Chapter 125 – The Taste of Home
A woman had died.
And then come back to life.
The last time something remotely similar had happened, an entire Russian mob family had been erased from existence—
every last one of them physically removed from the world, leaving their gravesites safer than their homes had ever been.
As for what would happen this time—
no one knew.
Maybe the world would simply lose one troublesome little brother.
Maybe things would become far messier.
But none of that was Ethan or John's problem anymore.
More accurately—
it was no longer Ethan's problem.
The marker had been fulfilled, though the trouble surrounding John hadn't fully ended yet.
For Ethan, however, things were finally over.
Whatever came next, there wasn't much he could do to help anyway.
"What do you mean, you're not coming back with me?"
Ethan stood in the hotel room, staring at John in surprise.
"No."
John's answer was brief.
"There's still a bounty on me. Traveling with you isn't safe."
"I'll stay in Rome a while longer and clean things up."
Ethan opened his mouth, then eventually settled on:
"…Alright."
Honestly, he couldn't think of a reason to argue.
Since he had already come all the way to Rome, there was no way he was leaving empty-handed.
During the final day, Ethan fully embraced tourist mode.
Buy. Buy. Buy.
For the men, he picked out understated but practical belts and wallets.
For the women—designer handbags, handcrafted perfumes, premium coffee beans, artisanal chocolate—
all authentic local specialties.
Painfully expensive local specialties.
On the last day, he packed his luggage, checked out of the hotel, and prepared to head to the airport alone.
"Hey, Julius."
Ethan found the manager in the lobby and offered his hand with a smile.
"I'm checking out. Thanks for everything—especially the room. It was incredible."
"Doctor Rayne."
Julius shook his hand, bowing noticeably deeper than he had during their first meeting.
"We look forward to your next visit to Rome."
He paused briefly before continuing naturally:
"You're heading to the airport now, correct?"
Ethan nodded.
Julius inclined his head slightly.
"If you don't mind, I would suggest allowing the hotel to handle your transportation."
"Oh?"
Ethan instinctively pulled out a gold coin.
"Thanks—"
"No payment is necessary."
Julius gently pushed the coin back toward him.
"This is one of the benefits extended to the owner of the Rayne Clinic as a partner of the Continental."
Ethan blinked, then slowly pocketed the coin again.
"Wow."
The reaction came from the heart.
"So there are hidden perks too? Thanks."
At Julius's signal, a hotel attendant had already picked up Ethan's luggage.
Together, they stepped outside the hotel entrance.
And Ethan stopped walking.
Waiting outside wasn't a single car.
It was a convoy.
Three identical black sedans sat lined up in perfect formation.
Motorcycle escorts waited at the front and rear, helmets concealing their faces while engines rumbled softly in the background.
The windows were reinforced dark glass, impossible to see through.
"…Okay."
Ethan instinctively asked,
"What exactly happened here?"
"This arrangement saves time," Julius replied calmly, as though this were completely normal.
"And helps avoid unnecessary variables."
Right.
The driver stepped out and opened the rear door for him.
Ethan climbed inside.
The moment the door shut, the world went silent.
The soundproofing was so complete Ethan briefly thought he'd gone deaf.
Leaning back into the seat, he muttered quietly:
"…This is insane."
"I'm starting to think somebody mistook me for a very important person."
More than ten hours later—
the plane landed in New York.
Familiar streets finally came back into view.
After hauling his luggage up four flights of stairs, Ethan at last returned to his apartment.
---
The door to 4A had only just cracked open when Sheldon's voice came from inside:
"Did your entire family… die?"
"No, no, no! That's not how you pronounce it!"
Another familiar voice drifted out from the living room.
"Sheldon, the way you just said that in Mandarin sounded way more like you were cursing my whole family."
"I was not cursing anyone."
Sheldon's tone was extraordinarily serious.
"I was merely following the tonal chart exactly as written."
He paused.
"The problem is that the tonal structure of this language is fundamentally irrational."
---
Ethan pushed the door fully open and stepped into the apartment.
Howard was sitting on the couch holding a sheet of paper covered in pinyin and tone markings.
Sheldon sat perfectly upright in his designated spot, back straight, hands resting neatly on his knees like an elementary school student earnestly learning a-o-e for the first time.
"Okay!" Ethan let out a relieved breath. "For a second I thought I walked into the wrong apartment."
The living room went silent for one second.
Then—
"Ethan!" Leonard shot to his feet first, genuine excitement on his face. "You're back! Welcome home!"
"Oh my God!"
Howard threw the paper aside and jumped up.
"You vanished for days like you got abducted by aliens!"
Sheldon remained motionless on the sofa.
"We were just discussing whether you had joined some secret organization in Europe and decided never to return."
"Sheldon."
Ethan set down his suitcase and looked at him.
"According to basic social etiquette, all you needed to say was 'welcome home.'"
He paused.
"Also… did I just hear somebody asking whether an entire family had died?"
He stared at Sheldon with visible curiosity.
"Sheldon… are you learning Chinese?"
"To be precise, Mandarin."
Sheldon corrected him instantly.
"I am merely conducting experimental research into the phonetic rules of the language."
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
"Interesting," he said.
"Because I very clearly remember offering to teach you Chinese before."
"I told you that if you learned it, you could directly communicate with over a billion people."
Ethan spread his hands.
"And then you refused."
"You said none of those billion people were smarter than you."
He paused.
"To be accurate, you believed nobody in the world was smarter than you."
"I need to clarify something."
Sheldon lifted his head and looked at Ethan with the solemnity of someone correcting launch parameters for a space shuttle.
"I never said Mandarin itself was meaningless."
Ethan raised a brow.
"Then before you—"
"What I said," Sheldon interrupted calmly, "was that language itself is meaningless."
The living room fell silent.
Everyone stared at him speechlessly.
Ignoring all of them, Sheldon continued:
"Language is an inefficient information-transfer protocol."
"It relies on pronunciation, grammar, ambiguity correction, and enormous amounts of redundant emotional decoration."
"From the standpoint of information transmission, it is extremely primitive."
Howard couldn't help interrupting.
"And yet every day you give us hour-long lectures at a thousand words per minute."
"That is because I am forced to exist within a social structure that has not yet completed its evolution," Sheldon replied calmly.
"If humanity had already achieved stable, controllable brainwave-based direct communication—"
He paused dramatically, as though waiting for everyone else to catch up.
"—then I wouldn't even need to learn English."
"I would simply transmit data packets."
"..."
"Okay! Yes! This is exactly the feeling!"
Ethan let out a long breath and collapsed onto the sofa.
"This is the taste of home."
He looked around the apartment.
"So, guys… did I miss anything while I was gone?"
"Penny got back together with Kurt," Leonard said.
"And then broke up again," Sheldon added immediately.
"Now she's dating some guy named Mike," Howard said. "According to her, he's in great shape, has amazing hair, and makes a lot of money."
Ethan nodded.
"Okay, so Penny had an eventful four days."
"What about you guys?"
The three men stared at each other for a while, apparently unable to think of anything noteworthy.
Finally, Howard broke the silence.
"Sheldon started learning Mandarin."
"..."
"Right," Ethan sighed. "So your lives have basically been… a beautiful cycle of repetition."
Honestly, it was tragic.
The combined lives of four grown men somehow still weren't as exciting as Penny's alone.
"So," Ethan said, turning back toward Sheldon, "why did you suddenly decide to learn Mandarin?"
"I suspect the Chinese restaurant intentionally substituted orange chicken for authentic tangerine-peel chicken," Sheldon said seriously.
"So I intend to learn Mandarin and confront them directly."
Ethan fell silent for a second.
"If I were you," he finally said, "I'd be more concerned about what they substituted for the actual chicken."
What he really wanted to complain about was—
why dishes like "orange-flavored chicken" or "tangerine-peel chicken" even existed in the first place.
And more importantly—
how the hell Sheldon could actually taste the difference.