Chapter 29#

Phoenix Man (15)#

Although Yu Zhao said he could take the bus back, in the end Qiao Yi insisted on driving him to his place.

After the car stopped, Yu Zhao grabbed his things and said, “Alright, just drop me off at the entrance. You should head back first.”

His room was a mess, completely untidy, and he really couldn’t bring himself to invite someone up.

Qiao Yi didn’t say anything more. He watched Yu Zhao leave, then pulled out another phone.

As the startup chime sounded, the phone he’d left unused for several days lit up once again.

The moment he turned it on, he found the mailbox for this number stuffed full—countless missed calls from various numbers.

The most frequent caller was his ex-husband, Wang Cheng. After dozens of unanswered calls, Wang Cheng probably thought he’d been blocked, so he started “harassing” him from other people’s phones.

Qiao Yi casually skimmed the messages, then chose to clear them all.

Truth was, he hadn’t actually blocked Wang Cheng—he’d just switched numbers so the people from his past couldn’t easily find him.

Since he’d already decided to switch to a completely different industry than Qiao Yi’s original field, the professional connections the previous person had built up wouldn’t be much help to him anyway.

As for the resources tied to his parents, as long as both of Qiao Yi’s parents were still alive, changing his contact information wouldn’t cost him those advantages.

Scrolling down his recent contacts, he dialed Wang Cheng’s number.

The other party hadn’t changed his number like Qiao Yi had. As expected, the call was answered quickly.

Wang Cheng’s voice came through the speaker, sounding slightly distorted, with a hint of suppressed hostility: “What, you want to make trouble? Then why are you calling me now?”

Even if Qiao Yi wanted to make amends, he would never forgive him. How dare he toy with him like this?

Qiao Yi certainly wasn’t calling to get back together. He’d worked so hard to get divorced—he’d have to be out of his mind to reconcile.

“Considering we were once legally married, here’s a friendly reminder: if you have time tomorrow, go handle the divorce procedures.”

Divorce procedures. How quaint. Wang Cheng could barely contain his anger: “Don’t even think about it.”

Qiao Yi let out an “Oh.” “I think you forgot—the court has already ruled our marriage invalid. The legal effect of a divorce decree is equivalent to a divorce certificate.”

A divorce certificate does require both parties to be present to process, but a divorce decree carries the same legal weight. If the other party doesn’t want to go through the formalities, it doesn’t really matter to him.

“Then what the hell are you calling me for?!” Wang Cheng’s rage was skyrocketing.

“Nothing much. Just returning the favor for the way you disgusted me today. Hearing you unhappy makes me pretty happy.” Qiao Yi looked at himself in the rearview mirror—the young man’s lips curled upward, and his eyes gleamed with genuine delight.

After saying that, he simply let go of the button that had been holding the power switch, leaving all the other party’s resentment and curses to the cold, mechanical female voice. Wang Cheng had no one left to curse at.

It was a childish, immature move, but once in a while, it was enough to lift his spirits after having his mood ruined.

He took the SIM card out of his old phone, snapped it in half, and on his way home, casually tossed it into the trash bin in the neighborhood.

Since he’d applied to freeze the assets, there was no way Wang Cheng could transfer any more property. Combined with the evidence they’d provided, everything Wang Cheng had swallowed back then basically came back up.

The two hadn’t been married long, so their joint marital property was quite limited. Qiao Yi’s lawyer suggested he could sue Wang Cheng for embezzlement of personal property.

Given Lu Yi’s personality and status, if he’d encountered something like this, he would have sued without hesitation. But now Qiao Yi was somewhat constrained by his identity. He consulted the Qiao parents, who had just returned from their trip. Though they sighed over their son’s actions, they ultimately stood by him.

But the older generation was more tactful, inevitably offering some encouragement—always thinking they shouldn’t push things too far, lest they corner the mad dog Wang Cheng and make him desperate enough to fight back.

Qiao Yi was still young, so it didn’t matter much to him, but his parents were used to living in D City. Their connections and friends were all here. They couldn’t possibly uproot the whole family for an outsider.

Qiao Yi considered his parents’ opinions and ultimately decided to leave some leeway. They say people with nothing to lose are the most dangerous. If he truly drove the other party into a corner, it wouldn’t do him any good.

An uncle who knew the situation called to ask Qiao Yi’s opinion, hinting that he wanted to fire Wang Cheng.

Qiao Yi asked him, “Are you firing him because of me, or because he’s really not doing his job well?”

The other party paused, then said, “Partly for you, partly due to normal personnel adjustments within the company.”

“If it’s a normal adjustment, then he should stay if he deserves to stay. But if you really want to do me a favor by venting my anger, then keep him.”

When someone has nothing to lose, they’re like a wild dog. But he was a civilized man. He didn’t go to extremes—he just needed to put a collar on that dog’s neck, so it couldn’t bite and yet was still bound by the collar.

Both were old foxes. Zhong quickly grasped the key point, praised Qiao Yi a few more times, and then hung up.

The day after that call, the court convened again. This time, Qiao Yi handed everything over to his lawyer. Wang Cheng, on the other hand, didn’t want to take time off work for this kind of thing, so he didn’t bother.

He didn’t hire a lawyer because lawyers cost money. The last lawyer, Zhou, had been utterly useless, so he didn’t want to waste the cash. Instead, he just dumped it all on his father, Wang Senior.

After all, Wang Senior had no shame left anyway. And if it weren’t for him, things never would have escalated to this point.

After everything happened, Wang Cheng made no effort to correct his own mistakes. Instead, he shifted all the blame onto others.

He blamed Qiao Yi, Yu Zhao, and of course his own father, Wang Senior.

What could Wang Senior do? This was his most precious, most prized son. He’d poured too much effort into Wang Cheng. Even if his son resented him, even if he was dissatisfied, blood ties couldn’t be severed. He had no choice but to accept it.

No matter how unreasonable and stubborn Wang Senior might be, in the face of the law, he had no other options. He could only listen to the court’s ruling and watch all the property he thought should belong to his family be awarded to Qiao Yi.

Every single asset he heard being read out felt like cutting off a piece of his flesh. His heart ached and bled.

But by then, the conflicts within the Wang family had nothing to do with Qiao Yi.

After all, the only bond between him and the Wang family was the marriage between Wang Cheng and the original owner. Now that bond was gone—they were nothing but strangers.

After the property was redistributed, Qiao Yi smoothly obtained the assets that belonged to him. The pre-marital apartment the Qiao family had bought—he didn’t want to live in it anymore, nor could he. Since the location was good, he listed it with a real estate agent and quickly sold it off.

The cash he got from the sale was just enough to register his new company.

As for the one million from that card earlier, he had already given it to Yu Zhao as startup capital, according to their prior agreement.

Honestly, considering the proportion of money he’d put into the snack shop investment, he was definitely taking a big loss. But he’d said before that half of it was Yu Zhao’s compensation. Since Yu Zhao refused to take it openly, he couldn’t just hand it over directly, so he counted it as Yu Zhao’s investment and recorded it as shares.

Everything was Yu Zhao’s labor and effort, with a 60-40 profit split—definitely not a bad deal for him. But there was no need to explain all that to Yu Zhao. No point making the other guy feel like he owed him something and worry about paying it back.

After dealing with the divorce, Qiao Yi threw himself entirely into his new company. To be honest, he’d started out by taking over large enterprises; he didn’t have much experience with growing a small company from scratch.

But everything in this field is interconnected. He felt his way forward step by step, learning to properly lower his stance during negotiations, experiencing the different kind of life that came with Qiao Yi’s identity.

Even though some moments weren’t the most pleasant, the results always turned out as smoothly as he’d expected.

The development phase of a company is the busiest time. Qiao Yi was busy, and Yu Zhao was busy with his snack shop too. But no matter how busy they got, Yu Zhao always delivered Qiao Yi’s breakfast and dinner absolutely on time, as promised.

The lunchbox usually had three layers: one for rice, one for the dishes, and one for soup.

The rice was high-quality fragrant rice, steamed until translucent and glistening. When the insulated lunchbox opened, it released an enticing aroma.

Qiao Yi had mentioned he preferred rice that was slightly softer, so Yu Zhao steamed rice for him every day in the shop using a small steamer. Rice steamed this way was softer, more fragrant, and chewier than rice from an electric cooker.

The soup started on a half-month rotation, but after Yu Zhao asked about Qiao Yi’s preferences, it became a weekly rotation—seven different soups, never repeating within a week.

The dishes varied the most. The food the shop sold to regular customers was mostly simple set meals, a bit like Shaxian snack —chicken cutlet rice, pork cutlet rice, and of course some stir-fries. Whatever the customer ordered, he’d cook.

Those were simple dishes that tasted good even with a quick stir-fry. Sure, he put some effort in and used good ingredients, but compared to what he prepared for Qiao Yi, they were pretty half-hearted.

To ensure the meals were healthy and nutritious, he’d research ingredient pairings the night before, write out a recipe, and then head to the market at dawn to buy the freshest ingredients according to that recipe.

Many of the shop’s raw ingredients were prepped early in the morning so that once customers started coming in, he could just cook on the spot.

For Qiao Yi’s meals, he’d start preparing about an hour before mealtime. He had to ensure absolute freshness of the ingredients and the best texture after cooking. No matter how busy the snack shop got, during that hour, he’d delegate all customer cooking to his hired staff and personally rush to the subway to deliver the meal.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t trust an employee with this task, but no employee would be as meticulous as he was. They might spill something on the way. Important matters couldn’t be left to outsiders—he just couldn’t feel at ease.

After carefully handing the meticulously prepared meal to Qiao Yi, he’d take the subway back and continue working in the shop.

He originally wanted to deliver breakfast too, but Qiao Yi insisted he shouldn’t go to so much trouble. So instead, Yu Zhao chose Qiao Yi’s day off, bought a big pile of raw ingredients, and went to Qiao Yi’s place.

With Qiao Yi’s permission, he spent the whole day in the kitchen, making dumplings, wontons, and some simple steamed buns, then stored them in Qiao Yi’s freezer.

That way, every morning, Qiao Yi only needed to get up five minutes early to boil or steam them, and he could have a healthy, filling breakfast at home.

Honestly, the taste was about the same as what you’d get outside, but meat buns from street stalls rarely used good meat, and wontons and dumplings had pitifully little filling. Homemade ones were definitely more generous.

In the beginning, when the company was small with few employees, Yu Zhao could just walk right in without any announcement to deliver Qiao Yi’s meals.

Later, they hired a serious front desk receptionist. Since Yu Zhao only showed up at lunch and dinner and outside food deliveries weren’t allowed in, he was once stopped as an unauthorized visitor.

After that, Qiao Yi had a special employee badge made for Yu Zhao. Since they changed front desk staff fairly often in the early days, it saved having to explain every time.

Yu Zhao visited so often that a few of the older employees got to know his situation.

They realized he wasn’t some delivery guy from a big hotel restaurant, but Qiao Yi’s friend who ran his own snack shop.

They asked Yu Zhao if his shop offered delivery.

Yu Zhao’s shop was near a college campus. Most university students ordered takeout anyway, so of course they did.

These people jokingly demanded “love delivery” too. They said they could order through him directly instead of using a delivery driver—there weren’t many of them, so it would save time.

Yu Zhao pursed his lips and smiled. Qiao Yi thought he was about to agree and was about to shut down those jokers, but Yu Zhao spoke first: “Sorry, no can do. You can place orders and have the delivery guys bring them over.”

“Little boss could be our personal delivery guy too! We can afford it—just give us the same food as our boss.”

Every time Qiao Yi opened his lunchbox, the dishes looked so good it made everyone drool. While everyone else was still waiting for their takeout during overtime, Qiao Yi would be eating first, the aroma making their hungry stomachs growl even more. It was infuriating.

Since it was a startup, the people saying this were basically the company’s founding members, Qiao Yi’s partners, so they dared to joke like that.

Yu Zhao grinned. “That’s even more out of the question. Your boss gets an exclusive custom order—it’s not on the menu.”

It wasn’t that he couldn’t make money this way, but it would waste too much energy. Doing it for Qiao Yi was fine; for outsiders? Forget it.

Just as he finished speaking, someone said, “This guy is the little boss’s boyfriend! If you want love food, go make your own boyfriend or girlfriend cook it!”

Yu Zhao’s face flushed red, and he stammered, “No, I’m not. We’re just ordinary friends.”

His defense was a bit too quiet and was immediately drowned out by the crowd’s good-natured teasing.

He didn’t know if Qiao Yi had heard. He glanced at Qiao Yi, who was opening his lunchbox to eat. As if sensing his gaze, the young man looked up and met his eyes.

Qiao Yi smiled at him, then continued eating at a leisurely pace.

Even when busy, Qiao Yi ate slowly, chewing carefully—he really knew how to enjoy life.

The way he ate was beautiful. His eyes too… And the fact that Qiao Yi hadn’t said the word “boyfriend” was a misunderstanding—thinking about that made Yu Zhao’s face even redder.

“Then, I’ll head back.” With his face and ears burning red, Yu Zhao called out and left.

Qiao Yi looked up and felt that the other’s retreating figure seemed a bit like a hasty escape.

Thinking it over, he figured that after his meal would be Yu Zhao’s busiest time back at the shop. So after he finished his overtime and found a free moment, he dialed Yu Zhao’s phone.

The call was answered almost immediately. Yu Zhao’s voice came through the phone, sounding a bit cautious: “Qiao Yi?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you busy right now?”

“No, there aren’t many customers in the shop right now.” In truth, even if there were customers, if Qiao Yi called, he’d prioritize answering.

Qiao Yi said, “About what happened at noon today—they just like to joke around. Don’t take it too seriously.”

Was this telling him not to overthink? It sounded like an explanation, but Yu Zhao’s joyful heart suddenly felt doused in cold water. Despite the disappointment, he forced a smile: “No, I didn’t overthink. I know they didn’t mean any harm.”

Even across the distance, with the sound slightly distorted, Qiao Yi could still hear the drop in Yu Zhao’s mood. More precisely, after he said those few words, the other’s mood suddenly plummeted.

Thinking about how energetic and lively Yu Zhao usually was, he realized he much preferred seeing the other’s face lit up with a happy smile.

Qiao Yi continued, “If I said something that inadvertently offended you, you can tell me. I’ll be more careful next time.”

“No, it’s not because of you. It’s my own problem.” Even though the other couldn’t see his expression through the phone, Yu Zhao still tried hard to lift the corners of his mouth, forcing a smile.

He was calling from the employee changing room, which had a mirror that clearly reflected his face.

Yu Zhao pulled at the corners of his mouth. The man in the mirror showed a forced, stiff smile. No good. He felt sad and couldn’t muster a genuine smile at all. His expression completely collapsed.

“Sorry, it’s my own issue. I made you worry.”

When he thought about it, Qiao Yi was so capable, so clever, had gone to a good university. And him? Sure, he’d gotten into a decent university, but he’d dropped out after a year or two. He didn’t even have a college degree. Their education levels didn’t match.

Yu Zhao wasn’t an insecure person, but the thought that Qiao Yi had zero interest in him, that it was all one-sided on his part, made his heart feel like ice. Staring at the mirror, he could find faults everywhere.

For example, he wasn’t tall enough, his face looked too young and lacked authority, he wasn’t mature enough, he attracted bad romantic entanglements, his temper wasn’t great, he didn’t have many subtle tricks up his sleeve—charitably called straightforward, but uncharitably called simple-minded.

Besides being a decent cook, he didn’t seem to have any other standout traits. Qiao Yi was so outstanding, in his eyes he could match a prince. Someone like him? Dreaming of reaching that high was just wishful thinking.

Qiao Yi’s concerned voice came through the phone: “Are you really okay? If you’re not feeling well, take tomorrow off. No need to push yourself so hard.”

Even though he’d gotten used to Yu Zhao’s cooking, the other was doing this voluntarily. He couldn’t force him.

“Thank you.” After thinking so many discouraging thoughts, Yu Zhao felt a bit listless. Maybe he should just avoid seeing him for a few days, a voice in his head suggested.

But then he thought of Qiao Yi’s smile, the special gentleness he showed him, their pleasant interactions, shared interests, similar aesthetics, and common values. He rallied his spirits.

Yu Zhao gripped his phone tightly, his palm sweating profusely. Just before Qiao Yi was about to hang up, he said, “There’s something I want to tell you. Can you spare some time? Give me five minutes. Just five minutes.”

Qiao Yi was taking a walk in his neighborhood at that moment. He paused when he heard this, trying to guess what the other wanted to say, but quickly gave up.

Instead of guessing, it was better to just ask directly when they met. Overthinking would only breed misunderstandings.

“Not just five minutes—fifty minutes is fine too. When do you want to meet? Tomorrow?” If it was tomorrow, he might need to adjust his work schedule.

Yu Zhao’s voice had lost some of its dejection but sounded even more nervous: “Now. Can we do it now?”

“Of course we can,” Qiao Yi said. “I’m in my neighborhood right now. What about you? Are you at the shop?”

“Yes!” Yu Zhao answered with renewed energy. Whether it worked out or not, he had to try. He owed it to himself to get an answer.

“Just stay in the neighborhood. I’ll come find you!”

“Don’t rush. I have plenty of time. Stay safe.” After a pause, Qiao Yi said, “Isn’t there a nice coffee shop near your place? Go grab a seat there. I’ll drive over. It won’t take ten minutes.”

“Let me come to you.”

“It’s fine. I have my car keys. It’s more convenient for me to drive.”

“Then I’ll do as you say.” Yu Zhao didn’t argue anymore. He was too excited and needed to calm down and think carefully about what to say.

He had everything planned out beautifully, but when Qiao Yi appeared before him, all those well-prepared words flew out of his head.

Qiao Yi waited patiently for a while, but Yu Zhao just wouldn’t speak. Finally, he asked, “What’s wrong? Didn’t you have something to tell me?”

Yu Zhao blurted out in a rush, “I like you!”

Seeing the shock on Qiao Yi’s face, he gathered his courage: “Can you be my boyfriend?”

Qiao Yi was silent for a moment. He felt that although the words came suddenly, they seemed to be within his expectations.

Looking at Yu Zhao’s anxious expression, he said, “Yu Zhao, I might not be as good as you think I am.”

This was it—he was about to get the nice-guy rejection. The light in Yu Zhao’s eyes dimmed.

Then Qiao Yi finished his sentence: “But you’re better than you think you are. If you’ve really thought it through, then let’s give it a try.”

Yu Zhao’s eyes suddenly burst with a radiance brighter than the stars. The corners of his mouth lifted, spread, and wouldn’t stop.

At that moment, he couldn’t care less whether he looked ridiculous or unattractive with that huge grin. Because Qiao Yi’s words just now had, with a bang, blown him into fireworks.

He was so happy he could fly to the heavens!