GDRG CH7

Chapter 7: Fierce and Spicy Rich Guy Buys a Sculpture

“Brother, let’s drive into the city for dinner tonight, and pick up Yimeng and my bestie on the way…” Xing Wei pushed the door open and came in, then paused, her face full of confusion. “Who pissed you off?”

“…”

“Is there trouble at the company?” Xing Wei asked again.

Xing Jun said nothing, turning off his phone. After a moment of calm, he said, “It’s nothing.”

Of course, it was nothing. Shi Xueqing was just a green tea gold digger. Besides, wasn’t his purpose in coming north to drive Shi Xueqing away from his sister?

Shi Xueqing knew he didn’t like him and obediently unfollowed. He knew his place.

He was still thinking this as he drove into the city.

He didn’t notice the somewhat tense atmosphere in the car. The three girls were frantically messaging in their small group chat.

“Why isn’t your brother talking? Is he in a bad mood today?” Xing Wei’s bespectacled best friend sent a message.

“I don’t know… he’s been acting weird since this afternoon.”

Xing Jun thought he was in a relaxed mood, but he didn’t realize everyone else thought he was in a bad mood. As they were about to get out of the car, Xing Wei took advantage of her bestie and Lu Yimeng being ahead and quietly poked Xing Jun. “Brother, what are you doing? You’ve had a long face all day. Don’t scare my bestie and Yimeng.”

“Oh.” Only then did Xing Jun adjust his expression. He thought to himself that he had actually let a gold digger like Shi Xueqing affect his daily mood.

It must be because Shi Xueqing was so annoying and shallow. What was a nine-hundred-dollar pair of headphones worth? Flaunting them all over Instagram day after day.

And it wasn’t like he wanted to see Shi Xueqing’s shallow photos showing off the headphones that much.

Shi Xueqing must have realized he was monitoring him, so he quietly unfollowed to lay low and wait for an opportunity.

Such a clumsy tactic. Just because he couldn’t see Shi Xueqing’s Instagram, did he think he had no other way to monitor his actions?

After shaking off his annoyance, Xing Jun was the picture of a gentleman. He went to a Korean barbecue restaurant with the three girls. While crossing a footbridge, he saw the girl walking next to his bespectacled best friend and thought she looked a bit familiar. “Your friend?”

“Yeah, she went to New York during the Dragon Boat Festival, so she didn’t come to the party.” Seeing Xing Jun ask about her classmate, Xing Wei got excited again. She was rather keen on finding a girlfriend for her brother, who had been single his whole life. “Her family’s well-off too, she plays the piano really well, and she’s single.”

Xing Jun raised an eyebrow. He didn’t understand why he thought this girl looked a bit familiar.

And, he also felt a strange sense of concern.

Such was the paranoia of a survivor of the family inheritance battle. During dinner, Xing Jun was distracted, searching his mind for traces of this girl. Xing Wei misunderstood and thought he was interested in her, so she was lively in her conversation, and in the end, even had the two of them go buy bubble tea.

Standing in front of the bubble tea shop, the girl flicked her hair, revealing two large earrings. Xing Jun remembered at once.

He remembered a profile picture!

This girl, wasn’t she the one who commented under Shi Xueqing’s Instagram post, “Did you go alone?”

Lu Yimeng shivered. She had originally thought Xing Wei’s brother was so handsome. Being able to go buy bubble tea with a handsome guy had made her little heart flutter.

But just now, the handsome guy had glanced at her earrings—and in that instant, his expression had become extremely hostile.

Like he had seen a potential enemy.

Lu Yimeng started to wonder. What’s going on? Does the handsome guy not like Dior? Does he like Jojo instead?

She let out a couple of dry laughs, quickly trying to break the atmosphere. “Brother Xing, what would you like to drink?”

Xing Jun, who had been reasonably polite, was now a bit distracted.
“Strawberry Matcha Latte, I guess,” he said casually.

With the drinks in hand, Xing Wei and her best friend came over. She was very surprised to see Xing Jun’s drink. “Brother, you’re drinking the full-sugar version? I haven’t seen you in a year, how did your taste become the same as Shi Xueqing’s?”

Xing Jun looked at his drink as if he had just realized what he had ordered, his face turning very ugly. But Lu Yimeng cheered up. “Speaking of which, I haven’t seen Little Shi in half a month. I miss him so much!”

Her tone was genuinely happy, as if she and Shi Xueqing were on very good terms. Xing Wei said, “Didn’t you go to New York to see the exhibition of his favorite French artist? I heard him mention before that he wanted a souvenir from that exhibition…”

“You mean that limited-edition commemorative sculpture? The one that’s over a thousand dollars. When I went, there were still plenty in stock. I messaged him to ask if he wanted me to buy it for him,” Lu Yimeng said. “Unfortunately, he had taken a car to go hiking in the mountains and didn’t see the message. By the time he saw it, I had already left the exhibition.”

Over a thousand dollars… he probably couldn’t afford it, so he made up a clumsy excuse about taking a car to go hiking. Xing Jun thought. The first time he had seen Shi Xueqing, he was running on the street on a rainy day.

He couldn’t even bear to take an Uber; he probably took the bus to Xing Wei’s apartment.

Such a poser, he thought, unconsciously taking a sip of the bubble tea.

The two girls were still chatting.

“But Shi Xueqing has been quite happy these past few days.”
“I haven’t seen him post so much on Instagram usually. Looks like he really likes that shop.”

It’s not that he likes the shop, he’s clearly showing off the headphones.
Headphones that he paid for.
…This bubble tea tasted both tea-like and sweet.
He took a few more sips.
Still a strange taste.

“Brother, are you going to drink this or not? If not, I’ll throw it away when I get out of the car,” Xing Wei said as she dropped off the two girls and was about to get out of the car to go back to her apartment. “What day are you going back to the Bay Area?”

“This Sunday,” Xing Jun said. He had Xing Wei take the bubble tea with her.

The sweet drink was finally gone from his car. As Xing Jun drove back to the hotel, his mind was on the Shi Xueqing who had unfollowed him.

Shi Xueqing was like a persistent ghost, just like the strange matcha taste that lingered in his mouth.

A green tea gold digger wouldn’t just give up like that. Although he couldn’t see Shi Xueqing’s Instagram, Xing Jun firmly believed that by sticking close to his sister, he would eventually see Shi Xueqing’s next move.

Just you wait, Shi Xueqing, he thought. Declaring war on me, are you? Then let me see what you’re planning to do.

But to Xing Jun’s surprise, from Tuesday to Thursday, Shi Xueqing seemed to have vanished from his world, never appearing before him and Xing Wei again.

For three consecutive days, there was no news of Shi Xueqing. He didn’t even update his Moments. The post floating at the top was still that Hesse collage poem.

“Because all wrong paths lead me to you.”

Xing Jun was bored in his hotel room for a long time. In the dead of night, he actually followed Lu Yimeng’s Instagram to find the name of the French artist holding the exhibition and clicked on the exhibition’s official website.

The next stop for the exhibition was Tokyo. Xing Jun was about to close the website when he caught sight of the souvenirs available for online purchase.
Including that limited-edition sculpture.

Even with California’s high taxes, the price of the miniature sculpture was no more than two thousand dollars.

By the time he realized it, Xing Jun had already bought it, with the shipping address set to his home in the Bay Area. He frowned, thinking to himself that he was mocking Shi Xueqing for not even being able to afford this little bit of money.

Looking at the order page again, Xing Jun was surprised to find that the sculpture was now out of stock. What a coincidence, he had bought the very last one.

Well now, Shi Xueqing would never be able to get the souvenir. No matter who he tried to leech off of.

If Shi Xueqing came looking for him… Xing Jun thought, sneering. He shook his head and closed the webpage.

The calendar turned from Thursday to Friday.

The day after tomorrow, in the morning, he would be leaving. Shi Xueqing was still nowhere to be found, as if he had vanished into thin air.

Xing Wei went to a friend’s apartment to drop something off and pet her dog. Xing Jun was allergic to dog fur and decided to find a bubble tea shop to sit in nearby.

He pushed the door open, and there was no one at the counter.
…
Shi Xueqing had no time to be a gold digger. He had been fuming with anger these past few days.

The conflict between him and the owner of the Chinese bubble tea shop had escalated further. The owner didn’t bother the guy from Hong Kong who frequently skipped his shifts, but instead targeted him, a poor international student, for bullying, knowing full well that Shi Xueqing didn’t have a legal work permit.

Shi Xueqing couldn’t bear it any longer. Finally, when the owner asked him to tutor his son, he exploded.

Even his explosion was polite. “Boss, tutoring someone here isn’t worth this hourly wage.”

Shi Xueqing actually wanted to curse a few more times, but a green tea’s cursing was limited to passive-aggressiveness. And he quickly learned what it meant to be under someone else’s roof.

“Well, you’re not a legal employee either,” the owner said simply, and Shi Xueqing’s momentum deflated.

Such is the life of a cut-off international student with only an F1 visa. Shi Xueqing thought viciously. When I get rich, I’ll definitely open a Heytea across from this bubble tea shop, with billions in subsidies, high volume and low prices, just to bankrupt this black-hearted place.

When a person is busy and dejected, Shi Xueqing didn’t even feel like posting on Instagram or Moments. He wasn’t showing off the $900 headphones anymore either; they were tossed in a corner of his drawer.

Fortunately, there was good news from the college office. They said they would consider his scholarship application—if it went smoothly, Shi Xueqing could earn an extra $8,000 next semester.

In his joy, Shi Xueqing also received a message from Lu Yimeng—she was back from the New York art exhibition. Although she hadn’t bought the sculpture, she had brought him two postcards. Before leaving, she said, “It’s such a pity. I saw on Xiaohongshu yesterday that the sculpture can also be bought online. I went to the official website and found that it was sold out.”

“Summer is always full of misses and regrets,” Shi Xueqing smiled. “Thank you for the postcards.”

Anyway, I couldn’t afford it, he thought. But this time, it really was the last re-issue of that sculpture.

Amidst his melancholy, the $8,000 inspired Shi Xueqing’s artistic motivation. He started posting on his Moments with the two postcards. Different from his Instagram style, his Moments style was very fresh and simple: some music screenshots, a pair of headphones, a sunset, a few omakase photos, a postcard (giving the illusion that he had gone to the art exhibition).

The caption was two words: Recently.

The Moments post received countless likes. Shi Xueqing was self-satisfied and happened to think of the movie called The Blue Room.

There was still a ticket available in the last row of the AMC, with very few moviegoers. He bought two tickets, looked at the viewing date, and thought, Xing Jun will be gone that morning.

He started to wonder how to invite Xing Wei to the movies when the owner’s call came.

“It’s not my shift today, is it?” Shi Xueqing said. Perhaps because he was so annoyed, his tone had unconsciously become argumentative.

“Get over here now,” the owner said. “There’s no one in the shop.”

Shi Xueqing: …

So infuriating!

Shi Xueqing decided to take revenge on the owner. He didn’t even bother to dress up or fix his hair to go to work at the bubble tea shop. He simply wore the T-shirt from yesterday, with his uncombed hair, and went out in a messy state.

…

Xing Jun sat dryly in the bubble tea shop. He was bored, and his fingers unconsciously tapped on Cyan_S’s WeChat profile picture again.

He was prepared for the fact that the other party hadn’t updated. But this time when he opened it, the first Moments post had changed.

Shi Xueqing had posted on his Moments?

Xing Jun unconsciously sat up straight.

Caption: Recently.

Quite pretentious.

He looked at the pictures one by one.

Headphones, he gave them.

Omakase, he took him to eat.

Music screenshots… none with more than 999 likes. Trying to cultivate an indie lover persona, huh?

Sunset… couldn’t understand.

Quite exquisitely pretentious. Xing Jun thought of the two times he had seen Shi Xueqing. Each time, Shi Xueqing was dressed like a sophisticated model from a last-century movie.

Always a look of ultimate pretense.

…

Wait, a postcard?

On one of the postcards was a photo of the original sculpture Xing Jun had bought yesterday. Those big Dior earrings flashed in Xing Jun’s mind again.
Rich, a rich woman… Hadn’t Xing Wei said that Lu Yimeng was also quite rich?

Xing Jun’s brow furrowed, a dangerous glint suddenly in his eyes.

An unbelievable thought emerged in his mind.

Shi Xueqing hadn’t appeared these past few days.

Could it be… he had switched targets?

The veins on the back of the hand holding the phone suddenly bulged. Shi Xueqing, with his messy hair and a mask on, was walking towards the counter behind the owner.

“Damn it! The shop’s been empty all afternoon,” the owner said. “I told you to hurry over, what took you so long?”

Shi Xueqing couldn’t be bothered to reply, just grunted a random “mhm.”

“That handsome guy has been sitting alone in the shop for ten minutes. Go over and ask him what he wants to drink.” The owner lifted the curtain to let Shi Xueqing out, pointing to Xing Jun sitting in the corner. “Yes, that one.”

“…”

He saw Shi Xueqing actually take a step back, his desire to escape evident even through the mask.

The owner quickly pushed him. “What are you backing away for? Hurry up and go!”