Adopted Son of a Wealthy Family (17) Always Tell Me the Truth.
Gui Wen instinctively shifted his attention to Zong Xian’s pocket, failing to understand why the other person was so obsessed with his mobile phone and snatched it away at every turn. “I wasn’t doing it on purpose, Brother Zong Xian. Please give it back to me.”
“Did I force you to type those words?” Zong Xian laughed out of anger.
Gui Wen couldn’t help being momentarily stunned. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“Come here.” Zong Xian held out his hand toward Gui Wen.
The latter obediently placed his palm in Zong Xian’s, followed the other man out of the airport, and got into the black sedan Zong Xian typically drove, his mind still lingering on his phone.
Zong Xian clearly had no intention of returning the item. With no driver present, he personally took the driver’s seat and navigated the vehicle. The bustling street views continuously receded as they drove all the way toward the distant suburbs.
Gui Wen recognized it as the direction of Zong Xian’s private villa. The last time he left the villa, he discovered that this place was close to the ocean, and looking down from the upper-floor windows offered an ultimate view of the sea.
He followed Zong Xian inside and stepped out on the second floor, returning to the room he had once briefly encountered.
Zong Xian sat straight down on the edge of the bed. Just as Gui Wen was about to sit beside him, he was pushed away fiercely and forcefully from the shoulder by the other. “I didn’t tell you to sit. This is my spot.”
Gui Wen met Zong Xian’s gaze in bewilderment, the latter’s tone icy. “Kneel.”
The bedside was covered with a fluffy rug, so kneeling on it wasn’t particularly painful. To Gui Wen, kneeling was merely a routine action carrying no heavy psychological burden, so he raised his head from a lower vantage point to look into Zong Xian’s face. “Can you return my phone, Brother?”
“Confess your wrongdoing first.” Zong Xian twirled the phone in his palm.
Gui Wen inched closer toward Zong Xian. “Your younger brother was wrong. Your younger brother shouldn’t have lied to you.”
“Why did you go to the airport?” Zong Xian pinched Gui Wen’s chin, as though that could let him see deeper into the other’s eyes.
Gui Wen couldn’t explain anything about the system to Zong Xian. Facing Zong Xian’s overwhelming pressure, he managed to squeeze out a seemingly reasonable excuse. “I went to see a friend off.”
“Is that so? To my knowledge, none of the friends around you are catching a flight.” The hand pressing on Gui Wen’s chin tightened by another fraction.
Clearly, Gui Wen had underestimated Zong Xian’s intelligence network, which had thoroughly investigated even the information of those around him. “Teacher Xu is resigning and leaving, so I went to send Teacher Xu off.”
“She only started teaching professional classes ten days ago,” Zong Xian curved his lips with ill intent, like a silent warning to Gui Wen. “Are you that close?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Zong Xian bent down, closing in on Gui Wen’s face as though a heavy storm cloud was pressing down heavily. “You went to find Lu Yuteng.”
Gui Wen pursed his lips, finding no more suitable excuses to defend himself. He simply activated the system’s pity-seeking buff, attempting to win soft-heartedness from the other. “Brother, I really know I was wrong.”
“Then, always tell me the truth.”
Zong Xian grasped Gui Wen’s palm and placed it on his own thigh, whereupon Gui Wen naturally wrapped his arms around the other’s leg to plead for mercy. “I will, Brother.”
“Remember what you promised me.” Zong Xian gently stroked Gui Wen’s palm. “Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I have ways of finding out.”
Gui Wen’s fingers were suddenly squeezed tightly, as if they were about to be crushed down to the bones.
“So, don’t think you can ever fool me.”
Zong Xian released his grip, and Gui Wen was finally permitted to stand straight up from the rug.
Having knelt for too long, his legs felt somewhat numb, causing Gui Wen to stagger slightly as he stood. Zong Xian reached out to support his waist, pulling the other to lean against his chest.
As the sensation slowly returned to his legs, Gui Wen felt more or less embarrassed, hurriedly trying to pull away from Zong Xian when his own phone in the other’s pocket suddenly rang.
Gui Wen instinctively reached out to retrieve it. Zong Xian hadn’t originally intended to stop him, but the moment the phone left the pocket and the screen lit up to show the incoming call labeled with Lu Yuteng’s full name, the latter snatched it back from Gui Wen’s hands once again.
“Brother Zong Xian, Brother,” Gui Wen instinctively reached out to grab the other’s wrist, anxious about Lu Yuteng’s family reunion. “Let me answer the call, it might be an emergency.”
“You know very well that I dislike you approaching him.”
Zong Xian turned back with a cold face, deliberately maintaining a distance from the other, and answered Lu Yuteng’s call on Gui Wen’s phone. “It’s me.”
Listening intently to the person on the other end, Zong Xian remained silent for a long time before finally offering a faint reply: “Got it.”
Gui Wen pressed his lips together as Zong Xian hung up the phone and handed it back into Gui Wen’s hands.
“Stay here,” Zong Xian took off his suit jacket and began changing into casual wear. “I have matters to attend to.”
“Did something happen to Yuteng?” Gui Wen couldn’t help expressing his concern.
Zong Xian’s tone was as cold as a frozen abyss. “You don’t need to concern yourself with that much.”
No matter how Gui Wen questioned him, Zong Xian steadfastly refused to reveal a single word, leaving Gui Wen to watch helplessly as he departed from the villa.
The suburban villa made it inconvenient to hail a taxi, and since Gui Wen had no personal driver of his own, he could find no one to pick him up.
He could only sit anxiously inside the villa room, completely losing the mood to admire the ocean view.
[Host.]
The voice of the O0O system rang out abruptly. [The conclusion of the mission means the host doesn’t need to intervene in this matter. Let nature take its course, and the protagonist shou will naturally reunite with his family.]
Despite the system’s explanation, Gui Wen still couldn’t feel entirely at ease. He closed his eyes facing the distant sea, thinking not of Lu Yuteng and his family, nor of the system missions, but of the look in Zong Xian’s eyes before he left the villa.
He snapped his eyes open, pulled out his phone to message Zong Xian, asking for his location, but received no reply for a long time.
Calling Lu Yuteng back yielded no answer either.
Gui Wen forcefully comforted himself, thinking it was just important business being handled without time to check phones, and worrying too much was merely groundless anxiety.
It wasn’t until the weekday that Zong Xian’s driver came to take him to school.
Zong Xian himself had yet to make an appearance, and when Gui Wen couldn’t help asking the driver if he knew the employer’s whereabouts, the man drew a complete blank.
What made it even more coincidental was that throughout the entire day, Gui Wen couldn’t find a single trace of Lu Yuteng in any of his classes, even though the other person had never skipped class before.
His messages still showed no replies, and calls remained unanswered as usual.
The unease in his heart grew increasingly intense. Gui Wen attempted to mobilize his limited connections to search for Zong Xian’s whereabouts, and just as he ran out of options and prepared to report it to the police station, he received a phone call.
“Brother Guanbai, I know where your brother is,” the voice on the other end sighed imperceptibly. “My uncle is a doctor; your brother is lying in the hospital, unconscious.”
Gui Wen’s heart nearly stopped beating. “What on earth happened?”
“He was struck on the back of the head, specifics are unclear beyond that.” The other person provided the hospital details, and Gui Wen rushed out of the school gate, hailing a taxi immediately.
He clutched his phone, refreshing the message interface from time to time, but the red notification dot never lit up.
Evening rush hour traffic was severely congested. When the ride became unbearably stalled halfway through, Gui Wen anxiously chose to get out of the car and run the rest of the way to the destination.
He was still waiting for his exclusive message alert tone to sound.
Gui Wen managed to steady his breathing. Upon arriving on the first floor of the hospital without any prior appointment, he bumped directly into Lu Yuteng stepping out of the elevator.
“Yuteng,” Gui Wen reacted faster than any time before. He dashed forward and grabbed Lu Yuteng’s wrist to prevent the other from finding a chance to escape. “You’ve seen Zong Xian, haven’t you?”
Lu Yuteng pursed his lips, wanting to speak yet uncertain whether he should.
“Please, I want to know what happened.” Gui Wen’s grip tightened involuntarily.
“Mr. Zong has already woken up, don’t worry.” Lu Yuteng gripped Gui Wen’s hand in reverse, attempting to soothe the other.
Lu Yuteng had received the documents sent to him by Zong Xian containing all the information about his biological family, through which he finally discovered his true origins.
As for why Zong Xian had initiated the investigation and provided him with the documents, Lu Yuteng remained tight-lipped.
Seeing Professor Yu in professional class had been unexpected, but Lu Yuteng instantly recognized a face identical to the one in the document photos.
Upon receiving the news that Professor Yu was heading to the airport to leave the city, Lu Yuteng chose to give chase and successfully exchanged contact information with Professor Yu in the end.
It seemed someone in the shadows did not wish for Lu Yuteng to reunite with his family; after leaving the airport, Lu Yuteng was abducted by thugs, during which he found an opening to dial a random call for help, never expecting the one who answered to be Zong Xian.
Zong Xian arranged personnel to rescue him from the thugs, while personally stepping into the tiger’s den himself.
This syndicate of criminals proved craftier than imagined; Zong Xian fell into a trap due to a moment of carelessness, taking a heavy blow to the head and being rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
Gui Wen could not describe what he was feeling right now, nor could he understand where such emotions stemmed from. At any rate, he had no desire to look at Lu Yuteng’s face at this moment.
He had known from start to finish that Lu Yuteng was indispensable to Zong Xian.
Before Lu Yuteng could continue recounting the recent events, Gui Wen felt someone embrace him tightly from behind, as though trying to knead him into their own body.
“Mr. Zong,” Lu Yuteng’s expression could only be described as terrified, “you’ve just regained consciousness, you should rest more.”
“Brother Zong Xian?” Gui Wen turned back immediately. Zong Xian’s face was as pale as paper with colorless lips, and blood could be seen seeping through the bandages wrapped around his neck.
Gui Wen quickly wrapped his arms around the other in return. “You’re hurt so badly and still bleeding, I’ll take you to find a doctor right now.”
“Yan Guanbai,” the knuckles pressing against Gui Wen turned white with force, “don’t talk to him.”
“Let’s go back to the ward first, I’ll listen to whatever you say.” Gui Wen helped Zong Xian into the elevator, watching with alarm as the blood on the bandages around his neck continued to spread.
“Does it hurt very much?” He couldn’t help asking, his gaze fixed tightly on Zong Xian’s neck.
Instead of answering, Zong Xian reached out and fished out the diamond necklace hanging around Gui Wen’s neck.
“My younger brother.” His breath gradually grew weaker.
Then, without warning, he collapsed into Gui Wen’s arms.
“Zong Xian!” Gui Wen shook the person in his arms like a madman, his hands brushing against the other’s neck staining red with fresh blood.
“Please. Nothing must happen to you.”