If he had not seen it, he wouldn't have believed that Shen Yue could run as fast as a cheetah... maybe even faster.
Lacing his shoes up so he can join his friends, who are now warming up on court, he remembered what happened this morning.
He tried not to smile.
It was, after all, a kind of victory he hadn't even thought he would have.
And if anyone has any issues with him letting that woman believe something happened between them last night, he does not give a f*ck.
Let that writer be "uncomfortable".
Let her know how it feels to have someone who is almost like a stranger to her act like they know her from head to toe and may just tell the whole world about it.
It wouldn't even be close to the feeling he had when THAT blasted book came out and he had a company full of people who read it and thought to themselves that they knew everything that happened all those years ago.
Whatever she is feeling now won't even amount to the degree of anger he felt then.
He'd bet on it.
"Ok. What have you done?", Xi Zi, who had just arrived, looked at him inquiringly, "I know that smile!"
DiDi laughed.
"You're going to play basketball today so it means your knees are strong enough", his best friend continued, with a smirk, "So... you guys just made out?"
He messed up the other guy's hair. "Did you see how drunk that woman was? I wouldn't even be able to do anything to her, she'd throw up at me."
It was Xi Zi' turn to laugh. "So... you considered it?"
DiDi was stunned at where the conversation had turned. "No!", he sneered, "Does that woman look like my type?"
"I don't know, man. Your taste could have changed. From liking European-looking girls, you might have developed a fetish for someone who looks Japanese. Anyway... I like her."
Xi Zi has always been the most frank with him. Amongst all his friends, he and Xi Zi were the ones who really grew up together that is why they've never really minced words in talking with each other.
"Is this your way of telling me that you have developed a liking for a woman I would really like to burn at the stake?" DiDi cocked an eyebrow.
"Yeah? I mean, she was really cute last night and I like cute girls, you know me. Although, you guys looked better together."
"Oh cut the crap!"
Xi Zi laughed louder. "Kido arrived when you guys left last night. Wu Xi Ze told him about Shen Yue getting drunk and that Yi Fan asked you to take her home. And then he told us how Zi Wei actually looked for Ms. Shen to ask her to write a book about them."
DiDi shook his head in frustration. "And Kido let her just do what she wanted."
"He loves your sister", his friend replied – that was answer enough.
"Well, that book is not going to happen. I won't let it."
"To be honest, bro? There is nothing you can do. I mean, yes, you are part of the story but the first book Ms. Shen wrote was Zuer's POV. And the second one is Zi Wei's POV."
"Are you agreeing with my sister?"
Xi Zi shrugged. "Maybe I am? I mean, I know that you want us to be angry about what's happening right now but you have to remember, we were all there for you and your sister when both heaven and earth crashed down on you. And still, I cannot help but think that Zi Wei's idea is actually good. Show the world that after the hell that she went through, it was apparently the way to heaven."
"I didn't know you were cheesy."
His best friend ruffled his hair back "And you're an idiot. You're letting what happened years ago affect your life again. Weren't you the one who said that you will forget everything that happened between you and Zuer and you will move on? The way you're acting now, you look like you haven't moved at all. You are still stuck."
"Are you done talking?"
DiDi had been feeling pretty good about what happened this morning.
He had a win against that abominable woman but Xi Zi just had to suck his joy out of that.
"I'm done", Xi Zi answered, raising both his hands, "We're both old now. I know that you know what you need to do."
His friend ran towards the court and joined the warm up.
DiDi felt like just bailing out on them.
He wanted to hit his head with something hard. He doesn't know what to feel anymore.
He met Zuer in college.
She was best friends with one of his blockmates and from the very first time he saw her, he felt such strong attraction for her.
He courted her until they became a couple during their Junior Year.
She was smart, funny, and didn't allow him room to be an arrogant bastard. Zuer reminded him of his mother in that aspect.
Their story wasn't the romance novel type wherein passionate declarations of love were happening every minute. He was a gentleman through and through. He was an attentive boyfriend but he'd never been very vocal.
Even then, DiDi liked to keep things to himself.
He never understood why some people liked showing off too much and making a spectacle of themselves.
But to those who really knew him (his family and friends most especially), they knew Zuer became his world.
He was a man of habit and when his habits started to become different, people around him took notice. Wang He Di is not the type to change his schedule easily. He wouldn't suddenly stop showing up for clubbing on Thursdays, basketball on Saturdays, and family brunch on Sundays but he did.
He was a changed man focused on making Zuer the happiest woman on earth.
So, no one was surprised when he proposed.
Everyone was expecting it.
Everyone was gushing how perfect they were for one another. They had the same temperaments, they liked almost all the same things, and they were so unequivocably alike, no one ever really thought there would be anything for them to fight about.
But even matches made in heaven can burn in hell.
And burn in hell they did.
When he came home from Baltimore to find Zuer in love with another man – his sister's boyfriend even, his rage knew no bounds.
In all the years they were together, she became his single focus.
And to find her throwing all of that away because Feiyu made her feel alive in ways DiDi had never been able to do before, it triggered the release of the mad man in him.
He was fuming, bitter, and really rich.
It was a dangerous combination for a man who knew how to be singularly focused in ensuring that what he wanted was done.
He wanted Feiyu crushed and crush him he did.
"DiDi, no matter what you do to him... he is still the man I love!" Zuer had told him in anger and that was the splash of cold water that slapped him awake.
He can never truly crush Feiyu because at the end of the day, that guy had Zuer, he didn't.
So, he stopped and let them be.
He told his boys he was going to move on and he thought he was doing a fine job of it until Shen Yue's book came out.
No one knows that he read that book and burned it afterwards.
NO ONE.
It showed him how inadequate he was, how all the money and the power he had was not enough. It showed him how immature he was. It showed him how unforgiving he was. It showed him how he was indeed a villain.
That book made him hate himself and when everyone else felt they had the right to hate him too, he became even more enraged because each and every one of them was right. He should be hated.
But what Shen Yue forgot to write was how he never wanted to be the villain.
All he really just wanted was to be the hero – Zuer's hero.
But people have already passed their judgment on him.
They all called him an evil man.
And he didn't want to fight that notion anymore because at the end of the day, only those important to him know who he really is. The rest of the world can go to the moon and die.
So he continued to live his life again with a devil-may-care attitude.
That was the last time that he was going to let other people in.
That's why he is beyond livid that it seems no one from his family and his circle of friends understand how angry he is with the possibility of having their lives once again exposed to the public.
Yes.
He knows what everyone is thinking.
His sister's story is a story of redemption.
It would show the world that no matter how wrong you were, how f*cked up your life became, at the end of the day, if you allow love to find you, you will be redeemed.
That was all well and good for Zi Wei but not for him.
It would have people looking at him again and thinking they have the right to judge him. He could hear it now – "How about her evil brother? He hasn't moved on yet, I bet! Well, that serves him right."
Well to hell with all of them!
He doesn't care!
He doesn't want to give people ammunition anymore. He once gave a bullet to Zuer and she shot him with it.
So, he is not going to care about what his friends will say or think, anymore. His pride was the only thing that had kept him company in the times love shunned him. So he was going to heed his pride and do what it wants him to do.
He is going to make sure he can stop Shen Yue in publishing that book.
And he is going to ruin her in the process too. He called her Mister Villain, right?
It was time he fully embraced that title.