Chapter 25: Improper Relations
In the early autumn morning, where the temperature still hovered above twenty degrees Celsius, Wen Rong seemed to bring the snow in with him as he entered. Everything around him fell silent.
He wasn’t wearing a jacket. A simple white shirt was tucked into black school trousers, highlighting his slender waist and astonishingly straight, long legs.
His features were handsome but cold. The rimless glasses created a barrier between him and everyone else. When his gaze lightly swept in their direction, the members of the Tennis Club sat up straighter, feeling an inexplicable jolt of fear.
It felt as though a long time had passed, but in reality, only a few seconds had ticked by.
Zhao Zeryang kicked the boy next to him. “What are you dazing out for?”
The boy was slow to react. “W-What?”
Zhao Zeryang looked nervously in Wen Rong’s direction. “Go stop him! Tell him I want to keep him as my sugar baby.”
“M-Me? I say it?”
“Yes, you.”
“But just now…”
Didn’t you vow that you wanted to be his sponsor? You scolded us for stopping you, so why don’t you go tell him yourself?
Before the boy could gather enough courage to question him, he was kicked again.
He really didn’t dare to go up, but many hands pushed him from behind, forcing him to approach that upright, thin back.
A faint, sweet scent, like fruit, wafted through the air. The boy took a breath, and his brain went light.
“Hurry up!”
The boy was kicked once more before he finally stammered, “Th-That… Wen, Wen Rong, our President wants to…”
Wen Rong turned his head. His extremely light-colored eyes met the boy’s. His eyelashes were thick and long; as they fluttered, they seemed like a Venus flytrap opening its mouth to bite onto the boy’s heart.
The boy shut his mouth, his body going completely numb.
He was so entranced that he didn’t notice Wen Rong was actually frightened by the group of tall guys, his face full of panic.
“Oh, he can’t speak, let me say it.” Another boy pushed aside the one in front of Wen Rong. “Wen Rong, why did you come to the cafeteria alone this morning? do you not have any friends at school yet?”
Wen Rong hesitated and lowered his head.
A moment later, he forced his neck stiff, raised his chin, and spat out four words: “Stay away from me.”
He said the words, but he was the one who walked away.
The group paused briefly, looking at each other. So what the forum said was true; Wen Rong really does curse at people.
“Feisty.”
Everyone: Huh?
“I just love this playing-hard-to-get act. I must have him today.”
Zhao Zeryang grinned until the corners of his mouth almost reached his ears, following Wen Rong, who had gone to the food prep area to speak with the chef.
The others hesitated for a moment, then followed suit.
“Wen Rong.”
Someone took the initiative to call his name again.
Wen Rong was truly frightened. Zhao Zeryang had brought so many people to block him, standing so close that they cast a large shadow on the ground. It was just as terrifying as when Shi Ye brought people to spectate him.
He asked carefully, “Do you still want to hit me with balls?”
No, no, no, how is that possible!
In their anxiety, the group spoke without thinking.
“Do you want to join our Tennis Club?”
“Aren’t you bored eating alone?”
“Our Brother Zhao likes you very much.”
Once someone said that sentence, all the questions came to a bizarre halt.
Zhao Zeryang didn’t notice anything wrong. Instead, he smiled and shoved the boy. “Go, go, go—”
The boy added, “He’s shy, look. Everything I said is true. If you follow our Brother Zhao in the future, I guarantee no one in the whole school will dare to bully you.”
Once one boy started, the others felt compelled to chime in, talking over each other about how great the Tennis Club was, how amazing Zhao Zeryang was—a tennis genius, the youngest champion in the junior division…
Wen Rong took his noodles from the chef, turned his head, and walked away from the side they hadn’t blocked.
The group surrounded him again. Even when he sat down, the Tennis Club members scrambled to sit to Wen Rong’s left, right, and front.
“Why aren’t you talking? Are you still angry about the recruitment?”
“Our Brother Zhao really didn’t do it on purpose. Besides, he was given a Yellow Card yesterday, and the system notified him of the compensation this morning. He’s planning to pay you double.”
“If you have any inconveniences in your life, just ask Brother Zhao. He’s generous; he can give you houses, cars, and money.”
“More than that, he can even give you his life.”
“Move, move, move.” Zhao Zeryang pushed the people in front of Wen Rong away, his face blooming with joy. “How about it? Want to be with me?”
Wen Rong: “Be with…”
Wen Rong: ?
In his confusion, a thread suddenly connected, stringing together everyone’s strange behavior during this period.
Wen Rong finally understood. These people were pestering him because they had perverted thoughts about him!?
Wen Rong wasn’t ignorant of these things.
He had always tried his best to protect himself by watching social news. Also, there were always many creepy old men at the entrance of the orphanage, and the director specifically educated everyone every month to stay away from such people.
Wen Rong remembered it firmly, but he was a boy, and the creepy uncles usually targeted girls, so he had never made the connection in that direction.
Now that this point was touched upon, it seemed everything rushed forward following this logic.
What kind of world is this? Why are there so many “creepy uncles” of the same age!
Wen Rong’s hands trembled slightly.
He was shocked and angry.
Angry at these people and angry at himself, because he had been harassed for so many days and only now realized what the “friend” in their mouths meant.
“Brother, I want to redeem…”
[What?]
“Nothing.”
He couldn’t use violence to solve this. Senior Leon said Zhao Zeryang’s family was very powerful; he couldn’t afford to offend them.
Wen Rong let out a big breath and put down his chopsticks.
He looked up and carefully scanned the faces of these Tennis Club members.
They weren’t strangers. There was Zhao Zeryang, the boy who told him not to regret it on the day of measurements, and the boy who blocked him in the dormitory building the night he took the ballot box to find Shi Ye…
Actually, Wen Rong hadn’t specifically memorized their appearances; he had just glanced at them at the time and accidentally remembered.
Thinking about it now, it was fortunate he remembered.
Relying on his meager book knowledge, he prepared a speech in his mind, hoping to anger them enough so they wouldn’t harass him again.
Fixing his gaze on their faces, he slowly spoke: “I refuse.”
Two of the boys relaxed simultaneously.
Zhao Zeryang’s expression turned ugly, but he quickly maintained his smile. “No discord, no concord, right? There are no permanent enemies. We are all schoolmates; we can develop a further relationship.”
Wen Rong’s brain continued to spin rapidly, eliminating possibilities one by one in every minute detail, searching for the answer in order.
Suddenly, he remembered that he had once mistaken two Tennis Club members for the same person, and his slightly furrowed brows relaxed.
“Your Tennis Club is so strange.”
“Hmm?”
“A few days ago, everyone came to find me individually, saying they wanted to be like you…”
Zhao Zeryang was curious. “Like me?”
“They probably wanted to be the kind of friend you talked about with me, asking me to be with… them.”
Zhao Zeryang went slightly stiff, looking up at the others in shock.
A few days ago meant before last night. The others in the Tennis Club had gone behind his back to court Wen Rong.
Yet they had pretended to be filled with righteous indignation in front of him, and just now, they even pretended not to be interested in Wen Rong.
The Tennis Club members were also stunned. They hadn’t expected they weren’t the only ones to seek out Wen Rong. Then what was all that gathering together to curse Wen Rong these past few days? Acting?
This group of people in the Tennis Club had known each other for at least two years. They went everywhere together and called each other brothers.
But in this moment, everyone realized they had been backstabbed by their brothers.
Zhao Zeryang slammed the table and stood up in anger. “I treated you as brothers, and you—”
The others were frightened and hurriedly explained, “No, no, Brother Zhao, don’t listen to his nonsense.”
Wen Rong spoke lightly, “Yes, there was. Everyone did.”
He raised his hand and pointed at two boys. “When they came to find me, Shi Ye and Senior Leon saw it.”
Thud!
Zhao Zeryang changed his tactic and slammed his fist onto the table this time.
“You guys—”
One of them hurriedly said, “Brother, listen to my explanation. I definitely didn’t mean that. I mainly wanted to ease the relationship with him to facilitate a reconciliation.”
Another said, “Right, right, right. The recruitment incident affected us too much. I was afraid he would hold onto this matter and affect our recruitment.”
“But it’s different now. Now that the Tennis Club is saved, we actually don’t want to have anything to do with him at all.”
“Brother, we’ve known each other for so many years. Don’t you know what kind of person I am? How would I dare to make a move on Sister-in-law?”
“Right, right, right! Wen Rong is our Sister-in-law from now on, we—”
Wen Rong slowly interrupted him. “Actually, being friends with you isn’t impossible, unless…”
Zhao Zeryang’s anger came to a sudden halt, and he looked back with expectation. “Unless what?”
Wen Rong exhaled. “Forget it.”
“Forget what? Say it. As long as I can do it, I promise I will.”
The others chimed in, “Right, right, right, our Brother Zhao can do anything.”
“Really?”
“Of course it’s true.”
“Can you be more powerful than Shi Ye—”
Zhao Zeryang froze.
Everyone gasped.
Wen Rong lowered his head, hiding his face in everyone’s blind spot. “Because Shi Ye loves to bully me. If you aren’t as powerful as him, even if you are my friend, you will be bullied by him too. And I know about that vote, actually, mmm—”
A hand suddenly covered his mouth.
The palm was exceptionally large, covering almost his entire face, pushing his glasses upward.
“Zhao Zeryang, give up. You will never be more powerful than me in this lifetime.”
He shouldn’t have slept late last night; otherwise, he wouldn’t have woken up late today.
If he hadn’t woken up late, he wouldn’t have arrived at the cafeteria at this time, meeting these “creepy uncles” from the Tennis Club, and also meeting Shi Ye.
Wen Rong repented in his heart.
“Do you want to die?”
“Let go of me.”
Wen Rong was half-carried, half-dragged out of the cafeteria by Shi Ye, who held him by the waist.
He didn’t stop struggling the whole way, terrified that Shi Ye was also a “creepy uncle.” After all, he had realized now that those people’s kindness all had this strange tendency, and Shi Ye’s strange behavior was no less intense than theirs.
“If you speak about the inside story of the voting, Zhou Xie could kill you.”
As soon as Zhou Xie’s name came up, Wen Rong dared not move.
He didn’t know how long they walked before Shi Ye finally let go of him.
The moment Wen Rong’s feet were fully on the ground, he first noted in his heart: Cannot speak about Zhou Xie’s black-box operation.
Then he took a step back, leaned against the wall, and asked cautiously, “Um…”
Shi Ye took off his hairband, his gray hair wet and sticking to his forehead. “Can’t you leave when they pester you? Why waste your breath on them?”
Wen Rong explained, “They wouldn’t let me leave. They are perverts.”
Shi Ye was just raising his hand to smooth his hair, but upon hearing the word “pervert,” his movement froze inexplicably.
After a long while, he forced down the apprehension in his heart and asked, “What perverts? Where did they touch you? Did they kiss you?”
Wen Rong widened his eyes and shook his head in panic. “No, no, they didn’t commit a crime. They just wanted to be that kind of friend with me.”
“What kind of friend?”
“Just…” Wen Rong tilted his head to think of a word that wasn’t too ugly. “Improper relations.”
Shi Ye: “…”
The air fell into an inexplicable silence, with sparrows chirping noisily on the branches.
Seeing that the situation wasn’t right, Wen Rong pressed against the wall and scooted another step sideways, fumbling for his phone and tremblingly pressing 110. “You don’t want to be that kind of friend with me too, do you? You hugged my waist just now. Normal people don’t hug other people’s waists.”
“I…” Shi Ye took a deep breath. “How is that possible?”
Wen Rong scooted another step, turned around, and ran.
Shi Ye shouted after him, “Stand still! I really didn’t!”
He continued, “I hugged your waist because last time you said not to strangle your neck again. Wasn’t I in a hurry to get you away just now?”
Wen Rong turned around from a distance, hunching his back, and bowed to apologize. “Sorry, I mistook you for a pervert.”
Shi Ye: “…”
“Thank you for helping me out just now.”
“Wait—”
Wen Rong propped himself against the wall and continued to back away.
Every time this word came out of Shi Ye’s mouth, something terrible would happen.
Shi Ye was speechless for a moment. “You’re very jumpy. Do you not like men?”
“Of course I don’t like men.”
Shi Ye: “…”
Shi Ye: “Oh.”
So the romance between Wen Rong and Zhou Xie was actually made up by that bunch from the Gossip Club.
Wen Rong and Zhou Xie are fake!
Tomorrow I’ll go to the News Club and neuter those three.
Shi Ye thought happily.
Translator’s note: Cold Wen Rong is coming online
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