Chapter 50: Uncle Song

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White Roman pedestal tables were arranged throughout the garden, topped with cakes, fruit, and beverages for guests to help themselves. Some tables also held wineglasses filled with red wine for the parents, so one had to be careful to distinguish the wine from the other drinks.

When Wen Xiao had first arrived, he had given the garden a cursory glance. There were probably more than twenty such tables scattered throughout the grounds. They were small and took up little space.

After all, this was not a formal dinner. People would hardly spend the entire evening standing around tables without moving, so leaving room for activities was far more important.

Events like this were generally organized by the student council. At Stanlent School, the student council was responsible for managing students’ daily affairs and organizing various campus events, including the orientation party.

Wen Xiao noticed, however, that the young people moving through the garden in waiter uniforms did not look like members of the school staff.

In the past, when events of this kind were held, the waiters responsible for replenishing the wine and refreshments had been employees from the school cafeteria. The people he saw now were clearly not.

Song Jingbai noticed where Wen Xiao was looking and took the initiative to explain. “When the student council was organizing the orientation party, they extended an invitation to the special-admission students…”

Before Wen Xiao had a chance to ask what that invitation involved, he saw Huo Zhanyan swaggering toward them—and crash into a table.

The moment Huo Zhanyan stepped back, someone happened to collide with him from behind. The cake the other person was carrying overturned directly onto his chest, covering his white shirt in jam.

The sudden mishap made everyone present widen their eyes. Some even covered their mouths. For a moment, the entire garden fell silent.

Huo Zhanyan’s face darkened like ink, and his sharp eyes gleamed with frightening menace.

He stared at the person who had run into him, then bared his teeth in a smile. His voice, however, was cold enough to freeze.

“Why is it you again?”

Wen Xiao was stunned by the unexpected turn of events, especially when he saw who had collided with Huo Zhanyan.

It was Ye Heng, the story’s favored protagonist.

Huo Zhanyan seized Ye Heng by the wrist and said bluntly, “Are you going to claim again that someone else bumped into you?”

“It wasn’t…”

Ye Heng’s voice was soft, and he kept his head lowered. Though he was just as tall and slender, the way he bowed his head made him seem inexplicably vulnerable.

With Huo Zhanyan’s forceful, savage aura pressing down on him, the disparity between them became even more pronounced.

“It wasn’t? Then are you saying you ran into me yourself?” Huo Zhanyan gave a cold laugh. There was not the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes; his brows and eyes were filled with hostility.

In truth, Huo Zhanyan had already disliked this special-admission student since noon. The boy had kept edging closer to Wen Xiao. Did he think Huo Zhanyan had not noticed?

“So how many times a day do you plan to stage these little accidents?” Huo Zhanyan asked impatiently.

Ye Heng’s eyes widened. He clearly could not believe the other man would slander him so openly. Moisture shimmered faintly in his almond-shaped eyes.

“I… really didn’t.”

When Ye Heng lowered his head, he glanced to the side and saw, in the distance, a boy standing with a glass in his hand, watching the spectacle with undisguised schadenfreude.

It was the same person who had caused him trouble at noon. The muscular young man standing beside him, built like a bull with every tendon and muscle pronounced, had been next to Ye Heng just moments ago and had deliberately jostled him amid the crowd while he was getting a drink.

Those vermin really were impossible to shake. Ye Heng gave a cold laugh inwardly.

It seemed they had been humiliated by him at noon and wanted to regain their pride at the orientation party.

They did not dare provoke the others, so they had chosen to start with him.

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People always said that even a powerful dragon could not crush a local snake. What was more, in everyone else’s eyes, he was merely a tiny earthworm. Why would those people take him seriously?

Ye Heng suddenly lifted his head and met Huo Zhanyan’s furious gaze head-on.

That was it.

They had deliberately lured him into offending Huo Zhanyan, intending to humiliate him through Huo Zhanyan’s hands.

And among all of them, provoking Huo Zhanyan’s temper was undoubtedly the simplest and most direct method.

Just as Huo Zhanyan was about to explode, a hand suddenly came down on his shoulder.

Huo Zhanyan was preparing to curse whoever had no eyes when he turned his head and met Wen Xiao’s gaze. His eyes were like petals of peach blossom.

He watched the other man’s moist, pale lips move, and for some inexplicable reason his mouth went dry. His mind went blank.

Wen Xiao called his name. “Huo Zhanyan, calm down.”

The anger that had just flared in Huo Zhanyan’s heart was extinguished at once.

His eyes shifted. He licked his lips and said, “I didn’t hear you clearly. Say it again.”

He simply loved hearing Wen Xiao call his name. He could never get enough of it.

Wen Xiao slapped his hand away, then glanced at the cream and jam smeared across Huo Zhanyan’s chest. In all sincerity, he advised, “You should go downstairs and change your clothes first.”

Only then did Huo Zhanyan remember the mess. He turned back and glared at Ye Heng. When Ye Heng shifted his gaze away in apparent fear under that casual sweep of the eyes, Huo Zhanyan clicked his tongue inwardly and spoke with utter disdain.

“I won’t hold it against you today. Next time, keep your eyes open and learn who you can bump into and who you can’t…”

His gaze was as sharp as a cold sword. If anyone else had said such a thing, it might have provoked collective outrage. But because it was Huo Zhanyan speaking, no one dared say a word.

After all, he was the only son of the head of the Huo family and its heir. Who would dare provoke this young prince?

Huo Zhanyan turned toward Wen Xiao again and stared until Wen Xiao’s scalp prickled. Wen Xiao was the first to shove him and say, “Enough. Do you need someone to accompany you just to change your clothes?”

“Is that not allowed?” Huo Zhanyan asked as though it were perfectly reasonable. Even if he wanted someone to feed him, no one would dare object.

Wen Xiao rolled his eyes. “Even if you haven’t been weaned, it still won’t do. I’m not your mother. Keep this up and I’ll call your aunt over.”

“Don’t call her. It took me forever to persuade her not to come tonight.” Huo Zhanyan tugged irritably at his shirt, feeling thoroughly cursed by the whole affair.

With his arms folded across his chest, Song Jingbai smiled from the side. “Shall we go? I’ll accompany you to change.”

Huo Zhanyan stared at him from head to toe as though he had seen a ghost. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you want someone to accompany you? Why not let Ye accompany you? You’ll be classmates from now on, so any misunderstandings are best cleared up face-to-face. What do you think?”

Song Jingbai watched Huo Zhanyan with a genial smile, but his words made Huo Zhanyan want to curse him outright.

In the end, Huo Zhanyan went to change by himself. Before leaving, he glanced at Wen Xiao several times.

Wen Xiao was about to leave as well when Ye Heng called out behind him.

“Wen Xiao.”

Wen Xiao stopped and turned around, only to find Ye Heng standing less than a step behind him. Their faces nearly collided when he turned.

Ye Heng looked at him. “Thank you for just now.”

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Wen Xiao noticed that when Ye Heng looked at him this way, his eyes were slightly narrowed, making those round eyes seem somewhat longer and giving him an entirely different air.

Standing straight, he was even a little taller than Wen Xiao. Seen from such a close distance, he did not appear as fragile as he had seemed.

His black-and-white waiter’s uniform fit him perfectly, accentuating his upright figure, long limbs, and composed bearing.

Ye Heng did not seem to possess the insecurity one might expect from someone in difficult financial circumstances. He was entirely different from the Ye Heng Wen Xiao had seen before—the one who only knew how to lower his head and silently endure.

Different from the Ye Heng he had seen during the day, and different from the favored protagonist of his former life.

Wen Xiao casually glanced at Ye Heng’s waist. It was remarkably slender. He could not help thinking that the protagonist still had what it took to play the favored role.

Besides, according to the events of his previous life, Ye Heng should have collided with Huo Zhanyan in the restaurant at noon. That scene had not happened then, yet it had unfolded tonight at the orientation party instead.

It gave Wen Xiao the strange feeling that the plot was correcting itself.

In the space of a single day, it seemed the only difference was that Leng Shucheng had not crossed paths with Ye Heng.

Wen Xiao then remembered hearing that Ye Heng had encountered someone in the teaching building—and that person had been Leng Shucheng.

If so, then because Leng Shucheng had invited him to the Christie Theater, he had not gone to the teaching building. His rebirth seemed to have triggered an entire chain of butterfly effects.

Lost in thought, Wen Xiao suddenly noticed the shadow in front of him growing larger, as though someone were leaning closer.

“Ye, aren’t you standing a little too close?” Song Jingbai suddenly said, bringing Wen Xiao back to his senses.

Song Jingbai was looking at Ye Heng with a faint smile in his eyes.

Ye Heng appeared somewhat innocent. His finger had stopped barely an inch from Wen Xiao’s chest, just short of touching the silver brooch pinned there.

He looked at Song Jingbai, then turned his hand to reveal a short sprig of jasmine. Only a few of its blossoms had opened.

“I just thought the jasmine I saw earlier suited Wen Xiao very well, so I wanted to give it to him…”

Ye Heng took several steps back. The fragrance of jasmine drifted over on the night breeze, and Wen Xiao found the scene oddly familiar.

Song Jingbai glanced at Ye Heng’s waiter’s uniform and said with a half-smile, “Is that so? I thought you might accidentally collide with someone else at tonight’s orientation party.”

Ye Heng did not seem offended. He replied, “Thank you for the warning. I don’t think that will happen tonight.”

After Ye Heng left, Wen Xiao immediately looked at Song Jingbai. The remark he had just made was clearly laced with an unusual emotion. It sounded as though he had been deliberately targeting Ye Heng.

Before Wen Xiao could speak, he felt Song Jingbai take his hand.

The grip was tight. Hidden by the darkness, their clasped hands would go unnoticed as long as no one deliberately looked down.

Wen Xiao tried to pull free, but failed. Unable to help himself, he asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m nervous,” Song Jingbai murmured beside his ear.

“Weren’t you the one who said you weren’t nervous?” Wen Xiao had originally wanted to point out that Song Jingbai’s exact words had been that seeing him made the nervousness disappear…

But the words were too embarrassing. He could not bring himself to repeat them aloud.

It seemed Song Jingbai and Leng Shucheng were alike in this respect. Perhaps both of them were somewhat romance-blind: they said things without the slightest awareness of whether they were appropriate, as casually as if they were eating or drinking.