Wang Shuo did not expose Xu Qiduo’s lie.
Across the table, Zhou Mengxing had already taken a seat.
Just as Xu Qiduo’s expression turned awkward, Wang Shuo walked over to his side and said, “What a coincidence, Xu Qiduo. I haven’t eaten yet either, how about we share a table?”
Not a coincidence at all, could he just refuse outright? Share a table, my foot! Had he run out of money to eat, needing to sponge off someone else’s meal?
Xu Qiduo had a mountain of thoughts running through his head, but what actually came out of his mouth was an honest, “Sure.”
Honestly, sometimes he really despised this kind of inconsistency between his thoughts and his words!
Initially, because it was just Zhou Mengxing and the two of them, they had been sitting face-to-face.
Now, with Wang Shuo coming over to sit beside him, the seating arrangement shifted so that both of them were facing Zhou Mengxing.
Awkward, truly awkward.
Given the choice, he would genuinely rather share a single stool with Zhou Mengxing.
After sitting down, Wang Shuo introduced himself to Zhou Mengxing: “Hello, I’m Xu Qiduo’s high school classmate, my name is Wang Shuo. I’ve known him for many years, and we hang out quite a bit in private. Are you a freshman this year?”
“Yes, my name is Zhou Mengxing.” Zhou Mengxing naturally wouldn’t add all those decorative modifiers around his name the way Wang Shuo did.
“By the way, have you guys seen the post on the school forum? It’s about the two of you, quite absurd,” Wang Shuo asked provokingly.
Hearing this, Xu Qiduo’s already drooping expression sank even further, because he could already guess what Zhou Mengxing would say.
“Not absurd at all, it’s all true,” Zhou Mengxing replied calmly.
Now it was Wang Shuo’s turn to wear a strange expression as he cast his gaze back onto Zhou Mengxing.
Just then, the dishes they had previously ordered began arriving at the table.
Wang Shuo said to the waitress serving the food, “Ma’am, please add a plate of sweet and sour pork ribs and squirrel-shaped mandarin fish to this table.”
Following that, he explained to Zhou Mengxing, “Xu Qiduo has a relatively heavy palate and loves these kinds of dishes. These two dishes are absolute must-orders whenever we go out. The food you ordered is too plain, Xu Qiduo won’t like it.”
“Oh?” Hearing this, Zhou Mengxing raised his gaze and looked at Xu Qiduo with an obscure, unreadable look in his eyes.
That look made Xu Qiduo involuntarily straighten his spine.
Truth be told, these dishes were actually ordered by Xu Qiduo himself.
In the stir-fried pork, he had specifically requested replacing the spicy chili peppers with bell peppers.
In the shredded potatoes, he had explicitly told the kitchen staff not to use vinegar when stir-frying.
The tomato and scrambled eggs had to be on the sweet side, and the three-delicacy soup he ordered had to have minimal scallions and cilantro.
The original host might have had a heavy palate, but Xu Qiduo himself was a southerner with a preference for lighter flavors, and he couldn’t even handle much spice.
Just as Xu Qiduo felt he could no longer hold out under Zhou Mengxing’s gaze, Wang Shuo spoke up once more.
“Let’s go out and hang out tonight; Zhou Wei organized a get-together, saying he just met some friends from City B who came to City N to study. I’ll have the driver come pick you up tonight.”
Oh boy! Wang Shuo’s driver, Xu Qiduo couldn’t remember how many years it had been since he last saw him.
If Wang Shuo didn’t mention it, Xu Qiduo would have thought he was the one acting as Wang Shuo’s driver.
Xu Qiduo nodded in agreement. As long as he attended this gathering, he could secure his label as the infatuated second male lead once more.
Later, he told Zhou Mengxing privately, “Those people getting together to hang out is just normal socializing. You surely don’t plan on following me all the way there, do you?”
The social circles shared by Xu Qiduo and Wang Shuo consisted entirely of wealthy scions. The business connections among many family-run enterprises were forged precisely through the socializing of these young masters.
Although Zhou Mengxing had just arrived in City N and just entered the Xu family, he was well aware of this fact.
However, right before the two of them parted ways, Zhou Mengxing gave him a meaningful look and said, “You only eat shrimp when they are plain-boiled, and you even dip crabs only in soy sauce without vinegar. Yet Wang Shuo claims your palate is heavy, and he doesn’t even understand a detail like that about you. Even if you are just long-time friends, you would know a companion’s food preferences just by paying a tiny bit of attention.”
It was a rare instance of Zhou Mengxing speaking in such a long, flowing sentence.
“Are you sticking up for me?” Xu Qiduo thought to himself with relief, glad that Zhou Mengxing was merely defending him rather than wondering why his food preferences had suddenly changed.
“I’m not defending you, I just feel it’s not worth it for you. Why have you been able to like a person like this for so many years without ever looking back?”
Xu Qiduo could finally tell that Zhou Mengxing was genuinely puzzled.
Yet Xu Qiduo could hardly tell him the honest truth.
He couldn’t say that this was simply a plot setting with no underlying reason, and that even though Xu Qiduo had switched souls, he was still bound to like Wang Shuo without looking back.
“There is no why, he just appeared at the right time,” the infatuated second male lead improvised.
“That’s true. The people or events that appear at the right time always seem right to us, regardless of whether they turn out to be right later on,” Zhou Mengxing remarked with a hidden meaning.
Xu Qiduo quickly pressed his advantage: “Then you can still change things now, why are you still stubbornly charging ahead blindly?”
Zhou Mengxing looked at him for a long moment before speaking again: “Because this is something I must do right now, whether for the people and events tied to that node or for the future. Xu Qiduo, you should understand your own value and status. The reason your older brother sought me out…”
Just as he reached the most crucial part, Zhou Mengxing stopped talking.
“What? Keep going, leaving your sentence half-finished is enough to drive someone crazy!” Curiosity was killing Xu Qiduo inside!
With an eyebrow quirked upward and the smug expression of someone whose scheme had succeeded, Zhou Mengxing said, “As long as you follow your older brother’s wishes and get together with me, you will naturally come to understand the whole story.”
Xu Qiduo wore an expression as if he had indigestion, clearly realizing Zhou Mengxing was deliberately baiting him: “If you want to talk, talk; if not, forget it!”
Naturally, Xu Qiduo had no intention of agreeing to date Zhou Mengxing right now just to satisfy his older brother’s wishes.
Even after he finished walking through the plot line he was assigned to complete, he would never end up with Zhou Mengxing anyway.
That evening, Xu Qiduo accepted Wang Shuo’s invitation and accompanied him to a club to meet these new friends.
As soon as he and Wang Shuo stepped into the private room, they were met with enthusiastic gossip from the crowd.
The fact of his unrequited crush on Wang Shuo was no secret at all; everyone knew the situation inside out, and everyone had witnessed Wang Shuo’s cold and indifferent attitude toward him.
However, neither family was someone to be trifled with, and their tangled romantic drama was purely a case of one party willing to inflict suffering and the other willing to endure it, making it useless for outsiders to interfere.
Therefore, after all these years, everyone had long since grown accustomed to their complicated dynamic.
They would only occasionally tease them about it.
Yet this time, due to the scandalous trending post on N University’s forum involving Xu Qiduo and Zhou Mengxing, these people were naturally burning with curiosity.
The moment Xu Qiduo stepped through the door, someone pulled him aside to ask, “What on earth is your relationship with that freshman?”
“With looks like his, would he even like you?” The speaker paused for a second, realizing how inappropriate his words sounded, and quickly corrected himself: “No, I mean, with looks like his, is he really short of people who like him?”
Someone else asked out of curiosity, “What’s his background anyway?”
Another person chimed in, “Why didn’t you invite him along so we could all get to know him?”
Talking all at once in a chaotic chatter, the group swarmed around Xu Qiduo until his head was spinning from the noise.
“Alright, that’s enough.” It was Wang Shuo who finally spoke up, pulling Xu Qiduo out of the encircling crowd. “What kind of person he is has nothing to do with us. He must have ulterior motives for pestering Xu Qiduo, probably trying to exploit the Xu family behind him.”
Truth be told, Wang Shuo had actually guessed correctly.
Except it was the exact reverse. It wasn’t Zhou Mengxing exploiting the Xu family, but rather the Xu family exploiting him; and the person with ulterior motives wasn’t Zhou Mengxing, but his older brother, Xu Qizhi.
“Right? Xu Qiduo, you find him annoying too, don’t you?” Wang Shuo asked him abruptly.
“Huh?” Xu Qiduo hesitated for a moment before answering, “He is quite bothersome.”
Zhou Mengxing’s behavior truly brought him a great deal of distress, not to mention the mastermind behind Zhou Mengxing, his own older brother.
Having received an answer to his satisfaction, Wang Shuo turned back to address the room: “Alright, alright, let’s drop the subject of that guy for tonight, look at how annoyed Xu Qiduo is. By the way, Zhou Wei, have the people you mentioned arrived yet?”
As Wang Shuo steered the conversation elsewhere, the rest of the group naturally stopped crowding around Xu Qiduo with questions.
The chatter in the private room gradually shifted away from Xu Qiduo.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, Zhou Wei suddenly stood up and announced he needed to go meet someone at the entrance.
With that, he left the private room.
Zhou Wei’s family ran one of the top-ranking enterprises in City N, and he was well-versed in wining, dining, and partying; his arrogant demeanor made it clear at a glance that he was not someone to be messed with.
Yet they had never seen him act so subservient toward anyone, so subservient that he would personally go outside to welcome someone’s arrival.
That was until Zhou Wei led those visitors from City B into the private room.
Upon entering, Zhou Wei eagerly introduced them to everyone: “Brothers, let me introduce you all.”
He looked even more obsequious than before.
Xu Qiduo glanced over at the newcomers, his eyes accidentally catching someone familiar.
By mid-October, although the temperature hadn’t dropped everywhere yet, a wave of cold air over the past two days had caused City N’s temperature to plunge by over ten degrees Celsius.
This resulted in a mixed style of clothing on the streets: people wearing long sleeves, short sleeves, cardigans, and sweaters all mixed together.
Xu Qiduo had a frail constitution with very poor stamina, so the moment the temperature dropped, he had layered a jacket over his short-sleeved shirt.
However, that particular person left a deep impression on him.
A full sleeve tattoo on his forearm vanished into the short sleeve of his shirt, and though Xu Qiduo stared at it for a moment, he still couldn’t figure out what the pattern depicted.
Unlike the bulky, muscle-bound look cultivated in a gym, the muscle lines on that person’s arms were smooth and lean, a very aesthetic, slender musculature.
It wasn’t hard to imagine how much explosive power lay beneath that layer of lean muscle.
During their brief glance past each other last night, Xu Qiduo hadn’t seen the man’s face.
Tonight inside the private room, however, Xu Qiduo finally got a clear look.
It was a face that had never once appeared anywhere in his memories. Xu Qiduo was entirely certain he had never laid eyes on this person before. Yet the strange feeling deep within his heart reminded him that this person was out of the ordinary.
The man possessed refined eyebrows and refined, exquisite facial features. Lowering his gaze, he exchanged greetings with everyone one by one. In every gesture and movement, there was an unspeakable, aristocratic elegance.
He owned a face that was docile to the extreme, clashing sharply with the tattoo on his arm.