Ye Linchen was being held on either side of them, her elbows almost red from being pinched. She couldn't help but chuckle: "What happened again? Look how anxious you two are, like your eyebrows are on fire. Tell me quickly, I'm all ears."
Feng Linlin deliberately kept her in suspense, leaning closer to her mysteriously and lowering her voice: "It's a huge matter! No rush, let's find a place to eat first, we need to sit down and talk about it slowly."
Although Ye Linchen's appetite was piqued, he also knew their nature; the more he pressed them for answers, the less they would say.
She decided not to rush and simply let them be.
"Sure, I don't have classes this afternoon anyway. Let's go to that barbecue place near the school gate, and we can come over to my place after we eat."
“Let’s go there!” Feng Linlin and Lin Xiaojuan said in unison.
The three of them hurried to the barbecue restaurant.
Pushing open the greasy glass door of the barbecue restaurant, a wave of heat mixed with the aroma of charcoal and meat hits you.
The shop was noisy, and the overhead fan was spinning loudly, but it couldn't dispel the strong smell of cooking oil, causing the people to cough and sneeze.
The waiter helped them sit down, then quickly brought over a dark iron plate, lit a fire, and the slices of meat with alternating layers of fat and lean meat sizzled and splattered oil as soon as they touched the plate.
When the first plate of meat was roasted to a fragrant crisp, Feng Linlin finally couldn't hold back any longer. She slammed down her chopsticks and blurted out the big juicy gossip.
"Xiao Chen, Meng Zihan has run away!"
"They ran away?"
Ye Linchen paused for a moment while picking up the meat, but then resumed his normal movements and put a piece of roasted pork belly into Feng Linlin's bowl.
"What do you mean? Where could she, a perfectly healthy person, possibly run off to?"
"Meng Xuejun, that elusive father of hers, ran away with her!" Feng Linlin lowered her voice, her cheeks flushed with excitement. "My mom said they went to Hong Kong to do big business!"
Upon hearing the words "port city," Ye Linchen finally showed some interest, but his face remained expressionless.
As long as that family stops bothering her, she doesn't care if they go to the moon.
Seeing her nonchalant demeanor, Feng Linlin became displeased and poked her arm with the tip of her chopsticks.
"Hey, Ye Linchen, your reaction is way too calm! This is a momentous event, you should at least show some emotion!"
Ye Linchen was amused by her, so he had no choice but to widen his eyes and feign surprise: "Really? There's such a thing? Tell me quickly, what exactly happened! Why did they run away?"
Feng Linlin was finally satisfied and immediately began to tell the story vividly.
"Here's what happened. Your parents, you know, they were both laid off, and they had their eye on an old house near the cotton mill. They were just waiting to get their severance pay to complete the paperwork. And guess what happened?"
She paused, then kept everyone in suspense.
"The money is gone?" Ye Linchen guessed, following her words.
"Yes! The money's gone! You're so smart, you guessed it right away." Feng Linlin nodded immediately.
Ye Zhenghua had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of his severance pay and planned to pay the money and transfer the property as soon as possible.
But fate is unpredictable.
Ye Zhenghua had just taken the severance pay home when, the next day, as he was about to go through the process with the buyer, he opened his wallet and found that the money was gone.
He turned pale with fright and was about to call the police, but Meng Xueyun stopped him.
"Old Ye, don't call the police, the money isn't lost."
Upon hearing Meng Xueyun's words, Ye Zhenghua had a bad feeling and asked, "The money isn't lost? Then where did my money go? Did you hide it?"
As a result, Meng Xueyun stammered and dared not speak.
Ye Zhenghua immediately sensed something was wrong and shouted, "Was it given to your brother? Or to Meng Zihan?"
As Ye Zhenghua spoke, he rushed to Meng Zihan's room, only to find her gone as soon as he opened the door—even the wardrobe was empty! All her clothes and belongings had been taken!
Ye Zhenghua's mind went blank for a moment, then he shouted anxiously, "Where is she? Where did Meng Zihan go?!"
Meng Xueyun trembled: "Xiao Han... Xiao Han is gone. She went back to Hong Kong with Xiao Jun to do business!"
"Doing business? What kind of business! That's smuggling!" Ye Zhenghua grabbed Meng Xueyun's shoulder. "Did you give them our severance pay?! Did you?!"
Meng Xueyun shook her head frantically: "Old Ye, listen to me, it wasn't given away for free, it was lent to them. Xuejun even wrote an IOU and put his fingerprint on it."
"Besides, that business isn't smuggling; it's a legal business. Xuejun showed me his business license, and I also asked a friend to check it out. The company is real, the business is real, it's not illegal, and it's not a scam!"
"And they don't lend it for nothing; they have to pay it back and even give us a share of the profits!"
Ye Zhenghua was so angry he almost fainted.
"When has your brother ever paid back the money you lent him? If his business were truly legal, why would he come back to you? Why would he give us a share of the profits? If he gets arrested, we're all accomplices. You're really going to ruin me!"
As he spoke, Ye Zhenghua seemed to remember something and quickly pressed on, "When did those two leave? How long ago did they leave? What did they take to get there? If we call the police now and report them for stealing our money, we can get them arrested and our money back!"
Upon hearing that the police were to be called, Meng Xueyun panicked and tears streamed down her face: "We can't call the police! If we do, Xuejun and Xiaohan will be guilty of theft and will go to jail! That would ruin Xiaohan's life! I can't watch you destroy Xiaohan!"
Ye Zhenghua was so angry he felt dizzy: "So you're going to destroy our family?"
"If we don't have money, how are we going to buy a house? Where will we live? Are we all going to have to beg on the streets?"
Meng Xueyun then used the same excuse Meng Zihan had given her, saying, "I have a job and an income now, so I can rent a small apartment to live in for now. It's perfectly fine. Once Xiaohan and Xuejun make money from their business, they'll send money back to us. When we have money then, we can buy a big house."
"We've been poor for half our lives, this is a great opportunity to make a fortune!"
Ye Zhenghua was so angry that his blood rushed to the top of his head. He wanted to curse a few more times, but he had been having a rough few years. He was eating leftovers that Meng Xueyun brought back from the cafeteria and drinking alcohol all the time, so his health had deteriorated.
Today, I was first shocked, then angry, and before I could catch my breath, I collapsed.
When Meng Xueyun saw Ye Zhenghua fall down, she was terrified and immediately called an ambulance to take him to the hospital for emergency treatment.
Feng Linlin sighed: "He had a cerebral hemorrhage. He was in the hospital for three or four days before he was brought back to life. My mom said that since we've been neighbors for so many years, she brought some fruit to visit him a couple of days ago. Your dad is lying in the hospital bed now, unable to move half of his body, unable to speak clearly, and his mouth is crooked."
Lin Xiaojuan sighed as well, adding softly, "The doctor said that she suffered too much this time. Even if she can be discharged from the hospital, she will be basically crippled, and it's hard to say whether she will be able to stand up again."
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