ALL NOVEL Chapter 23
The gymnasium was packed with fans, their cheers and shouts blending into a sea of excitement, with a few voices rising above the noise now and then.
After the performance, Gu Mingyan and Gu Mingzhi met Gu Mingxu backstage.
As soon as they saw him, Gu Mingzhi showered Gu Mingxu with praise, barely holding back. He complimented him without reserve, exaggerating Gu Mingxu’s talent to the extreme.
Truthfully, Gu Mingxu’s limbs were rather uncoordinated, and his dance moves often went offbeat—sometimes slow, sometimes a bit rushed. He rarely hit the rhythm perfectly. But his sweet, endearing personality had earned him a legion of “mom fans,” and he was the most popular member in the group. Even though he couldn’t quite match his teammates’ steps, and the group’s dancing wasn’t always synchronized, his unique charm turned it into a lovable quirk. Who ever said boy bands had to dance in perfect sync? Anyway, as for his singing… it wasn’t unpleasant. It was distinctive in its own way.
If judged by the strict standards of professional boy band idols, Gu Mingxu would likely be considered unqualified. But for fans who viewed him through the rose-coloured lens of admiration—and for Gu Mingzhi, who had an especially strong filter for his little brother—Gu Mingxu was perfect in every way.
Gu Mingyan wasn’t as over-the-top in his praise, simply offering a cool, “Not bad.” For anyone who knew Gu Mingyan, this was already high praise.
Hearing approval from his two brothers, Gu Mingxu’s face brightened with a radiant smile, eyes crinkling with delight.
“Why didn’t Wenning come?” Gu Mingzhi’s voice turned cold; the question laced with annoyance.
The smile faded slightly from Gu Mingxu’s face but quickly returned. In a gentle tone, he explained, “Brother probably busy with his studies and didn’t have time to come. He didn’t want the ticket I set aside for him.”
In fact, Gu Wenning had received Gu Mingxu’s invitation to the concert but declined, finding the lively, noisy setting uncomfortable.
Gu Mingzhi frowned, dismissive. “Is missing one day of class really going to cost him his graduation? I don’t get it. Studying history of all things—as if he’s going to spend his life digging up graves! It’s not like our family needs him bringing in a historian’s salary.”
Ever since Gu Wenning had enrolled in college at fifteen and chosen to study history, Gu Mingzhi had voiced his dissatisfaction. He frequently griped about Gu Wenning not studying something like acting or screenwriting, or at least finance or management, so he could assist Gu Mingyan in the family business.
Yet, even as he criticized Gu Wenning, Gu Mingzhi conveniently forgot that he himself had pursued a career in e-sports, chasing his own dreams instead of training in finance to help Gu Mingyan. If he were really worried about his eldest brother’s workload, he could have chosen to study finance himself.
Once he got started, Gu Mingzhi couldn’t stop. He complained incessantly about Gu Wenning, as though his absence from today’s concert was a grievous offense.
Finally, Gu Mingyan cut him off.
“All right, enough about him. Xiao Xu needs to get back to his teammates. We’ll head home first and wait for you there.”
Gu Mingzhi had arrived alone, but the two brothers left together. On the way, Gu Mingzhi brought up the engagement again, saying, “I doubt this marriage between Wenning and the Fu family will work out. Why not set up a meeting with Mr. Fu himself? If he’s truly invested in his son’s happiness, he’d agree if Yanhe preferred a different match.”
In Gu Mingzhi’s view, the Fu family’s decision didn’t necessarily align with Fu Yanhe’s wishes. If Fu Yanhe expressed a strong preference for changing the engagement partner, his parents would likely respect his feelings, especially if their priority was their son’s well-being.
Gu Mingyan was much better informed than Gu Mingzhi. If Gu Mingzhi had said this half a month ago, he would have thought it was feasible, but now, he didn’t think so.
“I guessed not, last time…”
What Gu Mingyan mentioned was the last time Gu Mingxu had asked Fu Yanhe for help, asking Fu Yanhe to use Mother Fu’s connection and help Gu Mingxu participate in Director Zhao’s new movie.
After leaving the Fu Group Building, Gu Mingxu felt extremely aggrieved and immediately called his good brother Gu Mingyan to complain.
In order to comfort the sad and lost Gu Mingxu, Gu Mingyan opened up many contacts, found a director with a moderate reputation, and assigned Gu Mingxu the third male lead in a youth literary film. The team and production were average, and the director made it clear that Gu Mingxu was hired because of his traffic, so he decided on the person directly without auditioning for the role. Moreover, the Gu family also invested, and the person the financial backer brought in was the young master of the Gu family. How could he refuse?
When Gu Mingzhi heard this, he became furious and said with righteous indignation, “Xiao Xu has suffered so much injustice. It’s really a mistake for Xiao Xu to favour this man. After pursuing Xiao Xu for so long, he suddenly threw someone away. Fortunately, Xiao Xu is not with him. Otherwise, Xiao Xu would be bullied to death and suffer even more.”
“Xiao Xu’s judgment of people is too inaccurate. I had to personally check his partner in the future, whether they are sincere or not.”
Gu Mingxu, who was being talked about by Gu Mingzhi, suddenly sneezed. The teammates next to him immediately looked at him nervously and asked with concern, “Xiao Qi, did you catch a cold?”
There were seven people in the group, and Gu Mingxu was the youngest, so everyone in the group called him “Xiao Qi.”
The leader, He Xi turned around when he heard the sound, strode to Gu Mingxu’s side, and looked at him with a gloomy look.
Gu Mingxu shook his head, indicating that he was fine. He took He Xi’s hand, shook it gently, and said in a soft voice, “Don’t always be so serious, Brother He Xi. You will get old easily if you always keep a straight face.”
“Twenty-seven (Fu Yanhe) is not too old for you, but my twenty-two is old?”
There was a coldness in He Xi’s tone, as well as a hint of yin and yang.
“I said something wrong. Brother He Xi is the most handsome. He will always be the most handsome and will never grow old.” Gu Mingxu blinked his eyes and said with a smile.
He Xi snorted coldly. His face slowly turned from gloomy to clear, and he looked much better.
.
When he received Gu Mingzhi’s WeChat message, the first thing it said was to ask him why he didn’t go to the concert. Impatience flashed between Gu Wenning’s brows, and with a cold scoff, he blacklisted Gu Mingzhi’s WeChat account. He also blocked the phone number and the WeChat numbers of Father Gu and Gu Mingyan so that he could live a clean life in the future. He didn’t want to take turns listening to their lectures.
[I haven’t seen my wife for two hours. I missed you so much, wife.]
[Honey, are you sleeping? If not, you could look at the stars in the sky.]
[Under the same sky, my wife and I look at the same stars. It feels so romantic.]
[The stars in the sky are twinkling, it is the signal that I miss my wife.]
As long as Fu Yanhe sent WeChat messages to Gu Wenning, it was not his style not to send several WeChat messages at once. It was no exaggeration to say that Fu Yanhe was the person who liked to send WeChat messages the most in Gu Wenning’s 20 years of knowing him. The person who could confuse people by sending one message after another for sixty seconds.
Gu Wenning had become accustomed to this. He slowly moved up from the bottom one, and there was a hint of lightness in the corner of his mouth that he didn’t even notice—a smile.
Although a lot of it was nonsense and had little information, and could be summed up in two words: “miss you,” after reading it, Gu Wenning felt that he was in a better mood, especially with Fu Yanhe, who also posted a lot of ugly, cute, or ridiculous emoticons.
Ever since that night, the heavy rain had softened Gu Wenning’s heart and allowed Fu Yanhe to stay overnight, the man kept asking for another chance. No matter what reasons Fu Yanhe use to stay overnight, he failed to do it again. Gu Wenning politely told him every time to leave.
Once he returned to the pre-liberation period, Fu Yanhe was not discouraged. He continued to report to Gu Wenning every morning, had breakfast together before going to work, and picked up Gu Wenning to have dinner with him after work. There was no lunch because he couldn’t keep coming and going again. It was quite time-consuming, so Fu Yanhe had no choice but to avoid it.
This kind of life lasted for almost two weeks. The frequency of Fu Yanhe’s appearance in Gu Wenning’s daily life increased greatly. He saw him at least once every day, sometimes several times. Occasionally, he gave Gu Wenning the feeling that he and Fu Yanhe knew each other—a long-standing delusion.