Chapter 22

Xu Gui was unaware that he had just missed Aunt Tuanzi.

After following the landlady past the school, they walked for another five minutes and arrived at her restaurant.

The street where the proprietress's restaurant is located is considered a food street, with all kinds of restaurants everywhere you look. However, since it's not mealtime, every restaurant seems deserted, and the proprietress's restaurant is even worse, with its doors completely closed, as if it's not open for business.

As the proprietress pushed open the door, she explained, "I was thinking of entertaining you, so I didn't plan to open this morning and just kept the door closed."

Otherwise, how could they possibly entertain Xu Gui and his family while simultaneously opening for business? Would that even be considered a proper invitation to guests? The owners, a married couple, felt they couldn't possibly do such a thing.

On the way there, the proprietress had already sent a message to her husband, and when Xu Gui and the others arrived, a table of food was already set out.

The weather is getting a bit hot these days, so the restaurant has air conditioning on, and a blast of cold air hits you as soon as you walk in.

The proprietress's husband and son were waiting in the restaurant. When they saw Xu Gui and his group arrive, they rushed over to greet them.

The cameraman had already turned off the camera, and at that moment, he felt a pang of guilt: he felt that after following Teacher Xu for so long, he had become increasingly lazy.

However, this feeling of guilt only lasted for a second; it was a typical feeling of guilt, a little bit, but not much.

When Xu Gui and his family came in, the proprietress and her family warmly invited them to sit down.

“…Miss Xu, we really don’t know how to thank you. You’ve saved our lives!” the proprietress’s husband exclaimed.

You should know that this couple spends most of the year living in the hotel upstairs so they can sleep a little longer each day, and those two days were no exception.

So, if something had really happened at the shop that day, the couple would have suffered as well. Therefore, it's no exaggeration to say that Xu Gui saved their lives.

The way the owners expressed their gratitude was by constantly putting food on Xu Gui's plate.

"...If it weren't for Miss Xu, my husband and I would really be in danger." The proprietress's husband spoke with an accent, while putting a large pork knuckle on Xu Gui's plate.

The proprietress also said, "That's right, I still break out in a cold sweat when I think about it now."

The proprietress placed a piece of sweet and sour pork on Xu Gui's plate.

The proprietress's son: "Miss Xu, thank you so much for saving my parents..."

He picked up a chicken leg from the Sichuan-style stewed chicken and was about to put it into Xu Gui's bowl when he saw that not only was her rice bowl already full, but even the bowl that the proprietress had brought for her to serve the dishes was full.

The proprietress's son hesitated for a moment, holding up the chicken leg, and then carefully placed the lid on top.

Seeing the chicken leg rest securely on top of the overflowing vegetables, the proprietress's son was pleased: "It's placed so securely!"

When the owners saw that there was no room left in Xu Gui's bowl, they had no choice but to give up regretfully—oh well, there was nothing left to take.

As for Xu Gui, he was engrossed in eating, deeply absorbed in the many delicious dishes on the table.

Having only ever eaten instant noodles, fruit salad, snacks, and various fast food, she was repeatedly shocked to be eating such a decent and sumptuous meal for the first time.

One bite of pickled cabbage and pig's trotters—the pig's trotters are stewed until they're so tender they fall off the bone with just one bite. They're soft, chewy, tangy, and incredibly delicious!

Cold garlic spinach salad, the spinach is crisp and delicious!

Spicy and delicious chicken, perfect with rice, so tasty...

As Xu Gui ate, her eyes widened, finding every dish on the table incredibly delicious. Instantly, instant noodles were kicked off her list of gourmet foods.

She's already tired of instant noodles.

The proprietress, seeing that she liked pig's feet, happily said, "Come to my house for breakfast tomorrow, and I'll make you pig's feet noodles. They're so delicious."

Unable to resist the temptation, Xu Gui immediately agreed: "Okay, thank you, boss lady!"

Because mung beans were so delicious, Xu Gui unknowingly ate two bowls of rice and a bowl of vegetables. This amount of food would make any celebrity agent faint... How many calories must that be?

However, the person who hosted the meal found Xu Gui's way of eating very comfortable and felt that she was giving them face.

The proprietress and the proprietress now see Xu Gui as someone who pleases them, and the proprietress's expression has even become more loving.

Those who followed the scene understood: it seems Teacher Xu is about to gain another "mommy fan".

It's strange, but other female celebrities attract either male fans or career fans. However, Teacher Xu attracts the most "mommy fans," which are high school students who are not yet adults. They call her "daughter" and have become "mommy fans."

It's safe to say that attracting followers is a mysterious art; nobody knows what kind of followers you'll attract.

*

The meal ended with a bowl of chicken soup that Xu Gui found particularly delicious. By then, she felt her stomach was so full that there was no room left, and she could only cover her mouth and burp.

Yeah, I feel so full.

The proprietress also bought a watermelon, which was originally intended as dessert, but seeing that Xu Gui and the others were already full, she cut it into small pieces and put it in a food container for them to take with them.

So when Xu Gui and the others left, they had an extra box of watermelon in their hands, which meant they ate some and took some with them.

"The boss lady's husband is such a great cook! Every dish he makes is so delicious." On the way back, Xu Gui kept praising the boss lady and her family, especially her husband's cooking skills.

She exclaimed, "I've never eaten anything so delicious! It's really amazing!"

The old man glanced at her sideways and said, "Come on, I bet you'd find instant noodles delicious."

He never heard Xu Gui say anything was bad.

However, thanks to Xu Gui, they did have a very good meal.

The owner's husband is indeed a good cook. His dishes are not made by following recipes in a rigid manner, but rather with his own ingenuity. The taste is... to put it simply, it has more wok hei (wok aroma) than the dishes in other restaurants.

Anyway, it's delicious.

When they came out after their meal, it just so happened that the junior high school students were letting out. The previously quiet street was now noisy with students leaving school. There were also many stalls selling snacks or grilled sausages on both sides of the road, and the stalls were crowded with students.

Xu Gui glanced casually ahead, but soon her gaze turned sharply and fixed on a certain spot.

"Huh?" She looked at the figure standing at the school gate in surprise and murmured, "...Aunt Tuanzi?"

Aunt Tuanzi didn't notice Xu Gui's figure. She stood at the school gate, looking excitedly and expectantly in the direction of the school gate. It wasn't until she saw a tall, thin boy walk out of the school from the crowd that she unconsciously took several steps forward.

As the boy approached, Aunt Tuanzi could no longer contain her excitement and called out, "Xueya!"

However, no one answered this time. Aunt Tuanzi pursed her lips and called out another name: "Bowen".

This time, the boy reacted. Upon hearing his name, he subconsciously looked towards Aunt Tuanzi. When he saw Aunt Tuanzi, his face lit up with joy. He turned and said something to his classmate, then quickly ran towards Aunt Tuanzi.

Aunt Tuanzi watched him approach, and she tried hard to smile, but tears kept rolling down her cheeks.

Lin Bowen was initially happy to see Aunt Tuanzi, but when he saw her crying, his expression turned somewhat flustered. When he reached Aunt Tuanzi, he first called out, "Auntie!"

Actually, Aunt Tuanzi was his former aunt, but he was used to calling her that when he was a child and couldn't change it.

He looked at Aunt Tuanzi, who was crying with big tears streaming down her face, and asked anxiously, "Auntie, why are you crying? Did someone bully you?"

Aunt Tuanzi gazed greedily at his face, forcing a smile as she said, "No, no one bullied me. Auntie just missed you a little..."

Lin Bo chuckled sheepishly upon hearing this and said, "I miss Auntie too. I haven't seen you in so long, Auntie, you never come to see me!"

“It’s Aunt’s fault!” Aunt Tuanzi said immediately. Looking at Lin Bowen’s appearance, she couldn’t help but reach out and cup his face, her gaze lingering on his face.

The more she looked, the more she felt it resembled him.

Aunt Tuanzi murmured, "I'm so stupid. How come I never noticed before? You look so much like Wu Hao."

Lin Bowen stared at her, dumbfounded.

*

Wu Hao is Aunt Tuanzi's ex-husband, while Lin Bowen is the son of Wu Hao's sister, who is also Aunt Tuanzi's former sister-in-law.

When Lin Bowen was born, Aunt Tuanzi had never met him. She didn't even know that her sister-in-law had a child, because at that time, Aunt Tuanzi's biological son had just gone missing, and she and her husband were immersed in the grief of losing their child.

It wasn't until Lin Bowen was about four years old that he appeared before Aunt Tuanzi and her ex-husband for the first time, brought by Aunt Tuanzi's sister-in-law.

When Aunt Tuanzi first saw Lin Bowen, she thought he looked a lot like her ex-husband, but she didn't think much of it. After all, he was her sister-in-law's son. As the saying goes, a nephew resembles his uncle, so it was normal for the child to look like her ex-husband.

Most importantly, her child was only one year old when he was lost. Children change a lot as they age, and by the time he was four (actually five years old), he was already very different from when he was one.

Who would have thought, who could have imagined, that her sister-in-law's child was the same child she had lost?

Aunt Tuanzi felt heartbroken at the thought that the child had been by her side all these years, and tears streamed down her face uncontrollably. She was almost unable to control her emotions.

Lin Bowen, unaware of the details, asked somewhat bewilderedly, "Aunt, what's wrong?"

One minute she's holding his face and saying strange things, the next she's starting to cry.

Aunt Tuanzi opened her mouth, as if to say, "I'm not your aunt, I'm your biological mother! I'm your real mother!"

However, when she tried to speak, her lips trembled slightly, and what she finally said was: "...It's nothing, Auntie just missed you so much, so much, that seeing you made me so happy I wanted to cry."

She was afraid that Lin Bowen wouldn't be able to accept the truth.

Lin Bowen asked blankly, "Auntie, if you miss me, you can call me. I have a smartwatch." He raised the smartwatch on his wrist.

Aunt Tuanzi patted his head and said, "Good boy... Come on, let your aunt take you to eat."

Upon hearing this, Lin Bowen looked troubled and refused, saying, "No need, Auntie. I have to go home for dinner. If I don't go home, my mom..."

"Li Ru!"

Before Lin Bowen could finish speaking, a familiar, angry voice exploded in his ears. Before he could react, he felt his arm being grabbed and pulled sharply to the side, causing him to stagger.

Once he regained his footing, he looked up and found that there was someone in front of him, who had cut between him and his aunt, blocking his way.

"...Mom?" Lin Bo called out in confusion and surprise—although it was just his mother's back, he still recognized her back.

But why did his mother come over? She stopped picking him up from school two years ago.

Oh, not only his mother, but his uncle is here too... Lin Bowen glanced at Wu Hao, who was standing behind his mother with a somewhat stiff expression, and felt even more confused.

What's going on? My aunt is here, and my uncle and his mother are here too...

He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but Lin Bowen felt that both his mother and his uncle looked rather unwell.

No, and my aunt too... Everyone's expression was strange today.

Wu Tingting stood in front of the child, glaring fiercely at Aunt Tuanzi, and demanded, "Li Ru, what are you doing?! Who gave you permission to approach my son?!"

Aunt Tuanzi was initially able to remain calm. She didn't want to make a scene in front of the children, and she was also afraid of hurting them. However, when she saw Wu Tingting and Wu Hao, the brother and sister, all the resentment she felt from being deceived all these years, the hardships and confusion she had experienced while searching for her children all over the country, and the pain of her children being lost for so many years... all these emotions rushed into her heart at that moment.

She could barely control her emotions.

"You still want to lie to me?" Aunt Tuanzi shouted almost in grief and indignation. She yelled, "He is clearly my son, my Xueya..."

She still remembers how much anticipation and love she had for her child when the child was born. She named the child "Xueya," which means "the sea of ​​learning is boundless," because she hoped that her child would grow up to be a knowledgeable person.

But the truth is, she never got to see her child grow up. Her child was gone just because of the phrase "the child is lost."

But who could have imagined, who could have imagined!! The child wasn't lost at all, but was taken away by the husband's family, and when he returned four years later, he was even transformed into the husband's sister's son.

"It's you, it's your whole family!"

Aunt Tuanzi raised her hand, pointing at the brother and sister one by one, and said slowly and deliberately, "It was your family who took my child away, but you lied to me and said that the child was lost!"

"For the past thirteen years, watching me travel all over the country to find my child, don't you find it ridiculous?"

Stared at by her resentful and angry gaze, Aunt Tuanzi's ex-husband, Wu Hao, seemed to have his eyes burned and quickly turned his head away, his expression somewhat ashamed.

Hearing her Aunt Tuanzi's words, Wu Tingting reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, suddenly bristling with fur. She shrieked, "Who told you that? I'm telling you, Bowen is my son! He's mine!"

Aunt Tuanzi said, "You don't need to be stubborn anymore. Wu Hao has already told me."

She gave a bitter laugh and said, "Actually, I should have thought of this long ago. The doctor clearly said that you had a history of recurrent miscarriages and that it would be difficult for you to have children. But then one day, you suddenly said that you had given birth to a son, and that your son was already four years old..."

She should have realized this much earlier. If there wasn't a problem, why did she only bring the child to them when he was four years old?

But who in their right mind would think of something like this? Aunt Tuanzi never dreamed that someone could be so vicious.

Aunt Tuanzi glared angrily at her ex-husband and said with deep resentment, "What I find most unbelievable is that Wu Hao, you actually lied to me with your mother and Wu Tingting!"

"Xueya is your child too, how could you give him to your sister?"

Tears streamed down Aunt Tuanzi's face as she said, "Wu Hao, you've deceived me so badly!"

Wu Hao opened his mouth and explained, "I didn't know about this at first. It was later, when we didn't want to have children, that my parents told me about it."

"...Do you know how I felt when I found out about this?"

He felt like the sky was falling, and at the same time, he knew that it was over between him and Li Ru.

He and Li Ru had a free marriage, and their relationship had always been good. After their child went missing, their family kept urging them to have another child, but Li Ru was unwilling, and neither was he.

Several years have passed, and the couple still seem determined to continue their search. Helpless, Wu Hao's mother has no choice but to tell him about it. After all, if Wu Hao and his wife don't change their minds, she won't have any grandchildren to hold in the future.

“…The child isn’t lost. Tingting’s family’s knowledge is now your family’s academic future,” his mother said.

At the time, Wu Hao found it absurd; he even thought it was an excuse his mother had come up with to get him and Li Ru to have a second child.

However, paternity tests cannot be done incorrectly.

Wu Hao was furious when he learned of this. His first thought was to go back and tell his wife, but...

Wu Hao looked at Aunt Tuanzi and said, "...What can I do? That's my mom, that's my sister!"

"They knelt in front of me, crying and begging me. Tingting said that if she didn't have enough knowledge, she would jump off a building and die... She really could do it!"

Wu Hao said, "You don't know, but she even attempted suicide by cutting her wrists in her pursuit of knowledge. If Lin Kun hadn't discovered her in time, she would be dead!"

He murmured, "I can't watch her die!"

Aunt Tuanzi said coldly, "So, you can bear to watch me run all over the country looking for my child, is that it?"

Wu Hao avoided her gaze and said, "I had no choice..."

Aunt Tuanzi said, "So, because your sister can't have children, you secretly gave my child to her without telling me, right?"

Aunt Tuanzi laughed, but her laughter was more like a grimace. She said, "So, your family is all so close and harmonious, and I'm the only one who's been wronged, huh?"

Wu Tingting replied, "Since things have escalated to this point, you can only blame yourself!"

She looked at Aunt Tuanzi with a hint of malice.

*

Meanwhile, in one spot in the crowd, Xu Gui encouraged people to take photos.

"Hey, cameraman, turn on the live stream! This is a lot of traffic..." she said enthusiastically. "I've already thought of a title: 'Searching for my son for thirteen years, only to find out he's actually my nephew?' What do you think of that title? I'm sure a lot of people will click to watch!"

The cameraman was used to carrying a camera everywhere he went. When he heard Xu Gui's words, he turned on the camera, but said, "Teacher Xu, we are a variety show on Hunan TV, not the headline department of UC!"

Xu Gui kept his eyes fixed ahead and said dismissively, "Same, same."

Cameraman: It's a good thing the director didn't hear you say that.

Seeing the tense atmosphere on Aunt Tuanzi's side, Xu Gui first instructed the cameraman to carefully capture the ugly faces of that family... no, to film the whole incident so that netizens wouldn't be left wondering what was going on.

She thought bitterly, "How dare you steal Aunt Tuanzi's child! I'll make you famous right now!"