New Times, New Hell

Chapter 94 - Bringing My Significant Other to Attend

As usual, Liu Ao waited in his office for the painting ghost to return. However, for some reason, the painting ghost was late this time.

He was anxious in his heart, but couldn’t do anything else. He could only sit there and wait. After an unknown period of time, the roar of Underworld wind suddenly sounded out in the room. The painting hanging on the wall of the office started moving.

Liu Ao relaxed. Then, he started cussing, “Useless piece of shit. How come you took so long this time?”

“I can take however long I want. What the fuck does it have to do with you?!” The painting ghost asked from the painting on the wall.

Liu Ao’s temples throbbed. He instantly became furious and turned in the direction of that voice. “Piece of shit, who gave you the courage to speak to me like that?!”

When he turned around, though, he became shocked. It turned out that there was a high-quality counterfeit of《Mona Lisa》hanging on that wall.

And at this time, Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile had surprisingly changed into a famous sticker from the Internet——the silly panda’s disdainful smile. Not only so, but Mona Lisa also held up her middle fingers at him. Next to her face, a line of words read:【Eat shit, Liu Ao!】

This Cantonesesticker was honestly too popular. Even Liu Ao, who resided in the capital, recognized it instantly: ???

At the same time, the painting ghost’s pleased voice sounded out. “Liang Jingru gave me the courage, hehe!”

Liu Ao hadn’t expected that this usually cowardly and weak painting ghost would actually dare to speak to him in this manner. He became temporarily stunned. However, he soon regained his wits. Completely outraged, he yelled, “How absurd! Do you want to die?”

Only to see the silly Mona Lisa furrow her brows and twist her mouth. The caption next to her became:【I’m already dead anyways!】

Liu Ao was utterly discomfited. He pulled open the drawer of his desk and retrieved a painting from inside it. Then, he unfurled this painting and coldly laughed. “Do you believe me when I say that I’ll rip up this shitty painting right now?”

That was a festive and rowdy painting of a high-class banquet. Though the painting had already started turning yellow with age, one could still tell that the painter had rather extraordinary talent. The lines of the painting were delicate and very detailed. Only looking at the scene on the paper made one feel like they were there in person; it was almost as if they could hear the sounds of the singing and dancing at the banquet. Unfortunately, half of this exquisite painting was covered with a thick layer of ink. This stain instantly ruined the painting. A true pity.

Mona Lisa, who had originally been provoking Liu Ao with a silly expression on, revealed a slightly sorrowful expression upon seeing this banquet painting. She subconsciously sighed softly.

“Know to be scared now, huh?” Liu Ao’s lips were turned up in a smirk. Pleased, he said, “If you don’t want me to rip up this painting, behave……”

Before he could even finish, he saw Mona Lisa come back to her senses. An encouraging smile appeared on her face. The words next to her changed once again:【What wonderful ripping! Rip even louder!】

She was even clapping with her hands!

Liu Ao was absolutely flabbergasted. He pointed at the painting ghost while trembling. “Y-y-you, you’ve gone crazy!”

Mona Lisa side-eyed him while smiling.【Unexpected, right?!】

Liu Ao jumped in place. “Don’t think that I don’t actually dare to rip the painting!”

At this time, the painting ghost had finally had his fun. Mona Lisa slowly returned to the way she originally was: she no longer made herself into a sticker. The painting ghost’s voice echoed in the room. “There’s no need. I’ll do it myself.”

His voice was very distant. It no longer carried the previous cowardice and pretense as it had before. Instead, it sounded a bit relieved.

Following his words, the painting in Liu Ao’s hands seemed to catch fire. It slowly burned into ash. Liu Ao was shocked. “What’s going on?”

His hands instinctively shook. Those ashes thus dispersed, floating in the wind.

Surprised, Liu Ao asked, “Your spirit escaped the painting?”

“Yep,” the painting ghost cheerily said.

Immediately thereafter, the Meng Hua workers outside heard a horrible shriek sound out from their CEO’s office. Everyone hurriedly ran over to open Liu Ao’s office door. Then, they all became astounded.

Only to see Liu Ao weakly sprawled out in his own office chair. The expression on his face was extremely strange. His features were so twisted they had almost completely switched places. It was unknown how he had accomplished this.

A worker asked, “CEO, are you okay?”

Liu Ao weakly waved his hands. “Call an ambulance for me.”

“Oh, okay,” the worker replied.

While he dialed 120, everyone else realized that Liu Ao’s expression looked more familiar the more they looked at it. Finally, someone couldn’t help asking, “CEO, can you stop making the silly panda expression at us?”

Liu Ao roared, “Can’t you tell that I’m having facial spasms?!”

The events that transpired at the Song history symposium ended up on the news fairly quickly. The news that Song history Weibo account owner “From Today On I Will Be A European God” was a big collector of Song Dynasty antiques instantly exploded online.

Meng Hua Auction House’s ambitions had been too wild. They had invited many media representatives that day. Additionally, many of these media sources had big followings. In the end, even though they wanted to keep this news hidden, they failed to do so. This was a textbook example of picking up a stone to smack your own foot.

Especially the news that the authentic version of the rare famous painting《Trip to Songfeng Pavilion》had appeared. Moreover, the fact that it had engaged in a live authentication battle with the Gou family’s《Trip to Songfeng Pavilion》was too dramatic. This evoked a passion for discussion from netizens. In one day, they managed to get Shang Que’s name onto three trending topics. After gaining innumerous girlfriend fans and mom fans, Shang Que finally gained a new type of fan——son fans.

In the blink of an eye, everyone under Shang Que’s Weibo was calling him dad.

&#k3010;Dad, do you need a son? The type that’s already finished university&#k3011;

&#k3010;Dad, I’m your long lost son. Do you still remember the birthmark on my butt?&#k3011;

&#k3010;Dad, is my kneeling posture accurate enough?&#k3011;

Luofeng and Amazing Future’s employees all sent their congratulatory messages: Congratulations to Boss for finally gaining fanboys!

Shang Que: “……” The bottom line for modern netizens is honestly a lot lower than he thought it would be!

Additionally, just as Yu Zhengdu and Old Mr. Wang had guessed in the beginning, because of the existence of the items in Shang Que’s possession, the collector circle experienced a shuffling of the cards. The Gou family, a generational family who were experts on Song history, suffered the most. Gou Shiwang released a statement saying that within a short amount of time, he wouldn’t be considering auctioning off any part of his collection again.

However, nobody knew exactly how many items Shang Que owned. Quite a few collectors and reporters tried to get in contact with Shang Que through numerous methods to either talk with him or interview him. However, they all got cleanly rejected. Even gossip reporters, who were usually any and everywhere, failed to get even a single picture of Shang Que. This incident became known as an absurd tale in the field of the reporting.

However, with time, the attention slowly faded away. The media’s interest also eventually transferred onto other people and news.

Amidst the numerous reports and discussions, an article written by a certain gossip media reporter garnered a lot of people’s interest.

That report claimed that on the day of the symposium, not only had CEO taken out the authentic《Trip to Songfeng Pavilion》, he had also given the painting away on the spot to the employee attending with him. This was the employee’s “overtime pay.”

Regretfully, this report only quoted other people at the symposium. They didn’t have a personal interview with CEO at all; additionally, the accompanying picture was blurry and had obviously been taken in secret. As such, as soon as this report became published, it got seriously criticized by netizens.

One reason was because the story in this report was too ridiculous. Another was because the person in the picture of the employee was clearly Senior.

Though CEO and Senior’s CP was very delicious, gossip media couldn’t randomly make up information to borrow the CP’s popularity like this, okay?!

Offhandedly gifting a famous painting worth hundreds of millions to an employee: even dog-blooded dramas like “Domineering CEO Has Fallen in Love With Me” wouldn’t dare to write stories like this into their plot!

The media these days were honestly willing to do anything to get attention. The reporter who had written this report felt very wronged. He replied to the netizens in the comments, promising that their report was true and not made up at all.

Eventually, some netizens honestly couldn’t take it anymore. They specially private messaged Shang Que:【CEO, there’s a report that says you gave《Trip to Songfeng Pavilion》to Senior?】

Coincidentally, Shang Que was online. Because he had never come up with a good excuse, Yu Zhengdu ultimately refused to accept that painting. Looking at this question now, Shang Que felt very depressed. Thus, he angrily replied:【No.】

He had failed to give it away!

The netizen that Shang Que replied to posted the screenshot under that report: See, CEO himself already said he didn’t give the painting away. How dare you say you didn’t make that information up.

That reporter was mind blown. This information had been personally spoken by those VIP guests at the symposium! How come even wealthy businessmen make up news? They’re too much!

Because this report was honestly too ridiculous, the majority of netizens only wanted to cuss the reporter out after seeing it. They weren’t even interested in reposting it. As such, it didn’t end up causing too much of a splash online.

During this time, Yu Zhengdu received another invitation from his college classmate, Jia Yihua, inviting him to attend a meal together.

Jia Yihua had held his wedding ceremony in his hometown of Minan. Because it was rather far away from Fu City, he didn’t invite his classmates to attend. Only Yu Zhengdu had happened to be in Minan on a business trip at the time. Thus, he had managed to attend. It was also at that time that Shang Que had misunderstood and thought that Yu Zhengdu was going to confess to him. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from showing off at the wedding reception; now, Yu Zhengdu’s entire class believed that Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que were in a relationship.

This time, Jia Yihua was making up a reception with his classmates in Fu City. However, it was going to be a very simple affair more akin to a meal than a wedding reception. He had also told his classmates in advance that he didn’t want wedding money.

Yu Zhengdu had always had a pretty good relationship with his college classmates. After graduation, they rarely had the chance to meet up again. Because of this, everyone was very excited this time. Aside from Hou Guangzong and a few other people who honestly couldn’t make the time, almost everyone expressed that they would attend. A lot of people also said that they would bring their significant others too.

Because Shang Que was often on the trending topics list these days, members of Yu Zhengdu’s group chat often shared Weibo posts regarding him into the chat for discussion. Thus, someone started asking Yu Zhengdu to bring Shang Que along.

Jia Yihua:【Yu Zhengdu, I’m still leaving two empty slots for you this time. You understand】

Zhu Yan:【Aaah, Zhengdu hasn’t said anything ever since he got a boyfriend. He ought to be bringing his boyfriend over for us to see this time at least, right?!】

Classmate A:【Exactly. Your boyfriend has so many fans online, we honestly can’t rest at ease. Bring him over so we can help you appraise him】

Classmate B:【……Can I say that I’m really against this in my heart? I was planning on bringing my new girlfriend along. Originally, with just Zhengdu present, that was already a very threatening situation. If his boyfriend attends too, will I still be allowed to survive?】

Classmate C:【Are you stupid? Zhengdu alone is more threatening to you, okay? If he attends with his boyfriend, they’re at most a handsome gay couple. That way, your girlfriend can truly give up on him!】

Classmate B:【Yi? Makes sense! @Yu Zhengdu, please absolutely bring your boyfriend along!】

Yu Zhengdu honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As he watched everyone in the group chat take turns @’ing him, he knew that this wouldn’t end unless he said something.

He thought about it and replied:【Um, my Boss and I aren’t in a relationship. However, I can ask him if he wants to go or not.】

As soon as he said this, the group chat became filled with question marks.

Classmate A:【What do you mean? Didn’t you already come out of the closet? How come you aren’t in a relationship yet?】

At this time, Zhang Qingqing finally couldn’t help saying:【Aiya, you guys are so annoying. Zhengdu has never said that they’re dating, okay? You guys were the ones who made all those blind guesses!】

Because Zhang Qingqing had previously run into Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que on a date, she knew that they hadn’t confirmed their relationship yet. It was a great taboo for others to incessantly mention couples during this ambiguous stage. If they failed to get together in the end, everyone would feel very awkward. As such, she decided to speak up for Yu Zhengdu.

Many of the people in their group chat were very perceptive. Upon seeing that Yu Zhengdu himself had said that they weren’t dating, and because Zhang Qingqing’s tone was a bit sharp, they all guessed something. Immediately, they conscientiously changed the topic.

Jia Yihua private messaged Yu Zhengdu:【So are you coming alone or with a guest?】

Yu Zhengdu thought about it:【Leave two spaces for me, I guess. I’ll ask my Boss if he’s coming or not】

He stood up and walked into Shang Que’s office to ask for time off.

Shang Que furrowed his brows after learning of the reason. “Drinking wedding wine again?”

“Yes. It’s the same classmate as before too. He’s holding a makeup reception here.” Yu Zhengdu gazed at him and said with a smile, “He also told me to bring my significant other along.”

Shang Que shot out of his seat. “Significant other? What significant other? Since when have you had a significant other?”

Yu Zhengdu burst into laughter. “He was talking about the one from last time.”

“The one from last time?” Shang Que froze for a moment before coming to a realization. His expression became awkward. He looked into the distance. “You didn’t clear things up with him?”

Yu Zhengdu: “I can’t. The rumors are already out. It’s hard to explain clearly.”

Shang Que: “Then what are you planning on doing?”

Yu Zhengdu stuffed both hands into his sweatshirt pocket. “I’m here to ask you if you want to come with me?”

“But……” Shang Que’s gaze flickered slightly. “I’m not even your significant other.”

“That’s right. You’re not even my significant other,” Yu Zhengdu replied with a smile. “I’ll send the time and location to you. Consider it.”

Shang Que kept a mouthful of air in. A moment later, he slowly exhaled. “You can have your time off.”

On the day of the meeting, because he needed to take care of some work matters, Yu Zhengdu arrived rather late. When he got there, almost everyone else was already present.

Jia Yihua had reserved a small private room. In total, there were four tables. Aside from his classmates and his classmates’ partners, there were also a few students from other majors that Jia Yihua had been rather good friends with.

Their classmates all greeted Yu Zhengdu as soon as they noticed him. Some reminisced about the past with him, some said they missed him, some wanted him to help them, and there were also a few jealous ones. Since he had started working, Yu Zhengdu had honestly been too successful. He had ended up on the trending topics list before and was in a position of power equivalent to the famous Zhao Ruola’s. No matter how great of friends they were in the past, after joining society, certain people would have changes of heart. It was inevitable that some would start feeling envious.

“Zhengdu, over here. I left you a spot.” Zhu Yan stood up to pull Yu Zhengdu over. Then, he glanced in the direction of the door. “Are you here alone? Just now, Yihua said he left two spots for you……”

“Un, Boss isn’t free,” Yu Zhengdu sighed. As expected from a ghost who had remained single for a thousand years due to pure talent. His slow-wittedness in regards to feelings was shocking.

But also because of this, Yu Zhengdu was extra careful in his attitude when dealing with Shang Que about their relationship.

Yu Zhengdu had just sat down next to Zhu Yan when someone asked out of the blue, “Yi? Classmate Yu, aren’t you dating your boss? How come you didn’t bring him this time?”

Yu Zhengdu looked up. He saw a vaguely familiar face, but he couldn’t remember whose face this was on the spot. Thus, he asked, “May I ask who you are?”

That person’s expression instantly became dark. His tone was slightly displeased. “Classmate Yu is truly the nobleman with a poor memory. How long has it been since graduation for you to not recognize your classmate?”

Yu Zhengdu, expression serious: “Were you famous on campus?”

That person had been tactfully rebuked. He was so angry that he couldn’t get a response out.

The female classmate sitting next to him hurriedly mediated the situation. “Aiya, you weren’t even in the same college. It’s normal that he doesn’t remember you.”

The other students helped speak up too. Yu Zhengdu finally remembered who this person was.

Was’t this Wu Shuojian, the law student who had relentlessly been his antifan on the school forum for four years?

Wu Shuojian was an extremely petty individual. Because one of his girlfriends in college had once pursued Yu Zhengdu, he diligently said bad things about Yu Zhengdu on their school forum for a whole four years. He had been Yu Zhengdu’s most famous antifan during college. However, he was ultimately a law student. He had protected his personal information very well. As such, to this day, nobody knew that the identity of the antifan was Wu Shuojian.

Yu Zhengdu had only found out after checking his IP address while bored.

Previously, information about Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que’s rumored relationship had been posted onto the forum. Wu Shuojian hadn’t even forgotten to take this opportunity to criticize Yu Zhengdu for shamelessly sticking to his boss, etc. etc. He became classified as a “demon” who was jealous of a godly romance by Shang Que.

The reason Wu Shuojian was attending this meal was because he and one of Yu Zhengdu’s female classmates were dating. He was here as a “plus one.” The person who had spoken up to mediate the situation earlier was his current girlfriend.

Seeing his presence, Yu Zhengdu knew that this meal probably wouldn’t continue peacefully.

As expected, a few minutes after everyone started eating, their classmates started making small talk with each other. They asked about everyone’s recent work situations. Wu Shuojian thus took this chance to say, “If we’re talking about work, the most successful person from our school is probably Classmate Yu, right?”

Yu Zhengdu pretended to be eating. He didn’t even look up at the other.

But the other didn’t care if he was answering or not. He continued on, “However, some people on our school forum are honestly too much. Previously, I found a post that said Classmate Yu only got promoted because he shamelessly stuck to his boss. They sounded so sure of themselves. Truly don’t know what kind of person they are.”

He was obviously the one who had posted that.

Yu Zhengdu rolled his eyes and said, “Someone with red-eye syndrome. Or, a lemon spirit. Who else?”

Zhu Yan nodded too from next to him. “Exactly. They must be a loser with a dark heart!”

Wu Shuojian had originally thought that Yu Zhengdu would make a few excuses for that person. He hadn’t expected for him to be so impolite in his speech. He accidentally ended up getting attacked; Wu Shuojian felt so angry he was spitting blood in his heart. However, he still maintained a fake smile on his face. “Speaking of, people on the forum truly said that Classmate Yu and his boss were in a relationship. There was also an ID that cosplayed as your boss and said he was pursuing you. That was honestly hilarious. But there are also other posts these days that say you aren’t in a relationship. So were you guys actually never in a relationship or did you break up?”

Upon hearing this, Yu Zhengdu realized that it was very probable that someone had posted screenshots from their group chat online again. This Wu Shuojian was also a very diligent antifan. His information was extremely up to date.

“Did you know? Classmate Wu……” Yu Zhengdu narrowed his eyes and stated, “Aside from my Third Aunt and my Sixth Great-Aunt, you’re the only person who cares so much about my love life.”

Wu Shuojian instantly became agitated. “What do you mean?”

Originally, the fact that he had guided the topic of conversation onto Yu Zhengdu and his boss’s relationship had already made everyone feel uncomfortable. Only, they hadn’t expected for Yu Zhengdu’s response to be even more impolite than the other’s questions. The tension around the table abruptly became more noticeable.

His girlfriend hurriedly stopped him. “Shuojian, don’t say so much.”

Wu Shuojian was incredibly petty. How could he not retaliate after being publicly shamed by Yu Zhengdu? He instantly scoffed. “Haven’t I already limited my questions? I haven’t even relayed all of the unpleasant comments that are on the forum. Right now, everyone on the forum is saying that Classmate Yu shamelessly stuck to his boss to get promoted. Unfortunately, his boss was only playing around, so dumped him.”

Yu Zhengdu furrowed his brows. “Are there such rumors?”

He had a lot of work. Normally, he didn’t check the forum. He only looked at the posts that his classmates shared into their group chat. However, he had never seen such a post before.

Zhu Yan’s expression was a bit awkward. He softly said, “Un, some unknown person uploaded screenshots from our group chat onto the forum again. You know too that previously, everyone was saying that you and your boss were in a relationship. They even made it seem so realistic. Thus, everyone thought that you guys broke up this time.”

Yu Zhengdu pulled out his phone and opened the school forum. He only realized what had happened after looking up the post and reading it.

Just like Zhu Yan had stated, because his rumored relationship with Shang Que had seemed so realistic in the past, after this post, everyone naturally believed that they had broken up. Honestly too many people were paying attention to Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que’s rumored relationship; as soon as someone mentioned a breakup, everyone instantly started guessing the reason for the breakup too.

A newly registered fake account had taken this opportunity to post a short essay analyzing why they believed Yu Zhengdu had been dumped by Shang Que.

Shang Que was a CEO. Recently, he was also always on the trending topics list. Everyone online knew that he was a big antique collector – his net worth couldn’t be calculated. Additionally, he had countless fans who followed him. No matter from what perspective, it seemed more believable that he had been the one who dumped Yu Zhengdu.

Not only so, but this fake account’s claims were very crafty. After saying that Yu Zhengdu had been dumped, it also mentioned the fact that Yu Zhengdu had rapidly risen up the company ranks after graduation. The hidden meaning behind this was obvious even without being explicitly stated.

It was true that Yu Zhengdu’s legendary work experience caused many to feel admiration. At the same time, though, there were also many envious people. Prior to this, several people had already subtly made up stories about him. As soon as this short essay became posted, there were surprisingly a lot of people who agreed with its viewpoints. It had even been uploaded to the Internet by some ill-intending individual.

Yu Zhengdu expressionlessly finished reading this post. When he looked up, he discovered that everyone at the table had awkward expressions on. It seemed that everyone had already seen this post a long time ago. However, probably because the claims in this post were honestly too demeaning, nobody had shared it into their group chat.

Zhu Yan said, “Zhengdu, don’t take this to heart. Who knows what kind of people are behind these IDs? They don’t know anything, so they’re just making random stuff up. There’s no need to bother with them.”

“I know who’s behind these IDs.” Yu Zhengdu put his phone back into his pocket and coldly glanced at Wu Shuojian. “You with the surname Wu, if you don’t apologize and admit your mistakes right now, don’t blame me for being impolite.”

This sudden sentence caused Wu Shuojian’s heart to skip a beat. He almost lost control of his expression. However, he very quickly calmed down once more.

He personally believed that he had protected his information very well. Additionally, he had been saying bad things about Yu Zhengdu online for a whole four years. If Yu Zhengdu knew he was behind all this, how could it be possible for him to remain silent? Not to mention that this time, he had just created a new fake account. It was even less likely for him to get exposed.

Yu Zhengdu was most likely so embarrassed that he felt angry. Thus, he was merely finding someone to target as a means of displacing his anger. As such, Wu Shuojian instantly sat up straight. “You’re too interesting. You yourself did those dirty things and someone else posted them online. Why are you taking your anger out on me?”

This was a hard to come by opportunity. He decided to speak with great ill intent. “Why are you even bothering with what people are saying online? Either way, you’ve already been promoted and got your money. Does it matter that you’ve been dumped by your boss? At the end of the day, you’ve still got a better life than we do……”

Yu Zhengdu scoffed. “Did you know that I already found your IP while we were in university?”

Wu Shuojian’s expression instantly changed. “What?”

At the same time, a cold voice sounded out from behind Yu Zhengdu. “Who did you guys say got dumped?”

Yu Zhengdu turned around. His eyes crinkled into crescents. “Boss, I thought that you weren’t coming?”

Zhu Yan looked at Shang Que in shock too. “CEO, why are you here?”

Shang Que’s expression was a bit awkward. “Didn’t you guys tell him to bring his significant other to attend?”

“Yeah.” Someone at the table asked without any tact at all, “But you’re not his significant other?”

Shang Que angrily replied, “But I want to be his significant other! Is that not okay?!”

The author has something to say:

Xiaokui: !!! You guys forced me!