Your boyfriend is great. He's mine now. - Chapter 8

Xiao Yu was lying by the side of the pool, surrounded by an enticing scene, but he was only flipping through his phone, looking absent-minded.

“Old Xiao, congratulations on escaping the sea of misery.”

Xiao Yu glanced at him, his expression subtly displeased.

Wang Yao looked perfectly nonchalant. “I’m saying this even if you glare at me. I’m happy for you, brother.”

Xiao Yu couldn’t be bothered to respond.

“You’ve been stifled for too long. You don’t understand the joys of being single. Your brothers always think of you whenever there’s something good, but nine out of ten times you don’t show up to our gatherings. You’d tell me you had to sleep at 11:00 PM. Everyone says you were kept on a tight leash by Shen Xubai aren’t you afraid of losing face?”

Xiao Yu thought back to the sweet times from the past two years, which now felt as distant as if they belonged to another century.

His mouth twisted in a joyless grimace, and he tilted his head back to down a large gulp of alcohol. “I was just too good to him in the past, let him get too complacent.”

“More than just ‘good.’ Remember your birthday one year? You drank too much and played a game where the loser had to kiss the person on their right. It was just a peck on the lips everyone else was playing along but Shen Xubai made a huge fuss. Remember how you coaxed him afterward?”

Xiao Yu tried to follow his lead, but the memory felt so remote that he truly had no recollection of it.

“How did I coax him?”

“You forgot? You called him several times, and when he finally answered, you explained everything, argued your case, and talked until your mouth was dry but he still kept playing hard to get.”

Wang Yao cleared his throat, sat up straight, and mimicked the tone Shen Xubai had used back then: “Let’s talk later. I’m at work, hanging up now.”

Wang Yao scoffed. “Look at that emotional stability. Thinking back now, it wasn’t emotional stability at all he just had you completely figured out.”

Xiao Yu’s expression turned increasingly ugly; he remembered it now. They had fought fiercely that time.

Shen Xubai’s eyes had been red with anger, a look so alluring that Xiao Yu had been possessed and kissed him. Shen Xubai had pushed him away in a rage and gone to the bathroom. When he came out, he was cold and indifferent again, but his lips were rubbed raw from washing them.

Wang Yao, operating on the mentality that if you don’t watch your brother make a fool of himself now, when will you?, continued, “You were angry and anxious at the time, so you wrote a long ‘essay’ and sent it to him. I won’t even mention how you looked you were trained like a dog by him.”

Wang Yao was firmly on his brother’s side and believed they should have broken up long ago. Shen Xubai was too high-and-mighty, too pretentious.

Just as he was about to keep persuading him, a voice came from behind, carrying a faint, indiscernible sigh: “Pretty good.”

Wang Yao turned around, surprised. “Young Master Gu?”

Gu Linyuan was dressed in a black shirt and black dress pants, topped with a thin suit jacket, yet he looked so formal that he stood out like a sore thumb, as if he had walked into the wrong venue. He looked like he should be at a conference table battling it out with others, not eavesdropping on people’s conversations behind a pool.

Xiao Yu thought of the morning’s events, his face throbbed with a phantom pain, and he grew even more annoyed.

“What brings Young Master Gu here?”

Gu Linyuan raised an eyebrow. “Not welcome?”

Although he didn’t know what had happened, the atmosphere was inexplicably subtle. Wang Yao immediately smoothed things over. “How could that be? We are honored that Young Master Gu could grace us with his presence.”

“Is that so?”

Gu Linyuan’s expression was lazy and languid as he looked at Xiao Yu with a faint smile.

Xiao Yu met his gaze, his face darkening. Wang Yao didn’t know what was going on, but he knew this guy was not to be messed with, so he nudged Xiao Yu with his elbow.

Xiao Yu didn’t want to make an enemy of the Gu family. He raised his glass, his attitude obedient. “Young Master Gu, welcome.”

Gu Linyuan kept his eyes half-lowered and didn’t move until Xiao Yu’s face turned livid, only then flicking his fingers to clink glasses. A crisp sound rang out, breaking the rigid atmosphere.

Wang Yao smiled apologetically as he watched the other man leave. Xiao Yu downed his champagne in one gulp, his face as gloomy as water.

“Hey, what’s going on? You have a grudge against him?”

“How would I know!”

Xiao Yu was annoyed to death; he had no idea why Gu Linyuan was targeting him. They had never really crossed paths.

“I heard he wasn’t recognized by the Gu family until he was sixteen. He finished junior high and high school in four years, then dropped out during his freshman year of college to go abroad. He only returned two or three months ago, and as soon as he got back, he turned the Gu family upside down. Don’t look at his constant smile this guy is not to be messed with. It’s best to avoid him if you can.”

Xiao Yu sneered. “He’s just an illegitimate child; he’s not worth mentioning.”

“Keep your voice down. Forget it, let’s drink.”

Xiao Yu was coaxed into having a few more drinks, and his mood relaxed a little.

“Look at seven o’clock that figure is nice, looks like fun. And at three o’clock, she’s gorgeous. Old Xiao, look, she’s throwing a wink at you.”

Xiao Yu took a casual glance big eyes, fair skin. Not bad. But while she was beautiful, she lacked that “spirit.”

The person didn’t know what he was thinking and walked up to him boldly. “Young Master Xiao, care for a drink?”

Her voice was cold and clear, which was actually quite nice. Xiao Yu became interested and was about to take a closer look when Lin Jinghe approached with a wine glass, clinging to his side like a boneless noodle and glaring provocatively at the girl.

Seeing Xiao Yu made no move, the girl left sensibly.

“Brother Xiao, I went to change my clothes. Did you wait long?”

Xiao Yu didn’t speak.

Lin Jinghe lowered his eyes, half-aggrieved and half-sorrowful. “Brother Xiao, I know I made you angry this morning, but I didn’t mean to. You don’t know the look Shen Xubai gave me it was like he wanted to kill me. I was so scared at the time, that’s why…”

Is that so?

Shen Xubai had already returned to normal when he came out earlier.

So he wasn’t without emotion?

Shen Xubai was angry because of this he was jealous.

Xiao Yu curled his lips; his terrible mood was relieved. He looked over at Lin Jinghe, whose semi-translucent, milky-white silk shirt made him look pure and harmless.

“You look pretty good.”

Seeing that he had coaxed Xiao Yu back to a good mood, Lin Jinghe breathed a secret sigh of relief. Since Xiao Yu and Shen Xubai had already broken up, he needed to strike while the iron was hot and solidify his status as Xiao Yu’s boyfriend.

He leaned in intimately, breathing against Xiao Yu’s ear, and deliberately softened his tone. “Brother Xiao, tonight…”

“Yo, look who it is it’s the shameless homewrecker!”