CH 12

Shen Wenqiu’s heart became dejected inch by inch with Lu Yong’s silence.

He didn’t expect anything from Lu Yong, but he still wanted to hear some good things from Lu Yong’s mouth, even if it was to fool him. Such as hypocritically and pretentiously persuading him that there was no obstacle that he couldn’t overcome in his life and that he should cheer up and live a good life, and so on.

Go ahead, why don’t you say it?

Lu Yong was just staying silent and didn’t say anything anymore.

Shen Wenqiu thought, in the face of huge debts, even the last bit of friendship between them had disappeared. Is Lu Yong regretting it?

Lu Yong seemed to be pondering something. After a long while, he said in a low voice, “I know because of bankruptcy, your family owes a lot of money, but I thought that a corporate bankruptcy settlement had been filed and that your father was the one primarily responsible. I didn’t think you were carrying such a high debt as well.”

Shen Wenqiu, “Now you know.”

Lu Yong slowly loosened his frown, and he regained his calm expression, “Um.”

Lu Yong stood up and said, “We’ve eaten enough, let’s go back. Want to take a walk?”

That’s all? Shen Wenqiu was stunned, as if they hadn’t had a discussion before, or did Lu Yong feel that it wasn’t a matter of concern to him? What’s with the calm attitude? As if the problem disappeared if he pretended not to see it.

Shen Wenqiu found it ridiculous but facing Lu Yong’s quiet and calm eyes like lake water, the irritability in his heart was inexplicably extinguished, and he had an illusion that this was not a big deal as well.

Forget it.

When he thought about it, what was he expecting from Lu Yong? They were just friends in general, even if Lu Yong encouraged him wholeheartedly, would he listen? It was not as if no other friend had encouraged him before, but he just couldn’t listen and couldn’t pull himself together.

He felt like in paradise here with Lu Yong, a place where he could hide for a while before he died and lived his last good life.

The fact that Lu Yong didn’t dislike him and was being so generous showed that he had done everything he could. 

Shen Wenqiu followed and stood up, “Let’s go.”

When they got home, each of them washed up and went to bed.

Lu Yong said to him earnestly as usual before going to bed, “Good night, Xiao Baa.”

Shen Wenqiu replied almost numbly, “Good night, Dayong.” After he said that, he felt a little funny and laughed.

Lu Yong asked, “What are you laughing at?”

Shen Wenqiu sized him up as if he saw him in a whole new light and said, “I should apologize to you. I had also said several times on how could you become president. Now it seems that I haven’t seen it clearly. You are indeed a qualified boss now.”

Lu Yong didn’t understand and vaguely felt that something was wrong. He stood up straight, turned towards Shen Wenqiu, and said, “…Thank you.”

Shen Wenqiu laughed even more.

Lu Yong said, “As long as you’re happy.”

Lu Yong returned to the bedroom, closed the door, and switched on only one bedside lamp.

He only wore loose boxer shorts and a piece of inner. Sitting at the bedside, he neatly piled up his bankbook, real estate certificate, vehicle registration certificate, and other exchangeable funds. He first calculated them mentally, and he still felt worried, then used a calculator to calculate them.

Lu Yong put down the calculator, dismantled his metal arm, and disinfected the arm with alcohol cotton pads, thinking distractedly: Not enough, huh… It should be able to pay back slowly in installments, right?

Lu Yong put his dismantled arm on the table beside, sorted out all the documents, kept them on the bedside table, thought about it, and locked it.

But Xiao Baa would not agree to helping him pay off the debt. It is not “might” but he just knows it’s “for sure”.

If it weren’t for Shen Qiu’s words, he wouldn’t necessarily be in this business now.

Lu Yong considered himself a hard-working person, and had always taken the initiative to help his father with his work. Neighbors in the neighborhood praised him as a good, filial, and hardworking son, but his father was not very happy.

His father only had an elementary school diploma. He was not an educated person. He couldn’t talk about major principles. When he was free, he often told him, “You study hard, and sit in the office to work in the future. Don’t be like Dad, doing such dirty and hard work.”

“You have to learn from your cousins, and become a teacher, lawyer, or civil servant in the future. You should get secured employment, so that you can be respectable.”

He would also often advise Lu Yong to work less, especially in high school. After he made a friend of Shen Wenqiu, a rich young master, his father prevented him from helping more often.

“Don’t help, dad is okay, I can handle everything by myself, don’t add more troubles for me. What if your classmate comes over and sees it?”

“Your hand is a writing hand, so use it less for moving things. It will be bad if you can’t do your homework if you are injured.”

“It’s Dad’s fault that you have to do this kind of work…”

“If you have the time to carry these things, it’s better if you can bring something to Xiao Baa. He has helped you so much, we have to return his help, right? Go play with Xiao Baa more. Didn’t he say that your grandma’s taro shreds were delicious last time?. And the countryside chicken, bring one over to him…”

However, he never changed. He still requested to help his dad.

He was not afraid of being seen by Shen Wenqiu. He had been seen once before. He was a little shameful at that time, and felt the situation was indeed embarrassing. Afterwards, Shen Wenqiu came over and said he wanted to lend a hand.

Then they really kept themselves busy the whole afternoon. Lu Yong didn’t dare to tire him, he just let Shen Wenqiu follow him, doing some trivial work, and the two were laughing and joking. Shen Wenqiu didn’t seem to be here to help and seemed more to be a hindrance.

He was like a curious and naughty puppy following closely at the foot, Lu Yong was afraid of turning around and stepping on him if he didn’t pay attention.

But since Shen Wenqiu was on the side talking to him and laughing, Lu Yong felt that time passed very fast, and he seemed to have endless strength in his body. He wanted to show his capabilities in front of Shen Wenqiu. Although he lacked one hand, he was also very capable.

However, he didn’t let Shen Wenqiu do any work, and the young master Shen still managed to be drenched in sweat. He wiped his face with dirty gloves, black marks one after another, turning into a dirty-faced tabby cat.

After the work was done, they sat together drinking iced soda.

Lu Yong asked, “Tired?”

Shen Wenqiu drooped his face and said, “I’m exhausted, if I had known, I wouldn’t have participated. My hands are so sore. Quickly give me a massage. I’m working really hard, I’ll have to get my dad to compliment me when I get back.”

Lu Yong asked amused, “Is that what you called as helping? You are making trouble. Are you going to come back and make trouble next time?”

Shen Wenqiu shook his head frantically, “No, no, I’m tired to death.”

This was just him being delicate, he didn’t really dislike the work.

Shen Wenqiu gulped and finished a bottle of soda, burped, turned his head to look at him and said, “I actually thought you said you wanted to help the family with work because you were forced by the family financial condition. Today I feel that… You seem to be doing the work quite happily.”

These words sounded like he was insulting him, but Lu Yong’s heart warmed up and he grinned happily, “En!”

This was something he was never embarrassed to say to anyone.

Because in elementary school, there was one time when the language teacher assigned an essay with the topic “Future Dream”, and then he wrote an essay, the main content was that he liked to pick up garbage, he wanted to pick up garbage even after he grew up.

Of course, when he was eleven or twelve years old, he wrote very naively. This composition not only got a failing grade but was also criticized by the teacher and ridiculed by his classmates. After reading it, his father was also very angry, and scolded him for being small-minded and forbade him to say that he wanted to do this in the future.

So he kept his thoughts to the bottom of his heart.

That was the first time he opened up to a friend of the same age, and said, “Others will only laugh at me… I like to find a good thing that no one else has discovered from so many seemingly worthless scraps. Every time I find it, I will be very happy.”

Shen Wenqiu understood him without being explained, and gave out an analogy, “It’s like digging a treasure chest on the road when I play a game, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Lu Yong said logically. “Some things seem to be useless to different people. They dismiss it and treat it as rubbish, so I take advantage of it. I can collect them cheaply and use some methods to turn them into valuable treasure.”

“You can’t just buy blindly in this business. I told you once…”

Lu Yong told Shen Wenqiu many stories about his personal experience.

For example, a man once sold his deceased father’s collection of books by catty. There were many precious ancient books in it. He kept all of them and gave them to an old professor, and those books are now displayed in the city museum.

Another example, he found a parcel that was lost ten years ago. He contacted the owner, a lady, and realized that the parcel was a gift from her late husband when they were still dating.

He had never told these stories to anyone before, and no one else would be interested, only Shen Wenqiu would look at him with bright eyes, admiring, and marveling, making him gradually feel a sense of pride.

Shen Wenqiu listened with great interest.

Lu Yong rarely talked so much, telling a series of stories one after another, and said, “But my father will not allow me to do this line of work in the future. He wants me to be a lawyer or a civil servant.”

Shen Wenqiu encouraged him, “You do what you want to do, and I’ll support you! By the way, I remember that I watched the news network a few days ago and saw that there seemed to be some related policies being issued. You should pay more attention to it.”

In fact, he had been paying attention to the news. Lu Yong thought that he had his own determination, but if the people he liked also recognized him for supporting him, he would have more courage.

It just so happened that a few days later, the language essay topic of the monthly exam was “Get on the Road with Dreams”.

Lu Yong wrote another essay about his future desire to engage in the recycling industry. He did it in one go, expressing his ideas from the perspective of environmental protection and humanities. The language was plain and not fancy, but every word written carried his sincere intention.

Unlike the essay he wrote in elementary school, he got a high score of 56 this time.

The teacher specifically praised him by name for his ambitious determination  and sentiment.

As a model essay, he was praised in the class.

This was the first time for Lu Yong, a science student, to be praised in the subject of language.

After class, the boys in the class made a fuss.

Someone took his essay and read it aloud in a weird tone, and then said, “At the end, isn’t it just a plan to open a recycling center? It sounds like a great deal, but it’s just a bogus, hahahaha.”

“What are you doing? No matter what you do, there’s always someone who is an expert at it. Is being an expert at recycling not allowed?”

“I heard that it is very profitable to open a recycling center. It is good to be able to make money. What’s the problem?”

Lu Yong couldn’t laugh, and sat awkwardly in the corner.

He was not angry, but Shen Wenqiu flushed with anger. As if Shen Wenqiu was protecting his child, he said loudly, “What are you laughing at? A group of idiots! How do ordinary people know the ambitions of heroes!”

At that time, Shen Wenqiu actually failed to help him out of embarrassment. Instead, he provoked more laughter, making the classroom filled with cheerful laughter.

Lu Yong was not angry or embarrassed. It didn’t matter if others didn’t understand him. It would be fine if Shen Wenqiu stood by his side.

Probably not even Shen Wenqiu himself knew that a sentence he accidentally gave the gloomy disabled teenager the courage to dream.

The author has something to say:

My intention of writing this novel was laughed at before, but in fact I wanted to treat it earnestly. *scratches head* I always only write everything about stories that revolve around love, this time I wanted to try to add something in. It may be unsuccessful, but I’ll try it first anyway.

I looked up a lot of information. That’s why it’s been left for a long time and it hasn’t been updated. Finally, I felt that I was still writing unprofessionally. If I was an amateur, it would be impossible to just read the papers and be proficient right?