The college entrance exam also has aftereffects. Even now, Xu Zhi would instinctively open her phone’s music player every morning to play some English listening exercises while eating breakfast.
Old Xu turned off the player. Xu Zhi looked up at him blankly, only to see Old Xu sitting across from her with a solemn expression, wiping his glasses while saying to her, “The exam is over. Don’t you plan to go out and have some fun?”
Xu Zhi leaned back in her chair to wake up. Now more alert, she rubbed her face listlessly, “Where to? There’s nowhere fun nearby, and the results will be out in half a month, so we can’t go too far. How about Cai Cai and I go to Uncle Fu’s place tomorrow?”
Xu Guangji wasn’t listening to her at all. His eyes were fixed on her neck. The necklace was still there. Old Cai must have seen wrong. How could Xu Zhi possibly be dating? She hasn’t even shown any interest yet. Xu Guangji absent-mindedly responded with a couple of “Ohs”, “Whatever you want, arrange it yourself. Don’t worry about money, Dad has it. Others still owe Dad a lot of money—”
Yes, Xu Guangji’s catchphrase was, “Others still owe Dad five million that hasn’t been repaid, so spend freely, don’t be stingy.”
Xu Zhi: “You haven’t won that lottery ticket yet?”
Xu Guangji ignored her, picking up his briefcase. “Silly child, let me give you a piece of advice,” he said meaningfully while changing his shoes at the door, “In life, you need to learn to see through things without pointing them out. It’s like watching a magic show. Even though you know there’s a plant in the audience, you still have to applaud, right?”
After Old Xu closed the door, Xu Zhi leaned back in her chair, suddenly realizing what he meant.
What nonsense.
Just as she was about to space out, her phone suddenly lit up. It was a WeChat message from Cai Yingying.
Little Dish: [Zhi Zhi, do you know why that big gold chain was in the tree yesterday? It turns out it was the private savings of an uncle upstairs, I’m dying of laughter. He said his wife controls the finances too strictly, so it’s hard to hide money. He exchanged it for a big gold chain, wearing it when he went out and hiding it in the bird’s nest in that tree when he came home.]
Gardenia doesn’t want to bloom: [Ah, how do you know?]
Little Dish: [Zhu Yangqi told me this morning.]
Gardenia doesn’t want to bloom: [You have his WeChat?]
Little Dish: [Yeah, added him yesterday. And what’s even funnier is, Zhu Yangqi said when the uncle’s wife brought him to claim it, Chen Luzhou asked them to show the receipt for buying the chain. It turns out the uncle pulled out a receipt with two items on it, and the other item was confiscated too. Now that uncle spits whenever he passes Chen Luzhou’s door. Zhu Yangqi said Chen Luzhou is constantly wiping the floor at the entrance now, hahahahaha, I’m dying of laughter.]
Xu Zhi replied with a few ellipses. The first thought in her mind was:
He does have obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Xu Zhi put down her phone and carelessly tossed the bowl into the sink. The old lady had gone to the temple for a vegetarian retreat these past two days, leaving her alone at home. Xu Zhi leaned against the crystal countertop in the kitchen, taking out her phone to seriously search on social media while waiting for the water to run — How to successfully add a handsome guy…
She paused, thought seriously for a moment, then quickly deleted the words “handsome guy”.
— How to successfully add a narcissist’s WeChat.
She quickly received a private message from a netizen.
Netizen Pipi: [If it’s just an ordinary guy, forget it. If he’s handsome, to get his attention, you need to ignore him first, then defeat him or criticize him in his familiar field. Anyway, first figure out what his interests and hobbies are.]
Interests and hobbies?
She definitely couldn’t compete in basketball or drones. Does that artistically untalented painting count?
Xu Zhi picked up the bowl and fell into deep thought.
**
Before leaving home, Chen Luzhou passed a note of defeat on his door.
— “The owner has not been home recently. Please do not spit randomly. If you really can’t hold it, please spit in the bucket next to this.”
Below was a big red arrow, and he had honestly placed a garbage bin there.
Zhu Yangqi laughed so hard he pounded the wall: “What’s going on between you and your dad? You’d rather endure this than move back home.”
Chen Luzhou had just finished packing and was ready to go out. His black messenger bag hung loosely across his body. He took some tape from the side, pressed the white paper onto the door with his bony hand, and said: “What do you think of my dad?”
“Although he looks stern, he’s always been good to you. Just a bit superstitious and feudal in his thinking.”
Chen Jishen was indeed superstitious, always accompanied by a feng shui master who followed his every command. When Chen Xingqi was little, he would cry at night and had intermittent fevers for over a month. Even specialists said there was no problem. Later, hearing elders suggest trying folk remedies, they found this master. He said Chen Xingqi’s birth chart was too weak, and he would face many misfortunes before the age of fourteen.
One solution was to find an adoptive relative — recognizing a “mother” with a strong birth chart could help ward off misfortune. Ms. Lian Hui refused to let him recognize another mother no matter what. Finally, the master gave another solution: recognizing an older brother with a strong birth chart would also work. So, they recognized Chen Luzhou, who at the time met all the birth chart conditions and was an orphan. However, the Chen Jishen couple probably felt guilty and voluntarily proposed to adopt Chen Luzhou.
At that time, Chen Luzhou was also confused and had no idea why he was being adopted by this family.
However, they always treated Chen Luzhou as their own, not just to maintain the image of a model entrepreneur showing excessive love for their children, but genuinely caring for him from the bottom of their hearts. Chen Xingqi had been spanked many times growing up, but Chen Luzhou had never even been touched by a feather duster. With two boys in the family, usually, it’s the younger one who causes trouble, but parents would turn a blind eye and ask the older brother to give in to the younger one. Chen Jishen was different. He would come over and give Chen Xingqi a swat without distinguishing right from wrong, warning him not to provoke his brother for no reason. So Chen Xingqi had always had a love-hate relationship with his brother.
Chen Jishen’s love for him was almost unconditional, while Ms. Lian Hui was stricter and had more expectations of him. As for Chen Luzhou, although he had a sharp tongue, he had always been sensible since he was young, knowing what jokes could be made and what couldn’t.
In the early days when Chen Jishen’s business wasn’t as big, he was often teased at the dinner table by some uncles and aunts with ulterior motives. They would say things like, “Luzhou is so handsome, he might as well not study and just marry the daughter of our city’s richest man. Your dad could save decades of hard work.”
Hearing this once or twice was fine, but later people often joked about this, and Chen Luzhou got annoyed. Chen Jishen was so angry he wanted to flip the table, ready to cut ties with these people on the spot. But at that time, Chen Jishen had just joined the city’s entrepreneurs’ association and needed to maintain relationships everywhere. Chen Luzhou was afraid he would offend people, so he smoothed things over. He also knew the richest man wouldn’t be interested in their family, so while peeling a crab for Chen Xingqi, he jokingly deflected: “Alright, then please pass the message to my future father-in-law. I’ll wait for him to send the betrothal gifts.”
This response sounded flippant but was quite polite, not disrespectful, and even directly shut down the topic. Because no one dared to propose it, after all, Chen Jishen’s career was just starting then, and the richest man wouldn’t be interested in their family. After that, Chen Jishen became even more doting towards him.
In some ways, Chen Luzhou’s childhood wasn’t lacking in love. Before he was six, the orphanage director and caretakers were especially fond of him. After six, in the Chen family, the couple treated him with utmost care. He was a child raised in a honey pot, nurtured with love.
It wasn’t until recently, when he rented a place near the school for convenient studying, that he found out why he had been adopted. The night before the college entrance exam, he went back to the villa to get some clean clothes and overheard Chen Jishen and Ms. Lian Hui arguing loudly in their bedroom.
But even so, Chen Luzhou didn’t feel there was anything wrong. Because they had been good enough to him for these ten-plus years, he could forgive that initial reason which might not have been so kind.
He had always been easy to please. Compared to some ambiguous words from others, he preferred to believe his feelings. The love and protection of these ten-plus years weren’t just for show.
Chen Xingqi was standing behind him at that time, cautiously calling out “Brother” softly, afraid he might be upset. But unexpectedly, Chen Luzhou leaned against the hallway wall, reaching back to ruffle his head in the darkness, looking down at him and saying gently: “It’s your fourteenth birthday next month, right? Don’t worry, it’s almost over. Brother wishes you all the best from now on.”
Chen Xingqi’s eyes reddened, and then the voices inside came through intermittently again. It was Chen Jishen’s voice, “Isn’t this what you promised me when we first adopted him? To send him abroad after he finishes the college entrance exam. I know Luzhou has always been very sensible, but don’t you think he’s becoming too sharp now? If he stays in the country to finish university, I’m worried he might compete with Xingqi for the family inheritance in the future.”
Chen Luzhou indeed forgot one thing. Chen Jishen was, after all, a conservative and feudal father.
In the early years when his career wasn’t so prosperous, he truly hadn’t considered this issue. Now that his business was growing, that deeply ingrained old-fashioned thinking in his bones was like a cavity rotting beneath the gums, bound to start stinking.
…
“Did he hit you?” Zhu Yangqi found it hard to imagine that Chen Jishen, with his good temper, would raise a hand.