WMSR – QT Chapter 25

 

WMSR – QT Chapter 25

By

siofra

(Chapter 25 from Raw)

Throughout those four years, his covert, low-intensity war of attrition against Su Yuanhang had never paused, just as his quiet probing of Yichen’s boundaries had never stopped. Yet neither of them dared to push things into the open, and absolutely no one possessed the courage to make the first move and confess.

This hesitation stemmed from profound uncertainty: did Yichen hold any romantic inclination toward men whatsoever? If they prematurely forced the issue and Yichen proved entirely incapable of accepting this brand of affection, would they risk losing even the fiercely intimate companionship they currently shared? To say nothing of the fact that Yichen harbored such an overwhelming adoration for children—treating his little brother like an absolute treasure—which meant their tactical probings had always been exercised with extreme restraint.

The single exception to their cautious rule occurred when they formed a historic, one-time alliance, deliberately playing a gay romance video right in front of Yichen. The resulting outcome? Yichen simply cast a look of excruciating awkwardness in their direction before immediately inventing an excuse to flee the dorm room, not returning for a solid several hours.

Ever since that disastrous experiment, the two of them never again dared pull any out-of-bounds stunts in front of Yichen, tightening up their words and actions far beyond their usual standards for fear of letting any hidden clues slip into Yichen’s line of sight.

Fortunately, though Yichen showed zero outward signs of being interested in men, he hadn’t accepted a single confession from any woman over those four years either. The mere thought of those coquettish or gorgeous female students flushing bright crimson as they hurled uninhibited confessions at Yichen made Song Junchi’s stomach churn with sour jealousy—after all, those girls possessed the effortless luxury of doing the very thing he had fantasized about for years.

Still, he comforted himself with the logic that given Yichen’s steadfast personality, he would undoubtedly return home post-graduation to inherit the family empire, biding his time until everything was on stable footing before eventually marrying a proper, socially matched woman of equal status. There was no way those common, flashy mortals would ever get their hands on him.

Wrapped in these thoughts, Song Junchi remained blissfully unaware that he was already drowning knee-deep in sour vinegar—stewing over ordinary women and some hypothetical, socially matched bride alike.

Following official graduation, as anticipated by absolutely no one, both Bai Yichen and Song Junchi stepped straight into their respective family corporations, learning the grueling art of statecraft and leadership from the trenches of real-world business.

For Bai Yichen, this trial by fire felt novel and precious. Though he had previously served in senior management roles during past experiences, occupying the seat of a true supreme owner of a massive conglomerate carried an entirely different psychological weight. Not only did the scope of his strategic decisions shift, but the foundational mindset underwent a profound evolution.

In his past iterations, despite possessing ample experience that allowed him to formulate flawless operational blueprints the second a crisis hit, whenever high-stakes, risk-heavy dilemmas surfaced, his mandatory first step was always submitting his proposals upward and waiting for executive approval. It wasn’t merely a matter of protocol; it was because he could never shoulder the ultimate risk of failure. But today, he had become the final arbiter of fate—there was no longer anyone sitting above him to receive reports. By the same token, the success or failure of his executive calls meant he alone directly absorbed every single consequence, because he was the sole proprietor of this enterprise. Every profit or loss directly touched his own personal wallet.

Navigating decision after high-stakes decision, Bai Yichen caught faint glimmers of enlightenment—a rare, intangible quality resembling raw executive audacity and vision.

One had to admit, the intoxicating rush of wielding absolute executive power carried a powerful, addictive charm.

Within the corporate headquarters, Bai Yichen’s prior managerial background allowed him to hit the ground running. Bolstered by Bai Jinchuan’s unsparing, exhaustive mentorship, Bai Yichen rapidly locked onto the fast track. Through a sequence of brilliant strategic interventions, he secured the universal, unreserved approval of insiders and outsiders across the Bai Group alike. Several of Bai Jinchuan’s veteran peers openly bellowed in envy that he had struck gold with an overqualified successor.

Beaming from ear to ear, Bai Jinchuan would modestly deflect: Oh, it’s nothing, nothing at all—the kid’s just consistently brilliant, before immediately pivoting to boast about his upcoming grand blueprint to take his wife on a leisurely global vacation tour.

That punchable expression left his old cronies—whose own households were bogged down by a useless pack of good-for-nothing heirs—with an intense, burning urge to scratch an itch across Bai Jinchuan’s face.

Following that gathering, Song Weiguo drove straight back to headquarters. Seated inside the sanctuary of his executive office, a pensive mood crossed his face before he pressed the private intercom line, summoning Song Junchi’s special assistant into his presence within moments.

Resting both hands flat across his mahogany desk, Song Weiguo maintained an outward facade of calm as he pressed the assistant for a detailed breakdown of his son’s daily operational metrics. Yet as the progress reports rolled in alongside a stack of submitted files, Song Weiguo’s brow furrowed deeper and deeper by the second, his expression turning thoroughly dark.

Historically, he had held a deeply favorable view of his son. Amidst a sea of second-generation heirs characterized either by rebellious streaks of natural-born defiance or chaotic, hedonistic tomfoolery, his boy genuinely ranked as exceptionally elite. Yet, having just taken a psychological beating from his old friend earlier that day, every metric of his own son’s progress suddenly looked utterly substandard through his newly hypercritical lens. Unable to swallow his rising fury any longer, he slammed down a phone call summoning his son straight to his office, unleashing an unadulterated, blistering tongue-lashing the second Song Junchi stepped through the door.

As a newly minted corporate CEO caught in the crosshairs of a mountain of operational fires, Song Junchi had hurried upstairs expecting at best to consult his old man on a few prickly logistical bottlenecks. Instead, he was greeted by a torrential, unprovoked roasting that left him feeling profoundly wronged. What on earth crawled up the old man’s backside today? Did he eat a bullet? Even when fighting with Mom, he doesn’t throw a temper tantrum this explosive!

All of Song Junchi’s deep-seated confusion vanished the exact second his father finally spat out the inevitable comparison: “Look at Bai Yichen for crying out loud! Same age, same university, grew up side-by-side—how on earth is the gap between you two this wide?!”

Ah. Right there, the mystery was solved. Song Junchi instantly understood the root cause of this unprovoked act of God. His old man must have taken another psychological beating from Uncle Bai! In the end, Song Junchi could only rub the bridge of his nose in resignation, standing at attention to dutifully swallow his father’s dual-track lecture: berating his own son while elevating his beloved crush to the heavens. The emotional whirshore of that experience was truly, uniquely agonizing.

Yet, as Song Junchi stewed in private, a strange wave of smug satisfaction crept over him. After all, it wasn’t just him—virtually every second-generation scion in their social circle had spent their entire lives living under the oppressive, towering shadow of that exact same “someone else’s kid.” Ah, loving someone who was universally recognized as the ultimate benchmark of excellence came with its own distinct brand of swagger.

Author’s Note: Noticing a bunch of little angels starting to fret over when the protagonist kicks the bucket, let’s map out the timeline cleanly: the protagonist transmigrated into this world at age eight, and with a twenty-year lifespan, he checks out at age twenty-eight. Lol.

Chapter 13: The Banquet

While Bai Yichen and Song Junchi smoothly transitioned their lives onto the corporate fast track, Su Yuanhang wasted no time either. The exact second graduation caps hit the air, he grabbed his proprietary startup project and a loyal core team of elites who had opted to follow him straight out of A University, diving headfirst into independent entrepreneurship.

The venture Su Yuanhang selected possessed exceptional market viability. Backed by a founding core saturated with A University’s finest minds, their strategic planning and operational execution ran like clockwork. Consequently, mere months post-graduation, the enterprise already began yielding tangible fruit. Coupled with Bai Yichen’s constant, watchful eye—frequently dropping timely professional networking lifelines—Su Yuanhang’s startup quickly surged forward as an explosive dark horse in the industry.