Grumpy Esports God Becomes a Wealthy Family’s Stepmom - Chapter 5

Zhong Lu had been training at the internet café for five days. Ye Xianyun brought him food and in return, he kept watch while Ye Xianyun slept. Because of this, he extended his training until four in the morning, got home around five, and basically never ate at home. He didn’t see Huo Yu at all.

When he saw Ye Xianyun arriving after work while rubbing the back of his neck, Zhong Lu lowered his eyes. He saw Ye Xianyun as a friend, so of course he didn’t want him sticking around just because he cooked well.

“You should go back home.”

Ye Xianyun paused, probably not expecting to be kicked out of an internet café. “I think it’s fine here.”

Zhong Lu looked at him in silence.

Ye Xianyun’s smile faded—he couldn’t keep it up. He pulled out dinner from his bag and opened the containers, carefully choosing his words, “I live at my boyfriend’s place. He cheated on me. I don’t want to go back.”

On one hand, he believed it was better to end things quickly. On the other hand, he still hadn’t found a place to live. Part of it was financial and he couldn’t afford the deposit but deep down, he was hoping something might change. That cowardly instinct made up most of it.

Yet with Lu Ziming on a business trip, who was he putting on this act for? What good did it do? Lu Ziming probably didn’t even realize anything was wrong.

A flicker of embarrassment crossed Ye Xianyun’s eyes. He felt pathetic. He hated himself for it.

Zhong Lu said, “Break up.”

Two words, delivered bluntly. He put on his headphones and switched into training mode.

That night, Ye Xianyun didn’t watch him play. He stared at a blank WeChat chat window. He could move out, sleep at a net café, wake up at four and wash up at work. Living alone wasn’t hard but saying the words “break up” was. He was still clinging.

He had never told anyone this before. It was the first time someone had told him to break up.

Wasn’t this how it was supposed to end?

Why did he want to be friends with the difficult, cold-faced Zhong Lu? Wasn’t it just to hear from him the answer he’d been avoiding?

At 4 a.m., Zhong Lu finished training, pushed his keyboard away, took a sip from his water bottle, and got up to leave.

Ye Xianyun followed him out. They left the café together.

The café was on the outskirts. The morning light had just started to paint the distant mountains in gold. Soon, the sun would rise and everything would be reborn.

Zhong Lu took a deep breath of crisp air and got on his e-scooter.

“I’m going to break up today,” Ye Xianyun said apologetically. “I might not be back tonight. I need to find a place to live…”

Watching someone play for a week apparently had some effect.

Zhong Lu, unusually, followed up, “How are you breaking up?”

Ye Xianyun faltered, like a student giving a thesis defense, and answered seriously. “I’ll send a message on WeChat, then block him. He’s not in the country. I’ll go to his place to pack up tonight.”

“You’re just going to say ‘break up’?”

“Huh?”

Zhong Lu cursed under his breath. Why was he even getting involved in this messy drama?

Ye Xianyun was too gentle—always agreeable, never knew how to say no. Whether it was to a cheating boyfriend or to his family.

Zhong Lu said coolly, “If it were me, I wouldn’t let a scumbag walk away unscathed.”

Letting him off easy would be generous.

Ye Xianyun’s eyes widened. He asked instinctively, “You mean… I should expose him?”

Zhong Lu raised an eyebrow. So there was a streak of vengefulness in him—he wasn’t all passive compliance.

Ye Xianyun was kind out of genuine affection. When someone was kind to him, he reciprocated but that didn’t mean he had a people-pleaser personality. He deserved to be cherished, not trampled on.

Zhong Lu assumed the role of strategist and nodded. “Why not.”

“You’d better call your brother’s homeroom teacher and ask about that tablet.”

That little brat’s scheming voice—Zhong Lu could hear it from across the globe.

Ye Xianyun froze. “Okay.”

Zhong Lu, digging through gossip he’d read before, said, “Take a loudspeaker to your ex’s company and call him out. Daring enough?”

“His company has security.”

“You can’t get a keycard?”

“I can but he’s not at the office—he won’t hear it.”

“Perfect. No drama. Yell, then leave.”

After a full week of Zhong Lu being out late and staying elsewhere, Huo Yu finally realized something was wrong.

Something was definitely off.

Was his dad getting cheated on?

Huo Yu slammed the desk. He knew this couple didn’t look like they had real feelings. It was fake as hell.

If his stepmom was having an affair, knowing how petty and strict his dad was, there’d definitely be a divorce. That stupid “happy family” mode would be canceled.

That meant his allowance, chef, housekeeper, and driver would all come back!

Huo Yu glared at the game room, which now resembled a dog den, full of righteous fury.

It hadn’t been cleaned in seven days. Takeout boxes and soda cans were piled everywhere. He nearly tripped going to the bathroom at night.

There were spilled noodles in the living room, shredded couch cushions and that guy Zhong didn’t do a thing about it!

Three days ago, the living room started to stink from mold. Huo Yu stormed up to find Zhong Lu only to discover the room was empty. In the end, he had no choice. Fearing maggots would crawl into his room, he angrily cleaned it all up himself.

If his stepmom didn’t share a room with his dad, he would’ve dumped all that mess straight onto his bed.

Huo Yu decided to follow Zhong Lu.

At 4 p.m., Zhong Lu rode off on his little e-scooter.

Huo Yu had already booked a car and tailed him stealthily.

He saw his stepmom pick up a handsome man from an office building. The two of them went to a high-end apartment complex together. Huo Yu’s eyes lit up—he pulled on his hat and got ready to bust them.

Just as he got out of the car, Zhong Lu came back out, now carrying an extra suitcase on the back of the scooter.

Huo Yu scrambled back into his car like a thief, banging his head on the door. He rubbed his forehead, frowning.

Something was… off.

Two pretty boys?

That morning, Ye Xianyun had gone back to pack. He used his lunch break to hunt for an apartment. It was graduation season, and the influx of job-seeking grads had driven up rental prices. He’d been working for two years and didn’t have much saved. If Zhong Lu hadn’t warned him about Ye Leyun lying, his salary would’ve been stolen with some excuse again this month.

He called Ye Leyun’s teacher. There was no such thing as a mandatory tablet. The kid had seen something on the news and copied it to scam money.

Ye Xianyun was disappointed, but when he thought about it, he realized he’d never had high hopes for his brother anyway so he let it go.

His parents were aging. His mother was too frail to work. His father had always been away laboring in the provincial capital. After Ye Xianyun started working, it was only right to support them but he wouldn’t buy anything extra for his brother ever again.

Almost every call with his brother ended in a big expense. He wasn’t dumb and he knew it was his mother pulling the strings.

The tablet money was now enough for a rental. Ye Xianyun immediately signed with a landlord—no turning back.

Zhong Lu looked around the tiny room and started thinking about when he could move out. He couldn’t exactly livestream from the Huo house forever.

“So, are we going to Lu Ziming’s office now?”

“Let’s buy a speaker first.”

He spotted a handheld megaphone on a cluttered table in the landlord’s house.

“Auntie, can I borrow this?”

The landlady said, “Sure,” She squinted behind her reading glasses. “Are you two brothers? You the older one?”

She was referring to Ye Xianyun.

Zhong Lu paused. “No, we’re friends.”

“Ohhh,” she said.

At 5:15, Zhong Lu and Ye Xianyun arrived at the scumbag’s company.

Huo Yu, trailing behind, was very confused. Why were they at Mingjia Tower? His dad wasn’t even there.

The driver had followed along and asked kindly, “Want to wait out here? It’s by the hour.”

Huo Yu didn’t have much money left and said no. What a joke—this was his own family’s company. Why wait outside?

He needed to see what Zhong Lu was up to. Could it be he was here to complain about him to one of the Huo uncles, since Huo Zhehan wasn’t around?

Lu Ziming was out of town, but his access card was at home. Ye Xianyun swiped into the building, but hesitated.

Zhong Lu pulled out two masks. “Wear this.”

The building’s central atrium spanned three floors—grand and elegant. A ring of blue sofas surrounded the lobby for guests to rest. The space was quiet and stately. Every footstep from passing employees sounded like a ringing cash register, echoing the relentless economic flow this building represented.

From the top floor, you could see Huo Group’s pharmaceutical industrial park. It was hundreds of acres, the largest pharmaceutical R&D facility in the country.

Zhong Lu and Ye Xianyun’s good looks turned heads. The receptionist even offered them tea.

Zhong Lu pulled out the speaker. “What’s the scumbag’s crime?”

“I found a reservation for a couple’s suite at a hotel during his business trip. I looked up the hotel—it’s pretty, uh, intense. He also bought a Valentine’s perfume set with ‘I love you’ in gold lettering. I never got it.”

Zhong Lu nodded. “We’ll record that, loop it through the speaker, and leave.”

He pressed the button on the speaker. It let out a light hum.

Something felt… off.

The next second, a booming radio voice echoed through the building.

“Old phones, broken phones, trade in your grandma’s phone for a stainless steel basin—!”

“Old phones, broken phones, trade in your grandma’s phone for a stainless steel basin—!”

Zhong Lu’s mind went blank.

He used his esports-tier reflexes to shut it off but the speaker was so old, the button popped off.

The speaker kept playing.

He and Ye Xianyun stared at each other in shock, then both tried to smother the sound with their hands.

It was so loud the guards thought a scrap peddler had broken in. They rushed over.

At the same time, the executive elevator doors opened. Two men walked out, speaking in low voices.

The guard nearly burst into tears. What luck—two idiots sneaking in with a speaker, and just in time to be caught by the president and VP coming back from a trip.

Zhong Lu was rattled, but he’d died once already so he had guts. Screw it. He hoisted the speaker and stopped trying to muffle it.

“Let’s go,” he said, but noticed Ye Xianyun was looking back.

He turned too and saw two suited-up business elites looking exactly like scumbags.

“That’s your ex?”

Ye Xianyun nodded, voice tight, “He didn’t tell me he came back…”

Zhong Lu’s eyes went cold. Well, since they ran into him, might as well make it worth the trip.

He tossed the speaker on the couch and folded his arms.

Sure enough, the scumbag spotted them and marched over but instead of stopping at Ye Xianyun, he stopped in front of Zhong Lu and stared him down.

What the hell are you looking at? Do we know each other?

Huo Zhehan held out his hand.

Zhong Lu, thinking he wanted to help, handed him the speaker.

Huo Zhehan used brute force to tear it apart, tossed it aside, and was about to speak when he spotted Huo Yu lurking behind a potted plant. His brow furrowed.

Even after the living room fight, Huo Zhehan still didn’t understand how this “warm family mode” was supposed to work.

Lu Ziming was surprised to see Ye Xianyun too. He had followed Huo Zhehan back early to surprise him—had something been exposed?

“Ah Yun, what are you doing here?”

The guards stopped in their tracks—office gossip radar beeping. Could it be that these two were President Huo and the VP’s partners? Otherwise why would the president help rip a speaker apart? Anyone else would’ve been thrown out by now.

Zhong Lu turned to Ye Xianyun.

If he wasn’t wrong, this cold-faced man was the scumbag’s boss. Even if the speaker failed, publicly confronting him in front of his superior was still a win.

Big companies hated personal drama interfering with work and this boss even helped him dismantle the speaker? What a team player.

Encouraged, Ye Xianyun said, “I came to break up with you.”

Lu Ziming grabbed his wrist like he was afraid he’d bolt. “Why?”

“You cheated.”

“I didn’t.”

“You booked a couple’s suite, you bought a Valentine’s perfume set—”

“That wasn’t for you,” Lu Ziming interrupted. “My assistant took the day off so I had to handle it. The hotel was for a foreign client. The perfume was for President Huo to give to his wife. Ask Huo—”

He turned to his witness but seeing who it was, he quickly switched, “Ask Mr. Zhong. He got it, right?”

Zhong Lu: “……”

Huh?

What does this have to do with me?

The romantic rival… is me? Wait, no…

He glanced at the cold-faced man next to him.

That’s his husband—no, that’s Huo Zhehan?

Impossible. He looked too young. Huo Yu was thirteen—did he get someone pregnant at fifteen?

Ye Xianyun looked at Zhong Lu in shock. You too? A fellow net café regular—and you’re the CEO’s wife?

“You got it?” Ye Xianyun asked instinctively.

Zhong Lu closed his eyes. He said emotionlessly, “Yeah, I guess.”

Seriously? Even gifts are secondhand? Plastic romance.

Huo Zhehan probably pieced it together—some “educator” somehow knew his VP’s boyfriend and had come to give him a talking-to.

“Let’s go.”

Employees were gathering and Huo Zhehan didn’t look pleased.

The four of them exited the building. The driver had pulled up two company cars.

Each headed their own way—Lu Ziming in his, Zhong Lu and Huo Zhehan in theirs.

Staring at the two luxury cars, Zhong Lu and Ye Xianyun exchanged a glance, then said in unison, “Where’s the scooter?”

Ye Xianyun looked worried. “You think the traffic cops towed it?”

He really should buy him a new one.

Zhong Lu said, “It was only parked a little while.”

A passerby said, “I saw the building security tow a scooter just now.”

Zhong Lu and Ye Xianyun turned to their “husbands.”

Uh… hey, you two. Mind bailing it out?

“……”

“……”

Both men were thinking the same thing, Your wife lives like this?