The Popular/Charismatic Beta Always Thinks They Are Universally Disliked - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: I Don’t Approve of This Match! When the Wen family…

When the two Wen brothers arrived home, Wen Zhijie was still parking the car but craned his neck out to scout for “enemy” presence. He turned back to Little Wen and reported: “I saw Gu Yansheng’s car. He’s probably already home. Brace yourself and fix your expression, alright?”

Little Wen, in the back seat, unbuckled his seatbelt and sighed wearily: “What must come, will come.”

Wen Zhijie was amused by his dejected expression. Habitually, he reached out to pinch his brother’s cheek a few times but was ruthlessly batted away by Little Wen. He then followed behind him, muttering with a look of resentment.

However, it turned out Little Wen hadn’t prepared enough.

Who could understand the shock when he rang his own doorbell and the person who opened the door was Gu Yansheng, wearing an apron!

The usually suited and immaculately dressed mature beta had opted for a soft linen short-sleeved shirt this time. He looked domestically approachable, gentle, and calm. His handsome, mild face carried his trademark elegant smile, but upon seeing Little Wen, the smile gained a touch of genuine emotion.

Wen Zhijie peeked out from behind his petrified brother. The moment he saw Gu Yansheng, he clicked his tongue in extreme displeasure. Frankly, the scene before him was exactly like a son-in-law visiting and helping out the in-laws in the kitchen. He looked at his exquisite younger brother in front of him, and with a full sense of crisis, he quickly stepped forward, meeting Gu Yansheng’s surprised gaze, and declared:

“Stop staring! I don’t approve.”

Don’t approve of what?

Wen Zhiyi couldn’t shake the feeling that his brother meant, “I don’t approve of this match.” He shivered at his own imagination, pushed Wen Zhijie aside, and walked into the house. He scrutinized Gu Yansheng and chose to remain silent in the face of the other’s composure.

Gu Yansheng was not only composed but even spread his arms to allow Little Wen a better look.

“Don’t approve of what?” Father Wen, sitting in the living room, had heard Wen Zhijie shouting from afar. He took a sip of the tea Gu Yansheng had brewed and called out robustly, “Little Gu came and went straight to the kitchen to help! Aren’t you two just waiting to be fed a ready-made meal?”

Wen Zhijie, who had already changed into slippers, yelled back at his father, “Is Aunt Zhang on a day off today? Why are you two cooking yourselves? I say you should just install an air conditioner in the kitchen; it’ll save the whole house from smelling of cooking fumes every time.”

Father Wen snorted. He beckoned to Wen Zhiyi, who was still staring wide-eyed at Gu Yansheng by the door, signaling for his younger son to sit beside him: “We barely ever cook; why bother with the effort? Your mother insisted on showing off her skills since you’re both home!”

Wen Zhiyi took a deep breath, put on a gentle and obedient smile, and sat down dutifully beside his father. He didn’t forget to inquire about his mother, who was cleaning up in the kitchen: “Is Ms. Zhao still in the kitchen? I’ll go see if she needs any help.”

Mother Wen, walking out of the kitchen while removing her apron, scolded him gently: “You’re clumsy; going into the kitchen to make trouble for me? How many times have you been in the kitchen since you were little? Little Gu has already tidied up for me. You two brothers just wash your hands and get ready to eat!”

Wen Zhiyi replied with an unchanged smile and turned to see Wen Zhijie making a “zipper-on-the-mouth” gesture at him.

He was no longer the Little Wen of his teens, who would talk back ten times for every one thing his parents said. Now, Wen Zhiyi was completely unbothered by his parents’ nagging.

He and Wen Zhijie washed their hands and sat at the dining table, finding that Gu Yansheng had already chosen his seat and was waiting with a smile for him to sit down.

Gu Yansheng was sitting directly opposite Father and Mother Wen. No matter where Little Wen chose, he was destined to sit next to him, only a question of left or right.

Wen Zhiyi had a brief, utterly childish flare of anger: he wanted to kick Gu Yansheng’s chair out from under him and make him fall flat on his face!

“Little Gu is starting at our university next week, right?” Father Wen sipped his wine, making polite small talk. “I remember both you and Little Yi were in… law?”

He tapped his forehead, and after deep thought, finally found the answer: “You haven’t been here in… over five years. When you left, Little Yi was still kicking up a fuss about going to the airport to find you, haha. In the blink of an eye, so many years have passed. You two should catch up.”

In fact, Wen Zhiyi did go to the airport, but Gu Yansheng hadn’t told him the specific flight, and he waited at the security gate all day without seeing him.

Five years later, Wen Zhiyi couldn’t recall what he was thinking back then. He figured he probably wasn’t thinking of keeping Gu Yansheng. He just needed a reason.

Father Wen was a Ph.D. supervisor in Physics at Capital University and currently worked in a national key laboratory within the university. He usually paid little attention to anything outside of work, so it was quite a feat for him to remember Little Wen’s embarrassing moment from five years ago.

Gu Yansheng’s chopsticks paused.

He felt an almost irresistible urge to look at Wen Zhiyi, who was sitting on his right. Once the thought arose, it couldn’t be suppressed, and he did turn to look at the younger Wen, who was quietly eating beside him.

He saw the unchanging smile on Wen Zhiyi’s face, the curve of which was barely different from when he first walked in.

In that instant, he almost felt that the person was made of snow.

Indifferent, cold, and utterly unconcerned.

Wen Zhiyi truly looked like he didn’t care anymore.

An indescribable, subtle pain silently grew in Gu Yansheng’s heart, unlike the teeth-chattering agony when he was forced to flee to a foreign country five years ago. It was like gentle little hands slowly and softly tearing at the heart that had known no peace for five years. Though painful, it was manageable.

Along with Little Wen, he had already lost too much in these five years.

Since he was already empty-handed, no matter which way he went, he wouldn’t lose anything more. Only gain awaited him ahead.

With this thought, Gu Yansheng slowly smiled. He answered Father Wen calmly and gently: “…Yes, the sudden change back then caught everyone by surprise. But now that I’m back in the Capital, I’ll rely on Uncle’s guidance.”

Father Wen waved his hand, raising his glass to clink with Gu Yansheng: “I’ve had a decade-long friendship with your parents; saying that is just being overly polite!”

The Gu family was full of elites. Gu Yansheng’s parents were in academia, and his uncles were in politics, especially the eldest uncle, who held a position that the Wen family couldn’t hope to match. The so-called friendship between the Gu and Wen families was actually just the professional colleague relationship between Father Wen and Gu Yansheng’s parents. The position of a Ph.D. supervisor at Capital University was indeed weighty, but if you threw a brick in their circle, eight out of ten people who fell would be Ph.D. supervisors.

Almost everyone at the table shared an unspoken understanding of the events of five years ago, never mentioning them yet present everywhere. They seemed certain that Wen Zhiyi should be excluded from this fact, believing that no matter how unforgettable, it should all be over after five years.

Thankfully, Wen Zhiyi himself thought the same.

After waiting at the security gate all day, Wen Zhiyi took a taxi home and found Wen Zhijie, who had also been waiting at home all day. The worried elder brother seemed to want to convey a message from Gu Yansheng, but Little Wen, dizzy from a day of hunger, waved him off, choosing to refuse.

Some things, if not said aloud, would forever be meaningless. All he needed was to be told directly, a fact that everyone else knew immediately.

Why did everyone else know immediately, yet no one told him?

He was such a transparent and insignificant person.

Mother Wen, sitting opposite Little Wen and Gu Yansheng, was busy chatting with her eldest son. She used a tone of both blame and pride to meticulously ask about the operations of Wen Zhijie’s company. This small tech company, successfully run with Mother Wen’s help, was the starting point of Wen Zhijie’s career.

Mother Wen herself was an exceptional entrepreneur. Her company had extensive and close cooperation with the lab Father Wen worked at, and the couple even jointly held a significant number of shares. Neither could completely leave the other; even if they divorced, they would still be tied together.

Father Wen was as humorous and talkative as ever. Like every middle-aged male alpha who had a few drinks and a successful career, he warmly urged Gu Yansheng to have a few more with him.

Little Wen also half-heartedly raised his glass but was casually restrained by Father Wen, who remembered that his younger son didn’t like to drink.

Noticing the cold shoulder Wen Zhiyi was receiving at the dinner table, Father Wen glanced at his wife, signaling her not to so blatantly favor their eldest son.

The beautiful and elegant omega tidied a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her beautiful apricot eyes, inherited by Wen Zhiyi, gave her younger son a flat look across the table. She offered a smile and somewhat awkwardly scooped a spoonful of mashed yam for Little Wen.

Little Wen, who was allergic to yam: …

The elder Wen, who liked yam: “…Mom, how many times have I told you, Little Yi is allergic to yam!”

He frantically rushed into the kitchen to get a fresh bowl of rice for his brother, muttering under his breath about his mother’s carelessness. Mother Wen, feeling uncomfortable being complained about, slightly frowned, but she didn’t direct her rising displeasure at Wen Zhijie: “Little Yi, don’t let your brother get you food. Go yourself. What kind of manners are those, having your brother do it?”

The proactively leaping Wen Zhijie clicked his tongue, about to speak, when Gu Yansheng took over the conversation: “I’ll do it, Auntie. I need to get more rice anyway.”

He gave the bowl-poking Little Wen a gentle smile, naturally took his bowl, and walked into the kitchen.

Wen Zhiyi, already used to this, secretly stuck his tongue out at Wen Zhijie and started counting the lines on his palm out of boredom.

When Gu Yansheng returned, the table talk had shifted back to him and Wen Zhiyi. Father and Mother Wen were surprisingly in agreement not to mention their younger son’s failed marriage, probably feeling that this marriage, which started too early and ended too quickly, was quite shameful.

“I remember Little Gu is only two years older than Little Yi, right?” Mother Wen gave Gu Yansheng a kind, amiable smile. No matter her dissatisfaction with the beta Wen Zhiyi, he was still the child she had carried for ten months. She contemplated her younger son’s lifelong happiness and posed a question with clearly obvious intent to Gu Yansheng.

“Little Gu, you probably don’t have a partner yet, do you? Little Yi is just the right age, and you two grew up together. Isn’t that more reliable than those people outside?”

But your son has a husband!!!

Wen Zhijie frantically signaled his mother, Ms. Zhao, trying to remind her that Wen Zhiyi hadn’t divorced yet, and rushing to find the next partner now was highly inappropriate!

Ms. Zhao ignored her eldest son’s gaze and even lightly pinched his thigh under the table, warning him not to bring up Wei Yuzhi in front of Gu Yansheng.

She trusted Gu Yansheng’s steady and reliable character. As a fellow beta, he wouldn’t bully her son.

In this alpha and omega-worshiping society, she absolutely would not be at ease with an alpha as Little Wen’s partner, nor did she support Little Wen’s previous omega partner—Mother Wen herself was an A-class omega, and she understood better than anyone the inherent arrogance and contempt of both AO sexes when dealing with a beta.

After all, she and Father Wen treated Wen Zhiyi with such condescension.

So, in her vision, Little Wen’s best fate was to find a gentle beta who could take care of him.

She didn’t know that Gu Yansheng actually had a history with Wen Zhiyi.

Wen Zhiyi put down his chopsticks, glanced at Gu Yansheng beside him with a half-smile, and quickly answered: “Brother Gu is currently in the ascending phase of his career; where would he find the time to consider such issues?”

The threat in his eyes was self-evident, and the warning was very strong.

Gu Yansheng, facing Little Wen’s gaze, remained calm. He also put down his chopsticks, sat up straight, and said: “I returned to the country this time precisely with this intention.”