Why Hasn't the Villain Big Shot Broken Off the Engagement Yet? - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Mr. Nice Guy”

On the bright yellow bench, a boy holding a shabby plush toy stared unblinkingly at the center of the lawn. His eyes were watery, and tears were dropping patter-patter like golden beans.

But soon, he was attracted by the scene in front of him.

He had never seen such a beautiful person, who seemed to have a layer of warm, fuzzy light around his body.

Dazzling and warm.

Today was the orphanage’s long-awaited open day. The boy had been here for a year, and it had been exactly a year since the day he agreed upon with his mother.

In fact, the boy knew in his heart that that day would never come, but he still stubbornly sat here, hoping that one day when he looked up, he would see his mother, whom he could barely remember.

In order to attract the little baby’s attention, Jiang Zhi sat behind a white piano and began to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” the song his mother had taught him when he first started learning music.

The cheerful notes drifted over the orphanage. A few dozen seconds later, the boy indeed stopped crying and stared unblinkingly at the hands jumping back and forth on the piano.

This pair of hands was slender and fair, bony and beautiful—a pair of hands perfectly suited for playing the piano.

The owner of the hands was wearing a co-branded white T-shirt with a wide neckline, revealing delicate collarbones and a dazzling section of his neck, which gleamed white under the sunlight.

Seeing the boy staring at him without blinking for a moment, Jiang Zhi tilted his chin toward him, his light-colored eyes rippling with a smile, “Want to come and try?”

The boy blinked, and a teardrop fell immediately after, looking like a lost little puppy.

Jiang Zhi’s heart stirred. He picked the child up from the bench and placed him on his lap to sit, completely unbothered that his pure white T-shirt was smudged with a large patch of dirty black grease.

“What should we play? How about Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?”

Jiang Zhi’s large hand pressed down on the small hand. A few somewhat hesitant notes slowly drifted from the piano keys. The boy blinked, as if he had accidentally stumbled into a new world, sitting in Jiang Zhi’s arms as if he had forgotten the fact that he was abandoned.

Several orphanage staff members were somewhat surprised. Although this child usually did not cry or make a fuss, he was the most stubborn child here. He would sit immovably on this bench waiting for someone, staying like this for a whole year.

Yet today, he was easily picked up by a man he was meeting for the first time.

“This person is just too good-looking,” a girl couldn’t help but take out her phone upon seeing this. “It’s a pity if he doesn’t debut [in the entertainment industry].”

“With this kind of talent, going into the entertainment industry would be the real pity.” An older person nearby, however, did not think highly of idols; those who relied on their faces for a living usually didn’t last long.

“Dream on. I heard he is an artist. The entertainment industry is such a foul and chaotic place; going there would be so distressing. Idols collapse every year, and nowadays, those who go in to step on sewing machines [go to prison] could form a whole soccer team.”

“Exactly, and at a glance, you can tell he’s from a high-gate wealthy family. His demeanor and cultivation are completely different.”

“Jiang Zhi is so patient with children, he’s just a bit aloof.” A colleague from the same volunteer team as Jiang Zhi couldn’t help but express emotion upon seeing this. “However, it’s hard to imagine that he would actually like children. The scene is as visually pleasing as a movie clip. If we could turn this segment into a promotional video for the volunteer team, we wouldn’t have to worry about recruitment this year.”

“…You’re thinking too much. Public figures like Jiang Zhi care a lot about their portrait rights. How could a small, obscure team like ours afford to use it?”

Everyone was talking one after another, but Jiang Zhi acted as if he didn’t hear them at all, focusing entirely on coaxing the little baby to play the piano and sing.

This companionship lasted for the whole day.

Before leaving in the afternoon, he went to the principal’s office and specially set up an account for Xiao Yu, so that even without a mother’s love, he could still grow up smoothly into adulthood.

The volunteer team leader invited Jiang Zhi to join them for a gathering dinner as usual, while several girls behind him were winking and making faces, silently watching the drama.

Who didn’t know what the leader’s intentions were? For the past month, he had either been treating him to dinner or trying every means possible to assign the two of them together, giving the rest of them absolutely no chance to get close to Jiang Zhi.

Unfortunately, Jiang Zhi himself had never responded from beginning to end, and he basically never participated in their collective activities.

“I’m not going, I have something to do later,” Jiang Zhi said coldly.

“It’s already late evening, what kind of arrangements could you possibly have?” Zhao Fei’s face looked a bit unseemly. This was not the first time Jiang Zhi had rejected him. He was just a piano player, who was nobler than whom?

Everyone came here just to gild their resumes; in this volunteer team, no one had ever dared to disrespect him like this.

Jiang Zhi couldn’t be bothered to explain. This person’s eyes that always hovered over his body, along with the incoming blast of cheap perfume, made him extremely uncomfortable. Staying for even one more moment would be torturing himself.

“The night is still long, why can’t there be arrangements?” Jiang Zhi glanced at the several girls behind him, his smiling eyes curling up slightly, “I’m sorry, I have a date with a beauty today. Everyone have fun playing.”

“…What?” The other party froze, completely not expecting Jiang Zhi to answer this way. He looked clean and pure, not at all like someone who would be infatuated with physical beauty.

Jiang Zhi didn’t look at him again, though he indeed hadn’t lied. He was going to meet a legendary great beauty.

But this beauty was not that kind of beauty. As everyone knew, Jiang Zhi’s sexual orientation was toward men. The beauty naturally referred to a male, and this beauty in his words was not only outstanding in appearance, but also his fiancé in name.

Even more so, he was the absolute grand villain in his heart.

A month ago, Jiang Zhi was in a minor car accident. Not a single drop of blood was shed in the accident, but it caused him to fall into a deep sleep for three whole days.

During these three days, he had a long, long dream. He dreamed that he was merely a supporting character in a book. The supporting character itself wasn’t scary; what was scary was that he was a foil cannon fodder who did all kinds of bad things to the protagonists.

The ending was tragic. Not only did he end up destitute on the streets himself, but he also dragged the Jiang family into bankruptcy, his older brother died in an accident, and his parents were wrongfully imprisoned.

Witnessing his own actions in the dream, Jiang Zhi’s heart turned cold.

Since childhood, he had been pampered by his parents and doted on by his brother. He was born to receive the best education in the country. A few years ago, he was admitted to a top-tier global institution to study music, and was fortunate enough to be taken under the wing of the famous musician Nolan.

Now, he was also praised within the industry as a rising star in classical music. His future might not be described as brilliantly starry, but it was certainly bright.

Why on earth would he become so loathsome?

Jiang Zhi did not consider himself some living Buddha or a saint, but he couldn’t stand fighting and killing either. After waking up, he couldn’t believe it no matter what.

Unfortunately, at this time, the major characters in the book had already surfaced one by one. Aside from his own status as cannon fodder, the two protagonists were both people he knew, leaving him no choice but to believe it.

According to the plotline of the story, this was a sweet and satisfying Danmei [Boys’ Love] novel. The two protagonists were his legendary arch-rival Ye Yanxi, and the movie king Gan Shize, whom he had just met a while ago.

The Jiang Zhi in the book fell in love with Gan Shize at first sight. After finding out about the ambiguous relationship between Ye Yanxi and Gan Shize, he kept proactively provoking them.

Regrettably, Ye Yanxi’s protagonist halo was too powerful. Even with Jiang Zhi’s status as a favored son of heaven, he wasn’t spared a single glance by Gan Shize. Unfortunately, the Jiang Zhi in the book still couldn’t see the situation clearly. Under the premise of having a marriage engagement, he deliberately tried to get closer through schemes, even abandoning the classical music he had studied for many years to enter the entertainment industry to become some obscure idol.

Snatching resources, putting on diva airs, slapping people across the face over the slightest disagreement, and even… drugging Ye Yanxi’s wine, and bribing the martial arts director on the film set in an attempt to drive the other party to his death.

Jiang Zhi meticulously compared the plot in the book with real life one by one. Aside from the fact that the protagonists’ names were the same as in his current world, what made him feel the most lingering fear was his love at first sight for Gan Shize.

Thinking back to the scene when he met Gan Shize at the airport upon returning to the country not long ago, he had to admit that he indeed harbored an interest in him. The other party had a good family background, strong capabilities, and an excellent appearance; he was also the newly crowned international movie king, receiving cheers wherever he went.

No one would dislike such a person.

Not long ago, he had even put it into action. They collaborated once for a brand event, and another time for a New Year’s Eve gala.

These details all indicated that his life trajectory had begun to overlap with what was written in the book.

According to the details in the book, after the two protagonists got engaged, Jiang Zhi’s obsession transformed from love for Gan Shize into hatred for Ye Yanxi. At first, he didn’t have much power, until the grand villain Fu Yunting appeared.

The Fu family had deep roots in Yun City. Coupled with Fu Yunting’s swift and resolute methods after taking over the group, it added fuel to Jiang Zhi’s subsequent arrogance, and his sanity began to gradually spiral out of control, subsequently becoming entirely irrepressible.

Thinking up to this point, Jiang Zhi pressed down on the lingering fear in his heart.

If the previous actions were just minor squabbles, after getting engaged to Fu Yunting, he officially became a blood-sucking parasite eroding both families. He not only caused the destruction of the Jiang family and the loss of their lives, but Fu Yunting also indirectly died under Gan Shize’s forces.

The book only had a few short lines regarding the final ending of the two of them: because Jiang Zhi committed countless evil deeds, and because Fu Yunting was drowned in beauty and lost his sanity, they deserved to be consumed by the backlash.

Looking at the whole text, he and Fu Yunting were simply the villainous foil counterparts to the two protagonists. One pair was harmonious and beautiful, while the other pair was miserable and wretched, without even a shred of affection between them. This was also the standard fate of foil counterparts in all similar novels.

But Jiang Zhi was not a paper character; he was a living, breathing human being.

With such a life trajectory, it was impossible for him to remain indifferent.

After weighing his options back and forth, he felt that the top priority was to turn passive into active, and absolutely never allow this foil relationship to be established.

But tricks of fate played out. He had stayed at home in a daze for a week, and as soon as he came out of seclusion, he discovered that the matter between him and Fu Yunting had already been settled by both families, though not even a shadow of the engagement banquet mentioned in the book could be seen.

And that ruthless, inhumane marriage partner Fu Yunting, who was rumored to control more than half of Yun City’s illici [chains of interest/underworld networks], had not even shown his face a single time.

Over the past month, as long as Jiang Zhi had free time, he would appear at major charitable occasions. He wanted to use this to remind himself not to cross the bottom line, and not to cast moral human relations to the back of his mind.

But even so, what was meant to come would always come.

He rubbed his temples, thinking about how to break today’s deadlock while driving.

During a red light, catching sight of a couple who were still violently fighting on the roadside regardless of the grand scene of the evening rush hour, Jiang Zhi’s eyes flickered. This might actually be a method.

Upon arriving at the hotel entrance, just as Jiang Zhi got out of the car, a man who looked like a bodyguard hurried over to the front of the car. He guessed the other party’s identity.

“…Mr. Fu’s person?”

The other party froze, and it took several seconds before he could utter a word.

The license plate was correct, but this person in front of him… made him feel quite stunned. For a marriage partner whose engagement banquet was omitted, everyone thought it would be some terrible, dissolute second-generation heir, but they didn’t expect him to be such a clean and cool youth.

“President Fu has already arrived for half an hour, and is just waiting for you.”

Jiang Zhi cast his eyes down to look at the white T-shirt and casual pants on his body that he hadn’t had time to change out of. Originally, he had asked the servants at home to send over a suitable formal suit, but now it seemed there was no need for it.

If he could make the other party proactively dislike him, it wouldn’t be a bad thing either.

“Let’s go.”

The staff member turned left and right, leading them from the first floor straight to the rooftop restaurant. Arriving at the door, the staff member automatically stopped, “After you, please.”

Jiang Zhi swept a glance at him and checked the time once more. Exactly 7:40 PM. He was late by a full forty minutes.

Fu Yunting was famously cold and unsparing of face in Yun City.

It was said that just yesterday he kicked out a relative of the Fu family. This relative was Fu Yunting’s biological eldest uncle. In terms of close and distant relations, he could completely be considered cold-blooded, heartless, and placing righteousness above family.

Treating his own family member like this, what about him, a fiancé who had no close connection whatsoever?

Thinking up to this point, Jiang Zhi omitted the step of knocking on the door and pushed it open directly to enter.

This was the private room with the best view in the rooftop restaurant. Not only that, on one side there was also a small marine corridor. Because the designer was ingenious, at first glance it felt like being personally present in an aquarium, very beautiful.

And the person who could leverage his life trajectory was sitting at the very front of the corridor.

The other party was wearing a standard custom-made three-piece suit. His shoulders were upright, his waist was lean, and his clothes-rack-like physique perfectly presented the well-tailored sense of streamlined flow.

Jiang Zhi was born into the Jiang family. Since childhood, he had often followed Father Jiang to the company and accompanied Mother Jiang to various high-society banquets, and when he grew older, he lived long-term in Europe. He could be said to have met countless people, yet this was the first time he had seen someone so suited to wearing formal wear.

Not only that, perched on the bridge of the other party’s nose was a pair of refined silver-wire glasses. The style of the glasses was ordinary—in Jiang Zhi’s view, it was a style he would absolutely never buy—but placed on this person’s face, it looked exceptionally fashionable.

This was that Fu Yunting who committed all kinds of evil deeds? The Fu Yunting rumored to master countless illicit industries in Yun City?

Jiang Zhi seriously looked at this superior face. The brows and eyes were deep, the bridge of the nose was high and straight, and as a pair of thin lips parted slightly, a smile leisurely floated up.

He pursed his lips. This person unexpectedly did not carry a single shred of impatience.

At this very moment, Jiang Zhi even suspected whether he had mistaken something over the past month? Looking at his appearance, the other party was gentle, refined, mild in temperament, and patient. No matter how one looked at him, he seemed like a nice guy.

Suddenly, a touch of regret pressed between Jiang Zhi’s brows.

Tsk, if it weren’t for the fact that this person might become a criminal offender in the future, tonight might have been a romantic evening.