When Wang Cheng returned to the villa, Chu Yifeng and David were both there. The coffee table in the living room was almost completely covered with all kinds of snacks and drinks. Some were things Wang Cheng had eaten before, others were unfamiliar, and David was in the middle of waving his arms and legs around in some kind of dance Wang Cheng had never seen.
“What kind of fit is this?”
Wang Cheng sat barefoot beside Chu Yifeng, casually picked up a piece of mung bean cake from the table, and took a bite. It was sweet without being cloying. Older people would probably like it. He could bring some for Grandpa and his parents next time he had the chance.
“The contract that took three rounds of negotiations is finally settled.” Chu Yifeng lifted his glass and took a sip of red wine.
“That’s good news.” Wang Cheng nodded. David had complained to him about it before, saying the people on the other side of the negotiation were impossibly stubborn and refused to budge from their price. More than once, David had nearly gone crazy over it. “I need to tell you something. On the twentieth, I’m going back to Shanhai City with my little sister. Their university is starting winter break.”
Chu Yifeng raised a brow. “When will you be back?”
“Hard to say. I might stay until after New Year.” There was only about half a month left until New Year.
“You’re planning to stay in Shanhai City and spend New Year with your adoptive parents?” Wang Cheng suddenly remembered that he also had biological parents now…
That was how he had spent every New Year before. For a moment, he had completely forgotten that Mother Zheng would probably want to celebrate their first New Year together too. Suddenly, it became a difficult choice. “Forget it. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I’ll think about it when the time comes.”
“Before you go back, come somewhere with me,” Chu Yifeng suddenly said.
“Where?”
“You’ll know when we arrive.”
Half an hour later, Wang Cheng stared at the building in front of him. He had never expected Chu Yifeng to be this bold. Without a word of warning, the man had brought him straight to the Chu residence. At the very least, he could have given Wang Cheng some time to prepare himself mentally.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” Wang Cheng glanced at the bodyguards stationed outside the main gate. Their bearing alone was enough to show they were no ordinary guards.
Chu Yifeng replied calmly, “Meet the family.”
“…”
For what felt like the first time, their brain waves had completely failed to connect. Wang Cheng thought Chu Yifeng looked more like he was here to kick down the doors of a rival school. “Stop fooling around. Even if you want to lay everything out, now isn’t the right time. Your grandfather is definitely going to have us thrown out.”
“Scared?”
Wang Cheng looked him squarely in the eye, then suddenly deflated. “Forget it. If you want to meet them, then let’s meet them. Worst case, I’ll stay with you. With our skills, even if a fight breaks out, we might not lose.” Chu Yifeng was willing to bring him home and introduce him to his family. Wang Cheng should be happy about that. At least Chu Yifeng was doing something Wang Cheng himself had once been unable to do.
Chu Yifeng smiled. “I won’t let them touch a single hair on your head.”
“That’s not the point.” Wang Cheng scratched his hair. “You wouldn’t say anything when I asked yesterday. If I’d known we were coming to meet your family, I could at least have prepared a greeting gift. Even if your family doesn’t need anything, the gesture still matters. Otherwise they’ll probably be even unhappier with me.”
“It’s enough that you have the intention. I’m sure they’ll feel it.” Wang Cheng’s mouth twitched. He was not so sure.
“Let’s go in.” The two of them had been talking outside without making any effort to hide. The bodyguards had noticed them long ago. By now, Old Master Chu had already been informed. When they entered, they found him sitting on the living-room sofa, his face stern and cold. Old Madam Chu sat beside him, along with Lei Yunze, whom Wang Cheng had met twice before. Lei Yunze had no exam that afternoon and happened to have come home. None of the other younger or older members of the family were present.
Wang Cheng immediately felt a sharp gaze fall on him. He looked up and met Old Master Chu’s eyes. The old man neither flinched nor looked away. Wang Cheng paused, but he had no intention of averting his eyes either. He had been familiar with this kind of intense, penetrating stare since childhood. Although the old monk had always smiled like Maitreya Buddha, that had only been the surface. In truth, he had been an extremely strict monk. Whenever Wang Cheng made a mistake, he got beaten, and the old monk never went easy on him.
Thick-skinned as ever, Wang Cheng gave Old Master Chu a faint smile.
This time, it was Old Master Chu who froze. He recovered quickly and even frowned, as though Wang Cheng’s reaction was entirely different from what he had expected.
“Grandpa, Grandma, let me introduce someone. He’s my partner. You can call him Wang Cheng or Zhou Cheng.” Chu Yifeng was far more direct and forceful than anyone else.
The two old people handled it well enough. Lei Yunze, however, looked as though lightning had struck him. He had known absolutely nothing about Wang Cheng and Chu Yifeng’s relationship from beginning to end, and the shock hit him hard.
“I don’t agree.” Old Master Chu’s cane struck the floor with a heavy thump. The muffled sound seemed almost like the first cannon shot of a war.
Chu Yifeng nodded. “I’m only informing you. Wang Cheng is the only partner I’ve ever wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
In other words, whether the old man agreed or not did not matter.
So arrogant!
Wang Cheng wanted to cover his face. Now he finally understood why Chu Li had said his own opinion would be completely useless. Chu Yifeng treated his grandfather like this. His father stood even less of a chance.
Old Master Chu was the head of the Chu family. For all these years, his word had been law, and no one in the family dared disobey him. Yet first his eldest son, and now his eldest grandson, both acted as though his authority meant nothing. If he did not reestablish his dignity as head of the family, people might start thinking his words carried no weight.
“A-Xi, seize him for me.”
The bodyguard Old Master Chu called stepped forward. He was not the biggest of the guards, and his presence had seemed relatively faint while he stood in the corner, so no one had paid him much attention. But the moment he moved forward, a powerful sense of pressure rolled off him. He looked extremely formidable. Chu Yifeng clearly knew this man would be difficult to deal with, because his brows drew together involuntarily. He lowered his voice to Wang Cheng. “Be careful.”
Wang Cheng had not yet understood what he meant when A-Xi reached them. “Excuse me.”
The final word had barely left his mouth when he attacked. Chu Yifeng had already been mentally prepared. This was his first time fighting A-Xi. In the past, the other bodyguards had always been the ones who stepped forward. All Chu Yifeng knew was that A-Xi was the strongest bodyguard in the entire Chu family. Wang Cheng watched them exchange blows in surprise. This A-Xi truly was no ordinary fighter. Wang Cheng had sparred with Chu Yifeng many times and knew exactly how skilled he was. Anyone who could fight him evenly was far stronger than Wang Cheng had expected. More than that, A-Xi carried a dangerous edge Chu Yifeng lacked. In the past, he had probably been some kind of special-forces soldier or similar expert whose hands had been stained with blood on countless occasions.
The two exchanged dozens of moves. Chu Yifeng might not have as much experience as A-Xi, but youth and height were on his side, so for the moment they remained evenly matched.
Someone, however, was dissatisfied with that result: Old Master Chu. He had made up his mind to teach Chu Yifeng a lesson and restore his authority, so there was no way he would allow Chu Yifeng to slip away at this point. At his signal, two more bodyguards joined the fight.
Old Madam Chu glanced at her husband, her expression still perfectly composed.
Lei Yunze, seated on the sofa, had finally recovered from the shock, only to have his attention captured by the fight. His cousin being with Wang Cheng had stunned him, but that still could not stop him from idolizing his cousin.
The two bodyguards who joined later were both retired soldiers. They were not as strong as A-Xi, but their arrival still restricted Chu Yifeng’s movements. It was not entirely a disadvantage, however. Chu Yifeng had received rigorous training in this area and knew how to use the additional bodyguards to obstruct A-Xi’s movements. The environment helped too. In a wide-open area, Chu Yifeng would have fewer advantages, but the furniture in the room created obstacles that currently worked in his favor. For the time being, he was not going to lose easily.
A-Xi and the other two seemed intent on forcing him toward a more open section of the room, but Chu Yifeng was too slippery. The struggle turned into a drawn-out tug-of-war.
The servants were long accustomed to scenes like this. They stopped what they were doing and gathered at a distance to watch, occasionally whispering among themselves about how the younger generation could surpass the older.
Wang Cheng decided this could not continue. If it did, the situation would eventually turn against Chu Yifeng.
Just as he was considering how to help, Old Master Chu proved dissatisfied yet again. Two more bodyguards began rolling their shoulders and preparing to join the fight.
At that moment, someone stepped into their path.
“You two should probably stay over here and watch.” Wang Cheng smiled at them. He had no intention of letting these two join the others.
The two bodyguards exchanged surprised looks. Wang Cheng was different from Chu Yifeng. However one looked at it, he was technically a guest of the Chu family. Attacking a guest seemed inappropriate. They turned toward Old Master Chu for instructions. What were they supposed to do about this?
Old Master Chu had already noticed Wang Cheng’s movement. He was somewhat surprised, but not enough to change his mind. “Ignore him.”
Hearing that, the two bodyguards stopped worrying about Wang Cheng and prepared to walk past him. The one in front suddenly felt Wang Cheng seize his shoulder. Caught completely off guard, he was flipped over Wang Cheng’s shoulder and slammed heavily onto the floor. The bodyguard was stunned. The other reacted quickly and charged Wang Cheng at once, but Wang Cheng slipped away from his fist.
Everyone who saw it froze.
Lei Yunze’s mouth fell open so wide he could not close it. W-what… what was going on?
Old Master Chu was clearly stunned by the sudden turn as well. Other than Chu Yifeng, no one had expected Wang Cheng to know how to fight, and judging from what they had just seen, his skills did not seem inferior to those of the retired soldiers.
“Interesting fellow.” Old Madam Chu finally smiled.
Wang Cheng could fight Chu Yifeng to a standstill, so naturally his skills were anything but ordinary. More importantly, he had one advantage over most special-forces soldiers. Some soldiers only began serious training after entering the military, while Wang Cheng had practiced martial arts under the old monk since childhood.
Although the old monk had come from Shaolin, his martial arts were by no means limited to pure Shaolin techniques. One could say he had absorbed strengths from many schools. Under his relentless training, Wang Cheng was nothing like those empty showpieces who knew only flashy movements. He might not have overwhelming brute strength, but he made up for it with agility.
Caught off guard, the two bodyguards could not gain any advantage over him.
Wang Cheng did not hold back either. One solid punch slammed into a bodyguard’s abdomen, hard enough to make the man bend over in pain.
They could accept losing to Chu Yifeng. After all, he was strong enough to fight A-Xi evenly. But being beaten by an unknown young man who looked nearly ten years younger than them was downright humiliating.
While the other bodyguard was stunned for those two seconds, Wang Cheng slipped behind A-Xi, who was still fighting Chu Yifeng, and kicked at him without the slightest concern that it counted as a sneak attack. Sensing danger, A-Xi had no choice but to abandon his coordination with the other two bodyguards and dodge.
The moment A-Xi saw Wang Cheng, fighting spirit blazed in his eyes. He actually abandoned Chu Yifeng and engaged Wang Cheng instead. Their exchange immediately became fierce, drawing several small, tense cries from the people watching.
“Sneak attack! Despicable!” one bodyguard shouted.
Wang Cheng grinned. “It’s called using every trick available in war. If you have the ability, go tell your enemy that on a battlefield.”
The bodyguard was instantly speechless.
Some people said an honorable man should fight openly and fairly and that sneak attacks were beneath him. Wang Cheng did not care. He was no gentleman, and if a tactic worked, what was wrong with using it? Only an idiot boxed himself in with rules like that. As the saying went, blades had no eyes on a battlefield. If you still worried about this and that when your life was on the line, you would simply become another soul under someone else’s blade.
Chu Yifeng was still fighting three opponents, but with A-Xi gone, the pressure on him dropped considerably. His attacks became even more merciless. One bodyguard took a kick somewhere painful enough that he dropped to his knees, gasping and unable to stand. The remaining opponents were far less threatening.
“Enough. Everyone stop.”
Chu Yifeng had been preparing to put another bodyguard out of commission when he heard the command and stopped. If Old Master Chu had spoken, he might not have obeyed, but the order came from Old Madam Chu. She was not some soft-spoken matriarch from a great family who regarded her husband as the center of the world. In her youth, she had gone through life-and-death situations alongside Old Master Chu, enduring dangers fierce enough to be described as climbing mountains of blades and crossing seas of fire. She was absolutely a woman who could stand shoulder to shoulder with any man. After peace came, she followed the old master into a quieter life, but the authority she had accumulated never disappeared. Old Master Chu might officially be the head of the family, yet when she had an opinion, even he often had to listen.
Among everyone in the Chu family, the person Chu Yifeng found hardest to read was Old Madam Chu. But he knew one thing: if she accepted his relationship with Wang Cheng, the rest of the family would become much easier to deal with. The bodyguards also stopped because of her order. The living room fell silent. Then, in the very next second, a loud bang rang out. Someone was still fighting.