Assistant Qiu glanced through the rearview mirror at the young man who had remained silent since getting into the car.
He was not familiar with the second young master of the Tang family, but he did know certain things. This was the first time the two of them had been in such close contact.
Compared to President Tang’s mature and refined demeanor, Tang Mo possessed more of a young man’s sharp edge. In particular, every time he met Tang Mo’s gaze, Assistant Qiu felt as if he were looking at a crouching lone wolf. He found such a thought somewhat laughable because, as far as he knew, the heir to the Tang family had already been decided; this second young master did not have the ability to compete with the eldest.
Moreover, with the marriage alliance between the Tang and Su families ahead, the eldest young master Tang was currently in high spirits and would not spare a glance for this half-brother.
The ride remained silent, and the car soon stopped at the entrance of Beijing University.
Tang Mo got out of Assistant Qiu’s car, completely ignoring the other man’s attempt to say goodbye, and turned to walk toward the other side. Seeing that he did not look like he was heading back to the dorms, Assistant Qiu drove the car over.
“Is the Second Young Master going out again?”
Tang Mo looked at him with a cold expression. “Where I go does not seem to be something I need to tell you.”
Assistant Qiu said, “President Su asked me to send the Second Young Master back. I am just speaking up on President Su’s behalf, lest he asks me and I cannot account for your whereabouts.”
Hearing him mention “President Su” repeatedly made Tang Mo feel a bit impatient. He stared at Assistant Qiu with a gaze as sharp as a shuttle for a long while, but Assistant Qiu maintained his polite and professional smile.
“If Brother Chengning asks you, just say I went home.”
Assistant Qiu replied with a slight smile, “Alright, Second Young Master.”
As Assistant Qiu was about to leave, Tang Mo suddenly called out to stop him.
“Does my brother go to see Brother Chengning often?”
Assistant Qiu shook his head and replied truthfully, “President Tang is quite busy. Unless there is official business, he basically does not come to find President Su.”
Tang Mo had not expected to hear such an answer and was stunned for a moment. After a long pause, he asked again, “Then does Brother Chengning go to find my brother often?”
Assistant Qiu smiled slightly and shook his head. “President Su is also very busy.”
He had been an assistant by Su Chengning’s side for three years, and today was the first time President Su had skipped work for an entire day without a reason. He was surprised when he first received President Su’s call, especially when President Su gave that particular order. He thought President Su and President Tang had quarreled. Later, when he received the call again, he assumed the two had made up. Consequently, upon seeing Tang Mo, Assistant Qiu had to work hard to maintain his outward composure and professional smile.
Tang Mo obtained a satisfying answer from Assistant Qiu’s faint smile. The originally stifling and gloomy mood now had a sliver of joy creeping up, causing even his icy face to soften.
He raised his hand and waved at Assistant Qiu: “Goodbye.”
Assistant Qiu waved back politely: “Goodbye, Second Young Master.”
When Wang Shu received Tang Mo’s call, he was having a blast dancing with a group of fair-weather friends at a bar.
“Brother Mo, you are back at school?” He picked up the phone and pushed away the people crowded around him. Someone leaned in to greet him, but he shooed them away with a wave of his hand.
He found a slightly quieter corner, just in time to hear Tang Mo’s faint voice through the phone: “Yeah.”
“You couldn’t have spent the night with your big beauty already, could you?” Wang Shu lowered his voice, his face full of envy as he imagined a scene of romance.
“Brother Chengning kicked me out.”
“But from the sound of your voice, you do not seem that sad.”
“I was a bit sad at first.” Tang Mo remembered Su Chengning’s decisiveness in kicking him out without hesitation, and he felt incredibly wronged. However, the news he got from Assistant Qiu later made him feel that his brother and Brother Chengning did not seem very intimate either.
He looked in the mirror; there was a scratch on the back of his neck, and even a faint, light-colored tooth mark on his right shoulder. These marks made him exceptionally happy. Like an extremely boastful male peacock, he proudly announced to his childhood friend: “I am now in the most intimate relationship with Brother Chengning.”
Wang Shu pondered for a moment. “Does that sentence mean what I think it means?” His tone carried a hint of uncertainty, but his eyes instantly brightened several degrees.
Was the progress that fast?
“Could it be because your brother found a mistress, so the big beauty is using you to get revenge on your brother?” He could not be blamed for thinking this; such plots were common in television dramas.
Tang Mo’s smug expression was instantly deflated by this sentence, like a smiley-face balloon turning wrinkled and ugly after losing air. His face darkened.
“Your brother did something wrong to me, so from now on, you have to atone for your brother’s sins.”
That sentence flashed through his mind, and Tang Mo, like a small eggplant struck by winter frost, suddenly felt his mood drop.
After voicing his guess, Wang Shu immediately regretted it and slapped his own mouth. Knowing that Tang Mo had harbored a secret crush for so many years and had finally made some progress, why was he so loose-lipped?
“Of course, it is also possible the big beauty saw your brother’s true colors and decided it is better to ‘eat young grass’.” Wang Shu changed his tune and began to comfort him.
“Think about it, you are taller and more handsome than your brother, dashing and suave. Given the same family background, the most important thing is that you are young.” He began to rack his brain for compliments.
“What does being young signify—?”
Tang Mo’s low mood eased slightly. “What does it signify?”
Wang Shu snapped his fingers sharply toward the phone, but unfortunately, the bar was too loud, and he only heard a muffled thud.
“It signifies good stamina.”
“With good stamina, you can better satisfy your big beauty.”
Wang Shu’s logic left Tang Mo stunned for a moment. Once he reacted, his tone became somewhat subtle as he said, “He complained that my technique was poor.”
Wang Shu’s eyes lit up: They definitely did it.
“Poor technique does not matter; who has good technique their first time?” He began to encourage his good brother in various ways. “We just need to practice more. Once is strange, twice is familiar, and the third time you will hit a hole-in-one.”
“You used to complain when I dragged you to watch films, now you see my painstaking efforts, right?”
Tang Mo: “…”
Wang Shu added, “How about I dig up some materials for you later to hone your technique…”
“No need.” Tang Mo rejected him immediately without thinking. “I have no interest in researching those things with you.”
The cruelly rejected Wang Shu: “…”
This is probably a plastic brotherhood.
“As if I really wanted to research them with you,” he muttered to himself.
Tang Mo: “I need you to help me with something tomorrow.”
Hearing the seriousness in his tone, Wang Shu put away his playful attitude. “What is it?”
The next day was a beautiful, clear day.
When Su Chengning woke up, he was still a bit dazed. He lay there quietly for a while before walking barefoot into the bathroom. By the time he finished washing up, half an hour had passed.
He changed into a semi-casual suit. The pure, water-like ice blue color accentuated his snowy, fair temperament, making him look even more untainted like a noble, cold phoenix whose every gesture exuded elegance.
He was very satisfied with this outfit; his only dissatisfaction was that the shirt collar was a bit low, barely covering the faint red marks on his neck. His handsome brows furrowed slightly toward the center, and he irritably pulled out a bottle of concealer. Using his fingertip to dab a bit of the cream, he carefully covered the red marks that might invite unwanted speculation.
By the time Su Chengning was ready and came downstairs, Assistant Qiu had already been waiting for a while. Upon meeting, Assistant Qiu handed him a phone. “President Tang called me five times last night and sent a bunch of messages. I only took one call according to your instructions, President Su.”
Su Chengning glanced indifferently at the phone. “Is he anxious?”
“Tang Group has, after all, already invested so much. With you blocking him like this, President Su, he is bound to be anxious,” Assistant Qiu spoke the truth.
Hearing this, Su Chengning only gave a cold snort. Combined with his aloof temperament, it made Assistant Qiu feel that President Su was remarkably cold-hearted and detached at this moment.
“Just anxious? That is hardly enough.”
Assistant Qiu drove the car out, and only after a long while did a light sentence drift from the backseat. As a qualified worker, even if Assistant Qiu was curious about how President Tang had offended President Su, he would not court death by gossiping.
He drove all the way to the airport and took Su Chengning’s luggage from the trunk.
“President Su, do you really not need me to accompany you?”
“To do what?” Su Chengning slightly masked the coldness in his eyes and glanced at the crowded airport. “The branch office in Linhai City has people there. During the two days I am away, you can handle unimportant matters yourself.”
Standing in the airport hall, Su Chengning was tall, long-legged, and exceptionally good-looking. Passing travelers instinctively lingered their gazes on him. He did not care about those admiring and stunned looks; he simply raised his eyes to look at Assistant Qiu.
“If Tang Mo comes looking for me, just say I have gone on a business trip for two days.”
Thinking of Tang Mo’s pitiful and aggrieved expression when he was kicked out yesterday, Su Chengning found it somewhat amusing. If another grown man had made that expression, Su Chengning probably would have kicked him out for real. But thinking of Tang Mo, for some reason, he just found it a bit cute.
Of course, he would never say that to Tang Mo’s face.
Assistant Qiu replied, “If the Second Young Master Tang comes, I will relay the message.”
Three hours later, Su Chengning emerged from the Linhai City airport and immediately got into the car sent by the branch office. Inside the car, a manager from the branch office sat beside Su Chengning, giving a report.
He looked a bit anxious. “President Su, President Tang has been waiting for a long time—”
Su Chengning raised a hand to stop him, his eyelids lifting slightly to look at the manager.
“Manager Gao seems to want to speak on behalf of President Tang.” His tone was neither salty nor sweet, yet it caused a bead of cold sweat to break out on Manager Gao’s forehead.
Manager Gao laughed hollowly. “Not at all.”
“I am just troubled. President Tang was clamoring yesterday about going back to the capital to talk to you in person, President Su. If Assistant Qiu had not said you would be coming personally today, I am afraid if I kept blocking him, he would have torn me apart.” He wore a troubled expression, looking exhausted from the effort of dealing with President Tang.
“I thought Tang Chen sent you to be a lobbyist,” Su Chengning looked at him with some irony.
“No, how could I be a lobbyist?” Manager Gao guiltily pulled out a tissue to wipe his sweat, not forgetting to explain: “The temperature in Linhai City has warmed up these past few days; I am a bit hot.” As he spoke, he shouted to the driver in front, “Xiao Zhang, turn on the air conditioning.”
“It is only early April and Manager Gao already needs air conditioning to cool down. I am afraid your body might be suffering from yin deficiency,” Su Chengning said quietly while looking at him. Compared to Manager Gao’s bloated and obese figure, Su Chengning’s slender and elegant frame was naturally more pleasing to the eye.
Driver Xiao Zhang did not know for a moment whether to press the air conditioning button.
Su Chengning spoke with a strict voice: “Manager Gao told you to turn on the air conditioning, did you not hear him?”
Xiao Zhang’s hand trembled as he pressed the button, and the cold air soon blew from the front to the back seat. Su Chengning pulled his clothes tighter. “Fortunately, I am wearing quite a bit today; otherwise, I really would not be able to stand the weather here in Linhai.”
“Actually, I am not that hot. Xiao Zhang, turn it off.” As the air blew on his head, Manager Gao felt a chill enter his body. The sudden change from hot to cold made him restless.
Su Chengning seemed to have had enough of admiring Manager Gao’s embarrassment and panic, as he spoke slowly: “I am a bit tired. I will go to the hotel to rest first.”
Hearing this, Manager Gao was stunned for a moment. He quickly reacted and was about to say that President Tang was still waiting at the office, but the moment he met Su Chengning’s cold gaze, he immediately changed his tune.
“Then I will go and entertain President Tang a bit more.”
Su Chengning gave a non-committal “Mhm.”
Tang Chen had already become extremely impatient, but he never expected Su Chengning to go straight to the hotel to rest, leaving him hanging. He was so angry he nearly smashed the phone in his hand.
A staff member from the Su branch office kept apologizing. “President Tang, we are truly sorry. President Su said he is quite exhausted from catching the flight this morning and was afraid of neglecting you, so he went to freshen up first.”
Tang Chen felt a lump of anger in his chest, yet he had to work hard to maintain his usual refined image.
“Then I will go to the hotel to find him.” This sentence was uttered in an almost teeth-gritting tone.
“President Su said he does not want you running back and forth, fearing you might get tired.” Despite the perfunctory nature of the words, the staff member spoke them with great earnestness, allowing one to feel the consideration and care in the speech. “President Su has arranged for the best chef in Linhai City to prepare a meal for you, President Tang. Please appreciate President Su’s hard work.”
I appreciate him, but who appreciates me?
Tang Chen almost wanted to rush up and grab the staff member by the collar and scream. Finally, under the suppression of what was called reason, he endured it.
Once the staff member left, he viciously kicked a chair in the meeting room. The chair crashed to the floor with a piercing screech, seemingly adding fuel to the fire of Tang Chen’s rage. His heavy breathing echoed through the large, empty room.
After a long while, Tang Chen gritted his teeth and pressed a hated phone number.
“Tang Mo, have you seen Su Chengning lately?”