WMSR – QT Chapter 30

 

WMSR – QT Chapter 30

By

siofra

Chapter 30

Driven by this mindset, Bai Yichen—who typically practiced a strict policy of never meddling in other people’s affairs—rarely began taking active steps to manufacture opportunities for the pair.

Thus began a sequence of carefully staged encounters: Song Junchi and Su Yuanhang would arrive eagerly at a prearranged rendezvous, only to discover that Bai Yichen had stood them up, leaving behind two heavily armed rivals and a fully plotted itinerary.

This scenario repeated itself more than once. Though the superficial pretexts shifted with each iteration, the core mechanism remained unchanged: Bai Yichen, the designated organizer, was invariably waylaid by some sudden, unavoidable obligation, leaving behind only two men who regarded each other with mutual disdain, alongside a thoroughly prepared itinerary.

“What on earth is this game?!” After yet another instance of being hung out to dry, Song Junchi vented his frustration by kicking a loose pebble across the pavement. Casting a sideways glance at Su Yuanhang, who leaned in tight-lipped silence against his car door, Song Junchi didn’t even bother offering a farewell grunt before sliding into his vehicle and burning rubber back home.

Compared to Song Junchi, whose irritation remained surface-level and fiery, Su Yuanhang lingered beside his car long after Song Junchi’s taillights vanished into the distance, maintaining his static posture without a single twitch. Only his eyes, swallowed by the gathering dusk, burned with an abyssal, fathomless darkness.

There were moments when he genuinely envied Song Junchi’s thick-headed density—someone who saw only the superficial surface without ever piercing through the layers to decode the deeper, calculated intent driving the actions of the person they yearned for. That blissful ignorance was infinitely superior to his own perspective: forced to watch the one he loved hand him over to a rival on a silver platter, time and time again, while he was compelled to bite his tongue, swallow his agony, and paste on a mask of casual indifference.

There were times when he felt an uncontainable impulse to drop all pretense, strip away every layer of manufactured restraint, and march straight up to the person he had meticulously enshrined in his heart for close to twenty years to demand an explanation. Why do you treat me like this? Even if you can’t accept men, even if you don’t love me back, why on earth do you keep trying to shove me into someone else’s arms?

A violent storm of raw emotions churned within him, mirroring a long-suppressed volcano hovering on the absolute precipice of eruption. Yet in the end, Su Yuanhang merely stood frozen against the chill, drawing in deep, trembling breaths over and over again, forcefully beating those feral, rising impulses back down into the dark cage of his chest.

Even so, this relentless sequence of emotional lacerations was rapidly seeding a dangerous fuse deep within Su Yuanhang’s psyche—awaiting nothing more than a spark of appropriate timing for those repressed, suffocating emotions to shatter their containment and detonate in full.

And that catalyst arrived far sooner than anticipated.

During a routine weekend visit, Song Junchi and Su Yuanhang converged on the Bai family estate as usual to meet up with Bai Yichen. To everyone’s surprise, Bai’s mother, Qin Yi, happened to be home. Abandoning her usual custom of waving the young men off to amuse themselves in private, she pinned a long, critical gaze on the trio of fully grown, prime-of-their-life young men before releasing a heavy, pointed sigh. “Yichen, Xiao Jun—to be honest, I didn’t want to nag you boys before, but you aren’t getting any younger. You’re both pushing thirty! How are neither of you seeing anyone yet?”

The second those words dropped from Qin Yi’s lips, a shared sense of impending doom spiked through all three young men. Fleeing the scene at that late hour, however, was no longer an option, as Qin Yi swept straight into a relentless stream of motherly lecturing.

“You’re all young men, which means when you have free time, you ought to get out more, socialize, and ask girls out on dates instead of holing up inside all the time. I know you’re good boys who throw yourselves into your careers, but if the workload gets too overwhelming, you can always scale back—your fathers are still around to pick up the slack. Right now, your absolute top priority should be finding a nice girl you actually like and starting a family. That’s the only way my mind will finally be at ease. Xiao Jun, don’t go thinking your Auntie here is sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong; I caught up with your mother just two days ago, and she’s sweating bullets over this as well. I heard she tried setting you up with the youngest daughter of the Qi family, but you dodged it. Since you’re both right here today, I might as well lay it all out on the table.”

When Song Junchi was abruptly blindsided by Qin Yi dragging his meticulously concealed blind-date dodge regarding the Qi family heir into the open light, his expression locked into a stiff, frozen mask. He cast a covert, nervous peek at the person beside him, and upon discovering that person’s features remained entirely unruffled, a wave of relief washed over him—instantly followed by a sharp, unavoidable sting of desolate disappointment.

Yet before he could recover, Qin Yi dealt him a secondary, devastating critical strike: “As for blind dates, neither of you should resist them too stubbornly. If you haven’t managed to find someone on your own, it’s genuinely a reliable path forward. Yichen, your father and I discussed this a few days ago—we’re going to arrange a meeting for you with Uncle Yang’s daughter. Surely you won’t break your mother’s heart by backing out, right?”

Of all the ungodly timing—how did the crosshairs suddenly lock onto me? thought Bai Yichen, utterly staggered.

Unlike Song Junchi—whose surprise was marbled with deep existential panic—Bai Yichen remained outwardly calm, an unrippled lake of absolute indifference. Still, Qin Yi’s declaration landed with seismic force across the minds of both Song Junchi and Su Yuanhang, sending shockwaves through their systems that eclipsed all external noise. Every coherent thought evaporated, leaving behind a single, deafening mantra echoing in their skulls: Yichen… he’s going on a blind date…

Trapped under the simultaneous gaze of three pairs of eyes within the living room—though entirely oblivious to why Junxhi and Xiao Hang were staring at him with such haunted intensity—Bai Yichen weighed his options for a brief beat before offering a measured nod of assent.

His compliance rested on two clear calculations. First, reading the stubborn set of his mother Qin Yi’s expression, he knew that refusing outright would trigger an endless campaign of domestic attrition; a simple meet-and-greet was a low-cost concession, sparing his parents unnecessary friction over a triviality. Second, he harbored total confidence in his ability to steer that meeting with Uncle Yang’s daughter into a polite, amicable dead-end that naturally precluded any future contact. After all, his personal countdown clock was ticking perilously close to zero; his remaining runway in this world was shrinking by the day. Every possible gesture he could execute to bring genuine joy to his parents carried mounting, irreplaceable value.

Naturally, the remaining occupants of the room remained entirely blind to the pragmatic, time-strapped calculus driving Bai Yichen’s agreement. While Qin Yi beamed with radiant, triumphant satisfaction, the color drained completely from the faces of the other two young men.

Relishing her hard-won victory, an exceptionally chipper Qin Yi clearly possessed zero intention of granting immunity to anyone else present in the room. Having thoroughly flayed her primary targets, she smoothly pivoted her attention toward the younger, trailing presence of Su Yuanhang. “And Xiao航 [Xiao Hang], you practically grew up under my eyes too. Don’t you dare pick up these bad habits from your Chen-gege and Song-gege. You’re twenty-five now, your company has finally hit stable ground, so it’s high time you started diverting some of that brainpower away from work and into your personal life.”

Pinned beneath Qin Yi’s maternal scrutiny, Su Yuanhang clamped his teeth down hard to anchor the turbulent emotional tide threatening to break through his ribs, ultimately squeezing out a strained, rigid smile. “Yes, Auntie… it really is time to focus on other things.”

Noticing how docilely Su Yuanhang accepted the advice, Qin Yi broke into an approving, gentle smile. “Mhm, that’s my good boy. Alright, I’ve kept you all trapped here listening to my nagging long enough—you must be bored out of your minds. Go on and head off to play.”

Granted their official dismissal, the group drifted out of the room, each swallowed by their own fractured, turbulent internal worlds. Not a single soul noticed that the gaze locked within Su Yuanhang’s eyes carried a pitch-black, fathomless intensity that completely eclipsed anything he had ever displayed before.

Author’s Note: This arc’s official title should honestly be: “The Guy I Love Always Tries to Matchmake Me With My Rival” ^_^