Warm sunlight poured through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of the girls' activity room, spilling onto the floor. The air was filled with the fragrance of floral and fruit tea, creating a joyful and harmonious atmosphere.
As soon as Shen Wenta walked in, he could smell the faint, lingering perfume from the girls around him.
The young man's brows involuntarily furrowed slightly, his gaze quickly locking onto Shen Yi, who was sitting upright in a woven rattan chair.
"Leave with me." Ignoring the astonished looks from the girls around them, Shen Wenta tried to drag Shen Yi away the moment he saw her.
Shen Yi was startled by his sudden arrival. "Are you okay?"
"What would be wrong with me? I'm perfectly fine."
He didn't catch her sarcastic undertone and reached out to grab her again, his movements laced with impatience.
Shen Yi nimbly jumped back, quickly dodging behind the rattan chair, playing a game of cat and mouse around the furniture with him.
Clinging to the back of the chair, she revealed only half of her small face, her tone resolute. "I don't want to go with you! It's nice here, and I want to stay and play!"
Even if she didn't make friends, simply watching the girls around her chat and laugh, and experiencing that relaxed atmosphere unique to young women, gave Shen Yi a long-lost sense of ease.
Pei Wanyan was starting to get a headache. She had heard the anger in his voice over the phone earlier, but she absolutely never expected him to just barge right in.
"Yi just got here a little while ago, and she really likes it here."
"Here?" Shen Wenta calmed down for two seconds, sweeping his gaze across the activity room. When he caught sight of the groups of two or three brightly dressed and glamorous girls gathered together, his disgust only deepened.
"What's so good about this place?"
He gave a cold twitch of his lips, muttering almost to himself, "What a dump."
"..."
His voice wasn't loud, but the activity room was quiet enough that everyone heard him.
The astonished gazes of the surrounding girls instantly fell upon him.
In their limited impression, Shen Wenta, the heir to the Shen family, had always maintained basic gentlemanly manners in public.
How could such ugly words come out of his mouth??
Shen Yi couldn't help but cover her face, feeling the gazes directed at her turn burning hot.
A girl nearby who was familiar with Pei Wanyan couldn't help but whisper to her, "Is that... really your brother?"
Shen Yi blinked her big eyes, playing dumb. "I don't know him."
Pei Wanyan's vision nearly went black.
He really wasn't leaving her any dignity at all.
Shen Wenta also knew his tone was terrible. If it were in the past, he might have been able to put on an act and take her away calmly.
But right now, he was truly annoyed.
Whether it was Shen Ruxu's harassment or the frustration of not sleeping well for days, his patience was rapidly vanishing.
"When did I tell you to bring her here to play? I just told you to keep an eye on her."
Shen Wenta continued his aggressive questioning.
Pei Wanyan had originally tried to explain nicely, "But Yi doesn't have any other friends at school, haven't you realized that?"
Girls all have their own social circles, and high society is no different. For some, even group photos on social media are a major affair, who stands in the center and who stands on the side symbolizes status and closeness.
And for a girl from a very good family background to have no friends, not even superficial ones...
That was highly abnormal.
Shen Wenta naturally understood this logic, but he didn't see the problem. "Isn't it enough that she has Shen Xun? And there's some other little girl whose name I forgot."
"I can even give her my friends."
Anyway, he had a bunch of random friends who frequently popped up like NPCs just to make their presence known.
Pei Wanyan: "...?"
She almost doubted her own ears.
Was this something a human being could say?
Did friendship have some sort of abdication system? He was going to yield his friends to Shen Yi?
Honestly, she never initiated topics with Shen Wenta; whatever he talked about, she would blindly go along with it, like a kindergarten teacher.
Handling him was a piece of cake.
So, suddenly hearing such an explosive statement from him, Pei Wanyan completely lost her composure.
Shen Wenta didn't want to waste time here with Pei Wanyan.
Expressionless, he tried to pull Shen Yi away.
Seeing this, Shen Yi hurriedly hid behind Pei Wanyan.
The three of them looked like they were playing eagle catching chickens. Pei Wanyan blocked him back and forth a couple of times. Seeing him still pressing closer, she finally reached the end of her tolerance, her voice laced with anger. "Can you just get out?"
If he didn't care about his dignity, she still cared about hers!
"Just leave the girls' activity room first, okay? When the lunch break is over, I'll take Yi back."
Shen Yi also peeked out from behind Pei Wanyan.
The girl clasped her hands together and raised them, pouting her lips, her eyes watery in a pitiful, pleading look. "Yeah, I just want to play here for a bit. Our lounge is so boring."
Shen Wenta's heart was unexpectedly pierced by her pitiful appearance, and his originally harsh tone uncontrollably softened a few degrees.
"No."
After saying that, he looked around and couldn't help but anxiously bite the corner of his mouth. He simply started questioning his girlfriend; in his view, Pei Wanyan was just trying to lead Shen Yi astray.
"What right do you have to take my sister away? Did you get my permission?"
"Yi isn't a three-year-old child anymore, why does she need your permission?"
Shen Wenta was clearly so domineering that he had lost all sense of reality. His lips curled in a cold sneer:
"I am her brother."
As the two of them pulled and shoved, Shen Wenta abandoned all pretense of gentlemanly manners. He easily shook off Pei Wanyan and didn't spare a single pleasant look for the group of good friends around her.
"Wanyan, you are always like this, liking to make all sorts of messy friends," he smiled. "But since that's your social circle, I've never interfered. Please don't bring them around Shen Yi either."
With those light words, he mocked everyone present.
Pei Wanyan's expression was exceptionally colorful.
She had always been a tolerant person.
But the prerequisite for her tolerance was that he had to give her some face in public.
Not like this, degrading the friends around her as if they were worthless.
Pei Wanyan did like all kinds of expensive and beautiful things; she was vain and cared about her image, but so what?
She hadn't committed any crimes. In a world where killers could do whatever they wanted, what was wrong with her being a little willful?
Was Shen Wenta unaware of her flaws?
He had always known.
But he just liked to gaslight her using this kind of patronizing, favor-bestowing tone.
'A good girl shouldn't be like you, but that's okay, you're still my favorite.'
Hearing him mock her social circle, Pei Wanyan couldn't help but laugh out of pure anger. "Wow, how did I never notice before that you have such a despicable personality?"
In the past, even if he was faking it, Shen Wenta could put on the polite appearance of a perfect straight-A student.
He had never been this flustered and angry.
It seemed he was truly seeing red today.
"I'm despicable?"
"I haven't even mentioned you bringing my sister to hang out with this shady crowd."
The young man tilted his head slightly, his gorgeous face looking at her with such bitterness.
What a total waste of a pretty face.
Pei Wanyan gasped in shock.
It's true that when a person is rendered utterly speechless, they really do just laugh, especially when facing someone so unreasonable.
"You impotent bastard!" Her pretty face turned cold, finally blurting out what she had wanted to say for a long time. "What gives you the right to say my social circle is sketchy?"
Shen Wenta had no reaction to her 'impotent' evaluation, and matter-of-factly answered the latter question: "Because you're all cut from the same cloth."
He tilted his head slightly, his eyes filled with undisguised contempt. "Aren't you all just thinking about finding someone powerful to cling to all day long, so you can elevate your own families?"
"You drive away everyone else around me every time, not because you care about me that much, but simply to make sure that in the eyes of the public, I am the only female companion by your side. Naturally, everyone will think that you must be my future fiancée, and your family has profited a lot from this, haven't they?"
"Didn't you still take the bait willingly? You cheap bastard."
Pei Wanyan also had a look of sheer exasperation. "I've put up with you for a long time. Do you just love playing dress-up with people that much? Were you deprived of love as a child? Did your mom refuse to buy you a Barbie doll when you wanted one? Now that you're grown up, you just pile every ugly thing onto me!"
Shen Wenta loved giving her all kinds of jewelry.
Even if it was expensive, Pei Wanyan really couldn't stand his controlling nature. He wished he could give her everything he had, and then demanded she wear it for him the very next day.
Pei Wanyan really wanted to ask, what was she to him, a Barbie doll and a jewelry rack?
"Then why did you accept it?" Shen Wenta was about to explode.
Pei Wanyan, however, felt happy, truly.
Seeing Shen Wenta lose his mind was much more interesting than his usual high-and-mighty, bossy demeanor.
At first, she wouldn't have dared either, after all, Shen Wenta was a genuinely petty and trashy man. But as the argument dragged on, her string of rationality completely snapped.
"Why shouldn't I accept it? That's my compensation for mental distress."
Shen Wenta: "You ungrateful, wicked woman."
"You petty, cheap bastard!"
Pei Wanyan spoke rapidly: "I have to spend three hours getting dressed up every day to see you, and what about you? You just throw on any random clothes to see me. You are so pretentious."
Shen Wenta really didn't like dressing up; he belonged to the type whose face was his ultimate weapon, relying entirely on his looks to carry him.
Who could understand the frustration of spending hours meticulously dressing up, only for the other person to just throw on a shirt and show up?
"Hah?" He couldn't help but let out a sneer. "I've been wanting to say this for a long time. The perfume you wear every time you see me smells awful, even your hair strands reek of it. The moment you get close to me, I want to throw up."
Shen Wenta didn't like perfume at all; it smelled terrible to him, and no matter how expensive the brand was, he found it sickening.
Truly, they were using the most hurtful words possible.
The two glared at each other, showing not a single trace of nostalgia for the past, only the determination to stomp the other to death.
All the girls around them fell silent.
This trip was so worth it.
"If I had known Pei Wanyan and Shen Wenta's interactions were this entertaining, I would have recorded it to watch during the New Year." A girl nearby covered her mouth, leaning on the table, almost passing out from laughing.
Shen Yi: "..."
Pei Wanyan bit her lip hard, able to hear the snickering around her. She took a few deep breaths, suddenly shoved him away, and enunciated every word:
"You're dumped, Shen Wenta. Get lost."
She absolutely could not be the one getting dumped first.
Otherwise, how could she ever show her face once word of today's events got out!
Shen Wenta saw she looked like she was about to cry, tilted his head, held the hand of the child beside him, and said, "I still have something to say."
"What?"
Pei Wanyan actually thought he wanted to ask her to stay.
But based on her understanding of him, that seemed impossible.
She suspiciously crossed her arms. "What? Worried that I'll immediately find the next guy to cuckold you right after we break up?"
Truth be told, Pei Wanyan really had figured out who to go to the very second after they broke up.
"What? Cuckold me?"
Shen Wenta really hadn't thought of this. He was a psychopath with a bizarre thought process, and he frowned:
"I don't care about that at all. I wouldn't care even if you got married to eight men tomorrow, but you are not allowed to come looking for Shen Yi ever again."
He truly despised the crowd around Pei Wanyan.
He didn't want Shen Yi anywhere near them.
Suddenly hearing such an inhuman statement, Pei Wanyan's breath hitched for two seconds:
"Just get lost! You piece of trash!"
If he didn't leave right now, she really wouldn't be able to resist slapping him.
"Oh right, before I go, I must say one more thing. You really should go back and take some more etiquette classes, Miss Pei Wanyan."
Shen Wenta wore a fake smile. After saying this, he turned and led Shen Yi away without looking back.
Pei Wanyan froze for two seconds. After realizing what kind of nonsense he just spouted, she held back again and again, but ultimately couldn't hold it in.
For the first time in her life, she swore:
"Etiquette class my ass, Shen Wenta!"
And also—
"If you're going to leave, then leave, but at least leave your sister behind!"
Shen Wenta hadn't gone far and happened to hear that curse.
He matter-of-factly started badmouthing her to his sister: "See, I told you she should take a few more etiquette classes. Stay away from her in the future, otherwise she'll corrupt you sooner or later."
Shen Yi: "...I'm begging you."
"Please act like a human being, brother."
