WMSR — QT Chapter 56

Chapter 56

In response to this, Bai Yichen felt zero emotional ripple in his heart; after all, the unlawful gains they extracted today would become their damning incriminating evidence in the future.

In the days that followed, perhaps because the two agreements Bai Yichen signed gave Xu Weihai and Liu Ling a glimmer of light and hope, they returned to showering Bai Yichen with warm, fake concern—despite feeling somewhat dissatisfied with the slow progress. It was as though the previous cold war over the 1.5 million unauthorized expenditure had never happened.

Bai Yichen had no need for these insincere displays of affection. However, because the couple's improved demeanor directly impacted the standard of material comfort and healthcare he received in this household, he did not treat them with cold hostility, maintaining the polite deference expected toward elders.

After all, a person must bow their head when standing under someone else's roof.

Thus, both sides preserved a facade of superficial courtesy, making everything appear exceptionally harmonious on the surface.

At the very least, Xu Weihai and his wife were thoroughly lulled into a false sense of security by this harmony. They believed they had found the right approach: since he was just a child, as long as they persevered, they would eventually get every document signed to fulfill their desires.

The waiting period was always grueling and drawn-out, especially considering how severely restricted a paralyzed patient's mobility was. No matter how meticulously he was cared for, he could only be lifted onto a wheelchair every day and pushed outside to catch a brief breath of fresh air. Overall, his world remained confined to that tiny square of space, never once stepping beyond the gates of the villa garden.

Trapped within the villa and its iron-fenced perimeter, denied access to both smartphones and computers, all Bai Yichen could do each day was sit quietly cradling a book.

Perhaps he should be grateful that the Xu couple didn't ban him from reading. Otherwise, in such a suffocatingly isolated environment, even someone with his mental fortitude would have found it difficult not to be driven insane.

It had to be said that the physical vessel of this world, combined with the psychological blow dealt to him at the end of the previous world, had inevitably altered Bai Yichen's disposition.

The original Bai Yichen had been someone who smiled easily. In the previous world in particular, whether it was a gentle smile, a warm smile, or a radiant smile, he seemed to be smiling every single moment, constantly bringing beauty and joy to those around him.

Yet in this world, Bai Yichen rarely smiled. In all the time he had spent here, the instances he smiled could be counted on one hand—and those few were merely superficial, empty pretenses. Most of the time, he was immersed in absolute, silent stillness.

Neither the servants nor Xu Jiangzhe felt surprised by the absence of smiles on Bai Yichen's face. After all, having suffered the dual tragedy of losing both parents and becoming permanently paralyzed, who could possibly remain cheerful?

Xu Jiangzhe felt an even deeper sense of pity for this youth—his former best friend, a being who had once shone so dazzlingly like a brilliant source of light that he had desperately tried to draw close to, yet feared being burned by.

But everything was different now. Uncle Bai and Auntie Bai were gone, and his legs were ruined like that, leaving Ziqian completely alone with no one left to rely on.

Even though he knew it was deeply wrong to think this way, Xu Jiangzhe could not deny the secret thread of dark satisfaction stirring in his heart whenever that realization struck him.

He felt despicable for feeling relieved by Ziqian's misfortune and the loss of his parents, simply because it granted him such an unprecedented opportunity to draw near to Ziqian.

Yet, as a form of atonement, he swore to care for Ziqian forever. He liked Ziqian so much that even if he had to attend to him for a lifetime, he would never grow tired of it.

Carrying this bittersweet, romantic fantasy, Xu Jiangzhe visited Bai Yichen every moment he had free time. When Bai Yichen read, he sat nearby gazing at him; when Bai Yichen ate or drank water, he stared at him; when Bai Yichen lost himself in aimless daydreams, he was still there, watching him intently.

Like an adolescent experiencing the first awakenings of love, he seemed tirelessly devoted, maintaining an infinite reservoir of energy and passion even though Bai Yichen rarely acknowledged him.

Bai Yichen never took Xu Jiangzhe's actions to heart. For one, Xu Jiangzhe was still just a young boy; for another, this youth—and this entire family—were merely transient passersby in his eyes, destined to have little connection with him in the future.

However, Bai Yichen overlooked one crucial fact: when a person focuses all their passion and unwavering gaze entirely on a single individual, subtle and profound shifts occur. A subtle glance or a minute gesture—things the person making them might not even register—would be captured in full detail by the observer, scrutinized meticulously until they came to understand the person even better than they understood themselves.

Given Xu Jiangzhe's age, he could not decode the complex, hidden thoughts buried deep within someone's mind, but interpreting subconscious physical cues posed no problem at all.

As he gathered more observations, an inescapable sense of anxiety took root within him, weighing heavily on his mind.

Because Bai Yichen seldom engaged with him, coupled with reasons Xu Jiangzhe himself couldn't fully articulate, he instinctively hid his discoveries from Bai Yichen. Instead, after endless hesitation, he walked into his father's study one afternoon.

Xu Weihai had been riding high on a wave of confidence lately. Exercising half the voting power in a corporation was completely different from controlling half while managing the other half under guardianship—with the clear prospect of absorbing total executive authority in the near future. In fact, ever since the day he secured legal guardianship over Bai Yichen, Xu Weihai had felt an intoxicating sense of smooth, frictionless authority when issuing corporate directives.

No man could resist the allure of such absolute power, let alone the staggering financial windfalls attached to it. Consequently, Xu Weihai had been working with relentless ambition, continuing to handle corporate affairs even after returning home, all to drive this company—which he believed was destined to be entirely his—to even greater heights.

When Xu Jiangzhe knocked and entered the study, Xu Weihai was genuinely surprised. He knew his son had turned into a complete shadow following the Bai family kid ever since he moved in, hardly even talking to his own parents. Yet for certain covert reasons, Xu Weihai hadn't put a stop to it; he preferred his son to stay as close to the Bai boy as possible, hoping it would entice the kid into signing a few more agreements.

"What is it?" Assuming his son had nothing of real importance to discuss, Xu Weihai merely glanced up for a brief second before lowering his head back down to attend to the mountain of corporate documents piled across his desk.