Chapter 26: Chapter 26: The Morning After and Hidden Agendas

By the time it was over, Julian Sterling had been filled to the brim with semen. He lay sprawled on the bed in a daze, ignoring Ethan Caldwell, who was busy cleaning up the battlefield created by the two of them.

Julian’s eyelids grew heavier, and finally, he fell into a deep sleep.

Julian had a dream. He dreamt he returned to the other world, continuing his life as the wealthy and powerful crown prince of the Sterling family there. This time, his father forced him to go on a blind date with a young lady from a partner corporation.

In that dream, Julian actually went to the meeting place. However, he had barely sat down at the dining table and exchanged a sentence or two when a stranger rushed in and dragged him away.

That person locked him in a dark room, ruthlessly tormented him day and night, causing Julian to sink completely into overwhelming lust.

…

Gentle sunlight streamed in, and Julian turned over uncomfortably. A sensation of swelling and fullness from behind made him feel groggy, unable to distinguish whether this was reality or a dream.

It took a while for Julian to slowly realize this was Ethan’s house. Memories of last night came flooding back; that passionate lovemaking made Julian grit his teeth and curse Ethan dozens of times in his heart.

That beast! It was his fault Julian had that terrifying dream.

Julian had never had such frighteningly lewd thoughts before!

That bastard!

After cursing, Julian collapsed back onto the bed, not even having the strength to pick up his phone to check notifications.

His behind hurt, his front hurt, his legs hurt – everywhere hurt!

Ethan better not dream of touching him for the next week.

“Why the long face so early in the morning?” Ethan asked as he pushed the door open, seeing Julian huffing on the bed with a look of utter resentment. He chuckled softly, placed a small bowl of porridge on the bedside table, and then gathered both the person and the blanket into his arms. “Oh my, pouting so much you could hang a bottle on that lip.”

“Get lost!” Julian struggled a bit, but unexpectedly agitated his rear, causing him to gasp in pain, his eyes welling up with tears.

“Alright, alright, I know I was wrong. Be good now, don’t struggle, I’ll feed you.” Ethan coaxed him while picking up the bowl of porridge. Julian took a look; it seemed to be the fish porridge from yesterday, but it looked like there was minced meat in it too. He thought for a moment; Ethan had said it was early morning, so the cook probably hadn’t arrived yet.

It was porridge Ethan had cooked himself.

He hmphed, reluctantly opening his mouth to eat the spoonful Ethan offered. The porridge was cooked down to a mush, sliding softly down his throat; the fish meat was sweet, and the minced meat was well-ground. All in all, it suited his taste.

But the young master was unhappy, so he reached out, pulled Ethan’s hand to his mouth, and bit down hard to vent his anger.

His butt hurt, so his mood was terrible!

Ethan knew he had gone overboard yesterday, so he didn’t say anything, letting Julian bite him while he held him and coaxed him to eat the porridge.

“Doesn’t Director Caldwell have to go to work today?” Julian shot him a sideways glance.

“It’s Sunday today. I’m staying home with you.” After coaxing him to finish the bowl, Ethan wiped Julian’s mouth with a tissue, soothed him a bit more, and then carried the dirty bowl out.

Julian took a soft pillow to prop up his waist, reluctantly sat up leaning against the headboard, and opened his laptop. He accessed the hidden website where he had previously retrieved information about the data competition for Lucas Hill. After scrolling a bit, he discovered that his friend’s name was not on the list for the inner round. Julian frowned in thought.

Had Lucas failed? Was his skill that bad?

Then, as if remembering something, he hurriedly returned to the outer page to find the qualifying round list. After a few operations, a list of contestants originating from his country appeared on the screen. Julian scanned it and traced several IP addresses coming from Saint Lawrence City and some neighboring provinces. He carefully cross-referenced them and discovered two IP addresses were fake: one led to an orphanage in the suburbs, and the other was even more blatant, located in an empty, uninhabited area.

Julian chuckled softly.

If he guessed correctly, one of these fake addresses belonged to Lucas, and the other belonged to the target Julian had been eyeing recently: the second son of the Vaughn family, Vincent Vaughn.

The Vaughn family could be considered a major clan, though their roots were not in Saint Lawrence City but in the neighboring Kingston City. Recently, the eldest and second sons of the Vaughn family had come here to expand their business scale. They were also wavering between the aristocratic families of Saint Lawrence, so they hadn’t officially chosen a partner yet.

The reason Julian thought the other person was Vincent Vaughn was because he knew this second son was ambitious but always overshadowed by his eldest brother. This generation of the Vaughn family had three members. Victor Vaughn was the eldest, tacitly acknowledged by the family as the heir. Dylan Vaughn was the youngest, spoiled rotten by the whole family. Only the middle child, Vincent, was in a somewhat awkward position. In terms of talent and ability, he was not inferior to his older brother, yet he wasn’t recognized. In terms of flattery within the home, Vincent didn’t like to grovel like the youngest, so he wasn’t favored by the elders either. Furthermore, if Julian remembered correctly, in the original work, Vincent was currently pursuing a poor girl, preparing to build his own “domineering CEO chases his wife” storyline. Unfortunately, how could the Vaughn family agree to let their son marry someone so common and impoverished?

Vincent Vaughn had predicted this early on, so from the moment he realized he liked that poor girl, he had plotted to separate from his family. The original work also mentioned that some time later, Vincent won a fairly large financial data competition and finally decisively cut ties with the Vaughn family to strike out on his own.

That competition was only mentioned in passing; Julian hadn’t read the novel carefully, so he didn’t know the details. But now, with his presence and the appearance of that website – plus the data competition opening at just the right time – Julian suspected that the real world he used to live in and this novel world were connected.

However, he currently didn’t have the ability to investigate much; the priority now was to quickly build his own power.

Fortunately, he could take advantage of this.

Julian narrowed his eyes, opened the email notification accepting him into the outer round, and smirked.

It wasn’t just those two who knew how to create fake identities; he did too. Moreover, the identity Julian created to compete happened to be his account from his previous life, so everything went very smoothly.

The notification email was addressed to “Azure Caine.”

Azure was the name of his family’s company in his previous life, and also the place where he had dedicated almost his entire life. Caine was his mother’s maiden name; this name had accompanied Julian to many places in that other world. Here, he also wanted to have a separate empire dedicated to Azure Caine.

Footsteps sounded outside. Julian hurriedly closed the website, then opened a stock market page, leisurely browsing through it.

“Working so hard even on a day off?” Ethan came in carrying a glass of water. Seeing Julian looking at the stock market, he teased him with a smile.

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