Chapter 37

Sebastian flipped through a few more pages, but he couldn't absorb a single word. Glancing over at Asher, who kept his head down, typing non-stop, he asked with total nonchalance, "Very busy?"

"Oh, it's nothing. I'm fine."

Asher offered a dismissive response, not even lifting his eyelids.

He was currently having Caleb contact the forum administrator, wanting to trace the IP addresses of those accounts. However, the administrator stated that their permissions only allowed them to narrow the location down to the city level.

What the hell was the use of tracking it to the city? Even Caleb could guess with his toes that it was their own city.

Asher disliked condemning people without absolute evidence; without concrete proof, he wouldn't act recklessly. But refraining from acting recklessly meant he couldn't unleash this burning fury, and those individuals who loved to gossip would still keep gossiping. One day, it would inevitably reach Sebastian's ears.

Thinking up to this point left him a fraction irritable. Tossing his phone aside, he ran his fingers through his hair. His knuckles applied a bit of force, causing the bead string on his wrist to let out a crisp rattle, sounding exceptionally abrupt in the quiet morning air.

Listening to the sound, Sebastian spoke flatly, "If it's inconvenient, just take it off."

Asher lifted his head instantly, his features flashing with absolute impatience. "Take it off for what? If I take it off, the magic stops working."

Because his emotional state wasn't upstanding, these words were delivered with a sharp rush, making it sound a fraction like he was throwing a tantrum.

Yet this single sentence, delivered with an uncompliant tone and a trace of a tantrum, brought a slice of soothing comfort to Sebastian’s heart, which had just sustained a heavy wave of sour ache.

Regardless of what transpired, Asher was consistently keeping his frame in mind. Completely stripped of prior reflection, relying entirely on a primal instinct, he was keeping him in mind.

Originally, the word "disgusting" had behaved exactly like an invisible, piercing icicle of sorrow, wedged deep within his chest to leave his core a fraction frozen and a fraction aching. It had forced his frame to halt right on the spot, lacking the absolute courage to advance another pace, terrified of wandering down a ruined path and committing an irreversible error.

Yet unfortunately, that person was standing at the far end of the path, and through his casual, unthinking words, he consistently and aggressively handed him a thread of hope, leaving him entirely unresigned to truly halt on this spot.

Sebastian lacked the clarity regarding whether he strictly should blame his own system for being too greedy, or blame the person he loved for being too endearingly excellent. In the final equation, all the sourness and all the bitterness transformed into absolute sweetness purely because they were inscribed alongside your name.

Concluding he should capture a brief buffer to clear his thoughts first, he closed the booklet and deposited it back onto the desk, standing fully upright. "I'm heading home to change clothes."

"Oh." Asher nodded his head. "Are we meeting for lunch?"

"No, I'm staying with my grandfather."

"...What about dinner?"

"No either. I estimate guests will be arriving at the house."

"But... forget it, it's nothing. Head back first. As fate would have it, I already arranged a gaming session alongside Elliot anyway, so I lack the spare time to accompany your frame."

Asher was slow on the uptake, but he wasn't an absolute idiot; he could distinctly pick up on Sebastian’s clear undercurrent of detachment.

With Sebastian behaving along this trajectory, he had likely caught sight of those words. If that were the case, what on earth could he say to his frame? His own system calculated that groundless rumors were completely irrelevant, but Sebastian was an individual of this extreme elegance, how on earth could his core withstand that loose, toxic gutter talk?

Thus, he refrained from retaining him further, nor did he escort his frame out, letting him depart.

Even though he had personally commissioned a custom fondant cake for his milestone, looking upon the current baseline, delivering the item was no longer appropriate.

Asher dropped his weight back onto the mattress, burying his frame entirely under the blanket, picking up a sensation that his chest was a fraction uncomfortable—muted, sour, and thoroughly suffocated.

Then he abruptly reflected on the reality that Sebastian had implicitly prompted him to yank the bracelet off just now, triggering a spike of fury.

This was an item his own system had meticulously prepared for his frame, and the characters sculpted across the prehnite stone had been executed through his own painstaking labor—everything was designed for his upstanding benefit, so how on earth could he instruct him to take it off?

Taking it off means taking it off, what the hell was his system actively fumbling for anyway? What on earth was there to fear?

Reflecting along this axis, he prepared to slide the bead string off his hand. Yet the exact fraction of a second the string slid to his fingertips, his hand refrained from applying a final downward pull, freezing his movement. Ultimately, he pushed the item straight back onto his wrist.

The imagery of that thread flashed across his mind.

Although that thread had eventually veered toward a bizarre trajectory, the details listed at the very start were entirely accurate.

Those specific actions Sebastian executed were authentic realities, perfectly solid. It was merely that on regular days, they naturally blanketed themselves within the microscopic fragments of daily life, and his own system had grown far too accustomed to the presence, failing to register any special color.

Yet the bystanders evaluated the track with absolute clarity.

Since childhood, it had consistently aligned along this trajectory. His own posture was headstrong, fastidious, delicate, and immensely valuable—to an extent where even his own parents occasionally detested his frame for being a nuisance. Yet every single once, Sebastian would deploy a methodology to arrange his existence with absolute perfection.

For instance, back during their kindergarten years, the four cartons of strawberry milk delivered every single midday period; for instance, the milk candy he stubbornly insisted on consuming while losing his baby teeth; for instance, the stomach medication Sebastian consistently preserved inside his bag after his own stomach track sustained a rupture during middle school boarding life.

And across the vectors invisible to the bystanders, there was also Sebastian accompanying his presentation, accompanying his mating heat, pushing his own frame straight into a fever crisis purely to secure a single suppressant shot, and tirelessly accompanying his training loops over and over to counter an Alpha's pheromone scent.

He had delivered the text line—he far from aligned as an absolute idiot, so hitting a threshold where he failed to process who treated his frame with absolute kindness was completely impossible. That immense volume of excellence should completely refuse to be wiped out by a single instance of detachment.

Yet reflecting along that massive horde of kindness, Asher picked up a sensation that his chest turned increasingly uncomfortable.

Suffocated.

The absolute blame tracked straight to those specific bastards.

The exact fraction of a second his system extracted their identities, he would decisively unleash a physical beating to crush them to death.

The moment Sebastian stepped back inside his house, the interior was completely vacant, with only Aunt Liu currently occupied with the cleaning tasks. Beholding his return, she wiped her hands while stepping out to welcome his frame: "Xiao Huai, why on earth did your frame return? I calculated you would consume your midday meal across the way, so I executed zero preparations. Have you eaten? If you haven't, Auntie can construct a bowl for you right now."

"I have already eaten, Aunt Liu, go ahead with your tasks."

"Did you genuinely eat or otherwise? If you haven't, should Aunt Liu boil a bowl of noodles for your frame? Or is there an alternative delicacy you desperately want to consume for lunch? Aunt Liu can step out to purchase it for you."

"I truly have eaten. I'm heading up to my room first. Aunt Liu, just casually construct a bit of food for lunch."

Finishing his line, his eyes dropped along his half-lowered eyelids, his face so thoroughly flat that extracting a single line of internal thought was completely impossible.

Aunt Liu let out a helpless sigh.

Sigh, what did securing a wealthy family lineage even matter anyway? His grandfather had paced toward the countryside to deliver comforting visitations to others, his father was stranded across the Great Northwest executing poverty alleviation commands, and his aunt had scaled Northmont to conduct charity tasks—leaving their child's eighteenth adulthood birthday milestone entirely cold and solitary at home.

If Mr. Wen strictly still remained across this universe, everything would turn out upstanding.

Unfortunately... forget the matter, forget the matter, I'll construct a fraction more delicacies for the midday window.

Sebastian returned to his bedroom, plugging his phone in to process the charging command before changing his clothes. The exact fraction of a second he snared his phone back, a massive horde of notification streams had already stacked past the line.

Eugene: [Apologies, Boss Seb, I am genuinely, deeply sorry.]

Sebastian had personally granted his tacit consent allowing Eugene to ship the pairing, so with the final layout collapsing along this trajectory, blaming his frame was completely out of the question: [It's fine. The absolute blame blocks your frame, but cease delivering words of this nature in the future, and refrain from mentioning the topic right right before Asher's face.]

Eugene: [But it’s a massive pity after all. My system genuinely evaluates that the two of you form an exceptionally flawless match. It holds zero connection to fortune telling; although this counts as the absolute truth I extracted from evaluating your facial features at the very start, down the line, I genuinely picked up a sensation that the two of you are remarkably excellent together.]

Eugene: [Perhaps my system aligns as a common country bumpkin, lacking a massive threshold of worldly experience—failing to encounter human beings who occupy a baseline of this extreme excellence across my path. Flawless looks, flawless academic performance, flawless family background, and the absolute core component tracks to the reality that your character is remarkably upstanding too—flawless across every single node. My core simply envies your frames, while simultaneously calculating that alternative existences are completely unworthy of pairing alongside your systems.]

Eugene: [I lack the clarity regarding whether my system poses the absolute qualifications to deliver this line of text. If my presence crosses the line into an absolute transgression, simply launch an insult to lecture my frame. My system merely pick up a sensation that the bystanders evaluate the track with absolute clarity while the actors remain trapped in a daze. Boss Seb, if you preserve an absolute line of text you desperately want to voice, it’s far superior to simply deliver the disclosure directly.]

Eugene appeared silly on the surface, yet his internal thoughts were remarkably delicate. A child who had sustained a bitter existence since childhood preserved an understanding facing human emotional warmth, affection, detestation, likes, and dislikes that was far more sensitive compared against alternative individuals.

Sebastian launched zero denial, nor did he deliver an absolute agreement: [Treat this specific occurrence strictly as a secret to blanket deep within your core.]

...

Eugene lacked an idea regarding what text line to reply with.

What exact breed of a secret did this count as? Continuing along this trajectory, it would eventually transform into an absolute secret where strictly only Asher remained completely stripped of awareness across the board.

Yet he aligned as an absolute outsider, lacking the courage to voice a single syllable.

He could only return a single text stream: [Apologies, the absolute blame still tracks to my frame. If my system hadn't randomly blasted that thread past the surface, those individuals wouldn't have unleashed those disgusting words, and your frame and Ash wouldn't have experienced a spike of fury either. The absolute blame blocks my frame, I am deeply sorry to your existences, launch an insult to lecture my frame.]

Sebastian's brows knitted: [What exact disgusting words?]

Eugene: [Boss Seb, your system lacks the awareness? You failed to catch sight of the thread? Tracing along that line, it's correct after all. The thread has already been deleted anyway. Refraining from catching sight of it counts as an upstanding benefit; evaluating the track merely extracts groundless irritation.]

Sebastian cast his eyelids low. Halting his movement for half a minute, he dispatched a WeChat line to Caleb: [Deliver the forum administrator's contact methodology to my palm.]

Caleb tossed a contact card over with extreme speed, barking a relentless line of text along the way: [Boss Seb, would you state whether these individuals are thoroughly interesting? They unexpectedly launched a structural interrogation questioning whether Ash is an Alpha?]

[Furthermore, Eugene has genuinely gone completely insane shipping that casual pairing. Back during the milestone where you and Ash locked your frames to unleash a sword-drawn, tense friction, our pack was completely present on the scene, alright. Refraining from launching a mutual physical beating counted as an upstanding miracle already, yet he unexpectedly calculates the two of you can assemble into a matching pair?]

[Ash distinctly fancies that model of a soft, sweet, compliant Omega, alright. If your system asserts he has a scandalous connection alongside Milo, I would preserve a fraction of conviction instead.]

[But regardless of what the final layout shapes, execute a destruction command to crush this pack of absolute idiots whose mouths are packed with filthy waste first. Regardless of what exact relationship layout connects your frame and Ash, does it fall within their turn to execute a cycle of text blows? Total pieces of trash, simply unable to look upon another individual's excellence upstanding.]

Sebastian blocked his notification stream.

While installing plugins and driver units across his interface, he established contact alongside the forum administrator: [Regarding a thread that has already been executed a deletion command against, can the backend database strictly still retrieve the recorded entries?]

Administrator: [It can, except the posting IP addresses only yield absolute precision to the city level. Our pack is completely stripped of alternative methodologies across this front.]

Sebastian: [Zero restriction. Is it convenient to deliver your account authentication details to my palm? My system will log straight inside the backend infrastructure directly.]

Administrator: [Oh, oh, completely passable. Our pack can simply execute a password change command down the line anyway.]

Sebastian: Dispatched a digital red envelope.

[Troubling your frames.]

Administrator: [No, no, no, my system completely cannot snare the funds. I align exactly as an absolute fangirl tracking your frame and Ash! Furthermore, I detest this specific breed of troublemakers to an extreme threshold, so Boss Seb, accelerate your gears to hand them a brutal lesson! I will definitively safeguard an absolute secrecy layout for your frame!]

Sebastian: [Appreciate it.]

Snaring the account details and password, Sebastian activated the plugin unit, opening the raw source webpage interface. His fingers migrated across the layout with extreme velocity, rapidly inputting a string of code blocks. Within a brief window, the IP addresses anchoring those specific comment tiers materialized with absolute detail, hitting precision straight to the specific street and residential door numbers.

Committing those specific addresses to his memory track, he dispatched the lines to Caleb: [Do any of these specific addresses look familiar to your eyes?]

A considerable block of time bled away before Caleb delivered a response: [The remaining pieces lack a clear tracing, necessitating a return to campus tomorrow to flip through the registration ledger. But regarding the one mapping to the Garment Prosperity Garden, I possess the awareness that several individuals within our grade track who transferred over from High School No.1 reside across that sector, because that location previously appeared to align as an upstanding school district housing boundary.]

Halting for a bit, he added a supplementary line: [One among them appears to preserve a passable connection alongside Huangfu Yi, back during the basketball team milestone window. Huangfu Yi frequently advanced the funds to treat their frames to meals.]

High School No.1.

Huangfu Yi.

Twirling back and forth, the lines consistently failed to unknot from these specific individuals after all.

Sebastian squeezed the bridge of his nose. Calculating for a brief window, he continued his response stream: [Flawless, tomorrow I will step over to flip through the registration ledger. My system will resolve this specific occurrence, refrain from delivering a single word right right before Asher's face.]

Caleb: [The pair of you is thoroughly interesting. Why on earth do you both fancy hoarding the absolute trouble straight onto your own heads?]

Sebastian: [What exact text does that mean?]

Caleb: [Ash also disclosed a line to my system just a brief moment ago, mentioning he will personally resolve this specific occurrence, strictly barring our pack from mentioning the topic right right before your face further.]

Sebastian’s heart suspended for a fraction of a second: [Did his system successfully trace exactly who the targets are?]

Caleb: [That track has completely failed to materialize for now. Our pack far from aligns as absolute hackers, where on earth would we snare that level of capability anyway? But slanting a line to interrogate, Boss Seb, how on earth did your system complete the trace? You couldn't possibly have served as an actual hacker in the past, right?]

Sebastian refrained from voicing the text. He was the solitary humanities track student who secured an absolute special tier award across the capital's information technology competition track last year. As long as his will was aligned, he could directly secure early admission, yet he stubbornly chose to return to Southaven after all.

But as long as Asher remained short of determining exactly who the targets were, the baseline remained safe. Although this person was explosive, his actions far from radiated absolute recklessness; he completely would refrain from triggering groundless trouble that dragged his own standing onto a sallow level.

He was far from terrified of Asher triggering trouble; his solitary anxiety was that if the opposing party genuinely caught a sensation detecting that Asher was an Omega, driving them into a corner to deploy foul, underhanded tactics, and Asher sustained a catastrophic crisis, his own system would likely drop straight into absolute madness.

Fortunately, this pack of individuals likely aligned as absolute cowards, only possessing the nerve to weaponize the protection of an anonymous network to cradle a keyboard and launch a battle, completely lacking the courage to seek trouble face-to-face. Therefore, his own system strictly still preserved the buffer of time—one individual after another, resolving the line slowly.

For instance, prior to hitting that milestone, delivering a microscopic warning block to their systems.

Sebastian activated the driver unit, tracing along those specific web addresses to execute an absolute observation, before dispatching a microscopic surprise straight over.

By the time his hands wrapped up these tasks, the timeline had already slid straight into nightfall. Throughout the interval, Aunt Liu had pushed for a meal layout several instances, yet he had smoothly deflected the lines. When Aunt Liu arrived to push for a second time, the timeline had already hit the dinner window, forcing his frame to slowly march downstairs at long last.

He genuinely was completely stripped of a single shred of appetite.

A colossal table of delicacies, paired alongside a solitary human being—consuming the food simply radiated an intense trace of flatness across the board regardless.

He had merely snared his chopsticks, preparing to fiddle alongside a few bites of plain rice to pass the baseline, when the doorbell rattled.

The exact fraction of a second the door unbolted, Asher was standing outside while cradling a bowl.

With his face set in a hard line, his attitude could hardly be described as upstanding. Catching sight of his frame, he stuffed the bowl straight inside his hands, launching an uncompliant complaint along an uncompliant tone: "When your frame stepped outside the gate this morning, you proceeded along a trajectory that was far too reckless. You unexpectedly allowed Eleanor to detect your presence, leaving my system trapped under a relentless cross-examination block she launched for an exceptionally long span of time, and she stubbornly insisted on forcing my frame to deliver a bowl of longevity noodles to your palm."

Sebastian cast his eyes low to evaluate the container; sure enough, it was a steaming bowl of noodles.

"Eleanor completely lacks the capacity to execute a cooking command anyway. Mixing the dough, rolling the dough, and constructing the noodles consumed an entire day whole. Every single piece executed along a ruined note was forcefully consumed by Arthur and my system, nearly choking my frame to death. This specific bowl likely falls far short of an attractive taste metric too, yet you are completely barred from detesting the item—after all, back on my own birthday milestone, my system failed to sample a single thread of this layout."

Sebastian's core system picked up a wave of warmth: "Appreciate it, Eleanor."

Asher ignored his text blurt, his gaze leaping past his shoulder axis to cast a brief slant inside his house: "Where exactly is your grandfather?"

"..."

The fingers Sebastian weaponized to lock onto the rim of the bowl flashed with a pale, bloodless color.

His grandfather had completely refrained from returning past the gate; throughout last night, his core had merely been bewitched by a fox spirit, casually compiling a groundless lie. It amounted to zero consequence back then, but if this microscopic scheme was detected by Asher right now, there was no telling whether he would evaluate his frame as disgusting.

These microscopic, calculated schemes he engineered appeared thoroughly clumsy and unseemly.

Yet Asher merely raised an eyebrow, launching a cross-examination: "Didn't you state a line mentioning you strictly had to accompany your grandfather?"

"..."

Sebastian let out a lengthy breath of relief, the blood lines restoring a crimson color to his fingertips. Flawless after all—the upstanding benefit characteristic of a single-cell organism was that an overnight grudge was completely impossible to commit to memory.

Beholding his absolute silence stripped of an explanation, Asher confirmed the reality that Sebastian was merely weaponizing a groundless lie to forge an excuse to duck his presence, driving his fury to explode instantly past the baseline, unleashing a violent eruption.

"Sebastian, your choice to voice a groundless lie was purely engineered to duck my presence, wasn't it? Does it make an absolute shred of sense? Does it pass the baseline? More than a decade of brotherly bond, and you duck my presence purely due to a few lines of gutter gossip—do you strictly still carry a single shred of conscience?"

"I possess absolute clarity that your frame is a fastidious, high-maintenance, sensitive freak who loves to let your brain drift into absolute garbage over-reflection. Consequently, my system expended a massive horde of connections to ensure someone executed a thread deletion command, purely driven by a desire to bar your frame from catching sight of the lines, bar your system from experiencing an unpleasant ripple, and bar your core from fumbling with groundless thoughts—yet for some unknown reason, you damn well caught sight of the garbage regardless."

"The absolute most infuriating component tracks to the reality that you unexpectedly and genuinely ceased delivering dialogue to my frame due to this specific occurrence. What exact text line do you mean to project anyway? Calculating that pulling your frame alongside my system inflicts a wave of grievance onto your existence, is that it? My own system has refrained from detesting your frame, what the hell are you weaponizing to detest my system? Calculated to sever the bond? Passable, severing the bond means severing the bond, who on earth cherishes an absolute relationship alongside a toxic idiot like you!"

The more Asher delivered his text blows, the more intense his burning fury expanded, turning his frame around to march off directly.

Yet Sebastian snared his wrist with a sharp grip: "Who exactly are you framing as a toxic idiot?"

"Who else could the target possibly be? A certain someone who consumed my assets, weaponized my assets, and slept across my mattress throughout last night, only to completely flip his face to refuse any recognition of a human being the exact fraction of a second he awakened due to a few disgusting pieces of trash—does he fall short of a toxic idiot?"

"Then who exactly are you framing as a disgusting piece of trash?"

"Could it be that your system consumed far too much alcohol, damaging the neural pathways to strip your frame of basic evaluation capability? Everyone across the board is asserting that your frame puts on a cold front during the day only to be physically dominated by my system at night, yet you strictly still interrogate my system regarding who the disgusting pieces of trash are? How on earth does your internal psychological endurance threshold occupy this superior baseline? How on earth did I lack the awareness that your system aligns as an absolute saint? No... what exactly are you laughing at? Holy crap, my system is currently locked inside an absolute bubble of burning fury, can you find it within your frame to show a fraction of gravity? You are completely barred from laughing!"

Sebastian expended his maximum efforts to clamp down on his reactions, yet his narrow eyes completely failed to blanket the trace of an absolute smile: "Refraining from laughing at an alternative front—it’s simply that Eugene calculated that your system evaluated his choice to pull the two of us together into a casual pairing as disgusting. Right now, my system possesses the awareness that his thoughts drifted completely off target, driving the occurrence to radiate a thoroughly amusing color, nothing more."

"Although his cognitive track for evaluating a problem deployed a fraction of a bizarre angle, the elements he voiced essentially tracked straight to authentic realities, and he executed zero actions along a ruined note, so how on earth could he calculate that my system framed his presence as disgusting? How on earth is that brain structure engineered anyway? This fails to pass the baseline, I strictly must track down his profile to deliver a crystal-clear explanation—my system detests an absolute misunderstanding of this tier to the absolute core... No, how the hell are you laughing a second time?! Exactly what on earth radiates an amusing color?!"

Sebastian’s features curved into a shallow bend, the amusement overflowing past the corners of his lips and the edges of his brows, carrying a microscopic trace of absolute, spoiling indulgence: "Nothing dramatic either—it's simply that my system abruptly developed an intense desire to consume prehnite fruit."

"..." Asher discovered he was completely stripped of a single methodology to navigate a dialogue alongside Sebastian, clamping down on a suffocated breath: "Sebastian, a structural mental defect is definitively engineered into your system!"

Evaluating the bad-tempered youth right before his face who had completely blown his top due to a total lack of processing the lines, Sebastian couldn't resist extending his hand, running his fingers past his head to execute a couple of scratches exactly like scratching a tiny kitten.

An absolute structural defect indeed existed.

The disease was inscribed alongside your name.

Stripped of a proper cure across existence.

Sustaining the condition along total sweetness regardless.