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After everyone ate some dinner at will, Qiao Yuan’s complexion wasn’t really good, and he was helped back to his room by Lu Ye with a listless look.
Tang Zhou ran into Lu Ye on the way back to his room. Seeing him in a hurry, he asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’ll go out and buy some medicine for the cold and two new pairs of shoes. Your shoes are wet, right? Do you want to buy a pair too?”
The quality of the shoes they wear wasn’t good. Although they may not be able to buy the same quality around here, it was fine to wear them for two days.
Tang Zhou originally had this intention, but after Fu Shen bought him a shoe dryer, he gave up this idea.
“I don’t need one.”
“Then what are you going to wear tomorrow?”
“With a shoe dryer, it should dry overnight.”
“
”
Lu Ye shot him a strange look, “You weren’t so simple before.”
Tang Zhou’s expression remained unchanged: “Advance preview of life after bankruptcy.”
Lu Ye was speechless, waved his hand and turned away.
Looking at the carefree Lu Ye now, Tang Zhou faintly sighed.
He didn’t want the dream to come true.
“Lu Ye.”
The handsome guy turned his head. “Want to buy shoes again?”
“No,” Tang Zhou smiled, “When you come back, I will tell you something.”
Lu Ye narrowed his expression, didn’t ask much, nodded and said yes.
Back in the room, Fu Shen sat on the sofa and lowered his head to play with his phone very quietly.
Thinking of the email sent by Mouse loves Rice, Tang Zhou couldn’t help feeling guilty.
What happened in the dream had something to do with Fu Shen, but he was definitely not the culprit.
He sat down on the opposite sofa and said casually, “Thank you and your teammates today.”
Fu Shen looked up in surprise, feeling strange.
Tang Shen could still say such things.
Tang Zhou wasn’t really cold and unkind, otherwise he wouldn’t have filled Tang Zhen’s debt stupidly in his dream and put himself in it.
What’s more, all his woes were seen by Fu Shen, and in front of Fu Shen, he didn’t have to carry the identity of the Tang family heir.
“I heard that you guys came to participate in the competition. How was the result?”
Seeing that he was interested in chatting, Fu Shen couldn’t help but put down his phone and sat upright a little.
“Sort of got the job done.”
Tang Zhou: “
”
The task of the school was definitely to win the award. Completing the task means getting the award. He didn’t know what the award was.
He didn’t ask much, and changed the topic: “What do you think of Qiao Yuan?”
Fu Shen raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Lively and cheerful, simple and enthusiastic.”
Tang Zhou clasped his hand. He pinched the palm of his left hand with the fingertips of his right hand, and summoned up the courage to say bluntly, “Lu Ye has always felt that you will hurt Qiao Yuan, and he’s a little repulsive to you. I didn’t treat you well because of some prejudices before. I’m very sorry.”
He was sincerely apologizing. Whether his prejudice harmed Fu Shen or not, he should apologize for it.
Fu Shen obviously didn’t expect him to suddenly come to this issue. He was stunned. He was silent for quite a while before he recovered his expression. He faintly said, “No need.”
He had no ill feelings towards Qiao Yuan, and he really didn’t have a favorable impression. Even if Qiao Yuan might be implicated in the future, he wouldn’t care at all.
He didn’t need this kind of hypocritical apology.
Tang Zhou didn’t have the temperament to cower when it comes to things. Seeing that Fu Shen was a little resistant, he immediately gave the shocking information.
“Qiao Chengan, he’s the one you want to take revenge on.” Facing Fu Shen’s suddenly sunken eyes, Tang Zhou calmly said, “You approached Qiao Yuan before, for the same reason
”
“I approached him?” Fu Shen seemed to have heard a joke and asked rhetorically with a fake smile.
Tang Zhou was stuck for a while because of his attitude, and said doubtfully, “Lu Ye said before that every time he went to Qiao Yuan, you were there. It didn’t seem to be a coincidence.”
As soon as the voice fell, Fu Shen’s expression was touched, only then did it sink in that he was wrong.
According to Lu Ye’s possessiveness towards Qiao Yuan, he must have thought that Fu Shen had thoughts about Qiao Yuan, so he investigated Fu Shen. As a result, he learned that Fu Shen and Qiao Chengan were father and son, and he came up with a conspiracy theory that Fu Shen would hurt Qiao Yuan.
It sounded a bit silly, but Lu Ye’s emotions for Qiao Yuan bordered on paranoia, and there was nothing wrong with thinking outside the box.
Lu Ye’s subjectively influenced Tang Zhou. He originally hated illegitimate children, especially illegitimate children who didn’t know their place. He learned that Fu Shen was the son left by Qiao Chengan. Before he met Fu Shen, he had a bit of prejudice.
Later, Fu Shen found him here for investment. On the one hand, he was a little interested in the project, but on the other hand, he was unwilling to invest in an ambitious “illegitimate child”. After struggling, he then proposed the conditions for Fu Shen to be his personal assistant.
A childish and paranoid outrage.
However, Fu Shen in the dream later gave him a taste of being an assistant, which was regarded as eating his own bitter fruit1.
But now, Fu Shen’s rhetorical question suddenly made him realize that perhaps in addition to prejudice and relentless anger, he also made another mistake——listening to others and believing others.
Lu Ye’s view of Fu Shen had always been strongly subjective. His feelings for Qiao Yuan could be described as “love brain”.
The ridicule in Fu Shen’s eyes became more and more obvious, Tang Zhou’s face suddenly became hot, and the surging sense of shame made him dare not look at him at all.
“Senior Tang, you can think of me any way you want, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the project development.”
Fu Shen didn’t want to explain more, so he got up and wanted to leave.
“Fu Shen.”
Tang Zhou buckled his wrist all at once, this seemed to be the first time he had called his name so seriously.
Fu Shen didn’t move his hand, looking down at Tang Zhou on the sofa.
The young man raised his head, his soft hair was neatly pressed to his ears and sideburns, his eyebrows were slightly frowned, and his light brown eyes reflected the round lights on the ceiling, which were astonishingly bright.
He wanted to say something, but he didn’t say anything for quite a while.
The knock on the door next door awakened the two of them. Tang Zhou subconsciously let go of his hands and lowered his head, like an abandoned child, hiding alone in the corner, holding his knees and holding back tears.
Fu Shen pinched the wrist that had just been held, and his eyes sank a few times.
“I’ll go out for a while.” Tang Zhou stood up abruptly, and without waiting for Fu Shen’s reaction, his figure disappeared outside the door.
He leaned against the wall of the corridor and suddenly wanted to smoke.
To be honest, he and Fu Shen were just a cooperative relationship, there was no need to hold on to the past.
He didn’t need to care, and Fu Shen wouldn’t care either.
But he just felt a bit bothered, a kind of self-scorned boredom.
Lu Ye came back with a cold face, and when he saw Tang Zhou wandering in the corridor, he couldn’t help but ask, “What are you doing?”
Tang Zhou asked rhetorically, “What’s wrong with you?”
When he went out, his face became so dark.
Lu Ye was in a somewhat depressed mood, and was looking for someone to talk to.
“I’ll put my stuff inside first and find a place to talk later.”
There was an open space at the end of the hotel corridor. Few people came. The two stood in front of the window, both expressionless.
Lu Ye couldn’t hold back first, frowning tightly, “Do you know who I saw?”
“Who?”
“Xiao Yuan’s father.”
There was something in Tang Zhou’s intuition, “Mr. Qiao came to Fancheng?”
“Not only did he come, he also brought his secretary, they
” Lu Ye gritted his teeth and couldn’t continue.
Thinking that Qiao Yuan admired his father very much, Lu Ye couldn’t bear to tell Qiao Yuan these nasty things.
Tang Zhou waited in silence.
Lu Ye’s face was completely black: “It’s not enough for him to have Fu Shen as an illegitimate child. He still wants to cheat. It’s d__n disgusting. Tang Zhou, I still don’t understand. What do you think of Fu Shen? Don’t you hate these people the most?”
Outside the window, the rain continued. Tang Zhou sighed lightly and asked, “Do you think that Qiao Yuan is the only victim?”
“And Aunt Sheng.”
Qiao Yuan’s mother’s surname was Sheng.
Tang Zhou shook his head slightly.
“Have you ever thought that Fu Shen is also a victim?”
Lu Ye didn’t investigate in detail. He only knew the father-son relationship between Fu Shen and Qiao Chengan, but he didn’t know what happened back then.
People’s hearts are biased.
In Lu Ye’s eyes, Qiao Yuan was simple and clever. Naturally, he was good. Fu Shen wasn’t shallow and his intention was to occupy the magpie’s nest2.
He was shocked by Tang Zhou’s words.
“What are you talking about?”
Tang Zhou looked faintly, and handed him the email on his phone.
“Twenty years ago, Qiao Chengan abandoned his girlfriend and chose Aunt Sheng, who has an impressive family background. It’s as simple as that.”
Back then, Qiao Chengan deceived Fu Shen’s mother, saying that he would go to the big city to earn money, and wait for him to come back to pick her up when he made money.
Not long after he left, Fu Shen’s mother found that she was pregnant and wanted to contact the other person, but she couldn’t contact him.
She didn’t know that Qiao Chengan had unilaterally cut off contact. She had been worried that something would happen to him. Shortly after giving birth to the child, she died of depression.
Fu Shen’s grandfather could only endure the pain and raised Fu Shen alone.
One day, the old man accidentally saw Qiao Chengan in the newspaper and saw that he had become the man in power of Sheng’s family, and then he understood.
Thinking of his daughter’s pain and regret before her death, the old man couldn’t accept the situation at the same time. He died of a sudden illness. When he died, he still held the newspaper tightly in his hand.
Fu Shen had just entered junior high school at that time, and suddenly lost his only relative. He only felt that the whole sky was dark.
His grandfather’s body has always been healthy, and unless he was greatly stimulated, he wouldn’t die suddenly.
He carefully flipped through the newspaper, until he heard the neighbor exclaim “Isn’t this the Qiao kid back then”, he suddenly reacted and asked thoroughly.
It turned out that he wasn’t fatherless, rather, that person wasn’t worthy of being a human being at all.
He buried his hatred deep in his heart, and he studied and worked hard. His only motivation was: One day, he would make that scum pay the price he deserved.
The sound of rain outside the window gradually stopped, and a beam of light seemed to break through the clouds in the sky.
Lu Ye was unable to speak for a long time.
Tang Zhou took back his phone.
“Qiao Chengan has played a good son-in-law, a good husband and a good father for so many years. Grandpa Sheng has only one daughter, Aunt Sheng. Most of the Sheng family is now in Qiao Chengan’s hands. Do you think it’s appropriate to still hide it from Qiao Yuan?”
“But Xiao Yuan, he
”
“He’s an adult.” Tang Zhou’s eyes were cold, “If you don’t want the Sheng family to be destroyed in Qiao Chengan’s hands, Qiao Yuan and Aunt Sheng can’t continue to be kept in the dark.”
Lu Ye’s fists were clenched and his voice trembled slightly.
“Give me some more time.”
1
to suffer the consequences of one’s own actions
2
To get something he doesn’t own.