After the secret marriage to my top star partner

Chapter 32.1

Editor: Princess

Early the next morning, Mu Nan woke up with a hangover pounding in his head.

Cheng Han would probably never have imagined that there was someone in this world who could get hungover from just a little bit of red wine.

His cold was mostly gone, but his voice was still a little hoarse. As he drank some hot water, his mind wandered back to last night.

Cheng Han had suddenly shown up at his place carrying groceries, making hot pot, and rambling about random things, like how yesterday marked the twentieth anniversary of their first meeting.

What was there to celebrate about knowing someone for twenty years? It wasn’t like they’d been married that long.

But Mu Nan still found himself unconsciously counting on his fingers. Twenty years… that was a quarter of a lifetime. When he thought about it that way, it did feel like a long time.

Cheng Han had asked him something too. What was it again? Oh yeah, when exactly did their relationship start to go downhill?

That question made Mu Nan pause mid-sip, lost in thought for a good five seconds.

When they were children, he hadn’t liked Cheng Han—too much of a perfect student—but things between them hadn’t been this bad. So when did it all start?

Then, all of a sudden, Mu Nan remembered. It was high school. More precisely, it was after he met Bai Wenyan.

High school boys were at their most rebellious. The more people told them not to do something, the more they wanted to do it. Their school was an expensive private academy, and unlike public schools, the teachers didn’t crack down on dating.

So, at the time, the person who opposed his relationship the most was Cheng Han.

Cheng Han had not only embarrassed Bai Wenyan in front of everyone but also threatened to beat him up every time he saw him. And Bai Wenyan was two years older than them, a senior.

Mu Nan had been furious. Cheng Han refusing to respect Bai Wenyan meant he was disrespecting him too. And on top of that, Cheng Han had called Bai Wenyan a cowardly fake and a shady guy with ulterior motives, and that he wasn’t a good person at all. Mu Nan had found those words extremely annoying.

Bai Wenyan, for his part, occasionally badmouthed Cheng Han to Mu Nan as well, calling him arrogant, unreasonable, and domineering. And because he had been caught up in his feelings, it didn’t take much to sway him. Slowly, he started to dislike Cheng Han more and more.

Looking back now, the whole thing had been subtle. There hadn’t been a single, dramatic moment that had made him hate Cheng Han. It had just crept up over the years, little by little. And now, he realized—Bai Wenyan had been deliberately stirring the pot all along.

That thought alone was enough to irritate him.

How had he been so stupid back then? How had he blindly believed in Bai Wenyan for so long?

Wait. Something still didn’t add up. Mu Nan, halfway through getting mad, suddenly stopped.

What exactly had happened to Bai Wenyan?

The last time he’d tried asking Cheng Han about it, he had deflected with some nonsense about a horror reality show. And now that he thought about it, this was totally Cheng Han’s go-to move. Whenever he didn’t want to answer something, he’d just change the subject.

And he, like an idiot, always fell for it.

He mentally facepalmed. He was such a fool. No wonder people kept tricking him.

But since Cheng Han wasn’t going to spill, he decided not to ask him. Instead, he called Wilder. If anyone knew, Wilder would.

Sure enough, Wilder gave him an answer he wasn’t expecting.

“Bai Wenyan left in a pretty pathetic state…”

“What do you mean?” Mu Nan perked up.

Wilder hesitated for a moment before deciding to just lay it all out. “Basically, Bai Wenyan was too full of himself from the start. Cheng Han’s studio was high-value real estate, so even if he ruined one deal, there were plenty of other investors lining up.”

“So Cheng Han set a trap with a few big financial players in the country. Bai Wenyan had put money into a domestic company while he was overseas, right? Well, that company ran into some issues, and Cheng Han and his team shorted it hard.”

“I haven’t done the math myself, but I heard Bai Wenyan’s fund lost over a hundred million dollars because the restricted shares hadn’t been unlocked yet.”

A hundred million dollars. Mu Nan sucked in a breath. That was enough to shake Bai Wenyan’s entire company to its core.

Wilder was explaining it casually, but anyone with a brain could tell that this had been a brutal, no-holds-barred financial battle.

“And that wasn’t the end of it.” Wilder continued. “Cheng Han didn’t stop there. He had a domestic private equity firm that was about to hire Bai Wenyan buy into his studio instead. And their condition? They couldn’t employ Bai Wenyan. So just like that, Bai Wenyan was completely shut out of the country’s market. He had no other choice but to slink back home.”

Mu Nan exhaled sharply. “So that’s what happened.”

And Cheng Han had dared to tell him it was “nothing”? If this was “nothing”, then the Asian financial crisis was just children playing house.

But then Wilder sighed and dropped the final bombshell. “The night before Bai Wenyan was set to fly back to the U.S., Cheng Han had someone block him and broke one of his ribs.”

Mu Nan: “…”

Yep. That “kick ‘em while they’re down” style was pure Cheng Han.