Chapter 65
Chapter 65
Pei Yucheng shrank a little under the glare, completely failing to notice that his older brother was focusing on the wrong thing. He lowered his head and explained in a small voice, “I can’t keep coming to you for money forever, can I? And Xiaobei is about to start college. She’ll need money too. I have to think about her.”
Pei Xiaobei never would have imagined that her uncle would use her as a shield right in front of her. She immediately let out a disdainful “heh.”
Bai Xue was even more direct, snapping back, “Can you not use my daughter as an excuse for the filthy things you do? You’re a grown man, and you won’t even spare a child. I’m embarrassed for you.”
When Pei Yucheng heard Bai Xue tearing into him like that, he refused to take it lying down. “Sister-in-law, you have to be fair. Back then, you were the one who offered me money to keep quiet. I only thought that after all these years you and my brother have spent together, if he found out about this, who knows how badly it would hurt him? That’s why I reluctantly agreed.”
Hearing this, Pei Yuming started to waver. Could what his brother had said earlier actually be true? Had he really been afraid Pei Yuming would be upset and hurt?
Seeing her husband looking half-convinced, as if he had been taken in, Bai Xue couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
“You actually believe him? Listen to him spin his nonsense. I’m telling you, he planned this from the start.” Bai Xue explained, “Back then, he saw me with Lu Dong in the neighborhood. He didn’t say anything to my face. Later, when I got home and realized you still didn’t know, I thought this kid had finally learned to be grateful. I was even a little touched. At least all those meals I cooked for him over the years hadn’t been wasted.”
“But afterward, I realized the reason he didn’t bring it up at the time had nothing to do with brotherly affection or respect for his sister-in-law. He just didn’t have evidence then. He knew that if he went straight to you, you might not believe him. Then, on Chinese Valentine’s Day, when you were on duty at the hospital, I went out to meet Lu Dong and discovered that he had been following me all along. He was collecting evidence of my affair so he could use it to threaten me afterward.”
“Chinese Valentine’s Day?” Pei Yuming frowned and looked at Bai Xue. “Where did you run into each other? A hotel?”
Bai Xue nodded in shame. “Yes.”
But Pei Yuming didn’t seem to care whether the two of them had gone to a hotel to get a room. Instead, the point he fixated on was rather strange. “He followed you there? Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Bai Xue said with absolute certainty. “Why else would he go to a hotel for no reason? It’s not like he has a girlfriend.”
Pei Yuming glanced at his younger brother. “Didn’t you say you happened to go to that hotel with friends for the seafood buffet?”
“To eat at a hotel?” Bai Xue sounded as if she had heard something hilarious. “That hotel’s seafood buffet is usually 688 per person, and on Chinese Valentine’s Day it went up to 1,068. You think he’d be willing to spend over a thousand yuan eating there?”
Pei Yucheng made no comment on Bai Xue’s mockery. He only muttered in his own defense, “When did I ever tell you I went to the hotel for the buffet?”
Pei Yuming thought of the other version his brother had told him before and waved a hand. “That’s not important. Xiao Xue, go on.”
Bai Xue hadn’t expected Pei Yuming to be so calm. She looked at him in confusion, unable to figure out what he was planning.
She cleared her throat and shot a glare at Pei Yucheng, who was also sizing up his brother. “Anyway, I didn’t see him at the time. Afterward, he sent me several photos of me and Lu at the hotel. Only then did I understand that he had been scheming against me all along.”
Pei Yuming listened to the end with a dark expression. For a moment, the restaurant was deathly quiet. No one dared to cut in, including Lu Dong, who looked as though he had given up struggling altogether.
“The first time you found out they were together was in the residential compound?” After a long silence, Pei Yuming asked again, as if confirming it one more time.
Pei Yucheng had no idea why that mattered. He glanced at his older brother’s face, then at Bai Xue, and finally nodded honestly.
“Good. Very good.” Pei Yuming looked at him without the slightest expression and said through gritted teeth, “What a fine brother I have.”
“Big Brother…” Pei Yucheng felt his scalp prickle under his brother’s glare. “I just lost my head for a moment…”
“Is that so?” Pei Yuming’s eyes were full of mocking laughter, though it was unclear whether he was laughing at his brother or himself. “Ah Cheng, after all these years, have you ever really treated me as your older brother? Or am I just some meddlesome sucker who happens to give you money and keep you fed?”
“Of course you’re my brother. I’ve never thought that. I swear!”
“Then why, from beginning to end, did you never think to tell me? Instead, you hid behind my back and watched me make a fool of myself. These past three months, every time you saw me, were you looking at me like I was a dumbass? Huh?” Pei Yuming kept warning himself to stay calm, but in the end, he still couldn’t hold back and roared. The atmosphere instantly became unbearably tense. None of the people involved even noticed that, despite never having been told beforehand, Pei Yuming somehow knew the blackmail had begun three months ago.
But even Pei Yucheng, who had been used to enduring things for so many years, couldn’t keep his face from darkening after being questioned like this in front of so many people.
He was an adult, after all, not a teenage boy. Even Pei Xiaobei would have found it hard not to lose her temper if she were scolded like this in front of relatives and friends.
Unfortunately, after so many years, Pei Yuming had long since grown used to this dynamic between the two brothers. In his mind, Pei Yucheng would always be that unreliable little brother who needed him constantly lecturing and supervising him.
“I treated you like a dumbass? Seems to me you’re the one who’s always treated me like a mentally incompetent child!” Pei Yucheng slammed the chopsticks in his hand onto the table. He was so agitated that his face and neck turned bright red. “Yes, I’m your younger brother, but I’m also a grown man. Ask yourself honestly, all these years, have you ever treated me like an independent person? As long as I’m your brother, does that mean I’m not allowed to have any pride or sense of shame? In your house, even Pei Xiaobei dares to order me around whenever she likes. Isn’t her attitude toward me determined by the way all of you treat me?”
“I don’t treat you like a person?” Pei Yuming felt as if some enormous accusation had been dumped right on his head. “Pei Yucheng, can you say that with a clear conscience? I give you money. I pay for your food and drink. My own wife practically gets used as your nanny and cook. So after all these years, after helping you, I’ve helped myself into becoming your enemy?”
“Was that money for me?” Something in those words seemed to set Pei Yucheng off. He pointed at their biological father, who had not dared make a sound the entire time, and shouted, “You did that because of him! You’re busy with work, and it isn’t convenient for Sister-in-law to look after him, so you pushed him onto me. You give me a few thousand yuan a month and make me a caregiver three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Let me tell you, you got one hell of a bargain. Do you know how much it costs to hire a nanny these days? You should be satisfied!”
“I pushed him onto you?” Pei Yuming simply couldn’t understand his brother’s way of thinking. “Isn’t he your father too? Isn’t it only right that you take care of him? What do you mean I pushed him onto you? Do you even hear yourself?”
“He’s your father too. Why don’t you stay with him around the clock? You shoved him all onto me, and now you’re the one who has it easy. Have you ever thanked me even once? So everything I do is only natural, and in the end I still have to grovel in front of you. Why the hell should I?!”