Chapter 140

Chapter 140

After the college entrance exams, Qin Song and Hu Heng went to universities in two different cities.

Hu Heng stayed in that city for work after finishing his undergraduate degree. It wasn’t until Hu Yonglan later said she was in poor health that he resigned and returned to City A.

And so he and Qin Song were happily reunited. Hu Heng enjoyed that period of his life very much.

Until one day, Hu Heng suddenly discovered that Qin Song was having an affair.

At the time, he was shocked.

What shocked him was not the affair itself, but Qin Song’s attitude toward it.

To Hu Heng, “cheating” was like a flood or a savage beast, a beautiful skeleton wrapped in pink. Because of the affairs in his parents’ generation, he and his mother had lived through many bitter, miserable years.

It was precisely because of this that Hu Heng had never dated a girl. He had an instinctive fear of romantic relationships between men and women. Deep down, he always felt that all love would bring terrifying consequences.

Qin Song, however, was completely different from him. When Qin Song cheated, he treated it as casually as lifting a cup and taking a sip of water.

Hu Heng tried hard to persuade him, but Qin Song turned a deaf ear.

For those few days, Hu Heng felt disgust toward Qin Song for the first time.

Even the closest old married couples could not avoid having a few moments over a lifetime when they wanted to strangle each other. Good brothers were the same.

Hu Heng believed this was the power of genetics – when the upper beam was crooked, the lower beam would be crooked too. Qin Zhiyuan was a bad example, and like father, like son. Qin Song did not even need Qin Zhiyuan to teach him how to cheat; he had already mastered it all on his own.

But the matter was like a frog being boiled in warm water. Day after day, amid Qin Song’s increasingly out-of-bounds behavior, Hu Heng gradually grew used to it all.

Before he knew it, he had let go of his dissatisfaction and disgust toward Qin Song. He began listening to Qin Song talk about his “romantic daily life” with Huang Yuanrui, began helping Qin Song decorate Huang Yuanrui’s exclusive room, and even began eating meals with the two of them.

Huang Yuanrui liked wearing rose-scented perfume. Every time they ate together, that rose fragrance made Hu Heng dizzy.

Later, things became even more absurd – Qin Song cheated again, this time with Zhang Qiong.

When he was young, Hu Heng had tolerated his mother’s abnormality.

In middle age, Hu Heng tolerated Qin Song’s immorality.

This tolerance made him both miserable and happy – because tolerance came from love. He felt that perhaps this was the meaning of kinship and family.

Hu Heng could ask himself honestly and say he had never wronged anyone in his life. Yet whenever he thought of one person, his heart filled with guilt. That person was He Qian.

Hu Heng had never had any improper thoughts about He Qian. He merely admired her and sincerely felt that she was a good woman.

Qin Song’s betrayal was, in itself, a serious injury to He Qian, regardless of whether she knew about it. Hu Heng knew very well that his indulgence of Qin Song and cooperation with him were no different from helping the wicked do evil.

In other words, for every bit of harm Qin Song inflicted on He Qian, Hu Heng had contributed half. In the face of Qin Song’s immorality, Hu Heng’s inaction was, in itself, a kind of action in the opposite direction.

Whenever he thought of He Qian late at night, Hu Heng would be so upset that he could not sleep.

That day, Huang Yuanrui was coming to see Qin Song again. Qin Song arranged for Hu Heng to put an aromatherapy diffuser in 302.

After Huang Yuanrui arrived, she and Qin Song spent the entire afternoon being intimate in 302 before leisurely heading out for dinner.

That evening, Hu Heng was sitting in the office of Tianfeng Hotel, eating takeout. Just then, the young woman at the front desk called him and said a new colleague had lost an invoice. She asked Hu Heng what they should do now.

Hu Heng put down his chopsticks, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and went to the front desk to check the invoices.

At that moment, the elevator doors on the first floor of the hotel opened, and someone walked out.

Hearing the elevator, Hu Heng instinctively looked up. To his surprise, he saw He Qian hurry out of the elevator, head lowered, and walk toward the entrance.

Hu Heng thought he had seen wrong. Hesitating, he called out, “Sister-in-law…?”

He Qian walked out without looking back.

The front desk girl asked curiously, “Manager Hu, who were you calling sister-in-law?”

Hu Heng brushed it off, saying he had mistaken her for someone else, then found a random excuse and left the hotel.

Fortunately, He Qian had not gone far. Hu Heng quickly picked up his pace and followed her.

He observed her from behind for a while before finally confirming it – that was He Qian.

In that instant, Hu Heng immediately felt that something was terribly wrong. A layer of cold sweat broke out across his palms.

He hurried back to check the surveillance footage. As a result, in the playback, he saw an even more terrifying fact-

He Qian had entered 302 that morning and had only just come out.

This time, Hu Heng sat frozen in front of the computer, completely stunned.

For the whole morning and the whole afternoon, how had He Qian been in the same room as Qin Song and Huang Yuanrui in 302?

Even more absurdly, in all that time, they had not discovered her presence?

Hu Heng grabbed his phone, intending to call Qin Song. After hesitating for a moment, he slammed the phone back down.

He returned to the office and locked himself inside.

He still had not figured out what exactly He Qian intended to do, and he could not recklessly stir everything into chaos.

After calming down for a while, Hu Heng opened his phone and began browsing posts about affairs.

After reading many comments from netizens, he was surprised to discover that not every betrayed wife would choose to divorce or take revenge on her husband – some would turn a blind eye and pretend they did not know.

For the sake of a stable life, sufficient finances, or an intact family, they could ignore the humiliation brought by betrayal.

Everyone cared about different things. Everyone made different choices.

Hu Heng wondered, could He Qian be that kind of woman?

She had entered that room in the morning, yet Qin Song and Huang Yuanrui only went out laughing and chatting in the evening. This meant He Qian had not gone there specifically to catch them in the act.
Right now, she was doing exactly what people online described: pretending she knew nothing.

That made Hu Heng even more convinced that he should not expose any of this.

At the same time, he was curious. What exactly was He Qian planning to do? If she had already discovered Qin Song’s affair and decided to act as if she knew nothing, then why had she secretly slipped into 302?

From that day on, whenever Hu Heng had free time, he kept watch in front of the surveillance monitors. He believed that since He Qian had come here, she must have had a plan of her own. He wanted to see what she was really up to.

In truth, Hu Heng already had a vague answer in mind. He could guess that He Qian was probably trying to gather evidence of Qin Song’s infidelity so she could punish him more effectively during the divorce.

And so Hu Heng found himself in another dilemma. Exposing He Qian’s actions would be no different from helping the villain to the bitter end. She was already the victim. Was he really going to make sure she ended up with nothing?

But if he let He Qian keep going without telling Qin Song, that felt like betraying his brother.

He thought about it day and night, tormenting himself for an entire week before finally making a decision: he would not tell Qin Song. He would pretend nothing had happened.

Hu Heng had figured it out. He despised cheating so much, yet he could tolerate Qin Song’s affair. That was the brotherhood he had with Qin Song.

But what consequences Qin Song would bear after cheating was up to He Qian. He, Hu Heng, could not interfere.

If Qin Song truly paid a price for his infidelity, then that was between him and He Qian.

For the sake of their brotherhood, he could turn a blind eye to Qin Song’s cheating, but he could not let that same loyalty disrupt the cause and effect that ought to follow.

Not long after he had finally sorted this out, Hu Heng made a new discovery-

He saw He Yuchuan on the surveillance footage.

To be precise, on the day He Yuchuan appeared on camera, Hu Heng happened to be swamped with other matters and had not had time to check the footage for several days in a row. It was only a few days later, when he reviewed the recordings, that he saw He Yuchuan.

The footage from that day was especially eventful. First, He Qian entered 302. Then Zhang Qiong entered 302. Finally, Huang Yuanrui also rushed to 302.

After watching that segment, Hu Heng sucked in a sharp breath.

He was glad he had not had time to watch the recording that day. If he had known that room was so lively, then when Huang Yuanrui hit him with that difficult interrogation, he would definitely have been sweating bullets, and he would not even have been able to lie smoothly.

That day, He Qian had been very cautious. She had not entered with He Yuchuan. The two of them came into the hotel one after the other.

The reason Hu Heng noticed the presence of such a minor figure as He Yuchuan was that after He Yuchuan went up to the third floor, he did not enter any room. Instead, he sat in the chair by the elevator the entire time, playing on his phone.

Hu Heng found him very strange, so he checked the surveillance cameras outside the hotel as well. Only then did he discover that He Yuchuan and He Qian had gotten out of the same car.

Hu Heng was puzzled. According to Qin Song’s description, He Qian was an introverted woman who had never had any male friends.

Could it be… He Qian was cheating too?

Men understood men best. The moment Hu Heng laid eyes on He Yuchuan, he felt this guy was no simple character.

Hu Heng used his social connections to conduct a preliminary investigation into He Yuchuan and was surprised to discover that He Yuchuan actually shared He Qian’s surname. He was He Qian’s younger male cousin, had previously been living in Songtan City, and had only appeared in City A over the past few months.

But his original surname had not been He, and he had not initially belonged to the same family as He Qian. In reality, the two of them were not blood-related at all.

So He Qian had actually let a “younger brother” with no blood relation personally accompany her to investigate something as private as her husband’s affair?

Hu Heng sensed that something was off.

He contacted a friend in Songtan and dug deeper into He Yuchuan’s background. Only then did he figure out what He Yuchuan used to do.

For this, Hu Heng went to Songtan three times in total.

Back then, after He Yuchuan became Wen Tianxue’s kept man, he had been arrogant and high-profile. Many locals knew about the two of them, which made Hu Heng’s investigation much easier.

He Yuchuan had also offended many people at the time. Hu Heng even got his hands on several candid photos of He Yuchuan and Wen Tianxue holding hands while shopping.

Only then did Hu Heng gradually guess what He Yuchuan’s real purpose was in getting close to He Qian.

He believed a person’s nature was consistent. Rather than believe He Yuchuan had returned to City A to turn over a new leaf and sincerely help his betrayed older cousin seek justice, Hu Heng was more inclined to believe that He Yuchuan wanted to take this opportunity to make a fortune.

Qin Song had cheated with two people at the same time, and He Qian had already discovered everything. Their marriage was probably doomed, and Hu Heng knew the day would come when they divorced.

When that day truly arrived, no matter which of the two benefited and which one lost out, that would be their business.

If Qin Song lost out and He Qian benefited, Hu Heng’s guilt would lessen somewhat because He Qian had gained something.

If He Qian lost out and Qin Song benefited, Hu Heng would at most curse him out. Qin Song was his true brother, after all. Hu Heng would accept it.

But if He Yuchuan, that troublemaker, was allowed to barge in and interfere, then Qin Song and He Qian would both end up losing out… What the hell was that supposed to be?!

Hu Heng had never been so angry.

Fuming, he wrote He Qian a long anonymous letter. In it, he embellished everything he had uncovered about He Yuchuan’s past, then attached several photos of He Yuchuan and Wen Tianxue.

He believed that as long as He Qian was a woman with a normal IQ, once she finished reading the letter, she would absolutely recognize He Yuchuan’s true colors.

And if she still could not, that was fine too. He would write an even longer one.