After A Failed Online Relationship, I’m Pregnant With A Wealthy Tycoon's Child - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Beautiful Idiot “Maybe he’s already hard in private…”

In Ningcheng, inside the headquarters of the He Corporation.

“Brother, can you stop talking to that Qiao Yunguang?!”

“Hold on.”

He Yanzhou placed his phone face-down on the desk and lifted his eyes to look at his younger sister—Jiang Cai.

Jiang Cai and He Yanzhou were paternal half-siblings, but very few people knew about this relationship. For one, they had different surnames; for another, Jiang Cai had intentionally kept it a secret just to keep her ears at peace.

“That Qiao Yunguang is nothing but a little green tea bitch! All he knows how to do at school every day is seduce men and borrow power to bully others!” Jiang Cai was filled with righteous indignation. She then orbited He Yanzhou with a suspicious expression, propping her chin in a thoughtful posture. “No way, Brother… You haven’t been seduced by him too, have you?”

“…I don’t like men.”

He Yanzhou let out a sigh, finding it somewhat absurd. “I told you, Qiao Yunguang told me back then that the person under my management was illegally subletting. I really didn’t think much of it and just took the house back. I didn’t realize Qiao Yunguang had that kind of motive; this was indeed my oversight.”

He Yanzhou rubbed the space between his brows. “I’ve already instructed someone to contact Qiao Yan. I’ll give him a sum of money so he can rent another apartment—one that will be much better than the previous one.”

He Yanzhou sighed and added, “I promised Qiao Yunguang’s mother that I would look after him, but Qiao Yunguang’s mind is impure. In the future, involving anything that concerns property or financial interests, I won’t lift a finger for him.”

Jiang Cai let out a “Hmph.” “That’s more like it.”

“I know you have a good relationship with Qiao Yan,” He Yanzhou shifted the topic, pausing meaningfully. “But Qiao Yan—I just met him a few days ago—”

“Right? Qiao Yan really is an incredibly cute person, isn’t he? Even though there aren’t many things he knows how to do, at least he has a kind heart…”

He Yanzhou took a sip of water and finished the rest of his sentence, his tone carrying a trace of disdain: “He is very beautiful, but unfortunately too impulsive. It makes him look a bit stupid.”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Jiang Cai knew long ago that He Yanzhou detested this type of delicate, pampered young master, but she hadn’t expected him to say something so harsh. “Then what about Qiao Yunguang? Why don’t you call him stupid?”

“Even stupider. It’s just paying back a favor,” He Yanzhou stood up to escort the roaring Jiang Cai out. “Don’t always hang around with these young masters.”

Sitting in his position, He Yanzhou crossed paths with many second-generation heirs every day, and the chaotic nature of their social circle was a common sight. Just as he intended to caution Jiang Cai with a few more words, he felt his phone vibrate.

He Yanzhou hadn’t set Mogu to silent, so the loud notification tone cut sharply through the quiet office.

Jiang Cai instantly perked up. “Isn’t that the Mogu notification sound?”

He Yanzhou gave an “Mm” and opened his phone.

“Is it that Little Peach?” Jiang Cai pressed close to He Yanzhou, peeking at his phone. “I didn’t expect you two to stay in touch after I added him last time. See, I told you that you definitely fall for this type.”

“It’s not what you think.” He Yanzhou tried to brush away the hand Jiang Cai had draped over his shoulder, but she didn’t budge an inch.

To dispel Jiang Cai’s suspicions, He Yanzhou even displayed his Mogu chat interface to her.

However, the message sent over by Little Peach this time looked as if she had lost her mind, causing He Yanzhou’s eyelid to twitch.

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: Daddy is so strict when explaining problems. If I keep failing to learn it, will Daddy keep me for tutoring the whole night?

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: A whole night is really too long. Daddy has to punish me gently, otherwise Little Peach won’t be able to bear it… (。>︿<)

The moment Jiang Cai saw the message, she immediately covered her eyes, muttering about how it was inappropriate for minors while splitting her fingers to peek at what Little Peach had said.

He Yanzhou pinched the bridge of his nose, emphasizing once more: “It really isn’t what you think.”

Jiang Cai: “I know, I know! I’ll definitely keep it a secret!!”

He Yanzhou put his phone down without replying to Little Peach and walked straight outside. Turning back to Jiang Cai, he asked, “Are you coming or not?”

Jiang Cai jogged to catch up. “Have you really been seduced?”

He Yanzhou glanced at her, ultimately leaving behind only a single sentence: “How could that be possible? Just keeping her around for amusement.”

The next day.

The moment Qiao Yan woke up, he received a phone call from He Yanzhou’s assistant.

“Hello, is this Mr. Qiao Yan?”

Qiao Yan cleared his throat. “Speaking.”

“Hello, Mr. Qiao. I am President He’s assistant, Zhou Lin,” the voice on the other end was polite yet distant. “President He instructed me to contact you regarding the previous reclamation of your leased apartment. We hope to negotiate a solution with you in person. President He specially requested that we grant you reasonable compensation.”

Qiao Yan: “？？？”

That old thing did his wicked deed, and now he finally knows to turn back and gather some good karma?

But it’s already too late!!!

My, Little Peach’s, peerless revenge plan has already been set in motion. How could I be swayed by this petty bait of money and benefits?

Qiao Yan decisively hung up the phone, feeling exceptionally dominant, cool, and arrogant.

Qiao Yan opened Mogu, initiating his new day of reeling in the man.

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: Daddy, my cold is all better! We can voice call now (Cat-expectantly.jpg)

Glancing at the voice changer in his hand, Qiao Yan thought to himself that heaven truly rewards those who persevere. It was well worth his trouble of clicking the “Urge Shipment” button hundreds of times; the voice changer had finally arrived ahead of schedule.

He Yanzhou was usually busy and didn’t reply until evening.

Yan: We can voice call now, is that right?

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: Yes, yes!

After a short while, Yan sent over a voice chat request. Qiao Yan quickly adjusted his voice changer, sat up straight, and cleared his throat.

“Hi~ Daddy~ Does Little Peach’s voice sound very sweet~”

The moment Qiao Yan finished speaking, he was utterly cringed out by his own high-pitched, delicate tone. His voice was originally crisp and clear, so converting it into a female voice carried no awkwardness whatsoever—it even carried a hint of sweetness.

“I can hear you.”

He Yanzhou’s voice traveled through the electronic current, sounding several shades deeper than usual. His tone carried no waves, yet it inexplicably possessed a penetrating power that caused the straight man Qiao Yan’s heart to skip a few beats.

“Then let’s get started quickly, shall we? Daddy, to be honest, my math is truly super terrible. You absolutely must not think I’m stupid.”

“Mm.” He Yanzhou’s voice betrayed no emotion. “Did you understand the steps for that problem from last time?”

“Oh, come on, I stared at it for so long,” Qiao Yan squeezed his vocal cords, his voice sounding incredibly soft, innocent, and laced with a tiny bit of grievance. “But Daddy’s handwriting is so brief. From step two to step three, that equivalent infinitesimal substitution… how exactly is it equivalent?”

“Little Peach is stupid. I thought until my little head hurt and I still couldn’t figure it out~”

He Yanzhou’s voice was steady, his speaking speed slowing down slightly. “You can substitute directly here.”

“Oh—!” Qiao Yan finally understood. He intentionally dragged out his tone, putting on an act of sudden realization. “Then for the part after that, setting the derivative to zero to find the extrema points… why must the point found be the maximum or minimum? What if it’s one of those points that’s stuck right in the middle?”

“You need to evaluate the second derivative, or check the endpoints,” He Yanzhou explained, then promptly added, “You are missing too many foundational concepts. Explaining it in fragments like this is inefficient. Memorize the basic formulas and theorems from chapters one through three first.”

No way! No memorization!

“Huh? Memorize books?” Qiao Yan struggled with all his might. “There are so many and they’re so complicated. Can Daddy explain the problems first? Maybe as you explain, I’ll happen to remember them? Listening to Daddy’s voice gives me a lot of motivation to learn!”

The other end of the line fell silent for a few seconds before He Yanzhou spoke up again: “Then let’s move on to the next problem.”

He Yanzhou’s logic in explaining the problems was clear, yet extremely concise. Often, a single key step would breeze past a difficult point that Qiao Yan needed to ponder over for half a day.

Qiao Yan had to frequently use various modal particles and questions to mask his own bewilderment.

“Daddy, wait a moment. Why did it suddenly turn into an integral?”

“Huh, what does this symbol mean? I haven’t seen it before.”

“Daddy is explaining so fast~ Little Peach’s little head can’t keep up. Can you explain a tiny bit slower? Just a tiny bit~ I’m begging you, Daddy~”

Qiao Yan’s attention continuously bounced back and forth between understanding the math problems and playing the role of a lolita girl. Paired with the inherent hypnotic magic of Advanced Math itself, Qiao Yan soon lowered his head gradually, growing dazed and drowsy.

“Therefore, the key to this problem lies in constructing an auxiliary function and utilizing Lagrange’s Mean Value Theorem…”

Qiao Yan’s eyelids began to fight, his head nodding up and down. The responses coming through the voice changer became slower and more incoherent.

Qiao Yan’s voice gradually faded, turning into unconscious murmurs: “Mm… construct… mean value… Daddy is right…”

Noticing that something was amiss, He Yanzhou stopped explaining the problem. “Are you still listening?”

The only response he received was the sound of a gradually steady, elongated breathing pattern traveling through the receiver, occasionally punctuated by a sound or two that resembled smacking lips in a dream.

He Yanzhou: “…”

He listened quietly, not hanging up immediately.

After about half a minute, a faint sound resembling a small animal snoring softly even came through the receiver.

Only then did He Yanzhou cleanly cut off the voice call. The phone screen dimmed, reflecting his expressionless face.

Beautiful idiot. The phrase surfaced in his mind once again.

The next morning, Qiao Yan stepped into the Advanced Math classroom right as the bell rang, sporting a cluster of messy hair sticking up.

His final memory from last night was He Yanzhou’s deep voice and Lagrange. When he opened his eyes again, his phone was dead, and he had curled up in his chair until half his body was numb from sleep.

He slipped over to sit beside Cao Jingtong in the back row. Just as he pulled out a crumpled notebook, he overheard a few guys in the front row snickering under their breath.

“Did you hear? Qiao Yan was fired by that coffee shop. Heard he got into a conflict with a customer?”

“Tsk tsk tsk. If you ask me, with that face of Qiao Yan’s, wherever he goes, he’s bound to cause trouble. But now that he doesn’t have the Qiao family backing him up, isn’t he miserable?”

“Hehe, someone like him, aside from that face, what else can he do? Isn’t he just destined to be…” The speaker winked and nudged, making a suggestive gesture. “…kept by someone!”

Qiao Yan heard every single word. His face tightened, and his anger flared. He slapped his pen lightly against the desk and violently kicked the row of chairs in front of him.

“Who are you talking about?”

Hearing the commotion, the guys in the front row turned around to look back. Finding that the person in question was right behind them, they shuddered and didn’t dare to utter another sound.

Cao Jingtong tugged Qiao Yan’s sleeve. “Ignore them. They just have trash mouths.”

Qiao Yan pouted, his chest heaving violently. He wanted nothing more than to give each of them a hard slap across the face, but right then, he saw that Yan had sent him a message.

Yan: I’ll be busy lately and won’t have time to tutor you. You can take some basic online courses.

Why is all the bad luck crashing together at once!

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: Daddy QAQ No!!! Little Peach will definitely study hard, I won’t fall asleep again!

Yan: It has nothing to do with you.

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: QAQ Without Daddy’s help, Little Peach is going to fail the exam, boohoohoohoo

Yan: Then take the makeup exam.

…

How did He Yanzhou’s 37-degree mouth utter such freezing cold words?

Qiao Yan decided to play the pity card.

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: Someone bullied me again today, boohoohoo. They said I’m utterly useless except for being good-looking QAQ. They are all big bad guys!!!

Yan: They aren’t wrong.

???

So you show your true colors right after finishing the suggestive cat-ear photos, huh!!

Qiao Yan furiously slammed his phone onto the desk with a loud clack, causing Cao Jingtong beside him to jolt slightly.

Stealthily holding his phone beneath the desk to show the chat logs to Cao Jingtong, Qiao Yan stomped his feet in anger while whispering, “How can he be like this!”

After reading it, Cao Jingtong reached a conclusion: “The closet pervert type.”

“?”

“Don’t look at how harsh his mouth is,” Cao Jingtong adopted a mysterious look. “Didn’t he get pretty excited when he asked you to take a photo in a cat outfit earlier?”

“You need to strike precisely at his preferences. Didn’t you mention a cat outfit? Just carefully pick an angle for him—one that can showcase your full and voluptuous curves…”

Qiao Yan nearly leaped up in disgust at Cao Jingtong’s words. “Whose curves are full?”

“Just trust me, you can’t go wrong. Men fall hard for this trick. No matter how mean he acts on the surface, maybe he’s already hard in private, hehe.”

Qiao Yan looked expressionless. “How do you know so much? Are you gay?”

“Just listen to me.” Cao Jingtong patted his chest.

Half-believing and half-doubting, Qiao Yan ultimately tapped out a few large characters on the keyboard.

Little Peach Bites Super Hard: Daddy, Little Peach found out that the new cat outfit is so tight QAQ It might not look very good when I wear it. Does Daddy still want to see? (Cat-peeking.jpg)

The other side showed typing, and remained typing for a very long time.

Finally, only a single word was sent over. A slow smirk curled onto Qiao Yan’s lips.

Yan: Look.