The Disliked Shou and the Charming Gong : Chapter 33: No Matter What Happens This Time, I Won’t Leave You

He Ning swiped open his phone screen. The first thing he did was call Zhou Ji.

The first time it rang until it disconnected automatically. The second time it connected, He Ning heard Zhou Ji’s breathing before his voice arrived.

“Brother Ji, how are things on your end?”

Zhou Ji’s voice was lower than he remembered, and there were muffled voices in the background. “Not too good.”

He paused. “He Ning, are you back in the country?”

“Yes.” He Ning looked outside the room. He saw Wen Junhe driving out.

Zhou Ji asked somewhat hesitantly, as if confirming something. “Did you see the email I sent you?”

“I saw it, Brother Ji. I agree.”

Zhou Ji was silent for a few seconds. Someone in the background called out “President Zhou” in a low voice. He responded hurriedly, then spoke again with his voice even lower, almost carrying a trace of self-mocking laughter. “My abilities at the company are indeed limited… Zhou Chong is helping me now.”

He paused. “Unilaterally breaking the agreement, I was afraid that if I wasn’t careful, it might drag you into this.”

“Brother Ji, how could you think that?”

“Maybe you’re right. Sometimes cutting off our relationship would be another kind of solution.”

That day Wen Junhe came back rather late. He called He Ning and told him to sleep first.

He Ning was almost asleep, working up drowsiness. A strong arm wrapped around him from behind, carrying the cool night air, reaching straight into the covers and locking around his waist.

Wen Junhe’s palm pressed against the hem of his pajamas, his knuckles tightening slightly. As if confirming something, he rubbed at his waist.

“I’ve already given the agreement to Zhou Ji.” Wen Junhe’s voice was very low, his breath sweeping across the back of He Ning’s neck, warm and carrying a hint of something that brooked no refusal. “Before long, you’ll have no relationship with him whatsoever.”

During the day Wen Junhe had indeed eagerly sent the divorce agreement over to Zhou Ji and them.

He Ning didn’t move or speak. He simply let himself be held. Wen Junhe’s hand slid up along his waistline, his fingertips brushing past the gaps between his fingers, then locking in one by one, fingers intertwined, gripping tight.

“On my birthday a year ago,” Wen Junhe’s voice was like he was talking to himself, “you divorcing Zhou Ji was my birthday wish.”

He Ning closed his eyes and let out a soft “oh,” like a response, and also like brushing it off.

Wen Junhe’s thumb rubbed at the web of his hand, his tone suddenly softening a bit, carrying a hint of coaxing. “From now on, wherever you want to go, I’ll go with you, okay?”

He paused, then added, “For the things I didn’t do well in the past, tell me and I’ll change… and I absolutely won’t break the law or violate discipline.”

Wen Junhe’s nose tip lightly brushed against He Ning’s hair, inhaling the scent of the person in his arms.

They hadn’t lain in one bed in such a peaceful mood for a very long time, let alone in this house, the place where He Ning grew up.

When He Ning was little, he was very timid. He was afraid of the dark, afraid of ghosts, and even more afraid of sleeping alone.

His mother passed away early, and He Hongxing was always away from home. The huge villa was empty and hollow, where even footsteps had echoes. By the time he had a little awareness, he knew that everyone should have a mother. He carried his blanket searching room by room for his mother, and finally curled up asleep in the tent in the living room, his small body curled into a ball like an abandoned young animal.

The servants searched frantically, turning everything upside down. When they finally found him, there were still tears hanging on his eyelashes, but he was already sleeping soundly.

Now He Ning took the initiative to move closer, his forehead pressing against Wen Junhe’s collarbone, his breath lightly sweeping across his skin. He asked again: “Why did you buy this house?”

Wen Junhe’s fingers threaded into his hair, slowly combing through it, the movement very gentle as if afraid of hurting him.

“To make you stay obediently by my side and not run around.” His thumb rubbed He Ning’s earlobe, his tone carrying a bit of helplessness. “I didn’t want you to have no home to return to.”

He Ning put a little distance between himself and Wen Junhe and said: “Because I have no confidence.”

He Ning’s possessiveness was never hidden, like a fiercely burning fire. Whoever got close to Wen Junhe, he would burn.

He wasn’t throwing tantrums because he was sick. He just hated those gazes clinging to Wen Junhe, hated Wen Junhe’s deliberate coldness toward him.

For this he had offended quite a few people. There were plenty of people behind his back calling him spoiled and willful. Even Wen Junhe had once frowned and said he didn’t understand things.

During the time they fought the worst, Wen Junhe never bowed his head. He turned and left with a cold face, leaving He Ning standing there alone. The cold wars could last several days, and in the end it was always He Ning who gave in first.

Outsiders only thought He Ning was making trouble for no reason. No one wondered why Wen Junhe never let go.

Thinking back on this now, He Ning only felt stuffiness in his chest.

He admitted that he had never truly let go of Wen Junhe. Those intense emotions seemed carved into his bones and blood. But times had changed, and he could no longer throw himself forward without a care like before.

Some things, once burned out, only left behind a handful of lukewarm ashes.

Wen Junhe knew better than anyone that the heat in He Ning’s gaze when he looked at him had lessened, like a coastline after the tide had receded, leaving behind only a stretch of cool detachment.

This time he had to hold the person firmly in the palm of his hand.

“We’re almost thirty, not young anymore. I don’t need anyone else. I only have you, He Ning. Don’t go looking for anyone else either, okay? No matter what happens this time, I won’t leave you.”

After this, Wen Junhe never interfered with any of his plans again. But every time he went out, Wen Junhe would find every way to ask what he was going out to do.

Once he deliberately went to a bar and stayed until three in the morning. When he pushed the door open, he saw Wen Junhe leaning against the car door smoking nonstop, caught between rushing in and waiting where he was. His windbreaker shoulders were covered with night dew. When he saw He Ning come out, he immediately stubbed out the cigarette.

He Ning stepped on the patches of light cast by the streetlamps, walking over leisurely, and leaned against the car. “Didn’t you say you wouldn’t interfere with me?”

Wen Junhe raised his wrist to look at the dial. It was already two in the morning. “Just consider my previous words as me talking out of my ass.”

He cut off the conversation cleanly, reached out to pull open the car door. Before He Ning could react, he was shoved into the passenger seat, the seatbelt clicking as it automatically fastened.

“From now on we have a curfew. This is what you get for not cherishing your freedom.” When Wen Junhe leaned over to adjust his seatbelt for him, “If you’re not home by 10 PM, He Ning, you’re done for. I’ll make you cry until you can’t cry anymore.”

He Ning wanted to protest. Wen Junhe rejected it.

When the divorce agreement officially took effect, Wen Junhe finally let He Ning go see Zhou Ji.

He Ning met Zhou Ji at a cafe. Zhou Ji had lost a lot of weight, but the innate air of calm between his brows hadn’t diminished at all.

“I gave up my position as heir.” Zhou Ji stirred the coffee in his cup, the silver spoon clinking against the cup wall with a crisp sound. He suddenly let out a light laugh, a trace of self-mockery rising in his eyes. “Thinking about it now, maybe my father choosing me was the worst decision. Zhou Chong’s health isn’t good, yet he helped me hold up this mess.”

He Ning’s fingertips unconsciously rubbed the rim of the cup. “Since you’ve made your decision, Brother Ji, I support you.”

He Ning didn’t know how to comfort Zhou Ji. He had never managed such a large company. He knew how hard this was.

“What about you and Zhou Chong…”

Zhou Ji’s brows were knitted tightly, looking especially irritable. “I really don’t know what to do now. Zhou Chong said he liked me a long time ago. At the time I just thought he was crazy.”

“Later when I saw him suffering so much, I just casually coaxed him, saying I’d consider it if he could change his temper. And this idiot took it seriously. Now even I can’t figure it out…”

He recalled that time when Zhou Chong caught him eating with someone else. He directly flipped the table, his eyes red as anything. Later he even made a scene at his parents’ place. Zhou Ji still felt his temples throbbing when he thought about it. Zhou Chong’s reckless determination at the time had blocked off all their paths.

After that incident he directly hid away, staying hidden for several years.

“Forget it, enough about me. What about you? Have you decided to get back together with Wen Junhe?”

He Ning stared at the coffee in front of him. “I thought leaving would be enough. I thought with a new life, I’d forget him. But the results are obviously a complete failure.”

Zhou Ji looked at him. “I’ve still had a few dealings with Wen Junhe. He… when you went abroad last time, he lost control.”

Zhou Ji couldn’t forget Wen Junhe bursting into his office, grabbing his collar, the veins on the back of his hand nearly bulging, his tone carrying suppressed fury as he asked where He Ning was.

Security and secretaries rushed in. Zhou Ji waved his hand to make them leave, broke free from Wen Junhe’s grip, his clothes in disarray.

Wen Junhe was practically grinding his teeth. “Where did you hide He Ning?”

Zhou Ji hit back without holding back. “Has Mr. Wen forgotten what relationship He Ning and I have? And what identity are you using to question me? Lover? I thought such absurd things wouldn’t happen to someone like Mr. Wen.”

Wen Junhe breathed deeply, his gaze dark and fixed on Zhou Ji.

“This is between He Ning and me. You’re trapped in your entanglement with Zhou Chong, using him as your cover. You don’t truly love him.”

“Yes, but I feel sorry for him. Mr. Wen keeps saying I don’t love him, but is it you? All I see is you pressing him step by step. He Ning was already almost past that pain. You were absent when you should have been by his side, and you came back when you shouldn’t have. Now he’s hiding from you all the way abroad. Mr. Wen, sometimes you have to trust in the arrangement of time. Stop forcing it.”

Wen Junhe didn’t say a word, his breathing seeming to be suppressed in the dim daylight.

Zhou Ji said with a smile on his face. “After you went abroad last time, I threw a few words at him. He probably still hates me for it.”

He Ning asked him puzzled when this was.

Zhou Ji said after you went abroad. “I have to say, watching someone like that show rare signs of irritability, the mood is quite pleasant.”

He Ning glanced out the window. Zhou Ji followed his gaze. “He’s keeping a tight watch.”

Wen Junhe’s car was parked outside. He Ning had actually noticed it not long after sitting down. Yet when they went out, Wen Junhe had generously told him to come back early.

Clearly he cared terribly, yet he couldn’t even pretend to be magnanimous.

“You didn’t tell him our relationship was fake?”

He Ning shook his head. There hadn’t been a good opportunity, and there was no need to deliberately bring up such matters.

“Then you meeting with me, he must be extremely anxious and uneasy inside.”

Zhou Ji suddenly thought of something and let out a light laugh. He stood up, then quickly leaned down close to He Ning’s ear, not so close as to seem frivolous, but just enough for warm breath to brush past the other person’s ear. He lowered his voice, the tail of his words carrying a playful upward lilt. “Guess, will he come in right away?”

He Ning let out a surprised sound.

Before long, Wen Junhe and Zhou Chong almost simultaneously pushed through the door, both their hands still on the door handles.

The moment their gazes collided, the air seemed to freeze for a second.

Wen Junhe narrowed his eyes. Zhou Chong directly tightened the corners of his mouth. They both saw a familiar, unpleasant emotion in each other’s eyes, like seeing themselves in a mirror.

“Really useless, can’t even keep an eye on your person.”

Wen Junhe’s face showed no extra expression. “That same sentence right back at you.”

He Ning looked at those two not far away, staring at each other with big eyes and small eyes, mutually disgusted, and couldn’t help finding it amusing.

Zhou Ji hadn’t expected Zhou Chong to be here either. Then the two of them each led their person away first, to avoid making fools of themselves outside.

After that, He Ning resigned from his position at Zhou’s company. Every evening, when Wen Junhe’s car pulled into the garage, the two of them would either be busy in the kitchen. Marjorie would have people prepare the ingredients, and Wen Junhe would wield the spatula. Occasionally when they didn’t feel like cooking, they’d have the chef do it, and they’d curl up on the sofa watching movies, He Ning’s feet always habitually resting on Wen Junhe’s legs.

There had been workers coming and going in that patch of the backyard, the sounds of construction drifting over intermittently, deliberately blocked off.

He Ning stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the workers moving things in and out. Finally one day after dinner he couldn’t resist opening his mouth. “What exactly are you up to?”

Wen Junhe’s chopsticks paused. “A surprise for you. Want to see it now?”

He Ning knew Wen Junhe too well. This surprise should be very “practical.” He ran through several things in his mind. A gazebo? Or a swing?

“No. What kind of surprise is it if you find out ahead of time?”

He Ning deliberately avoided the backyard, taking the long way around through the front door every time, stubbornly suppressing his curiosity for two months without glancing that way once.

On the day it was completed, He Ning proactively found a sleep mask and put it on, his fingertips hooking onto the corner of Wen Junhe’s clothes. “Lead the way.”

He felt that Wen Junhe’s palm had broken out in a thin layer of sweat, his grip tighter than usual.

The moment the sleep mask was gently removed, He Ning’s pupils contracted slightly.

Today happened to be an overcast day. There weren’t even any stars in the sky. A giant moon lamp hung overhead. The circular lamp body held up by the huge metal frame nearly filled the entire field of vision. Light flowed like water, flickering between bright and dim. The uneven texture on the surface looked like the real surface of the moon in the play of light and shadow. The entire space was illuminated by soft cold light. He Ning stood in the very center looking up, the scattered light and shadow flowing over his body.

Tiny specks of light scattered around like stars, making one feel in a daze as if they were deep in the universe. The lamp body would also slowly rotate, and the projected light and shadow would shift angles along with it.

In the corner, several newly planted green plants stretched their leaves under the artificial light source, tender green leaf tips still carrying water droplets.

Wen Junhe stood at the boundary between light and shadow. “Ningning, I can’t give you the real moon. This is the moon I’m giving you. Do you like it?”