Feng Fei pulled Hai Xiu downstairs, and called a taxi to take them home.
Once they got on the taxi, the two of them were silent for a long time. Feng Fei was looking out of the window the entire time, not letting Hai Xiu see his expression, making his heart feel heavy. He opened his mouth several times, but was never able to say anything in the end. Hai Xiu felt uneasy inside. Was Feng Fei angry, or did he think that his family matters were too complicated, or did his father make Feng Fei feel disgusted, so he didnât want to pay attention to him anymoreâŚ
Hai Xiu pursed his lips, and gently rested his hand on Feng Feiâs arm, quietly saying,
âFeng FeiâŚâ
âAh?â Feng Fei turned his head, his fists clenched. The corners of his lips twitched, and his expression was a bit unnatural, and a bit scary. âWhat⌠whatâs wrong?â
Hai Xiu frowned,
âThanks for earlier⌠Feng Fei?â
âPftâŚâ Feng Fei couldnât help himself, and accidentally laughed a bit. He immediately took a deep breath, trying to suppress the smile that wanted to appear on his face. He barely managed to keep a solemn expression on his face, âYouâre sayingâŚâ
Hai Xiu looked at Feng Fei, his expression frozen, and couldnât help but laugh as well.
âIâm sorry, Iâm not laughing at your dad, I just think this matter is tooâhahahahahaâŚâ Feng Fei finally dared to laugh when he saw Hai Xiu also laughing. Just now, he tried to hold back his laugh so much his stomach started hurting from the effort. Taking a few deep breaths, he laughed and said âNo way⌠I have to call your mom and somehow confess what I did to herâ. Feng Fei brought out his phone, laughed a bit more, and calmed himself down a bit before he called Jiang Yuman. He gave her a rundown of the situation, and apoligzed at the same time for telling fake news and making Hai Haowei angry. After hearing about the situation, Jiang Yuman almost fell to the ground laughing, hurriedly forgiving him, thanking him at the same time.
Jiang Yuman was originally ashamed to let outsiders know about these kinds of ugly things in her family. However, Feng Fei really did handle the situation too perfectly, she was originally a clear headed person, and wouldnât mind too much about these kinds of small matters, not to mention Feng Fei helped her a lot, and solved the root of the matter, completely removing the matter of remarriage with Hai Haowei.
Feng Fei chatted with Jiang Yumen for a while longer, then handed the phone over to Hai Xiu. Jiang Yuman was most worried about her son, and after confirming again that Hai Xiu was not affected by this encounter, she felt a little bit more reassured, telling Hai Xiu to not think much about this matter anymore, and to come back in the evening to eat a good meal and go to bed early.
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âDonât blame me for being too ruthless just nowâ. No matter what, the other person was still Hai Xiuâs biological father. If Hai Haoweiâs words and behaviors hadnât been so disgusting, Feng Fei wouldnât have wanted to embarrass him as much as he did. What âyour mom is too stubbornâ? What âI want to compensate youâ? For many years, Hai Haowei hadnât even been providing living expenses for Hai Xiu, and now he only thought about giving Hai Xiu money when he wanted to remarry into the family? What were you doing beforehand then?
Feng Fei hated the people who cheated the most, even more so if they were already married when they cheated. If the other party wasnât Hai Xiuâs parent, he would have spoken even harsher words.Â
Hai Xiu lowered his head and whispered,
âJust now⌠when you didnât say a word after getting into the taxi, I thought you⌠thought I was too troublesomeâ.Â
âYouâre kidding, rightâ. Feng Fei smiled. He knew Hai Xiu didnât want to seem disgraceful in front of himself, and pulled Hai xiuâs hand, seriously saying, âYou donât need to take your fatherâs bad deeds as your own, your father is your father, and you are you. Not to mention, your mom already divorced your father, you are with your mom now, and the both of you are so happy together. Your mom is so successful, and sheâs still young and beautiful. You are even more amazing! Even if your father was even more of a bad person, any matters would be only his own. Hai xiu nodded his head, and Feng Fei paused, then suddenly bowed his head and started to laugh again. Hai Xiu couldnât help himself, and started to laugh as well. The two of them looked at the taxi driver with a guilty conscience and laughed together.
At work, Jiang Yuman was only halfway through her meeting before she left to take the call, and after hanging up, she breathed out a sigh of relief. She wanted to ask Hai Xiu for Feng Feiâs shoe size when she got home, so she could take some time over the weekend to go buy Feng Fei a pair of shoes, and get Hai Xiu a pair as well. Jiang Yuman thought about this matter as she walked back to the conference room, but before she could step inside, her phone started ringing again. Jiang Yuman lowered her head to look at the callerâŚ
Hai Haowei.
Jiang Yuman sneered, and picked up the call.
âWhy didnât you think of telling me when you remarried?! Do you find tricking me very funny?!â Jiang Yuman smiled, and nodded her head at a coworker who had just finished all their work for the day, turned around and walked to the stairwell.
âWhen you remarried a few years back, you didnât seem to give me an invitation either?â Hai Haowei on the other side of the phone was at a loss for words, and started to lose his composure.Â
âThatâs because iâm alone, so I can do whatever. You are also taking care of our son! Why didnât you think to ask him about his opinion, and just randomly married again. What if our sonâŚâ
âWhether our son is healthy or not, havenât you already seen it?â Jiang Yumanâs tone was casual, with a hint of mockery. âDidnât you blame me previously for raising our child to speak so little? Now heâs not scared anymore, and thereâs Feng⌠thereâs his brother to support him. You donât need to worry anymore. Hai Xiu should have spoken to you today as well, right?â Hai Haowei thought of how Hai Xiu had told him that âMe and mom are already doing very well, so you donât need to bother us in the futureâ, and felt his teeth itch with frustration. The past Hai Xiu would never be able to say those kinds of words to him, but now he even dared to disrespect him in front of his stepbrother. He angrily exclaimed,
âIf it werenât for youâŚâ Hai Haowei was not good at arguing with other people, and was so angry his body started to physically feel uncomfortable as well. His voice started to raise without him noticing, and the people inside the cafe turned their eyes towards him. Hai Haowei hurriedly lowered his voice and continued. âIf it werenât for you teaching him so badly, Jiang Yuman, I came to you with a sincere heart, wanting to live a happy live with you and our son, but I didnât expect you to fall so low, to bring along our son to marry a who-knows-how-old rich guy, youâŚâ Jiang Yuman had ran out of her patience to communicate with Hai Haowei, and said,
âI can understand your feelings of shame and anger, but I am very busy right now, and I donât have the time to listen to your nonsense. Just now, Hai Xiuâs brother asked me the specifics about your work, do I need to tell him?â The phone remained silent for a few seconds, then hung up. Jiang Yuman added Hai Haoweiâs phone to her blacklist, and feeling relaxed, went back to her meeting.
Hai Haowei, who was still in the coffee shop, was so angry his hands were trembling, and accidentally knocked over a cup of coffee. The coffee ran down the table, and even though he jumped away quickly, the coffee still spilled all over his pants. The coffee shopâs waiter glanced at him from the side, his eyes filled with doubts, not understanding why this decent-looking man kept causing trouble for so many people. Hai Haowei valued his reputation the most, and felt even more humiliated. He stood up, wanting to leave, but the waiter stopped him.
âI apologize sir, but the three cups of coffee are a total of 126 yuan. Will you pay by card or cash?â Hai Haowei was stunned.
ââŚâ Hai Haoweiâs face flushed scarlet, and after paying the bill in a hurry, bought a ticket to fly back to his home that very night.
âWell⌠we were supposed to eat at sevenâ. Feng Fei looked at the time after they got home. It was almost eight, so he changed his shoes and put the things they had bought on the kitchen counter.
âAre you hungry? Thereâs still bread in the pantry, do you want to eat it?â
Hai Xiu shook his head, and neatly put away the jacket Feng Fei had thrown off to the side. He took off his own jacket, and said,
âLetâs make the food together. Hot pot doesnât need a lot of time to cook anyways. Feng Fei thought of how Hai Xiu had just gone through a rather bad encounter, and didnât let him do any work, pushing him into the living room, and turning on the TV for Hai Xiu, saying
âRest a while, the food will be ready soonâ. With his previous experience, it didnât take long for Feng Fei to prepare the hot pot. He first put the soup base into the hot pot, added the water and spices, and turned on the heat. He covered the hot pot with the lid, then washed and cut the freshly bought vegetables. In no time at all, a dozen or so plates of vegetables were prepared. The beef and mutton were already cut when they bought them, so all Feng Fei needed to do was put them on a plate. In under half an hour, Feng Fei was done preparing the hot pot. âCome and eat!â. Feng Fei called over Hai Xiu. âDo you want to drink something cold?â Whenever Feng Fei ate hot pot, he always drank a cold beverage as well. Hai Xiu didnât like cold beverages, so he shook his head.
âNo need. Donât drink anything too cold yourself, okay?â Feng Fei poured Hai Xiu a cup of juice, and took a can of beer for himself from the fridge. The lid was already off, and Hai Xiu was putting in vegetables and meat when he suddenly stopped. He turned his head towards Feng Fei, swallowed, and asked in a small voice,
âAbout what happened⌠do you want to tell your parents about it?â. Feng Fei was also stunned into silence. The scenes of him being beaten as a child flashed past his eyes, and dryly laughed.
âLetâsâŚ. letâs wait for them to come back firstâ. He thought to wait until Hai Xiu wasnât there, and then make a call and explain the situation to his parents. Right now his parents werenât even in the country. Thereâs no way anyone would like to be beaten, but being scolded right in front of Hai Xiu was equally unbearable.Â
Feng Fei handed Hai Xiu the freshly squeezed fruit juice, saying âNot telling them isnât really a big deal anyways, today, your father just misunderstood my words. I didnât say anything.â Hai Xiu looked at Feng Fei, doubt evident in his eyes. Feng Fei laughed,
âIâm saying, weâre all part of the same family now anyways, so I didnât say anything wrong, did I?â Hai Xiu felt that his heart was filled with sweetness, and lowered his head, silently eating vegetables. Feng Fei fearlessly said, âAnd whatâs wrong with him knowing? In the end, all I did was scold my dad a couple times, not to mention how far away we are from your hometown. My dadâs not in China anyways, itâs not like he can do anything about it.âNot to mention Hai Haoweiâs false bravado. Even if Feng Feiâs parents were standing in front of him right now, he probably wouldnât be able to say anything.
However, this couldnât be said to Hai Xiu. Feng Fei took all the shrimp that were done cooking and put them all into his own plate. After they cooled down a little, he peeled them and dipped them into the sauce, then put the whole plate in front of Hai Xiu. Hai Xiu looked up at Feng Fei, and Feng Fei wiped off the sauce on his lips and proudly stated, âMy captain used to always peel shrimp for his girlfriend, and Iâve wanted to do the same for a long time now.â Hai Xiu laughed, feeling much better. He picked up a shrimp and fed it to Feng Fei, who opened his mouth and took it. Feng Fei felt his heart was thumping, and bit onto Hai Xiuâs chopsticks. Hai Xiu didnât pull on the chopsticks, and looked at Feng Fei with eyes filled with confusion. Feng Fei looked up at Hai Xiu with a smile in his eyes, and deliberately bit down on his chopsticks a couple more times before letting go completely. Hai Xiu slowly took back his chopsticks, cheeks burning crimson. He quietly bowed his head back down to eat his vegetables. When his lips and teeth touched his chopsticks again, Hai Xiu was so shy he wanted to hide under the table.