Chapter 121 – Regret
Tian Nini had to admit that he had really let loose today. After downing red, white, and yellow liquor, he finally drank that man named Lian under the table. Most of his drinking buddies from the company were now passed out on the sofas or the floor.
Tian Nini smiled proudly and put his deep pink blazer back on. This was what it meant to wear the pinkest clothes while drinking the hardest liquor.
Just then, the phone in his jacket pocket vibrated. Without even looking at the caller ID, Tian Nini answered. His head was already spinning, and he was slurring his words, repeatedly saying he couldn’t hear. By the time he realized what was happening, he saw that he had accidentally pressed the voice message button.
“Say that again. It should work now,” Tian Nini slurred.
“Did Ganzhi go to the company last week? How did he seem after he saw it?”
Tian Nini was stunned for a long moment before replying, “What do you mean, how did he seem? How would anyone feel after seeing their husband having a secret chat in his office with a beautiful high school classmate? You’re a strange one! Hiccup! Let me tell you, don’t tell CEO Yan, but Ganzhi specifically asked me to keep it a secret. And I even went out of my way to clarify things for CEO Yan—just a high school classmate, nothing more. Besides that time in their second year when CEO Yan took a knife for him, they barely had any contact!”
The breathing on the other end of the line grew noticeably heavier.
“You even told him that?!”
Liquid courage emboldened him, and right now, Tian Nini couldn’t stand anyone having a bigger attitude than him. “He’s my most adorable baby! Why can’t I tell him? You’re so nosy! Just for the fact that my baby Ganzhi came all this way to bring CEO Yan lunch, I had to tell him. I don’t even know what the poor thing did with all that food in the end. It broke my heart to see it!”
“He brought me lunch?”
“What ‘me’? You’re so full of yourself. It was for my CEO Yan! I don’t know what kind of game those two are playing. It’s just a high school classmate. One asks me to keep it a secret, the other tells me to hide it. What’s a perfectly good married couple doing playing at some fantasy love triangle! Hiccup!“
Tian Nini was only halfway through his sentence when the other person hung up. Just as he was about to look at his phone, the guy named Lian grabbed his pant leg.
“I’m not drunk yet. Let’s go again!”
Tian Nini tossed his phone aside and effortlessly hauled Lian up for another five hundred rounds.
Yan Shengping put down his phone, feeling utterly drained. Lin Ganzhi’s phone was charging on the bedside table. His earlier anger was now replaced by an equal measure of regret. So he had come looking for him, and even brought him delicious food, only to walk in on him meeting with Li Yueshuo. What kind of mood must he have been in when he carried everything back the way he came?
Yan Shengping desperately wanted to go out and find Lin Ganzhi. But if he went looking now, in the Wenren Residence with its hundreds of rooms, he didn’t want to cause such a huge scene at someone else’s home. Besides, if he really did that, Ganzhi would probably be even angrier.
That night, Yan Shengping ultimately did not go after him. The next morning, just as the Wenren family was joyfully looking forward to having breakfast with their long-lost relative, they learned from the butler that the Third Young Master of the Wenren family had left early in the morning and driven to the company. Faced with Yan Shengping’s excessive calmness, or rather, his avoidance, everyone felt a little disappointed.
It wasn’t until a servant came and told them that Lin Ganzhi had run off without even packing his luggage that they understood. They checked the surveillance footage; the two had left at vastly different times. Lin Ganzhi left in the dead of night, while Yan Shengping left in the early morning. To the shrewd members of the Wenren family, it was clear at a glance. Their reunion had come at a bad time, right in the middle of the couple’s fight. And from the looks of it, Lin Ganzhi was the angrier one. Without the sweet-tempered Lin Ganzhi to act as a bridge between them and Yan Shengping, the reunion would only become more difficult.
The entire family was instantly filled with gloom.
Before leaving, Lin Ganzhi had considered whether he should hide somewhere Yan Shengping would never find him. But then he thought, that was just a power-fantasy story trope. He wasn’t a thief, so why should he live in hiding? Besides, he had left in such a hurry that he hadn’t even brought his ID. Forget leaving the country, he couldn’t even leave the province. In the end, he could only call a ride-hailing service and find a rural farmhouse where he could fish and contemplate his life.
Compared to Yan Shengping, his fishing skills were as terrible as they could be, so he adopted a “the willing will take the bait” approach. From time to time, he would respond to the old man fishing next to him. The man was worldly and clearly no ordinary person. Most of the time, Lin Ganzhi just listened, occasionally chiming in. While their conversations weren’t particularly interesting, it was much better than the week he had spent cooped up at home. When a person isolates themselves, they tend to overthink. Looking back now, Lin Ganzhi realized some of his thoughts had been overly negative.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t live without Yan Shengping!
He had lost love, but he still had money. As long as Yan Shengping didn’t ask, he wouldn’t give him any!
Emm, at most… at most, he’d give him half!
“Xiao Gan, do you young people like to look at the Weibo Hot Search?” the old man beside him asked, skillfully pulling out his phone.
Lin Ganzhi grunted in agreement. Most did, except for him. The moment he opened Weibo, his private messages would explode.
“Then why does my granddaughter seem so uninterested whenever I try to talk to her about the trending topics?” the old man grumbled.
“Grandpa, what did you talk to your granddaughter about?” Lin Ganzhi asked.
The old man honestly opened his phone and read aloud, “Sweetheart, this Lin Ganzhi person actually cursed at his fans in public. How fierce! My sweetheart replied that my baby Ganzhi has personality, and some fans deserve to be cursed at! I replied, since when is cursing at people considered having personality? Sweetheart, don’t learn bad things from people like that. My sweetheart replied, ‘Grandpa, you should just focus on fishing.’ After that, my granddaughter stopped replying.”
The old man looked dejected after speaking. Lin Ganzhi pressed his lips together and fell silent, not knowing how to explain to the old man that he was the one who had cursed at his fans.
“Uh, Grandpa, fishing more is actually a good thing. The stuff on the trending topics is a mix of true and false. Your granddaughter is just concerned about you.”
Hearing this, the old man shot a sideways glance at the young man in the sun hat. “Don’t try to humor me with that. I’ve been surfing the web for months. I know very well that ‘fishing more’ just means ‘stop looking for trouble’.”
Lin Ganzhi smiled. He hadn’t expected the old man to be so savvy.
“Huh? Zhong’s Chips went bankrupt?!” The old man, scrolling through Weibo, was completely captivated by this news. Lin Ganzhi was also stunned. So fast? It had only been two weeks.
Lin Ganzhi’s judgment was good; this old man was indeed no ordinary person. Just as he thought this, the man received a phone call. Lin Ganzhi, standing nearby, vaguely overheard a few phrases. It seemed to be about excessive research investment and a rapid loss of clients. In particular, a company that announced its IPO today had also released a new generation of chips, catching the original Zhong’s Chips completely off guard.
After hearing this, Lin Ganzhi also took out his phone. He logged on and saw that the hashtag for “Zhong Jingyi” and “Zhong’s Chips” had exploded. Zhong’s Chips had officially declared bankruptcy. That was the fruit of seven or eight years of Yan Shengping’s hard work, and now, he had destroyed it with his own hands. With this, Yan Shengping’s revenge was finally complete. He had even been acknowledged by the Wenren family and become their proper Third Young Master.
Damn! What kind of power-fantasy script was this? He must have read a fake book back then. But fortunately, he had chosen the right side, or he might have been one of the unlucky ones today.
“Sigh, Zhong’s Chips was never the same after Yan Shengping left. It’s only natural that it collapsed,” the old man beside him said, proving to be a rare, clear-sighted individual.
“Grandpa, did you also work with Zhong’s Chips?” Lin Ganzhi asked.
The old man nodded calmly. “Yes, when CEO Yan was there, we always worked with them. After he left, I retired and told my children to end the partnership. Later, I heard they found a new partner called Zhuoshi, which is also very good. I heard that company just recently went public.”
Hearing this, Lin Ganzhi felt a sense of closeness to the old man. As someone who knew the inside story, he wished he could go over and congratulate the old man for finding a reliable organization.
Wait a minute! What did his ex-husband’s business have to do with him?
Lin Ganzhi’s face immediately fell, and he stared at the lake with a somber expression!
At that moment, his ex-husband, having turned down all invitations and social engagements, returned once again to the Wenren Residence, only to receive the news that Lin Ganzhi had left in the middle of the night!
“Where did he go?” Yan Shengping’s face was pale. He hadn’t been this panicked when the chip research was forced to advance ahead of schedule, nor had he been this upset when parts of the chip technology were leaked. Hearing this news, Yan Shengping felt like he was about to collapse. He was determined to leave him. Yan Shengping had never imagined the consequences would be this severe. If this was the case, he would have accepted it even if it meant letting him know about Li Yueshuo!
“Which room was he staying in? Did he leave any clues?” Yan Shengping asked in a daze.
Wenren Yi shook her head with a troubled expression, but still led Yan Shengping to the room Lin Ganzhi had temporarily stayed in last night. As Yan Shengping walked in and frantically searched for clues, Wenren Yi said, “Ganzhi said he wanted to go out and clear his head. He also told us not to worry.”
Clear his head? Where could he go to clear his head that he didn’t even have time to tell him?
Like a walking corpse, Yan Shengping walked to the bedside. He accidentally knocked a white vase on the nightstand, and as the vase wobbled, a note tucked underneath was revealed. Seeing it, Yan Shengping felt a glimmer of hope and pulled the note out.
He shouldn’t have looked. The moment he did, the color completely drained from Yan Shengping’s face.
“Uh, Little Uncle, what did Ganzhi say?” Wenren Yi sensed that Yan Shengping’s current state was not right.
Yan Shengping didn’t speak. He just clutched the note tightly and strode out of the room. Worried about his condition, Wenren Yi quickly followed him.
As he walked, Yan Shengping opened his phone and dialed Lin Ganzhi’s number. If it didn’t connect, he would just keep dialing. He would use every means necessary to find Lin Ganzhi!
The phone rang for a few seconds. Yan Shengping wasn’t holding out much hope. But just as he reached the top of the stairs, the call miraculously connected!
“Where are you!” Yan Shengping’s hand holding the phone was trembling, terrified that Lin Ganzhi had just answered by accident and didn’t actually want to talk to him, that he would hang up in the next second.
Lin Ganzhi on the other end seemed startled by Yan Shengping’s tone. After a long moment, he reluctantly gave the address of a farmhouse.
“Wait for me. We need to talk properly,” Yan Shengping forced himself to calm down.
“…Alright.” Lin Ganzhi had never intended to play a game of cat and mouse anyway.
By the time Yan Shengping walked out the main door, Wenren Qi, who was standing outside, opened his car door and said with an accepting tone, “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”
Yan Shengping knew it was dangerous for him to drive in his current state. After getting into the car, he said a sincere “thank you” to Wenren Qi.
Wenren Qi’s eyes moistened as he patted Yan Shengping’s shoulder. “I’m your older brother. No need for thanks. Go get your wife back first. The family is waiting for you to come home.”
Yan Shengping didn’t say much more, just nodded.
Before they set off, Wenren Yi also hopped in, her reason being that she wanted to help bring Lin Ganzhi home. Neither her father nor her little uncle could bring themselves to kick the young woman out, so they tacitly allowed her to come along.