The Mad King's Heir

The weather was nice, the breeze carrying the scent of flowers, but Li Jun couldn’t enjoy it. They sat on the bench overlooking the rest of the estate. He looked into the distance while trying to control his emotions. Just thinking about that picture, it infuriated him further.

Yan Jia looked at his tight jaw and the furrow between his brows. It was obvious he was exercising restraint. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t want to upset him further, so she had to think of her words carefully.

After thinking it through, she asked, "Isn’t it a good thing he is moving on?" What she really wanted to say was, "Isn’t this what you want?" but she knew that would touch a nerve.

Li Jun thought so too. He should be happy Yu Wen was moving on, but damn, why did it have to be so soon? He was pretty sure he still had that bite mark on his neck. He didn’t even let the scar heal before dating someone else.

Li Jun snorted and said, "Why so eager. All those years he was single. Now, all of a sudden, he has moved on with someone. Did he have them on standby all this time?... Fuck." He bent his head down, looking at the gravel underneath his feet.

She could feel the intense sourness in his words. He was jealous, there was no doubt about it. Yan Jia understood why. Li Jun had never gone that far with anyone, so of course, he would be unhappy, especially when he moved on this fast.

"Do you want to be with him?" she asked. Whatever his answer would be would determine which advice she was going to give him. If he said yes, then she could only help him solve the problem her way, and if he said no, then retaliate. It’s safe to say that Yan Jia was the worst person to come to for relationship advice.

Li Jun, when he heard her question, looked at her and said, "No. I am just upset that he gets to move on really quickly, like we never slept together. I can’t help but feel some type of way." His inexperience in emotional matters made him blind. If he could only speak to Yu Xuan, he would have enlightened him as to what exactly he was feeling.

Hearing him say that, Yan Jia suggested, "How about you send Lu Anu a picture of you with one of the guys. Two can play that game."

A lightbulb lit up in his head. He had plenty of handsome men running around this estate. If he paid them a thousand StarCoins each, they would participate in his little charade. The way Li Jun’s eyes lit up had Yan Jia a little worried. He seemed too excited to do this.

For years, Li Jun used to put on performances for Aurelia and make himself appear as a debauched womanizer, so this was nothing. It didn’t take him too long to have them shirtless and sparring on the training grounds. He took a couple of pictures of them, and Yan Jia paid them all off. Li Jun picked the best picture out of the bunch and sent it to Lu Anu.

LJ: Been up to no good all day.

LJ: Just been sparring to pass the time.

Lu Anu had been waiting patiently for Li Jun’s response. She knew she had touched a nerve, and it would take him a little longer to respond. When she opened the picture he sent, she yelped in surprise.

Yu Wen, who was lying in a hospital bed while looking at the update reports Alex was sending to him, heard his mother make a raucous. He looked over and saw that she was blushing. A little concerned that she had a fever, he asked, "What’s wrong?"

Lu Anu was not a lifeless rock. Unlike Yu Wen, who was rarely, if ever, moved by anything, she liked shirtless men. Especially when they were all sweaty and buff, their skin glistening under the sun. How could she resist such a temptation?

She cleared her throat and said, "Nothing. Don’t mind me." After saying that, she typed back a message to Li Jun.

LA: You could have warned me first.

LA: I almost got caught.

Li Jun pursed his lips, looking at her responses. Who cared about the shirtless guys? He wanted her to show it to Yu Wen. He wanted to show him that he had plenty of options too, but Lu Anu seemed to care more about the shirtless guys. He bit his lower lip, hesitant to type down what he wanted to say. After thinking about it, he finally wrote a reply.

Lu Anu didn’t even notice the text bubble that kept bouncing on the screen, then disappearing. She was busy zooming in to take a look. She didn’t notice that Yu Wen had walked behind her, looking at the floating screen.

LJ: There are so many of them, I don’t know which one to choose.

She was suddenly interrupted by the message coming in. She looked at it, and before she could even react, Yu Wen said, "What does he mean by that?" Lu Anu was startled by his voice. She jumped up like a cat seeing a cucumber on the floor.

She closed the floating screen and scolded him. "You! Why are you sneaking up on me like that? When did you become this rude?" She was yelling at him, but when she saw his expression, she was frightened.

His face was drained of all color, and he was left hollow and trembling. Yu Wen felt a suffocating ache in his chest. His mind kept replaying that message over and over again. His entire body felt numb, and he was frozen in anxiety. For once, he felt completely helpless.

Lu Anu felt a pang in her heart like someone had stabbed her with a sharp blade. She shook his arm and called him a couple of times, but he didn’t respond, as if he was frozen in time. When he finally came back to himself, he asked, "Does he have a new boyfriend?"

She answered, "No, like I said before, you need to trust me."