly saw his vision go black.
The streetlamp was blinking.
He was stunned, and he looked around in shock to see the electrical box next to the hydrant emitting thick smoke.
Thanks to the cascading pillar of water, sparks and smoke poured out of the circuits relentlessly. The lights flickered madly, and there was the boom of an explosion.
The lights went off completely.
What the f*ck! What kind of a useless job did the city government’s construction company do here?!