The laptop open in front of them was still replaying a segment of surveillance footage provided by the club. In the video, Lan Xi searched through the pockets of every one of those good-for-nothing friends who had passed out drunk. Anyone who knew what was happening could tell he was searching their pockets; anyone who didn’t might think he was simply feeling every one of them up. Later, when he asked for the PIN, he even straddled Young Master Cui.
Wen Yue and Wen Ming watched in silence. Their brows throbbed violently, and their expressions were equally ugly.
The hands of the wall clock slowly crept toward four in the morning.
Both men still had work the next day and genuinely couldn’t stay awake any longer.
“Let’s sleep.” Wen Ming closed the laptop and ground out through his teeth, “I’d like to see where he can go this time without any money.”
Wen Yue stood up and cursed under his breath. “What kind of friends has he been hanging around with? When he comes back, I’m breaking his legs.”
Wen Ming said nothing, but just like his elder brother, he silently added another mark against Young Master Cui in his heart.
Both brothers woke early the next morning. When they asked the household staff, Wen Lan still hadn’t come back.
They called the university, but the university hadn’t seen him either.
Thinking about Wen Lan’s past behavior, Wen Ming didn’t lose his temper this time. He calmly told Wen Yue, “Don’t look for him. Don’t bother. What he wants is for everyone to make a huge fuss searching for him and revolve around him.”
Wen Yue suddenly remembered something. “Did he return Cui Ji’s phone yesterday?”
Cui Ji was Young Master Cui’s full name.
Wen Ming froze. “I don’t think anyone remembered…”
Once President Cui arrived, everyone had been busy watching him discipline his son. Who would have remembered such a minor detail?
“Tell the Cui family. Ask whether they have any way to locate it.”
At that very moment, Lan Xi was charging the phone.
A middle-aged man in a suit had sent his driver away and taken the driver’s seat himself. He looked Lan Xi over with great interest. “I saw you stop a lot of cars. Why did you finally choose mine?”
Lan Xi had stopped plenty of cars without finding a single seraph. Just when he was becoming extremely disappointed, the phone he had taken from Young Master Cui ran out of battery as well. Lan Xi didn’t want to return to the Wen family, he no longer had a card, and he had absolutely nothing else to do, so in the end he had simply chosen this car.
The explanation was too long… and Lan Xi couldn’t be bothered giving it.
So he ignored the man.
The man didn’t mind.
From the moment Lan Xi knocked on his window to the moment he got into the car, they had exchanged only a few sentences.
Lan Xi opened his palm to reveal the phone. “It has no battery.”
“You want to charge it?”
Lan Xi: “Mm.”
“Get in.”
Lan Xi then asked him, “You have money?”
The man answered with amusement, “I have money.”
And that had been the end of the conversation.
The man began guessing that perhaps this kid had argued with his family and run away from home. He didn’t look homeless. A homeless kid couldn’t possibly have been raised this well.
But why ask him, Do you have money?
The question carried a rather suggestive undertone.
The man’s gaze lingered carefully over Lan Xi’s face. In the end, he couldn’t bear to let someone this beautiful leave after merely charging his phone.
“You’re not going home?” he asked.
Lan Xi’s face scrunched up with obvious disgust at the thought of drinking medicine. He answered firmly, “No.”
The man smiled more broadly. “But isn’t it dangerous for you to stay outside alone?”
He coaxed him patiently.
Lan Xi lowered his head and fiddled with the phone without speaking.
Finally, the man revealed what he actually wanted. “If you truly have nowhere to go, why don’t you stay at my house for the time being?”
He didn’t forget to emphasize, “It really is dangerous outside. Especially for someone like you.”
That was exactly what Lan Xi had been waiting to hear.
At last, he spared the man a little attention. “Okay.”
Only then did the man call the driver back, while he and Lan Xi both moved into the back seat.
He introduced himself. “My name is Liang Yuecheng. What’s yours?”
“Lan Xi.”
Liang Yuecheng smiled. “That sounds like a girl’s name.”
Lan Xi quietly rolled his eyes.
It’s a demon’s name.
The two of them “hit it off” immediately, and Liang Yuecheng took a demon home with him.
Of course, as far as Liang Yuecheng was concerned, he had brought home an extraordinarily beautiful young man who had practically fallen out of the sky. If he didn’t still have appointments to attend, he would already have coaxed him into bed.
“Stay here for now, all right? I still need to go take care of some work.” Liang Yuecheng did his utmost to present himself as a gentle, attentive older man. Plenty of his younger lovers fell for this approach.
In reality, Lan Xi desperately wanted him to leave as soon as possible.
The aura around this man was blue-green, making him a little higher-ranking than an ordinary angel but nowhere near a seraph. As for his age, he was the sort where even a demon would take two bites and complain that the meat was a little old.
Lan Xi had no interest in him.
He was only interested in spending his money.
So Lan Xi nodded repeatedly and happily saw Liang Yuecheng off.
The moment Liang Yuecheng left, Lan Xi asked the household staff for food.
The servant had never met such an unrestrained new lover before, but also knew that Liang Yuecheng was still fascinated with the young man. There was no way they could afford to offend him, so the servant could only go prepare something.
But after thinking for a moment, Lan Xi called the servant back. “I also want…”
The servant was already becoming a little impatient, only to hear Lan Xi continue, “I want a book. I want… Grade 3 Chinese, Volume 1.”
His speech had become much more fluent, but the servant still thought they had misheard.
What?
Muttering inwardly, the servant turned around and called Liang Yuecheng.
Liang Yuecheng found it strange too when he heard.
No bags, no jewelry—why was he asking for Grade 3 Chinese, Volume 1?
Could he still be in high school?
Liang Yuecheng didn’t have much of a moral conscience. After thinking about it, he said, “How hard can it be to get him a book? Buy him Grade 12 Chinese, Volume 1.”
It never even occurred to Liang Yuecheng that Lan Xi was only at elementary-school level.
When the book was finally placed in front of Lan Xi, his eyes had only just curved happily when his brows immediately drooped again. “Don’t want this.”
He couldn’t understand it.
Forget it, Lan Xi thought. I’ll make do.
Lan Xi stayed at Liang Yuecheng’s villa and ate two bowls of dessert, but still decided that making do was no good.
Why did Fu Hui have to die? I was so close.
He propped his chin in one hand and stared blankly into space, planning to demand that Liang Yuecheng hire a better cook once he came back.
Fu Hui was reading the newspaper.
When Cheng Yiran came downstairs that morning, he hadn’t expected to see Fu Hui at the dining table. Delighted, he called, “Brother!”
Fu Hui lowered the newspaper. “The driver said you went all the way out to the outskirts the night before last and came home very late.”
That night, Cheng Yiran had followed Fang Nianqing and Lan Xi until he got himself lost, which was why he had ended up returning so late. He had originally felt a little embarrassed, but realizing that Fu Hui had actually noticed enough to care made him happy instead, so he began telling him about Wen Lan.
“I think I might have been sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.”
“Mm?”
“The reason Wen Lan and I started fighting before was because he kept pestering one of our classmates and using his family’s power to bully him. But that day, I saw Wen Lan follow him to his part-time job and then go home with him.” Cheng Yiran worked hard to find more things to tell Fu Hui.
Fu Hui listened without much interest and replied mildly, “It doesn’t matter. The Wen family might even be grateful that you helped discipline their son.”
Cheng Yiran carefully shifted his chair a little closer, hoping to keep talking to Fu Hui.
Just then, a bodyguard approached carrying a phone. “Sir, Brother Wang would like to speak with you.”
Fu Hui casually took it and first asked after his subordinate. “How’s your arm?”
The voice on the other end said, “Thank you for asking, Sir. It’s finally healed. …I still don’t know what was going on with that Young Master Wen. Was his arm cast out of iron or something?”
Fu Hui had heard the name “Wen Lan” plenty over the past couple of days, but he genuinely didn’t care about him.
Then the man on the other end continued, “Sir, I met Xiao Dong. He said Miss A-Lan was taken to Jing City for treatment.”
Fu Hui paused for a moment before remembering that he had once given instructions about this.
Fu Hui was, by nature, somewhat fickle in his attachments. Once a person or thing was no longer in front of him, his interest quickly faded. But if something remained in his sight for too long, he grew tired of it just as easily.
“Mm. If everything’s fine, come back to Jing City,” Fu Hui said.
The person on the other end hesitated. “I think Xiao Dong’s reaction was strange.”
“How?”
“When he talked about Miss A-Lan, he didn’t act anything like an older brother. I have a younger sister myself, so I’m fairly sensitive to that sort of thing…”
Fu Hui rubbed his fingertips together.
Xiao Dong did have something strange about him… but was there really any need for Fu Hui to meddle any further?
The girl’s appearance was already beginning to blur in his memory. Still, Fu Hui remembered the sight of her running over breathlessly with a tea blossom she had picked, the soft flesh of her cheeks squashed out of shape against the gate, and the warmth of her fingers when he taught her to write.
Consider it a good deed.
Fu Hui gave another instruction. “Then find out what’s actually going on before you come back.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Fu Hui hung up.
Cheng Yiran still couldn’t resist asking, “What happened?”
Fu Hui had no intention of answering. He merely said, “Finish eating and go to class.”
Cheng Yiran had no choice but to obey. He put down his chopsticks and got up to leave.
When he reached the doorway, he reluctantly turned back again. “Brother, are you staying here today? I’ll come back this afternoon and play cards with you.”
“No need. I’m not playing anymore.”
Cheng Yiran knew he had grown bored of them again. He stepped outside uneasily, and at that moment, he actually felt a little envious of Wen Lan.
At least his brother cared whether his hair was long or short.
The place where Fu Hui usually lived was extremely secluded, and he rarely returned to the Fu family estate. He had only come back today because he had something to take care of nearby.
He asked, “Where does Liang Yuecheng live?”
The bodyguard gave him an address.
“Call him,” Fu Hui said.
When Liang Yuecheng received the call, he had barely gotten settled before he hurried back again.
Fu Hui rarely appeared publicly. Among Jing City’s wealthy and powerful circles, his name alone was usually enough to intimidate people.
By age, Liang Yuecheng was ten years older than Fu Hui. By social seniority, he had been a junior schoolmate of Fu Hui’s mother.
None of that mattered.
He was afraid of Fu Hui.
And he didn’t dare make Fu Hui wait.
Only after the car was back on the road did Liang Yuecheng remember the beautiful young man he had just picked up and brought home.
He shouldn’t cause any offense in front of Fu Hui… right?
Fu Hui had already reached Liang Yuecheng’s home by then.
The Liang family’s household staff were terribly afraid of him and tremblingly tried to invite him inside.
Fu Hui stood in the courtyard for a while, looking over the landscaping, before slowly walking in.
Inside, another servant was currently taking a call from Liang Yuecheng.
Liang Yuecheng ordered him to take Lan Xi upstairs.
The servant answered repeatedly, “All right, all right.”
After hanging up, the servant turned around, saw that Fu Hui had already entered, and became so frightened that he hurried off to call Lan Xi.
But Fu Hui had already caught sight of the vague outline of someone’s back.
After Lan Xi returned to the Wen family, he had been wearing Wen Lan’s clothes. Wen Lan liked luxury runway pieces. Today it was an Armani blue-gray silk-satin shirt, its winding print disappearing beneath the waistband, which was set with Baroque pearls and elegantly cinched his slender waist in a beautiful, vintage style.
For an instant, Fu Hui felt a faint sense of familiarity.
But he had no idea where it came from.
The person facing away from him had fluffy black short hair, though a faint violet sheen could still be seen between the strands.
This was a young man.
“Let’s go upstairs first,” the servant said to Lan Xi.
Lan Xi stood up and dropped the book in his hand.
Then he turned around completely.
In truth, long-haired Lan Xi and short-haired Lan Xi didn’t look all that different. As a succubus, he had been born with a kind of androgynous allure that made his beauty difficult to categorize. With long hair, that beauty was more direct and strikingly sensual. His short, tousled hair, on the other hand, made him look somewhat cuter.
The crystal chandelier in the living room shone dazzlingly bright, illuminating Lan Xi’s face with perfect clarity and searing it into Fu Hui’s eyes.
Fu Hui unconsciously narrowed his eyes.
Then he watched surprise and delight bloom across Lan Xi’s face, his features suddenly lighting up as though filled with a thousand fireworks.
He called out to him.
“Fu… Hui!”
The pronunciation was awkward.
But it was unmistakably a young man’s voice.
Fu Hui turned his head and calmly asked the servant, “Why is he here?”
The servant was confused and stammered, “H-he’s someone President Liang brought home this morning.”
Fu Hui looked at her.
The servant could only keep talking, trying to give him enough information to satisfy him. “Do you know him? He seemed to have gotten lost, or maybe he had nowhere to go. Anyway, President Liang found him by the roadside.”
Fu Hui said nothing more.
He slowly walked closer, picked up the high-school Chinese textbook from the coffee table, then glanced at the empty bowls and plates nearby.
Now even Fu Hui’s bodyguard was stunned.
He tentatively called, “Miss… A-Lan?”
Lan Xi nodded happily.
He had just been about to say, Fu Hui, so you didn’t die after all. Then why, when I went to the villa looking for you that day, did nobody open the door for me?
But that sentence was far too long. Lan Xi was still trying to work out the wording and pronunciation when Fu Hui spoke first.
“Did you deliberately wait by the roadside for someone to pick you up and take you home?”
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