Read Novel Full Chapter 160 - Pomegranate Flavored Sentinel Gong (1)
Chapter 160 - Pomegranate Flavored Sentinel Gong (1)
Translated by Hua Li ^_~
And finally Guideverse!!! ~(￣▽￣)~
The café was filled with soft, soothing music, punctuated now and then by polite, hushed laughter and conversation.
It was a couple’s café, every table marked with blooming roses and meant for pairs—except for one booth by the window.
There, a lone, strikingly handsome man sat, seemingly stood up. He kept glancing at his watch, brows furrowed ever so slightly—a look so sharp and magnetic it was enough to make people scream.
Several tables of women had already defied their boyfriends’ complaints just for the chance to order another cup of coffee, so they could sneak glances at him. They burned with the desire to know everything about this man, but his distant, forbidding aura kept them from approaching. They could only sneak looks to satisfy themselves.
One waitress, who had been lingering too often near his table under the pretext of refilling water, was finally chased back to the entrance by the plump manager. She whispered excitedly to her coworker, “He’s so handsome! So handsome, I can’t breathe! And up close, he really looks like Young Marshal Xiang! My idol, ahhh! And when he said thank you, his voice it was so deep and magnetic, so sexy! I really want to touch his chest muscles! I bet they feel amazing!”
“How could Young Marshal Xiang show up in a place like this? Stop dreaming. But he really is so handsome… I wish I could keep his face on my terminal forever. Too bad we’re not allowed to secretly take photos.”
The two waitresses exchanged a glance, then turned to look at the other customers who were sneaking selfies and secretly capturing the man from every angle, their eyes full of envy.
It was just then that Gou Liang pushed open the café door, their eyes practically glowing as they looked at him.
Both waitresses straightened instantly, putting on their sweetest smiles. “Welcome, sir. Do you have a reservation?”
The thin young man looked hard to approach, silent and unsmiling as he shook his head. Then they watched him walk directly toward the impossibly handsome man, sit down across from him at the couples’ booth.
The waitresses—and indeed every female customer in the café—collectively deflated in disappointment. So now even male Sentinels preferred male Guides? Where was the justice in this world?!
The man in the booth glanced at Gou Liang’s casual outfit, then compared it to his own constricting suit and tie, which made him stiff and uncomfortable. His frown deepened.
He had already been waiting fifteen minutes. Now the other party showed up, head down, not even offering an apology. Irritation flickered in his eyes as he said, “You’re late.”
Only then did Gou Liang lift his head, meeting those impatient eyes—
Yes.
The man across from him, glaring coldly—was his dearest, beloved Lord God, his husband!!
Name: Xiang Muchuan
Gender: Male
Ability: S-Class Sentinel
Age: 28
Height: 195 cm
Appearance rating: ★★★★�
Intelligence rating: ★★★★�
Physical ability rating: ★★★★�
Health rating: ★★★★�
Potential: SSS-Class
Current Favorability: -1.
They were on a blind date.
And from an initial 0, Xiang Muchuan’s favorability had dropped to -1 after being made to wait fifteen minutes.
“Sor-ry.”
Gou Liang lowered his head, looking genuinely apologetic, but didn’t bother to explain why he was late.
The ever-strict and composed Young Marshal Xiang clearly disliked this kind of sloppy attitude. But remembering the purpose of today’s meeting, he forced himself to endure.
Glancing at his watch again, he noted he had only twenty minutes left before a military meeting. He cut straight to the point: “This is the marriage agreement I’ve drafted. If you’re willing to accept, tomorrow at nine a.m., I’ll take you to register.”
Gou Liang accepted the document and skimmed it.
Two identical copies of a prenuptial agreement, only two pages long, with just one stipulation: during the duration of the marriage, absolute loyalty to each other.
His gaze fell on the bold, familiar handwriting already scrawled at the bottom. That signature eased his irritation, if only slightly.
“Why… me?”
His fingers brushed the ink strokes as he asked haltingly.
Xiang Muchuan had already looked into Gou Liang’s file and knew of his shortcomings. He didn’t mind the way he spoke.
—In truth, Xiang Muchuan hadn’t placed particularly high expectations on this blind date partner ten years his junior.
So he answered honestly, “Three days ago, our spirit forms underwent a fusion. I don’t believe it’s necessary to erase it. At present, this is the most beneficial arrangement for both of us. Of course, if you can’t accept this, I’ll cooperate with whatever solution you prefer.”
“…Oh.”
Nodding slightly, Gou Liang picked up the pen and slowly scrawled his name and the date on both copies.
Though time was short, Xiang Muchuan didn’t rush him. Once Gou Liang finished signing, he handed him one copy across the roses, then stood up. “Since we’ve reached an agreement, I expect you to honor it.”
Rechecking his watch, he said, “Apologies, but I have to leave now. I’ll have my adjutant see you home.”
“I’ll… finish my coffee. You go.”
Gou Liang hooked a finger through the cup handle, looking a little nervous as he lifted it for a sip.
Seeing this, Xiang Muchuan said nothing more, only emphasizing the plan to register at nine a.m. the next day before striding out.
Gou Liang silently watched his back until he vanished into a blind spot on the café’s cameras.
His eyes were shadowed with unease.
Given Xiang Muchuan’s personality, marrying him with a favorability score of -1 had nothing to do with love. The true cause traced back to an accident Gou Liang had triggered when he first entered this world.
*
Three days earlier—
“Robbery!!”
That scream from the victimized woman became the death knell for the original host.
He had only instinctively stopped and turned his head to see what was happening when the panicked robber crashed into him. Worse still, the hook in the robber’s hand snagged the zipper of his jacket. Dragged forward, stumbling, the original host was mistaken for trying to block the robber’s escape. At that very moment, the city guards had arrived. In desperation, the robber grabbed the original host by the neck and held him hostage.
“Don’t come any closer! Take another step and I’ll strangle him!”
As the robber shouted, he tightened his grip on the original host’s throat. He was a Sentinel, while the original host was just an ordinary human; in no time, his victim’s eyes rolled back.
The situation was dire: this was a C-rank Sentinel in the middle of a manic episode. He had tried to rob that D-rank female Sentinel because he had smelled the scent of Guide suppressant pills in her bag.
The city guards didn’t dare take the risk. They shouted, “Calm down! Don’t hurt the hostage!”
“Back off, all of you, back off!!”
The robber roared, tightening his grip further. His mental state was collapsing, and his spiritual body—a hedgehog—was thrashing around chaotically, injuring many bystanders.
He pointed at the robbed female Sentinel. “You, get that car over here! Hurry!”
The woman, only a D-rank Sentinel, was already scared stiff. But seeing the hostage’s face turning purple and his legs kicking weakly, she forced herself to obey, driving the hover car over. The moment she stopped, she scrambled out of the vehicle and ran to the safety of the guards.
“Don’t follow me! If anyone dares chase us, I’ll kill him!”
The hostage was already on the verge of suffocation, yet the robber, even while jumping into the hover car and speeding away, still held him in a death grip. He never noticed that the victim’s violent struggling was gradually fading.
Then—
A hand smashed through the car window, grabbed the robber’s head, and slammed it into the steering wheel.
The man outside had sprinted so fast he was keeping pace with the hover car. In the same instant that he knocked the robber out, he also pressed the emergency stop button.
The runaway vehicle screeched to a halt. Xiang Muchuan yanked open the door, dragged the robber out like garbage, then immediately checked the hostage’s neck.
Feeling a faint pulse, he exhaled in relief. With careful movements, he lifted the fragile, ordinary hostage out of the car. That was when he caught it—the scent of Guide pheromones.
Xiang Muchuan’s expression shifted.
“Young Marshal Xiang!”
The captain of the city guard came panting up.
Xiang Muchuan cut off his salute. “Seal off the scene and get an ambulance here, now. He’s awakening as a Guide.”
“What?!”
The captain was stunned, but quickly stepped aside.
A Guide awakening was a fragile process, and above all, must not be disturbed mentally. Realizing the severity, he hurried to disperse the crowd.
Xiang Muchuan, as an S-rank Sentinel and, more importantly, a Dark Sentinel—a legendary type able to maintain absolute control without ever succumbing to mental instability—volunteered to stay behind and guard the young Guide through his awakening until the medics arrived.
But what he never anticipated was that Gou Liang’s spirit form would be a perfect 100% match with his own.
—For a Dark Sentinel, spiritual instability simply could not occur, unless he encountered a Guide with absolute compatibility.
And the higher the Sentinel’s rank, the harder it was to find a Guide with even 60% compatibility. For a D-rank Sentinel, the odds of finding a Guide above 90% compatibility were one in tens of millions. For an S-rank? Practically impossible.
Yet against all odds, this one-in-a-billion “miracle” had just landed on Xiang Muchuan.
The moment Gou Liang’s spirit form appeared, Xiang Muchuan’s silver wolf pounced. It snatched up the newborn spirit form of the Guide—and before Xiang Muchuan could stop it, the wolf bit down.
The spiritual bridge was formed.
Although spirit-body fusion was not the same as the permanent, unbreakable bond between Sentinel and Guide, forcibly severing it carried an immense price.
Especially for the Sentinel: forcibly erasing spiritual resonance could drive the spirit body into a frenzy, dragging the Sentinel into madness. At best, it could shatter his mental level; at worst, it could kill him. And in a case of 100% compatibility, the consequences would be unimaginably severe.
As the Young Marshal of the Xiang Corps, Xiang Muchuan had no choice but to prioritize his health and strength. Which was why, three days later, they were sitting across from each other on a blind date.
At the time, because the system was still under maintenance, Gou Liang had to manually extract the original host’s soul image. That delay left him without time to absorb the common knowledge of this Sentinel-Guide world. Carrying the Lord God’s imprint, it was no surprise he’d been a perfect match for the target himself.
Though unexpected, the development was undeniably advantageous to his mission.
What weighed on Gou Liang was not Xiang Muchuan’s -1 favorability or their flimsy contractual marriage, but the original host’s life itself.
His name was Yuan Wang. Male. Eighteen years old, he had only completed his coming-of-age ceremony three months ago.
Generally, Guides had the highest chance of awakening between ages 13 and 16. Past 18, the odds dropped to near zero.
The original host’s fraternal twin brother, Yuan Xi, had awakened at thirteen—as an A-rank Guide no less. But Yuan Wang, though born a mere three minutes later, hadn’t been so lucky. On his eighteenth birthday, he still hadn’t awakened to any ability.
The twins might have shared a womb, but their fates couldn’t have been more different.
Yuan Xi was healthy, strikingly adorable from childhood, lively, clever, and well-loved. Awakening as a rare A-rank Guide, with an elegant white cat as his spirit form—he was the very picture of a winner in life.
By contrast, the original host was painfully ordinary.
His constitution was weak; though not sickly, before age ten, he’d been frail enough to be forbidden from strenuous activity.
His looks were unremarkable, and worse, he had a speech disorder. He hadn’t spoken a word until age three, and when he finally did, it was stuttering.
For the noble Yuan family of Bluewater Star, this was practically a scandal. They kept it secret, leading many to believe Yuan Wang was mute. But when he started school, his stutter could no longer be hidden, and the revelation became fodder for society gossip—leaving Madam Yuan humiliated.
Madam Yuan, a B-rank Guide herself, came from an illustrious family on Capital Star. Though her clan was in decline, its pedigree far outshone that of the Yuan family. Had it not been for certain circumstances, she would never have married so far from the capital into the Yuan household.
Proud to the bone, she could not bear being belittled or pitied. For her, Yuan Wang was a stain on her life—a disgrace she could never forgive.
She began to ignore the original host’s existence completely, pouring all her love and energy into Yuan Xi instead.
His birth mother’s attitude left a huge mark on him, and combined with the influence of his environment, children might be innocent, but they were also cruel. After being mocked a few times, the original host simply stopped speaking, becoming even more withdrawn and out of place.
Having a dazzling twin brother already made his own mediocrity seem dull, and with his silent, introverted personality, people all the more easily forgot that the Yuan family had another son.
Half a year ago, when both Yuan Xi and Yuan Wang got into Capital University, Yuan Xi was admitted into the elite Guide Academy, while the original host was accepted into the general Pharmacy Department.
The brothers never contacted each other privately—Yuan Wang’s deliberate distancing eventually made Yuan Xi give up trying as well. Yuan Xi continued his brilliant life, while Yuan Wang kept enduring his plain existence.
Until three days ago, when his absurd and pitiful life came to an end.
*
After finishing his coffee, Gou Liang got up and headed to the Capital Grand Hotel.
Three days earlier, after the incident, Xiang Muchuan’s mother had sent someone to contact the original host’s parents on Capital Star. They were there now, anxiously waiting for the result of Gou Liang’s blind date.
When Mr. and Mrs. Yuan first heard that their son’s spirit body had achieved a 100% match with Young Marshal Xiang, they were overjoyed. But after speaking with Yuan Xi and realizing they had mistaken which son it was, they were shocked and flustered.
Their feelings were completely different from when they thought it was Yuan Xi.
With their elder son’s excellence, it was only natural for the Xiang family to accept him. But with their younger son, they had never even dared to imagine he could marry into the Xiang family.
For a Sentinel and a Guide, their relationship didn’t necessarily have to mean marriage—it could also be an employment arrangement or a contractual partnership.
Employment relationships usually happened when compatibility was below 70%, and were more like a doctor-patient arrangement; a single Sentinel could employ multiple Guides. Contractual relationships, however, were one-to-one spiritual bonds, legally protected, generally for pairs with compatibility above 70%. Such bonds often required physical contact during mental soothing sessions.
Put bluntly, it was more or less like being a lover without the name.
In their eyes, Gou Liang was destined to end up in the third category.
They had never expected him to bring them this answer instead:
“He said, tomorrow, we’ll marry.”