Chapter 46.2 – Liking. What is it?

Jiang Que responded blankly, watching Shen Tazhi effortlessly wash the pot with the grace of flowing clouds and water, then adding oil. As the oil heated up, he washed and chopped the tomatoes, stir-fried them, added water, and beat the eggs. Each movement was natural and skilled, and by the time the lid was placed on the pot, exactly five minutes had passed.

This was the first time he had seen Shen Tazhi cook the entire process. The formidable Shen Tazhi in the mall, after tying on an apron, was just as adept, as if there was nothing in the world that could stump him.

“Shen Tazhi, you’re amazing.” Jiang Que held up the rice dished out by Shen Tazhi, sighing.

Shen Tazhi smiled, “You’re amazing too, cooking your own dish for the first time.”

“That’s because you prepared everything for me,” Jiang Que said.

Shen Tazhi had helped him cut the ribs, blanched them, and had all the seasonings ready in the right amounts on the side. He had just done a little stir-frying; it was nothing special.

Shen Tazhi corrected, “We prepared together.”

He then picked up a piece of sweet and sour ribs for Jiang Que, who took it, bit into it, and then made a sound of approval.

“Delicious, even better than the sweet and sour ribs in the Anomaly Investigation Department cafeteria.”

The ribs in Shen Tazhi’s house were made from the freshest baby back ribs, and the sugar used was premium rock sugar. Even though he slightly overcooked it due to not being very skilled, it was still much better than the cafeteria food.

Shen Tazhi also picked up a piece to taste, smiling, “The taste is not bad.”

Having successfully cooked without any mishaps, Jiang Que was clearly in high spirits. He ate while saying, “Next time, I want to learn to cook. Next time, I’ll prepare the ingredients myself.”

He also wanted to be as adept as Shen Tazhi, able to handle things in the study as well.

“Sure, next time you can also clean up the kitchen yourself,” Shen Tazhi smiled.

Jiang Que had a long lifespan, and Shen Tazhi couldn’t accompany him for life. Even if he gave Jiang Que more money or found someone more reliable to take care of him, it was better for Jiang Que to learn these daily chores himself.

Unaware of Shen Tazhi’s thoughts, Jiang Que went to the balcony after eating to continue watching the rain. When he felt tired, he went upstairs to pick up the novel he hadn’t finished reading last night and enjoy the semi-soft cheesecake he had bought as a snack.

Napping was out of the question. He had slept in Shen Tazhi’s office all morning and now couldn’t sleep at all.

Shen Tazhi, on the other hand, seemed completely awake after a busy morning. After eating, he opened his computer to work on documents, with a plate of cute cheesecake beside him, showing no signs of wanting to sleep.

“Shen Tazhi, aren’t you tired?” Jiang Que asked in confusion.

“Hmm?” Shen Tazhi, wearing blue light-blocking glasses, lifted his head from the computer. “Are you sleepy? If you are, I’ll nap with you for a while.”

As he spoke, he took off his glasses and prepared to put away the computer. Jiang Que hurriedly said, “No, I’m not sleepy. I was asking if you’re tired.”

“I’m not very tired,” Shen Tazhi put on his glasses again. “The Shen family is currently acquiring a large amusement park, so I need to keep an eye on things.”

He was explaining what he was busy with, but Jiang Que was reminded of something he had seen on a forum before and asked, “I saw that you were investing in a novel website before. How did it suddenly turn into an amusement park?”

Shen Tazhi’s hand holding the mouse subtly paused.

Investing in a novel website… Where did Jiang Que see that? Didn’t he not carefully look at all the various asset proofs Shen Tazhi had shown him that night?

“That was for…” Shen Tazhi carefully chose his words, “…to obtain the recent explosive data and analysis of popular novels from various websites, so that I can write novels.”

The last few words were almost too light to hear.

Investing heavily in novel websites, only to write romance novels in the end. To be honest, Shen Tazhi felt a bit embarrassed to say such words.

But Jiang Que could easily judge the truthfulness of words, and Shen Tazhi didn’t want to lie in front of him.

Jiang Que, who had spent years in the quiet abyss, was most sensitive to sound. Of course, he didn’t miss the slight change in Shen Tazhi’s tone. He sat up suddenly and looked at Shen Tazhi with bright eyes. “So, you acquired those websites to write novels for me?”

“That’s correct,” Shen Tazhi admitted helplessly.

The first novel was written entirely based on the preferences of the previous life’s Jiang Que. At that time, he was worried that one book wouldn’t be enough to gain Jiang Que’s trust completely, so he prepared several more.

However, he had never read online novels and couldn’t pinpoint what other types of novels Jiang Que might like besides ‘Revenge of the Three Princesses vs. The Three Icy Princes’ He could only try to extract common elements from numerous online novels to write.

To quickly grasp the trends and plot directions of online novels over the years, the most convenient way was, of course, to directly invest in online novel companies and obtain the internal statistics and big data.

… He didn’t know if Jiang Que would find these novels written this way insincere.

Just as Shen Tazhi started to worry because of Jiang Que’s silence, a figure suddenly rushed to his knees.

It was Jiang Que, who not only threw himself but also his tentacles into Shen Tazhi’s arms, embracing him joyfully.

“I like these novels, Shen Tazhi. You are so good to me.”

Jiang Que happily nuzzled Shen Tazhi.

“I like you a lot too. What other novels have you written? I want to read them.”

Shen Tazhi: …

If it weren’t for the second half of the sentence, he might have been very touched.

But on this topic, Shen Tazhi also remembered the pirated novel website full of ads he saw on Jiang Que’s phone before. He held Jiang Que and said, “By the way, you can also read novels on your phone. Let me teach you how to download a few novel apps? There are no ads inside.”

“Okay.” Jiang Que obediently handed over his phone, still holding onto the previous question, “So, what other novels have you written? Are ‘Grand Marriage: Young Master Ye Spoils His Wife Too Ostentatiously’ and ‘Rejecting a Marriage to a Wealthy Family: Lord, the Madam, She Climbed the Wall Again!’ also written by you?”

These were the names of two other novels he had seen in Shen Tazhi’s study before.

“Yes,” Shen Tazhi confessed.

For the first time, Shen Tazhi felt that Jiang Que’s memory didn’t need to be so good, at least not to read out those embarrassing book titles so clearly and correctly.

Jiang Que became even more excited, “Great! After I finish reading this book, can you show me the rest of the books too?”

“Sure,” Shen Tazhi answered reluctantly, “I told you before, those books were originally prepared for you.”

Although he had prepared them with the mindset of “if Jiang Que doesn’t notice, I won’t show them.”

At eight o’clock, Du Lulu promptly sent a meeting invitation.

At that moment, Jiang Que was nestled in Shen Tazhi’s arms, looking at the amusement park acquisition contract together, casually eating the fruits Shen Tazhi fed him.

Seeing the video invitation, Jiang Que rolled up his phone with his tentacles to answer the call. Finally, after taking a bite of the grape that Shen Tazhi fed him, he reluctantly touched Shen Tazhi with his tentacles and left his embrace.

“Gege, I’m going to class now.”

Another “gege”, clearly indicating that he didn’t want him eavesdropping.

Fortunately, Shen Tazhi was prepared for this and wasn’t surprised at not being allowed to eavesdrop at this moment. He just handed the fruit plate to Jiang Que, “Go ahead, take the fruits with you. If you need anything, just come out and find me.”

“Okay, gege has to wait for me after class, we have to sleep together.” Jiang Que smiled with narrowed eyes, took the fruit plate, and forcibly dragged his reluctant tentacles into the study.

By the time he looked back at the stunned Du Lulu, he had resumed his usual expressionless demeanor. “Good evening.”

“…Good evening.”

Having witnessed the speed at which Jiang Que changed expressions more than once, Du Lulu was too exhausted to comment on his double standards.

She just wanted to attend class, not at all interested in knowing why Shen Tazhi and Jiang Que were going to sleep together tonight, or why they were feeding her dog food.

“The rain is so heavy today, Jiang Que, you and Mr. Shen should stay at home all day, right?” Du Lulu casually chatted with a lack of energy, taking out the teaching aids she would need for the day. “Tonight, I’ll teach you math. This is an abacus, let’s start with…”

“Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, I already know. Can you teach me something more challenging?” Jiang Que skipped over Du Lulu’s first probing question.

Don’t think he couldn’t see it, Du Lulu was clearly trying to get him to talk.

Jiang Que didn’t think much of it at first, but the more he thought about it, the more annoyed he felt. After a moment of contemplation, he lightly smiled and brought up a seemingly unrelated topic, “When I was in the Abyss before, I saw a man with a gun rush into a kindergarten and shoot up an entire class.”

“And then?” Du Lulu, who was about to continue, was also drawn in, feeling anxious for the children in the kindergarten.

“There was no ‘and then’. I heard the teacher’s lecture while he was lurking outside the window, so I learned some math.”

Jiang Que’s smirk was quite malicious, a move that caught Du Lulu off guard.

Du Lulu fell silent.

She pulled out a multiplication table and said, “Let’s learn multiplication and division.”

She really shouldn’t have expected Jiang Que to tell any profound or thrilling stories!

Because Jiang Que already knew simple addition and subtraction, her original plan for tonight was to teach him basic multiplication and division, and then introduce him to English alphabets and their pronunciation.

Initially, spending two hours on these topics should have been more than enough. However, Du Lulu never expected that Jiang Que would actually speak English.

He didn’t know pinyin, he didn’t know the alphabet, but he could speak English.

Calmly, Jiang Que said under Du Lulu’s stunned gaze, “I’ve also seen many humans who speak English. Language is easy to learn, just listen and you’ll pick it up. I just don’t know too many words, so I can’t speak long sentences.”

Just like his Chinese, he often stopped mid-sentence because the words he heard in the Abyss were limited and not everyday.

With a foundation in English, Jiang Que naturally picked up English alphabets quickly, leading to another awkward situation where Du Lulu found herself teaching the unteachable.

“Are we done?” Seeing Du Lulu fall silent, Jiang Que, who had maintained a neutral expression throughout the lesson, lightly smiled and propped up his chin.

Sensing something amiss, Du Lulu cautiously asked, “What do you want to know?”

She hadn’t forgotten that she had tried to fish for information yesterday, only to be outmaneuvered by Jiang Que, who had somehow managed to extract a basketful of words from her, leaving her to realize her foolishness only after leaving Shen Tazhi’s house.

She had practically told Jiang Que the color of her team leader’s underwear.

Facing the alert Du Lulu, Jiang Que innocently remarked, “Don’t worry, I’m not here to harm you.”

Du Lulu felt even more suspicious of Jiang Que’s intentions, ready to end the conversation at any moment.

Jiang Que was a person who could outwit Team Leader Xi Jing, and she wasn’t as clever as the team leader. If she accidentally let slip some important information, it would be disastrous.

Under her vigilant gaze, the young man on the video call smiled slyly, reminiscent of Shen Tazhi’s cunning negotiation style, and lightly said:

“Don’t you want to know what Team Leader Xi Jing is doing in the Northwestern Desert?”

*Bam!*

Du Lulu immediately retracted her hand from the “End Meeting” button, stood up abruptly, and even accidentally knocked over her chair.

She looked at Jiang Que in disbelief:

“How do you know the team leader went to the northwest?!”

She had persisted in visiting Chief Wu’s office several times after the team leader went missing. Chief Wu, seeing that she was already a member of Xi Jing’s action team, reluctantly shared the information with her.

At that time, Director Wu had mentioned that Xi Jing was fine, but the signal was poor in the Northwestern Desert, making it impossible to communicate with the outside world.

No one in the entire department knew the whereabouts of Xi Jing and Duan Yansu. In theory, only she and the chief should have been aware of this. How did Jiang Que know?

Jiang Que calmly looked at the screen, taking note of all of Du Lulu’s reactions.

Although looking through the screen made it hard to see clearly, this kind of surprise didn’t seem like something Du Lulu could fake, so it seemed he guessed right.

This was a sudden conjecture that arose in the car today.

Shen Tazhi told him that all of this wasn’t his fault, implying that it was humanity’s responsibility. Besides Shen Tazhi, the only ones among humanity who knew about the end of the world were the Qishan Taoists and the Anomaly Investigation Department.

Combined with the news Du Lulu mentioned yesterday about Xi Jing and Duan Yansu inexplicably losing contact, it wasn’t hard to guess what they were up to.

—They went to the Abyss, to the place he came out from, to search for a way to prevent the apocalypse.

Numerous thoughts flashed through Jiang Que’s mind, but his face remained impassive, and he calmly said, “Not only do I know where your team leader went, but I also know what he’s doing.”

“Hold on.” Du Lulu finally calmed down, and she interrupted Jiang Que sternly, “Why are you telling me this? What do you want to achieve?”

For the first time, her round face displayed such a serious and vigilant expression, with her eyebrows furrowed:

“Let me warn you, Jiang Que, I won’t be coerced by you for a bit of information about the team leader. Ultimately, I am your observer. If you try anything like intimidation or enticement, I will immediately report it to the Anomaly Investigation Department.”

“Before engaging in any risky behavior, I hope you consider whether you want to betray Mr. Shen’s efforts and guarantee.”

Before the team leader left, he repeatedly instructed her, saying that Jiang Que, or R-021, was an entity capable of seeing through people’s hearts. Once one revealed their weaknesses in front of him, they could be thoroughly manipulated by him.

Du Lulu recalled Xi Jing’s serious expression when leaving, and a shock brought her back to full alertness, already considering how she should report if Jiang Que truly posed a threat to humanity.

Her series of facial expressions changes were all observed by Jiang Que.

Jiang Que didn’t mind Du Lulu’s cautious attitude, maintaining his indifferent demeanor towards everything: “Why are you so worked up? I’m not here to threaten you; you are my teacher.”

“One should respect their teacher, and I learned from my gege.”

Du Lulu remained vigilant: “What do you want?”

“I want to ask you questions, as an extra reward for you.” Jiang Que innocently said, “Teaching me those common sense things was because of the money Shen Tazhi gave you. Now, if I want to ask you something else, I should also reward you.”

He really just wanted to exchange with Du Lulu on equal terms, who could have imagined that Du Lulu would suddenly come up with so many scenarios.

Was he really that terrifying? Seriously.

Du Lulu also froze: “What do you want to ask? I won’t tell you anything about the Anomaly Investigation Department.”

“No, not the Anomaly Investigation Department, I’m not interested in you guys.” Jiang Que smirked.

He looked at the fruit plate cut by Shen Tazhi on the table. His originally indifferent expression softened, and he softly said, “I want to ask you about ‘liking.'”

“You like Xi Jing, right? I can tell, you also like Duan Yansu, like the Anomaly Investigation Department, but these likes should be different.”

Jiang Que raised his head and looked at the dazed Du Lulu, earnestly asking, “Can you tell me the difference between likes? I don’t understand. In exchange, I can tell you what Xi Jing went to do.”

This was a question he had long wanted to ask. Doubts about this question had been lingering in his mind since the beginning in the Abyss.

But Shen Tazhi said he needed to understand this himself, and the explanations on search engines were cold and unhelpful. He couldn’t find the answer, so he could only find an opportunity to catch Du Lulu and ask her.

What exactly is liking?

From the heart palpitations that started at first sight of Shen Tazhi, to the uncontrollable joy every time he saw Shen Tazhi, to the desire to make an effort to help Shen Tazhi…

Is this liking? Then why did Shen Tazhi say this kind of liking is different?