Chapter 246 | Chapter 247 | Chapter 248
Chapter 246: The Tree Branch
It had been a thoroughly pleasant lunch for everyone.
Song Yi and Xie Xiangxue were the first to head back to class, though the former didn’t forget to remind Yu Yuan to come learn her new moves that evening.
Yu Yuan prepared to return to her own classroom as well, and after a brief thought, Yu Xin decided to go with her.
She intended to head over to Class Twelve to check on the situation. Although Class Twelve had behaved themselves much better since the Yan Zhengqing incident, it was hard to guarantee that no one would start gossiping now that Yu Yuan had cut ties with the Yu family.
Yu Xin planned to make an appearance herself to let everyone know that even if Yu Yuan was no longer with the Yu family, she was still her sister.
This had nothing to do with the Yu family; she personally would have Yu Yuan’s back.
Gu Qinghuan and Jiang Chuchu watched them leave, then decided to head back to Gu Qinghuan’s office to sleep.
Collapsing onto her makeshift bedding, Jiang Chuchu stretched comfortably. “This is great. I was worried Wei Xiao might show up, but I finally got a peaceful nap at noon.”
Gu Qinghuan curled herself into a ball. She had woken up this morning with absolute reluctance, and the moment she lay down, drowsiness washed over her in waves.
She let out a yawn. “Ever since that incident at the wine tasting, Wei Xiao hasn’t shown his face here. He probably thinks it’s too humiliating.”
Gu Qinghuan was currently pondering when she should consult the almanac to pick an auspicious day to thoroughly clean the office and purge the bad luck Wei Xiao had brought in over this past period.
Jiang Chuchu pondered for a few seconds. “Come to think of it, since he arrived at Mingde, what exactly has he actually managed to accomplish?”
“Absolutely nothing, right?” Gu Qinghuan said blankly.
The two looked at each other and said in unison, “He’s so weak!”
That being said, Gu Qinghuan was well aware that this was only because they had known from the very beginning that Wei Xiao was bad news and had kept their guard up against him.
Not to mention, they each possessed their own backing and influence to protect themselves. Otherwise, a single misstep would have seen them following in the footsteps of Wei Xiao’s previous girlfriends.
The two had a solid nap at noon. When they returned to class, Gu Qinghuan saw Yu Xin organizing her notes.
“The midterm exam is still a while away, isn’t it? Why are you already organizing notes?” Gu Qinghuan asked, instantly alert.
“They’re for Yu Yuan. She wants to study hard, so she borrowed my notes,” Yu Xin said. “My notes from last semester are back at the house, so I’m sorting through this semester’s first.”
“Should we have her join Su Lin’s tutoring group too?” Gu Qinghuan asked.
Yu Xin thought about it and shook her head. “It would be a bit difficult for her to keep up with our pace. Better wait until she improves a bit first.”
Gu Qinghuan thought to herself that it was a good thing Yu Yuan wasn’t here, or she would definitely feel demoralized by Yu Xin’s words.
When school let out, since Song Yi still had to teach Yu Yuan her new sanda moves, Yu Xin handed the organized notes to him and asked him to deliver them to Yu Yuan.
Song Yi readily agreed, took the notes, and headed straight for their usual practice room.
Gu Qinghuan didn’t head home right away. Mingde’s sports meet was coming up, and her homeroom teacher, Chen Zelin, had asked her as the class monitor to collect the sports meet proposal and sign-up sheets from the office so she could promote it to the class this week.
Chen Zelin didn’t particularly care what rank Class Three achieved, but Mingde had a small student body. Even though the number of events was equally small, they still needed to field a certain number of participants.
In other words, every class had a hard quota for the number of competitors.
He didn’t want to force the students to compete; it was best to let them join of their own volition. Therefore, Chen Zelin intended to have Gu Qinghuan do some promotion first.
If she could rally everyone’s enthusiasm so they signed up on their own, that would obviously be ideal. If not, it would be up to him to emphasize it during the class meeting.
Gu Qinghuan naturally agreed without a second thought and discussed the details with Chen Zelin for a bit.
By the time she stepped out of the office, before she could even leave the school building, her phone rang. It was Song Yi.
“Sis, can you get through to Yu Yuan’s phone?” Song Yi asked anxiously. “She never showed up, and she’s not answering any of my calls!”
Gu Qinghuan’s brows furrowed as a bad premonition crept into her mind. “Meet me in front of the school building. I’ll try calling her first.”
She hung up with Song Yi and dialed Yu Yuan’s number instead. However, the phone just rang and rang without anyone picking up.
Gu Qinghuan decisively dialed Sun Qinglian. “Minister Sun, sorry to bother you, but I’d like to request access to the surveillance footage outside the Class Twelve room, from the time school let out until right now.”
Sun Qinglian was currently handling another matter with a few members of the Discipline Department. She granted Gu Qinghuan’s request without hesitation, telling her to find the student on duty today.
Given Gu Qinghuan’s personality, she wouldn’t ask to check the surveillance footage for no reason; something must have happened. Since this fell under the Discipline Department’s purview, she would help where help was needed.
Gu Qinghuan offered her thanks and immediately contacted the student on duty.
By this time, Song Yi had already sprinted over. Seeing Gu Qinghuan on the phone, he didn’t interrupt, merely standing by her side anxiously waiting.
Fortunately, retrieving the surveillance records was a quick process, and the student on duty swiftly provided feedback: After school let out, Yu Yuan had been stopped by several students just as she stepped out of the classroom door.
The two sides had a brief standoff before Yu Yuan ultimately followed those students away.
“Which way did they go?” Gu Qinghuan asked immediately.
“I’m pulling up the nearby cameras… Got it. They went toward the small plaza.” After saying this, the student on duty felt a bit uneasy. “Do you want me to get a few people to go over there?”
“Minister Sun is busy with the Discipline Department staff, and you can’t easily leave your post while on duty, so hold on for a moment.” Gu Qinghuan remained very calm. “My classmate and I will go check the situation first. If there’s an issue, I’ll contact you immediately.”
The student on duty readily agreed. “Alright, be careful.”
Gu Qinghuan hung up the phone and sprinted toward the small plaza with Song Yi.
Nearly half an hour had passed since school let out, and at first glance, the small plaza appeared completely deserted.
Gu Qinghuan prepared herself for the worst, and Song Yi’s nerves were equally taut. But before either of them could begin searching for Yu Yuan’s location, they heard a groan of pain.
It was a male voice, not a female one.
The two exchanged a look, nodded in silent understanding, and lightened their steps as they moved toward the source of the sound.
Behind the relief sculpture wall of the small plaza, Yu Yuan stood with her back pressed tightly against the wall, her face filled with alertness as she stared at the people in front of her.
If it weren’t for the fact that those students were already sprawled on the ground groaning, any onlooker would definitely have assumed Yu Yuan was the one being bullied.
Wei Xiao reached up to wipe his face. Looking at the streak of blood on his palm, a violent surge of rage welled up from the depths of his mind like sludge from a sewer.
Yet, looking at the menacing tree branch Yu Yuan was brandishing in her hands, he didn’t dare get close.
It was completely absurd. Before they could even lay a hand on her, Yu Yuan had suddenly crouched down, scooped up a pruned branch that hadn’t been cleared from the ground yet, and lunged forward with her body low.
Then she had spun around, wildly thrashing them with the branch while retreating until her back hit the wall.
Caught off guard, Wei Xiao’s face had been slashed open, and it was now burning with a sharp, stinging pain.
Because it was a dead branch, the residual leaves on it had long since turned dry and stiff, making it rough and razor-sharp when it whipped against the body.
Even when it snapped from the impact, the fragments didn’t break off completely; instead, they formed jagged edges that only caused greater pain when scraping against the skin.
Furthermore, taking advantage of the moment their formation was thrown into disarray, Yu Yuan had grabbed several of the others and executed a sweep down below, sending them crashing to the ground.
Wei Xiao had been standing at the back. If Yu Yuan hadn’t retreated to the wall to secure her rear after tripping the ones in front, he would have been thrown down as well.
Yu Yuan gripped the branch tightly. To be honest, her palms were chafed and stinging slightly, but seeing the “miserable state” of the people before her filled her with a sense of immense satisfaction.
She had secretly scouted out this branch as the largest one available; the rest were all thin, flimsy twigs, so they wouldn’t be able to overpower her even if they picked those up.
In a situation like this, having a “weapon” that could extend her reach was incredibly convenient.
After practicing sanda for so long, Yu Yuan had already developed solid reflexes. Even when facing an attack, she could analyze how to respond calmly and decisively.
Even if her strength fell short and the branch was eventually wrenched away, Yu Yuan could still judge the right moment to abruptly let go and deliver a vicious kick straight to their vitals.
She gripped the branch tightly, just about to pull out her phone to call the police, when she saw two heads pop up over the wall.
Wei Xiao roared at the people on the ground, “Hurry up and get—”
Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted.
“Get up for what?” Song Yi cracked his knuckles, his voice sounding low and ominous. “Just stay right there on the ground.”
Chapter 247: Sowing Discord
This time, the lackeys Wei Xiao had brought along were truly lying on the ground, unable to get up.
Song Yi took charge of the mop-up, while Gu Qinghuan skipped over the bodies sprawled haphazardly across the ground. Approaching Yu Yuan, she first gave her a thumbs-up. “Awesome.”
Yu Yuan took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, her heartbeat gradually steadying. “I was on the verge of calling the police.”
Pressed face-down into the grass by Song Yi, Wei Xiao struggled to lift his head. “You wouldn’t dare!”
Gu Qinghuan looked baffled. “What’s there to be afraid of about calling the cops?”
If she sent her location to their group chat and yelled “Help!”, it might as well count as calling the police—speaking of which, since no one had left the group after the Yan family incident was resolved, she had shamelessly kept it from disbanding.
Wei Xiao was momentarily at a loss for words. By the time he tried to speak again, Song Yi had shoved his face back into the turf. The newly grown blades of grass poked at his face, a few even jabbing directly into his open wounds, making his eyelids twitch in pain.
“But if we called the police now, it kinda looks like we’re the bullies here.” Song Yi, currently standing with a foot planted squarely on Wei Xiao’s back, curled a finger to scratch his cheek.
Seeing him act like a total thug, Gu Qinghuan nodded in agreement. Even Yu Yuan couldn’t help but laugh.
“Sis, what should we do now?” Song Yi asked.
Gu Qinghuan thought for a moment. Ignoring Wei Xiao, she walked over to the students who were still struggling to crawl away and asked, “Do you know who I am?”
The students froze, not daring to move. “We know…”
Never mind the previous school festival; since they followed Wei Xiao around, they naturally knew he didn’t dare lay a finger on Gu Qinghuan purely because she had Xia He backing her.
Seeing their fearful expressions, Gu Qinghuan guessed they were probably aware of Xia He’s involvement. A smile immediately bloomed on her face. “You guys aren’t going to try and take revenge on us just because you got beat up today, right?”
The students shook their heads so hard they resembled rattle drums.
They had been brought here by Wei Xiao to teach Yu Yuan a lesson, entirely because she no longer had the Yu family as her shield.
But dragging Gu Qinghuan into it was a completely different story. Who in their right mind would want to provoke Xia He?
Gu Qinghuan stroked her chin and conversed with the system in her mind: [I feel like I’ve really benefited a lot since Xia He’s fate was extended.]
The system was very nonchalant: [As you should. Just consider it him repaying your kindness.]
Besides, the system felt that its own abilities—limited to offering minor spoilers—were somewhat unworthy of Gu Qinghuan’s talent for stirring up trouble. Fortunately, they had Xia He to hold down the fort.
Gu Qinghuan shifted her gaze back to the students, who looked ready to swear a blood oath. “We really won’t! We just came today to back him up and look intimidating. We wouldn’t have dared to actually do anything!”
Mingde was actually quite strict about bullying. After all, the members of the Discipline Department were all ruthless characters, not to mention they were operating under the protection of President Xia He.
If they actually got physical and blew things up, they wouldn’t meet a good end.
That was why, up until now, any bullying at Mingde mostly took the form of psychological abuse or malicious gossip—things that were incredibly difficult to investigate and prove.
That was exactly what Wei Xiao had planned to do to Yu Yuan today: threaten, coerce, and intimidate. In short, he hadn’t intended to leave any tangible evidence behind; he just wanted to break Yu Yuan psychologically.
After all, with the mother she had now, what could she possibly do? As long as he threatened Yu Yuan that if she didn’t obey him, he had plenty of ways to ruin Yu Wenxiu, Yu Yuan would definitely cave, wouldn’t she?
However, Yu Yuan had beaten them up instead. And now that Gu Qinghuan had suddenly appeared, there was absolutely no way to salvage the situation.
As for Song Yi, Wei Xiao just viewed him as Gu Qinghuan’s lackey.
Song Yi: No lies detected.
Gu Qinghuan pulled out her phone and snapped a clear headshot of each of the four guys on the ground.
“I don’t know who you are, so I’m taking pictures for the record,” Gu Qinghuan said in a very friendly tone. “You guys don’t mind, do you?”
You already took the pictures, why are you asking if we mind?! This is clearly a threat!
The students forced strained smiles onto their faces. “Of course we don’t mind.”
Gu Qinghuan was noncommittal. “Alright, you’re no longer needed here. Get lost.”
The students cast a hesitant glance at Wei Xiao, but ultimately chose to support each other as they scrambled away.
Song Yi watched their retreating figures, a bit puzzled. “Sis, you’re really just letting them go like that?”
“Later, I’ll send their photos to Minister Sun and explain the situation. The Discipline Department will keep an eye on them,” Gu Qinghuan said casually.
Ending up on the Discipline Department’s watchlist would surely make their lives much harder from now on.
More importantly, they had witnessed Wei Xiao’s pathetic and humiliating defeat, and they had even abandoned him to run away.
For someone like Wei Xiao, knowing others had seen his ugly side would make him wish he could permanently silence them, let alone the fact that they had ditched him.
She looked down just in time to see Wei Xiao’s head turned, glaring fixedly at the retreating backs of those students, the resentment in his eyes completely undisguised.
“Wei Xiao,” Gu Qinghuan called his name.
Wei Xiao instantly shifted his furious glare to Gu Qinghuan. “What more do you want?!”
Gu Qinghuan sighed. She took the branch from Yu Yuan’s hand, kept a safe distance, and crouched down, using the branch to poke Wei Xiao’s face. “What? You’re allowed to bully Yu Yuan, but I’m not allowed to bully you?”
This demeanor was entirely alien to Wei Xiao. Including the way she had just handled those students, she didn’t look anything like her usual innocent, naive self.
Wei Xiao glared at Gu Qinghuan. “You were acting in front of me this whole time?”
Gu Qinghuan moved the branch away, looking surprised. “Huh? Weren’t we acting for each other? You wanted to set me up, and I didn’t want to fall for it.”
Wei Xiao nearly coughed up blood from sheer rage. So he had been wasting his time all this while? And letting Gu Qinghuan use him as free labor?
“Actually, I wouldn’t have minded continuing to play along. After all, you were incredibly useful as an assistant,” Gu Qinghuan said with absolute sincerity.
However, in the next second, her tone shifted and grew ice-cold. “But since you couldn’t even be bothered to pretend anymore and tried to lay hands on Yu Yuan, I have no reason to be polite to you.”
Wei Xiao tried to struggle, but Song Yi stomped down on him again. His chest tightened, and he broke into a violent fit of coughing, his voice hoarse. “Cough—you, aren’t you just—cough—relying on Xia He having your back…”
“If Xia He were standing on your side, you’d only be even more arrogant, wouldn’t you?” Gu Qinghuan poked Wei Xiao’s face with the branch again. “Besides, if I have these kinds of connections, why shouldn’t I use them? Especially when it comes to punishing ‘scum’ like you.”
Being poked repeatedly made Wei Xiao so angry he was about to burst a blood vessel. He yelled, “What do you want?!”
Gu Qinghuan withdrew the branch and looked at Yu Yuan. “Yu Yuan, what do you want to do with him?”
Yu Yuan thought for a moment before finally speaking slowly, “I don’t want anything to do with him anymore.”
Revenge? No, she didn’t want to become someone like Wei Xiao who abused their power.
Indulging or losing oneself in power was easy, but once that floodgate opened, it would corrupt the order of things.
Wei Xiao lived in a quagmire of abused power; he could easily smear his filth over everything and drag others down to rot alongside him.
But Yu Yuan didn’t want to be dragged into that swamp. She had just barely managed to break free from the Yu family; why should she stake her future on a piece of trash like Wei Xiao?
She wanted to become a better person, which meant she shouldn’t stay tangled up with Wei Xiao any longer.
Gu Qinghuan turned back to Wei Xiao. “You heard her, right? Who wants anything to do with you?”
“Yu Yuan is no longer a child of the Yu family, and your engagement has been annulled. She has nothing to do with you.”
“Furthermore…” Gu Qinghuan drew out her words. “Instead of meddling with others, you’d be better off worrying about yourself. Be careful you don’t end up homeless.”
“What did you say?” Wei Xiao was surprisingly sharp this time.
Gu Qinghuan signaled Song Yi to pin Wei Xiao down tighter. Song Yi happily obliged, wrenching Wei Xiao’s arms behind his back to ensure he couldn’t move an inch.
She leaned in close to Wei Xiao’s ear, lowering her voice to a whisper: “Do you really think your surname is actually Wei?”
Chapter 248: To Speak or Not to Speak
Wei Xiao’s pupils dilated in sheer shock, and his thoughts ground to a halt.
Even though he had heard Gu Qinghuan’s words perfectly and understood what she meant, his brain flatly refused to process it any deeper.
Yet, the meaning of that sentence was simply too easy to grasp—he was not Wei Yan’s son.
Gu Qinghuan stood up, retreated back to a safe distance, and pulled Yu Yuan away with her.
Song Yi waited until the two of them had cleared the area behind the relief wall before releasing his hold on Wei Xiao, quickly sprinting to catch up with them.
Wei Xiao didn’t even notice the three of them leaving. He just remained right there, flat on the grass.
By the time the whole ordeal wrapped up, there wasn’t enough time left for Song Yi to teach Yu Yuan her new moves anyway, so they decided to just head home.
Song Yi was still a bit annoyed. As he handed Yu Xin’s notebook to Yu Yuan, he firmly instructed her to wait in her classroom after school tomorrow. He promised to pick her up personally and escort her to the practice room to ensure she wouldn’t get cornered and led away like that ever again.
Gu Qinghuan and Yu Yuan boarded the bus. Since it was largely empty, they sat down side-by-side in the back row.
Yu Yuan glanced at Gu Qinghuan, looked out the window, and then turned her head back.
After she repeated this motion a few times, Gu Qinghuan couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you dying of curiosity to know what I actually said to Wei Xiao?”
Having her barely contained curiosity exposed, Yu Yuan flushed slightly but nodded honestly.
Gu Qinghuan stroked her chin. “It’s a sentence that’s going to trigger a massive butterfly effect. When I said it, I honestly felt like a total cartoon villain.”
The system chimed in inside Gu Qinghuan’s mind: [By society’s broad definition, Wei Xiao is the actual cartoon villain here.]
Gu Qinghuan knew the system was just defending her, so she didn’t reply.
Yu Yuan, however, widened her eyes and immediately protested, “How could you be a villain! You completely froze him with a single sentence just now. You were seriously amazing!”
Catching Gu Qinghuan’s teasing smile after her outburst, Yu Yuan felt embarrassed again and quickly changed the subject. “Um, is it really okay for you to clash with Wei Xiao so directly like that?”
“He doesn’t dare touch me anyway. Besides, since the punches have already been thrown, we might as well make it count,” Gu Qinghuan said.
In her eyes, Wei Xiao had already been pushed to the point of desperation, ready to break whatever pots were left.
Xia He had already told her that Wei Xiao had eavesdropped on the conversation between Xu Zhishu and Xia Xiuzhu, so he knew Xu Zhishu was actively plotting a divorce from Wei Yan.
While Gu Qinghuan didn’t know what was going through Wei Xiao’s head, it was obvious from his attempt to target Yu Yuan today that he was under immense mental stress.
He wanted to use Yu Yuan as a punching bag to vent his frustrations, so why should she bother playing nice with him?
Gu Qinghuan had dropped that bombshell on Wei Xiao precisely to divert his attention, sending him back to make life a living hell for Xu Zhishu and Wei Yan.
But as for Wei Xiao’s true identity, she would keep a lid on it for a bit longer. Once Xia He obtained concrete evidence, she would explain everything to Yu Yuan and the others.
As for Xia He, he had likely deduced that she possessed a unique source of information. However, since he had clearly realized she wanted to keep it a secret, he would maintain absolute silence on the matter.
Therefore, when explaining it to Yu Yuan and the rest later on, she could just claim she got the intel from Xia He.
It wasn’t that Gu Qinghuan didn’t trust them; she just wanted to attribute the credit back to its rightful owner.
The information she received from the system was originally obtained by Xia He under extreme experimental conditions. She was merely asking the system questions and relaying the answers.
If Yu Yuan and the others ended up putting her on a pedestal because of it, Gu Qinghuan would feel truly unworthy of the praise.
Yu Yuan repeated the phrase “since the punches have already been thrown,” only just realizing the gravity of what she had done, which finally brought on a wave of nerves.
Gu Qinghuan took her slightly trembling hand and comforted her, “You did great today.”
Yu Yuan took a few deep breaths to calm herself, forcing a smile. “Mhm. He’s just a paper tiger, not scary at all.”
She fell silent for a moment before speaking up again. “Regarding what happened today, could you please not tell my mom? I don’t want her to worry.”
Gu Qinghuan didn’t answer right away. After a brief pause, she said, “This is your family’s matter, so I don’t have the right to meddle, but I think you were incredibly impressive and badass today.”
She looked straight into Yu Yuan’s eyes. “You didn’t get bullied; you fought back beautifully. Auntie Yu will be proud and honored because of you.”
Yu Yuan’s breath hitched, and she murmured, “Is that true?”
Even without Gu Qinghuan expanding on it, Yu Yuan knew she was right.
Yu Wenxiu was not Cui Wanning. She wouldn’t think her daughter was an embarrassment, she wouldn’t assume being targeted was her daughter’s own fault, and she certainly wouldn’t scold her daughter for offending someone during a counterattack.
Why was she so afraid to say it? She had clearly been terrified too and wanted her mother’s comfort. Why was she trying so hard to suppress these emotions?
She no longer needed to play the role of a “meek and obedient” pet.
“I…” Yu Yuan’s voice was a bit dry. “I think I should have a proper talk with my mom.”
Gu Qinghuan didn’t press further. She simply smiled, pulled a wet wipe out of her school bag, and shoved it into Yu Yuan’s hand. “Alright, wipe your hands. How did that tree branch get so much dirt on it anyway!”
Complaining playfully, she pulled out another wipe to clean her own hands.
Yu Yuan looked down and slowly wiped her hands clean. Aside from a lingering redness in her palms, who would ever guess she had just been gripping a dead branch and thrashing people with it?
That felt amazing, Yu Yuan thought. Becoming strong was a truly liberating feeling.
Yu Yuan’s stop came before Gu Qinghuan’s. She gripped her backpack straps tightly and walked toward her house.
By this time, the sky had already darkened. As she approached the villa, she saw the lights at the entrance were on.
The warm, pale yellow nightlight looked incredibly cozy, like a campfire blazing in the middle of a snowy field.
Yu Yuan hesitated, her footsteps slowing down.
How should she phrase it to her mom? Should she say Wei Xiao brought a gang to bully her today, but she didn’t let them, and instead thrashed them with a tree branch?
However, before she could even reach the porch, the front door swung open.
Yu Wenxiu spotted her immediately, pausing for a fraction of a second before smiling. “Yuanyuan, you’re back.”
Yu Yuan involuntarily accelerated her pace, throwing her arms open as she lunged forward, and was caught firmly in Yu Wenxiu’s embrace.
“Mom, I’m home,” Yu Yuan said, burying her face in Yu Wenxiu’s shoulder.
Her mouth seemed to develop a mind of its own, words spilling out in a rapid blur: “Mom, let me tell you, after school today, Wei Xiao brought four guys to corner me…”
It sounded so rambling and disorganized, completely missing the main points.
But she just desperately wanted to share every single detail of her experience with her mother.
“…In the end, Gu Qinghuan said something to Wei Xiao that completely terrified him. He just stood there frozen like an idiot, so Gu Qinghuan grabbed me and Song Yi, and we ran!”
Yu Yuan talked until her lips were dry, and once she finished, she felt a bit self-conscious, realizing she had been holding her mother hostage at the front door to ramble for way too long.
But the moment she looked up and saw the gentle warmth radiating from Yu Wenxiu’s eyes, that lingering self-consciousness vanished entirely.
“How wonderful,” Yu Wenxiu said, freeing a hand to gently pat the crown of Yu Yuan’s head. “Our Yuanyuan is truly brave and amazing.”
Yu Yuan was overjoyed, her face splitting into a massive grin. “Mom, what’s for dinner tonight?”
Yu Wenxiu guided Yu Yuan inside as Yu Yuan pulled the door shut behind them.
“Since we had some leftover rice, I made teriyaki beef bowls. Do you want a soft-boiled egg with yours?”
“Yes, please!”
It really is wonderful to talk about it, Yu Yuan thought. As it turned out, being praised by her mother was the happiest feeling in the world.
