Chapter 73#
第73章#
The drizzle, for some reason, grew heavier.
Zhuxi was even further south than Yangcheng, so snow was rare in winter. It rained all year round, and sometimes, like now, the rain would suddenly intensify.
“Splash, splash—”
When Zhao Rong returned to the bookstore, many people were standing at the entrance, sheltering from the rain.
Most other shops disliked passersby crowding their doorways, but here, even though it had just opened, if there was any unexpected situation, especially with the wind and rain these past two days, they never refused anyone who wanted to stay longer.
Not far from the bookstore was a school. Before long, on such a sudden rainy day, many students would sneak in after school to wait for the rain to stop.
The eaves were packed with people, and the few available seats inside were occupied by students in school uniforms. Some were whispering to each other, clutching their school bags, while others simply took out pens and started doing their homework, waiting for their parents to pick them up.
The end of the year was approaching, and only the graduating classes were still in session. Most of them were talking about the upcoming two-day holiday, all looking radiant and incredibly excited.
A young man, seemingly around Zhao Rong’s age, sat by the checkout counter.
He had delicate features, wore black-rimmed glasses, and had black hair and black eyes. At first glance, he looked very refined, and the aura he exuded was somewhat similar to Lu Xingping’s.
Zhao Rong walked through the crowd at the entrance and approached the bookstore counter. Liang Youjun was yawning, and the book in his hand was about to fall.
Zhao Rong reached out and caught the teetering book. " ‘Mathematics Exercise Book - Grade Six’? If you’re going to pretend to read, you should at least pick a more normal one, right?"
Liang Youjun jolted awake, laughing awkwardly. “Oh, I was just putting on a show. It doesn’t look good to just sit there in a daze. Reading a book makes me seem more artistic.”
“Choosing a history exercise book might be even more artistic.”
“Then I’ll switch to that one next time!”
Zhao Rong: “…”
Liang Youjun was the person Liu Shun had introduced to Zhao Rong at a party, whose temperament was somewhat similar to Lu Xingping’s.
At that time, he and Qiao Nanqi were at odds, and Liang Youjun was caught between them. In the end, he followed Zhao Rong out of the party hall. Later, Zhao Rong gave him a large sum of money to start a legitimate business, and they hadn’t seen each other since.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he left Yangcheng, he ran into Liang Youjun at a rest stop.
It turned out Liang Youjun was planning to move elsewhere and find a legitimate way to make a living.
Hearing that Zhao Rong intended to settle down in Zhuxi, and seeing that Qiao Nanqi wasn’t with Zhao Rong, Liang Youjun actually asked if he could follow Zhao Rong to Zhuxi. He said he could go anywhere, so why not go somewhere he knew someone.
Zhao Rong, feeling reborn at the time, didn’t care much about such small matters and casually agreed.
After arriving in Zhuxi, Zhao Rong, according to his wishes, planned to use that inheritance for investment and development. He took some of his own small savings and bought a house and opened a large bookstore in a place with both an orphanage and a school.
The bookstore was left for Liang Youjun to manage. When Zhao Rong had free time, he would also come and sit there—it was right at his doorstep, after all.
In just over a month, he had put down roots here, doing what he wanted to do, no longer the cannon fodder “Zhao Rong” from “The Return Journey,” but himself.
But…
The rain pattered, and voices murmured.
Liang Youjun actually went and found a middle school history exercise book. Zhao Rong aimlessly looked at the things on the counter for a while, then saw the information in the borrowing section and said, “Science fiction novels are really popular.”
“Young people love them. I can’t get into them; they make my head spin.”
Zhao Rong closed the borrowing form and then noticed a small note on the table with a phone number and social media account information.
Liang Youjun saw his gaze and slapped his forehead. “I forgot to tell you! This was left for me by a woman who saw you last time you were here, after you left. She said she was too embarrassed to approach you directly and asked me to pass it on. I don’t even know how many there have been, but I can understand. I also think, Boss, someone like you is worth pursuing.”
Zhao Rong was speechless.
He raised his hand and tore the small note into pieces.
Liang Youjun was surprised. “Hey! Boss! Aren’t you going to get to know her?”
Zhao Rong didn’t hesitate. He made sure the information couldn’t be pieced together by others, then crumpled it into a ball and casually tossed it into the trash can.
“Next time, just send these back directly.”
“…Oh.”
Zhao Rong pulled down the brim of his baseball cap, casually picked up an unread book, and lowered his head to read.
It was a collection of short essays, and the words within were like paintings, beautiful enough to be intoxicating.
But he couldn’t really get into it; his heart felt empty.
He remembered when he first arrived, he went to a bar in Zhuxi.
Before going, he had inquired and learned that there were many single men and women in that bar, almost tacitly considered an alternative dating spot. Many people went there to seek solace after a breakup or to find a partner.
Zhao Rong didn’t like such noisy places, but he thought about what Lu Xingping had said and felt that he really should try to open up, try with others, anyone. So he sat there and ordered a glass of juice for himself.
That night, he didn’t move from his spot, but many people, both men and women, came up to him.
Among them was a tall man with black hair and deep-set eyes. The dim bar lighting obscured his eye color, but his profound eye sockets were noticeable. The man wore a pure white shirt, with several buttons at the collar undone, subtly revealing the allure of a mature man.
He was the type Zhao Rong would like.
Because of this, he exchanged a few more words with the man.
The other party was very interested in him, spoke enthusiastically, and even began to reveal his family background after only a few sentences, clearly genuinely wanting to take things further. In such a situation, it was reasonable for Zhao Rong to take a step forward and open up a bit.
But he said nothing.
He realized he didn’t want to actively give anything or be the one to get closer to another person’s heart.
He would even constantly keep himself in a safe place to protect himself and feel secure. Subconsciously, he had found the easiest way to protect himself: by not taking action.
Indeed, that person was clearly willing to be the proactive one, but Zhao Rong didn’t want that.
No one can maintain one-sided giving for a lifetime.
It wouldn’t be fair to the other person.
So he rejected the man, paid for his juice, left the bar, and never went back.
He had reached the distant place he wanted to go, had a few familiar people around him, spent time with his mother every day, and lived a leisurely and free life.
But apart from Zhao Ming, he still hadn’t felt the urge to open his heart to anyone.
Wariness and emotional defenses seemed to have grown into his bones with the years. He was used to being alone, used to no longer actively offering his thoughts and feelings to another person.
He was a nostalgic person, but he didn’t miss the past. He was a person who yearned for freedom, but he didn’t truly live in the present.
After much thought, he felt a sense of loneliness in such a lively moment.
The words in the book couldn’t envelop him, and the sounds of people talking only made him feel the liveliness of others.
Zhao Rong reined in his scattered thoughts and memories, slowly closed the book, and stopped forcing himself to read.
Liang Youjun was dusting the bookshelves with a feather duster and asked him, “Boss, the New Year is in a few days. Should we buy some New Year’s goods?”
Zhao Rong suddenly realized, “Is it almost New Year’s Eve?”
“Those students are all talking about the holiday,” Liang Youjun smiled. “They’re all waiting for their New Year’s money. I have no relatives here except you guys, so take me along for the New Year, okay?”
“Me too…”
No relatives, only Zhao Ming.
He swallowed the rest of his sentence and said, “Alright, I’ll ask Brother Xu if he and his wife can take us two burdens for the New Year.”
Liang Youjun chuckled a few times.
Many people at the entrance had left, and the rain seemed to have lessened.
Parents were calling their children out from the doorway, picking them up to go home for dinner.
Zhao Rong stood up, put the book back on the shelf, and said, “I’m going back.”
That day, after asking Zhao Rong and Lu Xingping’s wedding planner, and then getting some information from Liu Shun, Qiao Nanqi pondered for a moment the reasons why these lawyers attended the wedding.
Years of experience in the aristocratic circles gradually led Qiao Nanqi to think in another direction.
The initial heartache from suspecting Zhao Rong’s reluctance gradually faded, and he actually… vaguely guessed an even more exaggerated possibility.
But he didn’t dare to guess.
He was afraid that if he guessed wrong, it would only be a false joy in the end, and such fantasies would only make him more painful.
He also didn’t ask Lu Xingping first.
If he guessed wrong, his inquiry would only affect the relationship between Lu Xingping and Zhao Rong—he didn’t want to bring any more negative impact to Zhao Rong.
So Qiao Nanqi waited for a few days.
A few days later, on a morning when Yangcheng gradually began to warm up from deep winter, Xiao Wu brought a lawyer.
The lawyer’s surname was Lin. He worked at one of the law firms Qiao Nanqi had him buy, specializing in private legal disputes and inheritance division for well-known individuals. He was also a prominent figure in their field.
And this lawyer Lin, who clearly wasn’t in any of Zhao Rong and Lu Xingping’s social circles, was at the wedding, along with several other lawyers, holding documents and recording something at the back.
After Lawyer Lin entered, he sat upright, waiting for Qiao Nanqi to speak.
Qiao Nanqi knew that lawyers like Lin had handled cases for many wealthy and influential people. If he lost the initiative at the beginning, he wouldn’t be able to get any information.
So he started with a vague question: “You should know why I’m looking for you.”
Over the years, his sharp-featured face had naturally acquired a hint of gloom. Once he put on a stern face, coupled with a few ambiguous words, it was enough to make people retreat.
Lawyer Lin had only seen Qiao Nanqi at Zhao Rong’s wedding.
Even though most of the people invited to that wedding were top figures in Yangcheng, Qiao Nanqi still stood out like a crane among chickens in the crowd. He clearly remembered that when they were taking notes, the camera of the colleague responsible for filming paused for a few seconds on Qiao Nanqi before moving on.
So Lawyer Lin had a deep impression of Qiao Nanqi.
His only interaction with this Mr. Qiao was that wedding.
He thought that someone like Qiao Nanqi asking about his presence must be another overt or covert struggle between these wealthy families—wasn’t the Chen family brought down by this Mr. Qiao?
Thus, under Qiao Nanqi’s ambiguous questions, Lawyer Lin couldn’t withstand many rounds under Qiao Nanqi’s pressure and tactics. In a short while, he told everything.
Anyway, the confidentiality agreement had expired, and the will had never required them not to disclose it.
He briefly explained the matter of the will: “…Mr. Zhao and I don’t know each other. I only participated in the drafting of Mrs. Chen’s will before her death. This will is related to Mr. Zhao, and I was responsible for connecting with him. The reason I attended the wedding was because he called me some time ago, saying he wanted to unfreeze this inheritance.”
The Chen family actually left an inheritance for Zhao Rong.
However, if it was Mrs. Chen, it made sense.
Before Mrs. Chen passed away, and even before Qiao Anqing passed away, Qiao Nanqi and the Chen family had a decent relationship, and he had met this elderly lady.
Although she also had the stubbornness and prejudice common among old aristocratic families, she was still somewhat kind in her dealings with people. If Zhao Rong’s father, Chen Fengnian, hadn’t died suddenly, the Chen family property would have been passed from Mrs. Chen to Chen Fengnian. If one were to find someone in the large Chen family who would look at Zhao Rong favorably, it would only be Mrs. Chen.
If Mrs. Chen hadn’t fallen seriously ill shortly after Chen Fengnian’s sudden death, she might have paved the way for Zhao Rong.
What a pity.
Thinking this way, it was normal for there to be a secret inheritance.
But this inheritance… why did Zhao Rong unfreeze it so late? If Zhao Rong had gotten it earlier, when the Chen family hadn’t collapsed in those past few years, Zhao Rong wouldn’t have had such a difficult time under Chen Da and Chen Er.
Moreover…
Qiao Nanqi frowned slightly—what did this have to do with the wedding?
But he couldn’t appear ignorant, so he said, “So you went to the wedding.”
Lawyer Lin secretly thought that Qiao Nanqi indeed knew something. Although he didn’t know Qiao Nanqi, he had already learned of Young Master Qiao’s tactics from rumors and their current meeting, and he dared not conceal anything: “…Yes, the wedding was a requirement of the confidentiality agreement.”
“When the old lady passed away, she froze half of the Chen family’s assets and made a will, leaving all of it to Zhao Rong, but the inheritance came with a condition—marriage. Only by fulfilling this condition could the inheritance be unfrozen. She put a double guarantee on this will, requiring a wedding to invalidate the confidentiality agreement and legal recognition to unfreeze the inheritance, to ensure that this inheritance would not encounter any accidents. Only when both steps were completed would the inheritance be unfrozen.”
“At the wedding, we were verifying the specifications. A few days after the wedding, Mr. Zhao and Mr. Lu sent the necessary documents to unfreeze the inheritance and handed it over to us.”
“After that, we had no further contact…”
Qiao Nanqi was stunned by these sudden words.
In fact, Lawyer Lin had explained it very clearly, and the meaning was obvious.
Qiao Nanqi understood.
But precisely because he understood, it took him a while to react.
It turned out that behind the absurd engagement between Zhao Rong and Lu Xingping, which everyone had thought ridiculous years ago, lay such a secret.
Was the wedding so rushed because of this?
“When did Zhao Rong contact you?”
“Just a month or two ago.”
“Did he hold the wedding immediately after contacting you?”
“Yes, I told Mr. Zhao that the first step to getting the inheritance was to hold a wedding, and a few days later, the invitations were sent out.”
Everything was clear.
Qiao Nanqi, however, stopped speaking.
He sat at his desk, leaning slightly against the back of his chair, his eyes moving slightly.
He had approached the truth, knowing that this wedding was just a play, and his first reaction was a hint of surprise.
He hadn’t experienced “surprise” in a long time.
The last time such an emotion existed in his memory was long before Qiao Anqing’s death.
That day, he seemed to have just returned from school. As soon as the driver opened the car door, he ran into the house. Qiao Anqing was already holding a gift box, saying, “I bought a cute little thing, can you help me unwrap it?”
At that time, he wasn’t tall yet. For the gift box Qiao Anqing was holding, he had to stand on tiptoe slightly to reach the bow on top. He stretched up, raised his hand, and slowly pulled open the bow. The ribbon slipped, and Qiao Nanqi opened the box to see a small cat lying inside, its fur white with a hint of gray.
The kitten seemed to sense his gaze, looked up, and its round eyes met his.
He remembered that he seemed to have smiled then.
But now, in the face of the actual reason for this sudden wedding, Qiao Nanqi couldn’t smile at all.
The surprise lasted only for a brief moment before he was overwhelmed by a piece of information brought by this will, making it hard for him to breathe.
He lowered his head slightly, concealing his loss of control, but his voice uncontrollably became hoarse: “The will requires marriage, and the person to marry must be Lu Xingping?”
Lawyer Lin was startled.
At this moment, he suddenly realized—Qiao Nanqi hadn’t known about the will.
He had been completely tricked into speaking.
But since the words were already out, he couldn’t hide it anymore and had to go all the way.
“Yes,” he nodded, “this requirement was set by the old lady before her death. Actually, I had been waiting for Mr. Zhao to contact me for many years, but I never heard from him. I thought he wouldn’t come to me, but then he suddenly contacted me recently.”
—Indeed.
Qiao Nanqi’s eyes darkened, and the softened expression he had from the momentary surprise completely vanished.
Before investigating these matters, he had thought that a rare ray of hope might be waiting for him, but he didn’t expect to see only heavy dark clouds.
He had received good news, but because of this good news, he couldn’t be happy at all.
When Chen Ze and those people had trouble, Xia Yuantu had liquidated the Chen family’s assets with him—it was a full half less than they had expected.
Originally, Qiao Nanqi thought that these assets had been secretly transferred away by those people from the Chen family.
However, they had checked the Chen family’s company accounts for the past few years many times, finding no errors or omissions, and couldn’t find where such a large sum of money had suddenly disappeared. After much thought, they could only attribute it to Chen Da and Chen Er’s extravagance, spending the money unknowingly—although this reason wasn’t entirely convincing, they indeed couldn’t find the money.
At this moment, Qiao Nanqi finally knew the ultimate destination of the missing half of the Chen family’s property.
When Mrs. Chen passed away, he and Zhao Rong weren’t even together.
But the engagement and the will had been made many years ago.
This sum of inheritance, which even he and Xia Yuantu had sought, lay there quietly, its owner showing no interest, as if having forgotten it.
Zhao Rong could have chosen, even very early on, to approach Lu Xingping and hold this rushed wedding.
But nothing had happened for these past few years.
If they hadn’t broken up, if their marriage agreement hadn’t expired, the moment Zhao Rong was with him, it would have completely cut off the possibility of fulfilling the engagement with Lu Xingping and obtaining the inheritance.
But back then, Zhao Rong still pursued him without hesitation, telling him, “If you need a marriage partner, I can be one.”
From beginning to end, from Mrs. Chen’s death to their signing of the marriage agreement, from Zhao Rong moving into his house to Zhao Rong leaving…
Zhao Rong had never mentioned this half of the inheritance, which was enough to make many people’s hearts pound.
After he learned of Zhao Rong and Lu Xingping’s engagement, he pleaded with Zhao Rong in the snow not to marry, screaming hoarsely outside Zhao Rong’s house, but Zhao Rong never told him, not even a shred of the truth.
Zhao Rong wasn’t even willing to give him a chance to feel guilty.
Qiao Nanqi lost his strength, even lowering his head felt difficult.
He felt as if all the air around him had been sucked out, leaving him unable to breathe, only able to sink into an endless sense of suffocation.
The negative emotions that he had managed to stabilize recently now surged forth completely, overwhelming him like a turbulent sea, pressing down on him with immense weight. In his boundless heartache, there was only a sliver of rationality, making him grateful that there were no sharp objects in front of him, otherwise, he didn’t even know what he might do.
Qiao Nanqi propped his elbows on the table, lowered his head, and supported his forehead, trying to steady his voice as he said, “Xiao Wu.”
Xiao Wu, who was waiting in the adjacent room, heard this and, without needing Qiao Nanqi’s instruction, skillfully entered, led Lawyer Lin out.
Before leaving, he gently closed the door behind him, leaving Qiao Nanqi alone in the office.
Silence fell.
However, countless voices flooded Qiao Nanqi’s mind, but all these voices were saying the same thing.
Was the year he spent with him worth Zhao Rong silently enduring the hardships he had once suffered, worth Zhao Rong giving up such a huge benefit?
—Not worth it.
Qiao Nanqi, you are truly not worth it at all.