Chapter 71: He Really Is an Incorrigible Bad…
“Seriously annoying. Every day it’s just one unlucky thing after another.”
“Exactly. We even have to come supervise when collaborating with some internet influencer. We came from the headquarters, after all—what do they take us for?”
Xia Chun was changing into the clothes for the magazine shoot in the room. Through the door, he could hear the muted discussion outside.
They were the brand representatives sent to coordinate for this collaboration. Xia Chun could tell that he was one of the people they were complaining about, but he didn’t react much. He had already changed his clothes, yet he didn’t hurry to go out.
As long as both sides could maintain superficial politeness and not sabotage each other during work, that was enough. Why expect people to be sincere inside and out? Besides, they weren’t saying it directly to his face.
Since the studio was being used by other people and the dressing room was temporarily unavailable, he had simply found a storage room.
Leave some room for courtesy—so it’s easier to meet again in the future.
“They just don’t take us seriously. They think we’re people who can’t speak up at headquarters and have no connections, so we got assigned here.”
The voices outside fell silent for a moment. Clearly that statement hit a nerve.
And the things that hit the hardest were often the truth.
“They’d been talking about building a light-luxury brand for ages, but the board kept refusing. I thought the whole thing would fall through, but somehow it actually happened. If I’d known earlier, I would’ve started building connections sooner. Who knows how big this new company will end up becoming.”
“Anything President Gu wants to do—has it ever failed? The project hasn’t even passed the board yet, and the Gu family’s second young master is already looking for people to perfect the proposal.”
“I remember the Gu family’s eldest young master also did a presentation. The board and senior executives were all there. I heard it was incredibly shocking—visual and auditory double impact. The whole room fell silent, everyone was stunned.”
“That impressive? Then why is the one participating in the subsidiary’s affairs the second young master?”
“Because it was terrible! Terrible to an unbelievable degree. I don’t know the details, but I heard the executives came out of that meeting looking completely confused.”
“Now you’ve made me curious—how bad could it have been? But that eldest young master… he’s always been kind of… you know.”
“Right? I heard he even called some of the directors ‘old fossils’ in public. Those people are all his elders. His upbringing is really something.”
“But the second young master is very refined and well-mannered. Clearly it’s not President Gu’s problem.”
They still had to work in the Gu Group. Even though no one else seemed to be around, they didn’t dare speak too freely about their boss.
“The eldest young master really has a strange temper. I heard he never socializes at banquets and often sneaks away halfway through. He always looks gloomy too. If you make eye contact with him, it makes your skin crawl.”
“I heard his mother caused a lot of trouble back in the day—always stirring things up, making the household restless. Like mother, like son.”
“More than stirring things up. I heard she attempted suicide several times. President Gu was in meetings when he got the news, but he dropped everything and rushed back every time. The board was very unhappy about it.”
“That happened? Why would President Gu care so much? She was his sister-in-law, right? Even if he was helping take care of his late brother’s wife, that’s going too far. It’s almost like she was his own wife…”
As if realizing he had stumbled upon a shocking secret, one of them inhaled sharply.
“Don’t go spreading that outside. I only heard it from someone else. In the end, that woman really did die, and President Gu just kept raising the eldest young master by his side.”
“What kind of lunatic family is that? No wonder the eldest young master turned out like this. Hope he doesn’t end up with the same fate…”
The door slammed open with a bang.
Xia Chun looked at them indifferently.
The two gossiping men were startled. They hadn’t expected someone to be inside that storage room—let alone the influencer they’d been talking about.
“Is it fun to gossip about people behind their backs?” Xia Chun asked calmly.
Being questioned by a kid more than ten years younger made their faces burn with embarrassment. They didn’t want to make things too ugly. After exchanging a glance, they were about to laugh it off and brush it aside.
But Xia Chun didn’t let it go. He lifted his gaze slightly, and there was undisguised disgust in his eyes.
“Using a parent’s behavior to define a child… you really have excellent judgment.”
One of them couldn’t hold back his temper anymore, but the other quickly pulled him back and signaled with his eyes.
A staff member responsible for the shoot’s progress walked in. Seeing that Xia Chun was ready, they came to lead him away.
The conflict finally ended.
After Xia Chun left, the man complained, “Why did you stop me? That brat is unbelievably arrogant. We’re the clients—why should we put up with her attitude?”
“Don’t you know? She studies at Guanli Middle School. Maybe she knows the eldest young master. That’s probably why she jumped out when she heard us talking.”
“Guanli Middle School? Influencers make that much money now?”
“Who knows. Maybe she has other abilities. Hmph. She’s troublesome too. Originally this shoot required going into the water, but she said it wasn’t convenient. In the end it was changed to pouring water over her hair.”
“But if she really knows the eldest young master… what if she tells him everything we said?”
Even though the eldest young master hardly interfered in company matters now, he seemed to be quite favored by Gu Yuhui. The two of them suddenly felt uneasy, cursing their loose tongues. They would probably have to worry for quite some time.
Under the staff’s guidance, Xia Chun walked step by step toward the shooting area.
A nameless fire pressed inside his chest. The flames burned hotter and hotter, almost breaking through the shell he had wrapped around himself.
All the cameras on the set were already prepared.
He took a deep breath and, under the photographer’s direction, poured the bottle of icy water directly over his head.
The water flowed down his cheeks continuously before dripping onto the ground.
Glug—
The sensation of being submerged in water was very strange.
When the surface closed over the top of his head, liquid pressure filled his ears. Every sound felt as if it were filtered through a thin membrane, delayed and weakened. His fingers instinctively tried to move, but they couldn’t grasp anything. Water slipped through the gaps between them, and his chest felt heavier and heavier.
If it were in the ocean, it would surely feel even worse.
With nothing beneath you to hold you up, you could only keep sinking and sinking. The light of the sky above the sea would drift farther away, while the freezing water wrapped around every inch of your skin.
At the deepest bottom of the ocean, darkness was so complete that sunlight could never reach it. It was a place entirely different from the world he knew.
And if a body soaked in water for too long, it would swell and turn pale—ugly, terribly ugly.
That really was a terrible way to die.
Gu Yang rose up from the bathtub, brushed back his wet hair, and leaned his head against the edge of the tub, staring blankly at the ceiling.
He didn’t like damp environments. During the rainy plum-rain season, his mood always became especially low.
So if he was destined to face death one day, he hoped it would be on a bright and breezy day.
Just like that day.
The sky had been vivid, as if colored with crayons. The freshly trimmed grass released the scent unique to plants. The sun was so warm that when he ran, he could feel something like the soft fluff of a fledgling brushing against him.
It had truly been unprecedentedly good weather—so good that he wished he had never experienced it.
He had stood silently to the side. Even though he had run with all his strength to her side, he had been too cowardly to take even one step closer.
He could only watch blankly as Gu Yuhui held the woman in his arms, his face paler than ever before.
Did he really love her that much? Was that why he looked so desperate?
But if he truly loved her, why were there always other women lingering by his side?
Shouldn’t real love mean that both body and soul belonged to only one person?
He didn’t understand that feeling. Nor did he understand why, even now, he was still thinking about such meaningless things.
The private doctor and ambulance hadn’t arrived yet, but the woman already looked beyond saving.
The beautiful face had lost all color. Her expression was weak from intense pain. Perhaps at that moment she finally remembered that she still had a child left in this world.
She trembled as she reached out and grabbed him.
Her consciousness was already hazy, her words disordered. She told him to eat well, to grow up properly, to travel to many countries and see different customs and cultures, to fall in love deeply at least once in his life.
She kept talking and talking, giving the last breath she had left entirely to her child.
Suddenly, an expression of extreme pain crossed her face. Amid that overwhelming suffering, there was even a trace of regret and unwillingness.
“I really want to see what you’ll look like when you grow up.”
Perhaps only when death truly touched her did she finally understand the preciousness of life.
After that sudden surge of emotion, her hand fell limply.
He carefully raised it and buried his face in her cold palm.
Gu Yuhui was still crying hysterically beside them, asking, “What about me, sister-in-law?”
The woman’s fading expression showed a trace of bitterness. She didn’t want to look at the man in front of her, but with her final breath she struggled to say:
“Please… take care of Xiao Yang for me.”
After saying that, she never spoke another word.
When the ambulance arrived, they lifted the lifeless woman onto a stretcher. The hand he had been holding slipped away mercilessly. No one spared him even a bit of attention.
Silently, he placed his hand on the photograph he always carried with him.
He really was an incurably bad child.
That secret had remained hidden until her death.
She never knew.
A soft knock sounded outside the door.
Seeing that more than half an hour had passed, the servant was worried the young master might soak too long in the bath and couldn’t help asking.
Gu Yang answered with a perfunctory “Mm,” letting them know he was still alive.
Before bathing, he had dropped a bath bomb into the tub. He had bought it casually while shopping. Its name was Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Once dissolved in water, it filled the bath with dreamy glitter patterns resembling a starry sky.
He forced himself to sit up slightly. His thin, pale shoulders were exposed, the floating colors reflecting over them like a painting, outlining the delicate texture of his skin. Droplets slid down from the tips of his hair onto his body before quickly disappearing.
The tiny glitter pieces clung to his skin, his face, even his hair.
Gu Yang glanced at his reflection in the mirror. After draining the bathwater, he took a quick shower, then walked out wrapped in a bathrobe, expressionless.
The servant pacing anxiously outside rubbed their hands awkwardly when they saw him.
“Young master, Brin has been waiting for you here for a long time. I was just worried for it.”
The beautiful, glossy long-haired ragdoll cat was curled up on his chair, lazily swishing its thick, fluffy tail while gazing innocently at its owner.
Gu Yang walked over and picked the cat up.
The servant quietly withdrew.
Brin was naturally quiet—a well-behaved cat that could sit on someone’s lap for hours. Gu Yang sat in the chair with the cat in his arms, absentmindedly stroking it, his thoughts still drifting.
Until someone knocked lightly on the door.
The person who entered was Xiao Huang.
She usually came to take the cat back to its nest to rest.
But today she had something else to say.
She lingered for quite a while before finally speaking awkwardly.
“Young master, I might not be here next week.”
Gu Yang looked at her in confusion.
Xiao Huang coughed lightly and tried to sound casual.
“Well… I passed the exam.”
“The position I got is back in my hometown, so I’ll have to resign soon.”
Although this job was practically heaven, she couldn’t do it forever. She had been studying for the exams during her spare time, and now she had finally succeeded.
She looked at the cat that had jumped out of the young master’s arms and flopped down beside her with a soft plop. Her heart ached, but she didn’t respond.
Goodbye, my heavenly job.
Goodbye, my plump cat.
Goodbye, my handsome young master.
Gu Yang silently watched the cat slip away from his arms.
He got down from the chair and slowly crouched on the soft carpet, lowering his gaze as he gently stroked the cat on the floor.
Xiao Huang was already feeling sentimental. She wished time could stretch longer.
“Do you like Brin?” Gu Yang asked softly.
“Of course I do. I wanted a cat back when I was studying, but I never had the conditions,” Xiao Huang nodded vigorously.
Another long silence followed.
“Then take it with you.”
Xiao Huang thought she had misheard.
“What did you just say?”
Gu Yang picked up the cat, feeling the warm, fluffy bundle in his arms. Beneath the fur were skin and bones. If you held it too tightly, it would meow in protest.
Everything about it clearly told him this was a living creature.
He didn’t know how to treat a life.
Nor did he know how to face a pet’s death.
Since someone who loved it more existed, it was better to let it go.
His expression became unusually gentle. Xiao Huang had never seen the young master look at any other human in the house with such tenderness.
He lifted the cat and handed it to her.
“I’m too lazy to find another caretaker for it. If you like it, just take it home.”
It was like a pie falling from the sky. The thing Xiao Huang worried about most after leaving this job was this cat.
She nodded repeatedly, taking Brin from Gu Yang’s hands. Using every bit of vocabulary she had in her life, she showered him with praise, then happily left with the cat in her arms.
Just as she turned the corner downstairs, her phone vibrated.
She opened it and saw a transfer record of 100,000 yuan, sent by Gu Yang.
Note: Brin’s dowry.
