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◎Birthday◎
Mu and Qing have been enjoying a rare period of peace these past few days, going to work and leaving get off work as usual. Apart from Li Shi's occasional harassment, everything is perfect.
She's been dealing with the fifty gift boxes Ouyang Zhu gave her these past few days. Besides giving them to Tang Ruxing and Deng Qian, she also gave them to her aunt and colleagues at the company with whom she had a close relationship. In the end, she still had quite a few left over.
She dragged the rest over and decided to have her mother take them back to share with relatives.
Li Hezhi followed Li Heyue downstairs, and upon seeing Mu Heqing, her previously serious face broke into a smile.
"My daughter!"
"Mom!" Mu Heqing ran over happily and rubbed against her mother.
Li Hezhi hugged Mu Heqing, stroked her face, and said, "Oh my, my precious baby, let me see if you've lost weight."
"No, I've actually gained weight."
Although Mu and Qing were worried, they ate quite a lot.
"Alright, alright, let's go upstairs, you two. Don't do this downstairs!" Li Heyue laughed.
Mu Heqing pointed to the large box of things she had dragged over and asked, "Mom, where's our car? I'll put the things in the car, and you can take them back to Huacheng to share with Auntie and the others."
Li Hezhi glanced at the items and nodded: "Okay, Mom will take care of it for you."
The fifty gift packages from Guihui Group have now been completely disposed of.
The group went upstairs, and Li Hezhi assigned tasks to everyone. Mu's father was in charge of cooking, Deng Qian volunteered to chop vegetables, Li Hezhi picked vegetables, Tang Ruxing cut fruit, and Mu Heqing and Li Heyue were assigned to clean the house, set the dining table, and also to pull out and replant the several withered plants in Li Heyue's house.
Deng Qian has worked at a barbecue restaurant for many years and is quite skilled at cutting boards.
"Xiaoqian's cooking is quite good," Mu's father exclaimed.
Deng Qian had never experienced a family working together on something before. She gripped the knife handle tightly, her ears turning red.
Li Heyue's kitchen is quite large, with space on both sides of the sink. Deng Qian and Mu's father were cooking and chopping vegetables together, while Li Hezhi and Tang Ruxing were picking vegetables and cutting fruit on the other side.
Tang Ruxing cut the watermelon in half and said to Li Hezhi, who was sitting on a small stool picking vegetables, "Auntie, I've never asked you, what exactly happened to Mu Heqing in high school? She changed quite a bit during that time."
Li Hezhi paused in her vegetable-picking process and said, "Why bring this up out of the blue?"
Tang Ruxing recalled seeing Mu Heqing looking uneasy last time, but she didn't say anything. She simply said, "I'm just chatting."
Mu's father came over. His personality was different from Li Hezhi's; he was mild-mannered and gentle. Mu Heqing was somewhat like him.
He sighed and said, "It's our fault. We wanted her to go to Huacheng No. 13 Middle School, but that school is a closed school. She can't even come home during winter and summer vacations. She's always been with us and has never left home. How can she stand being away from home for three years?"
Mu's father felt a little resentful. It was Li Hezhi who wanted Mu and Qing to attend No. 13 Middle School, but he had kept it to himself for so many years.
Because he knew that Li Hezhi resented herself even more than he did.
“It was my fault that I wanted Qingqing to go to No. 13 Middle School. I thought that if Qingqing went to No. 13 Middle School, she could go to a good university and wouldn’t have to suffer like us in the future.” Even the usually tough Li Hezhi’s eyes reddened as she recalled the past.
"No. 13 Middle School? I've never heard of it." Tang Ruxing attended Huacheng No. 3 Middle School after graduating from junior high school, and she had never heard of Huacheng having a No. 13 Middle School.
Li Hezhi wiped her eyes with her wrist and said, "Actually, it belongs to No. 2 Middle School, which is equivalent to the experimental middle school set up by No. 2 Middle School. It seems that it only existed in Qingqing's class, and then it stopped."
"What was Qing like before?" Deng Qian asked, noticing that everyone looked very heavy-hearted.
“Oh, Qian, you didn’t know Qing before. She used to be like this, but she wasn’t like this for a while after graduating from high school,” Tang Ruxing said.
Li Hezhi continued, "When Qingqing was in high school, she did come home a few times, but not often. One time when she came home, she suddenly told me that she didn't want to go to high school anymore. I thought she was under too much pressure from her studies, so I comforted her for a bit. Qingqing always listens to me, and after I finished speaking, she went back to school the next day."
"And then?" Deng Qian asked softly.
"After graduating from high school, we picked Qingqing up and took her home. On the way home, she didn't say a word and her body was shaking the whole time. Her father and I cooked a whole table of dishes, and she ate while crying. After she finished crying, she still didn't say a word. Then, she wouldn't sleep all night. We had no choice but to take her to see a doctor. The doctor said she was suffering from severe fright and prescribed medicine. After taking the medicine, she still didn't say a word, but at least she fell asleep. Alas, my daughter, Li Hezhi, went to high school and was frightened into a frenzy."
At this point, Li Hezhi burst into tears. She regretted it so much. She had secretly inquired about it, but the No. 13 Middle School said that the high school program had been disbanded, and she couldn't find any of her former classmates.
She didn't know what exactly happened between Mu and Qing in high school.
"Until one night, I went to give Qingqing her medicine, and she suddenly called out to me, 'Mom!' I was overjoyed; it was the first time she had called me that in so many days. I asked her, 'Daughter, what's wrong?' She said, 'Mom, please don't ask anymore. I'm fine. Please don't ask anymore, okay?' From then on, I never dared to ask about her high school life again. As long as my daughter is alright, I'll do anything."
Deng Qian also fell silent; she hadn't expected Mu and Qing to have such a past.
Tang Ruxing said, "Later, my aunt found me and said that we were in the same university and could take care of each other."
“No, Xingxing.” Li Hezhi shook her head. “Your third aunt is friends with my former colleague. She told my colleague a long time ago which university you applied to. Qingqing couldn’t fill out the application at all in her condition. I saw that her score was high enough, so I filled out the application for her to go to the same university as you. I really had no other choice. I knew that she used to have a friend like you.”
Tang Ruxing nodded silently. So that's how it is. It seems that Mu and Qing's recent state has reverted to the past. Is it because they ran into their old high school classmates?
Was she bullied throughout high school?
"Mom! I'm done, I'm here to help," Mu Heqing called from outside the kitchen.
Li Hezhi quickly turned her head away, wiped away her tears, and said, "Your aunt's kitchen is too small, there's no room for you here."
"It's not small at all," Li Heyue complained. "My apartment layout is the best in this complex."
Mu and Qing walked into the kitchen and asked, "What are you talking about? I bet you're talking about me. Oh, why are my mom's eyes red?"
Li Hezhi's face stiffened.
Tang Ruxing stepped in to smooth things over, saying, "It's all your fault. You're not like you were when you were little anymore. Look how upset you are with your mother."
"Why don't I look like I did when I was a child?" Mu Heqing asked, puzzled.
"Qian, do you know what Mu and Qing were like in junior high school?" Tang Ruxing asked.
"What do you mean?" Deng Qian asked politely.
"Back then, we were deskmates. I would bring her milk and snacks, and every time I gave them to her, she would reply, 'My mom said I can't eat this.' Whatever I asked her to do, the first thing she would say was always those four words: 'My mom said this.' It was the first time I had ever met someone who listened to her mother so much."
"How could I be so exaggerated?" Mu Heqing blushed. Wasn't this implying that she was just like Jiang Kaicheng?
Li Hezhi laughed and said, "Now that you're older, you don't listen to your mother anymore."
"I didn't," Mu Heqing wrinkled his nose.
The group laughed heartily, instantly dispelling the heavy atmosphere.
Before long, a table full of dishes was ready, and everyone clinked glasses, beaming with joy.
After finishing their meal, Mu and Qing picked up their phones and said to everyone, "Let's take a group photo."
Deng Qian said, "I'll take the photos for you."
"What are you saying? Let's film together." Mu Heqing tugged at Deng Qian.
Deng Qian raised her phone and switched to selfie mode. Everyone smiled broadly, capturing their happiest expressions in front of the camera.
Mu and Qing opened Changcha, found Moments, uploaded a group photo of everyone, and captioned it with two words: Birthday.
…………
Jiang Kaicheng was engrossed in watching a horror movie on TV when Jiang Mu, who was sitting next to him, suddenly stood up, startling him.
"Hey bro, what are you doing? Trying to scare me to death, huh?" Jiang Kaicheng said, displeased.
"Excuse me, brother," Jiang Mu said apologetically, walking to the side.
Jiang Kaicheng wanted to call out to his younger brother, as he was scared to watch a horror movie alone, but seeing that Jiang Mu was staring at his phone and didn't seem interested in watching it with him, he could only continue watching the horror movie by himself.
Jiang Mu zoomed in and out on a picture from Changliao's WeChat Moments, until only Mu and Qing's faces were visible.
Her face was full of genuine, happy smiles, as if she were with the person she loved most.
Jiang Mu shrunk the photo again and saw a middle-aged couple and three women, all of whom were also smiling.
He estimated that these were some of the most important people in Mu and Qing's interpersonal relationships.
Jiang Mu stared at the photo for a while longer.
Before Mu Heqing left Qingcheng, he greeted him on the chat and thanked him for his help. But he wanted more than just that; he also wanted to enter Mu Heqing's circle of acquaintances.
Since resigning from his position as regional president of Guihui, he has stopped bothering to inquire about Guihui.
But after he sent Mu and Qing back to the Elegant Hotel under the Guihui Group last time, he asked a few people and found that Guihui's development over the years had been quite strange, and surprisingly, no one opposed Ouyang Zhu.
When he was at Guihui Group, there were quite a few voices opposing Ouyang Zhu.
Mu Heqing came to Qingcheng this time to discuss business, but he couldn't understand how a small lighting trading company in Ancheng could have business dealings with Guihui Group.
To be honest, Jiang Mu hesitated, wondering if he should get involved in this mess. Rationally, he told himself to stop here; after his conversation with Mu and Qing in Ancheng, he shouldn't go any further.
But after returning to Qingcheng, he spent every day looking at Mu Heqing's chat box, thinking about how to contact her again. When he encountered Mu Heqing covered in blood at the hospital, his first instinct was to help her change her clothes.
What is he doing?
By some strange twist of fate, he also found out that Mu Heqing's name was on the invitation list for the upcoming art exhibition at Guihui, so he got himself a ticket as well.
Now, he opened Mu and Qing's chat window and sent a message: Happy birthday, Qing.
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