Chapter 45: The Vicious Rich Family’s Fake Young Master · 45

The three men couldn’t hear. The three men were selectively deaf.

Su Wenyu got angry. “Do you think that just because I’m not angry, I don’t exist?!”

Saying this, Su Wenyu was ready to show them he meant business. He grabbed the three chopsticks Zhou Xu offered and slapped them down onto the floor with a smack, intending to deliver a mighty shock.

Su Wenyu said fiercely, “I don’t want to share a room with any of you! I want my own room!”

The three men were indeed stunned by him and were silent for a long moment.

“I want to live by myself!” Su Wenyu cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone, snapping them back to their senses.

Xia Yehang clutched his chest. He felt that Su Wenyu’s declaration of ‘not wanting to share with any of them’ was still quite devastating.

But since the person in question had spoken, Xia Yehang could only say regretfully, “Then four rooms it is.”

Shen Yi and Zhou Xu also knew the real risk of making Su Wenyu truly angry was no good. Though they showed nothing on the surface, inwardly they were also somewhat disappointed.

Zhou Xu even found himself somewhat nostalgic for those early days when Su Wenyu had secretly climbed into his bed. Su Wenyu was a size smaller than him, and after a shower, he smelled all fragrant. Nestled in his arms, he was like a soft, life-sized body pillow.

He hadn’t cherished it then, and now it was too late for regrets.

“If we need four rooms, that might be a bit difficult,” Shen Yi said, checking various hotels on the app. Most were fully booked.

They’d booked their hotel quite late. Way too many people were out traveling during the National Day period, and hotels near tourist spots were mostly sold out.

Su Wenyu leaned over to look, saw the city he was searching, and recalled something from the original host’s memory. “If you can’t find a hotel, I think I have an apartment over there.”

Shen Yi and the others’ gazes immediately landed on Su Wenyu.

“It’s a large flat, pretty big, but the design was set up with only one bedroom. If you guys don’t mind, you could all just sleep on the floor,” Su Wenyu said.

Truth be told, the three men’s hearts stirred.

Xia Yehang, unlike the other two, didn’t keep his schemes and thoughts bottled up. He asked directly, “Can we sleep on the floor in your room?”

Su Wenyu thought about it. Making them sleep on the living room floor seemed a bit impolite. Since they’d be staying at his place, he should be a proper host. So he agreed.

“Sure.”

Sharing a room with all three was better than sharing with just one. It was safer.

And so, the accommodation was settled.

–

In the afternoon, after Su Wenyu finished class, he and Zhou Xu took the car home.

At dinner, sitting right next to Zhou Xu, Su Wenyu elbowed him furiously, signaling him to tell their parents about going out to play.

Zhou Xu’s arm rested on the dining table, unmoved. Meanwhile, Su Wenyu had managed to rub his own elbow red.

“Say it already,” Su Wenyu urged quietly.

The scene of two university students wanting to travel during their break was, for some reason, made by Su Wenyu’s nervous, guilty, and secretive manner to seem like elementary school kids trying to sneak out.

Zhou Xu looked at the dishes on the table and said, “I want some crab.”

Su Wenyu: “What?”

So Zhou Xu repeated, “I want some crab.”

It took Su Wenyu a moment to react. “You want me to pick the crab meat for you?”

Zhou Xu didn’t reply, which meant yes.

“Fine.”

Su Wenyu’s favorite things to eat in this world were crayfish and crab. And he’d already mastered the art of dismantling a crab.

He stood up, skillfully selected a female crab, grabbed the specialized crab tools, and started working.

Within five minutes, Su Wenyu had extracted every edible part of the crab and piled it onto a small dish, which he respectfully pushed toward Zhou Xu. “Please, enjoy!”

Shi Pei, sitting across from them, saw this and immediately smiled. “Wenyu treats his brother so well.”

Hearing this, Su Wenyu immediately picked another crab. “I’ll prepare one for you too.”

Su Duanhong, being allergic to seafood, could only sadly miss out on Wenyu’s hand-picked crab.

But Su Wenyu didn’t play favorites. Although Su Duanhong couldn’t eat seafood, he ladled him a bowl of congee, which also cheered Su Duanhong right up.

After spreading the crab meat and roe Su Wenyu had picked onto the thick, white congee and eating it, Zhou Xu wiped his mouth with a napkin.

Under Su Wenyu’s hopeful gaze, Zhou Xu finally spoke: “Dad, Mom. Wenyu and I are planning to go to the neighboring city for a couple of days to have some fun.”

Su Wenyu immediately gripped his chopsticks, looking at Shi Pei and Su Duanhong expectantly.

Su Wenyu had assumed this would be a back-and-forth debate, requiring sincere requests and various arguments to win the chance to leave.

But to his shock, upon hearing it, Shi Pei agreed without a second’s hesitation: “Sure, how many days will you be gone?”

Zhou Xu said, “Heading out on the 2nd, probably back around the 6th or 7th.”

Shi Pei had no objections whatsoever. She thought it was great that Su Wenyu and Zhou Xu spent more time together to build their brotherly bond.

“Do you have enough money? Want to send the driver with you?” Shi Pei asked. “Have you decided where to stay? I remember Wenyu has an apartment there. Will you be staying there?”

Zhou Xu nodded. “Yes, we’ll stay at Wenyu’s place. No need for the driver, his dormmates are all going. We’ll take the high-speed train.”

“The dormmates are going too? Sounds like you guys are getting along well,” Shi Pei said.

Su Wenyu nodded his head like a pecking chick.

What he had thought would require long pleading had been settled in just a few sentences. Su Wenyu was overjoyed.

Even Su Duanhong didn’t object, only reminding them to be safe while out.

On the way back to the small villa, Su Wenyu still found it somewhat unbelievable. “That was it? Just saying a sentence, and we can go out and play?”

Zhou Xu watched Su Wenyu bouncing around beside him like a rabbit and felt a bit dizzy. He reached out to still him. “What I want to know is, why do you think going out to have fun is such a difficult thing?”

Zhou Xu didn’t think the Su family would restrict Su Wenyu from going out. Before he returned to the Su family, Shi Pei had casually mentioned this younger brother, saying Su Wenyu liked to have fun, but his nature wasn’t bad, and she hoped they could get along.

“Did your previous family not let you go out?” Zhou Xu asked.

Su Wenyu stiffened slightly, realizing his earlier reaction was too intense and had revealed too much.

“No, they let me go out before, but… I’ve never gone with you before, so I was afraid they wouldn’t agree.” Su Wenyu’s mind spun frantically, and he thought he’d come up with a good excuse.

Zhou Xu listened to Su Wenyu’s flimsy excuse and didn’t believe a word of it.

But while he didn’t believe it, Zhou Xu didn’t press the issue.

Su Wenyu, seeing he wasn’t going to pursue it, turned his head and secretly let out a breath of relief.

For the next few days, Su Wenyu and Zhou Xu stayed obediently at home, going to the main residence for all three meals.

Su Duanhong didn’t have much to do during the break. Zhou Xu sometimes accompanied him fishing.

Su Wenyu, curious, went along once. He didn’t know if it was beginner’s luck or something, but within a single hour, he hooked several large fish in a row. The eyes of the veteran anglers around him practically turned green with envy when he pulled up a fish longer than his arm.

Although Su Wenyu didn’t understand why he could catch fish so easily, he could tell by the looks others were giving him just how much attention he was drawing.

So after that one time, Su Wenyu didn’t go again. Instead, he stayed home and accompanied Shi Pei in learning embroidery.

Handling a needle for the first time, Su Wenyu spent an entire afternoon embroidering a crooked, misshapen turtle, and collected quite a few needle pricks to his fingers.

Looking at the ugly turtle, Shi Pei deemed her son had absolutely no talent for embroidery and shooed him off to do something else.

Su Wenyu didn’t like playing video games either. After thinking it over, he eventually decided to go to the kitchen and learn to cook.

Aside from preparing the three daily meals, the chefs didn’t have many other tasks.

The fat chef in the kitchen had, for some time now, basked in the young master’s daily compliments on his cooking. Seeing him come in, he didn’t have the wariness of that first time, but greeted him cheerfully, asking what he’d like to eat tonight.

Su Wenyu said he wanted to learn how to cook.

The fat chef’s smile slowly faded. Spoke too soon.

The chefs wanted to gently persuade Su Wenyu out of the kitchen. Learning to cook wasn’t something a pampered young master like him needed to do.

Besides, if Su Wenyu got nicked handling a knife or splattered by hot oil in the kitchen, they’d fear for their jobs. Employers like the Su family, with low demands and high pay, were rare. The chefs wanted to keep working here for many more years.

But Su Wenyu was truly bored. “Couldn’t I just learn something where I won’t easily get hurt?”

Hearing this, the fat chef thought for a moment. “That could work.”

So the fat chef taught Su Wenyu how to make dumplings. No knives, no oil, just some technique and elbow grease.

Mixing and kneading dough, preparing and seasoning the filling. Su Wenyu worked hard at it, getting flour all over his face.

Wrapping dumplings turned out to be much harder for Su Wenyu than fishing.

Because the filling amount was sometimes too much, sometimes too little, and his fingers weren’t quite listening, the dumplings he made were all crooked and lopsided, unable to even stand up.

They looked less like dumplings and more like misshapen meat pies.

And yet, Su Wenyu was full of enthusiasm for learning. The fat chef reached out to help sometimes, but was always refused. Soon, the food-prep counter, covered in plastic wrap, was littered with these gnarled, oddly-shaped, leaking ‘dumplings.’

The fat chef looked at the dumplings, all wrapped up. They certainly couldn’t go to waste.

But the young master’s dumplings clearly couldn’t be boiled in water; they’d definitely fall apart. What they’d scoop out wouldn’t be dumplings, but dumpling skins.

After thinking it over, the chef decided to treat them like potstickers and made a large plate of pan-fried dumplings.

Thus, at dinner that night, there was no other staple food on the table, only one massive platter of bizarrely shaped pan-fried dumplings.

Su Duanhong looked at the platter and asked, puzzled, “Did we change chefs? These look…”

Su Wenyu, who had cleaned the flour off his face and clothes after making the dumplings, immediately raised his hand and proudly claimed, “I made them!”

The words on Su Duanhong’s tongue instantly changed direction: “…very appetizing.”

Shi Pei, who’d been home all day and had no idea Su Wenyu had gone to the kitchen to do this, was immediately surprised and delighted. “Wenyu made these? Well, I’m skipping my diet tonight! I have to eat a lot!”

Zhou Xu had already, while no one was paying attention, piled his own plate full of the pan-fried dumplings. He picked one up with his chopsticks, took a bite, and said with some surprise, “These are good.”

Su Wenyu grinned sheepishly. “Of course they are. The chef taught me how to mix the filling.”

To prevent Su Wenyu from accidentally heavy-handing the seasoning, the fat chef had even brought out a small scale, measuring the seasonings down to the gram. They were bound to taste good.

“They just look a little ugly, since it was my first time wrapping them,” Su Wenyu said.

Before Shi Pei could offer words of comfort, Zhou Xu ate another dumpling and said, “Not ugly. They’re very unique.”

In his one-sided love, Zhou Xu truly had been blinded by affection.