The Popular/Charismatic Beta Always Thinks They Are Universally Disliked - Chapter 33

Chapter 33: Unreasonable Love (One) – Wen Family’s Eldest Son is…

The Wen family’s eldest son was an incredibly intelligent Alpha, also handsome and delicate-looking. This was known to everyone around Wen Zhijie from the age of ten, when he formally entered puberty and his gland, the symbol of his secondary gender, gradually developed. True to expectations, he differentiated into an A-class Alpha.

Intense, outstanding pheromones, physical fitness far exceeding the average person, keen and rational thinking ability… The world unfolded before Wen Zhijie like a boundless spider’s web, bit by bit displaying its kindness and beauty. The script of his life seemed destined for a beautiful trajectory.

Every relative, old acquaintance, colleague, and protégé who came to visit Wen Zhijie’s parents would lavish praise upon him. They genuinely praised the perfect product of an elite AO union, and those were the ten years when Mr. Wen and Ms. Zhao’s marriage was the most harmonious. Wen Zhijie was truly bathed in the love of everyone.

Would an A-class Alpha, who grew up amidst praise and love, still face the inevitable tide of adolescent rebellion like ordinary Alphas? Would he inevitably question authority, eager to overthrow other Alphas in the family, and compete with every male creature that appeared in his sight?

The answer was no.

Wen Zhijie remained remarkably composed and calm throughout his entire adolescence. The hormones and pheromones, which changed almost every moment, did not affect him in the slightest. However, the reason for this was not the love and respect he received in the family, but—

His father had an affair.

On the day Ms. Zhao Mingzhu discovered she was pregnant with their second child, which was also Wen Zhijie’s tenth birthday, Mr. Wen’s illicit relationship with his protégé was finally exposed by his wife. The elegant and beautiful Omega hysterically accused the Alpha who had betrayed their marriage, but Mr. Wen responded to his wife’s desperate crying and cursing with silence and disregard.

Wen Zhijie, sitting obediently in front of the cake waiting to blow out the candles, looked up blankly at his suddenly unfamiliar parents.

None of the expected birthday gifts arrived as planned for Wen Zhijie, except for a small, unconscious, embryonic sprout. It quietly remained inside Zhao Mingzhu’s body, facing the wreckage with Wen Zhijie, separated only by its mother’s flesh and blood.

The Wen couple, after smashing all the furniture in the house, went through a prolonged cold war, endless quarrels, and a stage of mutual hostility so intense it felt like they wanted to devour each other’s flesh and blood. In the end, they unexpectedly yet inevitably chose to reconcile, as this was the solution that served everyone’s interests.

Perhaps this child can mend their crumbling marriage; perhaps this child will also be a high-level Alpha or Omega; perhaps they will be as excellent as myself or Xiaojie.

Mr. Wen and Ms. Zhao thought this to themselves on the night they met face-to-face and settled all the terms of their property division.

Thus, Wen Zhiyi came into this world.

By this time, Mr. Wen and Ms. Zhao were no longer as gentle and patient as they had been in the previous decade. They were eager to know this child’s secondary gender, lacking the time or patience to wait for Wen Zhiyi to naturally enter puberty. They effortlessly moved a few fingers, took Wen Zhiyi to the hospital, and, through an analysis of his posterior neck gland tissue sample, artificially revealed which gender the child would differentiate into.

Regrettably, Wen Zhiyi was a Beta. This fact was definitively proven by his gland, which had degenerated to the point of having no possibility of development.

Wen Zhiyi, at the time, did not know that he had disappointed his parents. Like every child born into this world, he was naturally full of curiosity and a desire for exploration, and he discovered the world without knowing what rejection was, and thus, without fearing it.

During his growth, Mr. Wen successfully concealed his disappointment, but Ms. Zhao repeatedly came close to breaking down in the dead of night. She couldn’t understand why all her life’s gambles had succeeded previously, yet she had lost so completely on Wen Zhiyi, and so completely in the meticulously chosen marriage.

Therefore, after Wen Zhiyi made a mistake, she would look at little Wen Zhiyi, grip his small shoulders with both hands, and earnestly tell him: “You are different from your brother. Even if your brother makes a mistake, he has a way out, but you must be cautious, careful, and meticulous.”

At that time, Wen Zhiyi didn’t understand why he was different from his brother. But later, Wen Zhiyi figured it out. He pondered day and night, tossing and turning, finally understanding what Ms. Zhao meant.

Because Wen Zhijie had Zhao Mingzhu’s love no matter what, and because Zhao Mingzhu knew she was incapable of loving Wen Zhiyi in that way.

When parents love their children, they plan for their distant future, but Wen Zhiyi did not have such parents. Should this family break apart again, neither she nor Mr. Wen would exhaust themselves planning for Wen Zhiyi’s future.

She lacked the confidence to love Wen Zhiyi, and at the same time, she understood Mr. Wen better than anyone. So, all she could do was push Wen Zhiyi to rely on himself, to become more cautious, hard-working, and ambitious. Perhaps her education did lead to Wen Zhiyi’s excellence, but it also taught him that unreasonable love does not easily fall upon just anyone.

If the parents who brought him into this world were like this, how much less likely was it for a stranger, who had no reason to love him?

Wen Zhijie, who lived with him in this family, became Wen Zhiyi’s sole source of soft sweetness. He found his benchmark for love; he knew Wen Zhijie loved him, because Wen Zhijie was his older brother, and because Wen Zhijie was also enduring suffering that, while different from his own, was real.

He was ten years younger than Wen Zhijie. This decade was not only the difference in their birth timing but also a decade of gradually depleting parental affection. The hands that brought him into this world were no longer gentle and warm but purposeful and anxious.

Wen Zhijie was utterly contemptuous and deeply resentful of his parents’ act of viewing a baby who understood nothing and could achieve nothing as a life raft to rescue themselves from the abyss. Yet, he too could do nothing but offer Wen Zhiyi a little love.

Because love is not spontaneously generated. For a ten-year-old child, all the love he could give was essentially what he had received from his parents, and he could only wash it clean and pass it on to his younger brother.

Before meeting Gu Yansheng, this was all the love Wen Zhiyi had ever received.

Wen Zhiyi couldn’t remember exactly when it started, but he noticed he could see an “ill-will value” around others. When little Wen Zhiyi went from home to kindergarten and back again, he suddenly realized he could see progress bars on some of his classmates. Of course, they were still very shallow. Little Wen, who had just learned numbers from one to one hundred, counted on his fingers and calculated that the average value was around “ten”.

Smart little Wen Zhiyi did not tell anyone. He had watched cartoons and knew that adults called this kind of situation a “hallucination.”

But it doesn’t seem like a hallucination, does it?

Little Wen Zhiyi, licking a lollipop, refused a fruit hard candy offered by a little girl whose progress bar was at twenty. When he saw her pouting and about to cry, he touched her face, skillfully unwrapped the candy, and placed it by her mouth.

He was sure that these classmates with progress bars were better towards him than they were towards others.

Little Wen once again utilized his knack for deep thought, trying to figure out what these progress bars meant.

He pondered this question while also contemplating what Ms. Zhao Mingzhu had told him, and so he arrived at first grade.

He found the answer to the first question.

Because he met Gu Yansheng.

This boy’s progress bar was higher than everyone else’s, and he was better to him than anyone else.

Little Wen happily introduced his new friend to Big Wen (Wen Zhijie).

The Gu family’s eldest young master, the biological nephew of Jing City’s top official, Gu Jinglin.

Feeling he had found the answer, little Wen blushed and asked Gu Yansheng if he liked him. Why else would he give him all the delicious food and fun toys?

…Delicious food and fun toys?

Gu Yansheng, who three months after meeting Wen Zhiyi had slipped the jade ping’an kou (safety buckle) from his own neck onto Wen Zhiyi’s, smiled.

That ping’an kou had been personally taken by Gu Jinglin to Jingwu Temple to be consecrated with the first incense ash after his birthday, making its value incalculable.

Young Master Gu kissed little Wen’s cheek and said with a smile, “Yes, I like Zhizhi, I like Zhizhi the most, and I only like Zhizhi.”

Wen Zhiyi was seven years old, and Gu Yansheng was nine.

Little Wen put his hand in little Gu’s hand and quietly asked him why he liked himself.

Gu Yansheng thought for a moment, then smiled and said, “No reason.”

Wen Zhiyi believed him. He thought to himself that Ms. Zhao Mingzhu’s words weren’t entirely correct after all.

This “love without a reason” would grow wildly in the years to come into “love without a reason.”

Wen Zhiyi found a second comrade-in-arms for his exploration of the world—that’s right, he used words like “comrade” and “companion” to describe the boy who faced this vast world with him. Countless first times were completed with Gu Yansheng by his side. He lost count of how many times the other boy had cheered him on or solved problems for him.

He only knew that Gu Yansheng was always by his side, constantly saying, “I like Zhizhi the most.”

Gu Yansheng and Wen Zhiyi were both Betas, which gave little Wen a shameful sense of security. He felt that Gu Yansheng was his kind. They could live their whole lives inside the shell they had built together for eleven years. They would drag this shell along as they wandered, traveled, and stayed together, forever and ever.

Until Gu Yansheng was nineteen. With his progress bar long since full, he told Wen Zhiyi, “I love you,” and then cautiously and restrainingly kissed his lips. It was their first, and only, kiss.

Because that year, the Gu family chose the wrong side in a major political alignment.

Gu Yansheng, seen as the Gu family’s successor, had also walked a long and difficult road to overcome the implicit discrimination against Betas from those around him. However, unlike Wen Zhiyi, this long-term, ubiquitous “lack of optimism” had fostered a pride in him that surpassed his age.

He was the best and most perfect in front of everyone, and he certainly had to be so in front of Wen Zhiyi.

He was the childhood sweetheart who loved Zhizhi the most, and the hero who would become omnipotent for Zhizhi.

But what if he wasn’t omnipotent? What if he encountered something beyond his power?

Then he could only leave that shell.

Wen Zhiyi silently accepted this reality.

This was the first time he suspected that the progress bar was actually an ill-will value, a heartbreak value, the “proof of not loving” that would make the other person leave him completely.

Unreasonable love truly does not easily fall upon anyone. He had already lost the most likely source of this kind of love from his parents, and now he began to toss and turn, day and night, thinking about why he could see this progress bar.

He developed a profound doubt about its meaning.