Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 8: Fighting

The two of them finished taking a bath, and as they prepared to go to sleep, Huo Ming Chen received a phone call.
He took a long look at the caller ID and then said to Lu Qi,

“I’m going to take this call.”

He lifted the bed sheets off of him, and got out of the bed to head to the balcony.

Huo Ming Chen was talking on the phone with someone Lu Qi didn’t know.
Partitioned by the glass door leading to the balcony, Lu Qi could see Huo Ming Chen scowling and walking back and forth in frustration with one hand in his pocket.

Huo Ming Chen kept nodding and humming acknowledgements as if to pacify someone in an argument.
Lu Qi watched Huo Ming Chen for a little longer and then returned his gaze, focusing back onto his phone.

The night was a little chilly.
When Huo Ming Chen came back to bed, he brought along cold air into the sheets.
He clung onto Lu Qi like an octopus squeezing with its tentacles, and said irritably,

“My older brother just called me, and wants me to go back home this weekend.”

Lu Qi glanced at the clock, and thought about what happened at this time in his past life… Huo Ming Chen’s uncle should be returning from abroad.
Speaking of whom, the reason why he could have attained Huo Ming Chen’s family fortune and business was due to the help of this uncle.

Huo Ming Chen is the second eldest in the family.
He has an elder brother called Huo Ming Cheng.
In his previous life, when Huo Ming Chen’s grandfather retired, it was Huo Ming Cheng who picked up the mantle and succeeded the family business.
Who could have known that one year later Huo Ming Cheng would suddenly die in a car crash, causing their grandfather, who could not accept the news, to pass away as well.

As the only male left in the main Huo family line, Huo Ming Chen was forced to take the mantle and bear the enormous pressure by himself.
Even though Lu Qi did not really pay that much attention to the situation back then, he could still remember when Huo Ming Chen received the news of his brother passing.
Still remember that haunted look as he sat alone in the hospital hallway.

Huo Ming Chen’s uncle never gave up trying to take over for the family business, but he never thought that Huo Ming Chen, being as young as he was, had the actual skills to be the head of the family.
He could not find fault in the way Huo Ming Chen was doing things, and so he was forced to look at other avenues which brought him to Lu Qi.

He thought he could give a sum of money to Lu Qi and have Lu Qi join his side.
Too bad he was too shortsighted to see Lu Qi as a formidable enemy.
Huo Ming Chen also did not consider Lu Qi as an opponent on the chess board.
Who knew someone so stoic could have hidden that ambition.
A nefarious ambitious schemer who won in the end.

Lu Qi paused then and thought a bit harder, a winner?

No, there was no winner.
He slowly closed his eyes.
In that past life, everyone lost.
Everyone.

He gathered his thoughts, and looked at Huo Ming Chen.
He contemplated a bit before confirming,

“Why did your brother suddenly call you back home?”

“Why if it wasn’t for my second uncle.
He’s about to return to the country, so they want me for a family dinner.”

Huo Ming Chen yawned inattentively.
Something quickly flashed in his eyes, something so quick that you couldn’t catch it.

“Since it’s a family dinner, go.
It isn’t easy for an elder to come back.”

Lu Qi has gotten too used to pretending that he was harmless.
Huo Ming Chen tilted Lu Qi’s chin down and smiled,

“Alright alright, I’ll listen to you.”

The appearance of a handsome man can always attract people to flock to him, even if he was taken, especially given that he has such a gentleman-ly demeanor.
Lu Qi is in quite a lot of clubs and departments, and he has strong skills in his repertoire.
Thus, he can barely be considered popular.
Not to say that everyone wants to chase after him, because there are a few, but those weren’t the greatest kind of pursuers.

Huo Ming Chen never would have thought that yesterday he would joke that Lu Qi would have a problem in a fight, and then Lu Qi would get in a fight today.

The incident happened at night, when Lu Qi just finished his meeting.
He was just heading out with his partner of the day to check up on the classrooms during the evening self-study period when a random man came out of nowhere with a fist to his face.

The punch was unexpected, so Lu Qi took it straight to the face and was knocked down backwards from the force.
The unknown man took advantage of this to punch him again.
Consequently, both of them began to beat each other up.

This part of the corridor was a dead end, and usually there wouldn’t be people passing by.
His partner was female, and she was too stunned and weak to pull them apart.
Instead, she ran quickly to find a professor.

Fang Qi had planned to skip the evening self-study for some fun outside, but who knew that when he walked down the stairs he would see this scene unfold before him.
At first, he was just interested in watching the fight, but then discovered that Lu Qi was involved.
His face paled, and he cursed before he ran back upstairs.

Lu Qi can fight, but he cannot win over the other man who was fighting for his life and while being pinned to the ground.

“Zi Yan is such a good lady, why did you reject her?! Do you know how much she cried these few days, so much so that she couldn’t even go to her classes!!”

The man seemed very unhinged, and his eyes held a craziness that was not normally found in people.
He wrapped his hands around Lu Qi’s neck, and squeezed with force.

“You scumbag!”

Lu Qi began to feel a lack of oxygen in his brain as he was being suffocated.
He narrowed his eyes as he struggled to breathe, and with a vicious glare, he tightened his right hand into a fist with the middle knuckle sticking a little bit outwards.
He aimed for the man’s stomach and gathered his energy to strike, when the pressure on top of him was gone.

Who knew when Huo Ming Chen appeared, but when he did, he hooked his fingers onto the back collar of the man’s shirt, and flung him against the wall.
Pinning him down with one arm, he bent his knee and with force, rammed it into the man’s stomach.

He kept hitting and hitting until the man curled up like a shrimp, but that did not stop Huo Ming Chen.
The punches and kicks were like rain, falling nonstop, and each strike was critical, almost killing the man.
No words came out of him as he beat the other guy up, but you could feel the immense anger emitting from him.

Lu Qi’s sharp eyes spotted security guards turning around the corner at the other end of the hallway, and quickly pulled them apart.
He quietly said,

“Stop! If you keep hitting him, he’s going to die.”

Huo Ming Chen let Lu Qi pull him away, and finally had a moment of clarity.
He turned his head to look at Lu Qi, breathing heavily with reddened eyes.
One could see he was still boiling with anger.

This version of him, Lu Qi recalled that he only saw it once in his previous life, and it made him pause for a moment.

Taking advantage of their blindspot as they talked, the man crawled back up, and was just about to ram his fist into the back of Huo Ming Chen’s head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lu Qi saw a shadow and subconsciously shoved Huo Ming Chen out of the way.

Then he felt dizzy as the punch landed right in his face.
Still, he did not forget to hold onto Huo Ming Chen who began to try beating up the other man again in a craze.

“STOP! You’ll be deducted points if you get caught fighting!”

“Who cares about the points.
I’m going to fucking kill him!!!!”

Just as Huo Ming Chen was able to struggle free from Lu Qi’s grasp, the security guards and professors came quickly to the scene of the crime.
In the end, the man was brought back to the head office for investigation, and Lu Qi brought to the university infirmary.

Huo Ming Chen stayed with him as Lu Qi was subjected to a series of tests.
Huo Ming Chen only relaxed when the doctors confirmed that there were no issues.

His face however was still frowning, and during the entire ride back home, it stayed in a scowl.
Lu Qi crossed his arms, and leaned against the seat to rest.
He closed his eyes, and after a long while, suddenly opened his mouth,

“The one who got hit was me, not you……” So why are you mad?

“Hitting you is the same as hitting me.”

Huo Ming Chen scrunched up his face, pursing his lips.
Someone cut him off on the highway and he honked hard twice.

“This piece of shit!”

Without any sincerity, Lu Qi said,

“Stop thinking about it.
Didn’t his family say his personality was aggressive, that he had mental issues?”

As soon as Huo Ming Chen heard Lu Qi, he immediately stopped the car.
He slammed on the car horn multiple times.
He always had anger management issues, but ever since he met Lu Qi, he has learned to keep it down.
But today, his riled up face looked very similar to the personality of the Huo Ming Chen in his past life.
He didn’t raise his head before he asked,

“What, you feeling sorry for that Li Zi Yan?”

Li Zi Yan, the girl who Lu Qi helped on the first day of freshman military training.
It’s always the most stubborn and pure form of love when it’s your first love.
In this case, even more so due to this type of kind and helpful gentleman like Lu Qi.
It was not a far stretch to imagine that she would develop feelings.

Li Zi Yan was the most stubborn and persistent out of all of Lu Qi’s pursuers.
Perhaps, because she fell harder in love than the others due to the connection of the 100 push ups.
A few rejections later, it made her heart shatter into pieces, more heartbroken than any other pursuer, and a white knight beside her decided to enact justice.
And so Lu Qi was given this misfortune.

“I can’t say if I feel for her, but I just think she doesn’t have good eyesight.”

She could have liked any other man, but she chose to plant herself in front of a stone-hearted human.

There wasn’t much feeling underneath Lu Qi’s surface appearance.
He stared at the rear-view mirror that was reflecting himself, thinking that he looked quite like a panda.

Huo Ming Chen’s face began to clear up like storm clouds after a storm, and restarted the car.

“Stop looking.
It’ll get better in a few days.
Good thing we asked for a few days’ absence.
Take the time to rest up.”

Lu Qi highly regarded the reason why he could become a kept man,

“What if I become disfigured?”

“Even if you are, you’re still handsome.”

Right after that, Huo Ming Chen laughed.
He looked at Lu Qi who was scowling at the side mirror, and pulled his head closer for a kiss.

“Who cares about your face.
I’m not with you for that.
As long as you are alive and well, isn’t that alright? Don’t you think so?”

Huo Ming Chen said it so seriously and sincerely that Lu Qi could not lie to himself.
He unconsciously touched his face where Huo Ming Chen held him for the kiss, as if there was still a warm feathery touch left behind.
This was the first time he could feel what it meant to have a kiss from Huo Ming Chen.

The author has something to say:
Huo Ming Chen: You’re still handsome no matter what.
Lu Qi: …… (No expression on his face, but he was feeling a little proud and conceited on the inside)