Chapter 66

Even though the Cullinan had plenty of space, Qi Xu was still a 6’0″ tall man, and sitting next to another guy who was 6’2″ in the front seat still felt cramped.

Before getting out of the car, Qi Xu asked curiously,
“How’d you lift me out of the passenger seat just now?”

“You’re too light. I can pick you up with one hand.”
Xie Huai hooked an arm around his waist like he was about to demonstrate and retrace his steps.

Qi Xu quickly stopped him.
“Hey—no, don’t. I’ll get out myself. If you keep carrying me around like this, what’s the point of being six feet tall?”

Xie Huai had four centimeters on him, but somehow also seemed way stronger.

Xie Huai didn’t argue. He set Qi Xu down and grabbed the down jacket he had taken off earlier, helping him into it.
“It’s cold outside.”

Qi Xu looked down as Xie Huai zipped up his coat and straightened his scarf.
“It’s just half a lap around the car. Do I really need to be bundled up this much? I’m burning up right now.”

Kissing tended to heat up the body fast—and Qi Xu, who was usually frail and sensitive to the cold, was now feeling flushed.
Xie Huai, even more so, was practically a walking space heater. Holding him was like hugging a furnace.

Xie Huai pulled the scarf higher to cover Qi Xu’s kiss-reddened lips.
If he could, he would’ve shielded those soft, shimmering eyes too—he didn’t want anyone else seeing them.

Still, he spoke with logic and concern:
“The hotter you feel, the more you need to stay covered. The cold wind will hit you harder and make you sick.”

Qi Xu blinked at him and said,
“Since when did you show signs of having a dad complex?”

Xie Huai tugged on the scarf gently.
“I wouldn’t mind if you called me Daddy in bed.”

The word “Daddy”—so innocuous in English—somehow turned shameless in Xie Huai’s mouth.
Qi Xu had never once mistaken him for some innocent good-boy type.

Never mind that high society was a messy pool—even if Xie Huai usually kept his nose clean, there were always situations where you had to play along.

Qi Xu raised an eyebrow.
“Huai-ge, been around the block, huh? Is that one of your kinks?”

Xie Huai lowered his gaze and replied in all innocence:
“I don’t have any kinks.”

Qi Xu wasn’t buying it.
“Better not.”

With that, he opened the door and stepped out.
At that moment, a crowd was spilling out of the winery. A strange gust had just blown through, carrying sand and debris, forcing the young elites to delay their departure and stay sheltered in the estate.

Now that the wind had passed and the crowd had finished gossiping about the nature of Xie Huai and Qi Xu’s relationship, they were finally able to leave—only to see Qi Xu outside, who had left a while earlier.

He stepped out from the driver’s seat, catching the attention of many curious onlookers. Some even looked like they wanted to approach.

Among the group were Shen Zeyu and members of the Zeng family.
They’d been caught in the same windstorm.

One of the Zeng family hesitated when he spotted Qi Xu—after all, they were cousins. He considered going over to say hello.

Shen Zeyu, on the other hand, clenched his fingers so hard his nails dug into his palm and drew blood when he saw Qi Xu emerging from the Cullinan.
But his expression didn’t betray a thing.

Just then, the driver’s side window rolled down casually, and Xie Huai’s hand reached out to tap Qi Xu.
“Get in.”

Qi Xu looked at the hand on his coat, then back at Xie Huai. He walked around the front of the car and got back in on the passenger side.

Multiple pairs of eyes watched him get out of the driver’s seat—and now that someone else was sitting there, and that someone was Xie Huai—they couldn’t help but wonder what had gone on between the two of them in that front seat.
They obviously weren’t fighting over who got to drive.

Tonight’s wine tasting had sparked plenty of gossip.
Even Xie Huai, who was usually impossible to track down, had shown up.
More than a few people now regretted skipping this seemingly unremarkable event—turns out, they’d missed a lot.

Afterward, Chen Jiaming spent a week on edge, haunted by a single glass of wine like a sword hanging over his head—just waiting for it to fall. But as days passed and rumors about Xie Huai and Qi Xu spread like wildfire, no punishment came. No slow, torturous downfall.

He finally exhaled in relief. Looked like Xie Huai had spared him—for the Chen family’s sake.

For that entire week, Chen Jiaming behaved himself. He stayed away from his lover, and even his family noted how much more “mature” he seemed, rewarding him by depositing a hefty sum into his account.

Once the coast seemed clear, he took that money and blew it in high-end clubs, dragging along a few business partners under the pretense of “talking shop.”
Like most trust-fund brats, Chen Jiaming had started his own business—a so-called entertainment company.

As CEO, Chen Jiaming abused the title to handpick his bed partners: washed-up actors, small-time idols, men and women alike.
After a night, he’d throw them a role or a resource.
Anyone who refused his casting-couch offers? Blacklisted. Trapped under airtight contracts, with no way out.

He treated the company like his personal harem.
His business partner once warned him to dial it back, but Chen Jiaming—cocky and backed by the Chen family—ignored him.

In fact, it got worse.
He once reached for an underage trainee and was physically stopped by that same partner.

That night, Chen Jiaming was blackout drunk in a private room. When his business partner showed up alone, he frowned in annoyance.
“Where’s the kid? The one I told you to bring?”
He slammed a glass to the ground in a rage.

The partner threw a news report in his face.
“This dropped an hour ago. I already resigned last week—I’m no longer involved in Wenxing Entertainment. I came to give you a heads-up: stop treating people in this industry like disposable puppets.”

Chen Jiaming, still woozy, half-opened his eyes to read the headline.
The moment he saw it, his blood ran cold—instantly sober.

Wenxing Entertainment artists publicly accuse CEO Chen Jiaming of coercion and sexual exploitation, including minors.

Chen had always been careful.
He’d kept everything under wraps, made the victims sign contracts afterward—he thought that protected him.

But the moment his name went public, the internet dug up his identity: the second son of the Chen family.
Now the entire Chen Corporation was trending for all the wrong reasons.

This was huge. The whole entertainment industry was watching.
No one knew who leaked it to every major outlet, but the story was splashed across every platform.

Chen tried calling in favors to have the article scrubbed—only to be told flat-out,
“Can’t help you.”
Then came the real kicker:
“You sure you haven’t pissed off someone lately?”

Immediately, he thought of the wine-tasting party a week ago.
Xie Huai.

He should’ve known—no one ever crossed Xie Huai and got off easy.

Just then, his phone rang. His mother, furious, shouted at him.
His father was livid.
He was told to come home, now.

But he still had the Chen family, right? He was the Chen family’s second son.

Hanging up, he rushed out of the private room—only to find police and reporters already waiting for him.

As the crowd surged forward, the world seemed to collapse around him.
In that moment, he recalled the exact scene when Song Ruoming was arrested.
The same fate.

Qi Xu’s words echoed in his mind:
“If something happens to you one day, I’ll be the one paying to put your name on the front page.”

But unlike Song Ruoming, Chen Jiaming wouldn’t be so lucky.
Sexual assault was a criminal charge.
Add “underage” to the mix, and prison was basically guaranteed.

The Chen family had no shortage of sons—and they weren’t about to burn themselves for him.
Instead, they capitalized on the scandal.

The head of the family even gave a public statement:
“We failed as parents. We’ll await the court’s decision.”

That one line helped the Chen Corporation’s stock rebound slightly.
Cold-blooded, but effective.
Such was the reality of the wealthy elite: better to lose a pawn than risk the entire house.

——

When Xu Yichen saw the news, he rolled his eyes so hard they practically flew out of his head. He tossed his tablet aside.
“They should’ve exposed all the dirt on that family. I’m not even gonna start on the stuff they’ve pulled—do they really think they’re untouchable?”

Qi Xu was still at work, stuck dealing with problems on the Yunrui project, so he hadn’t arrived yet.

Their group chat of five was down to four.

Xie Huai spoke calmly:
“Qi Xu didn’t want to push too far. I respected that. But let’s be real—Chen Jiaming did some inhuman shit.”

Xu Yichen smirked and teased,
“Whoa~ ‘I listened to him’? Didn’t know there was someone on this earth who could tell you what to do.”

Fang Qian had only just learned about what went down at the wine tasting. People had even come asking her about Xie Huai and Qi Xu. She brushed them off casually.

Still, she couldn’t believe how fast the gossip had spread.
Weren’t they just barely at the “something might happen” stage?

Xie Huai replied without hesitation:
“We’ve made our feelings clear. I’m pursuing him.”

Fang Qian: “…”

“What kind of nonsense is that? I can’t even make sense of it.”

Xu Yichen was once again consumed by jealousy. Damn, it actually looks like his bro got himself a happy ending.

Jiang Zimu looked completely lost. He still hadn’t figured out what was going on, and didn’t even know who the “him” Xie Huai was supposedly chasing.

Fang Qian chimed in, confused, “You two already confessed your feelings, but you’re still saying you’re chasing him? You sure that’s not contradictory?”

Ever since that night when they opened up to each other, their lives hadn’t changed much. Being on campus meant there wasn’t much they could do openly. They only got alone time when Li Yan and Feng Zhenjie happened to be out.

With the addition of veteran industry player Su Kehao, he and Li Kaixing started attending Huaxin’s investor roadshows, and Yunrui began making a name for itself in the tech world—climbing to the next level.

At such a crucial time, boss Qi Xu was all in—juggling school and business. Homework he couldn’t handle? He just tossed it to Xie Huai to finish. He knew Huai would make sure he didn’t fail.

In his free time, Qi Xu buried himself in company affairs, barely even noticing the very large Xie Huai sitting nearby, focused on fiddling with his prayer beads.

By the third time Xie Huai tapped the table with a pen trying to get his attention, Qi Xu finally reacted. Casually reaching into a drawer, he handed him a piece of dried fruit.

Xie Huai pulled Qi Xu onto his lap with one swift tug. Qi Xu still had a voice meeting going on in his earbuds and just glared at him silently.

Xie Huai pretended not to notice, slid his prayer beads back on, and tucked his hand into Qi Xu’s.

If you want to play with something, play with my hand, not those beads.

Qi Xu had to be holding something during meetings—sometimes a pen, sometimes the beads. Now he had something new: Xie Huai’s hand. He sat on Huai’s lap and finished the hour-and-a-half-long conference.

Xie Huai was dead serious about this relationship—and about pursuing him.

During that time, Qi Xu received a bouquet of red roses. After that whole fiasco of buying himself flowers previously, someone asked him this time, “Xu-ge, you treating yourself again? Can we get a flower too?”

Qi Xu looked at the card and smiled, answering without hesitation: “Didn’t buy it myself. It’s from someone pursuing me. Sorry, this one’s just for me.”

That was it. The entire class—and eventually the whole finance department—knew Qi Xu was being courted, and someone even gifted him roses.

Someone identified the variety—Ecuadorian roses—and a bouquet like that costs nearly five figures. So whoever was pursuing Qi Xu had to be a rich, pretty girl.

Naturally, the students turned into amateur paparazzi, digging to find out who this mysterious heiress was. No one expected that this “rich pretty girl” was actually a tall, handsome, wealthy guy—someone who was always right by Qi Xu’s side.

Xie Huai scanned the faces of his long-time friends and, for the first time ever, solemnly declared: “I’m serious. I’m pursuing him with marriage in mind.”

Xu Yichen took a big gulp of water to calm himself. He was green with envy. His bro had confessed before he did—and might even get married before him too.

He said, “I’m being his best man, not yours.”

Xie Huai didn’t mind. “You can be the flower girl.”

Jiang Zimu was still trying to process everything. He hadn’t figured out who the other person in this whole love story even was. Sincerely confused, he asked, “Huai-ge’s chasing who? Who’s he planning to marry? Do I know them?”

“…”