After the Most Hated Persona Faked Their Death, the Ex-Husband Lost His Mind - Chapter 14

“An iceberg poseur.” She used five words to summarize exactly who Chu Mingzhang was.

When the class bell rang, every student had already taken their seat, yet Li Zhi’s desk remained conspicuously empty. Gong Jie kept her head down, her hands hidden beneath the desk as she frantically messaged him, “Lychee, class started. Why are you not back yet?”

She waited for a while, but there was no reply. Growing anxious, she turned her head slightly to glance at Chu Mingzhang. “Did you not go to give him water?”

“Lychee?”

Gong Jie’s heart tightened as a series of bad thoughts flashed through her mind. She turned around and lowered her voice to ask Chu Mingzhang, “Where is Li Zhi?”

Chu Mingzhang was focused on his problems and did not even lift his head. “I do not know.”

“Did he not go to give you a drink?” Gong Jie was dying of anxiety. “Where did he go after that?”

“Yes. I do not know.” Chu Mingzhang answered her two questions with five simple words.

His “not my business” attitude nearly made Gong Jie’s head explode with anger. She turned back and rolled her eyes privately, then stood up with her hands braced on the desk. “Teacher, Sean has not returned yet and is not replying to my messages. May I go look for him?”

Since this was a self-study period and the supervision was loose, the teacher gave permission. Gong Jie bolted out of the classroom. She did not even have the patience to wait for the elevator and raced down the stairs, heading toward the basketball court.

Her mind was racing, and she was charging forward so fast that she did not notice someone appearing on the broad road ahead. She could not stop in time and collided with them.

Gong Jie clutched her shoulder, grimacing in pain. “Student, I am sorry. Wait.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Lychee!”

“Why did you not reply to my messages!” She rushed in front of him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Where did you go? Why are you so late for class?”

“Were you not delivering a drink to Chu Mingzhang? Why is he back but you are not?”

The questions fell like a barrage of stones, leaving Li Zhi’s head spinning. He did not know which one to answer first. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her an apologetic smile. “I am sorry. I, um.”

Li Zhi racked his brain for an excuse, but before he could speak, Gong Jie sensed something was off. Her brow furrowed. “You look strange. What happened?”

“Ah, me?” Li Zhi waved his hand. Gong Jie saw him smile again, but it was far too stiff. “I am fine.”

“Let us go. I still have exercises to write,” he said, stepping forward.

He walked so fast that he left Gong Jie behind in seconds, as if he were deliberately avoiding something. From Gong Jie’s perspective, all she could see was the thin, pale nape of his neck exposed as he bowed his head.

The long tips of his hair occasionally brushed against the protruding bone of his neck. His shoulders were slumped inward, a posture that looked like he was suppressing a deep sense of loneliness.

What exactly had happened? Gong Jie was completely in the dark.

She only knew that Li Zhi had changed, especially in his attitude toward Chu Mingzhang. This change became even more obvious in the days that followed.

Li Zhi stopped chasing after Chu Mingzhang. His passion seemed to have been extinguished, just like that bottle of lukewarm Cola.

If his eyes did not still frequently follow Chu Mingzhang’s silhouette, Gong Jie might have believed he had lost interest entirely.

Compared to the current Li Zhi, Gong Jie much preferred the previously shy, visibly happier version. Assuming he was discouraged because Chu Mingzhang had given him the cold shoulder, she tried to comfort him. “That guy just has that kind of personality. Um.”

“An iceberg poseur,” she summarized him in five words.

“Trying to get close to him was never going to be easy. If you really want to interact with him, whether as a friend or, uh,” she paused hesitantly before continuing, “just be thick-skinned and keep following him.”

“It is not like he can call a group of bodyguards to kick you out of school, right?” Gong Jie said dismissively.

“Do what you want to do,” Gong Jie added. “Do not care about what others say about you. It is not important.”

Li Zhi’s lips quirked into a forced, pained smile.

“It is not that I feel I am losing face,” Li Zhi said. He had lost enough face already; he was not going to start acting proud now. “I just feel.”

“A little disappointed.”

Ultimately, it was his own unrequited sentiment. He had foolishly believed he was special to Chu Mingzhang until Han Ziyao’s words woke him up.

“You are sticking pretty close to Chu Mingzhang. I have seen you around here several times. What, do you admire him so much you want to be his lackey? Or.”

Han Ziyao narrowed his eyes, sizing Li Zhi up. The messy long hair, the frail body; a realization dawned on Han Ziyao, making him take a disgusted step back. “Fuck.”

Han Ziyao was strictly straight, and the realization gave him goosebumps. He rubbed his arms, genuinely repulsed. “You freak.”

Li Zhi clenched his fists, his jaw tight. “I have never done anything to provoke you.”

“If you hate me so much, you can stay away from me,” Li Zhi paused, then added, “I do not like you either.”

Han Ziyao raised an eyebrow and let out a cold sneer with his arms crossed. “Ha, you really think highly of yourself. Do not worry, I know you are unhappy with me. But I am not as pathetic as you; I do not crawl toward someone like a dog when I know they do not like me.”

“I only came to give you a reminder, so do not overthink it.” Han Ziyao stretched and prepared to brush past Li Zhi.

Unsurprisingly, Li Zhi stopped him. “What do you mean by that?”

“What do I mean?” Han Ziyao turned back with feigned surprise. “Can you not understand Chinese? I mean.”

“Chu Mingzhang finds you just as repulsive.” Han Ziyao curled his lips into a bright, handsome smile. “Those clothes? He threw them away.”

“Do not remember? Let me help you. I am talking about the clothes you brought to his door that day.”

Han Ziyao’s smile grew wider. “You did not actually think Chu Mingzhang was a good person, did you? You are as stupid as you are pathetic. Did you really think he was some messenger of justice? Did you see him as a hero or Superman?”

Having his hidden feelings exposed brought more sadness than embarrassment, yet Han Ziyao kept going. “Do not be ridiculous. I am telling you, he just simply finds Wang Kaixuan annoying.”

“Instead of imagining he helped you out of pity, you might as well imagine he wanted to make things difficult for Wang Kaixuan because he has a crush on Gong Jie,” Han Ziyao said, thinking himself humorous.

“Bastard, let me tell you something.” Han Ziyao leaned in close to Li Zhi. His voice was quiet, but the words were thunderous to Li Zhi’s ears.

“No one will ever like you.”

How could he not have fantasized? Almost every single time, that person had helped him, solving his troubles like a god and doing the things Li Zhi wanted to do but did not dare.

If Chu Mingzhang had thrown those clothes away right in front of him, it would not have hurt as much as it did now.

The gap between reality and his imagination was too vast. Li Zhi felt his fantasizing self was particularly pathetic. And Han Ziyao’s seemingly joking words had opened a new door for him.

“He has a crush on Gong Jie.”

The facts and the truth were often unexpected yet logical. If that were the case, everything made sense.

Li Zhi always felt Chu Mingzhang was helping him, but he had ignored one thing: Wang Kaixuan had not just clashed with him; he had also clashed with Gong Jie when she stood up for her friend.

So, every time Chu Mingzhang helped, it was not for him, but for Gong Jie.

As for him, he was just a bystander who happened to benefit. Thinking of this, Li Zhi felt humiliated to the extreme.

Li Zhi knew that his feelings for Chu Mingzhang were indeed somewhat difficult to explain. But he had not dared to hope for much; he did not expect to be the one standing by Chu Mingzhang’s side.

If Chu Mingzhang just did not hate him, was willing to acknowledge him, and could say a few words to him, Li Zhi would have been happy enough.

Worse than the idea of Chu Mingzhang liking someone else was the realization that Chu Mingzhang likely loathed him just as much as Han Ziyao did.

Li Zhi did not dare to linger around him anymore.

He did not know how he survived the final month and a half of the semester. Every day felt the same. Li Zhi moved like a walking corpse, and before he realized it, he had packed his bags to go home.

Li Zhi entered the Zhou house with a pounding heart for two reasons.

First, his final grades were not good at all.

Second, there was a fifty percent chance Wang Xiaochun was home today.

Li Zhi’s hands were sweating with fear, terrified that a high-heeled shoe would fly at his face the moment he walked in, but it did not happen.

“Young Master.”

Li Zhi looked up and saw the butler. He gave a slight nod. “Uncle Zhang.”

“Did you not go to the airport?” the butler asked with some surprise.

Li Zhi froze, having no idea what he was talking about. “The airport? Why would I go to the airport?”

“The flight from S City to St. Moritz,” the butler said. “This is an odd-numbered year. The Alpine World Ski Championships start in a week.”

He paused and continued, “The Master must have forgotten in his busy schedule. Please wait a moment, let me call and ask. If they have not taken off yet, I will send someone to take you to the airport immediately.”

Zhou Guoxiong was incredibly wealthy. He might book commercial tickets for business trips, but for vacations, he always used a private jet.

The butler made a move to take out his phone. Li Zhi pressed his hand down and shook his head slightly. “Um, Uncle Zhang, there is no need.”

Li Zhi’s voice was very soft. He gave a self-deprecating smile. Smiling was now Li Zhi’s favorite way to hide embarrassment and sadness. “I do not even know how to ski. Even if I go, I will not understand what is happening.”

“Forget it,” he said. “It is enough if Mom, Dad, and my brother have a good time.”

It was fine without him.

Li Zhi was extra.

He lay on his bed, covering his eyes with his arm. He remembered that at the end of the last winter break, his grades had been a mess. Wang Xiaochun had punished him so severely that his nose bled and he nearly considered jumping off the building. He had been woken up at six in the morning the very next day to do exam papers.

He did not have to do that this year, but why did it feel just as painful as the year before?

Even with his eyes covered, tears still streamed down his cheeks.

“Li Zhi,” he asked himself, “why are you crying?”

Someone was speaking in his ear. It was Han Ziyao. Han Ziyao said, “No one will ever like you.”

Li Zhi himself, just like that bag of clothes, was something that could be easily thrown away.