Mr. Huo, the branch office has already submitted the data for the Nancheng investment and development project. The project manager mentioned that the Wei family sent a letter, seemingly hoping to trade the technology in their hands for a partnership.
Hearing a familiar name out of nowhere, Huo Yuanzhou paused the hand that was flipping through the documents, and another person instantly flashed into his mind.
He waved his hand to interrupt his assistant’s upcoming report. Is Wei Chun still downstairs?
The assistant was slightly and imperceptibly stunned for a fraction of a second, not expecting his workaholic boss to proactively interrupt a work report. However, he quickly reacted and figured out who his boss was asking about. He flipped through the pile of documents on the desk, opened another file, and spread it out in front of his boss while answering, Yes, Mr. Wei Chun arrived in the afternoon and has been waiting until now. Would you like to meet with him, or should I have the front desk directly send him away?
Huo Yuanzhou did not answer right away. He simply flipped through the extracted documents that the assistant had pulled out once more.
Wei Chun: the second young master of the Wei family. The person who compiled the data had even thoughtfully added the word former in parentheses right next to his name.
Because the family secret about him being swapped at birth had been exposed, he had now been cast out and driven away from the family home.
Wei’s father held an attitude of utter indifference toward this Omega son, but Wei’s mother doted on her son down to his very bones, which ultimately cultivated his spoiled, willful, and unbridled personality.
His university was an arts-focused school located within the country. Word had it that back in high school, he spent a massive amount of money on private tutoring just to barely scrape past the minimum admission threshold. Yet, once he got inside, he still refused to apply himself to his studies, choosing instead to commute from home every single day. His university coursework either resulted in failing grades or required him to pay others to complete his assignments on his behalf.
Aside from these shortcomings, his lifestyle habits were even more deserving of the label of luxury and debauchery.
Unlike other second-generation heirs whose hobby was collecting luxury sports cars and private yachts, Wei Chun’s love for all kinds of jewelry was common knowledge. His doting elder sister, the eldest Miss Wei, made it a point to browse local jewelry shops every single time she went on a business trip anywhere, solely to bring back some novel trinkets as souvenirs for her younger brother. Surrounding him were plenty of sycophants who fawned over him and catered to his every whim, and no shortage of bootlickers who scoured everywhere just to appease him.
Once, at a charity auction, he had gotten into a physical altercation with someone without any regard for the consequences, all over a rare pink diamond. In the end, it was the eldest Miss Wei who had to step forward personally to smooth things over and clean up the mess, while he himself had long since been whisked away to Hong Kong by his doting mother to lie low and avoid the storm.
Altogether, he was essentially a good-for-nothing, uneducated scion whose only talent was spending money.
Huo Yuanzhou murmured to himself, Could it be that he couldn’t even survive a single day after being kicked out?
This dossier compiled by the assistant was something Huo Yuanzhou had already looked over once this afternoon when Wei Chun suddenly showed up at the company requesting an appointment to meet. Now, he was merely reviewing it a second time.
Turning to the very final page of the file, there was a photograph of Wei Chun.
Judging by the angle, it looked like a candid paparazzi shot, only a profile view. He was leaning against the counter of a bar, the fingers holding his wine glass slender and white as a handful of snow under the warm illumination.
Huo Yuanzhou’s finger pressed against the pure white profile in the photograph for a moment before he instructed his assistant, Let him come up.
Got it. Should I have him wait in the meeting room? As a competent assistant, he would never voice any doubts regarding any decision made by his boss. Not wasting a single second, the assistant immediately prepared for the arrangements ahead.
No need, Huo Yuanzhou said indifferently. Just bring him straight to my office.
The grand quest to find a father was long and fraught with obstacles. When Wei Chun had spoken so decisively to Cheng Min upon leaving the hospital, it sounded as though finding a father for the little sprout was as easy as snapping one’s fingers.
Only when he actually arrived at the destination did he realize just how agonizingly difficult it was to get a meeting with Huo Yuanzhou.
The entire industrial park consisted entirely of Tongguang Corporation’s office buildings. Even the security guards stationed right at the main entrance demanded corporate employee badges or official appointment passes.
Wei Chun racked his brain anxiously for a long while before finally going straight to Tongguang’s official website on the spot to submit a job application. It was only by relying on an automated interview invitation that he managed to sneak past security and enter the park grounds.
With a process of one application, two periods of waiting, and three formal requests, the young misses residing in ancient embroidered pavilions might not even have been this difficult to secure an audience with.
Wei Chun waited from the afternoon all the way until nightfall. Every single floor tile in Tongguang’s massive lobby was practically marked by the endless pacing of his footsteps.
Damn it, he thought, I managed to sneak in today by posing as a job seeker, but surely I can’t keep applying for customer service openings every single day, right? I just ghosted their HR department today; would they really be generous enough to send me another interview invitation tomorrow?
Wei Chun’s anxieties turned out to be unnecessary. A gorgeous assistant clad in a professional business suit stepped down from the elevator, scanned the lobby once, and marched directly toward him.
Mr. Wei Chun, the assistant said, wearing a polite and professional smile. Mr. Huo has invited you up for a meeting. Please follow me.
It was Wei Chun’s turn to be stunned, completely still. But the moment he snapped back to reality, he sprang off the sofa instantly and trotted right behind the assistant toward the elevator, terrified that if he were even a second late, his meeting opportunity would be canceled.
Following instructions, the assistant escorted Wei Chun only as far as the office door, gently pushing it open for him.
Wei Chun stood outside the threshold, swallowing hard as his heart hammered wildly against his ribs.
Back when he was very young, the Wei family had only recently risen to prominence as nouveau riche. To put it nicely, they were wealthy newcomers; to put it bluntly, they were merely pigs that happened to catch a lucky gust of wind blowing in the right direction.
The class divisions among high-society magnates had always been exceptionally clear-cut. The Wei family was an obscure upstart family ranking way down past the eighteenth tier, whereas the Huo family stood at the absolute pinnacle of the topmost layer.
Wei Chun’s former father had once harbored delusions and ambitions of latching onto and climbing up the Huo family tree.
However, for reasons unknown that transpired later on, whenever Wei’s father and mother mentioned Huo Yuanzhou, they would repeatedly issue strict admonitions and warnings to Wei Chun: You can go out and play all you want, but the day you ever cross paths with Huo Yuanzhou, you must give him a wide berth and stay far away. We don’t expect you to build any connections with him; we only pray you never offend him and drag the family down with you.
Accumulating day after day over the years, this ingrained history fostered a deep-rooted fear and psychological shadow within Wei Chun regarding Huo Yuanzhou. If that little sprout in his belly hadn’t been screaming out for urgency, he wouldn’t have dared to come looking for Huo Yuanzhou even if it meant starving to death out on the streets.
Pretty lady, are you not coming in? Although what they were about to discuss was hardly a respectable topic of conversation, Wei Chun still attempted to find someone to share this overwhelming dread with.
Yet, the assistant merely blinked and politely rejected him with a smile. Mr. Huo only gave instructions to meet with you alone.
The subtext of her words was clear: The boss only wants a private audience with you, so I won’t be stepping inside.
Realizing there was no hope of dragging anyone down into the water with him, Wei Chun stretched out the tip of his tongue to graze his lower lip. He pressed his hand against his frantically pounding chest, taking a long while to calm himself down before finally summoning the courage to step through that door for the sake of the little sprout inside his belly.
No matter what kind of three-headed, six-armed, fierce-eyed vajra demon is waiting behind that door, surely he won’t literally tear me apart and turn me into human jerky, right?
Huo Yuanzhou was sitting right behind his executive desk, head bowed as he reviewed a document. There were no three heads, six arms, nor any fierce vajras.
Huo Yuanzhou possessed an appearance somewhat different from what Wei Chun had imagined.
That night, Wei Chun had spent the entire duration acting like a grilled pancake, flipped face up, then face down, then sideways, and occasionally picked up to be brushed with sauce, leaving him completely incapable of registering what Huo Yuanzhou actually looked like. Meeting him today, however, Wei Chun realized that Huo Yuanzhou was significantly more striking than he had pictured.
It wasn’t merely the superior aesthetic of his facial features, but rather an overarching aura. Completely unlike the second-generation heirs of similar age that Wei Chun used to hang out with, Huo Yuanzhou naturally carried the seasoned, effortless gravity of someone who had wielded supreme authority for a very long time.
He didn’t need to rely on exaggerated facial expressions to convey any sort of emotion; just sitting quietly right there made Wei Chun associate him with towering mountains or a vast, unfathomable ocean.
Mr. Huo, Wei Chun greeted him rather obediently. The childhood conditioning and deep-seated fears were deeply entrenched; even someone as uninhibited and fearless as him wouldn’t dare to act presumptuously here.
Mhm. Huo Yuanzhou raised his head, let out a low acknowledgment, set down the pen in his hand, and spoke in an even, flat tone, My assistant said you wanted to see me.
Ah, yes. Wei Chun swallowed once more, pondering where he should begin trying to cozy up, and debating whether he should start recounting their history from the events of that specific night. After all, a whole month had already passed, and given Huo Yuanzhou’s social standing and single status, he undoubtedly had plenty of people surrounding him. It was hard to say whether he even remembered who he was.
He lifted his gaze once more, pretending to casually steal a glance at Huo Yuanzhou, only to run squarely into the other man’s steady gaze fixed right upon him.
Unlike Wei Chun’s cautious and timid approach, Huo Yuanzhou’s scrutiny of him was entirely unmasked and bold.
Wei Chun possessed a visage that contrasted sharply with his actual personality: slender, elongated eyes paired with narrow, thin eyelids that half-drooped to obscure pupils so deeply black they seemed capable of swallowing all light. Just like in that candid photograph tucked away in the dossier, his skin possessed a fairness that evoked melting snow.
When he wasn’t speaking, his striking looks made him resemble a soul-snatching water spirit; yet, the moment he opened his mouth, it instantly shattered that ethereal, pure image, making anyone deeply lament why someone with such an otherworldly face couldn’t simply be mute.
Is there something you needed?
Huo Yuanzhou retracted his gaze, breaking the tense silence that had settled in the room. His fingers rhythmically clicked the cap of his fountain pen on and off.
Wei Chun paused for a second, contemplating whether Huo Yuanzhou’s words meant he actually remembered him or was simply asking out of basic politeness. Subconsciously biting down on the corner of his lip, he finally mustered his courage and stammered out, Um, do you still remember what happened that night?
Mhm.
Naturally, he remembered Wei Chun. As the first and only Omega he had ever shared an intimate relationship with in his thirty years of life, he would have found it exceptionally difficult to forget even if he tried.
On that morning, he had even thoughtfully left his contact information and a handwritten note pledging responsibility on the bedside table, yet for a full week, his phone never received a single message.
If he remembers, that makes things much easier.
Wei Chun let out a quiet sigh of relief. The events of that night were awkward enough; forcing himself to describe all over again how he had been dragged away by a stranger to roll around in bed for an entire night would make him prefer walking out and hanging himself instead.
Fortunately, Huo Yuanzhou remembered, sparing him that acute embarrassment.
Secretly letting out a breath of relief, he once again raised his eyes to cautiously check Huo Yuanzhou’s expression, mentally weighing how he should phrase his upcoming words, whether he should be blunt or beat around the bush.
However, Huo Yuanzhou’s poker face must have been cultivated to perfection. Wei Chun stared at him for ages, and aside from a few blinks, there wasn’t even the slightest curve at the corners of his lips.
It made Wei Chun mentally click his tongue in wonder, letting his imagination run wild with the random thought: Could this guy actually be one of those legendary robots swapped out by alien forces?
While his mind wandered wildly in silence, Huo Yuanzhou proved even more capable of holding out than he, patiently accompanying Wei Chun in wasting time as if the front desk’s bureaucratic stalling and claims of being far too busy to meet visitors hadn’t originated from him that very afternoon.
After watching him for a long time, Wei Chun turned ideas over and over in his head yet still failed to find a formulation that wouldn’t feel awkward. The mere thought of what he was about to say made his fingertips dig instinctively into the palms of his hands.
Mr. Huo, he stammered, feeling too awkward to meet the other’s eyes, It’s just, well, you know how it is. Generally speaking, around here when people finish sleeping together, someone has to take responsibility, right?
At those words, the fountain pen in Huo Yuanzhou’s fingers spun around once more before being pressed down hard against the desktop with a sharp clack.
He spoke in a voice that lacked any particular warmth or anger. After filtering through a list for a whole month, did you finally figure out who is supposed to take responsibility?
To be fair, that remark was actually quite harsh. Taking a whole month just to screen through a list practically laid bare his suspicions and dark insinuations regarding Wei Chun’s chaotic personal life.
Although family members had frequently scolded Wei Chun in the past for being slow-witted and failing to read between the lines, he wasn’t dense enough to miss such an obvious subtext.
In an instant, his complexion turned dreadfully pale, and the slender corners of his eyes flushed with a thin, humiliated red, making him look as though he might burst into tears at any second.
As soon as the words left his mouth, seeing the drastic shift in Wei Chun’s expression, Huo Yuanzhou froze as well.
This wasn’t his usual conversational style.
When dealing with a youngster in his early twenties, there was zero need to be this cutting and cynical. Even if the other person’s private life truly was a complete mess, it wasn’t his place as a total stranger to pass judgment.
Yet, for reasons unknown, the moment he recalled the description in the dossier detailing Wei Chun’s chaotic past lifestyle, those sharp words had slipped past his lips as if they possessed a mind of their own.
His thoughts raced rapidly as he tried to analyze the situation, ultimately pinning the blame squarely on that fateful night.
The moment he considered that Wei Chun was his very first Omega, yet he himself had no idea whether he was Wei Chun’s nth rendezvous partner, an inexplicable wave of displeasure welled up inside Huo Yuanzhou’s chest.
Still, what was spoken could not be unsaid. Moreover, harsh as the words were, they were nothing more than the cold truth.
Naturally, Huo Yuanzhou had no intention of apologizing.
Instead, he simply tapped his finger twice against the desk and steered the conversation back to the topic of responsibility.
Very well, he said. I will take responsibility for you.