Chapter 42

?

That's right, yes.

Tang Mingxi: [Shy\\\V\\\]

Tang Mingxi: [But that only healed one-fifth of the psychological trauma :)]

Ye Heng: [Address.]

Tang Mingxi cautiously replied: [What? Coming to beat me up with your father-in-law? (Angry cat head)]

After a while, Ye Heng finally sent a reply.

[Coming to stand up for my wife.]

The Rival Appears!

Tang Mingxi casually took a screenshot of his chat history with Ye Heng, shrewdly deleting some of his own fawning remarks.

He kept only Ye Heng's words and forwarded them to Wang Min.

[Who needs him to stand up for them? (Smile)]

Wang Min: [?]

Wang Min: [Give me a warning before you torture single people with PDA. (Goodbye)]

After a while, Wang Min sent another message.

Wang Min: [Baby, I think you missed the point.]

Wang Min: [How come you didn't deny that you're his wife? (Surprised)]

Tang Mingxi: ...

That somehow made him even angrier :)

[Who's your wife? Stop flattering yourself.]

Tang Mingxi hurriedly replied to Ye Heng.

But after waiting several minutes to respond, he felt as though he was protesting too much.

Tang Mingxi withdrew the message again.

The result was that Ye Heng immediately sent him a screenshot—the very message Tang Mingxi had withdrawn.

Tang Mingxi mocked him without ceremony: [Your hands are that fast? Did you train them through eighteen years of being single?]

The moment he sent it, he sensed something was off.

But it was already too late to withdraw the message.

Ye Heng seemed to have been waiting for him to message. He immediately sent a chilly reply: [What, do you want a practice partner?]

Aaaaaaaaaah!!!

Tang Mingxi was so embarrassed he practically keeled over. He frantically tried to withdraw the message, but his hand slipped and he hit delete instead.

That slightly suggestive sentence completely disappeared from Tang Mingxi's WeChat chat window.

Tang Mingxi clutched his chest and comforted himself: A person's life is short. It'll be over soon enough.

Perhaps because he was making too much of a commotion, Ye Yue, who had been beside him all along, noticed something was wrong and turned to ask, "Mingxi, what's wrong?"

Tang Mingxi instinctively covered his phone, thinking that minors shouldn't see this kind of thing.

Then he saw Ye Yue's lifeless peach-blossom eyes, froze for a moment, and remembered that she had long since lost her sight.

"Nothing. Your brother will be here in a bit to stand up for you!" Tang Mingxi patted Ye Yue's head with an intimate gesture.

Ye Yue seemed unaccustomed to affection from an elder and looked a little embarrassed.

But she timidly leaned closer to Tang Mingxi and boldly rubbed her head against his palm.

Why was she like a puppy?

Tang Mingxi grumbled inwardly.

Ye Heng arrived quickly, accompanied by Assistant Zhou, the president's assistant at Mingheng.

She was a capable and meticulous female secretary, and Tang Mingxi vaguely remembered her.

Only, Assistant Zhou looked frightened and anxious, as though she had been hurriedly summoned.

The moment Tang Mingxi saw Ye Heng, he remembered that awkward exchange from earlier.

Who knew where this shameless bastard had cultivated such a thick skin? He could actually stand in front of him as if nothing had happened!

It was only when Assistant Zhou called the middle-aged man "Dad" that Tang Mingxi understood what had happened.

Assistant Zhou's father had somehow learned that his daughter's boss was still young. Greed had taken root in him, and he had constantly urged his daughter to have a proper talk with her boss.

After being nagged by her father too many times, Assistant Zhou had vaguely put him off by saying they would talk about it later.

In fact, Assistant Zhou already had a boyfriend at the time. Her father had not understood the situation and mistaken her for being in a relationship with Ye Heng.

That was how today's misunderstanding had come about.

When the middle-aged man learned from Assistant Zhou that Tang Mingxi was the "wife" of the Huating director he had mentioned, his face turned deathly pale.

When he apologized afterward, he all but dropped to his knees, without a trace of the arrogance he had displayed earlier.

Tang Mingxi had no intention of making things difficult for Assistant Zhou. Besides, she had known nothing about it.

After the man apologized to Ye Yue, Tang Mingxi waved him off, telling him to return the clothes and settle the debt before getting out.

Once the matter was over, Tang Mingxi looked at Ye Heng, who had stood to one side without saying a word.

Ye Heng seemed to sense his gaze and turned around. His face plainly conveyed one question: Had he calmed down?

Remembering their awkward WeChat chat, Tang Mingxi quickly looked away and fixed his gaze on Assistant Zhou's departing back.

Ye Heng said coldly, "What are you looking at?"

Tang Mingxi said, "Can't I look at my never-before-met... sister?"

Ye Heng: ...

"I have nothing to do with her," Ye Heng explained.

Nonsense. Of course I know you have nothing to do with her. Can't you tell I'm changing the subject? :)

Ye Yue's condition meant she could not stay outside for long.

In a ward in the inpatient department of City First Hospital, Ye Yue had changed into hospital clothes and lay on the bed.

Tang Mingxi sensibly retreated to the doorway, leaving the siblings some time alone.

Ye Yue suddenly asked, "Brother, aren't you going to ask why I went out with sister-in-law today?"

Ye Heng's hand paused, and he followed her lead. "Why?"

Unable to hide her excitement, Ye Yue said eagerly, "I went to buy you a birthday present."

To be honest, Ye Heng had nearly forgotten that he even had a birthday.

Other than Ye Yue, there was probably no one in the world who remembered his birthday, let alone cared about it.

Only Ye Yue's eyes showed above the blanket as she whispered, "I heard that Mingxi also picked out a present."

The calm, unruffled look in Ye Heng's eyes stirred slightly as he tucked the blanket around Ye Yue.

Meanwhile, the Tang Mingxi being discussed sat on a stainless-steel chair in the inpatient department when his phone buzzed twice:

Shen Yuan: [Bro, save me. Saving one life is worth building a seven-story pagoda QVQ]

Shen Yuan: [Can you lend me some money? One million is enough.]

Tang Mingxi sneered and directly blocked Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan still refused to give up and added him from an alternate account: [Bro, I was wrong. I'm not borrowing money anymore. I'm here to give you a heads-up!]

Tang Mingxi accepted his friend request, intending to see what news Shen Yuan wanted to pass on.

[Cousin, did you know He Lingzhi came back to the country?]

[Has he contacted you?]

[I remember you and He Lingzhi used to be pretty close OO]

[Didn't you secretly have a crush on him before?]

The moment he saw that last sentence, Tang Mingxi's head began to ache.

The name He Lingzhi surfaced in his mind as well.

In the original novel, he was the classic childhood sweetheart and boy-next-door older brother of "Second Young Master Tang."

He replied expressionlessly: [Who had a crush on whom? :)]

Shen Yuan inexplicably sensed hostility and hurriedly changed his tune: [No crush!! Cousin, I was wrong!!]

Unfortunately, it was already too late.

Tang Mingxi did not hesitate to block Shen Yuan's alternate account too.

Watching his message turn into a red exclamation mark, Shen Yuan covered his face and let out a long sigh.

His cousin really had been this willfully single-minded from childhood to adulthood.

If he had not heard people mention He Lingzhi back then, Shen Yuan would never have believed that his lofty cousin had once secretly loved someone.

But judging by the cold, merciless demon-like way he acted on WeChat, he did not seem at all bashful about hearing that He Lingzhi had returned to the country.

Could those old rumors have been wrong?

Shen Yuan was just