My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn’t Need Any Comforting

Chapter 95

He Shen really wanted to see him, especially after Friday. When all the dust has settled, he would only miss Qiao Shao all the more.

Seemingly aware of his mood, Qiao Shao said with a smile. “Okay, I am usually free on the weekend. I’ll go see you.”

He Shen’s brows smoothed out as he heard his affirmative answer. “For sure?”

Qiao Shao promised, “For sure.”

When the bell for class rang, Qiao Shao was about to hurry to class, but He Shen pulled him back.

Qiao Shao looked at him. “En?”

He Shen: “I want to ask your opinion on something.”

Qiao Shao was afraid of arriving late to class. “Let’s talk about it after class?”

He Shen said, “This will be quick.”

Qiao Shao halted his steps and followed him to the shadow of the school building. “OK, tell me.”

He Shen looked down at him and asked solemnly, “Can I tell my family about you? That I like you?”

Qiao Shao’s eyes widened and he was stunned. “Wh-what?”

He Shen asked, “Can I?”

Qiao Shao wasn’t able to react for a long while. His heart felt hot, and it was like even with his voice had been roasted by the heat, it came out a little distorted, “Why’d you think of letting your family know?”

He Shen asked once again, “Can I tell them?”

Qiao Shao’s cheeks also slowly turned red, and he lowered his eyes and said, “If you want to tell them, then tell them.”

This is He Shen’s business. He can tell anyone he wants, including his family. But this was also Qiao Shao’s business. He Shen baring this to his family had a special meaning to Qiao Shao — if He Shen didn’t like him to the extreme, how could he have the courage to tell his family?

Qiao Shao was happy, and then he remembered. “For the time being, I can’t tell my dad.” He was not afraid for himself, but he feared Da Qiao would bully He Shen.

He Shen smiled and took his hand, “There’s no need to hurry.”

Qiao Shao felt a little panicky and wanted to explain again. Who knew that He Shen would have another question for him. “Qiao Shao, if I’m different from what you think, would you still like me?”

Qiao Shao’s attention was immediately diverted. He looked up at him. “Different, how?”

He Shen hesitated, “For example, my family …”

Qiao Shao immediately understood. He looked at him and said seriously, “It’s okay. It’s just repaying your debt, right? I’ll help you pay it back!”

He Shen was dazed.

Qiao Shao said again, “Cough… don’t look at me like that, actually I …”

He Shen smiled and his eyes bent into crescents. Ruffling his hair, he said, “It’s ten million, you know.”

Qiao Shao immediately replied, “No problem!”

He Shen said, “Ordinary people wouldn’t even make that much their entire life.”

Qiao Shao said in a roundabout way, “Maybe someday I’ll buy two winning lottery tickets! That should be enough.” He felt that saying so sounded more believable that saying his father was Qiao Zongmin.

He Shen’s lips hooked up. “This is wrong, Qiao Xiao Shao.”

Qiao Shao heard his playful tone and knew that what this guy would say next was nothing good.

Sure enough, He Shen’s next sentence was, “We’re not even married yet and you already want our wealth to be conjugal property?”

Qiao Shao: “Shut up!” He knew this guy wouldn’t say anything decent!

He Shen’s heart had gone so soft, it was now in complete shambles. He pulled Qiao Shao into his arms and kissed him on top of his head. “Qiao Shao &#k2026;”

Qiao Shao: “Huh?”

He Shen said, from the bottom of his heart, “I love you.”

Qiao Shao’s body trembled. He opened his mouth to say, “I &#k2026;”

He Shen interrupted him. “Don’t say it.”

He still won’t let him say it! Qiao Shao was angry. “Why do only you get to say it?” Shouldn’t confessions be mutual, why can’t he say that he loves him.

He Shen hugged him tightly and said, “Wait until later. Tell me in the future.”

He can’t hear it now. If he hears it now, he’ll take it seriously and if one day, Qiao Shao comes to regret it, he wouldn’t be able to let him go. So, don’t say it. He doesn’t want to hurt Qiao Shao. Even if Qiao Shao can only give him a brief period of happiness, he definitely doesn’t want to hurt him.

Qiao Shao didn’t continue to say it. Firstly, this kind of thing needed the right kind of atmosphere. Now that he’s been interrupted, how can he continue to say it? Secondly, he also reflected on it, and He Shen loved him enough to want to tell his family while he was still keeping him a secret. It was definitely unreasonable. When he has made ample preparation and revealed everything to Da Qiao, he must definitely grab a loudspeaker and shout these three words into He Shen’s ears!

After self-study, the last class, Qiao Shao was packing his things to head home.

Song Yixu’s eyes were green with envy. “You two both asked for leave. What kind of secret things are you two up to!”

Qiao Shao felt guilty. He looked at him. “We both have family matters we need to attend to.”

Silly Husky Song’s words were dripping with envy. “I don’t believe it. You two are just going off to have fun together. You’re going to be pigging out and playing around without a care in the world. You don’t care that we students will be here slaving away like dogs!”

Despite this silly husky being beyond stupid, he had inadvertently hit the nail on the head.

Qiao Shao wasn’t in the mood to pay him any attention and so he shouldered his bag and left.

Back home Qiao Zongmin called out to him. “Come and try on your suit.”

Qiao Shao said, “I’m sure it’s fine. I can just wear it tomorrow.”

Comrade Da Qiao was more anxious than he was. “You haven’t worn this kind of thing in a long time, don’t you need to get used to it?”

It was true that when he was young, he often followed his granddad to a lot of social functions. He had worn all sorts of western suits and had gotten quite used to it. But since his kidnapping and return, he hadn’t attended a single party. It has been years since he’d last worn this kind of thing…

Qiao Shao said, “OK, then let’s try it on.”

Aunt Wu stepped forward and said, “Let me help you.” It’s a bit inconvenient to wear this kind of clothes by yourself.

In fact, men’s attire were much simpler than women’s, especially in today’s society, where they were all just multiple variations of a western suit. When attending a banquet abroad, he still had to be careful if the dress code called for a tuxedo or a tailcoat. In China, though, it was very casual. Most of the time, people didn’t even wear three-piece suits.

Although the suit that Qiao Zongmin got was a rush job, it was of the finest workmanship. After all, this was an eight digit suit. For that price, even gold threads could be sewn in.

Qiao Shao hadn’t worn such exquisite clothes for a long time but he didn’t feel uncomfortable. After all, he’d been engaged in things like these since he was young, by now, the memories have been engraved in his bones.

Qiao Zongmin looked it over and said, “It looks good!”

Aunt Wu is even more enthusiastic. “Shao Shao is so handsome!”

Qiao Shao fixed his own Windsor knot and smiled. “Dad, you’ve got a good eye. This suite makes me look quite tall.”

Qiao Zongmin said, “It doesn’t make you look tall. It’s because you’ve actually grown a lot taller.”

Qiao Shao said, “En, en, a whole 2.6 centimeters taller.”

Qiao Zongmin disagreed. “That was two months ago. Now, it’s five centimeters taller!”

To order his suit, Qiao Shao’s entire body had been carefully measured. Qiao Shao looked at him through the mirror, “You didn’t do any rounding up this time?”

Qiao Zongmin said reasonably, “So what if I rounded up. Four centimeters is still a lot. And how long has it been since then?”

Nice! Really nice! Four centimeters in five months was indeed a lot!

After trying on the suit, Qiao Shao went ahead upstairs. Before he even opened the door, the heard a phone ringing. Qiao Shao was surprised. He had his phone in hand. How could there be ringing in the room?

Oh … Qiao Shao then remembered his other mobile phone.

Qiao Shao pushed open the door to his room and rummaged in some forgotten corner for his long unused fruit-branded mobile phone.

The caller was Zhao Puyu, one of his few childhood playmates.

“Hello?” Because he had forgotten a lot of thing, Qiao Shao was no longer as close to his old friends as before.

Zhao Puyu hadn’t contacted him for half a year, and he was startled when he heard his voice.

Qiao Shao asked directly, “What’s the matter?”

Zhao Puyu said, “I heard my dad say that you’ll be going to the Xie Family’s house tomorrow?”

Qiao Shao replied, “En, I want to have a look.”

Zhao Puyu: “Then I’ll go too.”

Qiao Shao gave a non-committal “Oh”.

Zhao Puyu paused and asked a bit dully, “Are you better now?”

Qiao Shao frowned lightly and said, “I feel great.”

There was momentary silence between the two. After a while, Zhao Puyu said, “The change in environment was really effective.”

Qiao Shao knew what Zhao Puyu was struggling with. He said, “It worked for me.”

After a long pause, Zhao Puyu still asked, “Aren’t you going to come back?”

Qiao Shao said, “For the moment, I don’t have any plans for that.”

A little of Zhao Puyu’s normal self leaked out. “Are you going to stay at that lousy place for three years?”

Qiao Shao’s voice turned a bit indifferent. “East High’s a really good school.”

Zhao Puyu knew that he had said the wrong thing. It was impossible for him to apologize, but he did not want to provoke Qiao Shao, so he changed the topic. “Oh, the prodigy from the Xie family is back. You should try to steer clear of him.”

How could everyone be so prejudiced against the young master of the Xie family?

Qiao Shao pitied him a little now. “Do you know him?”

Zhao Puyu snorted. “Maybe your dad doesn’t mention it, but my parents want nothing more than mention it over and over into my ear all day long!”

Qiao Shao: “Mention what?”

“His name. It’s amazing. I can’t do anything right. They say Xie Shen’s like this and like that, Xie Shen’s so great. Why the hell did they give birth to me then!”

Qiao Shao froze.

Zhao Puyu continued on. “Xie Shen tested for Tsinghua University when he was just ten. Is he even human!”

Qiao Shao interrupted him: “Xie Shen?”

Zhao Puyu was flabbergasted. “You don’t even know the prodigy’s name?”

Qiao Shao said, “My dad never told me.”

Zhao Puyu envied him to death. “Comrade Da Qiao is really the most enlightened father I have ever seen!” His father and mother wished for nothing more than to have this child from another family by their bedside while Qiao Zongmin never even mentioned him. Both were parents but the difference was so big!

What Qiao Shao was more concerned about was, “What character is his “shen”?”

Zhao Puyu said, “The ‘shen’ for ‘deep’.”

Qiao Shao was even more stunned.

Zhao Puyu noticed that he was lost in thought and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing …” Qiao Shao thought his idea was simply too absurd. He said, “My seatmate also has “shen” in his name.”

Zhao Puyu didn’t take it seriously. “Relax. That evildoer Xie Shen would never attend your lousy little high school.”

Qiao Shao was not happy about that. “East High is very good.”

Zhao Puyu couldn’t come up with anything to say and gave a perfunctory, “En, very good …”

What does he mean it’s very good? Could it be compared with their high school, where 80-90% of students were admitted to Ivy League Universities?

After hanging up the phone, Qiao Shao thought for a while.

He Shen … Xie Shen …

He felt that this name ‘Shen’ sounded very familiar and not just because it was the same as He Shen’s. Where had he heard it before? Qiao Shao thought for a long time was starting to have a vague recollection, when He Shen sent a video call.

Speak of the devil!

Qiao Shao ran to the utility room with his mobile phone. All thoughts of Xie Shen were thrown to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

On Friday, at around 4 pm, Qiao Zongmin went home to pick up Qiao Shao.

Qiao Shao was already neatly dressed and he got in the car. Naturally, they couldn’t take a sports car to attend such an occasion. And so this 10 million yuan Rolls-Royce, although crude, was a necessity.

The two men sat in the back row, Qiao Zongmin gave an appraising look towards his son. “Are you nervous?”

Qiao Shao said with a smile, “What’s there to be nervous about?” He knew what Da Qiao meant.

Qiao Zongmin said, “From here on out, everyone will know who you are.”

Qiao Shao understood. He knew that by attending this banquet it would mean that he would no longer be Qiao Yi, hiding away at home, but a brand new Qiao Shao.

Qiao Shao looked at his father. “In the future, I can accompany you.”

Qiao Zongmin was dazed.

Qiao Shao said, “I will stand beside you during occasions like this.”

Despite his young age his words were resolute. It almost made Qiao Zongmin forget himself.

How many years has it been?

Since his wife left, he had been alone … For so many years.

Qiao Zongmin smiled and sighed, “En.”

Their baobei has grown up. He knew how to assume responsibility. He was now a man.

The car drove out of the city, as they entered the Xie Family’s estate, the noise and hustle and bustle slowly gave way to a sense of relaxation and tranquility.

The garden was designed by the landscaper with the utmost care. Every lawn was made from the finest varieties, growing into a lush and carefully cultivated area. The shrubs were pruned into inviting shapes. Layer by layer, tier by tier, anyone who looks at it would be filled with awe.

The car drove through the massive gold and silver gate. They drove for seven or eight more minutes before stopping in front of the banquet hall.

Inside the banquet hall, when he had learned that Qiao Zongmin had arrived, He Shen excused himself from people around him and came out to greet the distinguished guests. He stood in front of the door with an occasion-appropriate smile on his face.

At this time, the door opened and a man alighted from the car. Out came a tall man in a trim suit with a calm and handsome smile.

The door on the other side also opened. A pair of black leather shoes with white straps landed on the floor. The slim-fitting trousers covered a straight pair of legs. The dark little tuxedo was offset a clean pearl white shirt. The neat Windsor knot sat below an elegant and exquisite face.

A very beautiful youth, his curved lips held a princeling’s noble and refined manner.

He Shen’s eyes shifted slightly and the instant he saw him, he was gobsmacked.

————–>>>>

Translator’s note: *covers head* Yes, I know, I’m being mean by leaving it here. But bear with me, guys. Just one more sleep! See you tomorrow! =)