The System Keeps Making Me Do Indecent Missions [BL, R18]

Chapter 109: Chapter 109: Fading

That evening, after the servants cleared the dining table, Dominic Vance did not go up to the study as usual. He stayed seated on the sofa in the small living room, scrolling through his phone, but his eyes occasionally glanced toward Lucien, who was curled up in the opposite corner of the sofa, holding a sketchbook without drawing anything.

After a long while, he put away the phone and suddenly spoke up, "Lucien."

Lucien startled and looked up: "Yes?"

"What do you plan to do in the future? Is there anything you want?"

Lucien looked at him in bewilderment. This question had never appeared in any scenario he had anticipated: "In the future...?"

Dominic Vance leaned back, resting his arm on the sofa in a relaxed posture: "Yes. Do you want to go to school? Study art, or do something else? You are still so young, you cannot possibly wander around this house for the rest of your life, can you?"

Lucien lowered his head. His fingers rubbed the edge of the sketchbook over and over until the cover wrinkled. Dominic’s words touched something in Lucien’s chest, both warm and painful: "I..."

"I just want to be by your side."

After speaking, he did not dare to look up. The silence stretched on so long that he thought Dominic had left. But no, Dominic Vance’s voice sounded again, deep and steady, without any hint of teasing, "Being by my side does not mean you cannot do anything else."

Lucien looked up. Dominic’s eyes were still deep and hard to read, but Lucien saw no superficial politeness in them. Lucien tilted his head, occasionally, he felt the male lead of this world was not too bad. His nose tingled. Lucien knew this was not his own emotion, but the lingering feelings of the original host. However, he ignored it, his eyes curving into a smile: "The future is too far away, let’s take our time. I am not fully recovered yet."

Dominic Vance looked at him for a moment and did not press further: "Up to you."

That night, Dominic Vance’s "up to you" made Lucien lie awake, unable to sleep. He turned his face to the wall, his eyes wide open in the dark.

"He is moved, isn’t he?"

That night, Dominic Vance’s "up to you" kept Lucien awake. He turned to the wall, his eyes wide open in the dark. His hands tightly gripped the edge of the blanket. The future. Dominic had asked him about the future. That luxury was something he did not dare to think about, nor was he allowed to think about.

In his head, the dry electronic voice of 000 echoed again, not answering his question, but stating something even more noteworthy: [Target’s affection progress: 64%. Increased by 2% after tonight’s conversation.]

Lucien closed his eyes, whispering, "Too slow."

[Does the host wish to propose an acceleration plan?]

"What plan?"

[Create a life-or-death situation. Proximity to death often stimulates strong emotional responses.]

Lucien almost laughed out loud: "No need to create one. Don’t you see I am actually dying?"

The system fell silent for a few seconds. Then it sounded again, its voice as monotonous as reading a report: [If the host dies before completing the mission, the soul will be permanently eliminated, unable to return to the real world.]

"I know." Lucien pulled the blanket up to cover his chin, his voice trailing off: "Of course I know."

A few days later, Lucien became visibly emaciated.

Dominic Vance said nothing. But at every meal, he quietly put more food into Lucien’s bowl. Every morning before going to work, he told the servants to prepare warm milk, leaving it right where Lucien usually sat. In the afternoon, he always returned with a small paper bag in his hand. Sometimes it was apple pie, sometimes egg tarts, and some days it was a few goat milk candies that he claimed "a partner gave me, throw them away if you don’t want them".

Lucien smiled whenever he received a bag, but he would stop after eating half. He could not swallow; his sense of taste was fading, as if this world was draining every bit of sensation from his body. Once, he stood before the bathroom sink, watching the water flow over his hands. He could not even feel the freezing water, only a numb, foreign sensation, as if they were someone else’s hands.

He started wearing more layers. Even with the warm heating inside the house, he draped a thin cardigan over his t-shirt. Dominic Vance once asked, "Are you cold?"

He just smiled. "I just feel a bit chilly."

Dominic looked at him and said nothing. The next day, a small heater appeared in the room, placed next to the sofa.

He also coughed more often, short, dry coughs, as if something was stuck in his throat that he could not clear. Dominic Vance made him take cough syrup, the orange-flavored kind. He said it was too sweet, but still drank it. Every time he coughed, he made an excuse to go to the bathroom, turning the faucet on high to drown out the sound. Then he would look at the red streaks spreading across his palms. Calmly wash them away. Dry them. And walk out with a smile as if nothing had happened.

That afternoon, Dominic Vance came home later than usual due to an unexpected meeting. He stepped into the house at nearly six o’clock to find the living room empty. Lucien’s sketchbook was open on the table, colored pencils scattered all over the surface.

But the person was nowhere to be seen.

"Every other day at this hour, he is still sitting right here," he thought to himself, then asked the servant wiping the stairs, "Where is Lucien?"

"Sir, he went up to the bathroom a while ago."

Dominic Vance nodded and sat down on the sofa to wait.

Nearly fifteen minutes passed, yet Lucien still did not appear. Dominic Vance started to feel something was wrong. The man stood up and went up the stairs, his footsteps a beat faster than usual. The bedroom door was ajar, and the bathroom door inside was closed. He knocked lightly: "Lucien?"

There was no answer.

He knocked harder: "Lucien, are you in there?"

There was no answer from inside, only the sound of running water, steady as if it had been left on for a long time.

Dominic Vance hesitated no longer. He twisted the doorknob, fortunately, it was unlocked. The door swung open, and cold steam rushed out. Lucien lay slumped on the tiled floor, curled up, one hand clinging to the edge of the bathtub as if he had tried to get up but failed. His face was pale white, his lips purplish.

"Lucien!" Dominic Vance dropped to his knees, sliding his hands under the young man’s armpits to lift him up. Lucien’s body was weightless, freezing cold, and drenched in water from the still-running faucet. Dominic Vance turned off the faucet, carried him straight to the bed, and conveniently snatched the blanket to wrap around him. As he wrapped him, he shouted out the door, "Call the doctor! Hurry!"

The servant scrambled away in a panic. Dominic Vance sat by the bed, his hands still holding the young man’s shoulders. Only then did he realize that through the wet clothes, Lucien’s shoulder blades protruded clearly, so thin that he was nothing but skin and bones. He remembered carrying him to bed after a fever once. He was light then too, but not to this extent.

"How did it come to this?" he whispered, not knowing if he was asking Lucien or himself.

The doctor arrived within twenty minutes. This time, he did not click his tongue and shake his head like before; his face was distinctly serious. After the examination, he pulled Dominic Vance into a corner, his voice lowered. "Mr. Vance, I must tell the truth. This condition is not good at all. His body is severely exhausted, as if something is draining his vitality from the inside. But I cannot find a specific cause. All indicators are vague, unlike common pathologies."

Dominic Vance fell silent for a moment. He looked toward the bed, where Lucien was lying in a deep slumber, his face still devoid of any color.

"What should we do now?"

"I will administer intravenous nutrition and prescribe supplementary medicine, but the most important thing is to monitor him closely. If he faints again, I suggest taking him to the hospital, even if he doesn’t like it."

After the doctor left, Dominic Vance sat down on the edge of the bed. He looked at the IV line inserted into the pale back of Lucien’s hand. He watched the young man’s chest rise and fall weakly under the blanket. Then he took Lucien’s other hand, the one without the IV, and held it in his palm. Lucien’s hand was freezing cold; Dominic rubbed it gently, as if wanting to transfer some warmth over.

"Don’t make me worry."

He spoke very softly, almost only for himself to hear.

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