Chapter 116: I Am Her Husband!

Chen Muxue’s expression shifted slightly at his words. She hurriedly tugged at Su Zheng’s sleeve and said to Cheng Hui in some alarm, “Young Master Cheng, I’m sorry. He didn’t mean—”

“You don’t need to apologize to him!”

Su Zheng suddenly turned and cut her off. His gaze rested on Chen Muxue like still water, his voice firm. “From now on, you don’t need to apologize to anyone!”

Chen Muxue froze. Her exquisitely beautiful face betrayed a flicker of astonishment as she stared at Su Zheng, who appeared unusually domineering and forceful. Her heart suddenly began to pound, as though a startled deer were leaping inside her chest.

Was this… the feeling of falling for someone?

She had never imagined such a feeling would arise within her.

Though it vanished in an instant, it still left her intensely nervous, even somewhat frightened. Her cheeks grew faintly warm.

She instinctively turned away. To conceal her tension and confusion, she deliberately put on an angry expression and scolded him, “Are you insane?!”

“I’m not insane!”

Su Zheng answered with complete seriousness. Turning calmly, he cast a proud glance over Cheng Hui and the others before saying indifferently, “You don’t need to feel constrained or inferior in front of them. They aren’t worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as you!”

From the moment they had entered the hall, Su Zheng had noticed Chen Muxue’s unease and inferiority. It irritated him. His wife, Su Zheng’s wife, had no reason to bow and scrape before anyone else.

“What the hell do you mean? Are you looking down on us?”

“Kid, do you know who we are?”

“You must be tired of living. You’re asking to die!”

The people present were instantly enraged by Su Zheng’s words. They glared at him furiously, and some were even preparing to order their men to attack.

At that moment, the security guards summoned by the middle-aged man hurried into the hall. The man immediately pointed at Su Zheng and barked, “That’s him! Beat him!”

“Hold it!”

Cheng Hui raised a hand and stopped the middle-aged man. He turned once more to Su Zheng and asked, “Who exactly are you?”

Compared with the ordinary rich heirs and scions of prominent families around him, Cheng Hui, as the heir to the Cheng family, possessed considerably more sense. He had suddenly felt that Su Zheng’s words carried an imposing authority and power. This man did not seem ordinary.

“I’m her husband. Su Zheng.”

Su Zheng spoke lightly.

“Su Zheng? Damn, I think I’ve heard that name.”

Someone in the crowd suddenly spoke with suspicion, his voice laced with contempt. “I heard that an old man in Qingyang recently found the genuine calligraphy of the Orchid Pavilion Preface. He became a minor celebrity because of it, and quite a bit about his family was dug up as well.”

“He supposedly has a useless son-in-law named Su Zheng. Wait, let me see whether I still have a picture on my phone. Damn! It really is him!”

The man somehow found a photograph on his phone showing Chen Jianguo at the antique shop that day, with Su Zheng and Chen Muxue standing beside him.

“I heard this guy married into the Chen family. He’s a complete good-for-nothing!”

“He married a beautiful wife and still lives off her. What a life!”

“That girl certainly has unusual taste. She actually likes a useless man like him!”

The crowd immediately erupted into mocking laughter. They were all familiar with the news about the genuine Orchid Pavilion Preface, and one after another, they began ridiculing him.

“So it’s you, you good-for-nothing!”

Cheng Hui recalled the news as well and burst into laughter, his face filled with fury. “Damn it, you stinking beggar! How dare you put on airs in front of me!”

Listening to their jeers, Chen Muxue’s sense of inferiority surged back. Her face flushed crimson, and she wished she could find a crack in the floor to hide in. She grabbed Su Zheng by the arm and tried to drag him outside, desperate to leave.

But Su Zheng remained utterly motionless. A faint smile touched his face.

“Even a good-for-nothing is stronger than a bunch of idiots like you. To be honest, the stones I pick with my eyes closed would be a hundred times better than the ones you choose.”

Su Zheng had not wanted to argue with these people. They were beneath him.

But seeing them humiliate both him and Chen Muxue, he could no longer suppress the anger rising in his chest. He would let these fools see who the real good-for-nothings were.

“Hahahaha…”

The moment Su Zheng finished speaking, the crowd’s laughter grew even louder.

“This guy really is insane!”

“A useless freeloader who claims he knows how to gamble on jade? How hilarious!”

“I’ve seen people who love to brag, but never anyone who could brag this shamelessly!”

Chen Muxue’s expression darkened further. She gritted her teeth and brought her high heel down hard on Su Zheng’s foot. She had no idea what madness had seized him. Why insist on humiliating himself here? What did he know about gambling on jade?

Su Zheng acted as though he had felt nothing. He looked at Cheng Hui and the others with a cold smile.

“What? You don’t believe me? If you don’t, we can make a wager.”

“Fine. Name your terms.”

Cheng Hui agreed readily, his eyes filled with ridicule. He looked at Su Zheng as though he were watching a performing monkey at a circus.

“You saw what happened when the stones you opened revealed jade. None of them produced a spectacular profit, did they?” Su Zheng regarded the group with composure. “Here’s the wager: I’ll choose three rough stones with my eyes closed. If all three turn out to be huge wins, I’ll be the victor. Otherwise, I lose. How does that sound?”

The hall exploded with laughter once more.

By now, everyone was certain that this fellow was mentally ill.

Three huge wins?

How many people spent their entire lives gambling on jade without encountering more than a few spectacular successes? Yet this man had boldly claimed that he could choose three stones in succession and make a fortune with every one of them. It was nothing short of a madman’s fantasy.

And he had said he would choose them with his eyes closed.

It was utterly unheard-of.

As the saying went, even an immortal could not determine the jade hidden inside a single inch of stone. Gambling on jade depended on keen eyesight and a measure of luck. Everyone who did it wished they could drill their eyes into the rough stone and see straight through it. Even then, they often lost everything. Choosing with one’s eyes closed was no different from blind guessing.

“Are you really insane?!”

Chen Muxue stared at Su Zheng with wide eyes. Although she knew little about gambling on jade, she understood how difficult it was to achieve a spectacular profit, let alone do so with all three stones.

Furious, she pinched him hard around the waist. She was just about to stop him when Cheng Hui eagerly accepted the wager.

“Fine. It’s a deal! But what happens if you lose?”

“If I lose, you may do whatever you want with me.”

Su Zheng stood with his hands behind his back and smiled calmly.

“Now that’s refreshing!”

Cheng Hui laughed loudly. Then his gaze turned cold, and he sneered.

“We don’t want anything else. If you lose, we want your tongue!”

“Right! We want his tongue. Cut the bastard’s tongue out!”

“This kid’s mouth is damn infuriating!”

The others immediately shouted their agreement, thoroughly provoked by Su Zheng’s arrogance.

“No problem!”

Su Zheng nodded without hesitation and smiled.

“But if you lose, I want you to offer my wife and me a solemn apology for your rudeness just now. And from this day forward, whenever you see the two of us, you must greet us respectfully and courteously as big brother and sister-in-law. Agreed?”