NHWSG chapter 31

Sheng Zhao didn’t speak to Xing Yingzhuo for a full twenty minutes.

He finally realized that the old monster had no shame, not only lacking moral standards but also unaware of the concept of decency. He didn’t feel shame for being gay; instead, he took pride in it. The more he talked, the more enthusiastic he became. If shamelessness were to be judged, eight or nine of himself combined wouldn’t match up to Xing Yingzhuo.

However, Xing Yingzhuo, being a big snake, it was too much to expect him to understand anything about gender and romantic gender views.

After teasing Sheng Zhao, Xing Yingzhuo was in a great mood. He had a smile on his face, and even bought a bottle of Coke from the vending machine at the museum’s exit.

Sheng Zhao ignored him and focused on checking the route for the ride-hailing car. Suddenly, he heard Xing Yingzhuo call out to him from behind.

Instinctively, Sheng Zhao turned around, only to see something flying towards him menacingly, almost hitting him on the head.

Reacting quickly, Sheng Zhao stepped back and caught the object—it turned out to be a can of milk.

Sheng Zhao: “…”

What’s this supposed to mean? Sheng Zhao wondered suspiciously. Was Xing Yingzhuo mocking him for being underage? Damn it.

But soon, he dismissed this suspicion.

“There’s only one bottle of Coke left in the machine.” Xing Yingzhuo walked up to him and said calmly, “You can have this.”

It was just a misconception, Sheng Zhao thought. Just as he expected, given Xing Yingzhuo’s personality, he never bothered with ambiguous and sarcastic remarks—he usually just mocked directly.

“Why isn’t it you drinking milk and me drinking Coke?” Sheng Zhao asked, feeling somewhat dissatisfied.

Xing Yingzhuo calmly opened the Coke, and the carbonated gas rushed out from under the bottle cap, making a faint hissing sound.

Then, he glanced at Sheng Zhao indifferently and walked away.

Sheng Zhao: “…”

After spending so much time with the sarcastic old monster, one might become suspicious. At that moment, Sheng Zhao actually felt a sense of mockery from the fizz of the Coke.

Clearly, there was nothing in the Jinling Paleontological Museum that interested Xing Yingzhuo. Sheng Zhao looked at the page on Baidu Baike for a while, sighed, and crossed it off his list in his phone’s notes.

“Boss.” Sheng Zhao turned back from the front passenger seat and asked, “How about we go to the Yan Cheng Paleontological Museum in a few days?”

Although Xing Yingzhuo knew better than Sheng Zhao whether these places were worthwhile, seeing Sheng Zhao’s excited expression, he also thought it might be fun, so he didn’t pour cold water on him and just said, “Let’s see.”

For Sheng Zhao, as long as Xing Yingzhuo didn’t directly refuse, it was as good as agreeing. So he happily retreated back and started booking tickets for the Yan Cheng Museum on his phone.

The driver was a simple middle-aged man, who didn’t find anything unusual about picking them up from the closed museum late at night. He enthusiastically asked, “Are you two museum enthusiasts?”

“Kind of.” Sheng Zhao took it upon himself to take on the “diplomatic” duty and said with a smile, “I suddenly became interested in these things recently.”

“Ah, you’re both cultured.” The driver chuckled, “I remember I once had two college students, seemed like they were studying history or something, so knowledgeable. Couldn’t get a word in edgewise with those educated folks.”

Sheng Zhao politely smiled at the driver’s words and glanced at Xing Yingzhuo through the rearview mirror. As expected, he had already leaned against the window and closed his eyes, clearly uninterested in this conversation.

“It’s good to be interested. We don’t have much else around here, just history.” The driver continued cheerfully, “Researching history more is like returning to your roots.”

Sheng Zhao didn’t pay much attention to the driver’s peculiar choice of words. He nodded along while filling in his phone number on the booking page.

Seemingly rare to have talkative passengers at this time of night, the driver’s chatter didn’t stop. From the museum, he moved on to talk about various famous sights in Jinling. When he got excited, he even told a couple of widely circulated urban legends.

—But Sheng Zhao knew very well that there was a treasure sitting behind him, so he wasn’t scared, but rather found it amusing.

“So, every fifteenth of July, by the side of the Qinhuai River outside Jinling City, there’s still—”

The driver was getting into it, completely unaware that the cold-faced passenger in his backseat suddenly opened his eyes and looked out of the window in a certain direction.

“Stop the car.” Xing Yingzhuo suddenly said.

“Stop the car?” The driver was taken aback and hurriedly said, “Oh, we can’t stop here, we’re about to get on the expressway—”

“Stop the car.” Xing Yingzhuo repeated, sounding impatient this time.

He was clearly irritated, and when Sheng Zhao saw his expression, his heart skipped a beat. Moving faster than his thoughts, he leaned back from the front passenger seat, grabbed Xing Yingzhuo’s wrist.

With the seatbelt tightening around his chest, Sheng Zhao couldn’t help but grimace and groan in pain as he said to the driver, “Sir, could you please stop at the next intersection? It’s urgent.”

Seeing their expressions, the driver didn’t dare to bargain any further and quickly found a nearby intersection to drop them off.

“Thank you, sir.” Sheng Zhao said, “You can charge the normal fare, and I’ll give you a five-star rating. Thank you for your trouble.”

While Sheng Zhao was speaking, Xing Yingzhuo had already opened the car door and stepped out, striding away in a certain direction.

The driver didn’t want to delay any longer and quickly assured them it was okay.

“You’d better go after your friend quickly.” The driver said, “He doesn’t seem alright.”

Sheng Zhao didn’t know why Xing Yingzhuo suddenly did this, and he was a bit anxious. As he got out of the car, he asked, “sir, which way is it?”

The driver glanced from the passenger side window and said, “It’s the Jinling Museum.”

Sheng Zhao was slightly stunned.

By the time he caught up with Xing Yingzhuo, this old monster had already skillfully opened the door of the second museum of the night.

Sheng Zhao’s moral standards and legal constraints were thrown out the window with Xing Yingzhuo’s, and he could only silently chant “it’s just for a look, not illegal” to brainwash himself.

Compared to Xing Yingzhuo’s relaxed attitude earlier in the night, which was akin to sightseeing, he now seemed to have a very clear goal, walking relentlessly with every step, as if something was guiding him from the depths.

Sheng Zhao felt both shocked and delighted, with a hint of disbelief, thinking that perhaps the thing they couldn’t find over there was actually here.

However, as is often the case with worldly matters, where Xing Yingzhuo finally stopped didn’t have any ancient fossils or relics like bones.

Sheng Zhao caught up with him, panting heavily, only to find in front of him a rusted suit of armor.

“I didn’t expect to find artifacts in such a mishmash place,” Xing Yingzhuo said.

Sheng Zhao was puzzled, unable to see how the rusted iron armor in front of him had anything to do with the word “artifact.” He leaned forward and used the flashlight to read the information plaque standing in front of the armor.

It was armor from the Western Zhou Dynasty, unearthed last year and sent to the exhibition hall just last week.

There were no patterns on this armor that could prove the identity of a duke or a marquis, so the plaque only speculated about its origin.

“What kind of artifact is this?” Sheng Zhao asked strangely. “Shouldn’t museums have plenty of these?”

Xing Yingzhuo seemed to have no intention of explaining. Instead, he reached out towards the glass display case—

“Oh my God, Boss!”

Seeing his posture, Sheng Zhao suddenly had a vague sense of foreboding. He didn’t have time to think about anything else and rushed forward, grabbing Xing Yingzhuo’s arm and practically hanging himself on it.

“No, no, no, this is national property, you can’t take it—” Sheng Zhao said.

Xing Yingzhuo ignored him.

Sheng Zhao was almost frantic, clinging to his arm and trying to use his own weight to push down the hand that was lifting.

“If you illegally break in, it’s fine, but if this artifact goes missing tomorrow morning, it will be a real disturbance to the world.” Sheng Zhao was desperate, trying to use his trump card to intimidate him. “You’ll be struck by lightning—”

As soon as Sheng Zhao finished speaking, he heard a crisp sound of glass breaking from the display case in front of him. Visible cracks spread across the tempered glass.

—This is bad, Sheng Zhao thought.

Immediately after, the suit of armor in the display case seemed to come to life, breaking through the tempered glass barrier from the inside and flying into Xing Yingzhuo’s hands.

At the same time, Sheng Zhao suddenly felt a strong vibration beneath him. His whole body leaned to one side, and he was about to have a close encounter with the ground. Fortunately, Xing Yingzhuo reacted quickly, reaching out and grabbing his waist, saving him from falling flat on his face.

However, this sudden vibration was abrupt and inexplicable, even causing Xing Yingzhuo himself to sway. Fortunately, the vibration was only momentary and soon subsided.

“You see!” Sheng Zhao accused in horror. “I told you not to take it, quickly put it back!”

Xing Yingzhuo frowned slightly, looking displeased as he said, “It wasn’t me.”

Sheng Zhao was about to ask who it was when his phone in his pocket suddenly rang. He hurriedly struggled out of Xing Yingzhuo’s embrace, took out his phone, and saw that it was a call from Hu Huanyang.

At this late hour, Hu Huanyang calling him suddenly clearly wasn’t just for casual chatting. Sheng Zhao subconsciously glanced at Xing Yingzhuo, silently asking for his opinion.

“Answer it,” Xing Yingzhuo said.

Sheng Zhao put it on speakerphone and heard not Hu Huanyang’s voice, but Zhang Jian’s.

“Is he with you?” Zhang Jian asked.

His voice sounded somewhat anxious, and Sheng Zhao almost automatically decoded “he” as Xing Yingzhuo.

“Yes,” Sheng Zhao said.

“Was the earthquake just now your doing?” Zhang Jian asked, not in a friendly tone.

Sheng Zhao was shocked by this accusation. He thought it was efficient how they immediately caught someone right after they did something wrong.

Feeling extremely guilty, Sheng Zhao was about to refute, but then Xing Yingzhuo spoke up, “It wasn’t us.”

“If it wasn’t you, then who?” Zhang Jian’s trust in Xing Yingzhuo seemed to fluctuate, his tone unfriendly. “Other than you, who else could cause such a strange earthquake in Suzhou?”

“Wait, wait a minute—” Sheng Zhao suddenly realized and said, “What did you say?”

“Suzhou,” Zhang Jian said.

“But we’re not in Suzhou.” Sheng Zhao glanced at Xing Yingzhuo strangely and said, “We’re in Jinling.”