“You head home first. I will be over in a little bit,” said Feng Zeyu to Shu Yan before he turned and followed Feng Jianghua.
As soon as he had sat down, Feng Zeyu said, “We can skip the pleasantries. Go ahead and tell me what it is that you want. The house is out of the question.”
“Before you hand over to you what your grandparents had left behind, can I first tell you a story?” Feng Jianghua had taken a trip down the memory lane before Feng Zeyu responded to him. “During that special time, there was a 15-year-old young man who went to the village to help with its development. He was so naïve that he thought being in the village, there would be as much meat and alcohol as he had wanted. He only knew how awful life was in the village after he had gotten there. Unfortunately, once you’ve gone to the village, you could not return to the city. He gritted his teeth and toughed it out for three years. Right when he was about to give up, a woman showed up in front of him. She told him that as long as he would marry her, he would no longer need to work in the field and would be able to have enough to eat and a warm bed. The young man agreed. The night of the wedding, the young man’s brother-in-law got him drunk, and he was told by his wife the next day that the two of them were together the night before. A month later, his wife told him that she was pregnant. He was very happy. He worked extremely hard because he was about to be a father. When his wife was 8 months pregnant, she fell and the child was born prematurely. It was a baby boy weighing about 7 pounds. The man was truly happy. Who wouldn’t be when you have a son? Except that, one day, he overheard his wife talking to his mother-in-law and that was when he found out that while his wife was attending senior high school, she had a fling with a man in the city. It didn’t work out, but she found out that she was pregnant after her return. She didn’t dare to go to the hospital, so she had to look for a fool to marry.”
Both men fell silent after the story. After a long while, Feng Zeyu asked, “Did the man’s parents know about it?”
“The idiot went back to the city and married another wife. He quickly had another child of his own. Lo and behold, his wife from the village came looking for him with the child. The fool had already learned that he was a fool. Naturally, he refused to raise the child. That was the smudge in his life. But his parents didn’t know about it and insisted on raising the child. Afterward, the man would always remember how he was a fool every time he saw the child. He couldn’t help but tell the truth to his parents. He had no idea what was going through his parents’ mind, but they continued to treat the child as though he was their real grandson. They even left him their house and wanted the non-blood-related grandson to have the family heirloom.”
After a long while, Feng Zeyu said nonchalantly, “Thank you for telling me the story. It is very interesting.” After another silence, he said, “I will pay you the cost of the cost. Say that I bought it from you. As for the family heirloom, you can keep it for Feng Zehao.”
Shu Yan waited at home for Feng Zeyu to return. She was a bit worried and couldn’t help but give him a call. “How come he isn’t picking up?” She gave Aunty a heads up and left to look for him with a flashlight.
The teahouse told her that Feng Zeyu had left a while ago. Shu Yan went over to the old grandma’s place, but nobody was there.
Shu Yan calmed down and thought about it long and hard. She figured the only thing that could get to Feng Zeyu would be his late grandparents. She asked the old grandma for the whereabouts of Feng Zeyu’s grandparents’ graves and headed over there by herself.
Shu Yan found Feng Zeyu kneeling there in front of the graves and walked over to him. Kneeling down next to him, she said softly, “Hi Grandma and Grandpa. I am Shu Yan. Pardon me for not even having flowers with me today because I came in a rush.”
“They won’t mind that.” Feng Zeyu looked up and gave her a smile that looked worse than a cry. Then, he hugged Shu Yan and started crying. “I am just a joke.”
As it turned out, he hated the wrong person this entire time. Feng Jianghua was being nice not strangling him to death and he wasn’t even the real grandson to his grandparents.
Shu Yan had no idea what had happened, but it must have been something that had rocked Feng Zeyu to the core.
She hugged him and patted him on his shoulder. “I will be here with you no matter what it is. You still have me, JingJing, and Tianbao……”
