Chapter 37: Underground Affair
Wen Yuhuai took a deep breath, completely out of options. “What exactly do you want, Brother Jian? I really treat you as my biological brother. How about this: let’s pretend what happened just now never happened, okay?”
The corners of Fu Xingjian’s lips curved slightly, and he calmly replied with one word: “No.”
Wen Yuhuai slammed the phone screen face-down on the table—out of sight, out of mind.
Yet Fu Xingjian’s voice still came clearly from the speaker. “I don’t lack a younger brother, and you don’t lack an older brother. Ah Yu, I haven’t been so good to you for so many years just to be your brother.”
This was practically laying cards on the table.
Indeed, fate’s gifts had price tags marked in the dark long ago. He could only blame himself for being too foolish in the past. If he had known the result would be like this, he would have stayed far away from the protagonist group from the very beginning.
Wen Yuhuai scratched his hair in frustration, trying to reason with him and make him face reality. “I am a straight man. I don’t like men!”
Fu Xingjian’s tone remained unhurried, even carrying a hint of coaxing: “You haven’t even tried; how do you know you don’t like men? Try with Brother; I’ll make you like it.”
Wen Yuhuai’s voice was full of helplessness and despair: “I am very certain I don’t like it. I don’t like it now, and I won’t like it in the future. Brother, I beg you, stop playing with me.”
No more sound came from the speaker. Wen Yuhuai thought the call had ended. Tired at heart, he picked up the phone, only for a magnified handsome face to catch him off guard.
Those ink-black eyes stared quietly at him through the lens. The expression on his face remained unchangingly calm, even revealing a sense of ease.
“Ah Yu, don’t speak so absolutely. I don’t like men either; I just like you.”
Wen Yuhuai wiped his face, propped the phone on the table, sat up straight, and looked at Fu Xingjian, looking as if he stopped avoiding and wanted to talk seriously.
“What I said isn’t absolute, but a clear cognition of my own sexual orientation. I don’t oppose you guys liking the same sex, nor do I discriminate. But the same-sex person you like shouldn’t be me, and cannot be me.”
Speaking up to here, he paused for a moment to organize his words before continuing: “You all know I had a girlfriend before. The ones I’ve liked from beginning to end are the opposite sex. I have zero interest in the same sex.”
Fu Xingjian listened quietly the whole time. These words didn’t stir even a ripple in his eyes. He even asked gently, “Finished?”
Wen Yuhuai nodded with a tense face.
He had said everything he needed to say. The fact that he was straight would never change. No one could bend him, not even the protagonist.
At worst, he would cut ties with them in the future. As long as he didn’t provoke the heroine, surely they wouldn’t throw him into the sea to feed the fish like in his previous life, right?
Fu Xingjian crossed his hands casually. He lifted his eyelids, his gaze dark and bottomless.
“Since you’re finished, it’s my turn to speak.”
Wen Yuhuai pursed his lips nervously, staring at him with a face full of guard.
Fu Xingjian seemed amused by his expression. His attitude softened a few degrees compared to just now, not so overbearing anymore.
His fingers tapped casually on the watch dial, making crisp tick-tock sounds. “Why so nervous? If you’re unwilling, I won’t force you to be with me. I just want to tell you I’m serious about you, not just playing around. It doesn’t matter if you accept or not, but you should at least give me a chance.”
Wen Yuhuai didn’t want to give it. He only wanted to stay far away from him now, as far as possible.
But seeing Fu Xingjian’s look of not stopping until he reached his goal, he weighed the pros and cons for a moment and nodded stiffly. “Okay.”
Fool him for as long as possible. Maybe when the heroine appeared, he would lose interest in him.
If he really couldn’t fool him, couldn’t he run? After all, they were the protagonist group; they shouldn’t turn into criminals and lock him up, right?
“I can promise you, but you also have to promise me one condition.”
Fu Xingjian was very magnanimous about this, his lips hooking into a gentle arc. “Speak.”
Wen Yuhuai found it a bit hard to say: “I can give you a chance… to pursue me, but you can’t let others find out. No one at all.”
The smile at the corner of Fu Xingjian’s mouth faded. His deep eyes stared at him with unclear meaning. “You want to have an underground affair with me?”
Wen Yuhuai frowned tight and immediately refuted him: “What underground affair? We aren’t even together; where does the ‘affair’ come from?”
Fu Xingjian asked back: “Then what do you mean? I have to be sneaky even when pursuing someone?”
Wen Yuhuai’s patience was running out too; his tone became urgent and aggressive. “If you don’t want to pursue, then don’t. No one is forcing you.”
He would be more than happy with that. Anyway, even if he pursued, he would still refuse.
Fu Xingjian’s attitude softened again. “I’ll listen to you.”
If he wanted to play, then he would play with him. It just so happened he also felt keeping it from the others was quite exciting, like having an illicit affair.
Wen Yuhuai endured and fooled him for a while longer before finally hanging up the call.
The second the call ended, he threw himself into the soft mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling with nothing left to live for.
He didn’t understand. He really didn’t understand. The world had been very normal for the first twenty-plus years; why did everything go haywire this year?
First kidnapped by a perverted gay man, and after escaping the devil’s claws with difficulty, his own good brother turned into a gay man and threatened to pursue him.
Was this normal?
In his previous life, he hadn’t seen a live gay man until he died. Why was he surrounded by gay men here?!
Wen Yuhuai couldn’t bear it anymore and roasted this screwed-up world in his heart. Halfway through the roasting, his heart hung in his throat again, inevitably thinking of the other three in the protagonist group.
They were also quite good to him. Could it be possible they were gay too?
The more Wen Yuhuai thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt. He picked up his phone and clicked into the other men’s WeChat homepages one by one, trying to find some clues.
After looking around, he found nothing. Looking at their homepages and moments, they were all proper, outstanding young men.
Was he overthinking it?
Yes, he must be overthinking it. Where would there be so many gay men in the world, and all around him at that…
Impossible. Absolutely impossible!
After brainwashing himself like this, Wen Yuhuai indeed felt much better. But to avoid repeating the same mistake, he still decided to keep a distance from the four protagonists starting today.
After all, in the original plot, all four of them could like one woman, which meant their tastes and eyes were about the same. Then it wasn’t impossible for them to like the same man now.
And he had to kill all possibilities in the cradle now.
Sworn to defend his dignity as a straight man to the death!
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