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HOYSE CHAPTER 14
Chapter 14 – He Found Him
Even if Xie Ling’s request sounded strange, Zhou Xiang knew their President Xie was not a normal man. He watched Xie Ling extend a lean forearm, took a breath, and pinched hard.
It hurt. Not a dream.
Xie Ling’s face did not change, only his eyes flickered with shock. He casually waved off the trailing project manager, approved funds, and filled the hole the second brother had blown in the books. After a glance toward the hall, he fetched a thin plush throw from his private lounge and stepped out.
He had once looked forward to a new little brother. The blood-related second brother had never welcomed him. Their mother died early, and their father drowned himself in a mistress. Xie Ling had hoped for the arrival of little Rong Jing. Maybe from the very first meeting, when he saw that panic and dread in the boy’s eyes, their fate as non-brothers was set. So it went. Ten years of drifting apart until they were strangers.
Xie Ling moved lightly, draping the blanket over Rong Jing. Cocooned in the soft pile, the kid did not look cold or aloof at all. Xie Ling’s expression turned complicated.
This kind of calm felt almost unreal.
Rong Jing had gotten up early. Now he was truly sleepy.
Half his face sank into the sofa cushion. He sensed nothing of the world. The ceiling’s white light washed him, and sleep put a faint flush on his cheeks. Dense lashes cast a soft fringe of shadow. That quiet, cool aura he usually wore faded by degrees. The sofa was not big. His long legs, trapped in casual trousers, had to fold into an awkward gap. His brows knit.
Xie Ling nudged the coffee table aside so his legs could stretch, then had Zhou Xiang dim the lights. He studied the sleeping face a moment longer and murmured, “The kid really is a little different.”
Zhou Xiang asked, “Do you prefer the young master from before or the one now?”
Xie Ling did not answer directly. They were both his brother. What was there to compare?
Still…
“If he were the old Rong Jing, I might never have seen this day.”
Rong Jing woke slowly. He always needed a few minutes after waking when everything he did ran in slow motion.
The room lights were off. Only a slant of late sun fell through the window and wrapped the sharp man working at the desk in dusk, stretching his shadow long and solitary.
Rong Jing lay still and watched, blank-eyed, until his mind floated back.
Maybe sensing he was awake, the man came over and said, cool as ever, “You fall asleep and don’t know how to use a blanket?” He pulled the throw off Rong Jing and handed it to Zhou Xiang.
Zhou Xiang made the call immediately, notifying the styling team that had been waiting downstairs to come up and fit the brothers on the spot so they could head to the banquet.
Rong Jing checked the time. They were close to late. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Xie Ling did not admit he had not wanted to disturb him. “I am busy. Who has time to manage you.”
Rong Jing remembered all the lights blazing before he slept. Now the room was dim, and Xie Ling had kept working in that half-dark. His eyes stung. Warmth rose in his chest until it almost spilled.
“Thank you, big brother.”
Xie Ling saw that faint sadness, the look of a small animal seeking shelter. He had never seen Rong Jing without all his needles. His gaze softened. He ruffled the messy hair. “If you call me big brother, skip the nonsense.”
Rong Jing smiled. See, you use words like knives. People misunderstand you so easily.
The styling team arrived with the bespoke wardrobe. Xie Ling was choosing.
The way he selected clothes was like going to war, sharp and serious, tense enough to infect the staff. Only Rong Jing wore a light smile. He had landed in a strange world and lost his family and friends, yet heaven was compensating him in another way.
Xie Ling held up a black suit with clean lines, pressed to perfection without a single ripple. “You wear this.”
“I bought one myself,” Rong Jing said.
One glance from Xie Ling: do you want me to throw you out, or throw you out with that suit.
Every time Rong Jing spent real time with him, he understood better why the original had feared his big brother. It was not for nothing. He genuinely worried Xie Ling would die lonely with a personality like that.
After choosing for Rong Jing, Xie Ling hesitated over his own. His hand went to the usual black, then jerked away when he remembered being called old-fashioned. He swerved and took a khaki set.
“Fits like it was tailored,” Rong Jing said, surprised.
“Coincidence,” Xie Ling replied.
“Oh.” I did not say you had it made.
The two suits were the same line with different colors, both peaked lapels for a refined formal look. The one Rong Jing had bought was notched, more casual.
Watching his little brother in the suit he had ordered long ago, Xie Ling’s face eased.
Every year he commissioned a new set. He finally got to give one away.
He settled into the car, satisfied, and when Rong Jing climbed in after, he said, “Now you look like a person.”
“…,” Rong Jing thought.
Brother, try saying things nicely.
The Xie family’s banquet celebrated the
traditionally symbolized by tin to represent durability
and flexibility in a lasting marriage. tin anniversary
Guests streamed in. Everyone needed an invitation and was allowed only one companion.
By the time they arrived, most guests were already there. Xie Ling’s distinctive face drew a small crowd as soon as he crossed the threshold. Warm greetings, and congratulations for his father’s tin anniversary. Everyone knew him as the first heir, thirty-three and already credited with a string of brilliant acquisitions, the diamond standard of successors and ideal sons-in-law.
Rong Jing was naturally invisible. The original had never appeared publicly. People only knew there was a little young master, a “drag-along” from Madam Xie’s side, but few had seen him.
He did not like these scenes anyway. Scanning the room, he spotted what might be a familiar figure. At the long table, a youth gnawing on cake and whispering into his phone, utterly oblivious to the world, looked suspiciously like Ji Leping from school. The distance and lighting made it hard to be sure. The guy did feel even more out of place than Rong Jing did.
He did not see Han Lianmei. Since the banquet had not officially begun, she was likely in makeup.
Thinking of facing the original’s mother, who knew him best and could rip through his cover at any moment, made his heartbeat pick up.
Xie Ling was tied down by the crowd and had no time for him. Rong Jing quietly lowered his presence, showed his face for form’s sake, then slipped out. He walked the stone path set in green, guided by soft lamps while gnats swirled around the light. The scent of cut grass filled his lungs. He breathed easier.
He had not gone far when cruel laughter floated over. He remembered a spread of pools beyond this point with different functions. The second young master, this body’s second brother, loved to bring people here for “fun.” The second brother himself was not in sight. A group of young men and women, probably guests, were. Some could not handle banquet etiquette, so house staff led them here to blow off steam.
Blue light skimmed five rippling pools. Umbrellas dotted the terraces between them. The young people danced and flirted at the edge. Threaded through the music: a broken, pained groan. A yellow-haired Alpha, bare-chested and in swim trunks, had hold of a slender but not fragile boy by the hair and was forcing his head underwater. The boy wore a server’s uniform. He had clearly been yanked here by force.
The yellow-haired yanked him up only when he was about to pass out, then shoved him under again. Over and over. The surrounding youth, drunk on money and pleasure, acted like they saw nothing. A moment’s laugh, then their eyes slid away.
Wu Fuyu lounged on a chaise, men and women teasing around him. He was still rhapsodizing about the supreme Omega scent he had caught at Maya Plaza. When he reached for a cigarette, an Omega with sense lit it for him.
Wu Fuyu’s eyes went hazy with memory. “You have no idea how intoxicating that scent was. I nearly went down hard.”
Laughter rolled. “Describe it, Crown Prince. Come on.”
At that moment, the boy’s head went fully under again. Wu Fuyu was about to caution the yellow-haired idiot not to push it, death at a tin anniversary would be an ugly headline, when he stopped joking.
Behind Yellow Hair stood a man in a black suit, polished from head to toe. Wu Fuyu saw his face and shot upright, eyes bugging. He did not even feel the ash drop onto his thigh.
Rong Jing stood behind the oblivious punk like an envoy from hell.
He hoisted the guy by the collar and kicked him straight into the pool, then pulled the half-drowned server out. Water streamed from the boy’s nose and mouth. He coughed until his chest heaved and sagged weakly against Rong Jing’s chest. Rong Jing asked, low and gentle, “Are you alright?”
Yellow Hair hit the water and a wall of spray drenched several revelers.
Everything stopped. They stared, stunned, at the uninvited man.
Elsewhere, Xie Ling had noticed his little brother’s absence and sent Zhou Xiang to find him, lest someone bully him while he was away. Zhou Xiang searched the grounds and finally spotted Rong Jing by the pools. Before clocking the rest, he saw their young master kick a yellow-haired kid into the water.
President Xie, it appears the young master will not be bullied.
He will be doing the bullying.
At that very moment, Wu Fuyu sprang off his chair and, spotting Zhou Xiang jogging up, jabbed a finger at Rong Jing and roared, “Zhou Xiang, it’s him!”
F*** his luck. He had worn his shoes out hunting and the bastard delivered himself to the door.
Zhou Xiang needed a beat to process what Wu Fuyu meant. Then the excellent assistant connected the dots.
Ah. The young master was your Godzilla?
Everyone’s eyes were on Rong Jing and Wu Fuyu. No one noticed the boy in Rong Jing’s arms. The kid’s eyes fluttered open. Through the blur, he stared up at Rong Jing.
He had risked everything to sneak in, and before he could reach his target, a pack of spoiled heirs had grabbed him. He had almost blown his cover. His odds had gone from about 79.9999% to almost 99.9999%.
He had found the man.
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