Meanwhile, in the presidential suite at Cursory, Wei Chengran lit a cigar and leaned back quietly against the sofa. In truth, he had known how to smoke ever since middle school, it was just that Su Xingyan didn’t know. Su Xingyan disliked him smoking, so he had always pretended he didn’t know how.
The sound of rushing water echoed from the bathroom. On the table, his phone continued to buzz and vibrate continuously. Wei Chengran leaned back into the chair, closing his eyes amidst the swirling clouds of white smoke. Suddenly, for no reason at all, it occurred to him that Tang Songzhi certainly knew how to pick a hotel, after all that turning around, he actually ended up choosing a hotel owned by his aunt. Who knew if the kid did it on purpose?
Wei Chengran had always felt that naming a hotel Cursory was somewhat hasty. But his aunt didn’t think so. She had explained to him that it had a very artistic Chinese name. Fu Guang Lve Ying, fleeting impressions, like shadows skimming over the water.
Fleeting impressions… Heh, how interesting, Wei Chengran thought with a hint of mockery, exhaling a cloud of white smoke.
In fact, he hadn’t originally intended to come today. He remembered that he had secretly slipped the room card back to Tang Songzhi, since he had already promised to accompany Su Xingyan today. Who could have expected that when he flipped through his bag today, he would find it there again?
What was this? Probably fate, Wei Chengran thought.
[!NOTE] The sound of water in the bathroom stopped.
Wei Chengran held his phone, lazily raising his eyes to look over. Tang Songzhi walked out of the bathroom barefoot, wearing a loosely draped bathrobe. Meeting Wei Chengran’s gaze, Tang Songzhi smiled with charming seductive grace. “Boss Wei”
The phone buzzed continuously. His assistant was anxiously sending him messages.
[Assistant]: Boss Wei, something went wrong! The new car model we just launched hit a person! The victim is a six-year-old child who reportedly rushed out in front of the car suddenly. Our brake sensor system didn’t react at the time. The child has been rushed to the hospital and is still in emergency rescue…
“An hour of a prime spring night is worth a thousand pieces of gold,” Tang Songzhi said, straddling Wei Chengran. He had just taken a shower, and the fragrance of shower gel on his body carried an ambiguous, intimate warmth. “You came to keep our appointment today, could it be just to stare blankly at each other in this presidential suite?”
[Su Xingyan]: Wei Chengran, answer my call.
[Su Xingyan]: I don’t care what you’re doing right now. Call me back immediately.
Wei Chengran flashed a broad, white smile, wrapping a single hand around Tang Songzhi’s waist. Such a slender waist, and so soft, it felt as though he could snap it with a gentle squeeze.
“Yanyan, marry me. I feel so happy. With you by my side, I feel everything is wonderful.”
“Yanyan, trust me. I really, really love you. I want to marry you and live with you forever. If I ever do you wrong in the future, I’ll… I’ll be struck by lightning, die a horrible death, and be cast into the eighteenth level of hell, never to be reincarnated!”
Wei Chengran yanked off his tie. Amidst Tang Songzhi’s wild, unrestrained laughter, he closed his eyes and kissed him. “Tang Songzhi, let’s go down to hell together.”
“Wei Chengran, don’t lie to me.”
A torrential rainstorm swept over the entire city of Ronggang. Heavy black clouds pressed down low. Pedestrians on the street were caught completely unprepared by the downpour; looking up in a daze, it felt as though the sky itself was collapsing.
Su Xingyan hadn’t brought an umbrella. After stepping out of the taxi, he was soaked into a drenching mess by the dark rain. Fortunately, the car had stopped right at the entrance of the old Wei family mansion. Su Xingyan wasn’t in the rain for long, dragging a body dripping with rainwater, he hurried through the front door. Just as he was about to return to the bathroom for a hot bath, he was blocked by his younger sister-in-law, Wei Mingran.
“Sister-in-law, you’re back! Today, you guys…” Wei Mingran bounced over with sparkling eyes, preparing to pry into the details of her elder brother and sister-in-law’s romantic outing. However, she suddenly realized that Su Xingyan was not only soaked through like a drowned rat, but he had also returned completely alone.
Wei Mingran blinked in confusion, craning her neck to look behind Su Xingyan. “Huh? Sister-in-law, why did you come back alone? Where’s Big Brother? Didn’t he come back with you?…”
Wei Mingran had no idea what had happened while a storm was raging outside, she had been clutching a rag doll in her bedroom, discussing how to write her graduation thesis with a classmate.
Su Xingyan only felt exhausted, and at the same time, he didn’t want to bring any of this burden to Wei Mingran. Her world was too clean and simple. Su Xingyan lowered his eyelids. Just as he was pondering how to gloss over it, he saw Wei Zhenning stepping out of the study with a teacup, his face somber and dark.
Wei Zhenning’s expression was grim. Su Xingyan guessed that he probably already knew about CY’s new product running someone over. But thinking about it, a matter of this scale, unless huge sums were spent to suppress it, would likely cause a massive uproar across the entire city within a few hours. Sure enough, Wei Zhenning walked step by step in front of Su Xingyan while holding his teacup, asking him, “Where is Wei Chengran? Didn’t he come back with you?”
Su Xingyan lowered his head wearily. After an unknown period of silence, he heard his own voice mixing with the pitter-patter of the rain outside the window: “I don’t know. …He didn’t answer my calls. He didn’t reply to my messages either.”
“I don’t know where he is right now either.”
Wei Zhenning was likely furious. Su Xingyan’s mind was in a haze as he thought. It has been like this ever since they were young. Whenever Wei Zhenning got angry, he would call Wei Chengran by his full name, and whenever Wei Zhenning got angry, Wei Chengran would run far away, he was afraid of being beaten by Wei Zhenning. Thus, the person left behind to be interrogated with “Where did Wei Chengran go?” had always been Su Xingyan alone.
Su Xingyan closed his eyes, letting the rainwater drip down from the tips of his hair. He knew nothing. He just felt exhausted, and felt… perhaps he really ought to take a nice, long hot bath.
The sudden torrential rain continued to rage across Ronggang. The light of the emergency room remained lit for a long time, and the family members of the victim squatted in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably. Media reporters flooded into the hospital, capturing images of the weeping family before security could drive them away. On their way back to the publishing office, they quickly edited their headlines.
【UNMANNED DRIVING KILLS A PERSON?! WEI FAMILY MAGNATE NOWHERE TO BE SEEN】
Once the news began to ferment, it spread like wildfire. Wei Zhenning immediately sent people to suppress the news, but the number of media outlets keeping an eye on CY was by no means small, and now that it involved a public livelihood issue, public indignation was aroused to the point where accountability was being pressed all the way to Hongye.
Wei Zhenning didn’t dare make any further moves. Everything would have to wait until Wei Chengran returned home.
“Hongye is probably done for this time! Old Man Wei probably never expected that giving his son a half-dead subsidiary could actually result in a casualty… Yan Chong, aren’t you cooperating with Hongye lately? If you don’t want trouble, you better. Holy shit! What happened to your face?!”
Zheng Tianming was just about to advise his good friend to withdraw from the cooperation with Hongye as early as possible, only to be met with the sight of Yan Chong’s slightly swollen right cheek. Zheng Tianming stared in disbelief, instinctively pulling out his phone to snap a barrage of photos at Yan Chong’s sharp, angular right face. “Who on earth had the nerve of a bear to actually dare to hit Young Master Yan? They even dared to hit your face! Do they think their life is too long?”
Yan Chong was sitting on a lounger in the courtyard, casually turning through today’s financial newspaper. Hearing this, he turned his head back, narrowing his long, slender phoenix eyes at Zheng Tianming. “You look very excited?”
“Not excited to that extent… just finding it rare. Think about it, even after five hundred years, when Monkey Sun gets rescued by Monk Tang, we still might not see you get beaten up. How could I not find it rare?” Zheng Tianming leaned over slyly. “Who was the one who dealt such a heavy hand? Couldn’t be the one you’re getting married to recently, right? The one from the Tang family has such a fierce temper?!”
Recalling Tang Songzhi’s duplicitous face, Yan Chong narrowed his eyes and snorted coldly. “He wouldn’t dare.” Yan Chong didn’t want to dwell on this topic, raising his eyes to glance at Zheng Tianming. “Did you come today just to ask about this?”
The moment this was mentioned, Zheng Tianming instantly perked up. He immediately had someone bring a chair over to sit next to Yan Chong, starting to chatter endlessly about his grand plan, “What stage is your project at? Look at how Hongye has been dragged down by CY’s mess these past two days, their stock price keeps falling. Could your project possibly remain unaffected?”
Zheng Tianming took the tea handed over by the butler, taking a sip while stealing glances at Yan Chong’s reaction. “If you ask me, Yan Chong, why don’t you take this chance to force Hongye to withdraw? The two of our families can handle this project ourselves. Lest when the Wei family’s fire starts burning, it burns the Yan family as well.”
Originally, when the Yan family wanted to cooperate with Hongye, Zheng Tianming had also intended to buy in and take a slice of the pie. After all, in Ronggang, aside from the Yan and Wei families, the Zheng family had the most substantial background. Unfortunately, he later heard that the project was to be handed over to that spendthrift Wei Chengran, so Zheng Tianming had no choice but to drop the idea in disappointment.
While Zheng Tianming chattered on incessantly, Yan Chong clicked on Su Xingyan’s plain white profile picture. Just as Zheng Tianming said, the Wei family’s fire had indeed been burning fiercely these past two days, but it seemed this fire hadn’t reached Su Xingyan. That person seemed remarkably composed, staying away from the company for two consecutive days. On the surface, everything was calm and peaceful, but Yan Chong always felt that this man was simply forcing himself to appear calm.
Recalling Su Xingyan’s ice cold face, a subtle curl formed at the corner of Yan Chong’s thin lips. His long, slender fingers instinctively tapped open the chat box with Su Xingyan, ever since they added each other as friends, they hadn’t said a single word.
Yan Chong typed with one hand:
[Yan Chong]: Contact me if you need anything.
“Yan Chong, what are you smiling at? Are you even listening to me?” Zheng Tianming had talked until his lips were practically dry, yet Yan Chong hadn’t offered a single response. Zheng Tianming pursed his lips, feeling somewhat displeased.
“I’m listening.” The smile on Yan Chong’s face hadn’t faded yet. When he raised his eyes to glance at Zheng Tianming, the look on his face remained half-smiling. “For the Wei family’s fire to burn so fiercely, your Zheng family must have added fuel to the flames, right?”
Zheng Tianming’s pupils shrank, but Yan Chong continued in an unhurried manner, “When the city gate catches fire, the fish in the moat suffer. Zheng Tianming, sometimes a person shouldn’t be too clever. Being clever to one’s own detriment will only make you a laughingstock.”
The sunlight in the courtyard flowed quietly. Under the oppressive gaze of Yan Chong, Zheng Tianming felt an inexplicable chill run through him for no apparent reason. Just as he opened his mouth to argue a few words, he saw the old butler slowly walking toward Yan Chong, leading a four or five-year-old little girl by the hand.
“Mr. Yan, the little young lady is back.”
Little young lady?! Zheng Tianming instantly forgot about having his pride knocked down by Yan Chong just a moment ago. Turning his head abruptly, when he saw the little girl wearing two pigtails, his eyes nearly popped out of his head from shock: “Holy shit… Where did you pull such a big daughter from?!”
Su Xingyan hadn’t gone to the company for two consecutive days, if he went to the company right now, he would likely be made a target. Wei Zhenning’s intention was also for him to stay home for now to lay low. And so, imitating Wei Chengran, Su Xingyan curled up in his blanket and slept continuously for two days. When he regained consciousness, he heard his phone vibrate. It was a message from Yan Chong.
[Yan Chong]: Contact me if you need anything.
Looking at the six simple words above, Su Xingyan felt a strange, momentary daze. He had originally thought that during such chaotic times of war, a person like Yan Chong would kick him while he was down. He hadn’t expected that it would actually be a helping hand in a time of need. Su Xingyan held his phone in silence for a moment before finally replying to him.
[Su Xingyan]: Why?
Yan Chong replied very quickly. He didn’t ask what he meant by ‘why’, but answered him precisely and powerfully:
[Yan Chong]: I said it before, we’re grasshoppers tied to the same string. Only when you win do I win. So Su Xingyan, I won’t let you lose.
The rain outside the window had long stopped. Faintly, a faint glow of neon lights could even be seen. Looking at the two brief sentences sent by Yan Chong, Su Xingyan unconsciously clutched his phone tighter. Su Xingyan edited his reply in the box: Thank you. But the moment before sending it, he deleted it word by word.
Su Xingyan turned off the screen and curled back into his blanket. The moment he closed his eyes, everything that had happened in the past flooded into his mind. In his hazy thoughts, Su Xingyan realized that he probably knew where Wei Chengran was right now.