Chapter 43 You Have No Freedom—You Can Only Serve Me

Chapter 43: You Have No Freedom, You Can Only Serve Me

The fireworks display lasted half an hour, with various fireworks ascending one after another, bringing a dazzling and lively blessing to the new year.

When it ended, the entire port was hazy, the smell of gunpowder lingering for a long time.

That bottle of champagne was eventually split between Zhao Bing and Ji Zhijia, and they finished it straight from the bottle. When Zhao Bing lunged at him, he already smelled like booze.

Li Wangyue was tidying up the small cart of fireworks. Inside was a lighter that no one seemed to claim. He was about to pick it up and ask around when someone jumped on his back, almost making him drop to his knees.

Zhao Bing hugged his shoulders, his cheek pressed against the back of Li Wangyue’s neck, and mumbled, “Thanks for today, man.”

That was rare sincerity—probably the booze talking. Li Wangyue reached back to steady him and quickly packed up the cart.

“I should be the one saying that. You’re the one who’s been running around all day,” Li Wangyue said, standing upright and keeping him steady.

“You know what I’m getting at.” Zhao Bing tilted his head, blinking.

His eyes were bright, like they held clear water. Li Wangyue smiled and fixed Zhao Bing’s collar for him. “I understand.”

After the countdown to the new year, the port slowly quieted down.

Zhao Bing said, “My brother and sister-in-law got divorced today. They went and got the papers today. The kid’s with my sister-in-law. They didn’t want to drag it into the new year.”

Li Wangyue felt a twinge in his chest.

On a day like this—end of the year, family time, out with the old, in with the new—this had to happen.

Maybe that’s why Zhao Bing had been so wound up all day.

“It’s their call. Maybe getting divorced is their way of finding happiness,” Li Wangyue said, patting him on the shoulder.

Zhao Bing grabbed his hand and started playing with it, which was pretty intimate.

Li Wangyue wasn’t used to that kind of closeness, but Zhao Bing had always been like a kid. He felt bad and didn’t pull away.

“I used to think if my brother got divorced, I’d roast him nonstop. After that, if he ever came at me, I’d dig up old dirt and hit back,” Zhao Bing said, head down.

But it didn’t work out that way.

He rushed home all excited, ready to rub it in, but from a distance, he saw Zhao Xiujian sitting on the garden steps, holding a pot of flame lilies in one hand and his phone in the other, like he was looking something up.

He walked over, and Zhao Xiujian looked up with blank eyes. “She hasn’t told me how to take care of this thing yet.”

He’d sat there searching all afternoon and didn’t remember a thing.

Zhao Bing suddenly felt like making fun of him now would be too harsh.

He could save it for another time.

“My brother and sister-in-law were the only married couple I actually knew,” Zhao Bing said, then added before Li Wangyue could say anything, “Besides our parents’ generation, obviously. Their relationship was never bad. I don’t get why it fell apart in just a few years.”

“Marriage is a real curse,” he concluded. “Wen Du and the others too—the reason they got divorced is 100% because they got married.”

Li Wangyue wanted to say something but decided not to.

Zhao Bing squeezed Li Wangyue’s hand tighter, looking dead serious. “Promise me one thing.”

Li Wangyue paused. “If you’re not about to propose to me right now, I’m all ears.”

“Don’t ever get married.” Zhao Bing was dead serious. “Wangyue, promise me you’ll never get married.”

Li Wangyue was stunned.

Seeing him hesitate, Zhao Bing’s face dropped in despair. “I knew it. You want to get married, don’t you? You’ve got someone you like. You’ll get married soon and ditch me. In two or three years, you’ll have a kid, and then you’ll never give me the time of day. You’ll vanish from my world, gone for good…”

“No.” Li Wangyue cut him off with a sigh. “I promise you, I won’t get married.”

He wouldn’t get married. Even if Zhao Bing hadn’t said it, he had already foreseen his own future.

He would probably live alone.

He couldn’t and wouldn’t drag another innocent woman or man into his already chaotic life—a life tangled in messy relationships. One buried deep in his heart and bones was enough.

When that deep-seated part completely rotted away, aching unbearably every rainy day, making him unable to forget or let go, then he would be satisfied.

Zhao Bing was overjoyed. “Really? Swear it!”

“I swear, I won’t get married.” Li Wangyue smiled.

Zhao Bing jumped up to hug him, knocking him onto the sand.

Li Wangyue was startled and embarrassed, pushing at him. “Get up first…”

The next second, Zhao Bing’s expression changed as he was lifted up.

Ting Zhenxi’s face was dark, his voice cold. “What are you two doing?”

Zhao Bing, oblivious to the danger, flailed his arms. “Wangyue is willing to not get married for me!”

Li Wangyue: ?

“Is that so.” A faint smile seemed to curl at the corner of Ting Zhenxi’s lips as he looked down at Li Wangyue. “Then he really is devoted to you.”

On the way back, the atmosphere in the car was strange.

Zhao Bing squeezed into the back again to talk to them, wedged between Shang Wendu and Ji Zhijia.

In the back row, Ting Zhenxi was resting with his eyes closed.

Li Wangyue wasn’t sleepy and occasionally glanced sideways at him.

Ting Zhenxi had just been upset—Li Wangyue could tell, because it was too obvious.

Although Ting Zhenxi usually wore a cold face, keeping people at a distance, there was still a difference.

Li Wangyue knew he had always disliked him getting close to his friends. Because of his status, he should stay away from Ting Zhenxi’s circle, to avoid being accused of coveting his resources.

Especially a circle tied to old friends with emotional bonds.

He and Zhao Bing had known each other since childhood. Though their personalities and family backgrounds were worlds apart, and their families even had some subtle, unspoken tensions that made their friendship not entirely carefree, they were still close—practically childhood friends.

He had heard from the household staff that, during their youth, Ting Zhenxi’s family had once ordered him to stop hanging out with the second son of the Zhao family.

But Ting Zhenxi acted as if it were nothing, not even bothering to pretend to comply, directly refusing.

Now that Ting Zhenxi held power in his own hands, he had the means to protect his social circle. If any unpleasant remarks surfaced, he could sweep them away.

Li Wangyue’s closeness to Zhao Bing was probably not something Ting Zhenxi wanted to see.

This outsider, this brother with no blood relation, not only had the nerve to take over his house but also dared to covet his social circle—enough to piss anyone off.

They got home in the wee hours, just as dawn was breaking.

Li Wangyue gently woke him up, but the guy's brows furrowed in annoyance, radiating coldness.

As he helped him down, the man impatiently shoved his hand away.

The weather was weird—it started snowing lightly.

The two walked from the gate toward the villa, crossing a long stretch of the estate's lawn path, which looked barren in the dim morning light.

Li Wangyue followed half a step behind.

"You'd stay single for him?" Ting Zhenxi suddenly asked.

Li Wangyue looked up, his lips moving as if to explain, but all he could manage was a weak denial: "…That's not what I meant."

"So you're saying you want to get married?" Ting Zhenxi turned to stare at him.

"No, not that either," Li Wangyue said, unable to explain.

"Then what do you mean?"

Li Wangyue, rattled by the questioning, couldn't help but get lost in the man's deep eyes.

He stayed quiet for a long time.

Until Ting Zhenxi finally ran out of patience, not wanting to waste more time, he turned and kept walking.

"Li Wangyue, are you afraid of me?"

The man spoke again from ahead.

Li Wangyue was startled but quickly realized the guy couldn't see his face, so he relaxed a bit.

"No, you're good," he said.

"You're lying."

"I'm not lying."

"That's what you really think."

"…" Li Wangyue felt totally useless, always getting tongue-tied around him.

After a long silence, he said, "Xiao Zhao's big brother got divorced. Maybe Ji Zhijia's situation got to him too. He's scared his friends will leave him after they get married. I just said that to comfort him."

"So if it wasn't to comfort him, you'd want to get married?"

"…" Li Wangyue didn't get why the guy was being so unreasonable today.

"I don't want to get married," Li Wangyue admitted truthfully.

"Reason?"

"My parents' marriage wasn't a happy one. I'm not attached to marriage—I'll just go with the flow." Li Wangyue only told half the truth.

"There's no such thing as going with the flow," Ting Zhenxi said. "Don't forget you're my brother. Once you're in this family, you don't have any personal freedom. Every choice you make has to serve me."

"I understand," Li Wangyue said with a nod.

Ting Zhenxi stared into his eyes: "You get it?"

"Yeah. I said from the start that I wouldn't—and never had the chance to—get out. If needed, I wouldn't refuse any marriage, no matter how it's arranged." Li Wangyue knew well that in a family like this, everyone's choices, even love and romance, were all about calculating interests.

Neither he nor Ting Zhenxi could probably escape it.

The thought that Ting Zhenxi might one day be forced into a marriage alliance with some heiress sent a dull ache through his dead heart.

And Ting Zhenxi, this young heir who put profit above everything, would inevitably use himself and others to the max for greater gain.

Luckily, Ting Zhenxi would never love anyone.

That was Li Wangyue's one and only hope.

He smiled bitterly: "I won't do anything to hurt your interests or your family's. You've known that from the beginning."

Ting Zhenxi stepped closer.

Li Wangyue instinctively retreated half a step.

The guy's gaze instantly turned interested.

He suddenly reached out, grabbed Li Wangyue's chin, and forced him closer, leaving no room to escape.

"You've forgotten again. It's our family, not your family."

The sharp pain sobered Li Wangyue up a bit, and his heart pounded wildly.

The guy's face slowly blurred in front of him as he forced a weak smile, as obedient as ever: "Yes, I'll remember."

"You won't," Ting Zhenxi said, his thumb wiping the blood from Li Wangyue's cracked lips. "Every time you forget, I'll teach you, until you do."

"Okay."

His eyes showed no emotion, but the fire beneath the ice burned ever fiercer, all of it captured by the man's gaze—his hidden love and obsession, being tamed into greater loyalty with each lesson.

This was exactly what Ting Zhenxi wanted.

Abuse breeds loyalty.

He wanted this man to belong only to him forever—submission of body and soul, dissolving all his boundaries, invading his freedom and spirit, luring him, forcing him, rewarding and punishing him until he walked a single, unshakable path that pointed only to himself.

Li Wangyue's breath began to falter.

Ting Zhenxi mercifully let go, returning the power to breathe to the tottering man.