A President’s Out-of-Body Experience

Gu Xiaoshan still felt worried, but he could not make it so obvious, for fear of breaching propriety. He thought, he might as well just stay in the same room as Renzi, only to see that Renzi had already scrambled into his room fearfully and closed the door. It would be awkward for Gu Xiaoshan to say anything now, and so he entered the room next to Renzi.

When Renzi came out from his shower, he saw a message from Mr Shu when he picked up his phone. “Release me from the blacklist first, alright?”

Renzi then remembered that Gu Xiaoshan had previously blacklisted Mr Shu on his phone. Renzi opened his social media app, released Mr Shu, and sent him a sentence, “Sorry, haha. It was a misunderstanding.”

“It’s alright. Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“But you can’t tell Gu Xiaoshan about it.”

“Huh?”

“It can be considered our ‘surprise’ for him, how about that?”

A surprise for Brother Xiaoshan? This sounds like a great idea.

Renzi asked, “What surprise?”

“Didn’t you promise to make wine for me? Let’s make a bottle for Gu Xiaoshan too?”

Renzi did like this suggestion. He liked wine, and he liked Gu Xiaoshan. To gift Gu Xiaoshan a botttle of wine he made seemed like a good idea.

Since it was a “surprise”, naturally he could not inform Gu Xiaoshan about it beforehand.

Renzi suddenly had a bright idea, and felt that he really was a genius — having to repress his excitement with nowhere to release it, and could not tell Gu Xiaoshan about it, he then sent a message to his older brother.

“What do you think about confessing with a bottle of wine that I made? The bottle will be custom-made, and when the wine in it depletes, the confession carved on the bottle will be revealed…”

“Oh, you’re referring to the trick Dad used to confess to Mom in the past?” Yu Yuntao replied.

Renzi was taken aback. “I thought this idea would be something original that I came up with… Why has Dad never told me about it!”

“Because he failed, so he didn’t tell you. It was because he got drunk a few days ago, and ended up spilling it to me.”

“How did it fail?” Renzi was surprised. “This is such a great idea!”

“It is quite a good idea. However, on that day when Dad brought the bottle out with Mom, thinking to confess, a hooligan on the street harassed Mom. In a fit of anger, Dad smashed the bottle on the hooligan’s head.”

“Yeah… That sounds like Dad…” Renzi was resigned, “But I shouldn’t meet a hooligan on the street that would harass Brother Xiaoshan, right?”

“Yup, that’s true. However, I still think you shouldn’t be so eager to confess. If you don’t succeed, wouldn’t it become very awkward? What happens if you can’t even be friends after that?”

Renzi was frustrated. “Then how? If I keep worrying about that, then I’ll never get to confess my entire life!”

“That’s not what I mean,” Yu Yunren answered. “Towards this sort of old pro, you’ll need to have an old pro sort of tricks to deal with him, and have a good strategy on how to attack and withdraw. For example, if you confess on April Fools’ Day and he doesn’t accept it, you can just brush it off as a joke.”

Renzi was enlightened. “Oh, now I understand. I’ll be brewing this wine with Mr Shu. If Brother Xiaoshan rejects it, then I’ll just tell him it’s Mr Shu who wanted to confess to him!”

Yu Yunren was dumbfounded. “Huh???!!! What???!!!”

After a while, Yu Yunren said, “In that case, if Gu Xiaoshan accepts Shu Jingyi, wouldn’t you be the one getting a shock instead?”

“Didn’t you say that there’s nothing between the both of them? Brother Xiaoshan has said himself that he has no such feelings for Mr Shu too. So, Brother Xiaoshan would definitely not accept him.”

Yu Yuntao had not expect that Renzi would think of this, but still felt that something was awkward about them. “I feel that there’s something wrong with this picture.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Why are you so close with Shu Jingyi?”

“I’m just making a new friend.” Renzi’s personality was really that sunny. “If not?”

“Sure, as long as it doesn’t end up like He Jun.”

“How can that be?” Renzi said. “Mr Shu is not that kind of person.”

Yu Yunren himself did not understand why he felt like that. But as he was not very familiar with the situation, he only said, “Maybe you won’t want to listen to what I’m saying. But I feel that you should not let President Shu involve himself in this matter. After all, this is something between you and Gu Xiaoshan.”

Renzi pondered over it, and also felt that Yu Yuntao made sense.

“If these two people ended up together with my assistance, wouldn’t I be an idiot?” Renzi finally understood. “Hah, I’m not a fool!”

Yu Yunren, who believed that he was “not a fool”, felt that he should handle his confession to Gu Xiaoshan himself. However, as he had promised to pick grapes with Mr Shu, he had to keep his words. After all, this was also part of the process towards his confession, and he had made a promise to him first.

He set his alarm before going to bed. Before the sun even rose, he woke up at the time he had agreed with Shu Jingyi.

Shu Jingyi said that this type of grapes had to be picked before sunrise. The unproductive Yu Yunren, who was the vice president of the Yu family’s alcohol business, did actually know that there were certain species of grapes that had such requirements. The grapes had to be picked before the sun rise, and the rays of the sun would affect the quality of the grapes to a certain degree.

Yu Yunren appeared at the back door of the manor at 4am in the morning. Holding a light, the butler greeted him with a smile, “Mr Shu has been waiting for you.”

Renzi suddenly had an impression as though he was sneaking out to have an affair in the middle of the night.

Behind the manor was an average-sized vineyard for Shu Jingyi’s wines. Renzi wore a headlamp, gloves on his hands, and he even had a bamboo basket hanging from his waist, and he started picking grapes with Shu Jingyi. Towards the inexperienced Renzi’s clumsiness, Shu Jingyi guided him patiently, only urging him. “The ones by the side are not important. If the grapes have rotted, just throw them away. You don’t have to feel bad and save the money for me.”

Renzi followed his instructions and slowly picked bunches of grapes by cutting down them with a pair of scissors. If there were any spoilt ones, whether they were already rotten or they had been accidentally damaged by him, he just threw them aside, fully encapsulating the spirit of “every bottle of wine from the Yu family is a luxury good”.

As they picked, Renzi began to feel bored, and so started chatting with Shu Jingyi. “By the way, you haven’t told me how old you are.”

“You’re asking me so directly?” Shu Jingyi laughed. “If I’m a lady, would you still be so straightforward?”

“Tsk, how can you compare it like this? A lady is a lady, and a man is a man.” Renzi thought nothing of it. “If you were a lady, I would never sleep in the same carriage as you, and meet you alone in the middle of the night.”

“Right,” Shu Jingyi adjusted Renzi’s headlamp. “Maybe you should seriously consider this problem.”

“W-what problem?” Renzi was confused.”

“I’m a bachelor.”

“Yes,” Renzi nodded. “You are.”

“And you’re also a bachelor.” Shu Jingyi paused, then asked, “What do you think two bachelors can do when they’re together?”

“Uhh…” Renzi thought about what he usually did with Hei Zi and his group of scoundrel friends. “Gambling, drinking, having fun. Of course, I don’t whore around. If you want a friend to accompany you for that…”

Shu Jingyi could not resist laughing, and said a little helplessly, “That’s not what I meant…”

“That’s good.” Renzi relaxed, “I thought you were going to ask me to visit prostitutes with you.”

“I’ll never have such thoughts.” Shu Jingyi answered firmly.

“Oh, that’s nice.” Renzi smiled, “I also know that you’re not a person like this.”

Shu Jingyi smiled back at him, “Then what sort of person do you think I am?”

“I think you’re a quite well-educated gentleman.”

“Then you’ve made a huge mistake.” Shu Jingyi shook his head.

Renzi was quite startled. “It’s hard for me to understand what you just said! Do you mean to call yourself ill-bred?”

“Yes, what’s wrong with admitting to it?” Shu Jingyi responded. “People who are close to me all know that my family background is rather lacking. My father’s a bastard, and my mother’s a whore.”

This sudden account scared Renzi to the point where he nearly dropped the grapes in his hand. “Ah… Ah… Uhh… You can just talk about this like that?”

Shu Jingyi smiled, his eyes curving, “I can say it.”

It meant, if other people said this, he would definitely kill them.

Renzi did not understand the implications of Shu Jingyi’s words, but as he was not a person who could say something like “your mother’s a whore”, he managed to avoid this trouble.

Shu Jingyi noticed Renzi’s discomfort, and so changed the topic. “I think we’ve picked enough grapes. Now we can move on to the next step.”