Chapter 75 – Extra: If They’d Been Childhood Sweethearts (Part 1)
When Lu Xiao was so anxious at the kindergarten gate that he was about to call the police, he suddenly looked up and saw his dad.
Young and beautiful Shen Ning appeared out of nowhere in this small county town, dazzlingly eye-catching.
Four- or five-year-old Lu Xiao exploded with pent-up longing the moment he saw his father. He burrowed into Shen Ning’s arms and wiped away tears, not knowing whether it was the grievance of not having seen his dad for a long time, or the grievance of a playmate disappearing without saying goodbye.
Shen Ning patted his younger son’s back. “Don’t cry anymore, baby. Daddy’s here to take you home.”
A black business van was parked nearby. The butler, carrying the young master’s backpack, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Lu Xiao had been fooling around here for two months; he’d thought the kid would be having the time of his life. Who knew he’d still cry at the sight of his dad?
Shen Ning picked him up and put him in the car. Lu Xiao glanced back at the place, then hugged his father’s neck tightly in a huff. To four-year-old Lu Xiao, being with Dad was still the most important thing.
Meng Xueyuan had transferred schools—then he’d transfer too!
Shen Ning had come after having a fight with Lu Fengge, and the reason was Lu Xiao. He only found out after returning home that Lu Xiao had decided on his own to attend kindergarten in the southwest. That in itself wasn’t a problem; the problem was that Nan Cheng had been sending him massive amounts of snacks.
Some were mailed back by Shen Ning from France, some were casually bought by Lu Fengge, and some were specially gifted by business friends who knew Lu Fengge had two children… In short, the quantity was astonishing. Lu Lou and Lu Yushu didn’t eat them, and Lu Xiao’s side was like a bottomless pit, swallowing them all.
“Lu Fengge, all you know how to do is hold meetings! He eats so many snacks and you don’t care?!” Shen Ning’s vision went black. He suspected his delicate, jade-carved younger son had already turned into a chubby, cavity-ridden kid. With no one to rein him in in the southwest, was it even healthy to eat that much junk food?
Lu Fengge knew he was at fault. He usually didn’t pay attention. The snacks were sent by the two older sons, and only after adding it all up did he realize how exaggerated the amount was. He immediately had the butler bring Lu Xiao back.
Shen Ning was anxious and rushed to the southwest himself, leaving Lu Fengge behind.
When he saw Lu Xiao, the boy had grown a little taller and looked healthy enough, just somewhat downcast. “What’s wrong, baby?”
Lu Xiao hesitated. He’d been so good to Meng Xueyuan, only to be “betrayed”—that was too embarrassing to admit. He’d watched a lot of TV dramas with his great-grandmother and knew the word “betrayal” was a very sad one.
“I’m fine, Daddy,” he said, but his expression was clearly stifled.
For a moment, Shen Ning suspected Lu Xiao had been bullied by older kids at kindergarten.
Lu Xiao was really very cute and pretty, without any arrogant airs. He looked soft and easy to bully, dressed decently, and if his backpack often held snacks, then in a place where material goods weren’t abundant, the chances of running into bigger kids who “asked” for snacks were high.
Lu Xiao didn’t look like he’d eaten much—so where had all the snacks gone?
Shen Ning asked softly, “Tell Daddy—who did you meet these past two months? Who did you give your snacks to?”
Lu Xiao couldn’t hold in his secret anymore. “I gave them to Meng Xueyuan!”
Shen Ning said, “Who’s Meng Xueyuan? You gave him all your snacks?”
Lu Xiao nodded. “Yes.”
Shen Ning guessed that someone who could eat that many snacks must be older than Lu Xiao.
“So many—could he even finish them?”
“He couldn’t,” Lu Xiao said. “So I sold the snacks to the corner-store owner for money, then secretly stuffed the money into his backpack.”
Shen Ning: “……” Alright, alright. Four years old and already supplying the corner store. In a few years, come work for your dad.
It seemed he’d made a very good friend. There was no need to worry about his second son being bullied intellectually.
Shen Ning asked, “A good friend?”
“He’s my little brother!” Lu Xiao said proudly. “Daddy, he doesn’t eat snacks from anyone else—only mine!”
Shen Ning raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”
Lu Xiao said excitedly, “That means he likes me too. He treats me as his big brother.”
Shen Ning rubbed Lu Xiao’s head. “Son, how exactly did your brain grow like this?”
It seemed to be skewing in a very particular direction.
His son was young and ignorant, force-feeding snacks with all his might, without knowing whether the other kid’s parents were aware their child was eating so much junk food. They might even be worrying about why the kid wouldn’t eat proper meals. Shen Ning felt he had to see that child with his own eyes to be at ease.
Worried, Shen Ning unconsciously imagined a chubby baby.
With Dad as his backer—and Dad not knowing about how he’d squat together waiting for doors to open only to be abandoned—Lu Xiao no longer felt embarrassed saying it. He quickly forgot his sulk and pleaded, “Daddy, my little brother disappeared. Can you help me find him?”
Just then, Shen Ning received a call from Lu Fengge.
Lu Fengge really had been busy lately. He’d only gone out to sign a contract, and when he came back he was told Shen Ning had gone to the southwest.
Recent news about “wife murdered on the way back to her parents’ home” had badly frightened Lu Fengge. His tone on the phone was anything but gentle. “You didn’t even say a word before leaving? How old are you, Shen Ning? How many people did you bring?”
Shen Ning snapped back, “Two bodyguards.”
Lu Fengge was shaken. “You only brought two people and you dared go out? Couldn’t you tell me—”
—so I could go with you.
Shen Ning said, “Oh, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll just stay in the southwest with our son and not go back.”
Lu Fengge: “……”
Lu Xiao’s black-and-white eyes flew wide open. Daddy wasn’t going back? Daddy was staying here?
Did that mean he could go find Meng Xueyuan?
He immediately grabbed his father’s phone, leaned toward the receiver, and bragged loudly to Lu Fengge, “Daddy, I have a little brother now! We’re not going back!”
Lu Fengge almost couldn’t hold onto the phone. What? A little brother? Was this why Shen Ning had been so explosive lately—hormonal changes from pregnancy?
His voice trembled. “What little brother?”
Lu Xiao said, “I picked one up.”
Lu Fengge: “……” Brat. You’re just here to scare your dad.
Shen Ning agreed to help Lu Xiao find him.
Finding someone wasn’t hard for Shen Ning. He got the Meng family’s rental address from the kindergarten teacher, then asked the neighbors. The neighbors said the Meng family lived in Baihua Village, up in the mountains—quite remote.
“Baihua Village,” Shen Ning repeated, suddenly interested in a place with such a name. “Alright, Lu Xiao, do you want to go?”
Lu Xiao nodded emphatically. “I do.”
So Shen Ning set out with his own bodyguards and Lu Xiao’s—seven or eight people in total—drove along a mountain road for quite a while, and finally reached Baihua Village.
…
Meng Xueyuan returned to the family’s tiled house. His parents had gone to argue with the factory owner, leaving him home to sleep.
After waking from his nap, Meng Xueyuan slowly remembered that he wasn’t in kindergarten anymore. On the little bed beside him wasn’t Lu Xiao, and Lu Xiao wouldn’t swap jackets with him anymore.
He put on his jacket himself, dragged over his backpack, and took things out one by one.
He’d already finished all his homework at kindergarten. Every time he finished the last character and put down his pen, Lu Xiao would immediately sweep everything up like a whirlwind, stuff the notebooks into the bag, and drag him out to play while waiting for their parents.
In the evenings at home, Meng Xueyuan never opened his backpack either.
The little “queen bee” baby hadn’t checked his backpack’s contents in a long time.
He took out his homework notebooks first and stacked them neatly, then took out the picture books. Underneath were a few small jelly cups—no wonder the bag had been so heavy.
He tipped the backpack, and suddenly a wad of cash slid out of an inner pocket.
There were fifty-yuan notes and hundred-yuan notes. Meng Xueyuan blinked. Why was there so much money in his backpack?
Had Brother Xiao put it there?
He must have accidentally brought home the money his brother had saved!
He flattened the bills one by one—2,550 yuan in total. He had never seen so much money before.
When his parents came home that evening, Meng Xueyuan pulled his mom into the room, moved aside a pile of books, and revealed the money underneath. “Mom, this is the money Brother Xiao put in my backpack. I want to give it back to him.”
Mom Meng was surprised. She knew her son’s friend was well-off, but to be so careless as to put money in someone else’s backpack—this was really something.
“Mom will go back with you tomorrow to find your brother, okay?”
Meng Xueyuan nodded. “Okay.”
Just as they were talking, the sound of a car horn suddenly came from outside. Mom Meng’s face changed. Around here, the only person who could afford a car was Boss Wang, who wanted to build a factory.
The daytime confrontation had ended without result. Boss Wang not only refused to treat wastewater scientifically, he’d smugly said that in the future Baihua Village would have to beg to work in his factory. Cancer or not, so what—if they got sick, all the better. The young could work at his factory, earn money, and take it home to treat the old. Without his factory, they’d have no way to live.
Boss Wang had long set his sights on Baihua Village’s hardworking people who were unwilling to leave their homeland. He planned to exploit the labor ruthlessly—ideally more than sixteen hours of work a day.
Meng Xueyuan was still a queen-bee baby; before adulthood he didn’t count as a formal queen. At this time, the queen and clan leader of Baihua Village was Chu Jiexiang, who had resolutely said, “Not a single villager from Baihua Village will work for you.”
Afterward, Chu Jiexiang warned Mom Meng that Boss Wang might coerce and bribe people one by one. The Meng family, who raised bees outside the village, would likely be his breakthrough point.
Mom Meng told her son to hide inside, grabbed a broom handle, and prepared to drive Wang away together with Dad Meng.
Two black business vans stopped by the roadside. Several tall bodyguards in shirts stepped out of the front vehicle… Seeing the situation wasn’t right, Dad Meng said in a low voice to his wife, “You go pick up Yuan-yuan and take him out the back door to the mountain apiary for a while.” If anyone attacked the queen-bee baby, the bees would sting them into a mess.
Just then, a young, handsome man stepped out of the car.
Dad Meng urged, “Hurry up—what are you staring at?”
Mom Meng rolled her eyes. “Don’t you think he looks like Yuan-yuan’s friend’s dad?”
She’d only seen Lu Xiao at the kindergarten gate a few times, but this beauty’s looks were at least seventy percent similar. Dad Meng took their son to and from school every day and saw Lu Xiao almost daily—how could he be so slow on the uptake?
The next second, a little kid climbed out of the car and cheerfully called out the moment he got down, “Meng Xueyuan, are you home? I came to find you.”
“Ah!”
Meng Xueyuan, who’d been told not to make a sound, responded instinctively, then clapped a hand over his mouth. His big black-and-white eyes spun around—he knew why his brother had come!
He climbed off the bed, took a packet of money from his backpack, and pattered outside. “Brother, your money.”
Lu Xiao, who’d been reaching out to hug his little brother, immediately put his hand behind his back and said nonchalantly, “That’s your pocket money.”
He had more money, but in Lu Xiao’s mind, only money he earned himself could be given to his little brother as allowance.
Right now he didn’t earn much—mainly because the corner-store owner was too annoying and pressed down the prices of expensive snacks.
Mom Meng thought Shen Ning had brought Lu Xiao to demand the money back. Kids didn’t understand, but adults had their dignity. So she said, “Yuan-yuan, give it to this uncle. Uncle will help you deposit it in the bank so it won’t get lost.”
Shen Ning quickly waved his hands. “No, no, no. Let children handle children’s matters themselves. It’s Lu Xiao—he heard Yuan-yuan transferred schools and couldn’t bear it, so he asked me to bring him here. Sorry, we’ve really disturbed you.”
After Shen Ning declined again, Mom Meng still had to return the money to him.
Meanwhile, the two kids involved had already gone off topic.
With Dad backing him up, Lu Xiao no longer used a fake name—so his brother wouldn’t fail to recognize him someday. He said, “My name is Lu Xiao now. Call me—Brother Lu Xiao.”
Meng Xueyuan didn’t ask why and obediently called out, “Brother Lu Xiao.”
Lu Xiao asked, “Do you know which characters they are?”
Meng Xueyuan shook his head.
Lu Xiao picked up a bamboo twig and wrote on the ground. “It’s the xiao with the roof radical, not the xiao with the rain radical. Don’t write it wrong.”
Meng Xueyuan’s name was even more complicated than his. In kindergarten, none of the other knowledge stuck in Lu Xiao’s head—he’d only learned to write his little brother’s name.
Meng Xueyuan said seriously, “I’ll remember it.”
