Marry by Relying on Favor: Chapter 120 - He Felt No Psychological Burden at all and directly Sold Wen Shuchen Out
Chapter 120: He Felt No Psychological Burden at all and directly Sold Wen Shuchen Out
When He Qingchi came out carrying a tray of spicy-sour short ribs, the little guy who smelled the aroma toddled after her, tilting his head back and staring with big, shiny eyes. For someone so young, he already knew how to flatter: “Little Sister Xiao Chi, you’re the best mommy in the whole world. The food you make is sooo yummy…”
He hadn’t even taken a single bite—how would he know it was yummy?
Seeing this silly son of hers, He Qingchi felt he was one step away from opening his mouth wide, waiting to be fed.
She picked up a rib with her chopsticks, blew on it, and set it into his bowl. “Why are you in the living room alone?”
She lifted her head and glanced toward the living room. She hadn’t meant to give Qu Bixin and Shen Fu a chance to meet; she simply hadn’t expected that after coming over in the afternoon to see the little guy’s duck, Shen Fu would actually stay for dinner.
Logically speaking, since Wen Shuchen wasn’t coming home that evening, she just assumed Shen Fu would leave.
Blame it on her silly son, happily gnawing on ribs—he had insisted on keeping Shen Fu for dinner.
Worried she had added too many chilis and overestimated his spice tolerance, He Qingchi went to the living room to pour a cup of tea to cool. Just then, she saw Qu Bixin and Shen Fu coming out from the direction of the bathroom one after the other.
Judging by their expressions, things were not going smoothly.
Qu Bixin walked over, grabbed her, and pulled her upstairs. She pushed open an empty study, stepped in, shut the door, and only then did her eyes turn red with anger. She said to He Qingchi, “Why the hell did you invite that bastard into your house for dinner?!”
He Qingchi felt she could explain at least a little, but that wasn’t what Qu Bixin wanted to hear. In a fury, she continued, “Damn it! He even tried to use money to humiliate me. In my whole life, aside from when the Qu family went bankrupt, have I ever lacked money?”
This infuriating Shen Fu—does being rich make him want to imitate those tacky upstarts?
He Qingchi found a place to sit and listened as Qu Bixin cursed Shen Fu’s ancestors back eighteen generations. After a while, she mentally calculated the time, then had to interrupt: “Didn’t you bring your blind-date guy here? Aren’t you afraid this won’t piss him off enough?”
That sentence froze Qu Bixin for a moment.
It seemed she had been so angry she forgot Xiao Cen even existed.
He Qingchi asked curiously, “Are you really together with your blind-date guy?”
Originally, she had wanted Qu Bixin to come for dinner so they could talk privately—she was the one who refused to come.
Qu Bixin calmed slightly and stiffly replied, “If I don’t find some guy to fend off my dad, he’ll make me go on blind dates until I die.”
“Is that Xiao Cen reliable?”
“A man my family picked? If he weren’t reliable, my dad would lose face.”
Qu Bixin sounded indifferent. She didn’t have feelings for Xiao Cen. She chose him not because of his looks, but because his personality suited her.
Men like him understood what women wanted, what they liked to hear.
After only a few interactions, Qu Bixin even felt a fleeting illusion of peace and ease.
He could cheer her up and help her deal with her family.
And she didn’t need to invest much emotionally—as long as she paid him well.
After hearing this, He Qingchi felt something was off. “Didn’t you basically find a budget-version Shen Fu?”
“How is Xiao Cen budget?”
Qu Bixin disliked that immediately, glaring as she retorted, “At least he listens to me more than Shen Fu does!”
He Qingchi tugged at her lips. “Aren’t they both taking your money?”
“….” This conversation was going nowhere.
Qu Bixin returned to the main point, raising her voice. “From now on, if Shen Fu is in your house, I am never coming over again.”
The study fell silent for a second. Then a soft knock came from outside.
He Qingchi went to open the door. Lowering her gaze, she saw the little one standing in the hallway, head tilted back, mouth slightly open: “Little Sister Xiao Chi, little daddy says come downstairs to eat-eat!”
The messenger had arrived. He Qingchi glanced back at Qu Bixin and reminded her, “Those two downstairs—think carefully about how you’re going to handle this.”
She carried the child downstairs. From afar, she first saw Shen Fu sitting leisurely in the dining room as if it were his own home, long fingers curling around a water glass as he took a sip.
Xiao Cen, in contrast, looked far more reserved, sitting properly in the living room without wandering around.
When he saw He Qingchi coming downstairs—with Qu Bixin behind her—his eyes lit up.
The atmosphere was awkward beyond anything she had seen before. He Qingchi broke the silence first: “Mr. Xiao, do you drink wine?”
She asked the housekeeper to bring out a bottle of red wine from Wen Shuchen’s collection and invited everyone to sit in the dining room.
Qu Bixin didn’t spare Shen Fu a single glance. She pulled Xiao Cen to sit directly across from him. That left He Qingchi to place the little guy in Wen Shuchen’s usual seat, and she sat beside him.
In short, nobody sat next to Shen Fu.
Neither of the two men present were people she was familiar with—yet both had complicated entanglements with Qu Bixin.
Throughout the meal, He Qingchi spoke very little; she wasn’t the type to ease tension. While feeding the child, she lifted her head and noticed Shen Fu quietly staring at Qu Bixin. His gaze revealed nothing, but somehow felt cool and distant.
In a scene like this, of course, Xiao Cen couldn’t keep quiet.
He took the initiative to pour Shen Fu a glass of red wine. Because of Wen Shuchen, he assumed he was on the same “side” as Shen Fu. Smiling, he said, “When I met President Wen before, I’d long heard of President Shen’s name. I didn’t expect to have the honor of meeting you tonight.”
Shen Fu didn’t touch the wine at all. Holding his teacup with lazy indifference, he said coolly, “Do you know what my relationship with her is?”
That line made Qu Bixin instantly snap her gaze toward him.
He had put it plainly, and his tone carried a kind of careless detachment.
As if he were merely making a casual remark.
Xiao Cen thought for a moment, still smiling. “President Wen mentioned a little to me.”
He kept repeating Wen Shuchen’s name as if they were very close.
Just as He Qingchi was getting suspicious, Shen Fu’s cold voice drifted out again: “Oh? So he told you how he pushed you toward the Qu family, using you and Qu Bixin to lure his own wife out of Wushan Town?”
“……”
That light, effortless sentence sold Wen Shuchen out without the slightest mental burden.
And it laid bare all the private deals between the men—regardless of what the two women present might think.
He Qingchi and Qu Bixin exchanged a glance and saw confusion in each other’s eyes.
Xiao Cen clearly hadn’t expected Shen Fu to expose everything so bluntly. After a brief pause, he smiled again. “President Wen introduced me to a marriage prospect. As for the rest, I’m afraid President Shen misunderstood.”
Shen Fu didn’t argue. He simply continued drinking his tea.
But what he had said earlier was more than enough for both He Qingchi and Qu Bixin to remember.
Xiao Cen wasn’t stupid. He could sense Shen Fu’s subtle, half-concealed hostility toward him, and his gaze paused briefly as he glanced at the woman beside him.
Qu Bixin smiled at him, no different from before. She even picked up a piece of spare rib for him right in front of Shen Fu. “Eat more and don’t just drink. Mrs. Wen's cooking is a once-in-a-century event—if word got out, President Wen would be jealous of you.”
Xiao Cen returned the favor and picked food for her as well. Back and forth they went, and before Shen Fu could even react, they had nearly made the child anxious.
Watching the spare ribs his mother had cooked disappear piece by piece, the little one got excited and started wolfing his food down too, afraid someone might snatch his rations.
Shen Fu let out a faint, seemingly mocking smile. His voice wasn’t loud, and it was calm.
Qu Bixin met his gaze openly and, with a hint of ferocity, took a big bite of her spare rib.
By the time dinner ended, it was already close to eight.
He Qingchi had no intention of keeping guests, but the little one had already forgotten about having his spare ribs “stolen” at the table. He enthusiastically tried to keep Shen Fu, Qu Bixin, and the others, speaking sweetly—already quite skilled at this at such a young age.
Qu Bixin smiled and politely declined, her voice neither loud nor slow. “Your Uncle Xiao and I still have things to do at home. We’ll come back to mooch a meal next time.”
“Okay!” The little one put on a regretful expression, but in the next moment, he was grinning again, scampering over to Shen Fu, speaking in a babyish voice as he asked his little daddy to stay with him a bit longer.
Shen Fu tapped the child’s cheek with two fingers and said lightly, “Have your dad come back to keep you company.”
Only after his figure disappeared through the doorway did the low-pressure atmosphere in the living room lift.
Holding his car keys, he left the villa without even looking at Qu Bixin.
Qu Bixin waited another ten or so minutes before leaving, while Xiao Cen was called aside by He Qingchi and kept for a few minutes. It wasn’t until after 8:20 that there were no unrelated people left in the villa.
The little one ran off to the swimming pool again to look at his yellow rubber duck. Seeing that two bodyguards were with him, He Qingchi turned and went upstairs.
When she came back down an hour later, she had already showered, her hair half-dry and draped over her shoulders. She took the child from the bodyguard’s arms.
“Mommy, I’m sleepy.”
The little one had been excited all afternoon and hadn’t napped. Now his eyes could barely stay open.
He Qingchi carried him to the master bedroom first, patiently changing him into pajamas and wiping his little hands and feet with a warm towel. Even though she wasn’t very practiced, she did her best to fulfill a mother’s responsibilities.
She turned off several lights and sat quietly at the edge of the bed, lowering her gaze as she watched the child sleeping soundly.
After a while, her phone screen lit up.
He Qingchi picked it up and tapped lightly with her fingertip.
Qu Bixin had sent a text: [Did your husband set us up?]
Was that even a question?
He Qingchi didn’t reply. Another message from Qu Bixin followed: [Shen Fu, that damned bastard!]
The messages that came after were all Qu Bixin’s colorful “greetings” toward Shen Fu.
He Qingchi chose to ignore them and opened the latest news. She saw that Wen Group was dominating both financial and entertainment headlines—stories about Wen Shuchen, and inevitably Wen Yue as well.
What caught her attention most wasn’t the child in Fei Ying’s womb, but the endless stream of negative news about Wen Yue, including embezzlement of public funds, illegal fraud schemes, and money laundering. As a result, dozens of media reporters from Jiangcheng had gathered that afternoon at a Wen Group press conference to ask about these issues.
Facing the cameras, Wen Shuchen remained as composed as ever. After answering several reporters’ questions, he publicly announced that Wen Yue would be removed from the board of directors.
As for questions about the brothers’ long-standing struggle over family assets, there was no comment.
Now backed by two-thirds of the board’s shareholders, once the news aired it caused another public uproar.
A well-known media outlet published an article analyzing how Wen Yue—one of Wen Group’s shareholders—had been repeatedly exposed for negative scandals recently, suggesting it was the work of CEO Wen Shuchen. The two brothers were tearing into each other, leaving no room for mercy.
Online, a public account also revealed that Wen Shuchen had been recuperating his health for several years, including an incident before their father’s death when he was betrayed by a shareholder who had already retired from the group for a year. No matter how many rumors circulated, the truth behind such family infighting would never be made public.
He Qingchi silently finished reading the news, then reopened the video of Wen Shuchen’s interview from earlier that day.
She hadn’t expected that his first appearance at a press conference in all these years would be to announce Wen Yue’s expulsion from the board. Regardless of whether any senior executives or shareholders opposed it, Wen Yue’s current scandals clearly had a severe impact on Wen Group’s development.
Over the years, Wen Yue’s private offenses were enough to land him in prison for several years.
It was as if Wen Shuchen had recorded every one of them in a ledger, delivering a fatal blow when the time was right.
He Qingchi stared at her phone until the screen’s glow dimmed. Her expression sank into the darkness. She didn’t know how much time passed—half-asleep, she seemed to drift into a dream. In the dream, she was sitting on a sofa, surrounded by what looked like a study, though the environment was unfamiliar.
In front of her, Wen Shuchen knelt on one knee, gently holding her icy fingers in his warm palm. She couldn’t tell what he was saying in the dream—his head was lowered, his facial features blurred. She could only see the light gray suit he wore, his back straight. After speaking for a long time, he suddenly lifted his head.
He Qingchi looked at that familiar yet strangely unfamiliar face—it was clearly Wen Yue’s. Startled, she jolted awake.
Outside the window, the moonlight was cool.
He Qingchi picked up her phone and saw that it was already close to eleven o’clock.
When He Qingchi came out carrying a tray of spicy-sour short ribs, the little guy who smelled the aroma toddled after her, tilting his head back and staring with big, shiny eyes. For someone so young, he already knew how to flatter: “Little Sister Xiao Chi, you’re the best mommy in the whole world. The food you make is sooo yummy…”
He hadn’t even taken a single bite—how would he know it was yummy?
Seeing this silly son of hers, He Qingchi felt he was one step away from opening his mouth wide, waiting to be fed.
She picked up a rib with her chopsticks, blew on it, and set it into his bowl. “Why are you in the living room alone?”
She lifted her head and glanced toward the living room. She hadn’t meant to give Qu Bixin and Shen Fu a chance to meet; she simply hadn’t expected that after coming over in the afternoon to see the little guy’s duck, Shen Fu would actually stay for dinner.
Logically speaking, since Wen Shuchen wasn’t coming home that evening, she just assumed Shen Fu would leave.
Blame it on her silly son, happily gnawing on ribs—he had insisted on keeping Shen Fu for dinner.
Worried she had added too many chilis and overestimated his spice tolerance, He Qingchi went to the living room to pour a cup of tea to cool. Just then, she saw Qu Bixin and Shen Fu coming out from the direction of the bathroom one after the other.
Judging by their expressions, things were not going smoothly.
Qu Bixin walked over, grabbed her, and pulled her upstairs. She pushed open an empty study, stepped in, shut the door, and only then did her eyes turn red with anger. She said to He Qingchi, “Why the hell did you invite that bastard into your house for dinner?!”
He Qingchi felt she could explain at least a little, but that wasn’t what Qu Bixin wanted to hear. In a fury, she continued, “Damn it! He even tried to use money to humiliate me. In my whole life, aside from when the Qu family went bankrupt, have I ever lacked money?”
This infuriating Shen Fu—does being rich make him want to imitate those tacky upstarts?
He Qingchi found a place to sit and listened as Qu Bixin cursed Shen Fu’s ancestors back eighteen generations. After a while, she mentally calculated the time, then had to interrupt: “Didn’t you bring your blind-date guy here? Aren’t you afraid this won’t piss him off enough?”
That sentence froze Qu Bixin for a moment.
It seemed she had been so angry she forgot Xiao Cen even existed.
He Qingchi asked curiously, “Are you really together with your blind-date guy?”
Originally, she had wanted Qu Bixin to come for dinner so they could talk privately—she was the one who refused to come.
Qu Bixin calmed slightly and stiffly replied, “If I don’t find some guy to fend off my dad, he’ll make me go on blind dates until I die.”
“Is that Xiao Cen reliable?”
“A man my family picked? If he weren’t reliable, my dad would lose face.”
Qu Bixin sounded indifferent. She didn’t have feelings for Xiao Cen. She chose him not because of his looks, but because his personality suited her.
Men like him understood what women wanted, what they liked to hear.
After only a few interactions, Qu Bixin even felt a fleeting illusion of peace and ease.
He could cheer her up and help her deal with her family.
And she didn’t need to invest much emotionally—as long as she paid him well.
After hearing this, He Qingchi felt something was off. “Didn’t you basically find a budget-version Shen Fu?”
“How is Xiao Cen budget?”
Qu Bixin disliked that immediately, glaring as she retorted, “At least he listens to me more than Shen Fu does!”
He Qingchi tugged at her lips. “Aren’t they both taking your money?”
“….” This conversation was going nowhere.
Qu Bixin returned to the main point, raising her voice. “From now on, if Shen Fu is in your house, I am never coming over again.”
The study fell silent for a second. Then a soft knock came from outside.
He Qingchi went to open the door. Lowering her gaze, she saw the little one standing in the hallway, head tilted back, mouth slightly open: “Little Sister Xiao Chi, little daddy says come downstairs to eat-eat!”
The messenger had arrived. He Qingchi glanced back at Qu Bixin and reminded her, “Those two downstairs—think carefully about how you’re going to handle this.”
She carried the child downstairs. From afar, she first saw Shen Fu sitting leisurely in the dining room as if it were his own home, long fingers curling around a water glass as he took a sip.
Xiao Cen, in contrast, looked far more reserved, sitting properly in the living room without wandering around.
When he saw He Qingchi coming downstairs—with Qu Bixin behind her—his eyes lit up.
The atmosphere was awkward beyond anything she had seen before. He Qingchi broke the silence first: “Mr. Xiao, do you drink wine?”
She asked the housekeeper to bring out a bottle of red wine from Wen Shuchen’s collection and invited everyone to sit in the dining room.
Qu Bixin didn’t spare Shen Fu a single glance. She pulled Xiao Cen to sit directly across from him. That left He Qingchi to place the little guy in Wen Shuchen’s usual seat, and she sat beside him.
In short, nobody sat next to Shen Fu.
Neither of the two men present were people she was familiar with—yet both had complicated entanglements with Qu Bixin.
Throughout the meal, He Qingchi spoke very little; she wasn’t the type to ease tension. While feeding the child, she lifted her head and noticed Shen Fu quietly staring at Qu Bixin. His gaze revealed nothing, but somehow felt cool and distant.
In a scene like this, of course, Xiao Cen couldn’t keep quiet.
He took the initiative to pour Shen Fu a glass of red wine. Because of Wen Shuchen, he assumed he was on the same “side” as Shen Fu. Smiling, he said, “When I met President Wen before, I’d long heard of President Shen’s name. I didn’t expect to have the honor of meeting you tonight.”
Shen Fu didn’t touch the wine at all. Holding his teacup with lazy indifference, he said coolly, “Do you know what my relationship with her is?”
That line made Qu Bixin instantly snap her gaze toward him.
He had put it plainly, and his tone carried a kind of careless detachment.
As if he were merely making a casual remark.
Xiao Cen thought for a moment, still smiling. “President Wen mentioned a little to me.”
He kept repeating Wen Shuchen’s name as if they were very close.
Just as He Qingchi was getting suspicious, Shen Fu’s cold voice drifted out again: “Oh? So he told you how he pushed you toward the Qu family, using you and Qu Bixin to lure his own wife out of Wushan Town?”
“……”
That light, effortless sentence sold Wen Shuchen out without the slightest mental burden.
And it laid bare all the private deals between the men—regardless of what the two women present might think.
He Qingchi and Qu Bixin exchanged a glance and saw confusion in each other’s eyes.
Xiao Cen clearly hadn’t expected Shen Fu to expose everything so bluntly. After a brief pause, he smiled again. “President Wen introduced me to a marriage prospect. As for the rest, I’m afraid President Shen misunderstood.”
Shen Fu didn’t argue. He simply continued drinking his tea.
But what he had said earlier was more than enough for both He Qingchi and Qu Bixin to remember.
Xiao Cen wasn’t stupid. He could sense Shen Fu’s subtle, half-concealed hostility toward him, and his gaze paused briefly as he glanced at the woman beside him.
Qu Bixin smiled at him, no different from before. She even picked up a piece of spare rib for him right in front of Shen Fu. “Eat more and don’t just drink. Mrs. Wen's cooking is a once-in-a-century event—if word got out, President Wen would be jealous of you.”
Xiao Cen returned the favor and picked food for her as well. Back and forth they went, and before Shen Fu could even react, they had nearly made the child anxious.
Watching the spare ribs his mother had cooked disappear piece by piece, the little one got excited and started wolfing his food down too, afraid someone might snatch his rations.
Shen Fu let out a faint, seemingly mocking smile. His voice wasn’t loud, and it was calm.
Qu Bixin met his gaze openly and, with a hint of ferocity, took a big bite of her spare rib.
By the time dinner ended, it was already close to eight.
He Qingchi had no intention of keeping guests, but the little one had already forgotten about having his spare ribs “stolen” at the table. He enthusiastically tried to keep Shen Fu, Qu Bixin, and the others, speaking sweetly—already quite skilled at this at such a young age.
Qu Bixin smiled and politely declined, her voice neither loud nor slow. “Your Uncle Xiao and I still have things to do at home. We’ll come back to mooch a meal next time.”
“Okay!” The little one put on a regretful expression, but in the next moment, he was grinning again, scampering over to Shen Fu, speaking in a babyish voice as he asked his little daddy to stay with him a bit longer.
Shen Fu tapped the child’s cheek with two fingers and said lightly, “Have your dad come back to keep you company.”
Only after his figure disappeared through the doorway did the low-pressure atmosphere in the living room lift.
Holding his car keys, he left the villa without even looking at Qu Bixin.
Qu Bixin waited another ten or so minutes before leaving, while Xiao Cen was called aside by He Qingchi and kept for a few minutes. It wasn’t until after 8:20 that there were no unrelated people left in the villa.
The little one ran off to the swimming pool again to look at his yellow rubber duck. Seeing that two bodyguards were with him, He Qingchi turned and went upstairs.
When she came back down an hour later, she had already showered, her hair half-dry and draped over her shoulders. She took the child from the bodyguard’s arms.
“Mommy, I’m sleepy.”
The little one had been excited all afternoon and hadn’t napped. Now his eyes could barely stay open.
He Qingchi carried him to the master bedroom first, patiently changing him into pajamas and wiping his little hands and feet with a warm towel. Even though she wasn’t very practiced, she did her best to fulfill a mother’s responsibilities.
She turned off several lights and sat quietly at the edge of the bed, lowering her gaze as she watched the child sleeping soundly.
After a while, her phone screen lit up.
He Qingchi picked it up and tapped lightly with her fingertip.
Qu Bixin had sent a text: [Did your husband set us up?]
Was that even a question?
He Qingchi didn’t reply. Another message from Qu Bixin followed: [Shen Fu, that damned bastard!]
The messages that came after were all Qu Bixin’s colorful “greetings” toward Shen Fu.
He Qingchi chose to ignore them and opened the latest news. She saw that Wen Group was dominating both financial and entertainment headlines—stories about Wen Shuchen, and inevitably Wen Yue as well.
What caught her attention most wasn’t the child in Fei Ying’s womb, but the endless stream of negative news about Wen Yue, including embezzlement of public funds, illegal fraud schemes, and money laundering. As a result, dozens of media reporters from Jiangcheng had gathered that afternoon at a Wen Group press conference to ask about these issues.
Facing the cameras, Wen Shuchen remained as composed as ever. After answering several reporters’ questions, he publicly announced that Wen Yue would be removed from the board of directors.
As for questions about the brothers’ long-standing struggle over family assets, there was no comment.
Now backed by two-thirds of the board’s shareholders, once the news aired it caused another public uproar.
A well-known media outlet published an article analyzing how Wen Yue—one of Wen Group’s shareholders—had been repeatedly exposed for negative scandals recently, suggesting it was the work of CEO Wen Shuchen. The two brothers were tearing into each other, leaving no room for mercy.
Online, a public account also revealed that Wen Shuchen had been recuperating his health for several years, including an incident before their father’s death when he was betrayed by a shareholder who had already retired from the group for a year. No matter how many rumors circulated, the truth behind such family infighting would never be made public.
He Qingchi silently finished reading the news, then reopened the video of Wen Shuchen’s interview from earlier that day.
She hadn’t expected that his first appearance at a press conference in all these years would be to announce Wen Yue’s expulsion from the board. Regardless of whether any senior executives or shareholders opposed it, Wen Yue’s current scandals clearly had a severe impact on Wen Group’s development.
Over the years, Wen Yue’s private offenses were enough to land him in prison for several years.
It was as if Wen Shuchen had recorded every one of them in a ledger, delivering a fatal blow when the time was right.
He Qingchi stared at her phone until the screen’s glow dimmed. Her expression sank into the darkness. She didn’t know how much time passed—half-asleep, she seemed to drift into a dream. In the dream, she was sitting on a sofa, surrounded by what looked like a study, though the environment was unfamiliar.
In front of her, Wen Shuchen knelt on one knee, gently holding her icy fingers in his warm palm. She couldn’t tell what he was saying in the dream—his head was lowered, his facial features blurred. She could only see the light gray suit he wore, his back straight. After speaking for a long time, he suddenly lifted his head.
He Qingchi looked at that familiar yet strangely unfamiliar face—it was clearly Wen Yue’s. Startled, she jolted awake.
Outside the window, the moonlight was cool.
He Qingchi picked up her phone and saw that it was already close to eleven o’clock.
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