Wen Chen couldn't be bothered with them; he only wanted to hurry home and take care of his baby.
"Please step aside, I have an urgent matter," he explained patiently, acting on the principle of respecting the elderly.
"No! You must give us an explanation right now."
"Hey! Did that fake young master in your house whisper something in your ear? Could it be that during the last family banquet, us elders offended him just by saying a few words?"
"Yeah, Xiao Chen used to be so filial and always respected us elders. For you to suddenly change like this, did that spoiled little young master of yours say something to you?"
"Sigh, it can't be, right? Even if your little baby said something, you can't just swing the butcher's knife at us for him. No matter how much you dote on him, he isn't blood-related to you. He's an ungrateful wretch who can never be truly tamed. We are your blood-connected relatives!"
These old guys were acting very unusually. Normally, they spoke slowly and put on airs, but now they crowded around him, speaking as fast as a machine gun, their words completely different from their usual style.
Wen Chen's intuition told him something was wrong, but he had no time to argue with them. Even if there was some conspiracy, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
He would settle the score with them later.
The most urgent matter was to see what his baby was doing.
His gaze turned sharp, and he said coldly, "Move, or face the consequences." The last four words, paired with his look and tone, were brimming with menace.
If they hadn't crossed his bottom line, he wouldn't have wanted to make the scene so ugly.
Perhaps because his gaze was too fierce, the old folks trembled and made way for him, muttering something unintelligible under their breath.
Wen Chen didn't have time to entertain them. As he walked, he opened the surveillance playback while simultaneously taking out another phone to call Jiajia's personal bodyguard.
From the bodyguard, he learned that his baby hadn't left the house and no suspicious individuals had approached the villa. From the surveillance video, he saw that the baby had entered his bedroom ten minutes ago.
Only then did he heave a slight sigh of relief.
It was then he noticed quite a commotion behind him. He frowned, thinking to himself: Why is Yuan Ting taking so long in the restroom? That guy knew the art of communication best and was a master at placating people.
But it didn't matter. His special assistant wasn't a pushover either. Even if they couldn't pacify this bunch of old geezers, stalling them until Yuan Ting appeared would definitely be no problem.
Thinking of this, Wen Chen didn't look back, walking briskly toward his office.
On his way to work, he had seen an old lady selling handmade woven items on the street. The craftsmanship was exquisite—exactly the kind of handicrafts Jiajia liked. He bought all of them. Before the meeting, he specifically packed them in a gift bag woven with gold threads and placed it in his office drawer.
Jiajia liked delicate handicrafts, and he also liked gold that retained its value. He would definitely love a gift that combined both.
He planned to return to his office, grab this small bag of gifts, and head straight home. He didn't want to delay for a single second; his entire heart had already flown to his baby.
To his surprise, just as he grabbed the gift and was about to close his office door, two extremely annoying figures blocked the doorway.
These two were none other than his eldest brother Wen Ming and his sister-in-law Su Rong, the biological parents of Wen Qingheng.
Wen Chen never had a good temper when it came to people who treated Jiajia poorly.
Too lazy to even spare them a glance, he directly asked his assistant, who was sweating profusely on the side, "Check who let them barge in. If it's our employees' fault, hold the relevant personnel accountable. If they forced their way in, call the police."
After speaking, he stretched his long legs, ready to stride away.
Unexpectedly, his hand was suddenly empty; the trinket he treasured had been snatched away by Wen Ming.
"This is something you bought for your little baby, right? Tsk, the fake young master sure is precious. Even the real young master doesn't get this kind of treatment," Wen Ming said sarcastically, pinching the glittering gold thread bag.
His phoenix eyes, which were eighty percent similar to Wen Chen's, completely lacked the noble elegance that such eye shapes usually possessed. Instead, they looked sleazy and unpresentable.
Wen Chen cared about his image and didn't want to get into a physical altercation with his forty-eight-year-old biological brother right at the door, so he could only grit his teeth and step back into his office. The two interlopers followed closely behind.
As soon as the three entered the office, before the young assistant could help close the door, Wen Ming rolled his eyes at the assistant and slammed the door shut with a bang, displaying an absolute lack of manners and upbringing.
Wen Chen frowned. Looking down coldly at Wen Ming, who was half a head shorter than him, his tone carried a heavy threat.
"Let go with your dirty hands. For every second you delay, you lose a property."
"Tch, who do you think you are?" Discontent was written all over Wen Ming's face, but under Su Rong's urging, just as Wen Chen counted to three, he reluctantly let go.
He had originally intended to slam it heavily onto the desk, but catching a glimpse of Wen Chen's fierce gaze, he felt inexplicably intimidated. Subconsciously, he lowered his head respectfully and handed it back to Wen Chen with both hands.
Beside him, Su Rong plastered a fawning smile on her face, while inwardly rolling her eyes so hard they could reach the heavens.
Just what kind of trash had she married? Such a useless guy; despite being the legitimate eldest son of the Wen family, all he knew was how to eat, drink, whore, and gamble.
Never mind that he couldn't become the head of the Wen family, or even a senior executive at the company. With a cash cow of a younger brother like Wen Chen around, their mountains of gold and silver would never run dry anyway. But she really couldn't stand how cowardly her husband was, making it impossible for her to hold her head up high either.
Honestly. A man in his late forties, getting glared at by a brother over a decade younger than him, and he would probably have nightmares about it at night.
No wonder Old Master Wen, at the advanced age of fifty, made his wife go through a high-risk geriatric pregnancy to give birth to Wen Chen.
With his firstborn turning out to be such a dud, if it were her, she would have opted to start a "new account" too.
But being too capable wasn't necessarily a good thing either. Capable people had tough fates and tended to curse their relatives to death. Back in the day, her mother-in-law—Wen Chen's mother—was still glamorous and radiant at forty-eight, full of energy traveling the world doing charity. How glorious was she back then? But didn't she end up dying from dystocia while giving birth to Wen Chen?
If the Old Master hadn't kept his distance from Wen Chen, he probably wouldn't have lived this long. But the old man was reaching his end too; today, upon hearing that this unfilial son was ousting all the family elders from power, he was so furious he ended up in the ICU.
However, she had suppressed this news, planning to wait for the right moment to cement Wen Chen's reputation as an unfilial son.
Speaking of which, she wasn't exactly wronging Wen Chen. If he had even a shred of concern for his old man, it would have been impossible for her to suppress the news so easily.
Wen Chen didn't know about Su Rong's convoluted schemes, nor did he care about Wen Ming's yelling. After taking his item back, he immediately ordered them to leave.
When Wen Ming threw a tantrum and rolled around on the floor refusing to leave, he simply called for security.
Only, Wen Chen didn't expect the few minutes waiting for security to be so excruciating.
Wen Ming kept yammering on, condemning his "crimes," while Su Rong maintained a fake smile but spouted plenty of sarcastic, backhanded remarks.
He didn't actively listen to what they were saying, busy swapping out the gold thread bag for Jiajia's gift while trying to dial Jiajia's number. However, since he was accustomed to multitasking, the ugly words inevitably drilled into his ears.
"Who knows what kind of magic potion that kid Luo Qingjia fed you, making you scheme against your own biological nephew like this all for him," Wen Ming said with righteous indignation.
"Did Xiao Jia say something to you that made you misunderstand Xiao Heng? Actually, Xiao Heng really likes Xiao Jia. Since they were young, whenever he had anything good, he would always think of Xiao Jia. I don't know why things had to get so ugly this time because of Xiao Jia," Su Rong said in her signature manipulative, hypocritical tone.
They could talk about him all they wanted, but insulting Jiajia was crossing the line. Wen Chen, who usually didn't even bother arguing with them, had extremely sharp words this time.
He shot a sidelong glance at Wen Ming, who was sitting on the floor, and scoffed coldly, "No wonder the Old Master had to roll a new account." The remark left Wen Ming so furious he was speechless.
Turning to Su Rong, he added, "No wonder you could only marry a man like him."
"Wen Chen, how can you be so venomous?!" Su Rong's mask finally slipped, and her defenses crumbling, she cursed, "You bastard who had a mother to birth him but no mother to teach him!"
Wen Chen's expression shifted slightly, but he continued to sneer, "You'd better just focus on managing your son, lest he becomes a bricked account just like your husband."
"Wen Chen! How did you turn out like this? Truly, he who gets near ink..."
Yes, he who gets near vermilion becomes red. It was because of Jiajia's influence that he was able to say such things. It felt truly exhilarating!
On his way home, his mind was entirely on Jiajia. Naughty, cute, pure, low-key and introverted, dressed up and dazzling... He cycled through every version of him.
He just never expected that when he pushed open the bedroom door, he would see an entirely new side of his baby.
The exquisitely beautiful youth was wearing nothing but an oversized white dress shirt, the collar spread wide open, with Wen Chen's black tie bound tightly around his thigh, sticking his butt out as he took a mirror selfie.
Completely unaware that from the back, all of his enticing spring scenery was in full, glorious view.
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