Translator: virtual group, EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: virtual group, EndlessFantasy Translation
“There are baseball bats and feather dusters in mommy’s room. Just pick whatever you like.”
These were the words Lu Yumo heard when he went downstairs.
After Xu Wei took the bottle of supplement from Fu Zhi, she quickly left the house.
Lu Yumo looked at Fu Zhi with a guilty expression on his face.
The two of them stared at each other and stayed silent for a long time. Then, Fu Zhi broke the silence first and said with a frown, “You gave the card to Zhou Tingting.”
Even though her eyes contained no emotion, Lu Yumo knew she was angry right now.
He bit his lower lip, clenched his fists, and averted his gaze. Then, he said, “No. I did not!”
Lu Yumo was more than 180 centimeters tall, not to mention that he was now standing on the staircase. Fu Zhi looked particularly petite from his point of view, and he wondered if she had been having proper meals or not.
Fu Zhi remained unperturbed when she heard Lu Yumo’s answer. She slowly raised her head and looked at him silently. Just as Lu Yumo thought she was not going to say anything, she opened her mouth and said, emphasizing every syllable that tumbled off her tongue, “Is that so? How are you going to explain why Zhou Tingting showed up at the research institute?”
Lu Yumo was shocked. He snapped his head back to face Fu Zhi and retorted, “That’s not possible! There’s no way she would go to the research institute!”
“Then what?” Fu Zhi asked, “Are you saying that I’m calumniating her?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Under normal circumstances, Lu Yumo would not have given such a definite answer, but it was different this time.
To protect his own limbs as well as his love, who was as fragile as a bubble, he had thrown the access card into a pool at school after a lot of consideration.
The pool was about three meters deep, so it would be impossible for anyone to fish the card up once it sank to the bottom. Besides, he had told Zhou Tingting that neither of them was going to the research institute, and Zhou Tingting had promised him that she would give up on her dream for the sake of his legs.
Lu Yumo knew it was his fault for throwing the access card into the pool, but that was the best solution he had been able to come up with at the time. After all, if he gave the card to Zhou Tingting, Fu Zhi would break his legs, and if he refused to give the card to Zhou Tingting, she would break up with him.
He dared not look Fu Zhi in the eye, so he lowered his head once again. After another long silence that seemed to last for an eternity, he said hesitantly, “In any case, there’s no way she would be there. You must’ve made a mistake!”
*
In the hospital of Yu City…
Both Lu Chuwan and Bai Yao were in the intensive care unit by the time Xu Wei arrived.
Madam Xu’s health had gotten worse due to old age. In combination with her heart disease, she looked even scrawnier after staying for a few days in the hospital.
“Mom, I brought you the supplement. Zhizhi asked me to tell you that this supplement cannot be taken with cold-natured medicine, as their medicinal properties are different,” Xu Wei said as she took the bottle out of her purse and put it on the table.
She did not even spare Bai Yao and Lu Chuwan a glance or a greeting, instead treating them as if they were invisible. After she finished speaking, she walked to the other side and took a seat.
Averting her gaze from the bottle, Madam Lu pulled her blanket and asked Xu Wei, “I heard that Fu Zhi tore Wanwan’s dress during the public speaking competition?”
Madam Lu did not like Fu Zhi because she thought Fu Zhi did not deserve to become one of them. After all, the Lu Family was one of the aristocratic families of Yu City, while Fu Zhi was a low-born girl from the countryside. In addition, there was nothing good about her other than her pretty face and, unlike Lu Chuwan, she lacked the ability to bring honor to her family.
Therefore, she had been furious when Bai Yao had obnoxiously told her what had happened at the competition.
Xu Wei thought her ears or her brain were messing with her when she heard this question. She was completely stunned. When she came back to her senses, she raised her voice a little and said, “Where did you hear that, mom? It was Wanwan who took Zhizhi’s dress away. Of course, it ripped apart because the dress had been personally made for Zhizhi based on her body size!”
Xu Wei shot up from her chair, startling Madam Lu. Bai Yao’s face turned grim as she interjected. “It’s all your fault, yet you’re still complaining. Had you treated both of them equally or at least gotten Wanwan a better dress, none of this would’ve happened. Most importantly, no matter how beautifully Fu Zhi is dressed, you still can’t change the fact that she’s academically inept!”
After saying that, she turned to Lu Chuwan and said, “See, Wanwan? Look at what your Aunt Xu Wei is doing to us! How can you still ask me not to get angry with her? Look at her attitude. She’s just taking advantage of us!”
Whenever Bai Yao thought about her daughter’s courteous attitude toward Xu Wei, she felt as if a fire was burning inside of her.
In her opinion, there was no need for them to be so good to a relative like Xu Wei, who treated an outsider better than her own kind.
Bai Yao’s words reminded Lu Chuwan of the incident that had happened yesterday.
Even today, she still could not fathom why Xu Wei had insisted on forcing her to take off the dress. After all, it was just a normal handmade dress. What’s more, she had already said that she was going to pay Xu Wei back after the competition, but Xu Wei had still wanted to embarrass her in front of her classmates.
Everyone had been doting on her from a young age, so she had never experienced such humiliation before.
She turned her head to the side.
Xu Wei knew her niece was waiting for her to comfort her. She grasped her purse tightly, mustered up her strength, and told Madam Lu, “Zhizhi is a good girl and she has never hurt anyone before. You’re now taking the supplement she made, so you’re not allowed to question her!
“Zhizhi won first place at the competition, but even if she’d ended up winning nothing, I would still be willing to give her everything I’ve got.”
After saying that, she shot Bai Yao a look and added exasperatedly, “I’m cutting all ties with you. From now on, I don’t want to see you again!”
She was not going to comfort Lu Chuwan either.
Since she did not like Fu Zhi either, Xu Wei had decided to have a clean break with her niece.
Lu Chuwan froze.
After Xu Wei exited the ward, Bai Yao began to complain. “Look at her, mom. Fu Zhi must have put some kind of spell on her! She has never talked back to me like this before!”
Madam Lu did not comment. After a long while, she suddenly asked, “Fu Zhi won first place at the competition?”
In Madam Lu’s opinion, it was great luck for a penniless student like Fu Zhi to join the Lu Family. Bai Yao had not told her about Fu Zhi’s results, so she was genuinely stunned when Xu Wei told her that Fu Zhi had won first place at the competition. After all, considering the education level in a small town, she had not expected Fu Zhi to be able to achieve such a feat.
Lu Chuwan’s heart skipped a beat. She thought for a moment and said softly, “I’m not sure about that. She was supposed to join my class, but I heard from the teacher that they put her in Class 21 because she cheated on the entrance examination and they were afraid that she might affect other students.”
‘So that’s how it is…’
The corners of Madam Lu’s lips turned down, and her blood pressure spiked again.
She grabbed the bottle from the table and popped a pill into her mouth before Lu Chuwan could stop her.
*
Lu Yumo had never felt so devastated before.
He felt that way because of a recording. In the afternoon, Fu Zhi had shown him proof of Zhou Tingting showing up at the research institute by playing the recording of the conversation between her and Du Min.
After the recording ended, she threw him a glance. He looked disappointed.
Lu Yumo was tongue-tied. There was nothing he could say anymore to explain himself. He rushed back to his room and locked himself up.
Several hours had already passed since their confrontation. He looked up at the clock and realized it was 7 p.m. at night. He felt as anxious as if a cat was clawing at his heart.
He did not know where Fu Zhi had gotten Du Min’s WeChat number and he had no idea how he would face Zhou Tingting. He stared at his WeChat, overwhelmed by his guilt.
In the end, he psyched himself up and sent a message to her. “Hey, are you there?”
He waited for three minutes, but there was no response from the other side.
Therefore, he sent another message to her. “I heard that you like bubble tea. How about I treat you to a cup?”
Still, there was no reply.
“Can you say something?”
Fu Zhi still did not reply.
“Do you want to go out later?”
Fu Zhi continued to ignore him.
Even though Fu Zhi was giving Lu Yumo the cold shoulder, he did not give up just like that. He persistently sent about 20 messages to her. He apologized sincerely and explained the whole story to her, but Fu Zhi ignored each and every one of his messages.
Eventually, he ran out of patience and snarled, “Don’t you think you’ve gone overboard? Didn’t I explain it clearly enough? I didn’t give the access card to Zhou Tingting! Can you please say something?
“You don’t believe me?
“Fine! Do whatever you like. I don’t care anymore!
“Don’t come crying to me later to say that you’ve made a mistake. I’ll never forgive you even if you ask dad to break your legs!”
Then, he stopped sending messages to Fu Zhi.
Ten minutes later, Fu Zhi emerged from the bathroom. She picked her phone up and saw the barrage of messages. They were all from her eldest brother, Lu Yumo.
Perhaps he was startled by Fu Zhi’s claim that she would break his legs, as every single one of his messages made her feel that he wanted to amputate her legs as well.
Fu Zhi nodded in understanding.
She screenshotted the conversation and sent the picture to “A Loving Family” before she explained, “Oops, butterfingers.”
However, she did not withdraw the message.
“Ding Dong—Ding Dong—Ding Dong—”
Lu Yumo’s phone rang several times in quick succession, and his heart skipped a beat.
‘No, I must not read the messages right away. I’ve made her realize the gravity of the situation. She has to taste the feeling of emotional abuse as well!’
However, just as this idea formed in his brain, his phone rang again. This time, it was a phone call from his mother. He answered the call, and Xu Wei’s angry voice belted out. “How dare you, Lu Yumo! I’m going to ask your father to amputate your legs tonight!”
Lu Yumo said, “Huh?”
