After the Most Hated Persona Faked Their Death, the Ex-Husband Lost His Mind - Chapter 20

All kinds of gazes were cast upon him. The magnificent chandelier hanging above reflected brilliant white spots of light, dizzying and erratic like snowflakes, merging into a mountain of snow.

If not for the hand gripping his own, Li Zhi thought he certainly would have fled in terror.

The once-anonymous Li Zhi suddenly received the treatment of a protagonist; the crowd parted instinctively to make a path.

Chu Mingzhang led him to the very end, where a couple stood. Both the man and woman possessed top-tier looks. Judging by their faces alone, one could not guess their ages.

They seemed to have a very good relationship. The woman naturally linked arms with the man, her body leaning lightly against him, while the man inclined his side toward her. Looking at the woman, Li Zhi found her features somewhat familiar.

She seemed to be Chu Mingzhang’s mother.

A second later, Chu Mingzhang’s words confirmed Li Zhi’s suspicion. Chu Mingzhang addressed the woman as “Mom” and the man beside her as “Dad.”

“Happy birthday, Mingzhang,” Chu Hua said with a smile, placing a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Mom prepared a gift for you. Want to go take a look?”

Chu Mingzhang curled his lip slightly. “It is probably another painting. In that case, I do not think there is much to see.”

These words were somewhat disrespectful to his mother, but Chu Hua’s smile remained unchanged. She did not mind Chu Mingzhang’s dampening of the mood. She brushed her fingers and shifted her gaze to Li Zhi, who stood diagonally behind Chu Mingzhang.

“And this is?”

“Li Zhi,” Chu Mingzhang said. “My friend.”

Friend. Li Zhi had not expected Chu Mingzhang to place him in such a position. For a moment, he felt both excited and apprehensive. Meanwhile, Chu Hua’s gaze swept over Li Zhi once more, subtly and discreetly.

“Oh, I know,” Chu Hua said with a smile, the curve of her lips graceful. “You are the child from the Zhou family.”

“Hello, Li Zhi. This is the first time Mingzhang has brought a friend, other than his childhood friends, before his father and me. Come to think of it, is this our first time meeting? You look very much like your mother.”

“Your father and brother do not seem to have arrived yet. Why did you not come with them?”

She was beautiful and her voice was soft, yet Li Zhi felt inexplicably uneasy. He felt that her words were not as simple as they appeared on the surface. It felt as if a silver needle was pricking him through a thick quilt, faint yet persistent, making him very uncomfortable.

“I called him here; I wanted him to keep me company first,” Chu Mingzhang answered his mother on Li Zhi’s behalf. “Is there a problem?”

Chu Hua lowered her eyes and gave a light chuckle. “Of course there is no problem. You are welcome to attend Mingzhang’s birthday banquet.”

“Your grandmother should be arriving soon. Mingzhang, go fetch her, alright?” At this point, Xu Zonghai, Chu Mingzhang’s father, who had been silent until now, finally spoke.

Chu Mingzhang nodded and led Li Zhi back toward the exit. From beginning to end, Chu Mingzhang had gripped Li Zhi’s wrist without letting go, so Li Zhi could only follow him.

However, as they walked out, Li Zhi continued to feel uneasy. Driven by some inexplicable impulse, he glanced back and happened to meet Chu Hua’s gaze.

Perhaps because she stood on higher ground, her look toward Li Zhi naturally carried a hint of scrutiny. Yet she was smiling. In stark contrast to that smile were her eyes, pitch black and devoid of any warmth.

There was only one word Li Zhi could use to describe that look: Contempt.

The hair on Li Zhi’s neck suddenly stood on end.

“Ha! Ha!” Li Zhi woke up abruptly, sat up in bed, and clutched his chest, his heart still pounding with lingering fear.

Perhaps because he had just woken up and his mind was still muddled, Li Zhi could not distinguish whether the erratic beating of his heart was due to the excitement of attending such a banquet or because of that final look in his dream.

As he brushed his teeth, Li Zhi looked at himself in the mirror. Over a week had passed since Chu Mingzhang’s birthday banquet, and school had already been back in session for a few days. The details of that night had become blurred, making it hard to separate dream from reality.

Li Zhi spat out the white foam with a “wah,” wiped his face, picked up his bag, and walked out of the dormitory.

From the moment he stepped out of the building, countless people turned their heads to look at him. Although the number of onlookers had decreased compared to the first two days of the semester, the attention still made Li Zhi very uncomfortable.

Li Zhi stood by Chu Mingzhang’s dormitory building. Less than five minutes later, Chu Mingzhang came downstairs. Noticing Li Zhi standing in the shade of a tree, he stepped down the stairs and walked toward him. “How long have you been waiting?”

“Not long, just a few minutes,” Li Zhi replied.

Chu Mingzhang nodded. “You do not need to come too early. If you wake up early and cannot sleep, you can come up to find me or go to the dining hall for breakfast first.”

The reason Chu Mingzhang said this was that on the first day Li Zhi waited for him, he had arrived a full hour early.

Fortunately, the morning sun was not too harsh, so Li Zhi had only broken a sweat and did not suffer from heatstroke. Chu Mingzhang had bought him an iced soda. Seeing Li Zhi look as if he wanted to finish the drink in one gulp, he said, “Li Zhi, you are a very strange person.”

He added, “Do not wait for me next time. Just show up on time.”

Chu Mingzhang was never late, but he would not arrive early either. Yet Li Zhi still maintained the habit of arriving a bit ahead of schedule. Chu Mingzhang would then ask how long he had waited, and the subsequent conversation felt like the unchanging opening of a television drama; it happened every time.

The two walked toward the teaching building, one following closely behind the other. Just before stepping into the classroom, Chu Mingzhang suddenly turned around. “After the final equestrian class today, do not leave. Come find me once you have changed your clothes.”

Li Zhi realized, “Are there plans for tonight?”

Chu Mingzhang remained silent, which served as a tacit confirmation.

Li Zhi did not ask what they were going to do. In short, whatever Chu Mingzhang wanted him to do, he would follow suit. Between him and Chu Mingzhang, they were less like friends and more like a boss and his lackey.

But being a lackey was also fine! As a lackey, he could rightfully stick by Chu Mingzhang’s side with a valid reason to be attentive. Moreover, for some reason, the attitude of his classmates toward him had changed significantly since the start of this semester.

It was not just because of the reshuffling of classes. To stay by Chu Mingzhang’s side, Li Zhi had chosen the standard Gaokao track just like him. Some classmates had left, and new ones had arrived.

Regardless of whether they were old or new, they were all much kinder to Li Zhi than before.

They no longer avoided him. Sometimes they would even take the initiative to talk to him. During a golf class, a boy even came over of his own accord to correct his posture.

After Li Zhi made the correction, the boy remained standing there. Li Zhi looked at him with some confusion. Perhaps because the weather was too hot, the boy’s face was somewhat red. When Li Zhi’s gaze fell upon him, he looked away uneasily.

The boy scratched the back of his neck. “Um, are you free after school today?”

“Is something wrong?”

“I wanted, I wanted to invite you, to go to”

“I am sorry, classmate,” Li Zhi interrupted him. “I probably do not have time.”

“But thank you for teaching me anyway.”

The direct rejection made the boy’s face turn slightly pale, but Li Zhi’s subsequent thanks brought some color back to his features. “Oh, that is, that does not matter. If there is anything you do not know, you can always ask me.”

Li Zhi glanced at him with some surprise. He had reason to be surprised; he remembered correctly that this boy was once one of Wang Kaixuan’s followers. Although he had not been involved in the incident at the badminton hall, the participants of which, except for Han Ziyao, had been successively expelled, there had certainly been minor instances of bullying.

Malicious words like “trash,” “bastard,” or “hermaphrodite” had definitely been said before.

“I will not trouble you,” Li Zhi said. “I can ask Brother Mingzhang.”

“Brother Mingzhang,” this was Li Zhi’s new way of addressing Chu Mingzhang after taking on the role of “lackey.” This address carried ten percent admiration and ninety percent respect. Strictly speaking, Chu Mingzhang was two months younger than him.

But what did that matter? Just like in the movie “Young and Dangerous,” where Chen Haonan was the boss of Causeway Bay and his subordinates called him “Brother Nan,” did every one of those subordinates have to be younger than him?

Between a boss and his subordinate, age was never the deciding factor.

It was not just the boys; even the girls had become much more welcoming toward him. Gong Jie’s female friends, who used to treat him as if he were invisible, now took the initiative to talk to him: “Li Zhi, these are cranberry cookies I baked today.”

Flattered, Li Zhi took a small piece from the bag. The girl asked with a blooming smile, “Do they taste good?”

“They are delicious,” Li Zhi said truthfully.

The next morning, a beautifully packaged bag of cookies appeared on Li Zhi’s desk. Gong Jie sat beside him with an intriguing smile. To her surprise, after looking at the bag for a while, Li Zhi actually picked it up to place it on the desk behind him, Chu Mingzhang’s desk.

Gong Jie’s smile vanished. She widened her eyes and intercepted Li Zhi’s movement. “What are you doing?”

“Giving it to Brother Mingzhang.”

“Are you crazy? Why give it to him? Hey, this was given to you. How can you take a gift meant for you and give it to”

“Wait.” Li Zhi realized something was off. He widened his eyes in surprise. “Was this for me?”

“Who else would it be for?!”

“Ah, I thought” Li Zhi lowered his head and gave an embarrassed smile. “I thought she wanted me to test the taste. If it was good, she wanted me to help her give it to Chu Mingzhang.”

Chu Mingzhang was famously cold and aloof. The only ones slightly close to him were Han Ziyao and Zhou Baiyu; now, Li Zhi could barely count as one too.

Those two young masters were hard to approach, but he, the lackey, was easy to talk to. Did such plots not exist in movies and shows? A girl would use a little lackey to deliver gifts to her crush and so on.

At that moment, Li Zhi had an epiphany; the change in his classmates’ attitudes over these days was very likely due to Chu Mingzhang. He had become Chu Mingzhang’s subordinate, which was naturally a very cool thing.

So many people were flattering Chu Mingzhang openly and secretly, and now they were flattering him by extension. Of course, Li Zhi had to constantly remind himself not to lose sight of his place. He had to be clear in his heart exactly because of whom these changes were happening.

He did not share these thoughts with Gong Jie, but she seemed to have guessed some of it. She looked at him with her mouth slightly open for a long time before she spoke.

She said, “Li Zhi, you are simply the biggest fool of all fools.”

Li Zhi felt that this was not quite right. What did she mean by “the biggest fool of all fools”? Although his reactions were often a bit slow, he felt he was being quite clear-headed about this matter.

“If you do not want to eat them, give them to me!” Gong Jie indignantly snatched the bag back and started crunching on the cookies, as if venting her frustration. “Li Zhi, oh Li Zhi, you are so stupid.”

“Why do you always think that way? Do you not know that you” Gong Jie caught a glimpse of Li Zhi by chance and paused for a second. She stopped biting the cookie and stiffly smoothed her hair.

Li Zhi was unaware of these hidden undercurrents. He looked at Gong Jie with some worry, thinking that since Gong Jie was so repulsed by Chu Mingzhang, what was his Brother Mingzhang going to do about his youthful feelings? Since he was now a subordinate, he had to say a few good words for his boss.

So, Li Zhi said to her, “Do not blame me for thinking that way. It is normal to give things to Chu Mingzhang; giving them to me is the exception. Think about it: Chu Mingzhang knows everything, does everything well, and has the looks and family background”

Li Zhi’s intention was to speak well of Chu Mingzhang to adjust her view of him. Little did he expect that in Gong Jie’s eyes, these words tasted entirely different. “Enough, enough! In your eyes, everything about him is good! You, did he drug you or something?”

After being lectured once again, Li Zhi pursed his lips and organized his riding gear to leave the classroom for the final equestrian class. He still remembered Chu Mingzhang’s words from this morning. Li Zhi was looking forward to what would happen after school; he was absent-minded throughout the class and almost fell off his horse. It was only because Chu Mingzhang rushed over in time to support him that he stayed on.

After finally making it to the end, Li Zhi hurriedly washed up and changed his clothes to go find Chu Mingzhang, who had also finished grooming himself. Li Zhi followed behind him, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He could not help but ask, “Brother Mingzhang, tonight, is it just the two of us?”

Chu Mingzhang suddenly stopped. He narrowed his eyes, looking at the two figures walking toward them in the distance. He said, “No.”

“Han Ziyao and your brother are here too.”