The Disliked Shou and the Charming Gong : Chapter 6: He Was Dumped by This Idiot

The first time Wen Junhe went to the He family home, what greeted his eyes was a three-story Western-style villa built by the lake.

That was the place where He Ning had grown up.

The building as a whole didn’t look aged at all. The rippling blue water of the lake was a very pure shade of blue, and from a distance it seemed to merge with the sky into a single line.

When the car drove in, it had to pass through a very long stretch of welcoming pines. East met west. Around the villa there was a standalone greenhouse and Chinese-style architecture. The land area was considerable, with red tiles and white walls. The further in you went, the narrower the view became.

Wen Junhe had been invited to the house by He Hongxing with all due politeness.

While sitting in the car, Wen Junhe silently calculated that it had taken roughly six minutes to enter from the outside. Someone opened the car door for him. He looked at the villa before him that could only be described as luxurious, and a flash of barely concealed impatience and disgust crossed his face.

The first time he walked into a place so completely at odds with himself, he felt not the slightest trace of being overwhelmed by favor or anything of the sort. All he felt was annoyance and discomfort.

A faint scent similar to fragrance lingered in the air. The hall was enormous. The house seemed to be saturated everywhere with the smell of money.

Back then, He Ning had pursued Wen Junhe for a very long time, with countless tricks every single day. Wen Junhe was already thoroughly fed up. Then one day after school, several men with expressionless faces asked him to come with them.

At that time, He Hongxing looked to be in his early forties. Years of holding high authority and great power gave him an oppressive air that could not be taken lightly.

He reclined on the sofa, gesturing for Wen Junhe to sit. Someone poured him a cup of tea. He looked at Wen Junhe and said unhurriedly, “Little Wen, is it? I asked you here today with no other meaning. I heard my son likes you and is pursuing you.”

“Children don’t understand what liking means, but Ningning has never chased after someone like this in all his years.”

“So? He likes me, so I should be overwhelmed with gratitude?” Wen Junhe showed not a hint of timidity in the face of He Hongxing.

The youth’s tone held not the slightest trace of delight. On the contrary, there was the vexation of being hounded by He Ning. Wen Junhe looked at the marble floor: “He Ning’s liking is a great annoyance to me. Please talk some sense into him.”

He Hongxing looked at the youth before him, as if sizing him up, and said calmly, “If you reject him, he will be very hurt.”

Wen Junhe couldn’t figure out what He Hongxing was driving at. He had thought He Hongxing had invited him over to warn him to stay away from his son, given that they were not from the same world.

So he had made his stance clear from the very beginning.

But compared to what he had expected, He Hongxing seemed different. He Ning’s personality was naive and self-centered, with a large entourage of followers around him. After hearing He Hongxing’s words, Wen Junhe suddenly understood who had spoiled He Ning into becoming this way.

“To get to where I stand now, many things are unimportant to me. But the one thing I hold dearest, my son, nobody is allowed to bully him.”

He Hongxing sat on the leather sofa, a cigar pinched between his fingertips. Through the swirling smoke, a meaningful smile emerged: “I admire you very much, but I want even less to see Ningning unhappy.”

He leaned forward and tapped the ash into the ashtray: “Keep him company in a little romance, will you? Consider it making the child happy.”

Making He Ning happy?

At that time, Wen Junhe thought, was he some doll sitting in a shop window, put there specifically for others’ amusement?

When Wen Junhe left, he looked at the photos of He Ning from childhood to adulthood hanging on the wall. Each photo was carefully framed.

He Ning’s air of naive willfulness had clearly been cultivated single-handedly by the He Hongxing standing before him.

When He Ning came to work today, he noticed that Wen Junhe was looking at him differently.

During the lunch break, He Ning was carrying his lunchbox, planning to go find Zhou Ji. He had just reached the stairwell when Wen Junhe called out to him, “Come here a moment.”

He Ning followed him over and heard Wen Junhe ask, “When you got sick back then, why didn’t you tell me?”

He Ning’s fingers tightened around his lunchbox. What good would telling Wen Junhe have done? Perhaps it could have kept Wen Junhe by his side a while longer, but what meaning would that have? Not out of love, but out of duty. Just like when his father had his downfall, Wen Junhe could have walked away cleanly, yet still said he would take him abroad.

Wen Junhe was that kind of person. Cold on the surface, but bursting with a sense of responsibility to the bone.

Han Qing had been absolutely right. He would only become a burden to others, a stumbling block in Wen Junhe’s upward climb.

During that period, he had thought about many things. The thought of not continuing to drag Wen Junhe down hadn’t sprung up suddenly. It was more like fine sand, accumulating grain by grain.

“…I’m better now. And I’ve been taking very good care of myself.”

He Ning was in the habit of telling everyone “I’ve been taking very good care of myself,” because he was afraid of slipping up during prison visits. Through the glass partition, he would straighten his back and tell his father that he had many friends, that work was going smoothly, that life was fulfilling.

Wen Junhe suddenly let out a scoff. He reached out and pulled up He Ning’s sleeve, revealing an arm covered in a rash: “This is what you call taking good care of yourself? Your boyfriend doesn’t know you’re allergic to seafood? And you’re still making seafood for him?”

He Ning instinctively withdrew his arm, his gaze drifting. The truth was, he had snuck two bites himself out of greed, and it had nothing to do with Zhou Ji. But what was the point of explaining that now?

Suddenly, Wen Junhe pulled out his phone, swiped the screen, and thrust it in front of He Ning’s eyes. In the photo, Zhou Ji was being pressed into the car seat and kissed by that leather jacket man. Their overlapping figures in the dimly lit car interior were especially jarring.

He Ning’s pupils contracted sharply: “You… how do you have this kind of photo?”

“See clearly?” Wen Junhe zoomed in on the picture again and again, enough to make the two people’s actions extremely clear. “Break up with your boyfriend. Now.”

He Ning fell silent for a moment, staring at Wen Junhe’s face, somewhat in disbelief for a time. Where did this photo come from? Who took it? How did it end up in Wen Junhe’s hands?

Was Zhou Ji actually involved with that younger brother of his?

Wen Junhe: “Go right now.”

“…It’s not very nice of you to just take photos of people like that.” He Ning responded instinctively. Wen Junhe was clearly taken aback, as if he couldn’t believe this reaction: “You’re not angry?”

He pushed the phone forward again: “Do you see clearly what they’re doing?”

Only then did He Ning suddenly remember that Zhou Ji was currently his “boyfriend.” His reaction just now had indeed been off. He lowered his eyes and said, “I am angry. But nobody’s perfect… Besides, it’s obvious that leather jacket man is forcing Zhou Ji. He already explained it to me.”

Wen Junhe’s expression grew worse and worse. This was the first time He Ning had seen him wear this kind of look. He hurriedly averted his gaze: “…I have to go now. Zhou Ji is waiting to eat with me.”

Wen Junhe felt somewhat heartsick from He Ning’s little speech.

Wen Junhe knew He Ning too well. Back then, this person’s heart and eyes had been filled entirely with him, clingy to the point of annoyance, wishing he could turn into an accessory and tie himself to Wen Junhe’s body. If anyone got even a little close to him, He Ning would kick up a tremendous fuss.

Back then, Wen Junhe often couldn’t wrap his head around how someone could pin their entire heart on another person, with all their joys and sorrows completely controlled by someone else.

Now, looking at He Ning’s indifferent demeanor, Wen Junhe suddenly felt a sense of unfamiliarity. He was calm, as if he had become a different person.

Wen Junhe stared at He Ning for several seconds, his chest inexplicably tight. The He Ning who used to blow up because he talked to someone else a little too much was now able to brush off his “boyfriend” being intimate with someone else as “nothing.”

That time when He Ning threw a tantrum, he brought a group of people to their place to throw a party. Wen Junhe pushed open the door and saw bottles and snack bags strewn all over the floor. He Ning was sprawled on the sofa, drunk, with a guy sitting beside him leaning against him.

Wen Junhe slammed the door and left on the spot, going back to his aunt’s house.

The next day, He Ning came chasing after him, showing up with a hungover face to apologize, saying he shouldn’t have brought people home. But as he spoke, he grew aggrieved again, his voice rising higher and higher: “It’s all because you wouldn’t spend time with me.”

Wen Junhe rarely argued with people. He usually just kept a cold face and ignored them. But He Ning always had a way of pushing him past his breaking point.

“You’ve seen my class schedule,” Wen Junhe said coldly. “Young Master He, the world doesn’t revolve around you.”

He Ning’s eyes reddened at Wen Junhe’s “Young Master He,” glaring at him.

Wen Junhe spoke up: “Don’t you have plenty of friends? Just pick a boyfriend who’s on call anytime, anywhere. Wouldn’t that do?”

The moment the words left his mouth, He Ning stormed out, his back trembling with anger.

But not long after, He Ning came back. The sound of running footsteps was urgent. He lunged over, his fingers pinching Wen Junhe’s cheek flesh: “But none of them are you! There’s only one Wen Junhe in the whole world, and I want this one!”

Wen Junhe had been stunned at the time. He hadn’t expected to get this kind of answer.

He Ning was always like this. When he liked something, he wanted to announce it to the whole world. When happy, he could praise someone to the heavens, saying one “Wen Junhe, how are you so amazing” after another. When he hated someone, he wrote it directly on his face, too lazy to even pretend.

Every thought was written on his face.

He was also very easy to fool, muddle-headed like an idiot.

But Wen Junhe never would have thought in the end that he was the one dumped by this idiot.

Now, looking at the He Ning before him who was completely unmoved by his “boyfriend’s” cheating, Wen Junhe said on a strange impulse, “You weren’t like this before.”

In the first week after the breakup, Wen Junhe was still certain He Ning would call. During that time, he had set his phone to ring mode for the first time ever, even placing it on the desk during class. He ended up getting warned by the professor several times.

A month passed. He clicked open the chat box with He Ning. The moment he sent a message, a notification popped up that he had been deleted.

He Ning wanted to leave. Wen Junhe refused to let him have his way.

“He Ning, do I need to explain this to you? This is cheating. Your tolerance level is a bit too high, don’t you think?”

If He Ning could tolerate this kind of fundamental issue, then when Wen Junhe had done absolutely nothing wrong back then, on what grounds did He Ning break up with him!

He Ning knew that in Wen Junhe’s eyes right now, he must look like a complete and utter fool. But then again, he had never been very smart in this person’s mind to begin with.

Wen Junhe had even gone out of his way to come warn him about being “cheated on.” That was already going above and beyond.

The current situation was all his fault for the lie he had told back then. If Wen Junhe found out that he and Zhou Ji weren’t actually in that kind of relationship, he would probably think He Ning was putting on a brave face while suffering inside. Compared to having his ex see him living miserably, He Ning felt it would be even more unbearable to have his ex flaunt a new love interest in front of him, especially when that new love interest was Han Qing.

He Ning felt he had barely any self-respect left. Now he just wanted to preserve what little dignity he had left, pretending that he had long since moved on.

“Thanks for the warning,” he pulled out a smile. “But I’m not that childish anymore. I’ve matured a lot. Couples should have some private space too. And Zhou Ji explained it to me. This is his younger brother. Brothers hugging each other… kissing a little, that’s nothing, right?”

The more He Ning spoke, the more guilty he felt.

Wen Junhe looked at him with a dark expression: “…Matured? You seem quite pleased with yourself.”

Seeing his completely impervious attitude, Wen Junhe suddenly felt that his previous assessment of He Ning’s intelligence had been off.

This wasn’t just stupid. His eyes were a bit blind too.

“The rooftop isn’t open for going up anymore.”

He Ning: “There’s no such rule.”

Wen Junhe: “There is now.”

So He Ning went to eat at Zhou Ji’s company cafeteria.

When Wen Junhe heard about this, he was silent for a very long time.

He found someone to keep an eye on Zhou Ji. Every time he saw He Ning’s foolish look of being sold and still helping count the money, it felt like a thorn stuck in his throat, impossible to swallow and impossible to spit out.

He Ning said to Zhou Ji that talking to someone like Wen Junhe was too much effort, because he was very smart and would find holes in your words. Fortunately, he had long been in the habit of playing dumb in front of him. Wen Junhe usually just picked out the nice things he said to listen to, too lazy to bother puzzling over them.

Zhou Ji said thoughtfully, “One of you plays dumb, and the other genuinely thinks you’re dumb. You two are quite the match.”