Rebirth: Different Way [(重生) 殊途]

Chapter 10

Why didn't his father like him? This was a question that Shen Xi had never been able to understand when he was a child.

Father would smile affectionately at his brothers, Father would hold Shen Cheng high in his arms, Father would take his brothers to the playground, Father would praise his brothers as his beloved sons, but Father would never notice him in the corner and would never meet his longing eyes.

The little Shen Xi wondered why this was so. He once asked his mother this question, which resulted in a big fight between his mother and his father that very night. Shen Xi, who was hiding under his mother's bed, clearly heard his father's angry shout, "I didn't want that child from the beginning, it was you who insisted on having it."

That child, did his father mean him?

Shen Xi felt as if he understood something and yet he didn't understand anything.

That night he did not go to bed as he always did, but slipped out of his room when his mother was not looking. He wandered alone into the empty hallway of the Shen family home, and then he saw his father.

In a room that was often locked in the corner of the third floor, his father stood motionless like a statue, looking at the large and small photo frames hanging on the wall. Inside all the frames there was a person, a woman Shen Xi did not know.

His father's face had an expression that Shen Xi had never seen before, wistful and tender, and Shen Xi looked on, dumbfounded, not even knowing when his mother appeared behind him.

Father and Mother had another fierce quarrel, and then his mother picked up a chair in anger and slammed it against the photo on the wall. In the splash of glass, Shen Xi looked down at the photo that fell at his feet. In the photo, a woman smiled at him gently.

Shen Xi quietly hid the photo and took it to his grandfather. From Grandpa's unexpected exclamation he learnt the woman's name – Fang Yun, the mother of Shen Ji and Shen Cheng.

After the death of his mother and grandfather, Shen Xi grew up day by day and from outsiders, he heard more and more about Fang Yun, his father's beloved woman.

Beloved? Shen Xi laughed coldly in his heart. Then what was Zhou Mingmei?

Shen Xi's memories were only fleeting when an unfamiliar female voice reached him from across the room, "Mr. Shen, how much do you intend to pay?"

Shen Xi looked quietly at the woman who was talking. Chu Qianqian, the person Lao K had found for him.

Chu Qianqian looked about twenty years old, with thin eyebrows, big eyes and fair skin, and her face was more similar to that woman than Zhou Mingmei's. Unfortunately, too much makeup made her look a little dissolute and ruined the graceful expression integral to that face.

Shen Xi lowered his eyes, "How much do you want?"

Chu Qianqian slowly exhaled a ring of smoke at Shen Xi, "Five million, not negotiable!"

Shen Xi laughed softly, "You think you're worth that price?"

Chu Qianqian leaned forward and the V-neck of her blouse shifted, revealing a white piece inside. She glanced at Shen Xi flirtatiously and said meaningfully, "Do you think I'm worth it?"

Shen Xi looked blankly and commented impartially, "But that's it."

Chu Qianqian immediately straightened up and glared fiercely at Shen Xi, who laughed in reply, "I'll give you ten million. One year. Find a way to stay by his side and make him fall in love with you."

Chu Qianqian was obviously taken aback by this number, then reacted, afraid that Shen Xi would backtrack, and quickly nodded, "No problem."

Shen Xi looked at her and said softly, "Don't think that this matter is easy, that man is not the kind of man you used to have around you. If it wasn't for this face of yours, believe me, even if you stood naked in front of him, he wouldn't look at you."