Lately, Wen Yu had grown exceptionally quiet. Although he was never a person of many words, Lin Qiaoyue still managed to catch onto the fact that Wen Yu was in low spirits.
In the mid-term examinations, Wen Yu successfully secured a spot in the top ten of the grade, ranking third in his class. When Wen Yu looked at the grades posted on the bulletin board, his expression could hardly be described as joyful; rather, it was simply a sigh of relief.
As long as his rankings hadn’t been impacted, that was enough.
“Have you been feeling a bit down these past couple of days?” Lin Qiaoyue asked Wen Yu during their archery class.
“No,” Wen Yu replied, looking at Lin Qiaoyue. Knowing that Lin Qiaoyue was genuinely concerned about him, he managed to squeeze out a small smile. “Thank you.”
The smile was rather dry. Recognizing that Wen Yu didn’t wish to talk about it, Lin Qiaoyue dropped the subject and suggested instead, “Let’s have a match. Ten arrows each to see who scores higher.”
“Alright,” Wen Yu agreed.
Hearing that they were going to compete, Shu Ran eagerly volunteered, “I’ll be your referee!”
“Great,” Lin Qiaoyue chuckled.
Wen Yu seemed intensely fascinated by all the outdoor courses at First High School, as these were experiences entirely absent from his past life.
In the end, Wen Yu scored one ring higher than Lin Qiaoyue, winning by a narrow margin.
“I hereby officially appoint Wen Yu as the Class 1 sharpshooter!” Shu Ran gave Wen Yu a thumbs-up.
Wen Yu smiled sheepishly, this smile looking far more natural than the previous one. Lin Qiaoyue laughed as well. “I’ll win next time.”
Hardly had his voice faded when an exclamation echoed from nearby, with someone shouting in astonishment. “Whoa! Fu Chen hit ten out of ten rings! That is insane!”
“First High School isn’t that big, yet it’s full of legends. Didn’t an older schoolmate once hit ten out of ten rings too? Word is he got top scores in every single subject.”
“Oh, I know who you mean. Wasn’t that Senior Shen Yuqing? The top student of his year.”
“Rumor has it he’s even engaged to the eldest daughter of the Cheng family over at Alliance University now. Talk about a winner in life.”
Wen Yu lowered his gaze as he listened, then turned to Lin Qiaoyue and Shu Ran to say. “I’m heading back to the classroom first.”
The teacher had requested leave today due to personal matters, so the archery class was left as free time for the students, and quite a few had already returned indoors.
Shu Ran wanted to keep playing for a bit longer, so Lin Qiaoyue accompanied Wen Yu back together.
“Do you want to check out the aquarium this weekend? They say it’s newly opened, and the photos online look gorgeous,” Lin Qiaoyue invited, feeling that Wen Yu seemed overly isolated and hoping to coax him out for more social activities.
Wen Yu held a deep interest in aquariums, and this marked the very first time a classmate had ever invited him out for leisure. Just as the syllable “Sure” formed on the tip of his tongue, he suddenly remembered Fu Chen’s condition, swallowing the word back down.
“Better not,” Wen Yu said with a touch of apology. “I have some things to take care of this weekend. Sorry about that.”
“No worries,” Lin Qiaoyue reassured him. “We can always go together whenever you have free time later.”
“Alright,” Wen Yu smiled.
“Though I don’t know what you’ve been dealing with lately, if you ever need someone to vent to, you can always find me,” Lin Qiaoyue said with a deeply sincere expression. “I really do consider you a friend.”
Friend.
The word struck Wen Yu deeply. To many people it was a commonplace term, but to him it felt entirely foreign, causing a portion of his heart to cave inward.
Throughout his past campus life, Wen Yu had been enveloped by malicious gossip and besieged by hostile behavior, while the Zhou family estate felt nothing short of a dragon’s pool and a tiger’s den. Those bygone days were nothing short of a living hell, rendering concepts like friendship an undeniable luxury for someone like Wen Yu.
With Wen Yu barely managing to keep his own head above water, he had never dared to yearn for anything more.
Yet now, someone was telling him that they considered him a friend.
Wen Yu felt genuinely overjoyed, even stirring a faint sense of being flattered beyond what he deserved.
“Okay,” Wen Yu replied, his internal state a chaotic battlefield while his exterior remained entirely composed.
Lin Qiaoyue smiled and asked. “Did you manage to solve that final difficult problem on yesterday’s math test?”
Wen Yu: “I did.”
Lin Qiaoyue: “Then can you explain it to me later? I just couldn’t figure out the third sub-question.”
Wen Yu: “Mhm.”
Engrossed in their conversation, the two failed to notice that Fu Chen was walking just a short distance behind them, taking in every single word of their exchange.
Today after school, Fu Chen didn’t wander off in various directions as he usually did; instead, he got into the car with Wen Yu to head home.
The two hadn’t spoken a single word to each other for many days. Sitting in the back seat, each occupied their own side, leaving enough space in the middle to squeeze in two more people.
Ever since Fu Chen realized that Wen Yu was the exact person he had been searching for, every glance in Wen Yu’s direction stirred a subtle, complicated feeling within him.
Following that rainy night, he had attempted to track down the security footage from that day, only to discover that the recordings had somehow been deleted by an unknown party, leaving Fu Chen entirely cut off from any further leads on that person.
Truthfully, it wasn’t a matter of monumental importance; if he couldn’t find them, so be it, just a random stranger, nothing worth fussing over.
Yet suddenly discovering that this very person was right by his side provoked a completely different sensation.
Phrases akin to “destined fate” kept echoing persistently in Fu Chen’s mind.
Every night after Wen Yu fell asleep, Fu Chen would stand by Wen Yu’s bedside just watching him.
He wouldn’t do anything else; he would simply stand there and watch.
Fu Chen figured he must have lost his mind. Lately, he found himself harboring a peculiar obsession with fixing his gaze on Wen Yu, and even at school, his peripheral vision constantly drifted toward tracking Wen Yu’s every move.
With his arms crossed over his chest, Fu Chen stared blankly out the window. They were currently passing through a stretch of woodland, the mandatory route leading back to the Fu family estate. As twilight deepened, the forest took on an eerie, murky, and unsettling atmosphere.
Bang!
While the vehicle was cruising along smoothly, a violent collision struck without warning, hitting the rear of the car like a heavy hammer.
The immense impact instantly hurled Wen Yu fiercely to the side. Reflexively, Fu Chen threw his arms around Wen Yu, letting out a muffled groan from the shock of the collision.
The sudden turn of events left his mind completely blank.
Steering frantically, the driver attempted to regain control of the fishtailing vehicle, only to find a van suddenly blocking their path ahead. Just as the driver prepared to swerve, he noticed their rear had been cut off by another vehicle as well.
Pincer movement from front and back. The perpetrators had come fully prepared.
Moments later, a group of masked individuals poured out from the two vans, surrounding the car. Two of them roughly jerked open the back doors, each grabbing a side to immobilize Fu Chen. Upon spotting Wen Yu, one of them barked. “Why is there an extra one here?”
“Who cares who he is, take him along too!” another shouted back. “Make it quick!”
A pungent odor assaulted their senses. The masked men pressed damp cloths soaked in chemicals over Wen Yu and Fu Chen’s noses and mouths. After a brief struggle, their limbs turned weak, and the two plunged straight into unconsciousness.
When Wen Yu regained consciousness, he found himself inside a warehouse. His hands were tightly bound behind his back, and a strip of adhesive tape sealed his mouth shut. The air around them reeked of decay, with miscellaneous debris piled in scattered heaps all around. Straining desperately to look sideways, Wen Yu saw Fu Chen bound right beside him, still fast asleep.
“Mmh!” Frowning deeply, Wen Yu nudged Fu Chen with his shoulder. After bumping him a few times, Fu Chen finally began to flutter his eyes open.
With a grimace, Fu Chen surveyed the vast, dilapidated, and abandoned warehouse, realizing immediately that things had gone horribly wrong.
Footsteps approached shortly after. As Fu Chen and Wen Yu looked toward the entrance, the warehouse doors swung open.
It was a tall, heavily built Alpha appearing under the age of forty. Unmasked, a terrifying burn scar stretched across his face, radiating a fierce, hostile aura that signaled he was not someone to be trifled with, though his eyes retained a strangely clear and bright quality.
Several masked thugs trailed behind him. Clearly, he was the ringleader of this group, the one holding absolute authority.
“Tear the tape off their mouths,” the man commanded in a deep, gravelly voice saturated with coarse texture.
“Yes, sir,” replied one of the masked thugs, who swiftly and efficiently ripped the adhesive tape off Wen Yu and Fu Chen’s mouths.
Fu Chen spoke up first, his tone freezing cold. “What is your objective? Is it money?”
“Yes, and no,” the man replied with enigmatic ambiguity. Someone brought over a stool, and the man seated himself directly upon it.
“To put it simply, back then your father engineered a fire over a project, and afterwards ruthlessly drove my company into bankruptcy without an ounce of mercy. Every single asset under my name went straight toward paying off the bank, and Fu Chengzhe completely ruined my life!” The man’s emotions flared with agitation. “And he damn well ruined my face, plus destroyed my vocal cords! Back then, I used to be the campus heartthrob and Top Ten campus singer at Alliance University!”
A masked accomplice chimed in from the side. “The people lining up to chase our boss back then stretched all the way from the south gate of Lian Da to the north gate!”
The man pressed a hand to his forehead, chuckling self-deprecatingly. “Ancient history now. No point dwelling on it.”
Fu Chen fell silent for a moment, staring at him with a furrowed brow. Question mark.
“So?” Fu Chen continued asking.
“So I’m bloody well here for revenge!” The man sneered. “You’re his son. Kidnapping you guarantees he’ll show up!”
“Solid reasoning,” Fu Chen remarked. “But I have one more question.”
“Ask.”
Fu Chen said, “Kidnapping me is one thing, but why on earth did you drag him along?”
The man glanced at Wen Yu, then turned to his subordinates. “Well? Speak up. Why did you idiots bring him along?”
The first thug scratched his head awkwardly. “I figured two heads are better than one.”
The man delivered a heavy blow to the thug’s skull, snapping. “Is that how that idiom is used?!”
Fu Chen felt virtually certain now: he and Wen Yu had been kidnapped by a bunch of morons.
“Well, they were riding in the same car, couldn’t just grab only one,” the thug muttered defensively while cradling his bruised head. “How were we supposed to know what Fu Chengzhe’s son looks like anyway?”
“Still talking back!” The man landed another punch on the thug’s head.
Another accomplice stepped forward to mediate. “Boss, stop hitting him. Xiao Jia’s brain isn’t working too well to begin with; keep hitting him and you’ll actually break it!”
Fu Chen confirmed it: he and Wen Yu had indeed been kidnapped by a bunch of fools.
Having finished dispensing discipline, the man pulled a silk scarf from his breast pocket and began slowly, meticulously wiping his hands with lowered eyes. “You look even better-looking than your father did at your age.” Lifting his eyelids to fixate on Fu Chen’s eyes, a hint of sentimentality colored his tone. “Did you inherit more from your mother?”
Remaining silent, Fu Chen stared at the man unblinkingly.
The silk scarf in the other man’s hand belonged to the current season’s new release from a specific private-label brand. Because it was an extremely niche label, the open market essentially lacked any knockoffs. Coupled with the man’s entire outfit, every single piece of apparel was private bespoke tailoring from this exact brand, and Fu Chen was entirely certain.
Since he frequently wore clothing from this label himself, he recognized that this scarf was a complimentary giveaway item included with custom clothing orders.
This Alpha clearly didn’t look like someone genuinely driven to desperate straits by bankruptcy. Was his true motive really just what he claimed: to meet Fu Chengzhe face-to-face?
Doubting yet half-believing, Fu Chen remained calm. Having experienced kidnappings more than once since childhood, along with witnessing similar incidents among his peers, he was accustomed to scenarios where the motives behind such acts occasionally reached ludicrous extremes.
Most perpetrators acted out of greed for wealth, which allowed Fu Chen to maintain a relatively composed demeanor.
In stark contrast to Fu Chen’s composure, Wen Yu completely dismissed the man’s declarations. Eschewing any semblance of calm, Wen Yu turned his thoughts inward, rapidly analyzing their current predicament.
Wen Yu practically convinced himself that the Alpha before them had come specifically for Fu Chen’s life. Given Wen Yu’s limited exposure to the outside world, where his understanding of kidnappings remained confined to exaggerated tropes in melodramatic television series, this situation constituted an earth-shattering crisis.
Right now, Wen Yu’s primary concern was that should anything happen to him and Fu Chen, the partnership between the Fu and Zhou families would undoubtedly collapse, meaning the Zhou family would certainly cease covering Cheng Xiaoling’s medical treatments. Conversely, if Fu Chen came to harm while Wen Yu remained unscathed, the outcome would be identical: the business alliance would instantly shatter, and the Fu family would never let him off the hook either.
The optimal outcome was for both himself and Fu Chen to be safely rescued, but if only one person could possibly make it out alive, Wen Yu fervently hoped it would be Fu Chen.
Perhaps that way, the Fu family might continue funding Cheng Xiaoling’s medical expenses out of gratitude for saving Fu Chen’s life.
Regardless, Fu Chen could not be allowed to meet with disaster.