Chapter 12 The Domineering CEO

The unexpected answer made Qingran think for a moment before she understood what the other person was asking.

When Yu Xiuhong asked Yan Chen about his answer, "I came to see my friend," what was it?

He turned his head in surprise to look at the man's expression.

The man lowered his eyes as he poured water without looking at him.

Qingran narrowed her eyes: "Hmm, am I wrong?"

Yan Chen suddenly looked up.

Qingran tilted her head, looking quite relaxed.

The two locked eyes.

Yan Chen asked in a deep voice, "Are we just friends?"

Qingran smiled, propping her head up with her hand: "That depends on what Achen thinks."

“Of course not,” Yan Chen said decisively.

He frowned slightly, not understanding why Qingran wouldn't give a direct answer.

They had already reached an agreement on this issue, and Qingran had even considered breaking up with him...

Is it because he didn't provide enough security?

The man forced himself to relax, sat down on the stool next to him, and tried to express his thoughts calmly.

"I could understand the netizens' comments last time, but what's the reason this time? Don't you want to acknowledge our relationship publicly?"

If that's really the case... Yan Chen could actually accept it.

Public opinion is a powerful force, and sexual minorities are naturally subject to criticism and discussion from the outside world. It is only natural for Qingran, who is young, to be afraid and try to avoid it.

only……

The man lowered his eyes, his thick eyelashes casting a shadow on his eyelids, making him look somewhat melancholy.

"No, that's not it," Qingran denied immediately.

He casually and without any hesitation said, "At first, it was because my relationship with Yu Xiuhong was so-so, and I didn't want to talk about it anymore. Then I heard her asking all sorts of questions, even though she thought she had covered it up very well."

Yan Chen could tell that their relationship was just so-so.

"As for what happened later, it was because I found Ah Chen's reaction funny." He readily admitted that he was just teasing people.

Yan Chen frowned and looked at him: "What's so fun about it?"

Qingran used her gaze to trace the man's expression at this moment, and answered irrelevantly, "Because you don't know how charming you are every time you helplessly admit that you're falling in love."

"Is Ah Chen blaming me?" he asked, feigning grievance after explaining.

How is this any different from indirectly admitting that you are attracted to someone?

Yan Chen could no longer recall what he had been concerned about, especially since he hadn't meant to blame anyone.

She picked up the water and took a sip to moisten her dry throat, saying, "Don't do that again, it's easy to cause misunderstandings."

He thought Qingran minded.

Qingran: "A misunderstanding?"

She got up and went behind the man, her body went limp and she leaned over his back to peck at his cheek, asking between kisses, "But I just want Ah Chen to misunderstand, what should I do?"

Yan Chen: "..."

After a long pause, he muttered to himself: "A perverse sense of humor."

Then, his head tilted slightly, and a peck kiss landed on his lips.

The two exchanged a kiss intimately, and when the kiss ended, Qingran had already sat down in the man's lap from behind.

Yan Chen gently stroked his lover's flushed cheeks, which were red from emotion: "The person who just came..."

With her head resting on the man's neck, Qingran lazily hummed in agreement: "According to seniority, she's my fourth sister-in-law. She's the one who notified me to send the gift money."

Just let them come; please don't bring any gifts.

This statement should be interpreted in reverse; what it actually means is: one doesn't have to come, but a gift must be sent.

Otherwise, why would someone who's too lazy to even meet during holidays take the initiative to make this trip and waste time playing the emotional card?

Yan Chen understood this as well, and asked him, "Do you want to go?"

Qingran replied without hesitation, "I'm not going."

He has no karmic debt to the original owner, so he can act as he pleases and there is no need to force himself to do things he is not interested in.

But then he remembered what Xiuhong had said: the wedding was to be held at their own home.

The humans he raised were from prestigious families and probably had never experienced an open-air feast held in the countryside.

Will that handsome, icy face show any signs of embarrassment or discomfort? Just thinking about it makes it something to look forward to.

After pretending to think for a moment, he reluctantly changed his mind and said, "Never mind, I'll still go."

Yan Chen: "I'll go with you."

"That's natural."

Her matter-of-fact attitude warmed the man's eyes.

What Yan Chen really wanted to ask was about the woman's words, "not a member of the Zhou family." After a moment's hesitation, he asked, "Qingran, you—"

"Are you asking if I was adopted?" Qingran asked first.

Yan Chen turned his head and kissed his lover's forehead, then said, "Yes, but you don't have to say it if you feel uncomfortable."

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about; I was indeed adopted.”

At this point, Qingran simply mentioned the original owner's background: "I was probably abandoned after I was weaned, and my adoptive father was named Zhou Dagen."

Speaking of Zhou Dagen, Qingran felt that his experiences were even more tragic than those of the original owner of this body.

The family consists of four brothers. Their parents passed away early, and Zhou Dagen is the eldest brother. Therefore, before their parents passed away, they entrusted him with the responsibility of taking care of his younger brothers.

Zhou Dagen was an honest man. He did whatever his parents told him to do. He worked hard like an ox in the fields to raise his three younger brothers and help them get married and start their own families.

He thought his suffering would finally be over, but a high fever damaged Zhou Dagen's brain, leaving him mentally dull and unable to think straight, completely extinguishing any thought of marriage and starting a family.

One person supporting three brothers is enough to make people hesitate, let alone now that he's lost his mind?

No woman was interested in Zhou Dagen, so his three younger brothers all vied for him.

Although Zhou Dagen was slow-witted, he was very obedient, never complained about hardship or fatigue, and was a good worker.

So the three brothers took turns raising him, until one day Zhou Dagen finished his work and brought back a baby who had just been weaned.

He insisted on raising the child, but his three brothers, who had become fathers and whose sons were all married, strongly opposed it.

So Zhou Dagen, who was holding the child and refusing to let go, was helplessly driven out of the house by the three brothers on the grounds that he was "acting on a whim" and "couldn't be persuaded." In the end, he came to a dilapidated house deep in Butterfly Mountain.

That year, Zhou Dagen was 53 years old, and the little child was the original Zhou Qingran.

Since she could remember, Zhou Qingran had been ridiculed and bullied by her peers because she had a mentally challenged adoptive father.

As a result, he developed a gloomy and insecure personality, and had no friends from childhood to adulthood except for Wang Lei.

Even so, he never complained about having an unusual adoptive father.

Therefore, Qingran can roughly understand his thoughts regarding the choices he made in the face of Yan Chen in the story.

"...The woman who came earlier was named Yu Xiuhong. She was the daughter-in-law of my adoptive father's youngest brother. She had just married into the family when I was adopted."

After a long silence, she looked up and asked Qingran, "Are you pitying me?"

Yan Chen tightened his arms around his waist: "Uncle, he..."

Qingran: "He passed away three months ago. The bedroom next door was the room he slept in before he died."

No wonder Qingran said there was only one bedroom.

Yan Chen pressed his lips against his forehead: "Are you sad?"

Qingran: "Are you asking about my adoptive father's death or my origins?"

Yan Chen: "Yes, we have both."

Qingran: "The feelings from the past have faded now. I've long since let go of them, so you don't need to feel sorry for me." Her tone was very calm.

In a way, his background is quite similar to that of the original owner of this body.

Zhou Qingran was abandoned, and Qingran herself was almost the same.

Before cultivating to the point where she could trace her bloodline, Qingran always thought of herself as just an ordinary wild animal that had luckily gained sentience in the mountains.

In fact, that's not wrong; if you don't have intelligence, aren't you just a wild animal?

Later, tracing his bloodline and finding his blood relatives, he learned that he was a pure descendant of the demon race.

His birth was due to the most common occurrence of a one-night stand in the demon realm, and his birth benefited from the difficulty of having offspring among the demon race with cultivation.

Although pregnancy is difficult, the snake clan has always had multiple births in one pregnancy, and Qingran has seven siblings in her womb.

He alone was born ignorant, his mind undeveloped.

So he was naturally thrown away.

Zhou Qingran was adopted by Zhou Dagen. He wasn't so lucky back then. Before he developed his intelligence and his cultivation was low, he was often hunted and killed by natural enemies and predators.

Looking back now, it feels like a lifetime ago.

*

Zhou Jianming's wedding banquet was scheduled for Wednesday, which happened to be the deadline for Yan Chen to submit his second manuscript.

However, there's no need to rush either way; the appointed time is still a few days away.

The next day, just as the phone had said, Qingran went down the mountain early and waited for Wang Lei on the road at the foot of the mountain.

Yan Chen wanted to go in his place, but he refused. Now he was standing alone by the roadside with a flashlight, chatting with the system to pass the time.

[Host, Lei Zi is here!] The system excitedly reminded him shortly afterward.

The system still has a good impression of Lei Zi, who gives the host money when the host is broke.

Sure enough, accompanied by an increasingly deep rumble, a beam of orange-yellow light pierced the dark sky and headed straight for them.

"Old Zhou!"

Wang Lei shouted as soon as he saw the figure in the distance, and then his motorcycle sped up and came to a stop in front of Qing Ran.

He turned off the gas, flipped out of the car with a flourish, tossed his hair and struck a pose: "How about it, handsome or not!"

Qingran: "...Achen is more handsome."

Wang Lei rolled his eyes: "Whose side are you on, Zhou Qingran? Is he even as close to us as we are as online friends?"

Qingran ignored him: "Do you want to park your motorcycle somewhere else? If not, we're leaving."

"...Then let's find a more secluded spot."

These days, there are plenty of petty thieves. If you just leave your car on the side of the road and don't let it get away, it'll be gone in less than an hour.

This is his dad's car!

He rode his bike into the lush grass at the foot of the mountain, picked some grass leaves to cover the bike, and then followed Qingran with a bag of steamed buns and fried dough sticks.

"How about that, brother? Pretty good, huh? I left before dawn and still remembered to bring you breakfast."

He pulled out a large meat bun and started eating: "By the way, has your online friend left yet?"

He gestured for Qingran to eat as well.

Qingran doesn't like eating while walking, so she politely declined, saying, "No."

Wang Lei immediately looked relieved: "Luckily, I was smart enough to buy an extra one."

When he set off, Lao Zhou had no signal in the mountains and couldn't even make a phone call to ask.

It took half an hour to walk.

After finishing breakfast, Wang Lei, feeling parched, regretted not buying a few bags of soy milk to quench his thirst. He asked breathlessly, "Hey Lao Zhou, is your home really deep in the mountains? We've been walking for so long and we still haven't arrived."

"You think I'm joking?"

"No, no, I wouldn't dare."

He's let it go; he's truly forgiven Old Zhou for refusing to take him home to play in the past.

"Phew, how much longer until we get home?"

Qingran: "At your pace, it will take another half an hour."

Wang Lei's vision went black.

In the end, Wang Lei was practically dragged home by Qing Ran, hanging on her arm.

When Yan Chen came out after hearing the commotion, Qing Ran was looking down on the person clinging to her shoulder: "With your stamina, you think you can pick mushrooms?"

“That’s different. Can the allure of rushing on the road be the same as the allure of finding money?” Wang Lei replied without hesitation.

Catching his breath, he stood up straight, one hand still resting on Qingran's shoulder.

Upon seeing Yan Chen under the eaves, he raised his hand to greet him: "We meet again, brother."

Yan Chen nodded and approached, extending his right hand: "Hello, let's get to know each other formally. I'm Yan Chen, Qing Ran's boyfriend."

Wang Lei stared blankly at the person in front of him. The man was tall and had a cold expression, showing no sign of joking.

His mouth gradually opened wider: "...Huh?"

No, I greeted you, and then you suddenly dropped a bombshell?

A note from the author:

Yan Chen: Who are the netizens?

Wang Lei: I am the clown.