Chapter 7 – So he saw right through it from the beginning

Bai Mu Ning had thought of thousands of reasons for rejecting someone, but he never imagined rejection could be done so half-heartedly.

It was even more painful than being given the good guy card.

“Anything else?” Wen Jing’s voice was even lower now, as if he had completely run out of patience and no longer wanted to coax anyone.

That was clearly a dismissal.

Bai Mu Ning pressed his lips tightly and said nothing, a surge of anger quickly rising within him.

He was good-looking and had a way with words, so over the years, he rarely hit a wall. With his sweet and charming face, it can be said that his life had been smooth sailing.

No matter how many times he planned, he met a snub like Wen Jing. The worst part was that he had no way to refute it.

Wen Jing’s gaze returned to his computer. Bai Mu Ning stood there awkwardly for a moment, biting his lip, unwilling to give up.

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The door to Wen Jing’s consultation room was ajar. The closer he got, the clearer the voices inside became.

“Old Wen, I heard someone confessed to you again? Even at your age, you’re still attracting all the butterflies.” Chen Haonan commented, then his gaze landed on the red rose on the table. “Yo, they even gave you red roses. But what a waste on you, an unappreciative man.”

“Do you need something?” Wen Jing glanced at Chen Haonan, who had come over to watch the fun, his voice slightly cold.

“I’m just here to watch the fun, some gossip, gossip.”

“Then you’re late.”

Chen Haonan poked at the rose petals and asked, “Not even going to consider it? The little kid’s pretty good.”

Wen Jing moved the rose aside to stop Chen Haonan from messing with it. “Consider what?”

“Look, playing dumb with me again. You know what I mean.”

Chen Haonan said, “Bai Mu Ning’s good-looking and cute, perfect match for a boring old man like you. Why be so cold and reject him like that? I saw his eyes just now, all red, looked like he was about to cry.”

Hearing that, Bai Mu Ning screamed internally: absolute slander. He didn’t cry; at most, he was a little angry.

“You ah, don’t always put on that cold front. You scare everyone away.”

“Are you that free?” Wen Jing frowned and shut his laptop, clearly impatient.

“It’s noon. No patients, of course I’m free.” Chen Haonan said, “Come on, gossip, gossip. You’re really not going to consider it ah? How many years have you been single? Even Aunt Pei is trying to set you up on blind dates. But that last one was way worse than Bai Mu Ning. I think this little kid’s pretty great.”

Bai Mu Ning listened in confusion but perked up his ears. He wanted to know where Wen Jing stood.

What if Wen Jing was just one of those stubborn types—mouth says no, heart says yes?

Wen Jing didn’t comment on Chen Haonan’s opinion. He just chuckled and said, “He’s just a little brat. What’s there to consider? You know I don’t like kids.”

Bai Mu Ning: “…?”

His fists clenched. He really wanted to barge in and question Wen Jing: How was he a brat?

On second thought, it seemed to be right.

Wen Jing pried into other people’s corners, and now he was trying to pry into Wen Jing’s.¹Poach him/try to get him.

They were no different from each other. Who was he to look down on whom?

Chen Haonan said, “He’s only 12 years younger than you. He’s 20, an adult.”

“So what?”

“So this old ox can eat some tender grass.”

“Scram.”

But Chen Haonan had no intention of leaving. He continued pestering Wen Jing. “Why’d you call him a little brat just now? He’s such a well-behaved kid. How is that a brat?”

Wen Jing gave a soft snort. “Don’t tell me you can’t tell he’s approaching me with an agenda.”

That one sentence made Bai Mu Ning take several steps back. He didn’t dare listen any further and rushed out of Sanwen Hall.

Even after boarding the bus, his heart was still pounding wildly.

He clutched his chest, panic rising.

Bai Mu Ning had anticipated the possibility of failure, but he hadn’t expected it to be this humiliating.

“So he saw right through me from the beginning.”

“I really messed up.”

How was he supposed to keep going with the plan now?

—

Bai Mu Ning returned to the dorm dejected, only to find that Li Anche looked even more miserable than he was. The guy sat there staring blankly at his phone like he was heartbroken, so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice the sound of the door opening.

Bai Mu Ning walked over and asked, “An An, what’s wrong? What are you zoning out for?”

He glanced at Li Anche’s phone, which stayed lit the whole time, not even allowing the screen to turn off.

Was he waiting for some important message?

Li Anche looked anxious as he said to Bai Mu Ning, “Mu Ning, can you send me a message? I think my phone isn’t receiving anything.”

Bai Mu Ning suspiciously sent a message over, and soon a notification rang out on Li Anche’s phone.

Seeing the message, Li Anche looked even more deflated.

He slumped onto the desk, clearly in low spirits, and said miserably, “Why isn’t he replying to my messages? Why is he ignoring me?”

Bai Mu Ning pulled over a chair and sat beside him, patting his back. “An An, what’s going on? Are you in love?”

He hadn’t heard anything about it.

Li Anche didn’t answer that directly. Instead, he looked up at Bai Mu Ning and said, “Mu Ning, can you go somewhere with me tonight?”

“Sure, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”

Li Anche had been secretly in love with someone for six years—Zheng Kejian, who used to be his private tutor.

He wasn’t sure if Zheng Kejian liked men, so he never dared to confess his feelings.

Next year, when Zheng Kejian graduated from his master’s program, he would be leaving Jingnan for good. Li Anche couldn’t bear it, so he wanted to follow Zheng Kejian instead of going to the bank job arranged by his parents.

Li Anche didn’t hope to be with Zheng Kejian, he just wanted to stay by his side.

But now that Zheng Kejian was ignoring him, even that small wish seemed out of reach.

After revealing his secret, Li Anche looked at Bai Mu Ning anxiously. “Mu Ning, do you think I’m disgusting?”

“Whether you like men or women, that’s your business. You don’t need anyone’s approval. Just be yourself.”

Li Anche had always hidden it well, but he was feeling too miserable today and couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Mu Ning, do you have someone you like?”

“No,” Bai Mu Ning replied bluntly. “I’ve never thought about liking anyone, and no one’s ever moved me. Right now, I just want to make money; nothing else matters.”

Li Anche hummed softly and said, “That’s probably for the best. Liking someone is just too painful, especially when it’s unrequited.”

Bai Mu Ning wanted to say something, but in the end, he held his tongue.

He could actually help Li Anche with his relationship problem, but he wasn’t sure what Zheng Kejian’s situation was.

If Zheng Kejian also liked men, then maybe he could help Li Anche win him over.

That was, after all, part of his job.

—

At 8 p.m., Li Anche brought Bai Mu Ning to the bar where Zheng Kejian worked part-time.

Sitting at the bar, Li Anche looked around, trying to spot Zheng Kejian. When he didn’t see him, he finally turned his attention to the cocktail menu.

“Mu Ning, what do you want to drink? How about a Long Island Iced Tea?”

Then he added, “Iced tea is like iced red tea, right? Should be pretty good.”

Li Anche, just like Bai Mu Ning, had never been to a bar before. Though their academic performance was average, both of them were obedient kids who rarely drank alcohol.

Naturally, they had no idea that Long Island Iced Tea was actually a strong cocktail.

Fortunately, Bai Mu Ning was slightly more informed than Li Anche, he knew that Long Island Iced Tea wasn’t tea but liquor.

He stopped Li Anche and said, “Why are you ordering alcohol? This drink’s nickname online is losing your virginity drink. In other words, it’s strong enough to get you drunk easily. Let’s not drink alcohol. Let’s just get soft drinks!”

Whether in movies or TV shows, bars were always portrayed in a shady light, like people always left them having lost something. So Bai Mu Ning was extra cautious.

“Two non-alcoholic drinks, please.”

But before their drinks arrived, Zheng Kejian showed up, but he wasn’t alone. A girl was with him, and they looked rather close.

The girl tiptoed to whisper in his ear, and Zheng Kejian bent down slightly to accommodate her height.

In the dim lighting, the scene looked undeniably intimate.

A bar staff member nearby gossiped, “Who’s that girl with Zheng Kejian ah? His girlfriend?”

“Of course she is. They’re glued together every day. It’s a bit much, honestly.”

In an instant, tears welled up in Li Anche’s eyes and streamed down. He couldn’t watch anymore and quickly left the bar. Bai Mu Ning followed close behind.

Even after they returned to the dorm, Li Anche remained silent.

It wasn’t long before the takeout and alcohol arrived. Only then did he speak to Bai Mu Ning: “Mu Ning, I want to get drunk. Will you stay with me?”

Bai Mu Ning didn’t have much tolerance for alcohol, but he still agreed, “I’ll drink with you.”

Li Anche drank a lot. In between sips, he talked about his memories with Zheng Kejian. 

How Zheng had taken care of him, stood up for him, and doted on him. One memory after another surfaced vividly, and as he spoke, he couldn’t stop smiling.

“I had thought he might like girls, but actually finding out, it still hurts so much.”

“Mu Ning, I can’t like him anymore.” Li Anche clutched the bottle of liquor, tears streaming down without end.

In the end, Li Anche got drunk, and Bai Mu Ning got drunk.

—

Bai Mu Ning didn’t wake up until five in the afternoon.

When he got up, the dorm was dark and Li Anche was already gone.

He picked up his phone to ask where Li Anche had gone, only to see a message from him, sent around noon, saying his parents had called him home and he wouldn’t be coming back that night.

Just as Bai Mu Ning was about to turn off his phone, he noticed a new friend on WeChat—Wen Jing.

When had he added Wen Jing on WeChat?

Checking the approval time, it was at four in the morning.

Bai Mu Ning had a bad feeling. He might’ve blacked out.

What shocked him the most was that the call log had several outgoing calls, all to Wen Jing.

The calls had been made from ten in the evening until four in the morning.

Wen Jing had answered every single one. The longest call had lasted two full hours.

Bai Mu Ning smacked his unreliable head, trying hard to remember what he might’ve said.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t recall a thing.

With a nervous heart, he dialed Wen Jing. On the other end, Wen Jing’s voice was hoarse, as if just waking up.

“Hello, Dr. Wen. I’m really sorry, I was drunk last night. Sorry for disturbing your rest.”

Wen Jing just gave a hmmm and didn’t say anything else.

Bai Mu Ning grew even more uneasy. He desperately wanted to know what he had done. Whether he had lost face and so on.

So he probed carefully, “Dr. Wen, did I make you angry?”

“Don’t remember?”

Wen Jing’s tone had a faint edge to it, almost like he was gritting his teeth. Bai Mu Ning felt his heart drop—he was done for.

Wen Jing spoke slowly, “Not that much to be angry, just that you kept insisting on reciting pi for me.”

Bai Mu Ning froze in disbelief. No way. He didn’t even know how, that’s a thousand digits.

“But you could only go seven digits past the decimal point. You said the remaining 993 digits you’d owe me.”

“…?”

Bai Mu Ning was mortified. He felt like digging a hole and burying himself alive.

Well, whatever. At this point, how much more could he lose face?

His voice grew small and pitiful. “Was there anything else?”

Wen Jing’s tone suddenly turned icy. “Yes, there is. From now on, don’t contact me again.”

“Okay, hanging up.”

The line was cut.

Bai Muning lay on the bed and began to think, was this a failure?

Wen Jing must be sick of him now. How could he still chase him after this?