Finally Being Snatched Away at My Wedding by My Ex-Boyfriend - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Playing Possum in the Bedroom

In the rearview mirror, Pei Xing squinted at Zhou Wei.

“Is it funny?”

“…” Zhou Wei lowered his head. “Not funny…”

“Send a message to Sya. Tell her to come back from the venue and ensure no one enters the villa.”

Pei Xing paused. “If the person inside comes out, follow him and contact me immediately.”

Zhou Wei, who had just been scared into silence, was now even more confused. “What?”

Sya was the second assistant. Pei Xing had only brought two assistants on this trip back to China. Zhou Wei, being a recent hire and not yet proficient, instinctively felt like shrinking back at the prospect of handling Pei Xing’s itinerary alone.

After all, he didn’t even know why Pei Xing had hired him.

It couldn’t possibly be because Pei Xing saw him begging his girlfriend over the phone not to break up after his interview and took pity on him, right?

“Which word of what I said do you not understand?” Pei Xing’s face was full of ferocity.

Zhou Wei hurriedly complied, not daring to say another word.

Outside the car window, the sea vanished, replaced by a lifeless jungle of steel. The bustling city was a place countless people flocked to, and Pei Xing was one of them.

He had carried his ambition from a backwater town all the way to San Francisco.

He now possessed everything he once longed for. He thought that by putting on an expensive custom suit and driving a luxury car, he could stand before Su Yuan with composure, looking down from a moral high ground to ask the question everyone who knew their past would ask:

“Do you regret it?”

But the ridiculous thing was, he couldn’t do it at all. The only thing that brought him pleasure was the sight of Su Yuan sitting in the passenger seat, with that touch of determined spoiledness and temper.

At this moment, he even felt a twinge of regret for not answering that one question honestly.

“You… Why did you come?”

It felt as if, had he answered truthfully, Su Yuan would have propped up his chin, smiled at him generously, and said, “I guessed it, you still like me, don’t you?”

He would be stupid enough to nod, and then Su Yuan would laugh and slap him across the face.

Just like a year ago when the Su family went bankrupt. Pei Xing had gathered all the cash he could raise, short of selling the company, put it into a single card, and flown back to find Su Yuan. But Su Yuan, holding a trust fund and wrapped in an expensive vicuña wool coat, had driven away from him in a luxury car.

The wheels splashed roadside sludge, soaking Pei Xing, who was trapped in yet another crumbling autumn.

Truly ridiculous.

No matter what he owned now, in front of Su Yuan, he would always be that poor student.

The vehicle slowed to a stop at the gate of Huaihai University.

He was instantly surrounded by the flashes of reporters’ cameras. School leaders stepped forward. Pei Xing buttoned his suit jacket and shook hands with a smile.

…

The Huaihai University auditorium was packed.

The leaders in the front rows took the lead in applauding. Pei Xing was familiar with those faces. He had once received scholarships from their hands, yet could never knock open those doors to get an answer as to why his scholarship eligibility had been revoked.

Times change, and some things are different now.

The Principal’s speech was meticulously prepared. “Students, today we are deeply honored to welcome back an alumnus who has bridged technology and humanity in Silicon Valley. The company he founded, HB Tech, is redefining the future of human health!”

The Principal looked at Pei Xing with eyes full of admiration.

“He is not only a successful entrepreneur but also the donor of our school’s ‘Xinyuan Fund,’ ensuring that more dreams are no longer trapped by reality. This is worthier of our respect than any commercial success. Now, let us welcome Pei Xing!”

Pei Xing took the stage amidst applause, a sharp and polite smile on his face as he stood at the lectern.

The audience was a sea of black. An occasional flickering spotlight made his mind wander, as if he saw Su Yuan sitting there, just like before, resting his chin on his hands and clapping for him. Even though the noisy environment usually made Su Yuan irritable, he never spared a smile.

Pei Xing lowered his gaze, shaking off the hallucination.

“Thank you, Principal. You flatter me,” he spoke out loud, his voice warm and clear. “Standing here brings back many emotions. It feels as if I’ve just received a scholarship from the school leaders and am considering where to take my boyfriend for dinner tonight.”

Pei Xing froze after saying it.

He had never made a slip-up in any speech or roadshow. Perhaps it was the hallucination from a moment ago, or perhaps it was the fact that Su Yuan was waiting for him in a room ten kilometers away that made him blurt out such a sentence.

In this third year of legalized same-sex marriage, no one found it strange. The romance between Pei Xing and Su Yuan back then was no secret. Pei Xing had always walked through those jealous gazes with composure.

Thus, after a second of silence, the audience erupted in applause and laughter.

“All work and no date makes me a dull boy.”

Pei Xing dissolved the tension with a joke, pushing the opening of the speech to a small climax. Then, he shifted his tone. “It was also that time that made me realize true wealth lies not just in possessing, but in creating.”

He turned to the large screen behind him, and the HeartBird logo slowly appeared.

“Initially, we at HB focused on building a ‘Digital Life Steward’ for every individual, helping patients with chronic conditions like cardiovascular and metabolic diseases record and predict. But now, we aren’t just talking about disease management; we’ve moved from hospital wards to astronaut capsules and submarine cabins into even broader frontiers.”

The two major selling points of the HB roadshow, besides the founder being a young and handsome Eastern man, were the deep collaborations with the FDA and NIH, and a contract with the DoD.

The reporters in the audience naturally wouldn’t miss this opportunity. During the Q&A, a sharp question was immediately thrown out.

“HB’s collaboration with the DoD has sparked widespread concern. How do you view the ethical boundaries of AI’s military application? Will your technology be used to enhance ‘Super Soldiers’?”

The head of the PR department immediately stood up, motioning for the reporter to sit down.

Pei Xing raised his hand to show it was fine and smiled. “I’ve answered this question many times. HB is a tech company, not a biopharmaceutical one. Our military application is purely a full-state sensing system used to detect physiological fatigue and predict trauma stress reactions. It is not a Super Soldier serum.”

“Has HB ever tried it?”

This simple question seemed to stump Pei Xing. The smile at the corners of his mouth faded slightly. “If there were a concoction that could maintain health once and for all, HB would definitely be the first to develop it.”

Pei Xing looked away. In his peripheral vision, Su Yuan’s face so pale it was nearly transparent appeared in the seating area again. His fingers gripped the edge of the lectern tightly.

He rarely had moments of distraction, but he realized he was currently unfit to accept questions under the limelight. It felt as if those two words were hovering at the tip of his tongue, ready to be spoken at the wrong time.

“‘Xinxin’ is reportedly the nickname of Senior Pei’s ex-boyfriend. Is there a connection between that and the company name, HeartBird?”

The camera shutters flickered in Pei Xing’s dark eyes. In that instant, countless days and nights flashed before him like film uncatchable, yet the image automatically froze on Su Yuan’s face.

“The heart is a vital organ of the human body; it is a bird that cannot land.” Pei Xing raised his hand and pointed to another student. “Next question.”

“Senior, did you encounter any crises in the early stages of your startup? How did you pull through?”

“I was relatively lucky. I secured the first investment quickly during the seed round. After releasing the beta version, we got a partnership order with a pharmaceutical company and Series A funding. But unfortunately, high computing costs and a long R&D cycle burned through the funds, and our new investors were hesitating. So, I made a decision…”

Someone in the audience added: “You opened a limited free trial!”

“Yes,” Pei Xing curled his lips. “Soon, we received a $1 million donation on the website from an ID named Mr. Macpherson. It helped us survive that difficult time.”

“I would like to sincerely thank Mr. Macpherson here. I hope he is healthy and that everything goes according to his wishes.”

…

Pei Xing stepped off the stage amidst applause. He drank the water his assistant handed him, but his brow twitched as he looked at the sparkling water in his hand and put it back.

Jiang Wen, the Dean of the Computer Science Department at Huaihai University, walked toward him with a smile. “Ah-Xing, as expected, you can do anything.”

“Teacher,” Pei Xing extended his hand. “Long time no see. I should call you Dean now.”

Jiang Wen shook his hand. “Thanks to you. If you hadn’t gone abroad back then, I wouldn’t be sitting in this Dean’s chair given my seniority.”

The smile on Pei Xing’s face didn’t last long. He replied, “I didn’t actually need that study abroad slot.”

“But you have to admit, if you and…” Jiang Wen adjusted his glasses, “you wouldn’t have gone abroad, would you?”

That question received no answer.

Jiang Wen froze for a second, then patted Pei Xing’s shoulder. “I heard he got married. That’s good. You two young people were meant to walk your own paths anyway.”

A person as beautiful and unrealistically romantic as Su Yuan, and someone like them who was belittled for their background and had to fight to survive in a big city they were never meant to be together. That was what Jiang Wen really wanted to say.

The reunion between teacher and student wasn’t as joyous as imagined. Instead, it was one person desperately looking for topics while the other gave a few perfunctory responses before getting up to say goodbye.

Pei Xing walked along the familiar paths of Huaihai University. Small golden flowers covered the ground, making one hesitant to step on them.

Zhou Wei watched Pei Xing stop and sighed, “There are so many osmanthus flowers.”

“Those are Flamegold flowers.”

After Pei Xing said that, he told Zhou Wei to go back to the car first. He took out his phone and dialed his second assistant.

“Did he leave?” …… “Did he eat?” …… “Good.”

Su Yuan had not left the villa.

He had eaten some fruit and was sitting on the living room carpet, sending an email to a regular overseas buyer.

SYuan: Hello Mr. Percy. I apologize for not bringing you any new works for a while due to personal reasons. Thank you for your consistent support. Here is information on my recent pieces. If there is anything you like, please let me know. Wishing you a warm autumn.

In Huaicheng and even within the country no one would buy a painting with his signature. The jobs he could do were very limited.

Su Yuan had used many pseudonyms to sell paintings on domestic websites. At first, many buyers inquired, but later, for some reason, they all went silent after reading his messages.

Mr. Percy overseas was one of Su Yuan’s few stable sources of income.

After sending the email, Su Yuan went back to the room to take his medicine. Only when he pushed open the bedroom door did he realize this was the hotel Pei Xing had booked; the bedroom was full of Pei Xing’s daily necessities.

Su Yuan sat on the sofa with his legs tucked in, surveying the villa again.

Pei Xing had truly become a very impressive adult.

This made him very happy.

They had never stayed in such a nice hotel before.

Back then, they hadn’t moved in together yet. Su Yuan’s credit card couldn’t leave a record of hotel stays. Other than bringing Pei Xing home under the guise of being a friend, they could only stay in hotels.

A four-star hotel was poor in Su Yuan’s eyes, but it was the best Pei Xing could afford. Once Su Yuan found out, he refused to stay in them anymore. So, Pei Xing started an internship and participated in various competitions to win prize money.

Then, they had their first home.

What was Pei Xing’s home like now?

The sound of a card swiping came from the hotel door. Su Yuan quickly slipped back into the bedroom.

Pei Xing pushed the door open. He glanced at the lonely pair of slippers by the sofa, picked them up, and went to the bedroom.

The person on the bed had half his face buried in the pillow. The blanket was pulled up high, with only his nose exposed. Pei Xing set the slippers down, washed his hands, took a pillow from the walk-in closet, and gently lifted Su Yuan’s head to prop it up a bit higher.

Su Yuan’s eyelashes trembled.

Pei Xing let go of the door handle and crossed his arms. “Su Xinxin, no playing possum.”