Chapter 21: CH 21

You’re challenging a man’s bottom line

NanWu has always had heavy rain and thick clouds, even during the Mid-Autumn festival, one could not see a full moon.

Xie Yu faced outside and took photos for a long time, but couldn’t capture anything. She tossed the phone away: “So boring.”

Xia Zhiye sitting across from her, took back his own phone, then completely deleted the selfies of a certain big sister from his gallery and WeChat Moments.

His tone was lazy: “If you think it’s boring, then call your boyfriend and tell him to come pick you up. Also, the next time you want your boyfriend to come look for you during a cold war, could I trouble you to tell him directly, and not use my WeChat Moments to post your selfies and location?”

“Aiyah, your jie also has to mind her reputation. Also what’s wrong with posting on your WeChat Moments…… Oh, wait.” Xia Yu seemed to have suddenly thought of something, leaned her head close, then laughed in a mocking manner, “Don’t tell me you’re scared someone will see and be jealous, so you have a problem with me? Don’t worry, jiejie will help you explain when the time comes.”

Xia Zhiye originally hadn’t thought this way, but when Xia Yu said this, he suddenly wondered if Song Yan saw the photo, what kind of reaction would he have.

After thinking for a long while, the answer he thought of was, no reaction.

After all, other than extremely gossipy people, most people would probably have no reaction to this photo, let alone the fact that Song Yan was a veteran disciple of ‘it’s none of my business, it’s none of your business’.

His mind wandered for a moment, and Xia Yu grew interested: “What, who did you think of, why don’t you tell jie?”

Xia Zhiye’s eyelids hadn’t even lifted: “Thought of the brother who sleeps in the bed under me.”

“……” Xia Yu, “Fuck off.”

Her younger brother was handsome since he was young, and his temperament was good. She originally thought his peach blossom debt1 would definitely not be lacking, but in actuality, he unexpectedly never brought home a girl for so many years. He didn’t have puppy love in his best years, and it was just too boring.

Xia Yu had no excitement to partake in, stirred her coffee, then decided to touch on a sore spot: “But seriously speaking, do you really plan on wasting so much time with grandpa?”

“It’s fine. Anyways, I won’t starve to death.”

Xia Zhiye’s response was perfunctory.

“How could a child like you be so stubborn? There’s nothing wrong with going abroad. Look at jiejie. I went to the UK in middle school, now I’m about to graduate from Cambridge and when I come back, I’ll join the board of directors. Everyone is envious of me.”

When Xia Yu said this, her facial expression had no feeling of happiness whatsoever.

Xia Zhiye also knew there was no reason to explain.

As expected, Xia Yu sighed in the next second: “Forget it, I guess I’ll never have freedom in this life, I can’t also let my younger brother suffer in this way. If you don’t have enough money, just tell me. Anyway, you absolutely cannot succumb to that old man’s abuse of power, got it?”

Xia Zhiye didn’t answer, just stirred his coffee, pursing his lips: “Actually, it’s not like I don’t want to go abroad.”

Xia Yu raised her eyebrow.

Xia Zhiye was unconcerned: “I said before that I wanted to go learn to be a director at USC or NYU, but they didn’t agree.”

“Nonsense.” Xia Yu rolled her eyes, “Would that group of old antiques let you learn that?”

According to that group of old antiques, that wasn’t an honorable way to make a living.

In their eyes, if any other good-for-nothing child wanted to play around, they could spend any amount of money for him to play around, even if it was to dabble in the arts. But with Xia Zhiye’s scores, and that kind of brain, it was too unfortunate if he didn’t use it to develop and promote the family’s corporation.

If one didn’t know any better, they would have thought the ordinary corporation of the Xia family had some kind of throne to inherit.

“So what do you plan on doing.” Xia Yu asked.

“I’ll decide later.”

Xia Zhiye turned to look outside the window, the city lights illuminating the road reflected against the puddles of varying depth, as if each one was its own tiny moon.

There are always many different paths, just as there are many moons.

.

Song Yan originally planned to help finish writing the worksheets for Shen Jiayan while annotating the important knowledge points on the way, then head to bed.

But while writing, he kept thinking back to that WeChat Moments post, and as he thought of that, his mind wandered to the dream he had that night, and after that, found he was unable to calm himself down.

The assisting line of a three dimensional geometry problem aura glowed yet he was unable to calculate the answer.

Finally, he simply just grabbed his luggage and walked to the bedroom, planning to shower to calm himself down.

Calm down my ass.

Xia Zhiye, that scumbag.

Song Yan showered, but the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

If Xia Zhiye didn’t have enough money, why didn’t Xia Zhiye tell him? If the other encountered troubles, Song Yan wouldn’t help him? Clearly, his grades were so good, he could showcase himself when taking the gaokao, then win a scholarship, and then college wouldn’t be an issue. Why did he insist on walking the crooked path?

Even if he said he was just accompanying others to eat this time, what about next time? The time after that? Once they broke through the bottom line, then there would be no bottom line ever again.

Song Yan’s shower thoughts were in disarray.

He shut off the shower head, changed his clothes, walked to the balcony, opened the window, and after letting the night wind blow across his face did he calm down slightly.

What position did he have to be this angry?

Who Xia Zhiye was meeting, who he was eating with, who he was hanging out with, what exactly did it have to do with him? Why was he so unhappy? Or rather, what kind of qualification did he have to be so unhappy?

Song Yan’s fingertips tapped against the edge of the window, watching the quiet nightscape of the spacious villa.

After a moment, he thought of an answer.

It’s definitely because the dream he had at Xia Zhiye’s house where the other called someone jiejie was so stimulating that it left him with a shadow in his heart.

After all, at the end of the day, Xia Zhiye was also his roommate as well as his desk mate, and now he was on the verge of taking a step onto the wrong road of violating ethics and law. If Song Yan chose to look on without doing anything, it would truly be inexcusable.

So he was just trying to prevent a pure, and good-looking male high school student with outstanding grades from walking on the wrong road in life.

Thinking this, Song Yan felt there was nothing wrong with this.

He pulled out his phone and called Xia Zhiye.

Xia Zhiye answered quickly, and his voice was as lazy as usual: “Hello, Song Daxi, what’s up.”

He could hear the melody of a violin from the Western-style restaurant through the phone, and Song Yan’s tone of voice basically lost all sense of friendliness. He coldly replied: “Where are you right now.”

“Eating outside with a jiejie.”

Xia Yu, who had been sitting across from him, heard this response, and couldn’t resist this gossip and raised her eyebrows: “Your girlfriend is investigating2 you?”

Xia Zhiye felt if he said yes, then Song Yan would come back and beat him to death, so he casually denied it: “No, just a classmate.”

He denied it pretty quickly, but he also didn’t know why he was in such a hurry to prove his innocence.

Also he wasn’t sure why this kind of perfunctory introduction of  ‘just a classmate’ strangely made Song Yan’s voice colder: “I originally wanted to ask if you were at the dorms, but since you’re not, forget it.”

Xia Zhiye heard his voice change, and asked: “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just that I can’t find my iPad. I’m not sure if I forgot it at the airport or if it’s still in the dorms.”

“Then I’ll go back to the dorms and help you look around.”

“Fine.”

If it were any other time, Song Yan would rather choose to directly buy another iPad than to bother others, but now, hearing Xia Zhiye would return to the dorms later, he unexpectedly let out a sigh of relief.

It was good he wasn’t sleeping over.

He wanted to say something else, when he heard the girl on the other side of the call say to Xia Zhiye: “You’re going back to sleep tonight? Didn’t you say you were going to stay in the hotel with me?”

Song Yan’s fingertips at the edge of his cell phone immediately curled up a bit as he waited for Xia Zhiye’s reply.

“Something came up.”

Xia Zhiye on the other side of the phone casually answered in a perfunctory manner.

The girl’s tone of voice seemed to show a hint of dissatisfaction: “Then forget it, after completing work here you can go back.”

Xia Zhiye added a sentence: “The dorm closes the doors at 11pm.”

“It’s fine, there’s time.” The girl also seemed as if she wasn’t picky, “Ten minutes is enough for you to settle it. I’ll go up first and shower, knock on the door when you get there.”

“Sure.”

This time Xia Zhiye didn’t reject her.

The girl walked away on her high heels.

Song Yan, who had originally already sighed in relief, heard this conversation, and only felt a burst of fiery anger rise up to his head, and he couldn’t stop himself from coldly saying: “Can’t you live a bit more cleanly and honestly?”

For the most part, Song Yan made sarcastic comments with no change in mood, as if they were of no concern to himself, but this time, he was incredibly angry, which was rare for him.

Xia Zhiye all of sudden felt a bit dazed: “When have I not lived cleanly and honestly?”

“Going to the room of someone of the opposite sex in the middle of the night is considered clean and honest?”

“I’m just going to help fix her computer.”

“……”

After a period of silence, Xia Zhiye reacted, and felt this whole thing was both interesting and funny: “Classmate Song Daxi, explain it clearly to me, what do you think I can do in just ten minutes?”

Ten minutes was indeed a bit short.

After realizing he was thinking crookedly, Song Yan felt his reputation was done for, but still, without any change in expression, he spat out: “Hard to say.”

Hard to say.

This little one truly knew how to anger others.

The tip of Xia Zhiye’s tongue lightly bumped against his molars: “Classmate Song Daxi, recently you’ve been a bit too unbridled.”

Song Yan was very self confident despite being wrong: “So?”

“So don’t you know you’re challenging a man’s bottom line right now?”

“And then?”

“Then it’s not impossible to change my bottom line for you.”

The youth just underwent puberty, and his voice was a bit low, lazy and hoarse, wrapped around a sense of indulgent laughter, and as it lazily broadcast out from the cell phone, it made one immediately be unable to throw a tantrum.

Clearly, the one who was falsely accused was him, yet he also took the initiative to coax others, as if Song Yan was the one unnecessarily provoking others.

No wonder he was able to attract a pretty, young, and rich jiejie, and it was also no wonder he had over forty girlfriends.

Turns out this person always coaxed others in this way.

Sure enough, he was a scumbag.

But scumbags will always be scumbags, and switching girlfriends often was whatever. Just don’t be a scumbag to a rich girl and get yourself into trouble.

Song Yan thought up to here, and his voice regained its usual apathy: “If you really have a bottom line, then stop messing around with girls, especially those of dubious background and are rich. Can’t you just be a frank and upright young man?”

After saying this, he didn’t wait for Xia Zhiye to respond, and just directly hung up the phone.

Xia Zhiye on the other side of the phone, heard the dial tone and slowly grew a question mark: “?”

In his WeChat messages in the past month, he had only chatted with Ruan Tian, Xia Yu, and grandma Liu. The total number hadn’t even exceeded five, so who exactly was he messing around with.

Also, who in the world was a more upright and frank man than him?

No one.

Xia Zhiye was extremely confident.

.

After Song Yan hung up the phone, he tossed aside his phone, laid down on the bed, and felt that he was a bit embarrassing just now.

After all, with the inner quality of Xia Zhiye’s body, ten minutes really is not enough, what had he been thinking at that time.

But if Xia Zhiye insisted on walking this crooked path, Song Yan also really couldn’t care less, and doing this up to here was already a great act of kindness.

He thought this while covering himself with the blanket, and prepared to sleep.

But while shifting under the blanket, he once again saw the eye piercing scene of Xia Zhiye laying on the bed, one hand grasping his collar while crying jiejie in his mind’s eye.

Song Yan felt that he probably couldn’t be saved.

He lifted open his blanket, took out his phone, wanted to ask Xia Zhiye if he returned to the dorm yet, but when he opened their WeChat chat logs, he also felt that he had already crossed the line of his share of concern for today. If he asked again, it would be too weird.

So he pondered over a plan, then opened the accompanying others to play software.

[Beautiful and Rich Little Lady]: King’s Glory

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]: Let’s not

[Beautiful and Rich Little Lady]: ?

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]: My roommate says I should stay far away from girls like you who have a dubious background but are rich

Song Yan: “……”

Who’s the fucking girl who has a dubious background.

[Beautiful and Rich Little Lady]: You listen to your roommate that obediently?

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]: Of course.

[Beautiful and Rich Little Lady]: Why?

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]: Because he’s cute.

Song Yan: “……”

You’re the one who’s cute, your entire family is cute.

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]: Also he treats me well.

Song Yan: “……”

He thought back over everything he did to Xia Zhiye, and felt Xia Zhiye was too inclined to be an M3.

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]: Of course, the main reason is that he has a tendency towards domestic violence. I can’t win against him, so I don’t dare not to listen to him.

Song Yan: “……”

Fine, Xia Zhiye should die.

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]: But it’s also not impossible if you want to play. I’ll call my friend, and we can make a team of 5, that way when my roommate investigates, I can also explain it clearly.

Song Yan felt there was something wrong with this, and that if he changed the word ‘roommate’ to a different role, there would be no feeling of conflict4.

Also he didn’t really want to play games right now.

But it was better than Xia Zhiye staying over at a hotel with other girls, so he replied: [Fine]

Xia Zhiye pulled him into a game room.

Once he was pulled in, he saw three closely linked IDs:

[Pure and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]

[Cute and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]

[Sexy and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play Online]

Neat, orderly, and blinding.

It was as if he entered some kind of indecent game.

But wait?

Sexy and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play?

A very terrifying thought hadn’t developed in Song Yan’s mind yet, when the microphone icon in the lower right corner of [Sexy and Good-Looking Male High School Student Accompanying to Play]’s profile picture lit up, followed by Shang Huai’s voice: “Let me pull in one of my customers.”

After saying this, an extremely delicate pink profile picture filled in the last remaining spot of the team.

Song Yan stared at that familiar, pink profile picture, as well as that familiar line of [The Sweetest Little Milk Strawberry in the World]: “……”

This world was extremely freaky.

.

TN: i’m translating another story! hehe i found this as i was browsing around jjwxc and it’s so good i decided to start another project! you can read here. it’s another soft-hearted but sharp-mouthed shou with a puppy-like gong. it’s an entertainment world danmei, and is one about getting back together, hope you do check it out!

1. Peach blossom debt – when one attracts a lot of romantic interest; XY thought XZY would have a lot of girls pursuing him

2. The ‘investigate’ that author uses here is specifically when one is checking on their S.O

3. M as in masochist.

4. Just as in note 2, investigate used here is for when one is checking on their SO. So SY is saying if roommate were changed to bf/gf then the feeling would be the same