My father's inheritance is my mortal enemy.

【L】: Hmm.

After replying to the message, Zhou Yanshao turned off his phone screen, tossed it aside, leaned back on the sofa, his mouth still smelling of alcohol, pursed his lips repeatedly, and frowned in frustration.

Just as I was about to go back to sleep, Sun Shengyang arrived.

When Sun Shengyang arrived, he came running, chanting traditional Chinese opera, looking like the sky had fallen: "Holy crap! Brother Shao, Brother Shao!"

Sun Shengyang rushed straight to the bedroom, then suddenly remembered something—Zhou Yanshao didn't like others entering his room.

He was about to rush in when he immediately braked.

Sun Datian knocked on the door very politely, "Brother Shao, are you asleep? Brother Shao?"

Seeing no response, Sun Shengyang said urgently, "I have some gossip, huge gossip! Li Bo was having dinner with a man before, and we were sitting next to each other, the time you accidentally cut your hand!"

"That person put shredded lettuce on Li Bo's plate before, so he must be his boyfriend." Sun Shengyang kept him in suspense: "Li Bo is allergic to lettuce, I was so confused! How could his boyfriend not know that Li Bo is allergic to lettuce? Turns out he's a complete scumbag!"

"I saw him at my dad's company party tonight! I was curious and asked him about it! Guess what? He got into some romantic troubles in the US and came back to Beijing to hide! I figured he'd start pursuing Li Bo as soon as he got back!"

Zhou Yanshao, lounging on the sofa, lazily asked, "What romantic entanglements?"

"Hmm?" Sun Shengyang drawled out the last syllable, and looking in the direction of the sound, he realized that Brother Shao was not in the room, but in the living room.

He ran to Zhou Yanshao's side, circled him twice, and kept staring at Zhou Yanshao's hair: "Brother Shao, why did you dye your hair back?"

"What did you just say about 'romantic debts'?"

"Oh right!" Sun Shengyang brought the topic back: "I almost went off-topic. The man's name is Ning Zhi. He's a lawyer. Six years ago, he was supposed to get engaged to his partner's daughter abroad. Everything was ready, but he suddenly changed his mind. He didn't show up on the day of the engagement, leaving a woman standing there at the wedding, and bought a ticket back to Beijing."

"My partner's daughter was depressed for a long time, she went on a hunger strike and ran away from home."

"Logically speaking, someone like Ning Zhi, whose personal conduct is questionable, should be dismissed. But the partner's daughter is love-struck and kept pleading for him, so... nothing happened to her in Beijing."

"I also heard that when he returned to Beijing, some women at the law firm pursued him, and he even said he liked men." Sun Shengyang clicked his tongue in astonishment: "Then weren't all his previous relationships with women just a complete deception?"

"And what happened in the US was so irresponsible! He even made a woman clean up his mess! What kind of man is that?"

"I don't know why Li Bo likes him."

Zhou Yanshao slowly hummed in agreement.

"Li Bo is so smart, how could he make such a foolish mistake at the last minute... and date such a scumbag?" Sun Shengyang sighed, then glanced cautiously at Zhou Yanshao: "This can be considered retribution."

Li Bo schemed against and manipulated Zhou Yanshao, only to have his feelings toyed with at the very end of his life.

He deserved what he got.

A tick for a tick.

Zhou Yanshao remained silent, his face ashen.

Sun Shengyang sat down and had a drink with Zhou Yanshao: "I heard that Ning Zhi has been getting very close to a man lately. People in the company say that he's getting married soon. I wonder which unlucky guy is going to suffer."

"..."

Zhou Yanshao said coldly, "I don't want to meddle in other people's business."

Sun Shengyang agreed: "That's true. You can't teach someone by someone else; you can only learn by experiencing things. However, there have been many news reports of suicides due to relationships in the past two years. If the other party really does something extreme like my partner's daughter, then Ning Zhi's career as a lawyer will be over."

"It's not worth risking your life to teach a scumbag a lesson. I can only hope that Ningzhi's partner is rational."

Zhou Yanshao took a swig of his drink, his eyes red-rimmed: "Whatever."

Li Bo chose his own path, so he can walk it himself; it has nothing to do with him.

Zhou Yanshao drank a lot that night, and Sun Shengyang drank with him. Soon he was drunk, and the driver took him back to Sun's house.

Zhou Yanshao couldn't sleep, and seemed unable to get drunk no matter what he did. He stood on the second-floor balcony for a long time, letting the wind blow through him. He looked down at the place below where the night-blooming cereus used to be planted, but now it was empty, empty for many years.

Li Bo broke up with Zhou Yanshao, refused to attend the Winter Olympics, and even stopped replying to his messages, unwilling to even keep him hanging on. In a fit of anger, Zhou Yanshao blocked Li Bo on social media and even had his housekeeper dig up the epiphyllum.

After the epiphyllum was dug up, no other flowers were ever planted in Xizi Bay.

Zhou Yanshao now has no obligation to remind Li Bo, nor does he want to concern himself with Li Bo's affairs anymore.

Li Bo toyed with his feelings; he owed Li Bo nothing.

But Zhou Yanshao was afraid. He was afraid that if what Sun Shengyang said was true, what would happen if Li Bo couldn't think straight?

Zhou Yanshao felt that he... might not be able to bear the consequences.

He didn't even dare to think about what Li Bo would do after he knew the truth.

Li Bo doesn't have any important people left, Ning Zhi is the only one. If Li Bo knew that the person he had liked since childhood was a con artist, what would he do?

Zhou Yanshao didn't know.

But he had experienced this pain.

Ironically, Li Bo was the culprit behind his suffering.

Logically speaking, Zhou Yanshao should feel relieved knowing that the culprit who hurt him had also been toyed with emotionally, but he felt terrible at all.

Zhou Yanshao felt bad that Li Bo and Ning Zhi were together.

Zhou Yanshao was angry that Li Bo was blind to good taste. He didn't understand what Ning Zhi was better than him. He was angry that he met Li Bo too late and that he hadn't been good enough to Li Bo in the past, making Li Bo think about Ning Zhi all the time.

Ning Zhi's treatment of Li Bo made Zhou Yanshao feel bad as well.

Zhou Yanshao wondered why the person he had carefully cared for and protected was being toyed with and bullied like this by others.

Even though Li Bo never chose him from beginning to end, he couldn't help but think about many things for Li Bo.

Zhou Yanshao didn't sleep all night.

The next morning, he submitted a leave application to the training base.

Zhou Yanshao will stay in Beijing for two more days and return to his unit later.

Zhou Yanshao took a shower early in the morning, went out, and sent a message to Li Bo.

【.】:morning.

【L】: Good morning.

【。】：Where are you staying this time when you go back to Beijing?

【L】: The hotel was arranged by the company, what's wrong?

【。】：Aren't you staying at Xiyuan? It's very clean here, and it's cleaned regularly every week.

【L】: No.

【。】：Well, all that cleaning was for nothing.

[L]: When I looked at the house last time, the style was similar to the one I used to live in. If Shulang doesn't want to live there, you can advise him to sell it instead of keeping it. I won't be going back to Beijing in the future.

By evening, Li Bo still hadn't received a reply from the other party.

She's probably angry...

Li Bo thought.

Why is the person who said they would cut ties completely now unwilling to do so?

This is really not a good thing to do. Li Bo doesn't like to get involved in a relationship, and his current status is also inappropriate, so he hasn't taken the initiative to send Zhou Yanshao a message. He just keeps refreshing his message bar and Moments without disturbing him.

Li Bo received no news at all.

That evening, Li Bo accompanied General Manager Liu to an art exhibition. At the exhibition, he saw a beautiful picture of the aurora borealis. Beneath the picture stood a man holding a white and blue skateboard; only his back was visible, and he looked very lonely.

The artist said he is a seasoned skiing enthusiast and that he saw this while visiting a ski resort in Russia, so he drew it.

Li Bo stared at the painting, lost in thought, until General Manager Liu called him a few times before he snapped out of it.

"What are you thinking about, Mitsuki?"

"The person in this painting looks like a friend of mine."