Chapter 8
Seeing her in her school uniform, he still felt that she looked pretty good.
"Don\'t even mention it, my head\'s spinning." Zhou Rui, that calf, is constantly trying to find ways to get me to leave. If I give up so easily, wouldn\'t I just be letting that brat get cocky?"
"Do a mother and son need to care so much about these details?" Hou Ranxi leaned against the fence and asked.
"I have to figure out what kind of person he is, I really didn\'t expect that coming to school would make things more confusing. I really haven\'t used my brain much these past ten years or so, my IQ has dropped severely!" Every time Chai Meicen thought about it, she felt a headache coming on.
Zhou Rui wouldn\'t say why he got into a fight, his friend didn\'t know the reason either, and there seemed to be a lot of things Zhou Rui was keeping from her at school. Many things were making her unable to just up and leave.
"If it really doesn\'t work out, I can go ask around for you? Not using your brain is fine too, I\'m here for you. I\'ll make sure the most tiring thing you have to do is count money."
"No need, I can handle it. You just focus on work." Chai Meicen righteously refused.
In fact, she had been too lazy to even count money these past few years. She trusted Hou Ranxi, so she never checked the books and had no idea how much money was in her account. She just never ran out of money.
Hou Ranxi was the stalwart backing behind her mahjong playing. Even when she lost games in a row, she kept a great attitude.
After speaking, Chai Meicen picked up her things and walked back. Seeing her leaving, Hou Ranxi suddenly called out to stop her.
She turned back and asked: "What is it?"
Hou Ranxi took out his phone and snapped a picture of Chai Meicen, then said: "Nothing now."
"Let me see if the picture looks good or not." Chai Meicen immediately ran back. Hou Ranxi made no attempt to stop her and bluntly showed her the photo on his phone.
After making sure the photo didn\'t look bad, Chai Meicen left.
Hou Ranxi looked at the photo on the screen, long lashes lowered, gazing at it for a long time before putting his phone away and getting in the car.
"Boss Hou, next time you want to deliver something to auntie, just let me do it. You don\'t need to come back specially from Shanghai. It\'s not like you\'re delivering something to Vice President Chai..." The driver started up the car.
"Oh..."
"Where to?"
"The airport." He had to get back to Shanghai.
*
On the way back holding her things, Chai Meicen happened to pass by the school sports field and unintentionally saw Zhou Rui.
Zhou Rui stood in the shade of the trees by the sports field, head lowered as he spoke to a girl.
Chai Meicen immediately perked up and hid behind the bushes to peep.
The tree trunk was enormous, easily able to obscure two people. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the tree, dappling the two people with speckled shadows, as if diamonds had been scattered on the ground.
The girl Zhou Rui was talking to was very pretty. You could tell she was the type who liked to dress up, with light makeup on her face.
As she spoke, her hands were clasped behind her back. She looked up at the taller Zhou Rui, eyes fluttering.
It seemed this made her look cuter or more pitiful.
However, in Chai Meicen\'s eyes, she suspected Zhou Rui was threatening the poor girl, demanding protection fees.
The scene looked like a confession from a Japanese comic, but then suddenly the mood changed as the girl raised her hand and slapped Zhou Rui.
Zhou Rui was very unhappy after being hit. He saw the girl trying to leave and reached out to grab her backpack strap, not letting her go.
She turned back to look at Zhou Rui, only to see him snatch away her bag and rummage through it, taking out makeup removal wipes that he pressed to her face and rubbed a few times before letting her go.
Very nasty of him, he just removed the eye makeup on one side.
Zhou Rui threw the bag on the ground and yelled at her: "What\'s with you, don\'t you know what\'s up in your own heart?"
"You\'re scum!" The girl was so angry she was panting heavily, chest heaving as she was extremely upset.
"F*** off! Don\'t contact me again in the future, chattering on every day, are you a parrot? Making up stories, you\'re really first-class at it, a creative parrot." Zhou Rui spat and then stomped away angrily. After a few steps, he saw Chai Meicen in her awkward peeping posture.
Zhou Rui paused mid-step. Seeing Chai Meicen, he couldn\'t help but laugh.
"Come here, come here." Zhou Rui waved Chai Meicen over.
"What\'s going on, you\'ve made the little girl cry." Chai Meicen immediately went to Zhou Rui\'s side and asked.
"She was pursuing me but didn\'t succeed, so she got angry and upset."
"You, you..." Chai Meicen wanted to say something. She looked back again to check on the girl, wanting to see if something had happened. But the girl glared at her.
"What about me?" Zhou Rui asked as he briskly walked towards the classroom.
"Don\'t tell me you got the girl pregnant?"
Chai Meicen finished asking. Zhou Rui paused mid-step and looked back at her. He pushed her forehead with his index finger and asked: "What kinds of things are in your head?"
"Then why did she hit you?"
"Know your own identity, you\'re my mom!" Zhou Rui stopped and told Chai Meicen.
"Right."
"I just got hit by someone, you saw it too. Shouldn\'t you have rushed over and slapped that girl?"
"I can\'t just hit people without asking what happened first. If you did something wrong to her, and I go hit her, wouldn\'t that be going overboard?"
Chai Meicen was in no hurry to return to the classroom either. She went to sit on a bench by the sports field and patted the space beside her. "Come, sit down and chat with me."
Zhou Rui had been angry and didn\'t want to talk to anyone, but the one calling him over was Chai Meicen.
He finally sat down next to Chai Meicen, sulking to himself angrily.
"How could you wrong the little girl, angering her to the point of hitting you?" Chai Meicen was afraid of asking too bluntly, so she spoke carefully.
"She did something indecent first. I stated it frankly and she got upset over it."
"It wasn\'t you doing wrong by the girl?"
"No."
"Then why did she call you scum?"
Zhou Rui really didn\'t want to tell his mom about his messy affairs. He agonized over it for a long time but didn\'t know how to bring it up.
Chai Meicen was extremely worried. She waited a long time but Zhou Rui still didn\'t speak, so she directly stood up and told Zhou Rui: "Forget it, stop asking. I know what\'s going on in my heart, I didn\'t wrong the girl, don\'t worry."
"You not telling me anything makes me worry even more." Chai Meicen was anxious, so she decisively grabbed Zhou Rui\'s wrist.
He could tell Chai Meicen was anxious.
After hesitating for a while, biting his lip, Zhou Rui sighed and said: "I know you\'re anxious, but I\'m not in a good mood right now. If we force this talk, we\'ll definitely end up arguing. So let me calm down first, and I\'ll come talk to you about this later, okay?"
"Okay."
Zhou Rui walked a few steps, then turned back to tell Chai Meicen: "Also, our school has a sex education class that teaches contraception knowledge, so we won\'t get anyone pregnant. You underestimate high schoolers these days."
After saying that, he left entirely.
Chai Meicen watched Zhou Rui leave and couldn\'t help but purse her lips.
Her parents never talked about anything related to sex, and didn\'t teach her any contraceptive knowledge either. There were no such classes at her school. After secretly kissing Zhou Rui\'s father, she worried for a long time, afraid she might get pregnant. Zhou Rui\'s father laughed at her for a long time.
But in the end, the two of them were still ignorant about this. They were each other\'s first love, and hadn\'t learned anything. Zhou Rui was an accidental result.
"There are classes like this...not bad." She couldn\'t help but grumble.
*
On the weekend, it was Hou Ranxi driving over to pick up the both of them to go back.
Previously, it had always been Chai Meicen driving over to pick up Zhou Rui, though most of the time Zhou Rui just went back himself.
Ever since middle school, Zhou Rui didn\'t really need Chai Meicen to pick him up and drop him off. After all, pickups and drop offs were for traffic safety, also to prevent getting kidnapped.
Starting in middle school, Zhou Rui was already very tall. Generally robbers wouldn\'t try to rob someone who looked even more thuggish than themselves.
If someone really tried to kidnap Zhou Rui, they\'d have to be out of their mind!
This time, Hou Ranxi personally drove over to pick up. Zhou Rui sat alone in the back, and couldn\'t help making a sarcastic remark: "Whoa, the treatment is different! Just like a family of three, not bad at all."
The two people didn\'t respond to him.
"How was school this week?" As he drove, Hou Ranxi asked Chai Meicen.
Chai Meicen rubbed the bridge of her nose with her hand and answered: "Don\'t even mention it, I\'m dizzy."
"Do you have a dorm room yet?"
"Still staying in the staff dorms. They said they\'ll clear out a room for me soon."
Chai Meicen had transferred late, so she didn\'t have a dorm yet. They finally decided to order another bed to add into a dorm room, so Chai Meicen could move in.
That night, Hou Ranxi didn\'t leave immediately. After eating dinner at Chai Meicen\'s place, he went to Zhou Rui\'s room and asked: "I\'ll take you to get washed up?"
Zhou Rui was lying on his bed playing on his phone. He glanced at Hou Ranxi and couldn\'t help but laugh. "In the end, mom still called you out of seclusion."
"Yeah, she called me after all. I\'ll drive you over."
Zhou Rui lay motionless on the bed, lazily saying: "Don\'t wanna move."
"Hurry up and get up. After we get out I\'ll find a place with fewer people to teach you how to drive." Hou Ranxi sat on the edge of the bed and pinched Zhou Rui\'s calf.
Zhou Rui immediately sat up, happy: "I get to just practice driving?"
"I\'ll gift you a car when you turn 18, kiddo."
"I like Ferraris." Zhou Rui shamelessly tried to take a mile when given an inch.
"Grow up a little."
"A Bentley works too."
"If you don\'t get up soon, there won\'t be hotpot."
"Getting up, getting up!" Zhou Rui sprang up in a flash and started gathering his things to head out.
The bath center they went to was of course not some shady establishment from the news, but a proper bathhouse called Northeastern Xing. Business wasn\'t as good in summer as winter though.
After entering, there was also a gym and spa. Hou Ranxi wasn\'t bringing Zhou Rui here for the first time. Usually he would also arrange a massage for Zhou Rui.
Every time, Zhou Rui would be kneaded until he was yelping in pain, while Hou Ranxi sat to the side working on his laptop.
It seemed like this time, Hou Ranxi had something he wanted to say the whole time. Zhou Rui was in no rush either, leisurely soaking in the pool as he waited for Hou Ranxi to beat around the bush asking him.
Hou Ranxi usually wore glasses. When soaking in the baths, he would take them off.
These glasses were also mystical — wearing them gave a somewhat abstinent impression, but taking them off gave a completely different feeling.
Hou Ranxi was rather good-looking. With this appearance, placed in the world of the wealthy elite, he would absolutely drive women crazy. It was impressive he had maintained being single for so many years.
Worth mentioning was Hou Ranxi\'s figure. He looked scholarly and refined, but he worked out regularly, didn\'t smoke, and didn\'t drink when he wasn\'t out socializing. His figure was amazing, without a hint of a beer belly, and standard eight-pack abs.
And so, Hou Ranxi sat there with a gloomy look beside Zhou Rui. Zhou Rui was in no rush, leisurely waiting for Hou Ranxi to ask him in a roundabout way.
Since Chai Meicen was a single mother, she had asked Hou Ranxi to fish for information from Zhou Rui countless times before.
If one day Chai Meicen suddenly found someone to be his dad, and that person was Hou Ranxi, Zhou Rui wouldn\'t need any period of adjustment at all. After all, Hou Ranxi had always played the role of a father figure to him, he just never admitted his feelings.
"How is she at school?" Hou Ranxi finally asked.
As expected, he was still more concerned about Chai Meicen, and would only ask about Zhou Rui afterwards.
"My mom is really popular. She just came to our school for four days and she\'s already about to replace the school belle. Many of the boys are asking her for her WeChat ID, and she naively agreed to all of them. Just last night my mom sent me a message saying some boy kept singing to her and asked me if this boy had some mental issues."
"She was already very popular when she was a student. The kids nowadays are even more direct and daring. I actually expected this to happen," Hou Ranxi said quite calmly, even able to respond with a smile.
Zhou Rui looked at Hou Ranxi, once again suspecting that Hou Ranxi liked his mom.
After thinking for a bit, he continued: "At first I told them she was my relative. Later no one believed it anymore, because they remembered I don\'t have any relatives or any relatives that come around. I can\'t exactly tell them she\'s my mom, right?"
Hou Ranxi nodded and smiled, "They probably mistook her for your girlfriend, right?"
"Ah... There really were some idiots who said that. It pissed me off. Spreading rumors like that makes me feel disgusted," Zhou Rui said.
"The innocent have nothing to hide. Your relationship with your mom is more like that of friends, or bros. Over time, they won\'t speculate anymore," Hou Ranxi said.
Zhou Rui changed his posture, causing water to splash around. He couldn\'t help but ask Hou Ranxi, "Aren\'t you going to ask me anything on behalf of my mom?"
"She didn\'t tell me to ask, so I won\'t interfere," Hou Ranxi said.
"Huh? Then why did you bring me here this time?" Zhou Rui was confused now.
Embarrassed, Hou Ranxi let out an awkward laugh and scratched his nose. Then he moved closer to Zhou Rui and whispered, "Your mom told me to secretly come check if you need to get circumcised."
"..." Zhou Rui froze in the bath, nearly smoking from his seven orifices in anger.
"Um... Do you think you need it done?" Hou Ranxi asked again.
"If you ask again, I\'ll block you," Zhou Rui threatened.
Hou Ranxi felt very wronged and quickly said, "Your mom sent me to do this."
"Ah... It\'s my dear mom. What can you do when you run into this? Stay calm, stay calm," Zhou Rui said, patting his own chest to comfort himself.
Seeing Zhou Rui\'s reaction made Hou Ranxi laugh until he couldn\'t stop for a long time.