Chapter 9 Have some Respect
Xu Chenghao, not sure of Li Nian’s line of questioning, looked visibly puzzled.
Li Nian furrowed his brows.
“Last night’s engagement banquet went viral, and it was even published in the newspaper this morning…”
He recounted everything he knew, and Xu Chenghao finally understood what was going on.
Basically, the banquet had been so smooth that the onlookers found it difficult to believe. Not even Ruan Chenxuan found the night’s peaceful occurrence believable – after all, neither Xu Chenghao nor Jing Yicheng had a good relationship with him, so it was really hard for him to believe they had attended the party with no ill intention. It had been the perfect opportunity for either of them to add insult to injury and tear things apart, but oddly enough, nothing of the sort had happened.
Whether it was Xu Chenghao, who had been watched closely by onlookers, or Jing Yicheng, who Ruan Chenxuan had always been very defensive about; they had both sat quietly and made zero movements, as if they were just attending an ordinary banquet. Not the slightest bit of imagined bloodshed had stained the banquet hall.
All of this not only made Ruan Chenxuan wary, but also left the onlookers feeling strange and puzzled, and so they discussed quietly among themselves.
‘Could it be that Xu Chenghao had really walked out of the emotional shadow so quickly?’
Someone had said, “At the end of the day, Xu Chenghao is the eldest son of the Xu family. He is rich, powerful, and good-looking. Even if he were to lack anything, it will definitely not be women.”
“I also think he has overcome that entanglement. Otherwise, how would he have attended the party so calmly? He would definitely have accompanied that person.”
“Don’t talk about it like that, I suspect that when Xu Chenghao broke off the engagement, he didn’t break it off freely at all. I think he just felt tired of being cuckolded!”
“Could it be that some people want to cover up their words, so they said it on purpose?”
“Hahaha, don’t talk nonsense, you will cry if you are heard in the future.”
For rich women who had money and time, this kind of gossip after dinner was their favorite thing. When Xu Chenghao broke off the engagement, there was a lot of fuss, and yet, after that, there had been nothing to watch. So now, everyone’s attention was focused on Ruan Chenxuan and An Rouyu.
Nobody had told Ruan Chenxuan to snatch away someone else’s fiance and then suddenly get engaged. No matter how one looked at Xu Chenghao’s attitude and An Rouyu’s absence, there had to be some story behind it.
Zhou Qian, to protect her and Ruan Chenxuan’s relationship, as well as his image, later publicly stated that An Rouyu had pestered her fiancé shamelessly, and directly pushed everything onto An Rouyu.
One could imagine how large the gap was between An Rouyu’s previous reputation as ‘the girl wanted by two great male gods’ and ‘the entanglement that no one wants’ that she now bore.
And, on top of that, An Rouyu already had a hard time in her An family. After this scandal, things would most likely get even more difficult.
In response to all of this, Xu Chenghao only said one word.
“Damn.”
In the engagement banquet, he hadn’t engaged in any unnecessary conversations or done anything. He had simply attended the party with one thing in mind — to show he had lost interest in the relationship. But suddenly, this kind of rumor had quickly spread around. No matter how he looked at it, he was the most suspicious, no wonder Li Nian would think so.
If he hadn’t been the person involved, he would have thought so too!
Xu Chenghao, suddenly feeling an incoming headache, covered his head and began to recall all the things that had happened at the previous night’s engagement banquet. He suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
‘…The villain couldn’t have done all this, right?’
After all, if things continued like this, it would only make the heroine misunderstand and hate the hero more and more, and her hardships were also more in line with his plans of courtship. No matter how one looked at it, he was the one who would benefit the most, so… it had to be him!
‘He’s dragging me into this again… that madman!’
Xu Chenghao gritted his teeth in irritation.
“These psychopaths!”
Li Nian looked at him.
“Do you know who did it? What are you going to do?”
But, in response, Xu Chenghao waved his hand weakly and sighed.
“I don’t want to pay attention to them… Don’t worry, go to work.”
“Aren’t you angry?”
Xu Chenghao’s face was expressionless as he responded.
“I’m too lazy to care about that lunatic.”
Li Nian hesitated for a moment, but after seeing that Xu Chenghao no longer wanted to talk about it, he silently got up and left the office.
As soon as the office door closed behind Li Nian’s departing figure, however, Xu Chenghao pulled out an A4 paper, outlined a certain lunatic, and then started to list out words like lunatic, psychopath, etc., next to it.
After venting his anger for a minute and filling the entire paper up, he dropped the pen with a groan.
‘I don’t care because I can’t fight back, but I can’t NOT get angry!’
Following the resurgence of his irritation, he pulled out another piece of A4 paper and filled it up all over again. Just as he finished and began to admire his masterpiece, Li Nian returned and knocked on his door.
“Mr. Xu, I’m coming in.”
Xu Chenghao, surprised at his return, hurriedly stuffed the two A4 papers into a drawer, locked it, and then calmly responded.
“Come in.”
The door opened smoothly, allowing Li Nian in, following which he started to set the documents on the table.
“The ones on top are the documents accumulated from yesterday afternoon, and the ones below are from this morning; there’s a high-level meeting at 2:30 in the afternoon, and then a videoconference at 5:00.”
After stacking the documents on the desk and reporting on the day’s itinerary, Li Nian once again took his leave.
Xu Chenghao poured half a glass of water into the little yellow duck flower pot and refreshed his spirit to work.
In any case, he still needed to live, work and grow chili peppers so that he could return to his world. He didn’t have the time to pay attention to crazy people and didn’t want to get involved with them in any way.
The engagement party was nothing important.
It was just another episode of life.