Chapter 61 You… something happened to you…

It was really time for the convenience store to close. After the argument that drove off Yao Kangping, Lin Qingye and Lin Zhi took Yao Wenjing back home.

“I’m so angry,” Lin Zhi flopped onto the sofa, feeling frustrated. “Your dad has become even more shameless than before…”

“I’m sorry.” Yao Wenjing looked apologetic.

“What are you sorry for?” Lin Zhi patted his shoulder. “I wasn’t targeting you. If he wasn’t your dad, I would have cursed him even worse.”

“Since he’s not here, you should say less. What’s so proud about cursing people?” Lin Qingye half-jokingly scolded Lin Zhi and immediately softened his tone when he turned to Yao Wenjing. “Wenjing, how did you end up meeting your dad today? What did he want when he brought you there?”

“He came in just a few minutes after I opened the store this morning, to buy cigarettes. He didn’t seem to expect me to be here.” As he spoke, Yao Wenjing seemed to remember something and apologized. “Oh, he took a pack of Yuxi cigarettes without paying.”

Lin Qingye smiled and waved his hand. “It’s fine. It’s just a pack of cigarettes, let him have it. What happened next?”

“Then he asked me why I was there. I told him I was working a part-time job during the winter vacation to earn money. Later, other customers came in, but he just stood at the door and wouldn’t leave. He insisted that I go out with him to eat, saying he had something to discuss with me.” Yao Wenjing continued, “I didn’t want to go, but I was worried he’d make a scene in the store, scare away the customers, and maybe damage the store. So, I locked the door and went with him.”

“Are you stupid?” Lin Zhi interrupted, “Is the stuff more important or is your safety more important? Next time, just call me or my dad directly if you see him. If there’s something, why can’t he just say it openly? Who knows where he was planning to take you? What if he tried to sell you…”

“I’m an adult with normal intelligence. How could I be sold?” Yao Wenjing defensively explained, amused by his own silly thoughts. “I asked him what was going on while we were walking, but he wouldn’t explain clearly. Plus, I didn’t really trust him, so I secretly called you.”

“You called too late,” Lin Zhi criticized. “And why couldn’t you just call openly? When I answered, you didn’t say anything. If I got impatient and hung up, and you were in real danger, I’d have been too late to save you.”

“Can you not say such things?” Lin Qingye slapped Lin Zhi’s arm. “Stop with the ‘selling’ and ‘collecting bodies’ talk. If Yao Kangping hears that, it’ll just give him more reasons to lie about us.”

Lin Zhi rubbed his arm, then became serious. “So did he ever tell you what he wanted?”

“No,” Yao Wenjing shook his head. “But I can almost guess. He only says he wants to ‘talk’ when he’s looking for money.”

“…Your dad is truly something,” Lin Zhi sighed.

Having such a father left Yao Wenjing with complicated feelings. At this moment, he lowered his head deeply, feeling both guilty and embarrassed. He muttered, “I’m sorry, godfather, Xiao Zhi. I didn’t expect my dad would ask you for money.”

“No need to apologize,” Lin Qingye said gently, looking at him. “It’s not your fault.”

“Let him ask, we won’t give him anything. Does he really think he can sell his own kid? You’re old enough to choose who you live with,” Lin Zhi said with a smile. “Besides, my dad doesn’t have that much money.”

Lin Qingye glanced at him and replied, “You’re so clear about how much money I have.”

Lin Zhi replied with an “mm” sound, “Mostly because it’s not much. If it were more, I might not be able to keep track.”

Yao Wenjing couldn’t help but laugh, though he sighed and became worried again. “I’m afraid my dad will believe that I’m working at the store and come back to make trouble.”

“Then don’t go to the store for the next few days. I’ll go instead,” Lin Zhi said nonchalantly. “If he dares to make trouble, I’ll call the police. I don’t think he would dare to cause too much trouble after hiding for half a year. I wonder if those people who came to collect debt from him back then are still looking for him now.”

The next day, Lin Zhi was yawning behind the cash register. It was so boring to be alone in the store. It wasn’t bad to chat with Lu Liu on the phone during breakfast, but after a while, Lu Liu said he had to go out and hung up. Lin Zhi felt that there was nothing interesting about his phone anymore.

The door curtain of the convenience store swayed. When it was lifted, Lin Zhi was looking down at his social media feed, and the customer didn’t walk to the shelves to pick something but instead walked directly to the counter.

“Hello, are you here to buy something?” Lin Zhi started to ask but suddenly stopped halfway, his eyes widening with surprise as he looked at the person in front of him.

“I’m not buying anything,” Lu Liu mischievously winked and smiled. “I’m looking for someone.”

At this moment, Lin Zhi’s mind was completely consumed by the thought of Lu Liu’s warm smile from that winter, and he stared blankly, asking, “Why did you come?”

“Shouldn’t you be excited and rush to hug me when you see me?” Lu Liu pretended to be upset, “And you’re asking how I came.”

“I didn’t expect you to come. You didn’t mention it when we were on the phone,” Lin Zhi said as he walked out from behind the counter. “My dad installed surveillance in the store, and he checks it every once in a while.”

Lu Liu looked up at the camera facing the counter, pursed his lips, and said, “Well, fine then.”

Before he could finish, Lin Zhi grinned and opened his arms toward him.

“Didn’t you say that the surveillance will let your dad see us?” Lu Liu hesitated.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lin Zhi couldn’t wait any longer, and jumped into Lu Liu’s arms, rubbing his forehead against Lu Liu’s shoulder. “Let him see, as long as we’re not embarrassed, the only one who’ll be embarrassed is him.”

Although business in the store wasn’t booming, people came in every few minutes, so Lin Zhi and Lu Liu couldn’t hug for long.

Lin Zhi pushed Lu Liu to the chair behind the counter and then rummaged through the shelves to grab a lot of snacks, generously giving them all to Lu Liu. “Eat, and when we leave later, I’ll pack two bags for you to take home.”

Lu Liu’s eyes remained full of smiles, and he didn’t refuse, “Thanks, baby.”

“No need to thank me,” Lin Zhi grinned, “Boyfriend.”

Having Lu Liu with him made guarding the store no longer boring, and it even became fun for Lin Zhi.

Lin Zhi pulled up a movie on the computer, and the two of them watched it with snacks and drinks. People kept coming in to buy things, so they didn’t finish the movie. Lin Zhi, who couldn’t follow the plot, simply focused all his attention on talking to Lu Liu.

The conversation easily shifted to what had happened with Yao Wenjing the day before. Lin Zhi described it, and the anger in his heart flared up again. “I was really about to explode yesterday. If hitting people wasn’t illegal, I’d have punched that bastard Yao Wenjing’s dad right in the face.”

Lu Liu gently patted Lin Zhi’s back to calm him down and murmured, “Yao Wenjing…”

“Yao Wenjing must feel horrible having such a father,” Lin Zhi sighed, “But he thinks he’s caused us trouble and hasn’t told me what’s on his mind. I can’t comfort him.”

Lu Liu sighed with Lin Zhi, took his hand, and occasionally looked at him. He opened his mouth a few times as if wanting to say something but stopped himself.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Zhi noticed something was off and asked, “What do you want to say?”

“Baby,” Lu Liu softly asked, “Do you want to know what happened to Yao Wenjing in his past life?”

Lin Zhi’s heart tightened, and he looked into Lu Liu’s eyes. “You… you know?”

“Yeah, after the incident, I met him a few times,” Lu Liu said, “I remembered you always talked about him, so I figured you might care about these things, so I asked.”

When Lin Zhi first met “Zhi,” he had mentioned to him about his father’s illness and death, and losing contact with his good friend. At the time, Lin Zhi didn’t know that “Zhi” was Lu Liu, nor did he expect that they would end up together. He simply thought of him as a stranger online friend, one who often sent him motivational quotes. So, he ended up venting some of his frustrations.

“Do you still want to know?” Lu Liu asked.

“Yeah,” Lin Zhi nodded, “Go ahead.”

—

The night before the college entrance exam, Yao Wenjing, who had already checked his documents several times to make sure everything was ready for the next day, suddenly heard urgent knocking at the door. The way it was knocked on was similar to how Yao Kangping would knock, and Yao Wenjing thought it was his father, who had been away for two days, returning home. Without suspicion, he opened the door.

As soon as he cracked the door open, it was shoved forcefully from the outside. Three unfamiliar middle-aged men rushed in. Yao Wenjing, startled, asked them who they were and what they wanted. One of the men explained their purpose for coming—finding out that Yao Kangping wasn’t at home and they couldn’t reach him. They guessed he had run off and started rummaging through the house for valuables.

Yao Wenjing ran into his room to grab his phone to call the police, but one of the men grabbed the phone from him. The man dialed Yao Kangping, but of course, it didn’t go through. The man then tried calling other relatives of Yao Wenjing, hoping to recover some of the debt. He saw that Yao Wenjing had frequent contact with Lin Zhi and decided to call him first. Yao Wenjing, anxious because the exam was the next day, feared that Lin Zhi would be affected, so he rushed to get the phone back. During the struggle, the phone was broken, and Yao Wenjing suffered some minor injuries.

“How can he always be so stupid?” Lin Zhi clenched Lu Liu’s hand tightly. “Every time something happens, he worries about others first. When will he think about himself?!”