WMSR – QT Chapter 24

 

WMSR – QT Chapter 24

By

siofra

That thought, however, flashed through his mind for only a split second. After all, his eldest son was the successor he had meticulously groomed to inherit the family empire he had bled to build, so the boy could never be allowed to indulge in idle comfort. But this youngest son didn’t carry any of those heavy burdens.

As long as he grew up happy and carefree, didn’t turn out too twisted in character, and didn’t hold his big brother back, that was more than enough.

Chapter 12: Graduation

In the blink of an eye, another year and a half flew by. By the time Bai Minghao was old enough to articulate simple words with crystal clarity, Bai Yichen was standing right on the precipice of graduation.

Throughout those four years, Bai Yichen’s legendary status as an academic god never dimmed in the slightest. In an elite institution like A University—where high-achieving prodigies were a dime a dozen—he continued to effortlessly harvest endless waves of awe. The only lingering regret that left everyone sighing was that across all four years, not a single soul at A University managed to capture this academic deity, regardless of gender.

And aside from Bai Yichen, the other two major hunks of the F3 also refused a single confession. These three blindingly dazzling luminous bodies stubbornly remained professional, card-carrying singletons for four solid years right in the heart of A University.

This undeniable reality wrung helpless sighs of exasperation from countless individuals. On the eve of the F3’s graduation, some disgruntled student even angrily fired off a post on the campus forum demanding to know if A University had completely run out of options, attaching photos of Bai Yichen and his two companions for good measure.

That thread triggered an explosive response, even spilling over into neighboring universities. Hordes of onlookers, whose mouths had been watering over the distinctive good looks of the three heartthrobs, joined in to savage A University’s student body for being “utterly incompetent.” To have daily access to top-tier hunks of this caliber for four whole years and fail to bag even a single one of them was nothing short of a waste of oxygen.

The students of A University—collectively targeted by cross-campus peer pressure—couldn’t possibly feel any more aggrieved, especially those in the same graduating cohort who had spent four full years alongside the F3. Who said they hadn’t tried? They had practically thrown every trick in the book at them, but when a guy simply refused to be single-no-more, what on earth were you supposed to do?

In truth, no one could really blame the masses at A University. Bai Yichen had known from day one that he only possessed a twenty-year lease on life in this world; how could he possibly accept someone else and leave them behind to suffer heartbreak in vain? Meanwhile, Su Yuanhang and Song Junchi had their hearts entirely chained to Bai Yichen, and since Yichen showed zero interest in coupling up, they naturally couldn’t care less about any external flowers and weeds.

Naturally, the outside world remained entirely oblivious to all of this. As a result, A University took the fall and shouldered a massive wave of undeserved blame—so much so that for years afterward, nearby colleges remained fiercely eager to poach A University’s campus beauties and heartthrobs, leaving A University’s students grinding their teeth in shared resentment.

For many, graduation season was a heartbreaking milestone—not just because of parting ways with lifelong classmates, but due to the paralyzing panic of stepping away from a sheltered, decade-long student life and plunging blindly into society. But none of those existential worries applied to either Bai Yichen or Song Junchi. The moment they graduated, both were slated to step right back home and assume control of their respective family enterprises—having spent the preceding dozen or so years preparing for that exact transition across every conceivable front.

The only development that caught Bai Yichen slightly off guard was Su Yuanhang’s choice to bypass corporate life entirely and plunge straight into startup entrepreneurship.

Up until this point, Bai Yichen had always assumed Su Yuanhang would follow his original script from the plotline: entering the Song Corporation to spend his days locked in friction and daily proximity with Song Junchi until their romance finally bloomed. Alternatively, he wouldn’t mind if Su Yuanhang chose to join the Bai family enterprise—he would have been more than happy to continue keeping a protective eye on Xiao Hang. Never in his wildest dreams did he anticipate that Su Yuanhang would reject not only his and Song Junchi’s family conglomerates, but also wave off lucrative offers from various prestigious corporations, opting instead to carve out his own path from scratch.

Yet after a fleeting ripple of shock, Bai Yichen’s lips curved into an understanding, relaxed smile. He had been unnecessarily tethered to Su Yuanhang’s original trajectory; today’s Xiao Hang possessed an entirely different reservoir of life experience and self-confidence compared to the original version. It shouldn’t come as a shock at all that he would carve out a completely contradictory path.

Since starting a business was what he wanted, then he should go chase it. He firmly believed that with Xiao Hang’s sharp intellect and meticulous attention to detail, he wouldn’t charge blindly into a battle without preparation. Besides, wouldn’t he and Junxhi always be standing right behind him as backup?

Upon receiving Bai Yichen’s unwavering, habitual support and encouragement, a genuine, heartfelt smile blossomed across Su Yuanhang’s face. Chen-gege is still as wonderful as ever.

Yet that relaxed expression lasted for barely a heartbeat before settling back into an unprecedented, fierce determination. As much as he longed to walk straight into Chen-gege’s family company and work side-by-side with him every single day, the timing wasn’t right yet. Right now, the chasm separating him from Chen-gege remained far too wide.

He still had a mountain of work to do, pushing himself relentlessly until every aspect of his standing earned him the absolute right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Chen-gege.

Compared to Bai Yichen’s momentary flash of surprise regarding Su Yuanhang’s entrepreneurial gamble, Song Junchi felt zero astonishment. Having grown up together as childhood neighbors and spent years playing a high-stakes game of mutual wits and martial clashes, Song Junchi had never held his rival in high regard, but he knew him inside and out. Given Su Yuanhang’s inherently paranoid and profoundly insecure disposition, it would have been a miracle if he didn’t claw his way upward with everything he had.

While Su Yuanhang had grown up playing alongside him and Yichen, the cold truth remained that Su Yuanhang was born into an ordinary family background. Measured by family status and social circles, if Bai Yichen hadn’t consistently chosen to treat him as a cherished friend, the two of them would never have shared a single intersection in this lifetime. And that intrinsic gap would only widen exponentially once they stepped out into the real world.

When all was said and down, the only thing keeping Su Yuanhang’s connection to Yichen alive was Yichen’s unilateral charity and warmth. If a day ever came when Yichen grew too swallowed up by the relentless tides of work and let this friendship fade into the background, Su Yuanhang would find scaling the heavens easier than clawing his way back into Yichen’s sphere of influence. That was precisely why Song Junchi felt zero shock at Su Yuanhang’s calculated gamble.

In a sense, fortune had smiled upon him far, far more generously than Su Yuanhang. Even though he was heading straight into the Song Corporation, the deep-rooted commercial alliances and cooperative ties between the Song and Bai families meant they operated within the exact same business ecosystem, guaranteeing that opportunities for him and Yichen to cross paths would only multiply, never diminish. Small wonder Su Yuanhang had scrambled to build his own independent camp the very second graduation caps were tossed.

The mere thought that post-graduation life would allow him to maintain seamless professional collaborations with Yichen while Su Yuanhang was forced to grind and bleed out in the bottom trenches of society made the corners of Song Junchi’s mouth curl upward in an uncontrollable wave of schadenfreude. For the very first time, he felt a surge of heartfelt gratitude toward his parents for blessing him with such an elite family pedigree.

After letting himself indulge in some blissful daydreaming for a moment, Song Junchi’s smile gradually faltered, replaced by a lingering shadow of anxiety as he recalled where things currently stood between him and Yichen. Could it be that Yichen really doesn’t like men…