MAPF Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Goodnight. Who allowed you to call me that?

Xie Shiwei went to work at the company and discovered that Chen Ning was absent, triggering alarm bells in his mind. He immediately asked Uncle Wang to help monitor Chen Ning.

Actually, he had noticed the butterfly birthmark on Bai An’s wrist yesterday at the venue.

Before He Qin cut off the power, he had deliberately spared a moment to observe Chen Ning. He saw a suppressed shock on her face, confirming that this birthmark was the key to Chen Ning recognizing Bai An.

Chen Ning would definitely take action.

In fact, Wang the butler had long disliked Chen Ning. Helplessly, Xie Shiwei was overly enthusiastic about this stepmother. He didn’t want to upset the young master, so he hadn’t dissuaded him from getting close to Chen Ning.

Now, hearing Xie Shiwei’s request, Wang the butler was delighted and activated the informants he had planted in the Xie family’s Jiangxin residence long ago.

.

Returning home in the evening, Xie Shiwei went to the bathroom to take a shower and stared blankly at the increasingly depleted shower gel.

He Qin… just how much of his shower gel had he used? So perverted!

He hadn’t known He Qin liked him in the past, so he treated it as a quirk. But knowing now, it all seemed impure no matter how he thought about it.

So Xie Shiwei hid the shower gel.

He also didn’t dare to swagger around in those loose, open-necked thin pajamas anymore. He chose a very presentable set of home wear, dried his hair, and then heard the door open. It was He Qin returning.

Xie Shiwei came out of the bathroom. He Qin, dressed in black, wearing silver-rimmed glasses, looked particularly refined. He smiled and greeted him with “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” Xie Shiwei also smiled. “He Qin, there’s something I want to ask you about, concerning Bai An.”

“Go ahead.”

Xie Shiwei started with a bombshell: “Actually, Bai An is Chen Ning’s son.”

He Qin thought he had misheard: “What?”

Xie Shiwei told He Qin about Chen Ning and Bai An’s past. He Qin, whose face never changed color even when a mountain collapsed in front of him, showed obvious shock and took some time to accept it.

It seemed his world really might be a novel; otherwise, it wouldn’t be so dog-blood.

Xie Shiwei voiced his speculation: “Chen Ning will definitely recognize Bai An in private, conceal the fact that she abandoned Bai An in the past, and use Bai An to do many bad things to achieve her goal of accumulating wealth. I need to let Xie Tian’an know Chen Ning’s true colors and force them to divorce.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Let Bai An know in advance so he stays vigilant and isn’t used by Chen Ning. If possible, it would be best if he could actively cooperate with Chen Ning in acting and provide me with recordings of their conversations.”

“That might be difficult,” He Qin said. “I’ll give it a try.”

Xie Shiwei hummed and said goodnight to He Qin.

He Qin had a smile on his lips as he loosened his tie, deliberately lowering his voice: “Goodnight, Shiwei.”

Xie Shiwei raised his eyelids, staring blankly at He Qin.

…Shiwei?

He stammered, “Who allowed you to call me that?”

“Friends can call each other that, right?” He Qin raised his eyes. “I remember Qiao Mu calling you that. Qiao Mu can, but I can’t?”

Xie Shiwei found that he couldn’t say “no,” so he nodded helplessly.

He Qin went to wash up in a good mood.

Having suffered a silent loss, Xie Shiwei lay in bed, hesitating whether to close the door between his room and the theater room.

If he didn’t close it, he’d feel weird, but if he closed it completely, it would look like he was still suspicious that He Qin was still thinking about him.

He Qin had already expressed his willingness to back down. Doing this would make him seem too petty, too narcissistic, and too full of himself. What if He Qin’s interest was just a momentary impulse, and he would lose interest faster than a hundred-meter sprint?

No need. Yeah.

In the end, Xie Shiwei chose to leave a ten-centimeter gap in the door, exhaled, and lay down to sleep.

.

He Qin took Xie Shiwei’s instructions seriously and also planned to meet with Bai An to resolve everything at once.

Bai An didn’t answer his calls, so he called Bai An’s adoptive mother. The adoptive mother said that Bai An hadn’t been home since finding a job.

On a weekday, He Qin drove directly to the art museum where Bai An worked to find him.

When Bai An opened the door, he was obviously shocked. Then, he panicked and tried to close the door again, but He Qin violently pushed the door open.

Bai An lowered his head in a panic, not daring to look at He Qin.

He Qin walked into Bai An’s office, looked around, and sat down on the sofa. “I came to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk.” Bai An stared at his shoes.

This was the first time Bai An had refused his request, but He Qin ignored Bai An’s tantrum and directly questioned, “Do you know what impact your actions had on He Xin Technology? You turned the opening gala into a joke. I paid the media millions in hush money and had to spend time and energy maintaining relationships with guests.”

He Qin’s words carried weight, and Bai An timidly raised his head.

“My parents have been good to you. When you decided to vent your anger at the gala, did you think of them?”

“…I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me. The person you hurt wasn’t me.”

“I’ll apologize to Uncle and Aunt too, if they’re still willing to see me.”

“What else?”

What else? Was it Xie Shiwei?

He Qin’s pointed words instantly replaced Bai An’s guilt with anger: “Did I hurt Xie Shiwei? Everything I said was true, not a single slander. You’re the one who’s lying, Little Qin-ge! You’re covering for him, saying good things about him. You’re the one who hurt me!”

He Qin sighed: “You’ve forgotten the cause-and-effect relationship. You did this first, and that’s why there’s this result. I don’t deny what you said, but you did it, and you have to bear the consequences.”

“Besides, you also know that Xie Shiwei is already different from before.”

Bai An bit his lip hard, his mouth turning pale.

He Qin continued: “If it weren’t for my relationship with you, you would have had to pay at least thirty percent of the media hush money. How much money can you earn from a painting? How long would you have to work to pay it off?”

He Qin’s words shattered Bai An’s last line of defense.

A constant stabbing pain in his heart gradually spread throughout his body, almost destroying his nerves.

He finally admitted that he had walked into a dead end with no way out.

He hopelessly clung to He Qin, but He Qin had fallen in love with Xie Shiwei.

The person he loved had fallen in love with the person he hated and was hurting him for Xie Shiwei’s sake.

It was utterly absurd.

Bai An looked at He Qin’s cold eyes, unable to see any trace of the past. The Little Qin-ge who had once been gentle to him and often had smiling eyes seemed to be just an illusion he had imagined in his lonely childhood.

The person in front of him was He Qin, the He Qin who liked Xie Shiwei and hated him.

Bai An’s eyes were misty, and it took a lot of effort to resist the urge to cry.

“Bai An, people need to look forward, don’t be obsessed with what you can’t get, and don’t make things difficult for yourself. No one will sympathize with someone who willingly abuses themselves,” He Qin continued to say harsh words. “Call me by my full name from now on.”

He wanted to sever all of Bai An’s unrealistic thoughts and expectations of him, even though Bai An had once been very important in his heart.

As He Qin finished speaking, the art museum’s closing music sounded outside the window.

The piano music was melodious. The blue sky outside the window, where it had just rained, was high and far away. A rainbow arched between the tall buildings, reflecting perfectly on the glass of the room.

Bai An blinked, wiped away his tears, and looked outside. The sparrows hopping outside sensed the human gaze, shook their heads, and flapped their wings. Before flying away, they lingered outside the window for a while, as if asking him if he wanted to go with them.

Bai An released his tightly clenched hand and, at that moment, decided to give up on He Qin.

Perhaps he could be like a bird, a little more free, no longer trapping himself in a cage called He Qin.

He put away his humbleness and pleas, trying to say as coldly as possible to He Qin that he understood.

He Qin asked, “Who was the person instigating you from behind?”

“I don’t know him. He communicated with me using a fake name.”

“Give me his WeChat,” He Qin said. “And don’t contact him again. He can find ways to destroy Xie Shiwei, and he can do the same to destroy you.”

Bai An nodded.

“There’s one more very important thing that you need to know.”

Bai An asked what it was.

He Qin told him about Chen Ning’s relationship with him and the fact that Chen Ning had abandoned him for her own purposes in a steady tone.

Bai An was stunned for a long time, then felt that everything was very absurd and almost wanted to laugh.

Chen Ning was Xie Shiwei’s stepmother, and He Qin had come to tell him this, which must be Xie Shiwei’s intention.

He tried hard to change his way of addressing He Qin to his full name, with a strange expression: “Did Xie Shiwei tell you this? Has he bewitched you?”

He Qin also knew that it was difficult to believe when saying something without proof, and said helplessly, “She will ask you to meet. Then you will know if what I’m saying is true or false.”

“I hope you stay sober. No matter what good things Chen Ning says, don’t be deceived by her. She abandoned you at the door of the orphanage for twenty years and would never take the initiative to find you back because of family affection.”

Hearing He Qin say such absurd things in all seriousness, Bai An found it difficult to describe his feelings.

He Qin was also very helpless. Of course, he could see that Bai An thought his words were funny. He regretted agreeing to Xie Shiwei too hastily and should have done a paternity test for Bai An and Chen Ning first, but his expression and tone were still calm: “Bai An, I hope that when Chen Ning finds you, you can take the initiative to tell me and provide me with a recording of her conversation with you.”

Bai An nodded against his will, feeling for the first time that his endless dependence on He Qin seemed to have coated He Qin with a non-existent halo.

Which normal person would say such abnormal things?

Xie Shiwei wasn’t really some kind of wizard, was he?

After He Qin left, he opened WeChat. A Certain Someone was lying quietly there. The last message was for him to boldly reveal all of Xie Shiwei’s sins, and he would arrange everything that day and help cover everything.

The plan failed, and A Certain Someone had vanished.

.

He Qin obtained A Certain Someone’s WeChat and requested to add him as a friend.

He was actually accepted.

But as Bai An said, there was no personal information in this person’s WeChat: a blank Moments, a blank profile picture.

He made a WeChat call, but the other party rejected it.

He Qin asked technical personnel to decipher and track it. At the same time, he didn’t hope that Bai An would definitely contact him on his own, so he informed Wang Gugu and asked Wang Gugu, who had just resigned a few days ago, to help pay attention to Bai An’s movements.

Before long, there was progress.

Chen Ning went out at a time when she usually didn’t go out, and the Xie family’s informants immediately followed her.

At the same time, Wang Gugu also discovered that Bai An had left his adoptive parents’ house.

Their destinations were the same coffee shop.

Xie Shiwei and He Qin received the news and rushed to the scene.

Bai An hadn’t contacted He Qin and of course didn’t plan to provide a recording voluntarily.

Xie Shiwei expected things to be this way and came prepared.

He took a women’s simulation curly wig from his bag and put it on his head, put on cat-eye sunglasses, applied lipstick, and then took off his suit jacket and stuffed it to He Qin.

He Qin couldn’t take his eyes off him as he changed his clothes.