WMSR — QT Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Chapter 28: The Caged White Moonlight (05)

By this point, no matter how composed Bai Yichen remained, he knew for certain that some unknown variable had disrupted his plans.

And a few days later, when Xu Weihai tossed several files onto the table before him, he finally learned the exact origin of that unforeseen disruption.

The documents thrown in his face were copies of the very same legal service contracts he had secretly dispatched to the various law firms—contracts that had failed to arrive on schedule.

After slamming the dossiers down, Xu Weihai completely discarded his benevolent facade, gazing down at him with an icy, mocking sneer. "Were you waiting for them? Too bad, you can stop waiting—they aren't coming."

Bai Yichen skimmed rapidly through the pages before lifting his eyes to meet Xu Weihai's gaze.

"Bai Ziqian, I always treated you as a mere kid. I never expected that I had underestimated you all along."

"..."

Staring directly at the frail figure confined to the wheelchair, Xu Weihai articulated each word with chilling deliberation: "Since you've harbored these intentions all this time, constantly keeping your guard up against us, let me make it crystal clear: I am never letting go of your legal guardianship, so you can drop those petty schemes once and for all. I was careless before and gave you an opening, but from now on, you can forget about speaking another word to anyone outside."

With that final declaration, Xu Weihai turned and strode out of the room, leaving Bai Yichen sitting alone in the wheelchair, his fingers tightening slowly over the armrests until his knuckles turned white.

Ever since that confrontation with Xu Weihai, a subtle yet profound transformation rippled through the entire villa.

Having narrowly averted the disaster of losing their legal guardianship, the Xu couple realized that Bai Ziqian was far from a docile pushover. Trying to coax him into signing critical legal agreements through sweet talk was a complete pipe dream.

On the contrary, they realized that while they thought their manipulation was working, they were the ones being played for fools. If not for their son's offhand remark and Xu Weihai's sudden paranoid impulse to cross-check the phone records, the legal guardianship would have slipped right out of their hands.

Knowing that soft tactics were useless, the Xu couple naturally stopped wasting effort playing the warm, attentive benefactors. As if overnight, their attitude toward Bai Yichen plummeted to rock bottom. All those fake smiles and manufactured displays of care evaporated completely. While they still shared the same roof, their demeanor toward him shifted primarily to cold indifference, punctuated by occasional passive-aggressive barbs whenever something displeased them.

They had figured it out: since the boy refused to submit willingly and possessed a dangerously sharp mind at such a tender age, playing the emotional card and risking exposure to get his signature was a losing game. It was far safer to handle things themselves. While self-management might move at a slower pace, holding absolute legal guardianship meant they possessed direct regulatory control over his personal assets. They refused to believe that with total administrative control over those properties—whether it took three years, five years, or a full decade—they couldn't legally siphon them into their own pockets through specialized legal channels.

Fueled by this reassuring rationalization, the Xu couple would often huff dismissively at Bai Yichen, their chests swelling with a renewed sense of arrogant confidence.

As for Bai Yichen—who had long since seen through the Xu couple's hyper-utilitarian, rent-seeking nature—he felt zero surprise at their sudden pivot. As for heartbreak? That was even further out of the question.

If there was one person in this household completely bewildered and disoriented by the Xu couple's drastic change in attitude, it was Xu Jiangzhe. He simply couldn't fathom why his parents, who had previously treated Ziqian with such extraordinary kindness, had executed a complete 180-degree turn overnight. Not only did they subject Ziqian to total ostracization and silence, but they also hurled barbed, malicious remarks at him on a regular basis. Every single time he witnessed his parents directing cruelty toward the wheelchair-bound Ziqian, a sharp wave of agonizing protectiveness stabbed at his chest.

Yet, his frantic efforts to shield Ziqian proved entirely futile; if anything, seeing him step up to defend the boy only inflamed his parents' anger further...

And just like that, spring faded into autumn, the leaves in the Xu family villa's garden turned golden and withered before sprouting green anew, and the blink of an eye swept away five full winters and summers.

Over these five years, Bai Yichen had blossomed from a delicate, striking adolescent into an exceptionally refined and elegant young man. When a gentle breeze brushed across his hair, it felt as though time itself held its breath around him.

The sole lingering tragedy was that such a sophisticated, scholarly youth was forever bound to a wheelchair.

In this lifetime, the vessel's facial features possessed an exquisite, breathtaking beauty—a level of physical allure that rivaled even Su Yuanhang from the previous world.

Logically speaking, such striking looks, combined with prolonged sun deprivation and a lack of active physical exercise, should have inevitably tipped his appearance toward a frail, overly delicate femininity. Yet, much like character manifesting through the soul, Bai Yichen was no ordinary teenager; his rich tapestry of lived experiences across multiple lifetimes imbued him with an innate, unshakable poise and presence. That profound aura effortlessly elevated his naturally delicate features into an atmosphere of absolute, aristocratic refinement. Anyone encountering him would be captivated by his noble bearing long before they ever noticed the wheelchair beneath him.

Kept under strict lock and key by the Xu household for all these years, Bai Yichen had never once been permitted to cross the threshold of that front gate. Perhaps the trauma of that near-miss regarding his guardianship had left an indelible scar on Xu Weihai, because ever since that incident, the modest Xu estate had been transformed into an airtight fortress operating under draconian security protocols.

Not only were entry, exit, and digital communications tightly restricted, but every single domestic servant functioned effectively as an extension of Bai Yichen's surveillance network. Whenever Bai Yichen moved about indoors, outside of his personal bedroom, a domestic worker was invariably stationed right behind him. As for the rest of the staff, their eyes perpetually flickered in his direction, ready to swoop in and investigate the moment anything seemed amiss.

To these household workers, the deeper realities remained shrouded in mystery; they only knew that the boy the Master and Madam had brought home to raise was strictly forbidden from stepping outside, communicating with outsiders, or utilizing tools like telephones and computers. Any breach of these rules meant not only harsh deductions from their wages, but the total forfeiture of their annual bonuses.

With that lucrative financial carrot dangling before them, the guards' and servants' gazes grew all the more unyielding. As for whether the boy himself was to be pitied? They certainly didn't think so. While the Master and Madam had grown increasingly cold and distant toward him over the years, their young master treated him with a devotion bordering on reverence. Whenever anything delicious or entertaining was procured, Ziqian was invariably the first recipient. Day in and day out, tending to his basic needs was standard protocol, and they had even witnessed their young master kneeling on the floor of his own accord to wash the boy's feet. How could a life like that ever be classified as miserable?