Huan Zixu had seen the sliding kneel many times. Apparently Zhen Li was its originator. In the studio, only Zhen Li and Yuan Luori practiced it conscientiously. 

He had asked Lian Yufan why Zhen Li would practice such a meaningless move every day. Lian Yufan had said that it was probably to thank the die-hard fans on the livestream. Lian Yufan didn’t especially understand the livestream, but he was aware that internet celebrities on livestreams always had a simple and unassuming attitude. It was normal to learn a perfect sliding kneel in order to entertain people. This move also occasionally showed up in online comedy shows. 

Huan Zixu had made observations and discovered that Zhen Li rarely knelt in the direction of the livestream screen. The images that appeared in the livestream were mostly sideways skids and leaps. 

Also, while the office’s acupressure mat was used for massage to improve blood circulation, Zhen Li and Yuan Luori hardly ever used it to massage the soles of their feet. Instead, they regularly exercised their knees. 

Each time Huan Zixu looked doubtful, Zhen Li would say, “Learn it, too. You’ll need it one day.” 

Yuan Luori also said, “Just-just in case of emergency.” 

At the time, Huan Zixu had inwardly mocked these two low grade levelers. But now, the moment he had seen Yu Hua walk out of the kitchen, Huan Zixu had suddenly realized everything. The truly stupid and naïve one was him. 

During the whole farce that had just played out in the living room, Huan Zixu hadn’t moved. He had stood with Feng Kui’s support, seeming to have taken a serious mental injury, but in reality his mind had been revolving at high speed. 

He recalled everything he had done, considering which of them had provoked Yu Hua’s anger, as well as what Yu Hua’s goal was with today’s performance. 

With the power of the black-cloaked man, there was no need to conceal his identity. In his eyes, the efforts of the Protection Organization and the Destroyers alike were just like ants trying to shake a tree. No matter what he wanted to do, all he had to do was unleash that power that could resist the System, tell the Protection Organization his goal, and trust that after the Protection Organization had weighed it, they would definitely agree. 

He didn’t even need to say. It would only take a rule, an order, and the Protection Organization would be forced to obey his command. 

But Yu Hua hadn’t done so. He had lured everyone to his house and arranged a Hongmen Banquet. Why? 

Huan Zixu watched Director Xiao, Lian Yufan, Cen Xiao, and the other Protectors sit down steadily one by one, Zhen Li and Yuan Luori totter to their seats, Director Ha obtain Director Xiao’s acknowledgement—and an incredible idea rose in his mind—had Yu Hua left a path to survival for the Destroyers who had gotten involved with the Protection Organization? 

How could that be? Huan Zixu stared at Yu Hua, completely unable to understand what he was thinking. 

Why had Huan Zixu exhausted all his efforts to get that apartment? Because he had guessed all along that there would be a battle between the black-cloaked man and the System.

The black-cloaked man possessed unimaginably fierce power. When he cleared, he had been able to seal the System for fifteen years. Why hadn’t he destroyed the System then? There was only one answer. The black-cloaked man had been missing some condition. He had been unable to completely destroy the System then, so he had had to wait patiently this long. 

He had chosen to lie low in this world that had resisted the System’s constant attacks for hundreds of years. He had been acknowledged by the world law. Was this because this world had what he needed? 

No matter what the black-cloaked man needed, the increasingly urgent state of affairs made Huan Zixu aware that the battle between the black-cloaked man and the System wasn’t far off. 

As for the outcome of this battle, Huan Zixu had no way to predict it. But there were only two possible outcomes. 

One, the System won, and everyone died together. 

The other, the System lost, and he and Feng Kui would undoubtedly completely lose their special abilities, becoming ordinary people. 

While the former was sad, from a certain point of view it could be regarded as an unconventional happy ending; the latter would truly be the beginning of everything. 

Becoming ordinary people meant that the Protection Organization would no longer be keeping watch on them, and they would live in this world without the support of the Protection Organization. Accommodation was a problem, life was a problem, and medical treatment and health were even bigger problems. 

He had wanted to resolve accommodation first of all and carry on working. The most important thing was that Feng Kui’s bones were a major problem. In the future, they might require enormous amounts of money to replace and maintain. The figures would be astronomical. For this, he would constantly have to use the studio and all the Protection Organization’s preexisting resources, attain a position in society, accumulate wealth and fixed assets that would appreciate in value and be easy to pass on. 

In Huan Zixu’s eyes, the apartment was a foundation, the last line of defense if Feng Kui needed money in the future. He couldn’t wait for the ten years before the Protection Organization handed over an apartment. He needed a residence now, by hook or by crook. 

But today, he had experienced great sorrow and great joy. He had lost the apartment and then regained it. Yu Hua had turned from a cold-blooded, heartless capitalist into a clearer who seemed to be planning for the sakes of the Destroyers. 

Huan Zixu didn’t think he was a good person, and he couldn’t understand the clearer’s superhuman thought process. Considering it for a long time, looking on as the Protectors and Destroyers exchanged faults and weaknesses with each other and came to understandings, he couldn’t think of how to handle the current situation. 

Or perhaps he did know, but from a certain unknown stubbornness, he was unwilling to bow his head before Yu Hua. 

Until Yu Hua took out that piece of metal. Huan Zixu clearly understood that this was what he wanted. 

Seeing that metal, Huan Zixu’s thoughts stopped. He no longer worried about whether Yu Hua was considering their well-being. He only knew that if he yielded to Yu Hua, then he could help Feng Kui change his bones. As long as Feng Kui could live and be healthy, he would do anything. 

He stopped scheming, stopped haggling over losses and gains. He simply went to the acupressure mat. As long as Yu Hua liked it, as long as Yu Hua was happy, what did it matter if he kneeled? 

But Feng Kui was even faster than Huan Zixu. 

Feng Kui’s legs turned into the base of a tank, and he clattered to the acupressure mat, pressing all the little protruding nubs flat. 

Huan Zixu didn’t manage to kneel in the end. Feng Kui caught him and put him to one side. The lower half of his body had become a tank, so he had become shorter, just as if he were kneeling. 

“A-Xu did it for me,” Feng Kui said earnestly. “The good, for me. The bad, also for me.” 

“Feng Kui, get off of that!” Huan Zixu said. “It doesn’t matter what I’m doing anything for. The important thing is that Yu Hua wants me to submit.” 

“You don’t have to.” Feng Kui pulled Huan Zixu behind himself, stubbornly not letting him show himself. “I can do it myself.” 

Why did Feng Kui obey Huan Zixu unconditionally? Because he knew that everything Huan Zixu did was out of consideration for him. 

In turbulent worlds, Huan Zixu’s fighting ability was insufficient. He needed his protection, needed his help. Feng Kui had been useful to Huan Zixu then, and he had been content to let A-Xu speak for him, because he could be A-Xu’s backup. But in a peaceful world, A-Xu could get by just fine on his own. He was useless. He could only be a burden on A-Xu. 

Feng Kui thought, he should tell Yu Hua, tell him that A-Xu was very good, that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He was the one who was wrong. He caused too many problems. 

Pride was A-Xu’s protective coloring. Without pride, A-Xu would lose his character. 

“Feng Kui, don’t use chains to tie me up, let me go, don’t you listen to me anymore?” Huan Zixu said in exasperation. 

“No, I don’t,” Feng Kui said earnestly. 

“That won’t do!” Huan Zixu said urgently. “You…have a unique body, it’ll cause a lot of trouble later. Your thinking is unsophisticated, it’s easy for you to be tricked, you can’t get by without me…” 

As Huan Zixu spoke, he suddenly drooped. His head knocked against Feng Kui’s solid back, and he quietly said, “I’m selfish, hypocritical, greedy, cold, sly. I can’t get by without you…” 

Without Feng Kui’s pure smile, he would go further and further, in the end trample on everything. 

Yu Hua looked loftily down on the two of them as though watching a farce. He slowly said, “The situation has reversed from what it was at the start.” 

The people sitting at the table observing and not daring to say a word had heads full of question marks. What situation had reversed?

But You Zhengping suddenly thought of the escape room. Feng Kui and Huan Zixu had wanted to kidnap Yu Hua, and he and Yu Hua, in front of the big mechanical skeleton, had demonstrated that they wanted to protect each other. 

“I’m a person who returns enmity with enmity and kindness with kindness. I don’t get behind on my debts,” Yu Hua said. 

Feng Kui had given him a romantic date, and he would give Feng Kui an intact body in return. 

A metal fountain pen appeared in Yu Hua’s hand. He sliced open Feng Kui’s hand with the tip of the pen and wrote something on Feng Kui’s body. There was a flash of light. The writing, which may have been characters and may have been some sort of mysterious symbols, broke down into small particles and soaked into the wound in Feng Kui’s hand. 

Then Feng Kui’s tank shaped lower body uncontrollably reverted to its original form. He seemed unable to breathe. He clutched his throat and struggled a few times, then fell onto Huan Zixu. 

Huan Zixu quickly knelt on the crushed flat acupressure mat and put Feng Kui’s head into his lap. 

In this way, he discovered that Feng Kui’s head had become light. It no longer had the weight of a heavy metal skull. Instead, it had the weight of a normal human head. It wouldn’t weigh so heavily that he couldn’t move his legs. 

“Help him into a chair,” Yu Hua said calmly. “This time he won’t crush it.” 

Some romantic little pink hearts had gotten Feng Kui a body that wouldn’t trouble him in exchange. 

A peach was presented to me, and I returned a white jade. 

Huan Zixu helped Feng Kui into a chair, and Yu Hua poured him a cup of hot tea. 

The aroma of the tea awakened Feng Kui. He sniffed and thought for the first time that some food other than metal smelled good. 

Huan Zixu looked deeply at Yu Hua. He didn’t express thanks. Gratitude for great kindness couldn’t be spoken. Verbal thanks without practical action was meaningless. It would be better to make some more money for Yu Hua, think some more of the studio, brainwash some more fans into spending money on the studio, set some traps for some companies…

Ahem, he couldn’t think like that. If he thought like that, he would be wandering at the boundaries of the rules again. 

After conveying his meaning with his expression, Huan Zixu pulled out the chair beside Feng Kui and was about to sit when he heard Yu Hua say, “Wait, did I invite you to sit?” 

He had only invited Feng Kui, not Huan Zixu. 

Huan Zixu froze beside the chair. He didn’t know what other account there was to settle. 

“The kindness has been repaid. There still remains the enmity,” Yu Hua said. 

“Excuse me, but what enmity can there be between us?” Huan Zixu’s diction inadvertently became more formal. “Is it because of my futile attempt to kidnap you, kill you, and place the blame on you?” 

Saying this, Huan Zixu himself thought that his brain had been rusted at the time. He really had thought of an exquisite stratagem to set himself and Feng Kui on a path to no return. 

“No, it’s not that,” Yu Hua said. “You made up for that when I absorbed the power of your Systems.” 

“Then…might I ask what the matter is?” Huan Zixu truly didn’t understand. 

Yu Hua took out a printed out electronic receipt from the briefcase on the couch. He put it in Huan Zixu’s hand. “Who will reimburse me for the money I spent to go to the warehouse that day?” 

---

Author's Note

Yu Hua: I remember kindness and also enmity. 

Huan Zixu (holding the receipt): This is enmity? 

Everyone (watching): The food is getting cold, when can we eat?