Chapter 45#
Playboy (15)#
Rong Huan didn’t even think before saying, “No.”
“Li Tang already owes me and Lu Yi an apology, but I hope you understand—whether he apologizes or not, it won’t change any decision Lu Yi and I make.”
Rong Huan took a deep breath, his expression tinged with sarcasm: “Your son’s flippant apology isn’t that valuable. Instead of coming here to persuade me to change my mind, you’d be better off working hard to win over those old men on the board. Maybe, if they see how sincere you are, they’ll change their minds.”
Having said that, Rong Huan stood up: “It’s getting late. I should be going.”
Behind every spoiled brat stands a spoiled parent—not always true, but mostly so. Li Tang grew up with that personality, and his elder half-brother’s way of raising him was definitely a factor.
“Rong Huan!” the other man called after him, but this time Rong Huan didn’t even look back.
On his way home, the more he thought about it, the angrier he got. As soon as Lu Yi got off work and came home, Rong Huan immediately told him: “The way he talked, it was like his son deigning to apologize was some huge deal, so precious. Don’t you dare change your mind out of consideration for me, or I’ll be really mad.”
Lu Yi laughed: “Alright, alright. I definitely won’t change my mind.” He hadn’t intended to change it anyway.
“Ah…” Rong Huan suddenly sighed again.
Lu Yi asked him: “Why the sigh all of a sudden?”
Rong Huan said: “I was just thinking—aren’t you his ex-boyfriend? What if he thinks you still have feelings for him and are taking revenge out of spite…” He spread his hands wide, about the width of a washbasin. “I feel like their faces could be that big.”
Lu Yi burst out laughing, earning a glare from his lover.
“You’re still laughing? This is all your fault anyway. Who told you to be blind enough to fall for Li Tang back then? You were so desperate over him—I never saw you that desperate over me.”
Lu Yi stopped laughing and said seriously: “Whose vinegar jar just tipped over? So sour?”
Rong Huan smeared a generous amount of blueberry jam on a freshly baked cookie and stuffed it into Lu Yi’s mouth: “Yours. Hope it sours you to death.”
Because the sourness was too strong, and since Lu Yi didn’t like sour things, that night he had to work diligently, physically transforming the vinegar jar into a honey pot.
The acquisition naturally proceeded as planned. Aside from recalculating the finances, the company’s upper management underwent a fairly large-scale personnel reshuffle.
Li Tang’s father’s shares were diluted, his voice weakened, and the company’s CEO was replaced.
Of course, it wasn’t Lu Yi—it was someone Lu Yi recommended.
A new broom sweeps clean, and the first move targeted Li Tang’s father. Originally, since Li Tang was still in graduate school and had flexible time, his father had hoped to get him into the company. Naturally, that fell through.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t get in, but he couldn’t land an important position. And his father knew his son’s abilities well—smart enough, but too spoiled. In the workplace, unless he was at the top, he’d surely complain about how unfair everything was.
Things were going badly at work, so Li Tang’s father was in a bad mood at home too. His son was always out gallivanting, never home when he came back.
He checked the accounts and found that Li Tang’s supplementary card had been spending a lot. Thinking about how his face meant nothing to his stepbrother and how he’d been humiliated at the company, he cut Li Tang’s card in a fit of anger.
Li Tang, unwilling to start working early, had used family connections to get into graduate school after graduation. He had nothing much to do, aside from keeping an eye on Lu Yi’s movements, he still hung out with his old gang of friends, eating and drinking all day, calling it “networking.”
But when it was his turn to pay, the waiter awkwardly said his card had no funds. In this day and age, everyone uses mobile payments—nobody carries much cash.
Embarrassed in front of his friends, he went home and complained to his mother: “Dad cut off all my cards without saying a word! Do you know how humiliated I was?!”
Li Tang’s mother also thought her husband was being unreasonable. But Li Tang’s father was still fuming, so he scolded his son and told him to go apologize to Lu Yi, or the cards would stay cut.
Hearing that his father wanted him to apologize to his ex-boyfriend, Li Tang exploded on the spot. He had a huge fight with his father, then took all his savings over the years (New Year’s money from various relatives) and ran away from home.
Li Tang’s mother tried to reason with both her son and her husband: the son was grown up now, they should talk things through, not fight head-on.
Li Tang’s father was furious: it was supposed to be the son listening to the father, not the father begging the son for leniency. He insisted on cutting off Li Tang’s money, convinced that giving him too much money was the root of all problems.
As for the mother, she was a working woman who spent her own money. She often secretly gave money to her son.
But this time, Li Tang’s father was rock-solid. The son’s spending was like water flowing, and the wife’s private savings weren’t that much. In the end, she had to give in to her husband.
Li Tang then turned to his grandparents on both sides for money.
Because of Li Tang coming out, his maternal grandparents were okay, but his mother wasn’t an only child—she had an older brother—so she couldn’t be too partial. She could give some pocket money, but supporting Li Tang entirely was hard.
As for his nominal grandfather—Rong Huan’s father—after Li Tang’s stunt of crushing on his own step-uncle, the old man had taken a strong dislike to this unworthy step-grandson. Not a single penny.
He wasn’t a child anymore. He had hands and feet. Why couldn’t he earn his own money?
Li Tang’s biological grandmother was in an awkward position. She doted on her grandson but didn’t dare go too far.
Li Tang had originally relied on his grandparents on both sides, plus his father and mother, to live lavishly.
College was just a small society. After graduation, everyone entered the real world and became more pragmatic. When Li Tang lost his money, people initially still tried to stay close for his connections. But once they knew he was in a fight with his family, they didn’t dare help too much, and gradually drifted away.
Those who were drawn to Li Tang’s pretty face mostly couldn’t stand his womanizing. Those who didn’t care about his philandering cared about his money. Those who didn’t care about money and could tolerate his bad temper—the “true loves”—all had one flaw or another.
And the gay circle itself was chaotic. Students still talked about pure love, but once in society, people valued conditions and interests. Eternal love was just a dream; most just wanted to sleep with Li Tang and be done.
As for Lu Yi’s situation, Li Tang kept an eye on it. But without money or people, it became very hard to find out what those two were up to.
The little he did manage to dig up was all good news about them. Some former classmates, having learned about Lu Yi somewhere, even tried to use Li Tang to get closer to Lu Yi. That made Li Tang furious.
But that wasn’t the worst. Worse was that his father, disappointed in his son, was actively trying for another child at home. Li Tang had been away for a long time and hadn’t gone back. When he noticed his mother’s financial support dwindling, he went home—only to find his mother pregnant and a bunch of baby supplies around the house.
The family had once said they wouldn’t have more children for his sake. Now his mother and father had betrayed him too. Li Tang exploded on the spot and argued with his mother.
During the argument, in a fit of rage, he pushed his mother. Fortunately, the family’s maid rushed over and, with all her strength, managed to steady her.
Looking at his mother’s deeply disappointed expression, Li Tang felt a pang of guilt and fled in panic.
After that, Li Tang’s mother cut off his support. Without that income, Li Tang finally went home and apologized to his parents.
He was still their son after all. The feelings were there. What else could they do but forgive him?
But with a second child on the way and the rift between them, they couldn’t treat Li Tang the same as before.
Back home, Li Tang deeply felt the importance of money. He took the initiative to ask for a job at his father’s company.
Out of pride, Li Tang’s father hadn’t told his family much about the company’s troubles. Though his power wasn’t what it used to be, he still had some. He talked to HR and got Li Tang into the company—starting from the bottom, as his education warranted.
Li Tang agreed. Once in the company, he performed fairly well. He wasn’t a big fan of studying, but he was good-looking, proactive, and had a sweet tongue. As a newcomer, he quickly won people over.
Everyone praised him. With his father’s push, Li Tang smoothly rose from an ordinary employee to a young supervisor—admittedly, one with limited authority. But even so, the promotion was very fast.
Li Tang thought to himself: he was just gaining experience at the grassroots level. Once he climbed higher and became financially independent, no one could control him—not even his parents. And then they’d have to rely on him to take care of the second child.
As for Lu Yi and Rong Huan—one a piano player, the other a poor boy—no matter how they struggled, what could they amount to?
He clung to that rosy vision, until one day, when a colleague asked him to deliver some documents, and he saw Lu Yi in that very company.