The Wealthy Family’s Adopted Son (12) – “Must wear it forever.”
Zong Xian raised his bidding paddle, immediately calling out a price that far exceeded the previous bidder by a huge margin.
Gu Wen looked at Zong Xian’s side profile in a daze. The other person had just expressed a lack of interest a second before, only to raise the paddle and call out a sky-high price the next second. Sure enough, a rich person’s mindset was hard to fathom.
There weren’t too many people willing to outbid him, and after the final three hammer strikes, Zong Xian successfully won the auction for the so-called birdcage. Gu Wen followed Zong Xian backstage, where the host specifically verified the secret code with the buyer. Gu Wen had confirmed this with the system in advance before letting the staff lead the two of them to view the auction item.
The protagonist shou was untied in front of Gu Wen. The slender boy huddled on the edge of the bed and trembled, looking like a frightened little animal.
As the buyer, Zong Xian didn’t seem to have much interest in the boy at all, as if winning the bid was simply a matter of transferring a sum of money out of his own account.
Seeing that Zong Xian was about to leave, Gu Wen instinctively stopped him. “Where are you going?”
“You don’t need to know.” Zong Xian swatted Gu Wen’s arm away and walked straight down the hallway.
Only Gu Wen and the young boy were left staring at each other in the room. He asked for the boy’s name, and ultimately took it upon himself to leave Zong Xian’s contact information with him.
Gu Wen let the boy leave on his own and retraced his steps along the route he remembered.
He clearly sensed the anger radiating from Zong Xian before he left, but as for why the other suddenly lost his temper, it was probably because he assumed Gu Wen was a rival competitor fighting over the protagonist shou.
Gu Wen had no intention of over-explaining. Zong Xian being dissatisfied with him actually played right into his hands.
Leaving the venue, Gu Wen originally intended to hail a taxi, only to discover that Zong Xian’s car was still parked right in its original spot.
“Get in the car.” Zong Xian had his driver pull the vehicle right up to Gu Wen.
“Didn’t you leave?”
Zong Xian seemed to be forcefully suppressing some emotion. “Ask me again and I’ll leave right now.”
Gu Wen didn’t mind catching a free ride, so he opened the back door and climbed straight inside.
“Just you?” Zong Xian glanced at him.
“I had him head back first.” Gu Wen knew the other was referring to the protagonist shou.
Zong Xian didn’t make another sound, and a heavy silence filled the car for a long time.
Just as Gu Wen was about to step out of the car, Zong Xian suddenly spoke up and asked, “Do you know him?”
Gu Wen pondered this question quite seriously. In the original work, Yan Guanbai only interacted with the protagonist shou after the protagonist gong and shou developed mutual affection.
“I suppose so.” After all, he now knew the other’s name: Lu Yuteng.
“Since when?”
“Not long ago.” Without putting much thought into it, Gu Wen brushed it off casually.
The car jerked to a sudden stop right below the apartment building where Gu Wen lived. Without even sparing Gu Wen a single glance, Zong Xian threw out a cold, dismissive command:
“Get out. Right now.”
Gu Wen spent most of his time away from the villa, so naturally, he had no idea whether Lu Yuteng and Zong Xian had been in private contact or met up behind the scenes.
Thinking he wouldn’t cross paths with the two protagonists for a long time, he never expected to run into Lu Yuteng right at the university.
It started during Gu Wen’s major class, where all the classes for the oil painting department were gathered together in the same lecture hall.
The boy with long hair stood out quite a bit. To avoid catching the instructor’s attention, Gu Wen had deliberately arrived early to claim a seat in the corner.
Just as class was about to start, the seat right next to him happened to be empty. Suddenly, someone asked him, “Classmate, is this seat taken?”
Gu Wen instinctively looked over, only to realize the person was Lu Yuteng.
The original novel didn’t elaborate much on the protagonist shou’s educational background, and it was only at this exact moment that Gu Wen learned Lu Yuteng was majoring in the exact same field. “You can sit here. Are you a student here too? I haven’t seen you around before.”
“I took a year off from school to work and pay off debts, and I just re-enrolled recently.” Lu Yuteng spoke with a hint of timidity.
To help Lu Yuteng lower his guard, Gu Wen chatted with him out of concern about his recent studies and whether he was able to keep up with the coursework. Lu Yuteng replied that he had spent his spare time catching up on a lot, so there was no need to worry.
The instructor ended the class two minutes early, and the students quickly dispersed toward the doorway, Gu Wen included. The moment he reached the cafeteria, he discovered a notification in the group chat inviting him to a class gathering. Word was that a newly arrived professor in the department was treating everyone, and they had booked a booth at a bar near the campus.
Free drinks and snacks were hard to turn down, and Gu Wen had no other plans for the evening, so he simply changed into a fresh outfit and headed over to the bar. Spotting an empty spot tucked away in the corner of a sofa, Gu Wen sat down in that inconspicuous spot, fiddling with his phone with one hand while munching on the food laid out on the table.
He had just finished a small packet of french fries when someone suddenly sat down beside him.
“Yan classmate, it’s me again,” Lu Yuteng greeted him with an embarrassed expression. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother at all. It’s a public place, anyone can sit anywhere.” Seeing how nervous Lu Yuteng looked, Gu Wen casually grabbed a handful of peanuts from the table and thrust them into the other’s palm. “Eat more since it’s free, otherwise this trip was a waste.”
Lu Yuteng murmured a soft thank you, nibbling on the peanuts in his palm one by one like a little hamster.
Though nominally hosted by the professor, the professor himself wasn’t even attending and was merely footing the bill for the students’ tabs. The young people at the table held nothing back, either ordering half the menu or picking out the most expensive cocktails, completely disregarding the fact that it wasn’t their own money.
Halfway through, someone chimed in that just eating and drinking was boring and asked the others at the table if they wanted to play Truth or Dare. Gu Wen hadn’t been interested at all, but a girl sitting on the opposite side dragged him in forcefully, leaving him with no choice but to humor them for a round or two.
“Is this okay?” Lu Yuteng leaned in close to Gu Wen and asked in a low voice.
“They probably know where to draw the line,” Gu Wen smiled at Lu Yuteng. “It’s just a game, nothing to worry about.”
Rather than reassuring Lu Yuteng, Gu Wen was mostly trying to comfort himself. Ever since he was young, whenever he attended similar gatherings, someone would always suggest playing various bizarre social games, leaving him with a fair share of psychological trauma.
Someone produced a deck of playing cards and arbitrarily dealt one to everyone present, including Lu Yuteng, who had initially opted out. Gu Wen looked back and shared a helpless, amused smile with him.
In a deck of cards, the Joker is highest and the three is lowest. The rules dictated that whoever held the highest card could command the person with the lowest card to either answer a truth or complete a dare.
Gu Wen flipped over his card: a five.
He scanned the hands around the table. Lu Yuteng held a six, and everyone else’s cards were higher than his.
“Don’t look anymore, Guanbai,” someone let out a chuckle. “It’s definitely you.”
Resigned to his fate, Gu Wen set down his card and awaited his judgment. The person with the highest card was the guy sitting directly across from him. “How about you eat a piece of biscuit with that girl sitting next to you? Haha.”
Not great at all, Gu Wen sighed inwardly.
The girl immediately protested, stating she clearly hadn’t drawn the lowest card and that being dragged into a dare for no reason was completely unreasonable.
“Fair enough. Then how about you eat one with the person who has the second-lowest card?” someone suggested soon after.
Gu Wen glanced back at the remaining cards on the table. Aside from himself, the lowest card belonged to Lu Yuteng.
“I don’t mind.” Lu Yuteng picked up a round maltose biscuit from the table. “I’m ready, Yan-classmate.”
“Just call me Guanbai,” Gu Wen said with a wry smile. He had Lu Yuteng bite down on one end of the biscuit first, then leaned in close to bite off a small piece from the other side.
The others burst into rowdy catcalls and laughter when they saw that a large chunk of the biscuit remained after Gu Wen finished biting his piece, joking that guys were truly useless when it came to taking advantage of each other.
Lu Yuteng offered an awkward apology to Gu Wen, who didn’t seem to understand the fuss. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But they were all laughing at you.” Lu Yuteng blinked earnestly as he looked at Gu Wen.
Gu Wen couldn’t help letting out a soft chuckle, raising a hand to pat Lu Yuteng’s shoulder to reassure him. “They’re just joking around. I don’t mind at all.”
Lu Yuteng nodded blankly.
Neither of them had any real interest in social games, so Gu Wen grabbed his drink and snacks, intending to move over to the nearby bar counter. But the moment he stood up and took a couple of steps, someone grabbed his wrist from behind.
Gu Wen furrowed his brows and instinctively turned around. Zong Xian, wearing a black jacket, was standing right behind him.
“Zong Xian-ge?” Gu Wen blinked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Come with me.” Zong Xian’s gaze carried heavy oppression, lingering intensely on Gu Wen.
Gu Wen didn’t dare refuse, so he shoved the snacks into Lu Yuteng’s hands and followed Zong Xian out.
Zong Xian never let go of Gu Wen’s hand, gripping it even tighter instead. “Is he a classmate of yours?”
Gu Wen knew Zong Xian was referring to Lu Yuteng. “He just came back after taking a break from school.”
Zong Xian dragged him all the way outside the bar entrance and forcefully shoved him into the back seat of the car. Gu Wen couldn’t help struggling. “I wasn’t planning on leaving just yet.”
“Right now, I need you to come back,” Zong Xian said in an unarguable tone, pinning Gu Wen’s arm down while continuing to push him further inside.
“Yuteng is still waiting for me,” Gu Wen tried to pull away from the seat. “I need to go tell him.”
“Looks like you two are pretty close,” Zong Xian clearly had no intention of letting Gu Wen get his way. “Right, you even shared a piece of biscuit.”
Gu Wen paused for a fraction of a second. “Were you there the whole time?”
“I’ve been here the whole time,” Zong Xian smiled with a hint of dark amusement, his nose nearly touching Gu Wen’s. “Ever since you sat down in that booth.”
Gu Wen took an involuntary deep breath. Just then, through the gap beside Zong Xian, he caught sight of Lu Yuteng holding his snacks and wandering around the bar entrance, looking for him.
“Hold on,” Gu Wen nudged Zong Xian. “Yuteng is looking for me, let me just go tell him.”
“I’ll tell him.” Zong Xian slammed the car door shut and walked off. Gu Wen tried the door handle, but as expected, it was locked.
Through the car window, he watched as Lu Yuteng followed Zong Xian into a dimly lit alleyway next door.
Young people nowadays really were impatient.
Zong Xian didn’t keep Gu Wen waiting too long. He opened the back door, leaned in close to Gu Wen, and fished a red velvet box out of his pocket.
Opening it, he revealed the necklace Zong Xian had given Gu Wen at the art exhibition. “Remember it now?”
Gu Wen had searched his apartment thoroughly without finding it, only then realizing he had simply forgotten to bring it along. “I remember. Zong Xian-ge gave it to me.”
“If you remember, why didn’t you wear it?” Zong Xian took the necklace out and forcefully fastened it around Gu Wen’s neck.
“Looks like you have to wear it forever so you won’t forget again, right?”