A Good-for-Nothing

1. The Flight

Translator: DragonRider

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. Flight LN 2631 will take off in twenty minutes. Please be quick to board the aircraft. Thank you for your cooperation.”

The sweet voice of an announcer emanated from a loudspeaker.

Carrying a cinerary casket containing cremains of his mother, He Zheng found his seat and sat down.

Business class was roomy with some seats unoccupied. Rather tired, He Zheng put on his headphones and vacantly looked out of the window. Unconsciously, he clasped his fingers around the lacquered wooden casket, softly tapping at it, as if it were some kind of treasure.

“Excuse me, Sir. Would you mind opening the casket and let me take a look? We’re obliged by security regulations to check containers of this kind.” A stewardess walked up to He Zheng and asked politely.

He Zheng, whose train of thought was interrupted, fell in a somewhat bad mood and apathetically looked at the stewardess. The stewardess was startled. Originally, she had sort of planned to take this opportunity to accost He Zheng, since he was handsome and wearing high-end attire.

Seeing the look on his face, the stewardess was stunned, at a loss what to do next. But since she had already made the request, she would lose face in full view of many passengers if she gave up checking the casket, so she went to ask a steward for help.

The manner of the steward was not as polite as that of the stewardess. Seeing the unfriendly look on He Zheng’s face, he said in a faintly threatening tone of voice, “Sir, please be cooperative. Otherwise the plane won’t be able to take off on time and it would be a waste of time for all passengers on board.”

The steward’s tone was very unpleasant. Unfortunate for him, He Zheng was not a pushover. On the contrary, the harder people tried to be tough on him, the more he wanted to make them lose face.

He raised his eyes and sarcastically looked at the steward. “Who do you think you are? You dare to order me?”

“Sir!”

Passengers nearby heard the quarrel and looked in this direction. Someone seemed to be, in an undertone, criticizing He Zheng for overreacting.

A young man, tall and thin, who was walking towards them from a certain distance away, also saw the quarrel. As a specialist in related industry, he couldn’t help noticing that the lacquered wooden casket was used for containing a cinerary urn. It was a natural thing that this young man refused to open it.

Hearing other passengers’ criticism, the young man kept silent.

The steward had run out of patience. “Sir, if you don’t open the casket right now. We have reason to suspect that you are carrying restricted articles with you. You’ll have to come with us to undergo investigation!”

Zu Zhichong was never a busybody, but as he saw the half of the young man’s face, he was briefly stunned.

Zu Zhichong waved his hand and walked towards them with a smile on his face. “Excuse me. Excuse me. Please let me through.”

The tension which was reaching flashpoint was temporarily dissolved by this abrupt interruption. All people’s gaze rested on Zu Zhichong, except for He Zheng who was one of the interested parties.

Had He Zheng looked in that direction, he would have seen that Zu Zhichong, while walking towards him, had rapidly made a series of mudras, his hands being a blur of movement, and unnoticeably given the steward and the stewardess each a slap.

Both the stewardess and the steward felt a shiver.

“He’s already gone through airport security and carried it on board, so of course it’s safe,” said Zu Zhichong with a big smile.

Hearing this, all lookers-on felt that his words made sense. The commotion among the crowd gradually abated.

Woodenly holding the hand of the steward, the stewardess uttered “Sorry” and then left right away.

Zu Zhichong saved He Zheng from an awkward situation at last, but He Zheng showed no gratitude whatsoever. He impatiently turned his head aside.

“What a busybody.”

Zu Zhichong was briefly stunned and thought, ‘He’s such a short-tempered guy.’ But he took no offence. Instead, he asked in a warm tone of voice, “Hey, bro, what is this big guy?”

Seeing that Zu Zhichong was trying to pry into his privacy, He Zheng disgustedly knitted his eyebrows, picked up a blanket, and wrapped it around the casket to block Zu Zhichong’s view of it before saying unfriendly, “None of your business!”

Zu Zhichong, who was given the cold shoulder, stroked his nose in embarrassment.

Footsteps came from beside him. He Zheng unconsciously twisted his head aside and slid the person a sideways glance.

That was a man, tall and very attractive. As a gay, He Zheng believed that this man was among the top three most captivating of all the men he had met so far.

What impressed him the most were his extremely pretty eyes. The two outer corners of his eyes slightly curved upwards, but surprisingly, instead of imparting an air of levity to the man, they gave people this feeling that he was a poised man. In his eyes was sheer composure, as if nothing would bring change to it.

He was very manly and also happened to be He Zheng’s type.

However, due to what happened a couple of days ago, he was not in the mood for starting a new relationship with another man. After enjoying the eye-pleasing sight for a brief moment, He Zheng turned his head aside, put on his headphones and resumed listening to music.

Zu Zhichong’s reaction was entirely different from that of He Zheng. He excitedly rose from the seat and greeted that man. “Hey, Chief. Finally, you show up.”

The man grunted “Um” and then sat down beside He Zheng. What was surprising was that though he hadn’t been carrying anything on his way to the seat, after sitting down, he conjured a Thermos bottle out of thin air as if by magic, opened it, and with that pleasant smells of Chinese wolfberries and jujube wafted out…

The sweet voice of the announcer came from the loudspeaker again. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to take this five-star flight of BJ Airline. The flight is taking off in five minutes…”

He Zheng’s eyes swept aside and he found that all the couple of originally unoccupied seats around him had already been taken, though he didn’t know exactly when.

In the seat right before He Zheng was a beautiful woman, but he could tell with half an eye that she had undergone plastic surgery and had a plastic face. At this moment, she was talking in a muted voice with her head down.

In the row of seats ahead of him on the right sat a couple and a little girl. The girl was asking a stewardess for ice cream in a sweet voice. As He Zheng reached out his hand to buckle up, he noticed that the man sitting beside him had picked up a magazine and was reading it. And from this angle, he could only see the profile of the man.

For some reason, He Zheng kept having this feeling that this man looked somewhat familiar. He conveniently moved his eyes upwards from the man’s long fingers to his face. As chance would have it, the man also looked sideways in his direction and their eyes met in mid-air. He Zheng abruptly felt an explosion of something in his head and with that his head became heavier. He gradually closed his eyes and then all sounds instantly disappeared.

He Zheng seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep, his head against the back of the seat.

Zu Zhichong had merely lowered his head to put on his headphones, which had only taken him a couple of seconds. When he raised his head, he was startled. “Wow. How come he fell asleep so soon?” While saying this, Zu Zhichong noticed that the man’s gaze had been on the lacquered wooden casket all along. Though asleep, He Zheng was still holding the casket.

Zu Zhichong vigilantly flicked a glance at him and lowered his voice. “Chief, you also noticed that something is not right with this cinerary casket, I suppose?”

The man softly uttered “Yeah”. He watched He Zheng sleeping, as if pondering over something.

Seeing that he was staring fixedly at He Zheng, Zu Zhichong grinned wickedly. “Heh-heh. Chief, I heard that people of He family have already started preparing betrothal gifts. What surprises me is that this young master of He family is so your type, given his figure and looks. Would you like me to do some matchmaking for you?” Before the man could make a response, Zu Zhichong heaved a sigh and said, “Unfortunately, it is rumored that you are the person this Young Master He hates the most. Chief, as far as I can tell, you and this Young Master He seem to have never met each other before. Why does he hate you so much?” The man’s left eyebrow rose and he blandly cast a glimpse at Zu Zhichong, who instantly felt a chill down his spine and smiled awkwardly, “I was being talky. I deserve punishment.” It was not until Zu Zhichong said this that the man moved his eyes off him.

The nervousness in Zu Zhichong dissolved. With that he gave a yawn and mumbled, “This is weird. Why am I feeling so sleepy?”

With an expression of sobriety in his eyes, the man rested his hand on the armrest with his long fingers curled, softly tapping at it, but his gaze had been on He Zheng’s face all along.