Chapter 34
Of course, Lu Mingren thought it was fine.
He didn’t expect Gu Xiyu to so understanding, and was even unwilling to take a single penny: “I want to say that I’m sorry.”
“Because of your father’s attitude, I was cold to you when you first moved into the house.” Lu Mingren came from a large family and has dealt with all kinds of people, whether at work or in private. When he first met Gu Sichuang and saw that the family was willing to sell their child for 100,000 yuan, he subconsciously regarded them as people who wanted to plunder the Lu family’s fortune.
He only changed his mind about Gu Xiyu after he was able to convince Lu Ziqing to behave, and now had an even better impression of him, and didn’t hesitate to ask for advice, “How did you manage to make Ziqing listen to you like that ?”
Gu Xiyu held the cold drink for a long time before he asked Lu Mingren, “After all these years, do you know what he wants most?”
Lu Mingren was stunned by his question, and heard him continue, “I didn’t really do anything.”
“To be honest, it’s probably because I was willing to sit down and listen to him and give him the care he wants.”
Lu Mingren listened in a daze and kept quiet for a long time. Gu Xiyu didn’t bother him; the two just immersed themselves in their own worlds.
The city’s Civil Affairs Bureau was open on Saturday mornings, so Gu Xiyu and Lu Mingren immediately made plans to go there the next day. Lu Mingren originally wanted to give him some money in compensation, but after he refused, the two decided to waive Gu Xiyu’s rent and food expenses for the rest of his stay at the Lu house in exchange.
Before Lu Mingren left, he transferred some money to him, and spoke with evasive eyes: “I may have to stay at the office tonight… Ziqing liked to eat fried buns when he was a kid; you can take him a few more when you go back later.”
Gu Xiyu did not refuse this request: “Okay.”
Lu Mingren was right, Lu Ziqing did like them, and when he came back and saw the buns on the table, he filled his stomach before even changing his clothes.
As he ate, he asked, “Little mom, did you bring these specially for me?”
Lu Ziqing seemed to be in a good mood, and after thinking about it, Gu Xiyu replied, “I bought them for you, but your father gave me the money. He said you liked them and asked me to bring you some more.”
Lu Ziqing chewed the food in his mouth one bite at a time, and only responded after a long time, “Oh.”
———
The original owner’s initial post on the confession wall was deleted, and it was discovered that the one who leaked his personal information was a senior. Many people in the school were secretly shipping Lui Sheng and the original owner because they were close and were both good-looking.
That senior thought that the original owner might bend Liu Sheng or get him one day, so she was always very wary of him. After seeing the post on the confession wall, she guessed that the original owner just had unrequited love and took this opportunity to deliberately ruin his reputation.
All these were the results of what Liu Sheng’s friend found out from her.
Liu Sheng returned from the school administration office with a document in his hand. “Xiyu, Professor Liu asked me to pass this on to you.”
Gu Xiyu glanced at it, it was information related to studying abroad as an exchange student.
Liu Sheng smiled and said, “Didn’t you always want a chance to see the world abroad? Your grades are very good, and your major in environmental studies is also a key research direction abroad. I heard from Professor Liu that there is a company in China offering this opportunity to students with the potential to go abroad with a full scholarship. When they come back, they can also go directly to their company for an internship, and with good performance, they might become full-time employees.”
“Although it’s for those in their senior year, there’s a good chance that one of the two places recommended by Professor Liu will be you, seeing as you have good grades. That’s why he asked me to give you the information first. He also wanted me to tell you that you need to work harder on your exams these semesters so that you avoid potential accidents at a critical time like this.”
Gu Xiyu flipped through the information in his hand, his expression not as happy as Liu Sheng expected; instead, there was a bit of worry.
Lu Ziqing should never find out about this matter.
He had just put his things away and was ready to go to class when he suddenly received a strange call on his mobile phone.
After answering, a middle-aged woman’s voice came over: “Hello, is this Lu Ziqing’s parent?”
“…Yes.”
The person on the other side was probably surprised by the young voice, and paused for a few seconds before continuing, “It’s like this, Ziqing had some conflicts with his classmates at school today, so it might be necessary to trouble you to come to school.”
Gu Xiyu had to ask for leave from the teacher of his next class and hurriedly go to Lu Ziqing’s school.
In the office, Lu Ziqing was standing alone by the wall with his head bowed as he waited for his arrival. A woman who looked like their teacher with her hair up in a bun and glasses was sitting behind a desk and talking softly. Beside her stood a woman in a black and white checkered dress with a condescending expression on her face.
When Gu Xiyu came in, he heard the woman in the checkered dress muttering, “Our Ah Rong was going to represent the school in the competition; if anything happens to him, it’s your school’s honor that will be affected.”
The teacher with the glasses said with a smile, “Yes, yes, you’re right, we’ll do our best to mediate things.”
“Mediate what? My child said that the person who bullied him is a problem student at school; why hasn’t your school expelled him? Even if you don’t expel him, you have to give him disciplinary action!”
Before the teacher could respond to the question, he saw a young man walk into the office and froze for a moment before asking, “This gentleman, may I ask if you are ……?”
Gu Xiyu looked at Lu Ziqing, who was staring at him from the side, and seemed to see his tail wagging happily behind him before saying, “I’m Ziqing’s guardian; I got your call and came over.”
The teacher was about to reply when Lu Ziqing suddenly walked up to him and hugged him, saying aggrievedly, “Brother, you really came! They all bullied me, I was so scared, I’m so happy to see you.”
…… Fortunately, this boy did not call him Little Mom in public.
“It’s obvious that you bullied my child first, how dare you?!”
Gu Xiyu ignored the woman’s somewhat shrill voice, patted him on the shoulder, and asked, “Oh? Then tell me how they bullied you.”
It stands to reason that it was a miracle Lu Ziqing didn’t beat others to the hospital.
Lu Ziqing leaned on his shoulder and even took the opportunity to rub against his neck a few times before answering in a low voice: “It was him and his friends, they laughed at me, saying that I was a child without a father and a mother’s love, that no matter how hard I tried, I am just a piece of sh*t that could never turn into a swan. Although I don’t know what the relationship is between family relationships and turning into a swan, I think he was mocking me with that comment, right?”
Gu Xiyu: “……”
The male student at the table turned red with anger, “He…he’s talking nonsense! I’m a class one student; how can I be like him, a poor student who always says vulgar words?”
Lu Ziqing took the opportunity to complain more, “Look, he scolded me again.”
After saying that, he released Gu Xiyu and showed his arm, saying, “He also scratched me with a pen knife.”
There was indeed a red blood mark on his arm, but fortunately, the cut was not deep and had already started to scab over, so it didn’t look like anything serious.
But Lu Ziqing’s brow was so furrowed that it could pinch something, and his tone sounded particularly pitiful: “I’m in so much pain.”
How could Gu Xiyu not know that he was pretending to be pitiful, but he wouldn’t expose him in front of others.
What’s more, he felt that what Lu Ziqing said was not exactly slander.
After all, Lu Ziqing really did have injuries on his body, and the woman exploded after hearing this: “My Ah Rong wouldn’t even dare to step on an ant, so how could he possibly scratch your child? Besides, it’s only those hooligans in the classroom of bad students that use knives and fists, my child doesn’t even have enough time to study, so how can he have the heart to pick a fight?”
“That’s right too; everything has to be about evidence.” Gu Xiyu nodded and said, “Teacher, is there any surveillance at the place where they had the altercation?”
The teacher’s expression was a little embarrassed. “There is surveillance at the school, but Lu Ziqing and his classmates happened to be in a blind spot, so ……”
‘I see, that means there was no direct evidence.
No wonder this woman was so arrogant.’
Gu Xiyu looked embarrassed and said softly, “But my Ziqing is usually very well-behaved at home. Leave alone causing trouble, he can’t even talk back no matter how hard I scold him whenever I supervise him as he does his homework. He never fights back, even when I beat him. He is such a good kid, I don’t think he would take the initiative to pick a fight with your son.”
The student called Rong couldn’t take it anymore: “Nonsense! Lu Ziqing is not good at school! I heard that he even led people to blockade fellow students, scaring them into not coming to school, or forcing them to listen to him and not resist! How dare you call him a good boy?”
“Classmate, do you have proof?” Gu Xiyu asked rhetorically, “I also heard that you go to bars every day on weekends with others to fool around and play in those karaoke bars, do you admit that?”
“How can you just open your mouth and makeup nonsense-”
“Anyone can open their mouth about something without evidence or proof.” Gu Xiyu said, grabbing Lu Ziqing’s hand and lamenting, “My child’s hands are very precious, and may even bring the country glory in the future; do you think you could afford the price of hurting him if something had gone wrong?”
Before the woman could retort, Gu Xiyu said calmly again, “As for the verbal abuse, it’s true that Ziqing had a difficult childhood, but I think that since he’s an educated child, he wouldn’t do something as uncultured as ridiculing people without parents to their faces, right?”
The boy flushed red, and Gu Xiyu turned to the teacher with a smile, “There might be some misunderstanding in this matter, after all, your school is known for its good education, so I don’t think it would accept such a rude student.”
Just as he finished speaking, there was a sudden knock on the office door again.
Lin Mianmian came to the office accompanied by Xu Chengxuan, half hiding behind him. She shot several glances at the people in the office before saying weakly, “Teacher, about the matter of student Lu… I happen to have a bit of evidence that might be helpful.”
Lin Mianmian swore that it was all really a coincidence, and she didn’t purposely track Lu Ziqing’s daily routine. She just liked making videos, and it happened to be her lunch break at the time, so she took her mobile phone and wandered around campus to collect interesting footage, not expecting to get Lu Ziqing’s clash with another student on tape.
In the video, Lu Ziqing was leaning on one side of the corridor, looking into the distance. Chen Rong of class 1 happened to walk by with some friends, but suddenly went over and pushed Lu Ziqing. Fortunately, Lu Zicheng reacted promptly and dodged to the side, otherwise, he could have fallen down the corridor with such a push.
Then there was the scene where Chen Rong and his other friends said a lot of nasty things to Lu Ziqing, and what Lu Ziqing had just complained about was only a small part of it. Even Chen Rong’s mother couldn’t help but widen her eyes at the vulgarity of their words, and couldn’t believe that they were really coming from her child’s mouth.
Lu Ziqing, on the other hand, never made a move against them. He didn’t even bother to say anything back, and simply wanted to leave. As a result, Chen Rong felt ignored, and in a fit of anger, he took out the penknife he was holding and scratched Lu Ziqing. It was in an attempt to resist that Lu Ziqing accidentally pushed him to the ground.
As a result, he used this to say that he was the one being bullied.
Chen Rong was the ‘good student’ of class 1, and as long as he opened his mouth and called his mother to step in, the odds were against Lu Ziqing even if he refuted, since he was a well-known bad student.
After the evidence was revealed, the mother and son instantly lost their voices. Chen Rong’s mother’s face was so red that she wished she could find a hole in the ground. She finally slapped her son’s head with bitterness: “You, you, when did you learn all this nonsense? Is this what I teach you?”
“How do you teach your students at school? I see that your education is simply failing!”
Gu Xiyu looked at the teacher and parent who were arguing and interrupted, “I think what this parent said earlier was a good point. Why doesn’t the school expel students when they do something wrong, or at least give them basic disciplinary action? If I remember correctly, Ziqing’s father is a bit busy, but he is also one of the directors of the school, right?”
“In that case, I also hope that the school can give us, the Lu family and Ziqing, an explanation; otherwise, we might raise objections at the board meeting then.”
Only when the teacher heard Gu Xiyu’s words did she suddenly remember the identity of Lu Ziqing’s father. Just as she wanted to say something, Lu Ziqing, Lin Mianmian, and the others had already followed Gu Xiyu out of the office.
The first thing Gu Xiyu did after leaving the office was to thank Lin Mianmian.
Lin Mianmian smiled and said, “It’s okay, it was just a coincidence, and I’m quite happy to be able to help you guys.”
Gu Xiyu saw Lu Ziqing standing next to him without saying anything and gently patted him on the back, “Still not giving thanks?”
Lin Mianmian was somewhat afraid of Lu Ziqing, but Lu Ziqing seemed to listen to Gu Xiyu and nodded to her without any resistance, “Thank you.”
It was as if someone had forcibly stuffed candy in her mouth.
The smile on Lin Mianmian’s face got even sweeter as Xu Chengxuan pulled her away, saying, “Don’t forget we came out of the math class.”
“Ahhhhh! I almost forgot! It’s over, it’s over, it’s time to go back and not understand again-”
Lin Mianmian was dragged back to her classroom and passed right by the place where Chen Rong came to trouble Lu Ziqing earlier. She subconsciously looked up in the direction where Lu Ziqing was looking previously and was suddenly shocked to realize that she could see Gu Xiyu’s university from there.
……
Gu Xiyu watched Lin Mianmian and the others leave. He turned his head and was about to admonish Lu Ziqing, but found the other party staring at him with a smile, seemingly in a particularly good mood.
“So this is how it feels to call your parents.”
Listening to Lu Ziqing’s words, the words on Gu Xiyu’s lips turned around without making an exit, and his mood became a little complicated.
He suddenly understood why the Great Demon deliberately acted pitiful in the office just now. Perhaps it was something he had fantasized about countless times as a child, but Zhou Tianyi was not around, and Lu Mingren was so busy with his work that even if he called, he could only let him solve it by himself.
There must be many students and parents like Chen Rong and his mother; how did Lu Ziqing get by when he went through similar things in the past?
“If you encounter something like this again in the future, you can call me.” Gu Xiyu suddenly spoke: “Of course, the premise is that you don’t take the initiative to bully your classmates.”
The glow under Lu Ziqing’s eyes seemed to brighten up a few more points, “Don’t worry, after all, I am such an obedient and understanding child in Little Mom’s eyes, I will definitely not cause you any trouble.”
“And do well in class; as long as you can get into the top hundred in these finals, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
When Lu Ziqing heard these words, he almost blurted out, ‘what if I want you?’, but he managed to restrain himself.
The time and place were not right, he could not rush.
Before Gu Xiyu parted from him, he solemnly said to him, “Finish high school properly, and when you’re done with the entrance exams, I can get you that opportunity to do whatever you want by then.”
“I’ll allow you to be a little willful then.”
Lu Ziqing smiled and only felt as if someone had hit his heart hard, hitting straight to the depths of his soul.
Gu Xiyu’s tone was calm when he said this, especially his eyes, there were no ripples from start to finish, and even the emotions in them were not very strong.
The only thing that was clear was his seriousness.
It seemed like this person always had this attitude, no matter what he did. He could even notice the smallest details that no one around him would ever take note of.
He knew that he was just the target of Gu Xiyu’s mission, and all the things he was doing for him now were mainly to stop him from thinking of hurting Xu Chengxuan in the future.
But if no longer targeting Xu Chengxuan meant he could have such a caring Gu Xiyu by his side forever, then……
Such a deal didn’t seem that bad.
“Got it.” Lu Ziqing bowed his head in response and turned to head back in the direction of his own classroom.
He suddenly discovered that when he thought of Zhou Tianyi and Xu Chengxuan now, his heart didn’t seem as uncomfortable as it used to be.
-Saturday
It was said that Gu Xiyu was ready to resume live streaming, and he had promised Lu Ziqing the night before that he would bring him along for some battles, so Lu Ziqing got up early.
As a result, he found that the person across the hall was not only up earlier than he was, but he was even dressed and ready to go out.
Lu Ziqing was dumbfounded: “Where are you going?”
Gu Xiyu smiled lightly at him, “Going out with your father.”
Lu Ziqing was in an inexplicably upset mood: “Just the two of you?”
“Yes.”
Lu Ziqing was not only upset but even began to feel a sense of crisis: “I’m coming too.”
“That won’t work, we have a personal matter to attend to, so you stay home.” Gu Xiyu patted his shoulder and said, “I’ll be back later to play games with you.”
Lu Ziqing just watched Gu Xiyu and his father go out together, and he, the electric bulb, was left at home.
He even got the absurd thought that his father had suddenly discovered how good Gu Xiyu was, and was ready to start cultivating their relationship and becoming real husband and wife!
Lu Ziqing sat in the bathroom for a while and suddenly remembered that he had a rather convenient identity.
[Where are you going?]
Lu Mingren’s car had just set off when Gu Xiyu heard the system’s voice.
He always answered the system’s weird questions: “To go to the Civil Affairs Bureau with Lu Mingren, to get a divorce.”
[Divorce?!]
“Yeah, Mr. Lu’s father is awake, and he has someone he likes. Moreover, I’m not interested in him; we might as well deal with this first.”
There was a brief silence before the system asked, [So will you be moving out of the Lu family house?]
“Not yet. I made a deal with Mr. Lu that I would supervise Lu Ziqing for him until the college entrance exams are over.”
[Oh, so that’s how it is.]
A few seconds later, the system asked again, [After you and Lu Mingren divorce, does that mean Lu Ziqing can do whatever he wants to you in the future?]
“?”
Gu Xiyu found this question a bit strange: “What do you mean by what?”
[…… Ah, I’ll just use some analogies, like kissing, hugging, and flirting. After all, he might have wished to do all those things before, but was worried about what people would say given your status.]
Gu Xiyu was silent for half a second, then suddenly laughed. “Didn’t he do all those things even before the divorce?”
Lu Ziqing at home listened to Gu Xiyu’s chuckle that went straight to his heart and turned on the tap to splash some cold water on his face to try to cool himself down.
Fuck, his heartbeat had become uncontrollable once again.
“But I don’t want him to know just yet.”
“Otherwise, he’ll climb over my head once he discovers that we’re now equals.”
Lu Ziqing laughed.
He didn’t want to climb over Gu Xiyu’s head.
He only wanted to climb into his bed.