The real young master thought he was hated by everyone

Xie Sizhi sat on the lounge chair he usually used to slack off, his expression serious, feeling uncomfortable no matter what position he tried.

Not far from him, at the small round table where they usually had afternoon tea, Xie Duzhi and Li Heng also looked serious—especially Li Heng.

Xie Sizhi felt like the youngest brother’s gaze could almost burn a hole through him.

“…So, what’s going on?” He couldn’t understand what could be so important that these two suddenly showed up to find him while he was lazing in the small garden, trying to soak up the sun, and then said nothing.

He had already assumed that when Xie Duzhi came to find him, it wouldn’t be for anything good.

The last time, to help him look into the Bai family’s assets, he had spent over a month dealing with those so-called cousins. The talk about deep brotherly love was so nauseating that he nearly couldn’t stand it, but he finally figured out where their family’s major funds were currently tied up.

But Xie Duzhi had already found out.

And yet, he hadn’t told him.

“Second brother, is there something wrong?” 

Li Heng asked, continuing to look him in the eyes. “I just think the sunlight in the garden is nice, and it’s a great place to relax.”

“Since third brother is also at home, I just brought him along.”

Xie Duzhi nodded, giving a light “mm,” and took a sip from his tea, confirming the younger brother’s words.

Xie Sizhi immediately felt more uneasy and started to unconsciously replay his past week’s schedule in his mind.

Could it be that the incident when he passed out drunk in a bar last time had been exposed? Or had someone ratted him out for speeding on the mountain road and getting caught by the traffic police, losing all his driving points?

Or maybe it was that time he went to a nightclub with a friend to help him out and ended up in a brawl, which was caught on camera?

After thinking it through, he realized that the past week had indeed been full of incidents—some big, some small, and depending on the mood, they could either be brushed off or blown out of proportion.

“Why do you keep staring at me?” 

Feeling guilty, his tone softened, and he coughed a few times, “I know I’m handsome, but staring at me like that is going to make me embarrassed.”

Li Heng immediately gave him a look that clearly said, “What are you even talking about?”

“Second brother, you must be a bit narcissistic. I’m clearly looking at the pot of flowers next to you—didn’t you say last time that it was hard to keep alive?” 

Xie Sizhi hesitated.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his younger brother, it was just that the way he felt the gaze had been steady… but if Li Heng had really been staring at him all this time, then his reaction was far too calm, and his tone was too casual. 

Xie Sizhi couldn’t help but think deeper, trapping himself in some strange loop.

His younger brother was easily embarrassed, so if he had caught him staring—whether it was secretly or openly—it wouldn’t have been so nonchalant. Li Heng must have been zoning out and looking at the flowers after all, and he was just overthinking it.

But still, he felt like Li Heng’s gaze had stayed on him, and whenever he looked at him, they would always end up making eye contact. This feeling couldn’t be wrong.

After struggling with this for a while, he decided to give up thinking about it.

He hated this kind of deliberate mystery and didn’t have the patience for it.

“…When did you start playing these mind games? If you have something to say, just say it.” 

As he spoke, he shot Li Heng a glare, a mix of “Why are you learning bad habits too?” and “Just get to the point.”

“But there’s really nothing to say,” Li Heng replied, adding a few spoons of sugar to his tea. “You already know about my roommate’s situation.”

“Third brother doesn’t know yet, so I was planning to tell him on the way back.” He added this extra detail.

They were all heading back home on Sunday. Xie Duzhi needed to stop by the company to pick up some documents, and they would give Xie Sizhi a ride to school on the way.

The real reason they were sitting in this special little garden was that they had decided to use psychological tactics.

Xie Sizhi wasn’t good at psychological tactics.

His patience seemed to have been fully spent on art, and whatever little remained was usually used in public settings or for social occasions.

At home, he was always straightforward. There was never any beating around the bush, nor did he tend to be particularly cautious or think too much.

Although it wasn’t entirely fair to use this weakness against his second brother, he had to admit that psychological tactics were very effective.

Xie Sizhi was clearly starting to get anxious.

But the truth was, it hadn’t even been ten minutes since he and Xie Duzhi walked in and started drinking tea.

Suddenly, Xie Sizhi stood up, feeling like he needed to move to another place. His youngest brother was particularly unbearable today, and with the irritating third brother here as well, every additional minute in this place felt like a mental torment.

“Second brother, are you leaving?” Li Heng asked him.

“…”

Xie Sizhi slumped back down into his seat like a deflated balloon.

Why should he leave? This was his garden! If anyone should leave, it should be the two of them.

“My legs are a bit sore from sitting for too long,” Xie Sizhi said nonchalantly. “I’ll get up and move around a bit. Now it’s fine.”

“Oh,” Li Heng added another spoonful of sugar to his tea and continued staring at him openly.

Xie Sizhi managed to hold out for a few more minutes, but finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Third brother, can you do something about him?”

Who did he learn this from? Couldn’t they teach him some good habits?

Xie Duzhi didn’t deny that hearing that made him feel good, but he was thinking about something else entirely. His reason for staying here wasn’t just to keep the situation under control, to stop Xie Sizhi from getting frustrated and using his usual tactics, like tickling or simply running away. He was also here to observe his reactions and analyze them.

“Everything’s fine right now,” Xie Duzhi said without hiding his favoritism.

He thought there was nothing that needed changing. It was already perfect as it was.

“Ugh.”

If Xie Sizhi still didn’t realize that the two of them were in this together, he really might as well go be a fool, muttering, “I knew something bad was going to happen.”

“Come on, just say it. You called Heng over to help with something, didn’t you?” 

He no longer bothered to pretend and relaxed in the lounge chair, raising an eyebrow, “Is it because of the bar fight when I stayed out all night, or the speeding ticket and loss of my points, or the fight at the nightclub?”

Li Heng: …

“Second brother, how are you able to say all that with no psychological pressure at all?” 

Li Heng finally couldn’t keep his expression in check, looking incredulously at him. “You drove without a license?”

Xie Sizhi rolled his eyes. “Keep your voice down. Didn’t you notice that I’ve been driving around the neighborhood these past few days? I only get the driver to take me anywhere else?”

“I just came back today, how would I know?” Li Heng shot him a white-eyed look. “And you actually fought!”

“Helping a good friend out is not the same as fighting,” Xie Sizhi said. “It’s called having your friend’s back. Got it?”

“Heng, I’m warning you, you better hold onto that little piece of dirt on me and ask second brother for hush money. If you dare to tell mom—”

He hummed threateningly, the meaning of the warning very clear. “I’ll send out all those embarrassing photos of you from Europe.”

“Then go ahead. I’ll tell mom about you…” Li Heng didn’t want to be a snitch, but when threatened, his rebellious side flared up, and he almost forgot about the real matter at hand.

Xie Duzhi cleared his throat, a gentle reminder.

“—The time you secretly had a crush on a girl and became a hot topic on the school forum.”

He smoothly shifted the topic. “Fighting is over with, but this thing with mom is something she’ll always bring up.”

Xie Sizhi almost blurted out a swear word.

“Alright, you’re really learning badly.”

He decided to defend his dignity as an older brother and was ready to teach his younger brother a lesson, so he could learn which situations to complain about and which ones not to.

Xie Sizhi pounced like a cat with its tail stepped on, “If the third brother doesn’t care, then I’ll care! Today, second brother will teach you what it means to respect your older brother.”

Li Heng quickly hid behind Xie Duzhi, “I know, you still like her, right!”

“You definitely still like her!” He spoke loudly while observing Xie Sizhi’s reaction.

Xie Sizhi was so angry he looked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, his fur all bristling, “…Stop talking nonsense! This was a long time ago!”

—The situation had developed in a way they hadn’t expected at all.

According to their original plan, they were supposed to use psychological tactics to annoy Xie Sizhi to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore, then casually bring up, “Mom seems to be watching those dating shows recently,” and gradually test the waters.

Xie Duzhi remained calm, shielding Li Heng behind him, thinking to himself that they couldn’t really blame him.

If anyone was to blame, it was Xie Sizhi who had been quite reckless these past few days, letting things go too far.

“How could I still like her? When she rejected me, she didn’t leave any room for me! She might as well have said, ‘Sorry, although I know my boyfriend is terrible, I want to break up but I’m not dumb enough to jump from one bad tree to another, especially when all men are basically the same!’”

Xie Sizhi finished saying this long sentence without taking a breath, his voice rising in pitch and then suddenly dropping at the end.

His mood suddenly fell.

What use was it for him to like someone when they didn’t like him back?

Liking someone couldn’t be forced, of course.

Li Heng felt a little sympathy for him, “…But second brother, it seems you never actually told her you liked her, or really tried to pursue her.”

How could he know for sure if he’d be rejected without trying?

Saying something was better than saying nothing, but actions spoke louder than words.

“She probably thought you were meddling when you warned her boyfriend, and that you weren’t really serious about it.”

“I was serious!” Xie Sizhi said, looking confused and a little wronged.

Li Heng didn’t know how to respond.

The teenager fell silent for a moment, “Wasn’t it on the school forum at that time where they said you were just playing around, warning her boyfriend just to let him know to step aside?”

“I was just trying to make her feel better, so she wouldn’t be upset over the argument.”

Xie Sizhi was confused how those forum posts had resurfaced, “It was that guy’s fault! I asked someone to make him apologize, isn’t that normal?”

“And that’s the problem.”

Li Heng didn’t want to argue whether Xie Sizhi’s actions were right or wrong.

He had read a lot of forum posts yesterday, “You didn’t do anything to show you liked her. You secretly liked her, but then just warned her boyfriend and this blew up.”

The crowd and even the person involved must have had a clear view of the situation.

“She knows I like her,” Xie Sizhi suddenly realized, growing uncertain.

“…She should know I like her, right?”

Li Heng just couldn’t bear to look at him and didn’t want to talk.

“She probably doesn’t know.” But Xie Duzhi was more lenient.

“You’ve only met her a few times in the office because of student council or the youth league work.”

“You exchanged contact information for work purposes, but you didn’t send her messages or try to chat with her. You never tried to invite her out for meals or to hang out.”

“But whenever you saw her on campus, you would avoid her.”

He tried to explain, “I couldn’t look her in the eyes, and I was too shy to greet her. She should have sensed something, right?”

“…”

Li Heng was speechless.

He  took a deep breath, reminding himself that maybe he just lacked the ability to pick up on things and couldn’t be blamed entirely. He managed to calm down.

“Second brother, do you know what we’d call this situation in two words?”

“We’d call it ‘not familiar.’”

Xie Duzhi couldn’t help but let out a short laugh, “That’s true, not familiar.”

Xie Sizhi didn’t understand how they could say such cold words, especially Li Heng. It felt as if the pain he was experiencing now was comparable to how he felt the day he officially got rejected.

“Chen Xue is very well-known in your college, very excellent. She’s set for internal graduate school and has a reputable professor guiding her.”

Xie Du continued, sending Xie Sizhi links to the anonymous forum and discussion boards for him to see.

“Even if you graduate, others in the school or people unrelated to it will still use this matter to criticize her and gossip about her.”

“People will be happy to discuss it, looking for every little detail that can support their view.” The posts on the forum were far more intense than the gossip Xie Sizhi deleted back then.

Xie Sizhi fell into silence for a long time.

“…It’s my fault,” he finally said, revealing a melancholy expression.

“She’s already graduated and found a job, so there shouldn’t be any new posts.”

Xie Sizhi paused, “I’ll handle the old posts, get people to track down the IP addresses and find out who posted those comments.”

Then, whatever damages were to be done, he’d apologize where necessary and make reparations.

“Then second brother,” Li Heng suddenly spoke, “Are you just going to let it go?”

He didn’t want to go around in circles, “You still like her, but she’s never known, and she might have forgotten about it a long time ago.”

Based on what he said just now, Li Heng was sure that he had met Chen Xue during his time at school.

“She might have met someone at work who is very patient with her, who likes her and makes her laugh, someone whose interests align with hers. After dating for a while, they might decide to get married.”

Li Heng became more frustrated as he spoke.

Just like what he said in the car the other day, his life felt like a complete failure.

“Don’t even mention her name. You won’t leave a mark in her life at all.”

He sighed, “Even if you keep thinking about it, it won’t change anything.”

“I disagree…!” Xie Sizhi almost couldn’t imagine that picture, “There’s no way there’s a guy like that in her department, they’re all petty and calculating, just typical average guys!”

He couldn’t even imagine that scene, “When they get married and the priest asks if anyone has objections, I’ll be the first one to stand up!”

“…”

But first, you have to be sure she’ll invite you to her wedding, and there has to be a priest asking for objections.

And how would you object anyway, bro?

Li Heng slapped his forehead in despair, finally giving up on his last shred of hope.

Xie Sizhi was hesitant and indecisive, overly confident when he shouldn’t be, and then completely withdrew when he should have been active. Though he was obsessed with love, his brain might as well not exist.

Maybe it’s better to let him regret it alone for the rest of his life.

“What wedding objections?”

Xie Shenzhi came in through the door, not having heard exactly what his brothers were shouting about. 

He came to talk to Xie Sizhi about something serious, but once he saw that all his younger brothers were present, it seemed like some secret meeting was going on.

He felt like he was being excluded and was confused.

Was there something they couldn’t let him know? This seemed to confirm his suspicion that he had been excluded from their little circle.

“It’s about the sister that second brother likes,” Li Heng ran to close the door. Before shutting it, he glanced behind him to make sure no one else was following.

Like Uncle Fu or Mrs. Xie.

Once he was sure, he explained the situation and tried to get his older brother involved.

“But I still think second brother would be better off being single forever.” He added his own opinion, “He’s too immature, if he really went after that sister, she’d be exhausted.”

“I think it’s better if he suffers alone.”

Xie Shenzhi was speechless and even thought that what Li Heng said made sense.

“You guys don’t care about me at all,” Xie Sizhi grumbled, wishing he could just send them an ellipsis.

“…You just want to watch me make a fool of myself!”

Xie Duzhi paused for a moment, then decided to leave him with a bit of dignity.

The young man reluctantly changed his nod into a kind reminder: “But you just admitted you still like her and know where she works.”

“Your mom.” Xie Sizhi finally reacted, muttering a curse.

“Don’t swear,” Xie Shenzhi frowned, “It’s bad influence, and it’s disrespectful to mom.”

If they were closer, he would have covered his mouth immediately.

“This isn’t about swearing.” Xie Sizhi was furious, “Can’t you see that the third brother tricked me!”

“It was me who tricked you, second brother.” Li Heng tried to clear Xie Duzhi’s name, “Third brother was just helping me.”

Xie Shenzhi didn’t understand the context.

He didn’t realize what had happened.

But he was confident that Xie Duzhi wasn’t the kind of person his second brother described.

“Don’t blame Duzhi.” He said sincerely, gently persuading him, “he has done a lot for this family.”