Started to Care Part 1

As Pei Feng's voice fell, the atmosphere instantly froze.

It was almost autumn. The midday sun was intense but not glaring. It passed through the thick French windows, brightly illuminating the blue-toned living room.

With the light shining on his face, Pei Feng felt like a righteous hero, unafraid of power and seeking justice for the people.

Even the heavens were shining a light to encourage him.

Pei Feng slightly raised his chin.

After Xie Yanli sat down and saw him like this, a sentence slowly escaped his thin lips: "Pei Feng, are you here to perform for my amusement?"

Pei Feng: "???"

Half of his vigor deflated. Lest he chicken out, he abruptly stood up to maintain his momentum, "I'm here to teach you, you scumbag, a lesson on behalf of your wife!"

His gaze shifted to Qin Fan. Pei Feng felt something was off, then added, "And to teach you, you pervert, a lesson on behalf of Qin Fan! Hiding your marriage to deceive a pure and innocent young girl, how shameless can you be?"

"Did all the good upbringing the Xie Family gave you get fed to the dogs?"

"Qin Fan, tell me the truth, did Xie Yanli seduce you today?" Pei Feng turned to look at Qin Fan.

Qin Fan: "..."

She recalled it carefully. He did indeed seduce her. What was even more infuriating was that after seducing her, he played hard to get, leaving her hanging!

Seeing Qin Fan's expression, Pei Feng understood.

With a pained and resentful expression, he continued to berate Xie Yanli: "One moment you're leaving the club intimately with your wife, the next you're making a high-profile pursuit of a beautiful female star with 1.8 billion. She rejects you, and you use your power to bully her by sneaking into her room and seducing an inexperienced young girl. Is this something a human being would do?"

After saying it all in one breath, he finally sat down and picked up a cup of tea to catch his breath.

Xie Yanli rested his arm on the sofa's armrest, waiting calmly for him to finish. Then, he unhurriedly glanced at Qin Fan beside him, who was holding a glass with a grave expression on her small face.

'Hmm, let's see how this 'inexperienced, pure young girl' plans to fool this idiot Pei Feng.'

Qin Fan's delicate eyebrows were tightly knitted. Xie Yanli was indeed quite a dog, but for most of what Pei Feng said, he was actually being wronged.

Qin Fan secretly picked up her phone from the coffee table, originally planning to open her photo album.

The first thing she saw was a WeChat message Director Pei had sent her an hour ago: "I'll pick you up for the meal at noon on my way, lest people think we're feeling guilty by not being seen together."

Qin Fan: "..."

She hadn't seen this message at all.

This was probably fate's arrangement. Making someone take the blame would surely bring retribution sooner or later.

Qin Fan switched back to the photo album page, entered the password for the hidden album, and opened it—

Pei Feng finished his tea and was just about to order Xie Yanli to brew him another cup when he caught Qin Fan's series of actions out of the corner of his eye. He was so angry he almost had a heart attack. She was still in the mood to scroll through her phone?

"Qin..." Fan.

Pei Feng had just said one word when he saw Qin Fan place her phone on the coffee table and push it over.

A slender, snow-white hand rested against the champagne-colored metal frame, slowly pushing it in front of him.

The first thing that met Pei Feng's eyes was a vibrant, bright red.

On two little red booklets—the three large characters for "Marriage Certificate" came into view.

Pei Feng: "???"

What did this mean?

Qin Fan pressed her red lips together and coughed lightly, "Director Pei, scroll down..."

Pei Feng subconsciously swiped the lit phone screen. The second page was the inner page of the marriage certificate. If he wasn't blind, the man and woman in white shirts in the photo were the same two people sitting in front of him right now.

Certificate Holder: Xie Yanli.

Certificate Holder: Qin Fan.

Of course, Pei Feng wasn't foolish enough to think Qin Fan had Photoshopped this.

His fingertips trembled. Then, as if in slow motion, he raised his head, took a deep breath, paused for a full ten seconds, and finally spat out three imposing words: "Shameless couple!!!"

He began to review everything that had just happened in his mind.

So it wasn't a matter of who was bullying whom.

It was this shameless couple's marital antics!

The clown was actually him???

Damn!

Half an hour later, Secretary Wen delivered lunch.

Qin Fan took the initiative to use the serving chopsticks to pick up the best-looking, most perfectly shaped piece of braised pork rib for Pei Feng. "Director Pei, I'm sorry for hiding this from you for so long."

Pei Feng closed his eyes. The private kitchen's cuisine, perfect in color, aroma, and taste, could no longer salvage his good mood.

"Why did you hide it from me?"

Qin Fan glanced at Xie Yanli, who was leaning back on the sofa dealing with an urgent business matter.

'At a critical moment, he's completely useless, that dog of a man!'

Qin Fan pursed her lips lightly and said with some distress, "Maybe he thinks I'm an embarrassment, so he wasn't willing to introduce me to you, his good brothers."

Pei Feng was led astray by Qin Fan's line of thinking. It seemed to be true. He had been back in the country for so long, yet Xie Yanli had never mentioned formally introducing Mrs. Xie to them.

Among the close brothers they hung out with, only Jiang Aozhou and a few others who attended Xie Yanli's wedding had seen Qin Fan, and even then it was from a distance. There had never been a proper introduction.

Pei Feng looked down on Xie Yanli. With such a beautiful and spirited wife, what was there to hide?

His standards must be incredibly high.

Contempt was contempt, but after Pei Feng glimpsed the five familiar open boxes by the French window not far away, his tone was sour when Xie Yanli finished his business and came over: "I've been brothers with Xie Yanli for over twenty years, and he's never even given me something worth eighteen yuan. Now he's willing to give you treasures worth 1.8 billion. It must be true love."

"You two should live a good life together from now on. Me, his good brother of over twenty years, am not important at all."

"I deserve to be kept in the dark by you two for so long, not even worthy of an eighteen-yuan gift!"

He said it in a way that even Qin Fan felt sorry for him.

Before Xie Yanli picked up his chopsticks, his cold eyes stared at him as a reminder: "You graduated from the directing department."

Pei Feng didn't react: "???"

Having shared a bed with Xie Yanli for so long, Qin Fan naturally understood the hidden meaning behind this sharp-tongued man's words: "..."

Xie Yanli said no more and began to eat with elegant manners, deeply adhering to the principle of not speaking during meals.

Pei Feng turned his head and asked Qin Fan, "What does your husband mean?"

Qin Fan gently poured a glass of water for Pei Feng to calm his nerves and said pitifully, "He means you're not from the acting department." In short—Pei Feng, you're being too dramatic.

......

That evening, Qin Fan sat on the chaise lounge in front of the French window and started looking through recent auctions.

To see if there was anything suitable for Director Pei.

During a break in his video conference, Xie Yanli casually glanced at the sighing Mrs. Xie. Seeing that she was searching for auctions, he remembered that a client had invited him to an international auction yesterday. If he couldn't attend in person, he could communicate with a middleman online for proxy bidding.

Xie Yanli's calm and gentle voice sounded, "There's an auction catalog in my suitcase. See if there's anything you like."

If money could solve internal family conflicts, Xie Yanli was not stingy.

After all, ever since Pei Feng left, Mrs. Xie had unilaterally declared the start of a marital cold war.

The reason Mrs. Xie gave was—as a husband, he failed to step up at the critical moment, take all the blame on himself, and protect his fairy wife.

Qin Fan shot him a cool glance, then decisively got up and walked towards the bedroom.

"This is what you should do. You've been brothers for over twenty years, and you haven't even given him a gift worth eighteen yuan. Aren't you ashamed? You even need me, your wife, to clean up your mess!"

Xie Yanli's fingertip paused on the unmute button.

At this moment, the group of conference attendees shown in the video simultaneously fell into silence.

They wished they could deafen each other's ears right then.

Brothers? Together?

Had they just heard a shocking secret about President Xie!

Xie Yanli's gaze swept coolly across the screen. "My wife is being mischievous. Let's continue the meeting."

Qin Fan, who hadn't yet opened the bedroom door, spun around abruptly: "..."

Upon seeing the grid of video boxes on Xie Yanli's screen, Qin Fan's delicate, fair little face instantly flushed crimson.

!!!

The fairy wanted to faint on the spot.

Because the shame was too overwhelming, it spurred Qin Fan into a wild spending spree. That night, she had the proxy bidder buy her a European winery worth over a hundred million, as well as a gift for Director Pei's twenty-plus years of belated brotherly affection—a vintage car. Qin Fan had previously heard a producer mention in a chat with Pei Feng that he liked to collect various vintage cars. Its value would definitely far exceed the eighteen yuan Director Pei had requested.

Charged to Xie Yanli's card.

Of course, a moment's pleasure swiping the card leads to hell to pay later.