Futile Devices Scans

The waves surged toward the shore like an enormous embrace, while colorful swim rings bobbed across the surface of the sea. Ke Bu lay beneath a beach umbrella like a corpse abandoned at a crime scene. He had inevitably tanned quite a bit recently. Reaching for the Coke beside him, he searched for Zhi Li in the water but saw no trace of him. Ke Bu bit down on the straw and drained what remained in the cup, then stood, stretched, and walked toward the sea. He had set himself a goal for this summer vacation: improve his physique and make his body more attractive. He had many concerns about the Zhi family, but what worried him most now was that, several decades from now, he would look far older than the rest of them. Lan Yin and Zhi Zuo Si had already shown him the cruel reality. Sometimes he wished he could steal some of their genes and inject them into himself.

He jumped into the sea. Today’s objectives were to sleep for fifteen hours and swim fifty meters. A huge wave crashed into him, forcing him backward and causing him to collide with a young girl. Ke Bu wiped his face and barely managed to open his eyes. “Sorry.” Only then did he see that she was around Dora’s age. Her hair was dyed red, a conspicuous tattoo marked her shoulder, and one ear was covered in piercings. She stared coldly at Ke Bu without speaking. Another enormous wave struck them, and this time neither managed to keep their footing. Ke Bu swallowed seawater and could not open his eyes. He only felt his hand randomly catch hold of something. Once the wave receded, he had barely risen from the water when a slap struck his face. His cheek burned painfully. He frowned. “What was that for?” With only her shoulders visible above the water, the girl covered her chest with one hand and raised the other to strike him again. “Pervert.”

“Who are you calling a pervert? How am I a pervert?” Ke Bu angrily pointed at her, only to realize he was holding the girl’s string bikini top.

“Xiao Xiao, what happened?” Two or three boys gathered around them, apparently friends of the girl named Xiao Xiao. They seemed about the same age as her and had hair dyed in a variety of colors. One look was enough to tell that they were spoiled rich kids.

“He tried to molest me.”

“This was only a misunderstanding.” Ke Bu instinctively released the bikini top in his hand and watched it drift farther away with the waves. A boy whose hair appeared bluish-purple beneath the sunlight shoved Ke Bu’s shoulder. “Looking for trouble?”

“No.” Ke Bu had no desire to waste more time on them and was about to turn around when someone grabbed his right arm. A brown-haired boy reached out to rough him up, but Ke Bu swiftly knocked his hand aside. He had not spent all these years beside Zhi Li for nothing. Without some instinct for avoiding danger, there was no way he would have survived until today.

The brown-haired boy felt humiliated. “You think you can just walk away?”

“What else do you want? I genuinely owe that girl an apology, but I don’t remember doing anything to offend the rest of you. Did I pull off your trousers too?”

“You’ve got quite a temper. Look at your shabby appearance, yet you still think you’re something special. What even are you? Who permitted you to swim here? Shouldn’t you be over there in the commoners’ area?” Only after the brown-haired boy said this did Ke Bu notice that there were indeed fewer people around this section of the beach. These boys probably relied on their families’ money to behave however they pleased and forbid others from swimming here.

Ke Bu was not the sort of person overflowing with righteousness. In fact, he was too lazy to waste his strength getting into conflicts with others. “Then I’ll take my leave and go to the commoners’ area.”

“Coward. We still haven’t settled the matter of you molesting my girlfriend.”

“Then I suppose you aristocrats are overthinking things. She isn’t my type. How could I possibly become interested enough to molest her?”

The bluish-purple-haired boy sneered. “What, do you prefer men instead?” He had intended to provoke Ke Bu, but Ke Bu merely shrugged. “Yes. Is there a problem?”

The boys immediately jumped away from Ke Bu as though they had suffered some terrible misfortune. “Disgusting. Get away from us.”

“Now I refuse to leave.” Ke Bu could laugh off other mockery and insults, but on this particular point, he stubbornly refused to retreat. The relatively normal-looking black-haired boy standing at the back wore a cross around his neck. He looked at Ke Bu with disgust. “My mother says people like you are sick and deserve to die. You will never receive God’s protection. The Bible says that if a man lies with another man as he would with a woman, they have both committed a detestable act and must be put to death. Their guilt is upon them.”

Hearing such direct and vicious words for the first time left Ke Bu unable to respond. He had chosen to remain there and accept their humiliation, yet he had never imagined he would be incapable of striking back against it. The color began draining from his face. He could proudly admit whom he loved. He had believed himself strong enough. But the distance between imagining such scenes and truly encountering one was immeasurable. He wanted to say something—that he was not sick, that he did not believe in God—but those answers suddenly seemed pale and powerless.

“Get lost and go somewhere else. Don’t spread your filth to us.” The brown-haired boy reached out to shove the distracted Ke Bu, only to let out a startled cry as he was suddenly dragged beneath the water. His brown hair quickly vanished below the surface. While the others remained frozen in shock, Zhi Li’s face and body emerged from the deep-blue sea. Water dripped from the ends of his hair, sliding across his beautiful face and skin before merging with the seawater. Zhi Li’s appearance was like an iron chain dragging Ke Bu free from his chaotic thoughts and binding his unease so tightly that it could no longer move.

“Zhi Li?” Ke Bu called softly.

He looked like a prince emerging from a dark fairy tale. Narrowing his eyes slightly, Zhi Li examined Ke Bu’s expression and the reddened swelling on the left side of his face. His voice carried a biting chill as his gaze swept across the group. “Who hit him?”

“W-Who are you? Why are you interfering?”

“Did you not understand the question?”

The brown-haired boy surfaced from the water, coughing continuously. “Who the fuck are you? Who allowed you to come here? This part of the sea is our territory.”

“Is that so? Then remain properly inside your territory.” Zhi Li did not even look at him. He reached out, grabbed the boy by the hair, and forced his head beneath the water. “Do not test my patience. Who hit him?” Zhi Li’s question allowed no refusal.

Xiao Xiao finally stammered, “I-It was me. So what?”

Seeing that the culprit was a girl, Zhi Li called a name toward the people behind him. “Dora.”

Not far away, an adorable girl wearing a swim ring paddled toward them with cheerful little hops, one canine tooth pressing against her lower lip. “Brother Zhi Li, you called Dora?”

Why was Dora still here?!! No wonder they had not seen her when Su You Yan left. Where exactly had she been lurking every night? The thought alone terrified Ke Bu.

Xiao Xiao glanced back at Dora’s innocent, delicate appearance and revealed a contemptuous expression, regaining some courage. “He molested me. So what if I hit him?”

“So what?” Danger entered Zhi Li’s eyes as he looked at them. “You dared to touch someone who belongs to me?”

As though receiving an order, Dora leaped onto Xiao Xiao’s back and clamped both legs around her, rendering her unable to move. Dora brought her face close to Xiao Xiao’s ear, her voice sweet. “What should we do? When Brother Zhi Li gets angry, Dora gets angry too.” Without warning, she reached out and violently tore one of Xiao Xiao’s earrings free. Xiao Xiao screamed in pain but could not escape Dora’s hold.

The black-haired boy clenched his hands tightly like a priest attempting to exorcise demons and continued murmuring passages from the Bible. “Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with desire for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received within themselves the punishment their wrongdoing deserved. You commit filth in the sight of God.”

Zhi Li tilted his head and walked over. He pushed the bluish-purple-haired boy aside and stopped directly before the black-haired boy. The boy took a step backward. Zhi Li stared at him coldly. “God also said not to envy, not to covet, not to murder, and not to steal. How many people in this world can obey every one of those commands? Don’t use the Bible to lecture me.”

Zhi Li hooked one finger beneath the necklace around the boy’s neck and toyed with it. His voice was like a demon’s from hell, seductive and cold. “If God dares to touch Ke Bu, I won’t let him off either.” With that, he tore the cross from the boy’s chest and threw it into the sea.

Zhi Li turned and extended a hand toward Ke Bu. “Let’s go. We’re going home.”

Ke Bu revealed a brilliant smile, placed his hand in Zhi Li’s, and nodded vigorously. “Mm!”

After walking only a few steps, Ke Bu suddenly remembered Dora and looked back. She was having the time of her life and appeared to have no intention of leaving.

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