DASFAM_111

"……"

Bai Xu and Zhang Changning exchanged a wordless glance, then turned around.

Ye Zhen stepped forward to meet their gazes, the feigned smile on his face long gone, a faint shame and indignation at having been outmaneuvered still simmering in the depths of his eyes.

"Mr. Bai, were you genuinely after that timepiece just now?"

"……"

Bai Xu hadn't expected Ye Zhen to actually choose to confront him face to face, yet his expression remained composed, "Of course, that timepiece was beautiful, wasn't it? Though it can't compare to Mr. Ye's generosity."

Zhang Changning was not as steady as Bai Xu, and deliberately remarked, "I've long heard that pay in the entertainment industry is high, with Mr. Ye's level of popularity, you must have made quite a bit over these past two years?"

"Young Master Zhang clearly grew up very well taken care of at home, which is why he's so fond of making jokes."

Ye Zhen cast a sidelong glance at Zhang Changning, his words carrying a hidden edge, "Me? I'm just an employee working for capitalists, nowhere near the leisurely wealthy life the two of you enjoy."

Zhang Changning's expression shifted slightly, "You—"

But before he could get a word of rebuttal out, Ye Zhen had already turned back to Bai Xu, his tone carrying an even stronger undercurrent of interrogation.

"First raising the bid within a range I could still accept, then deliberately nipping at my heels with small increments, and finally going quiet all of a sudden and letting me win the piece?"

Ye Zhen was no fool. Once he had calmed down, he had seen through the 'baiting' Bai Xu had pulled during the auction, deliberately leading him into winning the timepiece at an unnecessarily high price.

Bai Xu had always conducted himself with integrity. Even with his scheme seen through, he had no inclination to bother with denial.

"Mr. Ye is quite the sharp one."

"……"

Not admitting it would have been one thing, but this roundabout acknowledgment only made Ye Zhen's expression stiffen further.

The assistant Xiao Xin, standing behind Ye Zhen, was the first to lose his composure, "What the hell– how can you do this!"

"Just because you're rich, you think you can use your wealth and connections to toy with my Brother Zhen for your own amusement?"

That loud outburst, with no regard for discretion, immediately drew the attention of the guests nearby.

Ye Zhen shot a sharp glare at his assistant for acting out of turn, and did his best to maintain a veneer of politeness under the eyes of the crowd.

He took a deep breath, his words carrying three parts sincerity and seven parts pretense, "Mr. Bai, if I'm not mistaken, today should be the first time we've met?"

"Even though we accidentally bumped into each other in the left hall, when all is said and done it was you who dirtied my clothes, and I had already let the matter rest."

"Everyone is gathered here tonight for charity. I naturally donate as much as I can within my means, but you deliberately set a trap to drive up my bid and amuse yourself at my expense. Isn't that a bit much?"

"I'm not as fortunate as the two of you, no status, no background, no backing. I only hope you won't push things too far."

"Every bit of my pay has been earned by my own hands! It shouldn't become a chip for your malicious amusement!"

The words rang out with resounding righteousness, at once crafting an image of himself as hardworking and magnanimous, while pushing Bai Xu and Zhang Changning to the center of the storm, as though they had used that sum of money to commit every manner of unforgivable wrongdoing.

The guests around them still had no clear picture of what had actually happened, and could only piece together a vague sense of the situation from Ye Zhen's words.

"What's going on? Did Mr. Ye and Young Master Bai get into it?"

"Who knows? Probably some friction between them over the timepiece bidding earlier?"

"From what I heard Mr. Ye say, Young Master Bai and Young Master Ning looked down on him and deliberately drove up the price to goad him into spending money on the auction."

"Isn't that just bullying someone in a roundabout way? Was there any need for that?"

"Don't talk nonsense! Young Master Bai doesn't look like that kind of person."

"……"

Zhang Changning was so incensed his chest heaved, having never anticipated that Ye Zhen would actually resort to this kind of scheming, victim-playing tactic.

Thinking that the main event of the auction was already over, he decided there was no point in restraining his young master's temper any longer, "Ye Zhen, you really are something, straight out of the entertainment industry, and you're already putting on a performance the moment you open your mouth?"

"Fine then! Let's get everything out in the open today!"

"Changning! Don't be impulsive!"

Seeing that his good friend was about to charge forward and argue it out, Bai Xu moved swiftly and pulled him back, and then smiled in a way no one had expected.

"How amusing."

"What?"

Zhang Changning was taken aback, and the others present didn't quite follow either.

"If this were two years ago, it was always others who looked down on 'me' and amused themselves at 'my' expense. Being suddenly accused by Mr. Ye and his assistant of throwing my weight around, I find I'm not quite used to it."

The words sounded like a joke on the surface, yet they quietly awakened the onlooking guests to something.

That's right.

Bai Xu was no unfamiliar figure in the capital circle, and most people had heard something of his earlier years.

He had started out as an adopted son of the Bai family, and then by a twist of fate found his way into the third branch of the Shang family. Though his life had undergone a complete transformation over the past two years, he never seemed to have used the name of the Shang third branch to do anything out of line.

Besides, just because one had been rained on in the past, why would one go and rain on someone else for no reason at all?

"So it seems not everything Ye Zhen says is necessarily true?"

"Let's just watch the show, who knows how he rubbed Young Master Bai the wrong way behind the scenes."

Bai Xu released his restraint on his good friend and looked back at Ye Zhen, his gaze growing a degree colder, "Since Mr. Ye wishes to make accusations in front of everyone, then let us go through things one by one."

"First, before the auction began, I was standing perfectly still by the edge of the liquor tower. I don't have eyes in the back of my head, so who exactly was it who wasn't watching where they were going and walked into whom?"

"It wasn't only your haute couture suit that got soiled, my black suit also got wine on it. Your assistant jumped in without knowing the full picture and started laying blame, yet I, out of courtesy, offered a solution two and three times over. It was you, who refused."

He placed particular weight on the final half of that sentence.

Bai Xu paused, then turned a gaze sharp as an arrow toward the assistant Xiao Xin beside Ye Zhen, "And not only that, your assistant apparently holds me in rather low regard, and even made disparaging remarks about my attire."

"……"

Meeting Bai Xu's gaze, Xiao Xin felt a powerful wave of cold shoot from the soles of his feet straight up to his head.

He swallowed nervously, his eyes darting about as though he wished he could vanish on the spot.

Ye Zhen had just begun to prepare a rebuttal, but Bai Xu gave him no opening to interject.

"Since you are aware that tonight is a charity dinner, why show up dressed in two sets of haute couture and make such a display of yourself? Did you truly think a charity auction dinner could become a venue for your own publicity?"

"I did genuinely like that timepiece, which is why I took part in the bidding, and my impression of you is indeed unfavorable, which is why I had it in mind to contend with you."

Two candid admissions in a row, catching Ye Zhen completely off guard.

"You think I set a trap to force your bid up? You're so sharp, couldn't you simply have not raised your paddle at the very end? Ten million was a number you said with your own mouth. No one in this room held a knife to your throat."

"……"

"What's the matter? Now that the auction is over and the live stream has ended, you're having second thoughts about getting carried away and bidding too high? Deliberately picking a fight with me so you can offload this hot potato onto someone else?"

Bai Xu's every word cut to the heart, laying the facts out before everyone in one breath. He fixed his gaze on Ye Zhen's flickering eyes and let out a cold, contemptuous scoff.

"If you can't play the game, don't play it. You might not mind the embarrassment, but I find it a nuisance just to have crossed paths with you."

The words came out fluent and clean, leaving Ye Zhen absolutely no room to maneuver.

Zhang Changning watched as Ye Zhen's face ran through expressions like an overturned palette of paints, and couldn't help but give a clap, "Well said, Bai Xu!"

And rightly so! If you can't play, don't play!

He had clearly wanted to use the live stream to craft a false image of himself as passionately devoted to charity, and then, upon realizing the donation amount had exceeded what he'd anticipated, tried to push the whole thing onto someone else.

If he'd had even a shred of clear-headed thinking, he should have pulled back the moment Bai Xu called out nine million five hundred thousand.

He had brought this suffering entirely upon himself out of sheer vanity, yet still had to make himself out to be completely blameless. What was the point?

"……"

The gazes of the surrounding guests snapped toward him all at once, and Ye Zhen couldn't help but stand frozen on the spot.

In the nearly five years since his debut, because his company had been willing to pour resources into backing him, even though his early days as a newcomer had been unremarkable, people within the industry had generally been willing to give him a measure of face.

After his breakout moment last year sent his popularity soaring, the way people in the industry addressed him had further upgraded, from "Xiao Ye" and "Xiao Zhen" to "Brother Zhen" and "Teacher Ye."

As the saying goes, fame in the entertainment industry can nourish a person, but there are also no shortage of actors who get carried away once they rise to prominence. Ye Zhen fell squarely into the latter category.

To be frank, it had been a very long time since Ye Zhen had experienced such a head-on assault. The swelling shame and indignation within him rushed through his entire body in an instant.

His hands, hanging at his sides, clenched involuntarily, and his words came out without thought, "Bai Xu, what right do you have to speak to me like that?"

"And what about you? How are you any better?"

"Does everything you have today, did you truly earn it, did you truly deserve it? Isn't it all things that Third Young Master Shang gave you?"

"And you—"

Ye Zhen looked toward Zhang Changning, his voice trembling with suppressed humiliation pushed to its limit, "If you weren't carrying the title of Young Master Zhang, do you think you'd have any right to everything you have now?"

The speaker intended only to mock, but the listener took it to heart.

The words had invisibly struck a sore spot in Zhang Changning, and his breath caught abruptly.

Without a moment's hesitation, Bai Xu pulled his good friend behind him, a storm quietly brewing in the depths of his eyes.

If the other party had simply said these things in private, that would have been one thing, after all, the two of them had only overheard it in passing, and it wouldn't have been appropriate to make a scene over it directly.

But now, this person had walked right into the line of fire on their own.

All of a sudden, from beyond the crowd came a voice in rebuttal, "Whether they have the right or not is hardly for you to judge!"

"……"

Bai Xu glanced to the side and saw Shang Yanxiao, the tension in his expression instantly eased. Beyond that, the couple Zhang Changfeng and Su Yang had also unexpectedly appeared at the entrance of the small hall.

Shang Yanxiao walked steadily to Bai Xu's side and gently placed a hand on his lover's back, "Are you alright?"

In those few short seconds, every trace of coldness and sharpness in Bai Xu's demeanor dissolved completely. He smiled at Shang Yanxiao, "I'm fine. It's more or less been settled already."

Perhaps because he had caught sight of family he was close to, the breath that had been lodged in Zhang Changning's throat loosened at once, and the rims of his eyes grew faintly red in that way of someone on the verge of tears but holding them back.

Zhang Changfeng noticed that his little brother's mood was not particularly high, and beckoned to him, "Little one, come here, who's been giving you trouble?"

Su Yang was also fond of Zhang Changning, "Hm? Are you alright?"

The reason the couple hadn't attended the dinner that evening was that it happened to coincide with their wedding anniversary, so they had slipped away to observe the occasion privately.

The two of them had figured that things on Bai Xu and Zhang Changning's end should be wrapping up by now, and had deliberately timed their arrival to take the two younger ones home, not expecting to run into Shang Yanxiao downstairs.

And even less expecting that, upon arriving, they would walk straight into the middle of something.

Zhang Changning drew in a quiet breath, his gaze cutting sharply toward Ye Zhen, "Sister-in-law, is this what the artists at your company are like, always talking about other people behind their backs? You don't know, he and his assistant were privately saying some very unpleasant things about Bai Xu!"

"……"

Su Yang looked toward Ye Zhen, who stood not far away.

When facing an artist from her own company, the gentleness she had carried fell away, and her eyes took on the sternness that only someone in a senior position would carry.

Ye Zhen hadn't anticipated things would develop this way, "Dir, Director Su."

Shang Yanxiao studied Ye Zhen's relatively unfamiliar face, "A' Xu, what did he say about you?"

Bai Xu noticed the false composure gradually draining from Ye Zhen, and the corner of his mouth curved, "Nothing much. Mr. Ye and his assistant simply both felt that—"

"I, an orphan taken in by the Bai family, stumbled into a great windfall last year by entering into a union with Third Young Master, and the reason I've managed to stay in the Shang household this long is because I sold myself in exchange for a comfortable life."

Zhang Changfeng and Shang Yanxiao both changed expression at the same time upon hearing this.

And at this point, Ye Zhen finally understood completely, exactly when it was that he had 'offended' the person standing before him.

Bai Xu continued adding to it, "Oh, and also that I was using the Shang family's influence to bully him, a hardworking, charity-devoted, upstanding artist."

He glanced around the room with unhurried interest, his gaze finally coming to rest on Shang Yanxiao's face, "Third Young Master, why not take this opportunity to tell everyone plainly whether the feelings between the two of us are real or not?"

"Saves the rumours from not letting up, and bothering my ears in the future."

The gazes of those present grew increasingly concentrated.

Then, in the very next moment, they all watched as Shang Yanxiao, without the slightest reservation, turned to Bai Xu and coaxed softly, "Mm, it's my fault."

The sudden shower of sweetness caught many people completely off guard, but Shang Yanxiao continued.

"Everyone, Bai Xu is my partner now. We have been through a great deal together, and what we share has long since ceased to be an ordinary arrangement of convenience."

"To be precise, Bai Xu is the person I have chosen to spend my life with."

The person he had chosen to spend his life with?

Hearing that unfamiliar yet profound phrase, a ripple of emotion rose in Bai Xu's eyes.

Shang Yanxiao caught the fleeting shift in his lover's expression, and his resolve only deepened as he continued.

"Bai Xu's abilities are more than enough for him to become an outstanding leader in his field. He has never needed to rely on the Shang family, on the contrary, I, Shang Yanxiao, am more than willing to be the foundation and support he stands on."

They said Bai Xu was throwing his weight around, did they? Then he might as well make it official.

With that thought, Shang Yanxiao looked squarely and unflinchingly at the increasingly uneasy Ye Zhen, and spoke, at once a warning, and a declaration of absolute assurance to Bai Xu.

"From this point on, anyone who stirs up gossip and makes things difficult for him is making things difficult for me, Shang Yanxiao, and for the Shang Group."

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