“Your phone was unreachable, non-homeowners cannot check surveillance footage, and the Yan family was unwilling to tell me where you went. I used all my connections and network, but not a single person could help me.”
Yu Xiang closed his eyes, controlling his surging emotions.
“If it were not to hide from me, you would not have had any reason to leave Yunjing. You would still be the widely praised eldest young master of the Yan family, the heir to the Haiyan Group.”
“Enough!” Yan Hui cut Yu Xiang off, turning his head away to leave him with the back of his head.
“I said. My leaving Yunjing had nothing to do with you at all. Why do you keep dwelling on these ancient, stale matters?”
Yu Xiang’s pupils constricted, and he gritted his teeth, letting out a low roar: “What stale matters? Did that night mean nothing to you at all?”
“What meaning could something done by a drunkard possibly have?”
“Fine, fine.” Yu Xiang swallowed the fishy sweetness in his throat, closed his eyes, and calmed himself for a moment. “Even if you did not leave Yunjing to avoid me, then why?”
Yan Hui still turned his head to look at the ground. “Why would there be a why? I just wanted to change my environment.”
“That night, you even said you wanted to attend Yunjing University because it was close to home. As a result, after sleeping with me, you wanted to change your environment?”
“Because you were right! What is so good about being close to home? You get nagged every day, and I felt it made sense.”
“Fine. Even if that is the case, did you have to leave without bringing anything?”
“What can not money buy? Why would I need to carry a heavy load to go to university?”
“There were still several days left before the registration deadline that day!”
“With my grades, what school could I not go to? Is it wrong to go early to get familiar with the campus?”
Yu Xiang was about to die of anger. Knowing full well that Yan Hui was arguing for the sake of it, every single sentence sounded completely reasonable, leaving him without a single breakthrough point.
Seeing that Yan Hui was still facing him with the back of his head, he finally lost control of his emotions, tossed aside the things in his hands, and reached out to grab Yan Hui’s shoulders.
“Yan Hui, you.”
Plop! Crash!
The sound of seven or eight rigid shopping bags hitting the ground was comparable to a small earthquake, and Yu Xiang’s feet were instantly submerged.
Yan Hui looked down and hurriedly bent over to pick them up: “Yu Xiang! What are you doing? Do not take your frustration out on my things!”
“I am sorry.” A trace of annoyance flashed in Yu Xiang’s eyes. He followed suit by bending down to pick up the crooked shopping bags, and in doing so, he clearly saw what was inside each one.
Down jackets, sweaters, jeans, and sneakers, except for one bag printed with Pikachu, the rest did not show any obvious size differences, but one thing was certain.
They were all men’s clothing.
Yu Xiang straightened up thoughtfully, watching Yan Hui hold three or four shopping bags and extend his other hand toward him: “Give them all to me. Do not dirty the New Year’s new clothes.”
Yu Xiang did not hand them over; instead, he hid them behind his back and meaningfully repeated: “New Year’s new clothes?”
“What? Can the general manager of Zhengxin not afford New Year’s clothes and is now reduced to robbing people?”
“I am just curious. When your family buys New Year’s new clothes, do you only buy for two people?”
The fingers suspended between the two shrunk back, and a moment after, they were completely withdrawn: “None of your business! Can not people buy them for themselves?”
“Fine, how could they not?” Yu Xiang sneered. “Though, not even coming to accompany your son on the weekend, it seems she is not a qualified mother.”
“My ass! How am I unqualified.”
The refuting voice stopped abruptly. Facing Yu Xiang’s surprised gaze, Yan Hui hit the emergency brakes and made a mid-turn correction.
“In a family, there must always be someone who looks after matters outside. Who stipulates that only the man can look after matters outside? In our family, I play the role of a mother taking care of Shengshang, and my wife is responsible for earning money to support the family. Is there something wrong with that?”
Yu Xiang frowned, instinctively feeling that something was amiss, but he did not rush to verify it. Instead, he kept it to himself and chimed in: “Fine, how could there be something wrong? You have said all there is to say, what else can I say?”
The two fell silent after that, each harboring their own hidden agendas as they accompanied Yan Sheng until dinner time, and then went out to eat together.
After ruthlessly hitting Yu Xiang up for an expensive meal, Yan Hui wiped his mouth, stood at the entrance of the restaurant, and extended his hand again: “Give me the bags.”
Yu Xiang, however, refused: “I will walk you to your car.”
How could Yan Hui dare let him see his license plate number? He insisted, “No need, dropping me off here is fine. Do not let it delay your return to the hotel.”
Yu Xiang fake-smiled: “I do not have anything going on.”
“Yu Xiang!” Yan Hui glanced at Yan Sheng and, seeing him curiously inspecting a cartoon mascot at the entrance of the restaurant, gritted his teeth and whispered, “I do not want to cause misunderstandings!”
Yu Xiang said leisurely, “What misunderstandings could it cause? It is just stale, ancient history anyway.”
Damn it! You looked better when you were all lifeless and gloomy before!
Yan Hui ground his back molars and aggressively reached out to snatch the bags back.
Fortunately, while Yu Xiang’s mouth was unforgiving, he did not intend to make a scene with him in public. The moment Yan Hui reached out, the items were returned to their rightful owner.
Hugging the bags, Yan Hui let out a couple of huffs and called out to Yan Sheng, “Shengshang, stop playing and say goodbye to the uncle!”
“Goodbye, Uncle!” Yan Sheng hurriedly followed Yan Hui, grabbed his sleeve, turned around to wave at Yu Xiang, every movement and expression brimming with naive innocence.
Seeing Yan Sheng like this, Yu Xiang unconsciously curled the corners of his lips, his entire demeanor softening because of it.
“Goodbye, Shengshang.”
Watching the father and son disappear into the end of the road, Yu Xiang sent a message to Yang Kexin. After receiving a reply, he turned and walked toward the hotel’s private car.
He is just a child, how could I have misjudged him before. His facial features are so similar to Yan Hui’s, at a glance they look like biological father and son, without a single trace of a mother’s imprint.
Already 1.7 meters tall at just ten years old. This trait is really similar to mine, starting to shoot up so early. And I wonder how tall his mother is, surely she is not inheriting Yan Hui’s 1.78 meters, right?
Just bear with it a little longer.
Yu Xiang looked up at the dark sky, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out.
At most by tomorrow morning, he would know the result.
“Not home? Are you sure?” Yu Xiang’s knife and fork paused as he asked back for confirmation.
“No. The paparazzi kept watch outside Mr. Yan’s building all night, and did not see any woman of appropriate age enter the building after they got home.” Yang Kexin’s voice came through the phone’s speaker, sounding a bit distorted.
“What about this morning?” Yu Xiang asked.
There was a moment of silence on the phone: “Young Master Yu, today is Sunday, and it is seven o’clock in the morning.”
Nobody wakes up this early on a weekend! Except for you, you ruthless capitalist!
Seeming to hear the silent cry of his life secretary, Yu Xiang put down his knife and fork, massaging his brow bone: “All right, I know. Have them keep watching and send me the address.”
Not long after hanging up the phone, a message notification chimed. Yu Xiang jotted down the address, finished his breakfast in a few quick bites, and stood up to change his clothes.
An hour later, he arrived at a residential complex named Jinyang Homeland.
The main gate of the complex was about five meters wide, with a small door about a meter wide open on the right side for people to enter and exit.
Through the shabby iron gate, one could see there was no landscaping inside the complex. Between the residential buildings were entirely concrete grounds and vehicles of all sizes, and fitness equipment was placed at the entrance of each unit, barely qualifying as recreational facilities.
There were seven floors in total across the residential buildings. The exterior facade looked like it had just been recently renovated, and the light green paint looked quite fresh and pastoral, also softening the rigid feeling brought by the parking lot.
However, as soon as one stepped inside the unit door, it became clear that the exterior renovation was just a superficial facade. This complex was truly an old, broken, and shabby place, no matter how much it was polished.
Original concrete floors and stairs, narrow and dark hallways, chipped and old walls, and no elevators.
Almost every household’s security door had small advertisements pasted on them for pipe unblocking and lock-picking installation. The plastic on the stair railings had long since hardened and cracked, and the air was filled with the smell of dust.
Yu Xiang felt darkness wash over his eyes time and time again, and when he reached Yan Hui’s front door, he almost failed to catch his breath.
When had Yan Hui ever suffered this kind of hardship?
He was born into the Yunjing Yan family and had lived in luxury since childhood. Even later on, when he moved out to live on his own because he felt his family restricted him too much, he lived in a luxury apartment over five hundred square meters with an indoor swimming pool!
If he had not left Yunjing, he would have already entered the Haiyan Group. An annual income exceeding a million would just be pocket money, and the tens of millions in annual corporate dividend shares would be the major bulk. Why would he wrong himself by living in a place like this?
This apartment looked even smaller than the toilet in his own apartment!
Yu Xiang looked at the clean, tidy security door, the only one without any small advertisements pasted on it, and felt his heart twitching in pain. The thought of knocking on the door directly to expose the lie in person instantly vanished; he just wanted to flee in panic.
If it were not for protecting his own ridiculous, childish image, and hurting Yan Hui’s feelings by saying things he did not mean, how could he have made up his mind to leave Yunjing?
That night, it was Yan Hui’s utter despair that gave birth to a self-destructive urge, a pure self-exile. He himself was just a despicable opportunist taking advantage of a loophole, stepping in while Yan Hui was utterly broken.
Yu Xiang fled Jinyang Homeland as if running for his life, only calming down a bit after returning to the hotel.
He first looked over several corporate documents to let his brain return to a rational state, and then called Yang Kexin.
“Tell the paparazzi to pull back, no need to follow anymore.”
“Uh, but. We have not found out who Mr. Yan’s wife is yet, just pull back like this?” Yang Kexin asked cautiously.
“No need to check,” Yu Xiang whispered, almost murmuring to himself. “I cannot disturb his life anymore.”
Since the boss had said so, Yang Kexin could not offer any comforting words either, so she could only acknowledge it and turn to contact the paparazzi to settle the balance and pay the final installment.
With the paparazzi withdrawn and distanced from Yan Hui’s life, Yu Xiang thought such a decision could make him feel a bit better, but in reality, he could never forget the terrible conditions he had seen at Jinyang Homeland.
After tossing and turning all night, unable to sleep, Yu Xiang ultimately could not let it go. Early in the morning, he called a car and went to stake out the entrance of Jinyang Homeland himself.
Looking at the main gate of the complex from afar, Yu Xiang was enduring immense internal torment.
He both hoped to see the classic scene of a mother sending her child to school, which would allow him to casually figure out the work of Yan Hui’s lover and provide secret assistance; yet he also worried about seeing an affectionate scene of a husband sending his wife to work, suffering a devastating blow.
Fortunately, he soon did not have the mental capacity to worry about these extraneous things because the morning school rush hour had arrived.
Old men and women pulled their grandchildren through the small door, adults driving their children to school used the main gate, interspersed with a few half-grown boys walking to school on their own. For a time, the entrance of Jinyang Homeland was even livelier than a vegetable market.
Seeing this scene, Yu Xiang’s brow furrowed slightly. Just as he worried he might miss something, he felt a sudden intuition and looked toward the small door.
The next second, a tall, fair, and clean-looking kid walked into his field of vision, precisely Yan Sheng.
He saw him carrying a blue schoolbag, wearing a red down jacket, and constantly mumbling something under his breath with a distressed expression on his face, as if he had encountered a huge trouble.
Seeing Yan Sheng, Yu Xiang’s heart began to beat violently and uncontrollably. His gaze anxiously swept across the surroundings, but he did not see the anticipated scene.
The person walking beside Yan Sheng was neither Yan Hui nor any strange woman, but rather a short, robust, dark-skinned man wearing a yellow cotton-padded jacket and a yellow helmet.
He walked side-by-side with Yan Sheng, shaking his head with a full smile, and no matter how you looked at it, his physiognomy did not resemble a good person.
Yu Xiang’s face instantly darkened like the bottom of a pot. He stood up, got out of the car, and strode toward the two of them.
Damn it, human traffickers these days are getting way too arrogant!