Chapter 87 Running away from home and sending location information? ...

"Don't go!"

Jin Zhao seized his hand, her fingertips trembling slightly as she gripped it tightly.

The man stared at her with his dark eyes, and after a moment, he said self-deprecatingly, "What's the point of staying? You don't love me."

With a slight effort, he ruthlessly pried open her tightly clenched fingers.

Even so, as he turned to leave, he still shamelessly smoothed down the long train of her wedding dress to prevent her from stepping on it and falling.

This one gesture had already used up all his gentleness for the day; the little dumpling wouldn't receive the same treatment.

When he came downstairs, the little dumpling was stuck under the toy shelf.

The chubby little baby was trying to crawl. He could already crawl two or three steps, but he accidentally got stuck under the toy shelf. He couldn't go in or back out, his plump little body stuck there. He turned his head to look for help from an adult, his tender eyebrows furrowed into waves. An aunt wanted to pick him up, but the aunt from the Meng family stopped her, took out her phone to record a video, and said with a smile, "Little dumpling, figure it out yourself, crawl out by yourself."

Seeing that there was no hope of help, the baby had no choice but to turn its head away, lift its chubby arms and legs, and continue crawling with grunts.

Babies this age move so slowly and clumsily, every step like slow motion. The auntie holds up her phone to take pictures, not wanting to miss a single moment.

Finally, the little dumpling found a gap under the toy shelf, and with a burst of strength from its arms and legs, its little body darted out.

Wow! It's out! Little dumpling is so great!

"Wow! Whose baby is so smart? Is it the Meng family's baby? How come little Meng Jue is so smart?"

Two aunties stood by, showering her with praise and providing plenty of emotional support.

The little dumpling was extremely proud of itself, turning its head to giggle.

Just then, the little dumpling spotted Meng Yanxi coming downstairs, and immediately let out a loud "Ao!" It was unclear whether he was showing off or trying to attract his father's attention.

He shouted so loudly, but Meng Yanxi was just in a bad mood. She wasn't deaf, so of course she heard him and looked up at him.

Encouraged, the little dumpling spread its tail feathers even more vigorously, emitting several more sounds in succession—

"Oh my!"

"clatter!"

"Bang!"

He lay on his stomach on the mat, making noises while deliberately teasing Meng Yanxi, giggling. His motive for wanting his father to praise him was all too obvious.

Aunt Meng chimed in with a smile, "The little dumpling can crawl now. She just crawled out from under the toy shelf by herself."

Little dumpling: "Yeah!"

Meng Yanxi stared indifferently at the innocent and rosy baby, knowing he should respond, but he felt as if a fire was burning inside him, his temples were taut, and he could barely suppress the anger in his heart.

He gave a faint "hmm" in response, but didn't go forward to hug him, and strode away from the villa.

Even though the baby is young, he is very clever. He can sense the emotions of adults immediately. I don't know if he was frightened by his father's behavior or upset that his father ignored him. He was stunned for three seconds, then suddenly his little mouth twitched and he burst into tears with a "waaaah".

He was still crying when he finally delivered it to Jin Zhao.

The little guy was truly heartbroken. He wrapped his little arms around Jin Zhao's neck, his face flushed, and tears streamed down his cheeks. Jin Zhao comforted him for a while, and the little dumpling snuggled against his mother. His sadness subsided, and his little mouth started chattering away again.

He can't speak yet, of course; he just babbles and makes incoherent sounds, but his speech is extremely dense.

The aunt noticed and said with a smile, "Oh dear, our little dumpling is tattling on her father."

Little dumpling: "Ah! Oh!"

Then they started making even more frequent "ee-ya-ee-oh" sounds.

The baby's face was fair and soft, with small, pink lips. When he spoke, his mouth opened and closed, revealing his gums that hadn't yet grown teeth.

Like a tattletale, a shameless tattletale.

Jin Zhao felt a pang of sorrow in his heart.

The aunt next to them, unaware of what had happened between the young couple, found the scene amusing and jokingly said, "Alright, little dumpling, stop tattling. Daddy was busy going out and didn't mean to ignore us. When Daddy comes back, let him apologize to you, okay?"

The little dumpling ignored her and continued to complain to her mother.

After the nanny left, Jin Zhao gently pressed her lips against the baby's little face and murmured, "Daddy isn't angry with you, he's angry with Mommy. Mommy did something wrong."

The little dumpling was making cooing noises, its tiny fists clenched, it was hard to tell whether it understood or was protesting.

Jin Zhao was both amused and exasperated.

Little dumpling: "Mah, ba!"

Jin Zhao suddenly caught two sounds from the baby's voice, and his eyes lit up.

She looked at the baby in her arms with surprise: "Are you calling for Mommy and Daddy?"

But those two sounds were fleeting, and later the little guy complained a lot, but never mentioned his parents again.

*

The aunt posted a video of the baby learning to crawl in the group chat, which immediately received excited likes from the whole family.

Especially Meng Huai and Meng Shixu, who praised him one after another like a chain, which made up for the cold treatment the little dumpling had received from his father.

Meng Shixu even went so far as to praise one while belittling the other, completely disregarding Meng Yanxi's well-being by tagging him: 【As expected of a child from the Meng family, just as smart as your scoundrel father. @MengYanxi】

Meng Yanxi did not appear.

After leaving the villa, he went straight to Master Sui. While his son was making waves in the family group chat, he had just returned to Yun Sheng's office with a USB drive in his hand.

It contains all the information about that student, including her past exam papers and exam monitoring data from the last six months.

There was also a paper statement, written by Jin Zhao.

He looked at it immediately after receiving it, and then looked at it three more times back in his office.

Her narrative is like her as a person: rational and clear-headed, neither humble nor arrogant, devoid of emotion, and even somewhat like a robot.

But how could she be a robot? He clearly saw the grievances and sadness hidden beneath her words.

His fingertips clenched so tightly that his nails turned white, and the paper rustled softly.

Meng Yanxi's eyes were red at the corners.

The office door opened with a knock, and Zhuang Yu rushed over.

He had gone out to discuss some business today, but Meng Yanxi called him back at the last minute. Having served Meng Yanxi for so many years, he could tell from her tone that she was angry. But not knowing what had happened, he immediately dropped what he was doing and rushed back.

"President Meng."

Meng Yanxi didn't say anything, threw the statement over, and silently walked to the French windows.

Zhuang finished reading it in one glance.

The statement was very detailed, and it even included the student's suicide case. Zhuang Yu could roughly understand Meng Yanxi's anger at this moment, but he couldn't yet figure out how far Meng Yanxi intended to go.

Meng Yanxi remained silent for a long time, her back to him, her back as rugged as a precipitous peak, her cold demeanor concealing an unknown ruthlessness and danger.

Zhuang tentatively asked, "President Meng, what is the current status of the matter with Master Sui?"

Meng Yanxi glanced disdainfully at Sui Yi at her feet, her peach blossom eyes as cold as ice: "Ignore Sui Shi, doesn't she want to die?"

"Yanxi".

Meng Huai, who suddenly pushed open the door, interrupted Meng Yanxi's words.

Zhuang Yu didn't know what Meng Yanxi originally intended to say, and with Meng Huai's sudden appearance, he was also called out.

With Meng Yanxi in power, Meng Huai has come to Yunsheng less and less in recent years, and today was just a coincidence. He had just sat down when he saw his aunt post a video of the little dumpling in the group chat. He had probably watched it at least ten times, and he guessed Meng Shixu was about the same. After the family finished joking around, Meng Yanxi did not appear, and Meng Shixu even tagged him.

If Meng Yanxi is a fox, then Meng Huai is an old fox; his intuition is often more acute than Meng Yanxi's.

Meng Huai called his aunt, and in the few minutes that he was happily playing with the little dumpling, he managed to get the truth out of Meng Yanxi about how she had just scared his son to tears.

"Why is Grandpa here?" Meng Yanxi turned around, surprised by Meng Huai's sudden appearance.

Meng Huai walked in leaning on his cane, smiling and saying, "I just happened to be at the company when my subordinates told me you were back, so I came down to see you."

On Meng Yanxi's desk was Jin Zhao's statement of the situation. Meng Huai did not avoid suspicion and went over to pick it up and read it directly.

At Meng Huai's age, he has experienced many ups and downs, and his mindset is very calm. He rarely has any emotional fluctuations. After reading it, he put it back and said with a smile, "Yan Xi, you are a husband and a father now. Don't act like an eighteen or nineteen-year-old boy and act impulsively. You still need to learn to control your temper."

Meng Huai patted Meng Yanxi on the shoulder as he spoke, then left with a smile.

Five minutes later, the office door opened again, and Meng Yanxi tossed Zhuang Yu a USB drive: "Check the surveillance footage."

Zhuang Yu held the USB drive in both hands, puzzled, and asked, "President Meng, what exactly are you investigating?"

Meng Yanxi: "Cheating, leaking exam questions."

Zhuang and his intuition told him that Meng Yanxi's decision now was different from the one he had made just ten minutes ago. Just ten minutes ago, Meng Yanxi was clearly so fierce that he wanted to kill, but after Meng Huai's visit, he became restrained.

Is the investigation now just about cheating? Didn't you just say it had nothing to do with Teacher Sui?

Zhuang asked cautiously, "What if she didn't cheat?"

Meng Yanxi raised her eyelids, her gaze sharp: "If you're not confident about the objective questions, how dare you leave all the subjective questions blank? And if you leave all the subjective questions blank, how dare you not even look at the grades after they come out, only to find out you failed at graduation?"

Zhuang Yu realized what was happening and thought to himself, "As expected of Meng Yanxi, she's incredibly shrewd."

The school's surveillance footage was stored for six months, and Zhuang Yuquan checked all of He Yue's exams within that period.

University final exams are actually Schrödinger's cat in terms of strictness. You could say they're not strict, because the rules and regulations are clearly stated, and cheating is a red line; if caught, you'll at least get a major demerit and it'll be on your record. But you could also say they're strict, because every semester, quite a few students take the risk, and if you go to a print shop, you can even find out the exam questions by tricking them into being copied.

The proctors were also random, some strict and some not. It wasn't until the end of last semester, with the reform of the teaching system, that final exams became generally stricter. Even so, He Yue still brought cheat sheets; she brought cheat sheets to five exams last semester alone. In the English exam, the proctor kept walking around her, and she didn't copy the answers correctly. She copied one blank wrong on a multiple-choice question, and then got all the rest wrong, resulting in only 25 points on the objective questions and no answers on the subjective questions.

He brought this upon himself, but ended up trying to frame Jin Zhao.

*

Jin Zhao received firsthand information about the latest handling of He Yue that evening.

Wang Nan updated her. At that moment, she had just recorded a video of the little dumpling calling "Daddy" and was about to send it to Meng Yanxi when Wang Nan's message popped up: "Zhaozhao! This is great! I just heard from the leaders that He Yue is going to be expelled! It's said that someone reported that He Yue brought cheat sheets to multiple exams. For someone like her who cheated on such a large scale, the school will expel her according to the school rules! That's great, she can never come back!"

Jin Zhao felt somewhat taken aback.

If expulsion were possible, the school would have done so from the beginning. In the end, only a leave of absence was granted, which is the result of a power struggle between the school and the parents. They were probably afraid that if the student actually committed suicide, they wouldn't be able to bear the public backlash.

"Why did the school agree?" she asked. "Didn't the leaders always insist on leniency in education and give students another chance?"

Wang Nan: "They've offended someone tough. The whistleblower said they won't accept a leave of absence; this kind of person must be expelled. Otherwise, they'll have to dig deeper into why the student was able to get cheat sheets for every course. Is the school underestimating the final exams and leaking questions at will? You know, some teachers really can't keep their mouths shut. Students take cheat sheets to the school's print shop to print them, and then the print shop sells them separately, like a black market transaction. If this kind of thing isn't investigated, it's fine, but if you investigate it thoroughly, it's a huge scandal, especially since multiple courses were leaked at the same time. The school is considering the public pressure, so they're choosing the lesser of two evils."

Wang Nan said sarcastically, "Oh ho, she studied hard for more than 20 years, only to be expelled from university and have it recorded in her file right before graduation. All that education was for nothing. Although she had already wasted her education anyway."

Jin Zhao suspects that the person who reported him was Meng Yanxi. No, it's not just a suspicion, it's almost certain.

After all, Meng Yanxi had only learned about this that morning and had even lost her temper, and He Yue's latest punishment came down that evening. She couldn't think of anyone else who could deliver such a swift and decisive response besides Meng Yanxi.

She felt a sense of satisfaction, just like Wang Nan described it in four words—it was truly gratifying.

Even though she managed to get the other student to take a leave of absence, she still felt a tightness in her chest when she thought about it. Why? Just because she was unlucky? Just because she was a teacher, and was naturally expected to give way to her students, so that even with all her efforts she could only protect herself, and couldn't even fight back?

She didn't think there was anything wrong with not telling Meng Yanxi about her grievances, because at the time she thought that she was used to things like this and could protect herself. If she had to seek Meng Yanxi's help and have him back her up just because of getting married, she would feel ashamed and Meng Yanxi might look down on her.

Over the years, no matter what she has encountered, her core logic has always been—don't get distracted, and don't let it affect the most important person in her life.

She herself is the most important person. As long as she keeps improving, nothing else matters.

That's why when she heard Meng Yanxi's heartbreaking accusations, she could only say "no" guiltily, but couldn't really refute him.

Because she was indeed just accumulating her own strength from beginning to end. Perhaps she was naturally pessimistic. Even though she deeply loved Meng Yanxi now and knew that Meng Yanxi loved her, she still wanted to leave herself a way out, so that even if the two of them no longer loved each other one day, they could live well and part ways with dignity, without having their original feelings worn away and made unbearable by some external things.

She didn't think there was anything wrong with it and made it a habit.

However, upon seeing Meng Yanxi's injured expression, she suddenly regretted not telling him from the beginning. Even if the problem was eventually resolved, she should have let him know.

He seemed to have long understood her excessive insistence on independence and her failure to rely on others, which was why he told her early on that her open reliance wasn't weakness, but rather love for him. That's why her stubborn exclusion of him this time made him think she didn't love him.

It was only then that she realized that love, besides being a heartfelt commitment, also includes relying on and being relied upon. It is a two-way growth for both people, a two-way pursuit of the most extreme needs, representing the unreserved surrender of each other. The absence of either party means that something is being held back, or to put it more bluntly—not enough love.

Meng Yanxi just wanted her to reciprocate his unconditional love, just like he had given her.

*

Meng Yanxi didn't go home that night; instead, she went drinking with Luo Heng and Lu Jingyue in Luxi.

Luo Heng commented on this: "He's a terrible cook with a huge addiction, has a low alcohol tolerance but loves to drink."

Attorney Luo was in a hurry to get home, his goal being to knock Meng Yanxi out. This wasn't difficult, given Meng Yanxi's extremely low alcohol tolerance.

As things turned out, things didn't go as planned. While Attorney Luo did manage to take down Meng Yanxi effortlessly, she miscalculated the number of men who were unlucky in love.

Not one, but two.

They took down Meng Yanxi and Lu Jingyue. What's worse, unlike Meng Yanxi, Lu Jingyue has an incredibly high alcohol tolerance.

Finally, Meng Yanxi woke up from her nap, but Lu Jingyue was still asleep.

Luo Heng: "..."

After waking up, Meng Yanxi sat silently on the sofa, watching them drink for a while, then looking down at her phone, her finger tapping on Jin Zhao's profile picture repeatedly.

Lu Jingyue finally collapsed. Luo Heng wiped his face, walked back to Meng Yanxi, and kicked his foot: "Let's go, go back to sleep. Have your driver pick you up."

Meng Yanxi: "I'm not going back."

"Alright, stop talking nonsense." A man's words are deceitful, and Luo Heng didn't believe it at all. "With you and your wife being so inseparable, missing each other even for a minute, could you really stand not going home for a whole night?"

Meng Yanxi lowered her eyes, her long eyelashes falling, making her look somewhat broken: "Lingling doesn't love me."

Luo Heng guessed that Meng Yanxi wasn't planning to go back tonight, and he was too lazy to move. He sprawled out on the sofa, covered his face with his arms, and muttered, "I'm tired, so I won't try to persuade you. Anyway, with your love-struck mind, you'll be able to soothe yourself once you're sober."

Meng Yanxi was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly kicked him.

Luo Heng: "What is it?"

Meng Yanxi continued kicking.

Luo Heng: "Don't make noise, I want to sleep."

Meng Yanxi kicked again.

He held his phone, scrolling through it eight hundred times a day. He glanced at it again and suddenly said to Luo Heng, "You haven't posted anything on WeChat Moments today."

Luo Heng: "?"

She raised her arm and looked at Meng Yanxi with a puzzled expression: "I didn't post on WeChat Moments yesterday, and I didn't post on WeChat Moments the day before yesterday either, so why do I have to post on WeChat Moments today?"

Meng Yanxi: "Post it on WeChat Moments quickly."

Luo Heng stared at Meng Yanxi.

Although Master Luo is mostly oblivious and a bit silly, he is, after all, a lawyer, and a well-known one at that, so his logical thinking is quite impressive. He stared at Meng Yanxi for a few seconds, then suddenly asked with amusement, "Send it to whom? To you? Should I include a location tag?"

Meng Yanxi thought for a moment, then nodded demurely: "Okay."

Luo Heng laughed loudly, pointing at him with exasperation, "Meng Yanxi, can't you be any more promising? Who the hell sends their location after running away from home? Are you afraid your wife won't be able to find you?"