After Playing the Fool and Marrying the Blind Villain [Transmigration] - Chap 101
The two embraced each other and lay back on the bed. The light by the bedside shone silently, and they were wrapped in a unique warmth that belonged to them alone.
Pei Yi raised his head and placed another kiss on Bo Yueming’s Adam’s apple and chin. “Er-ge, no matter what I say next, you have to believe that what I’m telling you is the truth, and that I’m not deliberately teasing you.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and trying to find a suitable way to explain it.”
But how could there be a suitable explanation for “transmigration?” Who could hear it and not think that it was ridiculous?
Bo Yueming noticed Pei Yi’s worry and took the initiative to broach the subject, “Why don’t you let me guess first?”
Pei Yi was taken aback. “Huh? Guess?”
Bo Yueming hugged his lover tightly and said what he had suspected all along. “You are not the original ‘Pei Yi.’”
“From the moment you entered the Bo family and married me, or even before that, you had already replaced ‘his’ name, identity, and position.”
“And you were willing to marry me in the first place only because you wanted to use this relationship and the cover of the Bo family to escape from the Pei family, right?”
“…….”
Stunned, Pei Yi blinked and said in both astonishment and admiration, “Er-ge, you, how did you guess that?”
Seeing his cute appearance, Bo Yueming knew that he had guessed most of it correctly. “I’ve had vague suspicions ever since my eyes recovered.”
“At first I just thought you were pretending to be foolish, but then I discovered that your behavior and habits were very different from the original Young Master Pei.”
No matter how well a person disguised himself, there would still be hints.
The same went for a person’s personality. It was impossible to change it at will, or at least impossible for it to be completely different—
In the eyes of outsiders, Young Master Pei was foolish, introverted, timid, and silent when trouble occurred. But in his eyes, Pei Yi was intelligent and cunning, and dared to fight back.
“I sent someone to investigate the original young master. He had been raised in the Pei family since he became a fool. Even when the Pei couple brought him to banquets in the past, he didn’t know anything about wine and didn’t drink, so how could he know so many details about wine culture?”
Pei Yi mumbled, “I didn’t think that my love for drinking wine would become my flaw.”
Bo Yueming softly kissed the tip of his nose. “Pei Yi, I’m glad that the first person I met, liked, and fell in love with was you.”
He was no substitute, and even less was he a mistake.
Pei Yi listened to his considerations and also felt extremely lucky.
Bo Yueming took the initiative to mention his confusion, “However, you and ‘Young Master Pei’ have the same appearance, and you are indeed him in the eyes of outsiders. I really haven’t figured this out.”
“To tell you the truth, I previously searched online for some unreliable-sounding ‘soul transfer’ techniques, but never found a suitable answer.”
Pei Yi couldn’t help but smile when he heard Bo Yueming’s honesty.
For some reason, when he pictured Bo Yueming researching ‘metaphysical’ materials behind his back, the contrast was really cute.
“All right, don’t laugh. I know the content online isn’t trustworthy.”
Bo Yueming curbed his tongue, but there was no displeasure in his eyes. He just asked with concealed expectation, “As of now, it’s up to you to tell me.”
Pei Yi regained his composure and pursed his lips. “Er-ge, if I said that this world was initially just a story that existed in a book, and that I traveled here from the ‘real world,’ would you believe it?”
“……”
Bo Yueming frowned slightly and seemed to still be reflecting on it.
Pei Yi was afraid he would deny it, and quickly added, “I know that for you, Pear Garden, and Yan Cen, this is the real living world. I think so too now that I’ve been here a long time.”
“If, if you don’t understand the word ‘transmigration,’ you can just think of it as me being from a parallel dimension!”
“When the original owner heard about the marriage, he was so agitated that he ran outside and jumped into the river, and drowned. And I had stayed up several nights in a row constructing the plot of a game, so I replaced him by accident and I’ve been here ever since.”
Pei Yi spoke faster and faster. “I, I’m really not making up a story to coax you, I……”
Bo Yueming said quickly, “Kitten, I believe you.”
“Ah?”
Pei Yi was stunned, and asked again, “You, you really don’t think it’s absurd?”
“How is it absurd? Whether it’s transmigration or a parallel world like you said, or my ideas of soul transfer or rebirth—”
“No matter what the reason is, I only care that the person in front of me is you, and that the person who will accompany me forever is you. That is enough.”
And the explanation given by Pei Yi was enough to explain all the previous mysteries.
Bo Yueming kissed his lips and guided the conversation, “Then tell me, what was it like for you in that world?”
Pei Yi chuckled, relieved. “En.”
His lover happily accepted the part that was the most difficult to explain, so he could naturally speak of his past.
“Er-ge.”
“En?”
Pei Yi began calmly, “Actually, I’m an orphan. Since I was born, I’ve never known who my parents were.”
This tone that could not have been calmer caused an uproar in Bo Yueming’s heart. Distress immediately appeared on his face, and he took a slightly choked breath—
Bo Yueming had thought that because of his lover’s appreciation for wine and his confidence in his career, there were nine chances out of ten that he was a proud young master raised by a wealthy family. But unexpectedly, the other party told him of a completely different upbringing.
An orphan?
No wonder his lover was so active in following up with the charity work for the orphanage when he was in Haishi. It turned out to be because of his own personal experience?
Just like it was said on the internet: “Because he had been caught in the rain, he thought of giving an umbrella to others.”
Pei Yi reached out to gently smooth Bo Yueming’s brow and continued, “I grew up in an orphanage, where there were children with no parents or relatives waiting to be adopted.”
The orphanage was not very wealthy at that time, and there were very few people supporting it. Everyone slept together every night.
They ate sweet potatoes, corn, and buns, and drank boiled water, soy milk, and occasionally sugar water. Milk and desserts were rare items for children like them.
“The clothes were all hand-me-downs from the older children for the younger children to wear, and the toys…..there were basically no toys.”
Pei Yi spoke of a few childhood memories. “Er-ge, do you still remember the straw butterfly we bought at the foot of Yanshan Mountain?”
Although after taking that little straw butterfly home, it was almost played to death by Inspector.
Bo Yueming responded, “I remember.”
Pei Yi recalled, “My first toy was a small grasshopper made of straw. It was given to me by a passing vendor. Unfortunately, I was too thin and weak at that time and couldn’t protect my toy well.”
“A few days later, an older kid at the orphanage snatched it and broke it. I was so angry that I started to fight him.”
Pei Yi said this lightly, but Bo Yueming was sad to hear it.
In contrast, he was loved by his biological mother before he turned six, and was also protected by Old Mrs. Bo after he came to the Bo family.
Compared with his lover’s childhood, hadn’t he lived a happy life?
Bo Yueming caressed the back of his lover’s neck and asked softly, “Then did you just stay in the orphanage?”
Pei Yi leaned into his arms and shook his head. “No, I was adopted by a male couple when I was nine years old.”
Bo Yueming was surprised. “A male couple?”
“En, same-sex marriage was recognized there just like it is here, and each couple could adopt up to two children.”
Bo Yueming felt slightly relieved, but still wanted to know more. “Were they good to you?”
A complex look flashed through Pei Yi’s eyes, but he still spoke of the past with a smile. “Yes, very good. Father Yan and Father Rong were the best people I had ever met.”
“Er-ge, did you know? Father Yan was six years younger than Father Rong, which was just right.”
The corners of Bo Yueming’s mouth curved upward. “En, what else?”
Pei Yi saw that his lover was curious, so he fully shared the few good times in his memory—
Zong Baiyan was born into a celebrity family, and had capital and power at a young age. Before he met Bo Yueming, Pei Yi had not found anyone who could compare with his father.
And the older Xu Rong was a well-known painter in the industry. He became a professor at a first-class art university in his early twenties and had held many personal exhibitions overseas.
“…..Father Yan had a younger sister, who was Father Rong’s student when she was a freshman.”
The first time Zong Baiyan and Xu Rong met was outside the university classroom.
Zong Baiyan, who was waiting for his sister to finish class, met the gentle Xu Rong who was teaching for the first time.
Whether it was lust or love at first sight, after a series of twists and turns, the two officially got together.
After much consideration, the two lovers adopted Pei Yi, who seemed to be the best-behaved and most emaciated in the orphanage.
Pei Yi recalled his childhood, “I may have been malnourished at that time. I was almost ten years old and still much shorter than other children of the same age, and was chosen out of pity.”
Bo Yueming was helpless. “And you’re still very proud?”
Pei Yi raised his eyebrows. “Of course. From the orphanage to a rich young master, in the eyes of the children my age, I reached the sky in a single step.”
Bo Yueming smiled, and just listened as the man in his arms continued to say, “In addition to red wine and programming, I also have many money-burning skills that I learned from Father Yan.”
“Father Rong also taught me how to draw, and made different kinds of desserts for me.”
“I had missed a lot of classes at the orphanage. Not only did they hire private teachers, but they also gave me personal tutoring when they had the time.”
All in all, it was enough to weave into a rare happy time in Pei Yi’s childhood.
As he spoke, Pei Yi suddenly fell into silence.
Bo Yueming saw through his sudden downturn and asked in a low voice, “Kitten, what’s wrong?”
Pei Yi subconsciously moved closer in Bo Yueming’s arms, and finally brought up the turning point. “I had originally thought that I would always be that happy, and that Father Yan and Father Rong would be too, but that turned out not to be the case.”
Bo Yueming asked cautiously, “What happened?”
“When I was thirteen years old, Father Rong led a class of graduate students majoring in the fine arts. One of his students plagiarized a very popular work, and he discovered it.”
Xu Rong had an unshakable and sacred pursuit of painting, and was naturally disgusted with such behavior.
He revoked the student’s grades, called him to the office, and severely criticized him, hoping that he would change his ways.
Pei Yi’s tone became a bit stronger, “The original premise wasn’t wrong, but the bad thing was that the student’s family encountered misfortune, and his negative emotions had already reached the extreme.”
The other party seemed to leave Xu Rong’s office calmly, but he chose to jump off the building late the next night.
“The most puzzling thing was that before he jumped off the building, he left a public suicide note accusing Father Rong of not allowing him to graduate smoothly for his own personal gain!”
He also said that Father Rong pretended to be a gentleman, but actually sexually assaulted him in the office.
Pei Yi knew Xu Rong’s character well, and also understood that the accusatory suicide note was flagrant and malicious revenge.
Even though he was no good, he wanted to drag others down to be buried with him, but Xu Rong had never done such a thing at all.
“…….”
Bo Yueming was stunned, not having expected that things would turn out this way.
Graduate student, jumping off a building, a professor, sexual assault — these words combined together immediately caused an uproar on the internet!
Countless curses poured into Xu Rong’s life. The deceased’s father took advantage of the opportunity to blackmail him, and unsuspecting netizens signed a petition to boycott him, while the voices that truly spoke on his behalf were drowned in a wave of condemnation.
Even though Zong Baiyan rushed to collect evidence as soon as possible and made comprehensive clarifications, there were still some keyboard warriors who couldn’t distinguish between right and wrong. They believed that the Zong family’s money was at work, and hurled insults and attacks at Xu Rong day after day!
The damage caused was indelible, and the filth eventually swallowed up his gentleness.
“Father Rong was sick. His depression became more and more serious, and even began to uncontrollably affect the people around him.”
Pei Yi’s eyes reddened as he thought about how the Xu Rong in his memory changed. “The more this happened, the guiltier he felt.”
Xu Rong felt guilty that he couldn’t be a “lover” or a “father,” and under the criticism of the keyboard warriors, he took all the blame onto himself—
He felt that it was his failure to detect his student’s emotions in time that caused him to embark on the path of no return.
But Pei Yi knew very well that it was never his fault.
“Although Father Yan was very busy at that time, he still set aside his work to stay with Father Rong. Because he was afraid I would be neglected, he could only temporarily send me to boarding school, but I could still come home once a week.”
“I’ve heard many people say that depression not only consumes oneself, but also consumes those around you.”
As it turned out, this was indeed the case.
When Pei Yi came home from school every weekend, he could feel the atmosphere at home growing colder and colder.
This lasted for a full year, and finally, at the age of fourteen, Pei Yi witnessed Zong Baiyan and Xu Rong quarrel again and again.
The causes were all trivial matters, mostly due to Xu Rong’s sensitivity and anxiety.
“When there were small fights and arguments at the beginning, Father Yan would patiently calm him down right away, but he gradually changed. Sometimes he would even slam the door and leave the house after an argument.”
Pei Yi couldn’t judge who was right or wrong between his two fathers. Xu Rong was suffering from illness, but how could Zong Baiyan, with a family and a career, have it easy?
The contradictions became more and more divisive until they could no longer be reconciled.
“One day, I came back from boot camp and found the house a mess, with broken wine bottles and utensils all over the floor.”
“Father Yan wasn’t home, and I couldn’t reach him by phone. I searched around before finding Father Rong pale-faced in the third floor studio.”
“Ever since he fell ill, Father Rong rarely entered the studio. When he saw me, he said he had been waiting for me to come back.”
Pills spilled on the ground, crumpled waste paper, and countless paint color blocks formed a dark, cramped space.
Pei Yi felt that something was wrong in the atmosphere, but still approached worriedly. However, what happened next was a terrifying scene that left him with a psychological shadow—
Xu Rong crazily strangled him by the neck, accusing Zong Baiyan of betraying him, that he already had a new lover behind his back and no longer loved him!
He also viciously told Pei Yi not to get involved with emotions, and to never jump into that fire pit no matter what.
Pei Yi didn’t know what had happened in the week he had been away, and couldn’t tell whether Zong Baiyan had a new lover or not.
He just knew that this relationship of many years had finally come to an end, and that both of them hated each other.
“Father Rong took a utility knife and stabbed himself in front of me…..”
Pei Yi thought about the blood in that last scene and his eyes reddened again, his breathing trembling noticeably.
Bo Yueming kissed his eyebrows and stopped him at once. “Okay, let’s not talk about it anymore.”
“Good kitten, it’s over now.”
“……”
Pei Yi buried his face in Bo Yueming’s arms, silently pouring out the haze that hadn’t been released all these years.
If transmigrating was the thing he didn’t know how to explain the most, then the ending of his adoption was the part of his past that he was most afraid to face.
“Er-ge, I’m sorry.”
Pei Yi choked with soft sobs, and exposed his past hesitations, “I started to shy away from your feelings and didn’t want to think about our future. It was really because this incident cast such a deep shadow on me.”
Even if Xu Rong’s situation was only an exception, the trauma of his youth was still trauma.
Facing his lover’s apology, Bo Yueming was extremely distressed. “Baby, you’re not wrong, you don’t need to apologize to me.”
“I’m grateful that you’re willing to tell me all of this, but from now on, I won’t mention the past, and you shouldn’t think about it, okay?”
“Believe me, we’re different from them.”
“En.”
Pei Yi whimpered slightly, and waited until his mind calmed down a little before continuing, “After the incident with Father Rong, I escaped from that ‘home.’”
Pei Yi worked odd jobs at an appliance mall for two years, and his boss was a retired technician.
Pei Yi learned a lot from him, and then he met his first real-life friends.
“After spending time with them for a while, I accepted their invitation and started a business with my own game ideas.”
“We worked hard for several years and managed to achieve some success.”
Bo Yueming praised him in a timely manner. “My family’s kitten is amazing.”
Pei Yi finally put on a smile, and heard his lover ask again, “Kitten, how old were you when you transmigrated?”
Pei Yi said, “Maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. I don’t have an exact date of birth.”
Bo Yueming asked, “Since it was a book, what were the contents like?”
Pei Yi had guessed that the other party would ask this question, so he briefly recounted the story in the book.
As the ‘villain,’ Bo Yueming frowned upon hearing this. “‘Me’ and ‘Yan Cen’ were both interested in Pei Huan?”
“Was I brainless or was he? Kitten, did you read a pirated version?”
Pei Yi laughed softly at his lover’s “ruthlessness” and even condemned him, “I thought the same way, but I couldn’t figure it out.”
After all, “books” were dead, but people were “alive.”
When this world became real, the characters in the book should each have their own subjective consciousness, instead of just following the text settings.
Bo Yueming didn’t dwell on this issue anymore, and only teased him a bit, “Why did you like reading this kind of thing?”
“……”
Pei Yi blushed for a moment. “I didn’t like it, it was for work.”
Bo Yueming was puzzled. “For work?”
Pei Yi answered truthfully, “Our company wanted to pursue market popularity and develop an otome-oriented supernatural decryption mobile game.”
“I was originally only responsible for the supernatural description plot portion, but another planner in charge of the relationship part wanted to comprehensively integrate everything, and I couldn’t just not know anything.”
It was just that Pei Yi had never been in love from beginning to end. How would he know how to integrate the romance aspect into the plot of the game?
“The other party saw that I really didn’t know anything, so he recommended a similar game to me, as well as countless books similar to the heartthrob trend so that I could research more.”
When Pei Yi thought of this, he couldn’t help but enter complaining mode.
“Er-ge, you don’t know. Those titles looked questionable to me, but this novel, “Misplaced Love of a Wealthy Family” seemed more normal.”
Bo Yueming made a sound of acknowledgement, holding back his laughter with difficulty.
Pei Yi saw this and recalled another thing. “Er-ge, do you remember what I said when I first met you?”
Bo Yueming replied, “Of course I remember, it really shocked me at the time.”
Pei Yi smiled sheepishly and revealed the truth.
When he was researching the recommended otome games, he found that the most common comments from the players were — First meeting, like, idolize, get married, husband.
“In order to play the fool and stay in Bo Manor, I had to shorten it a little.”
—Like, get married, husband.
Bo Yueming didn’t expect that such a little secret was hidden in the shocking conversation when they first met. His shoulders suddenly slumped, and he laughed into the crook of his lover’s neck.
For a moment, he forgot about the unpleasant experience he had at the hotel this evening.
Pei Yi’s neck and shoulder were rubbed hot, and he mumbled, unresigned, “Wasn’t it appropriate? I think I researched it quite thoroughly.”
Bo Yueming stopped with difficulty, and explained coaxingly, “Baby, I think you’re cute.”
Heat surged to Pei Yi’s face, and he continued to control the rhythm of the conversation. “Er-ge.”
“En?”
“I’ve told you all my secrets, and I also learned about the pain in your past. From now on, the two of us will stay with each other, okay?”
Pei Yi’s eyes were bright, and for the first time, they were full of expectations for the future.
“I promise you that as long as you don’t let me down, I will accompany you forever, so I hope you can do it, okay?”
Him asking “okay?” twice in a row made Bo Yueming’s heart go soft, and all of his gloom disappeared.
He lowered his head and kissed Pei Yi’s lips for a long time before finally stopping. “Okay.”
When Pei Yi got the answer he wanted, he simply leaned in toward his lover’s ear and confided, “Bo Yueming, I love you.”
Bo Yueming felt his eyes well up with rare tears, and responded solemnly, “I love you too.”
