Chapter 69: The Pure-Love Frog
The moment An Yi looked up, he met Huo Beixing’s pair of flirtatious, deep-set peach blossom eyes. Looking up at him, he froze right where he stood.
What could be more dramatic than talking behind someone’s back and then getting caught on the spot?
Even though what he had just said did not exactly count as badmouthing him, An Yi still felt unbearably awkward, his scalp tingling. He had never expected Huo Beixing to suddenly appear here.
At that moment, Huo Beixing was radiating resentment so thick it felt like even a passing dog on the roadside would get smacked.
The second he got word from his men that An Yi was here, he rushed over without stopping, only to hear the first words out of his mouth be “divorce” and “I’m not going back.”
Since An Yi really had run out on him, he was guilty as hell when he saw Huo Beixing.
But he still puffed out his chest a little, putting on the look of someone who had done nothing wrong.
After all, confidence had to come from within.
Meanwhile, Lin Jiu stared at the scene before him in shock, his wise eyes moving back and forth between An Yi and Huo Beixing.
For a moment, he was so stunned he could not speak.
Oh my.
This was huge.
So Huo Beixing was An Yi’s dumb husband.
After learning that An Yi had married someone who was not quite right in the head, Lin Jiu had assumed the other man was just a bit slow, merely kind of dumb. He had never imagined the man was genuinely stupid.
And he certainly had never connected that person with Huo Beixing.
Because no matter how you looked at it, the Huo family was not something just anyone could latch onto. When he first met An Yi, the plain and rustic aura about him screamed I’m a country bumpkin from head to toe. He simply did not match anything resembling enormous wealth or nobility.
As for Huo Beixing, the steadier his position in their circle was, the filthier his reputation was.
To people of their generation, his promiscuity was not really that shocking. The only thing unusual was that he was the one brazen enough to do it all in the open.
Other people still cared about family face, company face, social face. They did everything in secret like thieves, pretending to be decent on the surface while being fake as hell underneath.
But Huo Beixing was different. When people said he was loose, he did not deny it. He just went and did all the things, proving he really was that loose.
And now that Lin Jiu had learned An Yi had married him, for the first time in his life he felt the urge to play the role of a father.
Utter heartbreak. Heartache in its purest form.
Was this not clearly a pig rooting up a cabbage?!
At that moment, An Yi looked both guilty and strangely justified. What a contradictory married body.
An Yi took a sip of orange juice and secretly glanced at Huo Beixing beside him. After clearing his throat, he prepared to defend himself.
But the moment he caught that faint trace of cigarette smoke on Huo Beixing, he froze.
He could not help but turn fully toward him and study him carefully. Huo Beixing did not look much different than usual, but the silliness and innocence in his eyes had faded by a few degrees.
“Huo Beixing.”
Just a second ago, Huo Beixing had still been wearing that I’m angry so I’m automatically in the right expression.
“Are you better?”
Huo Beixing: ……
The intimidating aura around him collapsed instantly into a pile of sand. The wind had not even blown yet, but after taking two steps it had already scattered.
Facing An Yi’s suspicious gaze, Huo Beixing instinctively dodged his eyes.
An Yi instantly felt as though he had caught him red-handed. A rush of anger shot straight to his head, and he reached out with a frog paw and yanked Huo Beixing by the collar.
With his slender build, he somehow still managed to grab hold of the one-point-nine-meter giant and shake him like he could squash and knead him flat.
That pure and innocent little face of An Yi’s was gritting its teeth now. Grabbing Huo Beixing by the collar, he hauled him over and shook him hard.
“Were you already better?!”
“When did you get better?!”
All at once, An Yi remembered those few months earlier, when he had suddenly felt Huo Beixing growing smarter.
At the time, he had thought it was just a raising-kids type progression—the child had grown up a little, and his brain had finally started working.
But now that he thought about it, it was clearly—
“You were already better, weren’t you? You were already better, weren’t you?! Huo Beixing, you f—, you f—, you absolute f—!!!”
“You—, you—, you—!”
Lin Jiu stared dumbly at the scene. In all the time he had known An Yi, this was the first time he had ever heard him swear.
Huo Beixing was being shaken around like a foolish dog by An Yi. Even with a crowd beginning to gather, he still made no move to stop him out of embarrassment.
An Yi was so furious his face had turned red, and the hand clutching Huo Beixing’s collar was trembling nonstop.
That trembling hand looked like it might slap across Huo Beixing’s face at any second.
Lin Jiu: !
A fight?!
He quietly lifted his drink and slurped some orange juice.
This was his favorite kind of show~~
Looking at An Yi—so angry and hurt—Huo Beixing steadied him with one hand and hurried to apologize. “I’m sorry, Wife. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m a bastard.”
But An Yi could not hear any of it. Furious, he shoved him toward the door. “Go! Just go!”
Huo Beixing was frantic. How could he possibly leave? “This was my fault, but I was afraid that once I wasn’t dumb anymore, you’d divorce me.”
Watching the full-blown melodrama unfold before him, Lin Jiu cleared his throat. “Allow me to say one thing.”
Both of them turned to look at him.
Lin Jiu delivered his prophecy: “To sum it up, you two are definitely getting divorced in the end.”
The moment those words landed, Lin Jiu received Huo Beixing’s death glare.
Huo Beixing: Take it back.
Lin Jiu: ……
Tonight was clearly not Christmas Eve.
Huo Beixing looked very much like he was about to kill him on the spot.
Right now An Yi was too angry to spare him any attention. The guilt he had felt for sneaking away without a word had vanished completely the moment he discovered Huo Beixing was no longer stupid.
The man had been fine for months already, and what had he been doing all this time? He had been tormenting himself, thinking he had no moral bottom line for falling for someone mentally impaired.
Lying awake in the middle of the night, staring at the moon and imagining life behind bars.
He had even wondered whether prison food tasted any good.
And all the while he was tormenting himself under the weight of morality, the other man had already recovered, already stopped being stupid, and had not told him a thing.
Still, once An Yi had vented for a bit, he managed to talk himself down. That was one of An Yi’s oldest talents—ever since childhood, he had been good at comforting himself.
Whether Huo Beixing was dumb or not, they were headed for divorce anyway. Now that he had left him, that part was settled. And although the fact that Huo Beixing had deceived him made him especially angry, the truth was that these past two years, he had still been very happy.
Sensing that his presence might interfere with the two of them fully unleashing their chaos, Lin Jiu said goodbye to An Yi and quietly made himself scarce.
It was noon now.
Looking at the desserts on the table, Huo Beixing assumed An Yi probably had not eaten yet. Meanwhile, because he was still angry, An Yi was giving him nothing but an outraged back view.
“Wife, let me take you to eat.”
An Yi did not turn around.
“Thick-cut steak. Your favorite.”
At the words thick-cut, An Yi finally moved. With his little face still scrunched in anger, he said, “Let’s go.”
Angry or not, food still had to be eaten.
And once they were done, they could talk things through.
Huo Beixing took An Yi to an upscale restaurant and booked a private room. Once the steak came, he cut it up and handed it over.
“Wife, eat.”
An Yi lowered his head and silently devoured the steak. When he looked up, he met Huo Beixing’s lingering gaze fixed greedily on him.
An Yi’s puffed-up cheeks paused for a second. In a small mutter, he said, “Don’t think one steak dinner is enough to make me stop being mad.”
As he spoke, his eyes drifted to Huo Beixing’s portion.
He wanted two.
Taking advantage of An Yi’s wild steak-devouring session, Huo Beixing cut him another serving and launched into an enthusiastic frog-feeding campaign.
Only once An Yi had eaten his fill did he finally look Huo Beixing straight in the eye.
His anger had eased enough now that he could talk about serious matters.
“Let’s get divorced,” An Yi said.
Pretending not to hear him, Huo Beixing said, “The red wine here is good too. Want to try some?”
Curious, An Yi craned his neck to look. “What does it taste like?”
Then he stopped.
No.
His face turned stern. “Quit changing the subject. I’m serious. I want a divorce.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Your disagreement is invalid.”
“As long as I don’t sign the papers, we won’t be divorced.”
“Then sign them today.”
“I won’t.”
An Yi glared at him, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Then I’m getting angry!”
He had already figured it out. The other man cared about him. That realization softened something in his heart, but Huo Beixing was no longer his innocent, pure Huo Dabao.
All those scandalous headlines about him—An Yi still remembered every single one.
Just as expected, Huo Beixing immediately grew tense when he heard that. “This is my fault.”
An Yi looked at him.
“But I’m not changing.”
An Yi: ……
How could he be this shamelessly arrogant?
Sitting down beside him, Huo Beixing’s expression turned serious. “An Yi, I really do like you. I love you. I don’t want to divorce you. Can you give me one chance? I’ll change. I won’t lie to you anymore. I’m sorry.”
He lowered himself completely before An Yi, his tone sincere and pleading. “Can you try to accept me?”
Staring at that unfairly good-looking face, An Yi actually wavered for a couple of seconds. His heart thumped in his chest, but he pinched himself hard to force himself back to his senses.
This man’s way of thinking was that of a playboy. Sweet talk was second nature to him. Today he said he liked him; some other day, when he got tired of him, he’d just turn around and like someone else.
People with money lived in a world of luxury and excess. They never lacked companions. Yes, An Yi liked Huo Beixing now—but he was not stupid. He had to weigh the pros and cons for himself too, and from where he stood now, being with him had more disadvantages than advantages.
Who knew—if things turned sour later, even the happy memories they had would vanish with them.
So An Yi shook his head. Though reluctant, he still turned slightly away. “No.”
Huo Beixing’s voice came out hoarse. “Are you still mad at me?”
Mad?
How could he not be?
He did not say it outright, but put it more tactfully. “We’re not suited for each other. Besides, married life is supposed to be harmonious.”
“Did you feel unhappy during those past two years?”
An Yi shook his head. That part was not true. “It’s just that now that you’re no longer dumb, I finally have a perfectly good reason to divorce you.”
Huo Beixing asked, “Other than the intelligence issue, is there anything else?”
“Of course there is. This concerns my future life.”
His face heated up as he said it, but if he wanted a divorce, it had to be said.
Looking down and avoiding his gaze, An Yi went on, “Aren’t marriages supposed to involve that kind of thing too?”
The moment he heard that, Huo Beixing’s throat bobbed, and he stood up at once. “You name how many times in how many days—I can do it.”
He looked ready to prove it physically on the spot.
But the next moment, An Yi pulled out his phone. “This is exactly my reason for divorcing you. You can’t give me happiness.”
Huo Beixing lowered his head to look. In the video, he was sitting shirtless on a bed, smiling brightly at the camera.
“I’m frigid.”
Huo Beixing: ……
The darkest moment of his life.
An Yi hit replay and, watching Huo Beixing’s stunned expression, cleared his throat. “I don’t want an unhappy marriage.”
Then he stood up. “In a few days, I’ll have a lawyer contact you. We’ll sign the divorce papers then.”
After taking a few steps, An Yi still could not hold back his frustration. He turned and said, “I like the pure and innocent type. You’re too promiscuous. I hate that the most.”
If he had not been such a playboy, An Yi absolutely would have chosen him.
But he was.
An Yi was not heartless. He was only slower to realize his feelings. Even so, he could still feel grief over a love he could not have.
It felt much better once he said it aloud.
After An Yi left, Huo Beixing remained sitting in his place, struck as though by lightning.
I hate that the most.
The most.
Most.
st.
His wife hated him. An Yi hated him!!!!
The blow hit Huo Beixing hard. He had never imagined his old reputation would become the barrier standing between them.
Back then, to avoid being pushed into fighting for power, he had deliberately arranged plenty of scandals around himself. But ever since he became stupid, all of that had stopped, and he had cut cleanly from all the people involved.
Taking out his phone, he flipped through the news nonstop, only to find that the scandal updates about him were still happening in real time. They took blurry photos, added wild guesses, and wrote nonsense.
The newest one had just come out.
After he and An Yi entered the upscale restaurant, some traffic-heavy young actor walked in with his assistant. The paparazzi slapped on an absurd caption and shoved it online, where it immediately made the trending page.
Every last bit of Huo Dabao’s pure and innocent image was being destroyed little by little.
Huo Beixing was furious.
When the waiter brought in the red wine the two of them had ordered earlier, Huo Beixing called Zhao Ningzhuo over and drank until nightfall.
Zhao Ningzhuo sat slumped in his chair, hiccuping.
An Yi, you bad man.
With one word—divorce—you wounded two men at once.
Zhao Ningzhuo had not drunk as much as Huo Beixing, but he was only a hair’s breadth away from throwing up. He stood up and tried to help Huo Beixing leave, yet although the other man was obviously drunk, aside from a faint flush on his face he looked completely fine. He could still walk in a straight line.
Zhao Ningzhuo: ……
So the only one suffering here was him.
The two of them headed down toward the underground parking lot when suddenly the rapid click of camera shutters came from the side.
Huo Beixing’s gaze swept in that direction.
The paparazzi and reporters lying in wait immediately surged forward.
“President Huo, do you have anything to say about your latest romance?”
“President Huo, did you enjoy dinner with Xie Qiu tonight?”
Xie Qiu?
To hell with that—he had been dining with his wife.
Huo Beixing grabbed the leading paparazzo by the collar and hauled him into the air, his face dark enough to terrify. “So it’s you bastards spreading rumors about me?”
“My wife’s already about to divorce me, and you still dare smear me!”
“Listen carefully—every single one of those people from before, I never slept with a single one. I’m a virgin, damn it.”
“If you don’t publish by tomorrow that I’m a virgin,” Huo Beixing said, slapping the press badge pinned to the man’s clothes, “then the newspaper you work for can just wait to go bankrupt.”
