Omega Manual chapter 17

Wilderness East

The next day, when they set off, Shelley began to adapt to traveling on horseback.

Riding on the back of a strange creature wasn’t as unbearable as he had imagined. The white horse was gentle, obedient to Irey’s commands from start to finish, and didn’t show any signs of dissatisfaction carrying two people on its back.

The only discomfort was that Shelley had tossed and turned all night due to the conditions of camping. Then, just as he finally got a bit of sleep, he was awakened by Irey’s loud voice, telling him they had to leave early to reach Leisau before sunset.

As a result, when the two of them and the horse hit the road, only a faint glow appeared in the sky, and most of the wilderness was still shrouded in thick darkness.

Irey pulled the reins, glanced down at his boss huddled in his arms, and couldn’t help but smile. Shelley’s blond hair was tousled, a tuft sticking up at the temple, bouncing up and down with the bumps. He almost lay entirely on the horse’s neck, his eyes squinted into slits, his chin occasionally knocking against his chest.

Irey became a bit mischievous, freed one hand, and reached around to pinch Shelley’s nose.

Shelley’s eyes widened immediately. He yanked Irey’s hand away, “Halton! What’s wrong with you?”

Irey lowered his hand with a smile, “Wake up, boss, or you’ll fall off the horse.”

Shelley gave a reluctant grunt from his throat, sat up straight with difficulty, and yawned.

“Didn’t sleep well last night?” Irey asked knowingly.

“Who could, with someone snoring all night?” Shelley retorted sarcastically.

“That’s nonsense, I never snore,” Irey said.

“How would you know?”

“At least no one I’ve lived with has ever mentioned it,” Irey said. “And those guys, if I snored and disturbed their sleep, they would bundle me up in my blanket and throw me out the window in the middle of the night.”

After saying this, he paused and shrugged, “One guy actually caught a cold that way and had a fever for a week.”

Shelley: “…”

He could hardly imagine what kind of life Irey had lived before.

Sleepiness surged back up, and Shelley yawned again. His temples throbbed, reminding him that his body wasn’t as resilient as it used to be.

He took out his phone and glanced at the time; it was not yet six o’clock.

Except for the days when he worked overtime five years ago, it had been a long time since he got up this early.

Irey glanced at Shelley’s phone and suddenly said, “I checked it last night.”

“What?”

“There really are porn videos in it.”

Shelley almost choked on his own saliva, “What?”

“I said, the phone you gave me, it really has porn videos in it,” Irey said gleefully, “And quite a variety too. Straight, gay, lesbian, everything. Your family has quite the heavy tastes, keeping such intense stuff. Some of it even I can’t handle…”

“IreyHalton!” Shelley snapped, “Can’t you stop acting like an animal!”

Irey didn’t mind, “What’s wrong with being an animal? Humans are animals too. No matter how sanctimonious, we can’t escape our animal nature.”

“That’s different! The fundamental difference between humans and animals is that humans have moral standards and values, you—”

Irey glanced at him and smiled ambiguously, “Come on, are you saying you’ve never watched porn in thirty years?”

This question left Shelley speechless, his cheeks slowly turning red. His skin was naturally paler than most, so when he blushed, it was especially noticeable, like a ripe tomato.

Of course, he had watched it before; he just couldn’t accept casually discussing such things!

This topic was not only dirty and inappropriate but also personal and private. How could anyone talk about it so lightly? It should be basic common sense for any well-mannered person!

Yet Irey’s question seemed to unintentionally break an invisible wall, like a tacit conspiracy, like the smoke that had filled his mouth the night before, scratching an itch in the dark.

Just as he was struggling to find something to retort, Irey suddenly tugged on the reins and patted his shoulder.

“Boss, look.”

Shelley instinctively followed Irey’s finger and saw a bright red sun slowly rising from the eastern horizon in the wilderness.

From that tiny outline at the center, the rays of the morning sun burst forth from the clouds, spreading fire-like colors across the wilderness, igniting the sky, the forest, the ruins, and the lake, and illuminating the white horse’s mane and finally Irey’s profile.

The darkness melted away into the sunlight like a wisp of ink, dissolving and disappearing. Everything dead, cold, hard, and desolate vanished the moment the sun leaped over the horizon.

A distant bird call echoed, and the blue lake shimmered under the morning sun, so lively it seemed a fish might jump out of the water at any moment.

The world looked completely different in the sunlight, and Shelley was speechless, stunned by the view.

Irey glanced at Shelley and curled his lips, “I was as shocked as you when I first saw this. How incredible that such a magnificent sight happens every morning.”

“You remind me of a poem I once read,” Shelley said softly, “‘Every day we live is a new miracle, but numbness shrouds the soul’s eyes, mistaking it for ordinary.'”

The sun quickly rose fully over the horizon, illuminating the entire wilderness. Just then, Shelley noticed a familiar red sports car approaching from a distance, honking.

Irey tugged the reins to slow the horse, and the red sports car soon stopped in front of them.

The window rolled down, and a thin man in his fifties stuck his head out. Seeing Irey, his sparse eyebrows rose enthusiastically.

“Well, what a coincidence! I was thinking of looking for you in town, and here you are!”

“Is the car fixed?” Irey asked.

“Fixed, and fast too! Just two tires and some minor scrapes, easy job.” The man spoke with a wet lisp, spitting everywhere, “Check it yourself, guaranteed no problem!”

Shelley’s eyebrows knitted into a small mountain as he looked at Irey, “Is this the master you found?”

“Yeah,” Irey said, dismounting, “You think this isn’t Nantes? It’s good enough to find someone who knows about cars here.”

The man got out of the car, and Irey walked around it, inspecting the tires and patting the hood, “Yep, looks good.”

“Of course!” The man proudly lifted his chin and began boasting, “I’m not bragging, but before the meteorite hit, people called me the car wizard. Folks would line up from Sky City to Nantes to have me check and fix their cars! No matter the issue, whether it’s the engine or the transmission system…”

Irey interrupted him, “How much?”

The man first chuckled twice and then rubbed his thin, shriveled hands together. “Look, I replaced the tires with the best and newest ones for you, polished up the scratches, washed the car, and drove it all the way here from the ruins… I won’t ask for much. Just give me five thousand yuan.”

Irey almost laughed out of anger, “Five thousand?”

“Look at this beautiful, charming Omega you have here, surely worth no less than 800,000 yuan?” the man whispered, “For someone as wealthy as you, five thousand is just pocket change, why quibble with someone like me…”

Irey took a deep breath and pulled out a cigarette from his pocket. It seemed he would have to get used to situations like this happening often.

“I suggest you apologize to him,” Irey pointed to Shelley, then to the car, “The car is his, the money is his, he’s my boss, and I’m his driver.”

Wan Chetong looked at Irey, then at Shelley, his expression changing several times, and tentatively asked, “…Is this the new trend now?”

Irey couldn’t hold back and cursed, “Fuck you—”

“Halton,” Shelley frowned.

“You only replaced two tires, washed the car, and one of the tires was already on the car,” Irey said. “You didn’t repaint or repair the scratches, at most you wiped the dirt off. So what exactly am I paying five thousand for? One tire?”

Wan Chetong’s eyebrows furrowed, “How can you talk like that? In this cold weather, I had to prepare tools and come all this way to fix your car. Do you think that’s easy? In today’s world, if you have the ability, go find the tires yourself! I guarantee you won’t find another person in all of Sodu willing to take this job!”

“Bullshit,” Irey said. “It’s just changing a tire. Even the old man next door could do it. Why don’t you just go rob someone?”

The man shrugged nonchalantly and even whistled twice. “Are you going to pay or not? Anyway, I still have the car keys. If you don’t pay—”

As he spoke, the man twirled the car keys around his finger, pretending he was about to throw them into the lake.

Irey reached out and grabbed the man’s collar.

His movement was swift and fierce; the man didn’t even have time to react. Just as Irey’s fist was about to land on the man’s chin, Shelley suddenly shouted.

“Halton!”

Irey’s fist stopped mid-air.

Shelley took something out of his backpack and threw it to the man. It rolled on the dry grass and stopped at the man’s feet.

The man took a closer look and saw it was a small, heavy piece of gold.

He immediately picked up the gold piece with a wide grin, “This boss is generous, thank you! Have a safe journey!” Then, as if afraid Shelley would regret it, he threw the car keys on the ground and ran away.

“…,” Irey picked up the car key and looked at Shelley, “I’ve seen plenty of people like him, all bark and no bite. Plus, he couldn’t react in time to my punch, a good beating and he’d behave.”

“I know,” Shelley said.

“Do you think the police will come to this no man’s land?” Irey said, “There’s no surveillance here, no one in charge. Beating someone up is nothing, no one would even know if you killed someone—”

“I know,” Shelley interrupted, emphasizing his words.

“Fine, fine, do whatever you want. If you want to throw gold into the lake, that’s up to you,” Irey sarcastically said as he opened the sports car door. “Might as well build a golden slide for the money to slide down comfortably.”

“You found this person, and you still have the nerve to talk?” Shelley frowned. “Sodu is so big, and you found a scammer?”

“Do you know how many places I had to go to find someone willing to take this job? Just because he’s a person from Leisau and was on his way home…” Irey irritably ran his hand through his hair. “Damn, he’s from Leisau, no wonder.”

“What’s wrong with people from Leisau?” Shelley asked.

“Leisau is right next to Lansai, very close,” Irey said.

Shelley frowned, clearly not understanding what Irey meant.

“Forget it, you’ll understand when we get there,” Irey stood up straight, patted the car door, and looked at Shelley who was still on horseback. “Aren’t you getting in the car? Do I need to kneel and apologize?”

Shelley pursed his lips, a slight blush appearing on his fair cheeks.

“I…” he coughed lightly, his voice small, “I don’t know how to get off the horse.”