Looking at the red, swollen bruise on her precious son’s handsome face, Wang Min found it exceptionally glaring, and the surge of anger in her chest simply wouldn’t subside. “Although that is true, we cannot let him off the hook so easily. I will have Ah Feng get his men to teach him a proper lesson! If we cannot do it openly, we will do it in the dark!”
“Forget it, what big deal is it anyway? Let’s go! Old Zhao, drive!”
Ning Anyu’s tone carried a hint of displeasure, and his thick eyebrows furrowed.
“You child, oh, let’s go, let’s go…” Wang Min swallowed the second half of the scolding she was about to deliver and waved her hand to instruct the driver. She simply couldn’t bear to see her son unhappy, so she had no choice but to drop the subject.
The driver slowly pulled the car out of the garage. On the way, Ning Anyu’s mind was entirely consumed by thoughts of the man from just moments ago.
Was that person really someone he was seeing for the very first time?
Yet why did it feel so strange? At the very moment he saw him back then, the feeling in his heart had been truly staggering, filled with deep surprise and delight. It was as if the most beautiful picture from the depths of his once-blurred memories had suddenly been vividly presented before his eyes. His heart was leaping and rejoicing, telling him that he had found it, and this was what he wanted most! It was as though that man naturally belonged to him in the first place.
Meanwhile, Ning Anyu’s younger sister, Ning Xiaofei, was half-reclining on the sofa watching television. Hearing the commotion, she turned her head and was startled to see Ning Anyu walking in with a large red bruise on her face.
Once she cleared up the sequence of events, she threw a fit, insisting on going to deal with Chu Xichen herself to vent her brother’s anger.
Ning Anyu lounged lazily against the sofa, eyeing his sister sideways. “I do not have any anger to vent, so do not meddle. You are starting your new job in a few days, so you should take this time to properly relax instead!”
“No way! Are you just going to let him hit you for nothing? Starting work will not stop me from taking care of him!” Ning Xiaofei wore an indignant expression.
Ning Anyu let out a tsk, arched one thick eyebrow at his sister, and practically plastered the words you are so annoying all over his face:
“Look at how capable you think you are, little girl. Does your big brother really need you to step in if I actually want to deal with someone? I already said I am really fine, and besides, he apologized. Instead of having time to worry about me, you would be better off learning from other girls and putting on face masks or doing your skincare routine.”
“Hey! What do you mean by that?” Ning Xiaofei instantly bristled, slapped her thigh, and glared at her brother. “Are you implying your own biological sister is ugly?” She thought to herself that her dear sister here was naturally beautiful with a healthy wheat complexion, and asked if there was a single thing about that which was not good-looking.
“No! I just think you would look even better if your skin were a bit fairer, and not even those Miss Asia contestants could compare to you.” You always had to pull them back up after giving them a push, since she was his biological sister after all.
“Hmph, I suppose you still know how to speak human words.” The resentment had not completely faded from Ning Xiaofei’s face. “What good is being that pale? Can you use yourself as a lightbulb during a power outage? I happen to think looking a bit tanned is much better-looking!”
Ning Xiaofei was indeed beautiful. At twenty-five years old, she looked like a college student with very delicate facial features. Standing close to 1.58 meters tall with a well-proportioned figure, she sported an edgy short haircut and dressed in a neutral style, possessing a carefree, gender-neutral charm.
“Yes, yes, yes, even the magic mirror says you’re the prettiest woman in the entire world.”
“Ah, no, no! That will not do,” Ning Xiaofei hastily waved her hands, flashing a flattering, ingratiating smile at Wang Min, who was just walking out carrying a tray of fruit. “Mom is! Mom is the prettiest!”
Wang Min gave her a side-eye and couldn’t be bothered to respond.
“But big brother, how come you suddenly changed your tune?” Ning Xiaofei grabbed a bag of pistachios from the coffee table and ripped it open. “I have never seen you willing to take a loss like this before. No matter what, you should have punched him back.”
Seeing that her brother firmly opposed hitting him back, she had no choice but to let the matter drop, though she still felt somewhat puzzled.
Ning Anyu rolled his eyes. “Dr. Chu is a civilized man, and I cannot bring myself to throw hands at a civilized man.”
He could not very well say out loud that he fell in love with him the very first time he saw him, or that he felt like he had loved him for a very long time. That probably would have frightened these two women out of their minds, making them think his illness was driving him increasingly delirious.
“You call him a civilized man? Someone who starts throwing punches right off the bat is considered civilized?” Ning Xiaofei looked at him as if he were a fool.
“Civilized?” Wang Min placed the fruit platter on the coffee table and picked up the conversation. “He certainly looks civilized on the outside, but he is all outside and no inside, and rotten to the core. A pretty face like that looks like a total scumbag at first glance.”
Ning Anyu rolled his eyes dramatically, left somewhat speechless.
“Haha…” Ning Xiaofei burst out laughing. “If Mom says so, then it definitely must be! Oh, right,” she said, turning to her brother. “I am heading out later. I have arranged to get together with some friends, and you should come too. You do not know many people in the country yet, so you ought to go out more and make some friends.”
“Forget it, you go ahead.” Although Ning Anyu was quite adept at socializing, he did not actually enjoy it.
“Why? I have noticed you have zero interest in anything other than getting into fights, you know that? By the way, a junior from my university is coming too, and she is truly, truly gorgeous. Do you not want to find yourself a girlfriend?”
Before Ning Anyu could reply, Wang Min shot a scathing look in her direction. “You are always so cheeky when you talk to your brother! And as for those friends of yours, do not try pushing them onto him, because they all have the exact same personality as you. Having one daughter like you is quite enough for me, and I certainly do not need another daughter-in-law like that!”
“Mom,” Ning Xiaofei whined pitifully, tugging at her arm. “Isn’t it good to be like me? Am I not your precious daughter?”
“Enough! We should thank our lucky stars you did not scare your father and me to death by holding back! Acting like a female bandit all day long, you’re not getting any younger either, yet you won’t find a boyfriend. All day long you are hanging out and hollering with a bunch of girlfriends, and you will not listen to us about work either. Just thinking about that lousy job of yours makes my blood boil! You cannot find a single thing that puts our minds at ease.”
“Oh Mom, I am just doing that job for a few months for the novelty of it. Saying things like that to me hurts my feelings, ying ying ying!”
“Go on, go on! Scram!”
“Mom!” Ning Xiaofei looked at her with an aggrieved pout. “How did the conversation suddenly turn to me? Weren’t we just talking about a prospective wife for your son? He is twenty-seven years old, and he is the one who should be finding a girlfriend.”
She then slid over to Wang Min’s side with a grin, pressed close to her ear, and lowered her voice. “My brother has been single since birth. Based on how I see it, he has no clue how to interact with girls at all. You need to get him started on that, otherwise you will not have any grandchildren to hold in the future.”
Wang Min gave her a side-eye. “Just worry about yourself! Is our Xiaoyu clueless about how to make female friends? He was delayed by his illness. Do not let his silence fool you; I know very well that he is just afraid his episodes will scare away any girl he likes…”
Ning Anyu wanted to say that his dear mother was really overthinking it, as he simply had not had any desire to date in the first place. Seeing that the mother and daughter had finally moved past the incident with Chu Xichen, he clapped his hands against his thighs and quietly slipped away.
Returning to his room, he closed the door, twisted open a half-empty bottle of water, and sat straight on the floor in front of the spacious floor-to-ceiling window.
The mid-autumn sunlight was gentle, a faint golden hue filtering softly through the glass and bathing his strikingly handsome, deep-set facial features in a thin halo of light.
Yet this 1.85-meter-tall giant simply sat there quietly with his knees drawn up, gazing out the window with a distant look in his eyes, his elongated shadow cast upon the greyish-white wooden floor, making him appear rather lonely and forlorn.