“…”

Lu Haochu had thought that even if he was exposed, he could hold on for a few minutes, but unexpectedly… he was instantly busted.

He hastily said, “Oh, so it’s not… It’s alright, it’s alright, then I’ll go look again.”

Lu Junchi pretended to remain calm and took the cat, examining it. He said, “It really looks alike… I didn’t recognize it at first glance. Lu Haochu, I’ll have to trouble you again.”

His acting was so natural, as if he had just found out as well.

The little cat, who had been brought along without understanding the situation, meowed.

Lu Haochu tried to defuse the situation. “Don’t worry, leave it to me.”

Su Hui took the initiative. “You’ve been running around all day looking for the cat, right? It’s getting late today. Why don’t you stay and have dinner together?”

Lu Junchi took advantage of the situation. “Since Su Teacher said so, I’ll go cook a few dishes.”

Lu Haochu was waiting for this opportunity. He quickly put down his bag and said, “I’m tired of the cafeteria food at my school. Brother, even a simple vegetable stir-fry made by you is delicious. Oh, and add scrambled eggs for me!”

Lu Junchi went to cook while Lu Haochu sat in the living room chatting with Su Hui. Lu Haochu asked about puzzles, and Su Hui began introducing various ones. He pointed to the puzzle in front of them and said, “This puzzle is called ‘THE ACCIDENT’.”

Lu Haochu understood and said, “An accident… I’m familiar with that word because my parents used to say it when I was a child. My arrival was an unexpected accident. They didn’t originally plan for a second child, but I was born unexpectedly.”

Lu Haochu glanced towards the kitchen to make sure Lu Junchi wasn’t around before continuing, “Look at my brother, he’s the epitome of an elite, capable of anything. He was the ideal child, the one that other families had. Having such an example set before me, it’s hard for me to surpass him. Compared to him, I’m messy, lazy in tidying up the house, my academic performance is poor, I frequently fall ill, and I love playing around. I even got lost twice when I was a child…”

Su Hui made a sound of acknowledgment, as some of these things had been mentioned by Lu Junchi to him.

“On my tenth birthday, I asked my mom if they didn’t love me because I was an accident. At that time, my mom said, ‘No, how can life be without accidents? Although you bring a lot of trouble to the family, you also bring more joy. With you around, even ordinary things become fun, full of variables. Looking back, there are many more memories, and we have many more topics to talk about. When we raised your brother, everything went smoothly, plain and unchallenging.'”

“Those words greatly comforted me, and I felt that my life was quite meaningful.” Lu Haochu looked at the puzzle in front of him and continued, “So I think sometimes accidents happen, but the final outcome can be good or bad, just like the story of the old man losing his horse.”

Su Hui knew all these truths, and he understood that Lu Haochu deliberately brought them up to cheer him up. His words did indeed have a soothing effect.

As the two chatted, the little cat had been put back into the backpack by Lu Haochu. It glanced around the unfamiliar environment but didn’t seem shy. It crawled out and found the cat food bowl on its own, silently starting to eat. In a short while, it had eaten half of the bowl of cat food.

Such a tiny cat, lifting its face with teary eyes, looked pitiful and yet had eaten so much…

Su Hui suddenly remembered a meme: small, pitiful, but able to eat.

Lu Haochu noticed and turned his head. “Ah, this little guy knows how to mooch off others for food.”

“Probably didn’t eat enough outside…” Su Hui replied with a touch of concern, then asked, “Do you have a place to accommodate this cat over there?”

Lu Haochu said, “Yeah, the management at our girls’ dormitory is lenient. They allow pets, and several girls are already lining up to adopt it.”

Su Hui finally felt relieved and nodded.

This cat resembled Aristotle in appearance, but its temperament was completely different. It had a soft voice when it meowed, a gentle and tender sound that evoked a sense of compassion. It seemed to hear people talking about it and meowed a couple of times.

Lu Haochu had a sweet mouth and was talkative. With Lu Junchi not present, he started by selling his own older brother and told many interesting stories about Lu Junchi’s childhood.

“My parents trusted my brother completely, and he was the one who made decisions at home most of the time. You might not believe it, but despite his dignified and composed appearance, he’s incredibly gentle when you get to know him. He’s adept at both social gatherings and cooking in the kitchen. In reality, he’s a mysterious mix of being reserved, having double standards, and being cunning… He’s also very formidable in fights. When we were kids, none of the troublemakers in our neighborhood dared to mess with him.”

“I realized that my brother is cunning because when we were young, one time, my cousin from Aunt’s house came to our place. My brother pretended to take care of him, but that little brat ended up breaking my toys. He told me to endure it, and that little brat went even further and nearly destroyed all of my toys. When Aunt was about to leave, I cried and said that he broke my toys. My parents, in their magnanimity, consoled me, saying that toys are not worth much, and I shouldn’t be so petty.”

Listening to this, Su Hui found it to be a common occurrence in most households, and the way parents handled it seemed reasonable.

Lu Haochu continued, “But my brother had prepared in advance. He took out a catalog and several receipts for toy purchases, laying out all the broken toys as evidence on the table. Then, he spoke firmly and calculated the costs, totaling over 500 yuan. Finally, he said to Aunt, ‘My parents have taught us since we were young that if we break something, we should compensate for it. Your child is still young and doesn’t understand, but I believe Aunt, you’re not young anymore, and as adults, you should set an example.'”

“With such solid reasoning and evidence, my parents couldn’t really intervene. At that moment, Aunt’s face turned green as she compensated the money. Later, my brother took me to buy the toys again. At that time, I thought having a brother was really great.”

Su Hui chuckled and lowered his head upon hearing this. It was something Lu Junchi would do, and he thought Lu Junchi did the right thing. He couldn’t help but applaud him in his mind.

It was the same in the Bureau. Everyone knew that Lu Junchi had a good temperament, but he never suffered losses.

“When my brother encounters someone he doesn’t like, he won’t even speak to them, being all cold and aloof. But if he accepts you, he would go the extra mile to help you with anything… Su Teacher, I can tell that he considers you his best friend.”

“He’s a bit of a neat freak, always keeping the house spotless, and his clothes are always wrinkle-free. He’s disciplined to the point of being extreme. In front of others, he has a thin skin. Sometimes when I joke with him, he lowers his head and smiles, but when we get home, he can refute me with a few words until I feel cornered…”

Suddenly understanding another side of Lu Junchi was quite interesting.

Su Hui asked, “Has he ever been in a relationship with anyone?”

“There were quite a few girls who pursued him in the past, but he turned them down cleanly and decisively, without any mercy. He even had a grand excuse, saying he didn’t want to hinder them…”

Lu Haochu said, “As far as I know, he only had an online relationship with someone when I was in my third year of high school… I could hardly believe it. I never expected my brother to engage in online dating. But he was genuinely happy with his phone, unable to hide it…”

He thought for a moment and added a detail, “By the way, although my brother can cook when he’s abroad, he only knows the basics. During that time, because of his relationship, he practiced his cooking skills every day and searched for tutorials online. That’s how his culinary skills improved by leaps and bounds. Su Teacher, can you imagine my brother making chicken soup for his partner? It’s like ‘one generation plants the trees, and the next generation enjoys the shade.’ That’s why my brother’s cooking tastes so delicious now.”

Lu Haochu revealed his brother’s romantic history, but then he realized that Su Hui wasn’t a girl, and moreover, he wasn’t a stranger, so he decided to tell everything.

Upon hearing this, Su Hui felt a twinge of sourness in his heart and said, “I didn’t expect your brother to be so enlightened…” In his eyes, Lu Junchi was a somewhat serious person, and he never thought he would engage in online dating.

Lu Haochu lowered his voice and said, “At that time, my parents stayed in China for a while to accompany me during my college entrance examination. They urged my brother to bring his partner to meet them. But in the end, I don’t know why, they broke up, so I’m not allowed to bring it up. But that was two years ago, Su Teacher, please pretend you don’t know, and don’t mention that I told you.”

Su Hui responded with an “Oh.”

Suddenly, Lu Junchi in the kitchen felt his nose itching and grabbed a tissue, sneezing a few times in a row.

Lu Haochu thoroughly shared the details about his brother, and then he began talking about various interesting incidents at school.

He told Su Hui that this semester, Director Liao took over Su Hui’s elective class, and on the first day of class, students were asking where Su Teacher was. He mentioned that even the usually serious Dean Wang had his hair blown away during the flag-raising ceremony, revealing his baldness. He also mentioned that there was a popular tabletop game in the school recently, set in the Cthulhu background, and he would teach Su Hui how to play it later.

He told stories like a stand-up comedian, making Su Hui’s eyes and brows curl with amusement.

Lu Junchi quickly prepared three dishes and a soup, bringing them to the table.

The dishes were pre-prepared in the refrigerator: cola chicken wings, stir-fried eggplant strips, and shrimp with scrambled eggs. The soup was a winter melon and meatball soup.

The dishes were delicious, home-style yet extraordinary, and the three of them quickly finished their meal.

After putting away the bowls and chopsticks, Lu Haochu, the one who came to freeload, took the initiative to wash the dishes, picked up the kitten, and put it in his backpack, ready to go back to school.

Lu Junchi saw him getting up and said, “I’ll walk you downstairs and also look for the cat in the courtyard.”

Su Hui also said, “I want to go downstairs and search as well.”

The three of them went downstairs together, sending off Lu Haochu while searching for the route Aristotle had taken to escape from the courtyard yesterday.

Lu Junchi and Lu Haochu walked ahead, and Lu Junchi asked, “What were you talking about just now? I heard you having a lively conversation in the kitchen.”

Lu Haochu felt particularly guilty and looked at his brother, saying, “It’s all school-related stuff, hahaha…”

As they passed by a trash bin, Su Hui suddenly said, “I think I heard a cat meowing.”

Lu Haochu and Lu Junchi exchanged a glance. The kitten in Lu Haochu’s bag wasn’t making any sound, and they didn’t hear any other meows either.

However, Su Hui had mentioned it, so Lu Junchi still walked over. He noticed a cardboard box next to the trash bin and suddenly remembered that Aristotle’s favorite game was to hide in boxes. Those cardboard boxes had much more appeal to him than the comforts of home.

As he opened the cardboard box, he saw Aristotle sitting inside, dirty and famished.

This cat still knew its way around. At some point, it had snuck back into the courtyard from outside, like a child who ran away from home and didn’t dare to return, hiding in a cardboard box tens of meters away from the building. Aristotle’s stubborn expression made it seem like the box was its castle, and it was determined to defend its territory with its life.

Although the cat was dirty and ugly, Lu Junchi still hugged it tightly. “Where did you hide before? We had a hard time finding you.”

Su Hui responded indifferently, “I told you I heard a cat meowing.”

Aristotle, held in Lu Junchi’s arms, let out a meow, and the kitten in Lu Haochu’s bag responded with a meow as well. It was like a duet of cats.

Witnessing this heartwarming scene, Lu Haochu breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s good that we found them. With this task completed, I’ll head back to school.”

Su Hui suddenly said, “Wait.” He reached out and touched the fur of the kitten poking out of the bag, and the kitten looked up at him.

Su Hui asked Lu Haochu, “Can I keep it?”

This was also a stray cat, a small pear blossom cat. It resembled Aristotle to some extent but was much thinner. Su Hui struggled with the decision in his heart but ultimately wanted to have another cat.

Lu Haochu was taken aback for a moment. “Ah, sure, we have many stray cats at our school. I’ll just catch another one for the girls at school.”

Su Hui then asked Lu Junchi, “If we were to keep another cat, would you mind?” Many household matters were handled by Lu Junchi, so he felt that he couldn’t make the decision on his own.

Su Hui asked in a consultative tone, and Lu Junchi, holding Aristotle, gently replied, “Okay, whether it’s one or two cats, I’m fine with it.”

That evening, Lu Junchi and Su Hui took the two cats to the pet store near the residential area. They got them dewormed, vaccinated, gave them baths, and trimmed their nails. Then they brought them back home.

The smaller kitten always chased after Aristotle and occasionally leaned over to rub against him or give a sudden lick. Then it would stare at him with its eyes.

When Aristotle warned the kitten with a paw, it would turn around and run away.

After a while, it would start slowly approaching again…

Su Hui held Aristotle for a while.

Then he picked up the kitten and held it for a while. The kitten didn’t resist. Its fur was longer, felt soft, and it enjoyed making gentle meows.

Lu Junchi said, “Give it a name.”

Su Hui thought for a moment and said, “Ernest Hemingway said, ‘One cat just leads to another.’ Let’s call it Hemingway.”