The real young master thought he was hated by everyone - Chapter 96

Before leaving, Li Heng suddenly changed his shirt and, with a bit of calculation, pulled out a pair of deep blue gem cufflinks and attached them to his shirt.

These cufflinks were similar in color to the pair he had given Xie Duzhi, and Xie Duzhi had been using them consistently.

Roughly speaking, they could be considered couple cufflinks.

 He hadn’t really thought too much about why Xie Duzhi had so many pairs of cufflinks but always chose to wear the one Li Heng gave him. He simply thought that the design of those cufflinks was relatively simple, in line with Xie Duzhi’s aesthetic.

And, as an older brother, he also seemed to favor him a bit more.

The shirt cuffs were wrapped in the sleeves of his coat, and Xie Duzhi didn’t notice the subtlety of the cufflinks as he was focused on driving.

Li Heng was replying to messages from Mrs. Xie.

He figured that since he was the only one in the family showing signs of being in a relationship, he was getting such enthusiastic, even a bit excessive, attention from his mother.

Mrs. Xie told him not to hesitate and that instead of beating around the bush, he should just directly ask Xie Duzhi if he liked anyone. If not, he should boldly confess and say, “From today, I’m going to pursue you.”

It was already known that Xie Duzhi didn’t like anyone, so after the confession, Li Heng could directly start pursuing him.

That’s how Mrs. Xie had pursued Mr. Xie back then.

She even felt a little regretful that Li Heng hadn’t learned to drive over the summer while he was in Europe, or else he could have built a relationship with Xie Duzhi by driving him to and from work.

This made Li Heng think of what his grandmother had said, that back in high school or even middle school, his dad had lied about needing extra lessons just to walk with her for a little longer.

He corrected Mrs. Xie, saying that it was because they were already in love back then, and it wasn’t until after high school that they admitted it, so it wasn’t really a good reference.

He also told her to stop worrying so much about him and to focus on others, like his older brothers.

 “But your older brothers don’t seem like they’ll get their act together anytime soon.”

 “Mom’s just as anxious for you and Duzhi.”

Mrs. Xie slowly typed a reply, growing more convinced that if the two kids really got together, it would be like adding a little more family connection, which would indeed be a good thing.

Li Heng almost spilled the beans about Xie Sizhi’s multiple failed attempts at pursuing Chen Xue.

To prevent himself from inadvertently betraying his second brother, he sent a few funny stickers, turned off the screen, and stopped replying.

“Mom said we can have fun and don’t need to come back too early.” He winked and picked out parts of Mrs. Xie’s message that he could share with Xie Duzhi. “They’re not home.”

Mrs. Xie and Mr. Xie had a dinner gathering to attend that evening.

Uncle Fu had started his annual leave and gone on a group trip with the senior citizens.

Thanks to this, Xie Sizhi had gone out with friends last night, and he probably wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.

As for the eldest brother—there was no one at home, so he would probably stay at the company to work late.

Xie Duzhi thought for a moment. “Then, we’ll go back to Linfeng Bay in the evening?”

Linfeng Bay was closer, and even if they left the amusement park after it closed, they wouldn’t be too late getting home.

“Okay.” Li Heng immediately agreed, then remembered he hadn’t invited Xie Duzhi to watch a movie yet.

After reading various movie reviews, he carefully selected the most highly rated one and bought a couple’s ticket for a film.

“By the way, Third Brother, after we leave the amusement park, could you accompany me to see a movie? We have a reading assignment, and the teacher said we could submit a movie review.”

He smoothly said the invitation he had already prepared.

What he had expected to be a rushed sentence, or even stumbling over his words due to nervousness, didn’t happen.

Once he finished speaking, he couldn’t help but feel a little surprised and gave himself a thumbs up in his mind.

He did well, and he needed to keep it up!

Xie Duzhi didn’t ask what movie it was or question why they couldn’t just watch it at home, he simply nodded and replied with a faint “Mm.”

For him, the event, or even the location, didn’t matter much.

What mattered was who he was with.

“Then I’ll buy the tickets.” Li Heng pretended to open the cinema app on his phone and mentioned his friend from the capital, Gu. “Mingyue and I said this movie looks good, so let’s watch it.”

He showed his phone to Xie Duzhi, displaying the movie name, synopsis, and ratings.

Xie Duzhi noticed that it was a romance film.

For a brief moment, his eyes dimmed, and many thoughts flashed across his mind, but his face remained unchanged.

“Anything’s fine,” he said. “You can choose what you want to watch.”

“Then it’s settled. I’ll buy the tickets.” Li Heng took his phone back and tapped a couple of times. “The couple ticket comes with popcorn and soda. I’ll pick them up later.”

The amusement park was crowded on weekends, and with the recent slight rise in temperature and unusually warm sunlight, there were even more people lining up to buy tickets.

Li Heng, carrying his bag, followed behind Xie Duzhi as they waited to get their tickets.

He pretended to hold a camera, occasionally lifting it and pretending to aim it, but he hadn’t taken a single picture of the people or the scenery.

The clouds in the sky looked nice today, the autumn leaves on the branches, and the birds resting by the road were all very cute and seemed perfect for a photo.

He could still capture these moments.

He hadn’t lost the so-called “sense of the scene,” which many in the photography club envied him for—his world remained clear and sparkling in his eyes.

However, he wasn’t in the mood to take pictures.

When he lifted the camera, what he thought about was how, if Xie Duzhi turned around at that moment, he would be able to catch the perfect shot of him.

His profile made his beauty even more evident, with his sharp contours and jawline just right.

His lashes were long and thick, and since Li Heng was shorter, Xie Duzhi’s eyes would probably be half-closed when he looked back.

But Li Heng felt he wouldn’t be able to capture a good photo of him.

A photograph was taken in an instant, and if Xie Duzhi turned around at the exact moment Li Heng pressed the shutter, his mind would wander, thinking about him, and he would forget the original purpose of taking the picture.

The line for entering the park was long, and Xie Duzhi seemed to be worried that Li Heng would get bored or hungry. Every few minutes, he would offer him a few candies or small bags of jerky.

Li Heng couldn’t help himself and kept peeking at Xie Duzhi’s coat pocket, trying to figure out what was inside.

But no matter how hard he looked, it didn’t seem like Xie Duzhi’s pockets could hold much.

When they finally entered the park, he was still eyeing the pockets.

“The snacks are in the car.” Xie Duzhi explained, a bit helpless, noticing Li Heng’s gaze.

When they parked earlier, Xie Duzhi had estimated the time they would be waiting in line and grabbed a handful of candies and a few bags of dried fruit and jerky, putting them in his pocket.

Now, there was nothing left.

“Third Brother, I thought you were doing magic earlier.” Li Heng said.

There were snacks in Xie Duzhi’s car, meant for him.

Back in high school, when they had late-night study sessions, even though the family had prepared some late-night snacks or soup, Xie Duzhi still worried he’d be hungry on the way home, so he kept small snacks in the car.

Even though Li Heng couldn’t finish them all, it didn’t matter.

He hadn’t expected that even after changing cars, Xie Duzhi would still prepare those things.

Maybe it was just a habit?

Li Heng subconsciously pushed aside a thought, worried that he might be overthinking and misunderstanding Xie Duzhi’s care for him as something more than pure concern.

Still, he could still taste the candy in his mouth.

“Could you put Mom’s cookies in the car next time?”

Li Heng swore he wasn’t being too forward.

It was just that, out of habit, he thought about packing Mrs. Xie’s little cookies and putting them in the car.

“I just think they taste better,” he tried to explain, coughing awkwardly and glancing around at the passersby. “That’s why I mentioned it.”

“I’ll tell Mom, and she can bake more next time.” Xie Duzhi quickly pulled Li Heng closer to avoid bumping into a couple they had passed.

“…Mm, I’ll tell her,” Li Heng said, remembering how Mrs. Xie had given him advice on love earlier that morning, and absentmindedly touched his nose.

Xie Duzhi didn’t usually eat those cookies, and most of Mrs. Xie’s baked goods were eaten by him, Mrs. Xie, and Uncle Fu.

If Xie Duzhi were to mention it in the past, his mother would definitely ask why he suddenly thought of making more, and Xie Duzhi would honestly answer… and then he would have to reply with those overly eager and somewhat teasing messages again.

If Xie Duzhi liked him too, and had a different kind of affection for him, he would definitely openly pursue him.

But… that’s not something he can confirm yet.

It’s okay to be overly sentimental, but being overly sentimental can cause others distress.

He doesn’t want to cause Xie Duzhi distress.

But he does want to hold hands.

Almost all the couples around them are holding hands, and families with children are also walking hand in hand, side by side in a row.

He and Xie Duzhi didn’t have many moments alone, but if he thought about it carefully, there had actually been quite a few of those moments.

He’d spent just as much time in the house at Linfeng Bay as he has at home.

But he and Xie Duzhi rarely held hands.

Most of the time, including now, Xie Duzhi walked ahead, and he fell a step behind, following.

Li Heng took a deep breath. At the same time as this thought crossed his mind, he had already mentally rehearsed several possible scenarios for what could happen next.

He remembered that he had carefully checked the route map several times yesterday.

Since it was his invitation for Xie Duzhi to accompany him, it was completely reasonable for him to take the initiative to hold his hand, tell him where they’re going next, and lead the way.

“We’re going to the carousel next. I read in the guide that the carousel was repainted last month, and it looks especially nice. If we find the right angle, it’ll be easy to capture the effect.”

He almost bit his tongue this time, but he successfully held Xie Duzhi’s hand.

The two hands tightly clasped together, both stiff for a moment before gradually relaxing and becoming natural.

They both thought it was their own stiffness, completely ignoring that the other was also stiff.

The carousel also requires waiting in line, but since they entered the park early, there weren’t many people ahead.

Li Heng hesitated a bit when he saw the carousel.

It was too pink.

Not that there’s anything wrong with pink, in fact, the carousel’s seats, lights, and paint were all very cute and well-done.

He was just worried that he and Xie Duzhi would look out of place if they sat on it.

The people waiting in line for the carousel were mostly women and children. He noticed that even though there were several couples ahead of them, the women were the ones riding, while the men stood below, taking photos or filming.

…Should he ask Xie Duzhi to help him film? Or should he film him?

The former seemed more reasonable.

However, Gu Mingyue’s guide had said that the two of them should ride the carousel together, and in the romantic and somewhat ambiguous atmosphere of the ride, they should gaze at each other.

“You need to watch whether his gaze avoids yours,” Gu Mingyue’s voice echoed in his ears, “If he keeps dodging his eyes and doesn’t dare look at you, then it probably means he has feelings for you.”

When it was finally their turn to ride the carousel, Li Heng was still unprepared.

He felt like just moments ago there had been so many people ahead of them, and now it was suddenly their turn. He felt a bit lost.

He looked at Xie Duzhi and found that Xie Duzhi was also looking at him, seemingly about to speak.

“…Let’s go ride it together, Third Brother. We should be able to take photos on the carousel too.” Li Heng instinctively raised the camera hanging in front of his chest, feeling relieved that he had used this excuse when inviting him.

Li Heng sat first, and Xie Duzhi sat on the smaller, outer horse next to him, looking as calm as if he were sitting in his office.

Li Heng felt a bit embarrassed. He noticed a few girls nearby were taking photos of him with their phones—obviously a group, and they looked like students.

Xie Duzhi didn’t seem to notice him, or perhaps they had become the subjects of others’ whispered gossip. Of course, he might have noticed but simply didn’t care.

Li Heng was curious about what they were whispering about. The music from the carousel and the noise from below were so loud that even if he tried to hold his breath, he couldn’t hear clearly.

“Why aren’t you taking photos?”

But Xie Duzhi’s voice was still clear and steady, even though he hadn’t raised his voice because of the surrounding noise.

Li Heng realized that he was still holding the camera with one hand, and he instinctively coughed a few times, trying to cover it up. “I was just looking for a good angle.”

He then pretended to take a few photos.

He even managed to capture the large central column of the carousel, but he didn’t take a picture of Xie Duzhi.

The pink horse he was sitting on and the white one Xie Duzhi was on were both simple, cartoonish figures, but the moment Xie Duzhi sat on it, the whole feeling changed.

Li Heng couldn’t explain exactly what was different.

He realized that he couldn’t even tell whether he had any feelings for him that went beyond those of a brother.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have a way to figure it out, or that Xie Duzhi’s behavior was unclear—it was that he unconsciously avoided it.

Despite sitting on the carousel, his mind wandered to when they were in Europe before, and Xie Duzhi had taught him to ride a horse. The horse had trotted along, shaking off Xie Sizhi’s horse, who had been sitting on the horse and playing a game, leaving him behind.

At that time, if Xie Duzhi hadn’t checked his watch and mentioned that they should head back for dinner, he felt that they would have just kept wandering like that.

They were planning to go back to Europe this winter break—they had already booked a cabin in the forest. They had promised each other to see the aurora together this year.

If he had realized at that time that he liked Xie Duzhi, he thought, it would have been the perfect moment to subtly test the waters.

That way, while they were in Europe, he could have quietly tried to figure out how he felt—there, the atmosphere would have been more open, and they had received several flirtatious encounters while walking on the street.

He should have observed his reactions carefully back then, instead of panicking and focusing on how to handle those situations.

Li Heng felt like the fifteen minutes on the carousel lasted a century, and when he got off, he felt as if a weight had been lifted from him.

He grabbed Xie Duzhi’s hand, instinctively avoiding talking about the carousel. “Third Brother, let’s go to the haunted house next.”

Xie Duzhi wasn’t without his doubts, but he instinctively avoided thinking about it.

However, when he heard the words “haunted house,” his steps faltered for a moment.

He wasn’t afraid of supernatural phenomena, and he certainly didn’t have any fear of haunted houses.

He just instinctively wondered why they were going to a place like that to take photos.

To create an atmosphere, haunted houses are usually designed to be quite dark, with minimal detailing—because many things will be unseen by visitors and won’t be paid attention to.

As long as the atmosphere is right and the surprise is enough, even if staff members are covered in ketchup, many people who are anxious or have a guilty conscience will scream.

Xie Duzhi couldn’t think of anything worth photographing in a haunted house, especially since the lighting would cause exposure issues for the photos—today, Li Heng had only brought a camera.

He didn’t bring replacement lenses or additional lighting.

But then, naturally, he raised his wrist to cover the doubt he had a moment ago, as if checking the time.

Li Heng gently tugged at his hand, signaling him to look at the place he was pointing to. “We can also go to the haunted house from here. Third Brother, should we take a detour?”

“This street has an interesting design.”

The place he pointed to was a food street in the amusement park, a long stretch of it, all uniformly designed like candy houses.

It was just a little past nine in the morning, and some shops were still closed. Compared to the actual customers, there were more people taking photos for social media.

Taking a detour was actually part of the plan.

Li Heng had specifically checked other people’s park guides, knowing that this street had many stalls selling cotton candy, sugar paintings, and fruit skewers with sugar coating.

He planned to buy whatever he saw—though, considering Xie Duzhi didn’t have a sweet tooth, the most basic sugar-coated fruit skewers would probably be best.

If there were fruit skewers that Xie Duzhi liked, he would buy those.

Li Heng would eat one first, pretending it tasted great, or casually lift the skewer to feed it to him.

Gu Mingyue had suggested this move and, in his mind, started counting down. If he hesitated for more than five seconds, it would probably be a lost cause.

However, Gu Mingyue later added a note, saying if the other person was more reserved or introverted, it was okay to stretch it to about ten seconds.

Xie Duzhi didn’t know Li Heng’s little scheme and nodded without objection.

Li Heng held his hand, following the plan to head toward the food street, and stopped in front of a stall that had a variety of fruit skewers with sugar coating, pretending to be attracted to it.

Many stalls sold fruit skewers, but most of them were strawberries, grapes, or cherry tomatoes. The stall he stopped at had a wider variety.

He spotted kiwi.

Back when they made fruit juice, Xie Duzhi drank kiwi juice faster than any other fruit juice, and the glass would be emptied.

Normally, Xie Duzhi never finished his juice.

Their glasses were often placed side by side, and the difference was always obvious.

After scanning to pay, Li Heng took a skewer of kiwi, coated with a layer of sugar.

He took a bite, and the kiwi was fresh, juicy, and importantly, not too sweet.

The young man kept a serious face, his gaze straight ahead, doing his best to appear nonchalant, offering the skewer to the side.

One second, two seconds.

Li Heng couldn’t help but glance at Xie Duzhi out of the corner of his eye, intending to say that the skewer tasted really good, and explain his earlier action, to avoid making the atmosphere too awkward.

He realized that, due to his nervousness, when he had offered the skewer earlier, he hadn’t paid attention to the angle.

Now, the kiwi was right against Xie Duzhi’s nose.

His wrist trembled for a moment, and almost instinctively, he tried to release his grip, but Xie Duzhi quickly grabbed his hand again.

“Be careful,” Xie Duzhi reminded him.

The kiwi didn’t fall to the ground.

Li Heng’s ears burned, so much so that he forgot what he was about to say next.

…What was he going to say?

Was it “It tastes good, Third Brother, would you like to try a bite?” or “Third Brother, do you want some kiwi?”

Up until just now, he had still been holding Xie Duzhi’s hand, but he hadn’t felt his palm this warm before.

He felt as though his whole body was burning from the heat, even though Xie Duzhi had let go of his hand once the skewer was steady again.

“Third Brother… would you…”

He tried to calm himself, offering the skewer again to Xie Duzhi, trying his best not to stare into his eyes.

He felt his gaze was too intense, clearly revealing the kind of look someone with ulterior motives would have.

Xie Duzhi was momentarily stunned.

The young man’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he was about to speak when a voice from behind them interrupted with an uncertain call.

“…Duzhi, and Heng?”