PTS Chapter 15

TL: Hua

Chapter 15

Shen Qianci had originally planned to map out how a substitute and a sugar daddy ought to spend their first weekend together.

To his surprise, the moment dinner was served on the table, work found its way to them.

Just as he and Qin Guanyu picked up their chopsticks, Qin Guanyu’s phone rang. Shen Qianci noticed that the moment the man saw the caller ID, his entire face twisted into an expression of sheer annoyance.

“Just started eating. What’s up?”

“I’m not going.”

“If it’s about business, you can come discuss it at my office!”

“Tsk, I said no.”

“Fine, fine, fine… Then remember to tell the butler not to prepare any spicy dishes tomorrow night.”

Once he hung up, Shen Qianci asked in curiosity, “What’s wrong? Why such a sour face? Did your ‘male-period’ just call?”

Qin Guanyu irritably picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks. “Accompany me out tomorrow night.”

“Where to?”

“My dad’s place.”

Shen Qianci’s chopsticks paused. “Taking a substitute to meet the parents?”

“No…” Qin Guanyu looked as though he had swallowed a fly. “Even if I were really taking someone to meet the parents, there’s no way I’d let you meet my dad first.”

“Is your relationship with your dad that bad?” Shen Qianci found this quite unexpected. “Qing Nong is…”

“Qing Nong doesn’t belong to my dad. It belongs to my maternal grandfather’s family.” Qin Guanyu arched his eyebrows, sporting a smug expression that clearly said Aha, I caught you red-handed.

“Teacher Shen, what’s going on here? It’s already been a week, and your understanding of your sugar daddy is still so severely lacking.”

Yet Shen Qianci was still processing the shock. “So your dad married into…”

“He did not marry into the family.” Qin Guanyu nearly choked with laughter. “If my dad and stepmother heard you say that, they probably wouldn’t sleep well for three whole days.”

Through Qin Guanyu’s explanation, Shen Qianci finally learned that by a strange twist of fate, both parents of this young, overbearing CEO shared the surname Qin.

“Qing Nong” was the business of Qin Guanyu’s maternal grandfather, a century-old heritage brand in the pastry and baked goods industry. Now that it had entered the modern era, the heavy burden had fallen squarely onto Qin Guanyu’s shoulders.

“My dad’s company makes cameras. You’ve probably heard of ‘Xi Chen,’ right?”

Shen Qianci had certainly heard of it. The cameras produced by that company had sold incredibly well back in the era before smartphones took off; they were both affordable and portable.

He remembered that when he was a child, his family owned two of them. Almost all the childhood photos his parents took of him came from a Xi Chen camera.

“President Qin, then you truly are a second-generation wealthy heir without a single drop of exaggeration.”

Remembering what Qin Guanyu had said before, he couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity, “Then why did you say you weren’t well-off during your time studying abroad?”

“At that time, ‘Qing Nong’ was facing a major crisis. My mother had already passed away by then, and my older sister is involved in cutting-edge scientific research. She’s unreachable for over three hundred days a year, so she was even less capable of helping with business matters. The entire company relied solely on my grandfather and his original partners to hold things together,” Qin Guanyu said. “I felt too guilty to cause any more trouble for my grandfather, so I could only grit my teeth and live frugally.”

“What about your dad?” Shen Qianci sorted out the timeline, feeling even more perplexed. “Even though Xi Chen has started declining over the past couple of years, during the years you were studying abroad, he should have easily been able to ensure you finished your studies in absolute comfort, right?”

Qin Guanyu let out a disdainful chuckle. “He wanted to help, sure. But he and my mother divorced when I was three years old. His new wife guards against me as if I were a thief. How could she possibly allow my dad to spend money on my education abroad?”

“Your dad is the man in charge of Xi Chen. If he wanted to secretly give you money, your stepmother wouldn’t even be able to find out.”

“To prevent exactly what you just described from happening, she straight-up slit her wrists,” Qin Guanyu scoffed. “The knife had barely gone in for less than half a minute before she was rushed to the hospital. Once there, she threw a massive tantrum for days. In the end, my dad completely lost his nerve and never dared to give me any financial assistance ever again.”

“That stepmother even paid two of my university classmates to spy on me. They had to report my financial status every single week. The moment there was any sign of affluence, she would launch an investigation into my dad.”

Shen Qianci was utterly amazed. His personal stereotype of wealthy, elite families was that “they easily breed eccentrics,” but he hadn’t expected to come face-to-face with the personification of that stereotype tomorrow.

“Then how did you cover your tuition while studying abroad?” As Shen Qianci spoke, a trace of admiration surfaced in his eyes. “A full scholarship?”

“Nope.” Qin Guanyu leaned back lazily against his chair, uttering two words with an air of profound mystery: “Sold myself.”

The admiration in Shen Qianci’s eyes vanished in a single second, replaced by utter speechlessness. “As your spiritual substitute, my monthly salary is two million. May I ask how much your monthly salary was since you actually surrendered your physical flesh? Go ahead, say it and give me a good scare.”

“Teacher Shen, what is wrong with you?” Qin Guanyu teased. “You’re a teacher! Right now, you should be giving me an earnest, moral lecture. Why are you asking about my monthly salary instead?”

“How many years has it been? Is my lecturing right now going to miraculously restore your vanished virginity?”

Shen Qianci gave his arm a playful swat. “Alright, let’s talk seriously. How did you actually scrape together your tuition back then?”

Qin Guanyu: “I worked a summer job.”

“What kind of summer job pays that highly?” Shen Qianci instantly perked up. “Care to share your wealth-building secrets with Teacher Shen?”

If it truly was a viable path to riches, he would go discuss it with Li Dapeng later to see if they could replicate the overbearing CEO’s successful experience. That way, once the substitute agreement expired in the future, he would still have a lucrative income stream. His miserable, bird-brained friend Comrade Li Dapeng wouldn’t have to sit by his potted green onions every day, miserably plucking them while muttering, “To sell my body, to not sell my body, to sell my body…”

“I’m not telling you.”

Little President Qin rejected the request for a success seminar, his cheeks flushing with a bizarre tint of crimson. “Anyway, it was a perfectly clean and respectable job. You are strictly forbidden from asking any further.”

“Hmph, stingy.” Shen Qianci hummed, tapping the head of the steamed sea bass with his serving chopsticks.

Qin Guanyu: “…”

—

On Saturday evening, Qin Guanyu drove Shen Qianci toward his biological father’s villa.

Along the way, Shen Qianci suddenly remarked, “Your dad’s company is currently on a downward slide. He couldn’t possibly be inviting you over for dinner this time just to beg for a partnership, could he?”

“Why couldn’t he?” Qin Guanyu said. “Did you think he invited me over to perform a heartwarming show of fatherly love and filial piety?”

“But Qing Nong’s primary products are traditional pastries while he’s selling cameras. What common ground does he share with Qing Nong?”

Qin Guanyu smiled. “Oh, Teacher Shen, what you just said is exactly what our decision-making executive board said. Stop guessing. He is absolutely begging for a partnership; he already brought it up once before to Sun Guanqing and the marketing department.”

Since it concerned another company’s private affairs, it wasn’t right for Shen Qianci to say too much based on assumptions. Instead, he asked, “Since he’s the one begging for a partnership, your stepmother shouldn’t suddenly fly into a rage and beat the two of us up, right?”

Qin Guanyu laughed. “What are you afraid of? The two of us are robust young adults in our twenties. Do you think we can’t take two middle-aged-to-elderly folks in a fight? Besides, her retirement pension comes out of your social security funds anyway, and she even looks down on that amount, calling it measly pennies that aren’t even enough to cover one of her afternoon teas.”

“…” Shen Qianci’s fists grew rock-hard. “The way you put it makes me feel pumped up.”

When the car pulled up in front of Qin Guanyu’s father’s villa, the front gate remained shut for a long time without opening.

“A display of authority right off the bat, President Qin.” Teacher Shen sighed. “It looks like there’s a high probability your stepmother is going to throw down with you tonight.”

Qin Guanyu called his father, and as soon as the call was answered, he blurted out, “Dad, you invited me over for dinner, so this dinner means being turned away?”

He praised from the bottom of his heart, “Old President Qin, you’ve really got it going for you. As an old-school overbearing CEO, not only are you a master at drawing up pie-in-the-sky promises, but you also brew an incredibly rich bowl of cold-shoulder soup. I’m starting to suspect you personally made the baby food for my two stepbrothers when they were kids.”

Hearing his sarcastic tirade, and before his biological father could even get a word in, Shen Qianci hung up the phone.

Teacher Shen was quite surprised. “Won’t your dad join forces with your stepmother for a round of parental tag-team punishment after this?”

“He won’t.” Qin Guanyu was highly confident. “Times have changed. Right now, he’s the one begging me for a favor, plus I’m in the right. He wouldn’t dare put on his arrogant patriarch act to lecture me.”

Right then, the front gate slowly slid open. The butler ran over, completely out of breath, and guided them down to the underground garage.

After getting out of the car, the two went to the trunk to grab the gifts. Shen Qianci quietly asked Qin Guanyu, “So, what exactly is my identity tonight?”

Just then, the butler, Uncle Li, walked up with a smile, greeting them while helping to carry half of the gifts.

While waiting for the elevator to take them up to the villa, Shen Qianci leaned in closer to Qin Guanyu and asked again, “I’m asking you, what exactly is my identity tonight?”

Qin Guanyu wrestled with the thought for a split second. As the elevator doors opened, he made up his mind and replied, “Boyfriend.”

A sly, charming curve formed on Shen Qianci’s rosy lips. As he walked into the elevator side-by-side with Qin Guanyu, he naturally intertwined his fingers with the hand hanging at Qin Guanyu’s side.

The sensation of their fingers interlocking sent a jolt straight through Qin Guanyu. The soft, warm touch and unfamiliar experience made his heart feel like it was riding an elevator itself; the sudden sense of weightlessness on the left side of his chest made him hallucinate a loud thump, sending his blood racing and causing the tips of his ears to burn hot.

Shen Qianci watched the shifts in his expression with great amusement. However, the pure-hearted Little President Qin stood rigidly straight, staring dead ahead, not daring to turn his head to look at him.

The moment the elevator came to a halt, Shen Qianci suddenly leaned in close, his nose lightly brushing past Qin Guanyu’s burning earlobe.

The subtle touch and the faint, teasing chuckle by his ear made Qin Guanyu feel a current of electricity shoot from his spine straight to his scalp, leaving him entirely numb.

As he walked out of the elevator holding hands with Shen Qianci, Little President Qin, who had previously looked like a man ready to march onto a battlefield, completely lost his mind. Pointing at his own biological father, he opened his mouth and uttered a shocking, earth-shattering sentence: “This is my son.”

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