Chapter 96: Child Marriage: I don’t think I’ve ever been a competent person…
Heavy rains hit many places, and the airport was filled with flight delays.
Luo Shu was exhausted from the long journey and did not dare to stop for even a moment. By the time she arrived, the funeral ceremony had already ended hastily.
Although she had prepared herself mentally before coming, she still felt sad when she saw Fei Wei throwing herself into her arms and sobbing. She could only sigh that talent is envied by heaven.
After comforting Fei Wei who had lost her friend, Luo Shu realized that Shen Qianshu was missing. After searching for a while, she finally found him in front of a lonely cemetery. He was standing in front of the tombstone stubbornly and refused to move.
After standing with him for a while, Luo Shu couldn't help but ask with concern: "Qian Shu, are you okay?"
Shen Qianshu turned a deaf ear to him, his extremely forbearing eyes filled with bloodshot, his dark pupils fixed tightly on the name on the tombstone. He found it hard to accept, confused, and strange that he was gone forever just when he was discussing the project.
"Your brother in heaven wouldn't want to see you like this," Luo Shu comforted.
"Who hopes?"
His sudden words made Luo Shu wonder if she had said something wrong. She stared at him blankly, at a loss.
Shen Qianshu was still talking to himself: "Who would want to see us like this? Who, who on earth is it? Who on earth is unwilling to let us have an easy life?"
He roared the last question with a distorted face, as if he was gasping for breath with all his might. His scattered gaze focused again when it touched the mud on the ground, and he ran out as if he had the answer in his heart.
He suddenly ran away. Luo Shu was confused and worried at the same time. She followed him instinctively, only to see Shen Qianshu rushing through the crowd of mourners like a mad bull with red eyes, and got into a black car.
Without time to think, Luo Shu was quick-witted and climbed into the passenger seat while he was starting the car.
Shen Qianshu paused while trying to light the car: "Luo Shu, get out of the car."
Luo Shu fastened her seatbelt and protested with her neck stiff: "Tell me first where you are going and what you are going to do, otherwise I won't get off."
He was so emotional right now that she couldn't let him drive alone.
Without any explanation, Shen Qianshu stepped on the accelerator and drove out of the mountains in one go. The whole process was like lightning, overtaking every car he saw and taking advantage of every opportunity he saw, but Luo Shu knew that he had restrained himself along the way.
The journey ended at a mental hospital in the suburbs.
Through the windshield, the name of the hospital came into Luo Shu's eyes. She was expressionless for several seconds. She had always thought that Shen Qianshu's father was in a nursing home as he and Zou Jing said. It turned out that what Fang Qingzhuo said was true.
Before Luo Shu could react, Shen Qianshu had already stepped out of the car, taking quick and big steps, and headed straight for the rest area at the back.
Seeing this, Luo Shu didn't care about anything else and quickly got out of the car and chased after him.
Inside the ward, the medical staff who were doing routine checks were attracted by the commotion outside.
The security guard couldn't stop Shen Qianshu, who was emitting a life-threatening aura, so he simply turned back and called for help.
Without any obstruction, Shen Qianshu rushed straight to the innermost ward and kicked the door open. Suddenly, a terrifying face filled with impending storm was exposed to the sight of the medical staff. This menacing sense of destruction caused everyone to exclaim in surprise.
Several male doctors tried to drive her away verbally.
"Who are you?"
"Sorry, you can't come in without a reservation."
Shen Qianshu turned a deaf ear to them, pushed away the leading doctor who was trying to dissuade him, and instead drove the extra people out of the door, locking it behind him.
At this time, the ward owner slowly turned around in his wheelchair, but before he could see who was coming, he was grabbed by the collar and lifted up with his body.
"Did you do something? Why did my brother suddenly get into a car accident? Tell me, was it you who did it? He's already in a mental hospital, but you still have to haunt us, right?"
Shen Guanghan took a few seconds to digest the familiar face and roar in front of him, which was somewhat similar to his own.
"Qianfan was in a car accident?"
Shen Guanghan suddenly burst into laughter, his shoulders and chest shaking. "Then is it your turn to make the decision about Jiang Run? Quick, get Dad out. We are the closest father and son, and the most legitimate..."
"Are you still worthy of being a human being?"
Shen Qianshu was tortured by the laughter to the point of auditory hallucination. At this moment, the disgusting laughter echoing in his ears overlapped with the dull pain of fists hitting the flesh, the sound of bones broken by kicks in the chest, and the sizzling sound of scarlet cigarette butts grinding against flesh. The old scars on his back miraculously itched and rotted.
He gritted his teeth and cursed, "Why wasn't you the one who died?"
This outrageous statement immediately made Shen Guanghan's eyes widen with anger. He first looked at his youngest son for a few seconds, then took advantage of his unpreparedness to pinch Shen Qianshu's neck. The strength of his hands continued to shrink with his anger, and his eyebrows were tense.
Shen Qianshu looked at the pair of ugly eyes that rushed towards him, and the first reaction that popped out of his brain was not sadness or resistance, but laughter.
With a gentle push from the hands that were grabbing his collar, his biological father, who wished he could strangle him to death, fell to the ground along with the chair.
Shen Guanghan's legs had been crippled for a long time. He sat up awkwardly, repeatedly observing his hands. They were so insignificant in front of Shen Qianshu. He realized that he was really old. He sat on the ground with his strength exhausted, as if unable to accept the fact. He threw everything he could touch at Shen Qianshu: "You unfilial son who was struck by lightning, if you have the guts, kill me now, just like you shot me in the leg that year. You used to have Qian Fan, that conscienceless guy, to protect you, but now I don't see who can protect you anymore."
"Shut up." Shen Qianshu suddenly grabbed him and pressed him to the ground, "I don't allow you to say that to him."
"That's what I was saying." Shen Guanghan's irises, which had dimmed with age, lit up with pride. "Not only is he as annoying as his deceased grandfather, he's also a born short-lived ghost. Otherwise, why would I have brought you all the way here?"
Shen Qianshu's eyes froze, fixed on Shen Guanghan's expression, which didn't seem like he was telling a lie: "Short-lived ghost, what do you mean?"
It was this opportunity that Shen Guanghan gathered his strength to push back: “You don’t know yet, Qianfan, my unlucky son suffers from hereditary hemophilia.”
Ignoring Shen Qianshu who was sitting on the ground with a look of astonishment on his face, he slowly fell into memories, "The Lu family hid it from me so hard, and Qianfan happened to run into it with a 50% probability."
"So what if the Lu family is wealthy, powerful, and wealthy? They earn so much money but are not destined to enjoy it. God is fair. He gave the Lu family more money than they can spend in two lifetimes and also gave them a gene that no amount of money can cure."
As he spoke, he laughed joyfully, "The day after that woman Lu Yinman died, I took out all the grievances I suffered in the Lu family on Qianfan. But he didn't take it at all and ended up in the hospital within a night. I was afraid he'd beat me to death and it would be difficult to explain to those Lu family lackeys, so I asked you to enjoy his father's love in his place."
The moment the word "fatherly love" came out of his mouth, Shen Qianshu couldn't hide his physical disgust. His nails scraped across the cold and hard ground, and his heart ached.
"But you're so determined to go back, back to that godforsaken place. I let you, an illegitimate child, live with me, changed your last name, and sent you to an international school. Not only are you ungrateful, but you even joined Qianfan in opposing me. You deserve it, you all deserve it."
After he finished cursing, Shen Qianshu mechanically lifted his eyelids, stood up, looked down at Shen Guanghan who was crawling on the ground, pointed at him and laughed, the corners of his mouth rising from the initial slight arc to full-on laughter.
Shen Guanghan couldn’t move, so he could only glare at him and ask him what he was laughing at?
Shen Qianshu squatted in front of him, his expression neither sad nor angry, like the oppression of the Five Finger Mountain: "Laugh at your vague excuses, laugh at your fatherly love that is just punching and kicking, laugh at your fatherly love that is branding your own inferiority on your own flesh and blood."
Shen Guanghan suddenly broke down and shouted: "I don't feel inferior. Back then, I relied on myself to climb up step by step. If I hadn't been tricked by you..."
Shen Qianshu pressed on, "You have no self-esteem. To cling to the rich and powerful, you abandoned your childhood sweetheart and even married into the Lin family to become their son-in-law. The first step in taking over their property was to change the Lu family name to the Shen family name, and change the son's surname, which had always been his mother's, to your own. But a pheasant is a pheasant, and a pheasant can never become a phoenix. And you took all the humiliation and contempt you received outside and vented it on us."
"Are you still a human? No, you are worse than an animal."
Shen Guanghan's psychological defenses completely collapsed. He raised his arm in anger and was about to swing it, but was intercepted mid-air by Shen Qianshu: "Do you know about the car accident?"
"have no idea."
Shen Qianshu didn't believe it and raised his fist high: "I'll ask you one last time..."
Outside the door, Luo Shu stood guarding it woodenly, the clear conversation going on inside her ears. A struggle ran through her mind: should she stop him from doing something that might violate social ethics and be understood by the world? But...
Not far away, the doctor led a group of security guards towards this side.
"This is it, rush in."
The leading security guard looked at Luo Shu standing at the door and said awkwardly, "Miss, please don't interfere with our work."
Luo Shu was conflicted and refused to answer or give in.
Just when the security guard was about to force the person to break down the door, the door opened automatically from the inside out.
Shen Qianshu grabbed Luo Shu's wrist and silently took her out of the hospital.
As night falls, the streetlights on both sides of the road come on.
The geographical location was limited, so Luo Shu walked around twice and came back after buying medicine. Shen Qianshu sat on the seat at the bus stop, hunched his back, and let the white light from the light box behind him cover his back.
But Luo Shu felt that no amount of light could illuminate him.
I came up to him, squatted down, tore open the package, broke the cotton swab on the iodine tincture and disinfected the wound on the back of his hand.
Shen Qianshu's expression didn't change. He stared at Luo Shu as she applied the ointment gently and blew on his wound as if afraid that it would hurt him. The raised fist never landed on Shen Guanghan, but hit the ground instead, because he knew very well what that punch meant. It meant that he would become like Shen Guanghan, which was something that neither he nor Shen Qianfan wanted to see.
After applying the medicine, Luo Shu was just thinking about how to suggest sending him back to rest when a series of uneven voices suddenly rang out from above her head: "Didn't you ask me about the scar on my back? He burned it. And how you spent those years? I'll tell you everything."
Luo Shu raised her head and looked at him, blaming herself sullenly for asking him at that time.
"The night after the high school entrance exam, I received a call. My dad, a father I had never met, wanted to take me to his place for the summer vacation. To be honest, I was quite happy. I thought he took me there to make it up to me."
"Looking back now, this idea was too naive." Shen Qianshu curled the corners of his lips in self-deprecation, "He is just a beast that can go crazy at any time."
"I know he had a son before me, and a family of three. I also know that my background is not glorious. I didn't want to disturb their lives, I just wanted to go and take a look, that's all."
The temperature dropped sharply at night, and his speech became very fast, his voice even trembling in the wind. "Who knew that I would never come back? I couldn't eat the Ningcheng dishes made by my grandparents, and I couldn't continue studying with you. Luo Shu, it's not my fault for breaking the promise. I couldn't help it. I begged him to let me come back, but he refused. I ran away, but I was caught again. With a reason, he unscrupulously locked me in the basement, saying that he was my guardian and threatening me not to escape from his clutches. At first, I just knelt until my legs were numb. Later, he slapped me, punched me, and even cigarette butts. Gradually, his true face was revealed. Whenever I was offended or laughed at outside, he would escalate and repay me doubly."
Luo Shu couldn't bear it, so she placed her hands on his knees to comfort him: "Okay, Qianshu, I don't want to know anymore, please don't say anything."
Shen Qianshu shook his head, and the tears that had been waiting for him immediately fell out of his eyes: "I'm not bitter, Luo Shu, really, I'm not bitter at all."
The tears fell on the back of Luo Shu's hand, so weightless and silent, but made her heart heavy.
"I remember the first day I arrived at the Shen family. My brother hated me and never gave me a good face. He even told me to go back to where I came from. I never got angry. I put myself in his shoes and knew he was right. But when I was beaten to the point of losing consciousness, he rushed in with a baseball bat to block me and defend me. After that night, I found out that he had been beaten by Shen Guanghan for years, but I didn't know he had a genetic disease. For so many years, I was completely unaware of it. I feel so sorry for him. When I was in trouble, he was the one who helped me leave the country. It seems that I have never been a competent brother..."
Shen Qianshu suddenly seemed to have lost his backbone. His head slid down, and his forehead rested on Luo Shu's shoulder. He hugged her like a life-saving straw and cried, "Luo Shu, I want him to come back..."
Cars whizzed past on the road, the evening breeze blew away the treetops, and the world was in an uproar.
A week later, the weather was fine and sunny.
After lunch at the old house, Fang Qingzhuo sat with the old lady in the living room, watching TV to while away the time. The noon news was reporting on a new project developed by Jiangrun...
Fang Qingzhuo's calm gaze withdrew from the TV screen. He put on a perfectly composed smile, called out "Grandma," and casually asked, "I've always had a question. My mom isn't from a wealthy family. From what I know about you, you should have been strongly against my dad marrying my mom. Why did you agree? Could it be because of me?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the old lady's fingers slipping out of the bracelet as she was twisting it, and he continued to ask, "But my existence shouldn't affect him marrying someone else. Doesn't my father have a marriage partner?"
His eyes turned back to the TV again, "What a coincidence, it seems to be the daughter of the Jiang Run family."
Although both the Fang and Lu families are local real estate developers, they are indeed engaged in a child marriage. Fang Jueshan's marriage partner is Shen Qianfan's mother, Lu Yinman.
Guessing her grandson's intention, the old lady countered his move, her tone revealing regret: "Why else could it be? It's all because that girl Yin Man is unlikely to give birth to a healthy child."
Fang Qingzhuo asked curiously, "If it's not her, then it can't be someone else?"
Judging from the blind dates the old lady arranged for him, her ideal daughter-in-law must be a well-behaved and docile type, and she is not the same type as Zhu Jie at all. In terms of age alone, Zhu Jie is two years older than Fang Jueshan.
The old lady said: "You don't allow me to be an open-minded old lady."
Fang Qingzhuo smiled and replied "yes", then pretended to be kind and tried to test her: "Who did this Aunt Lu marry in the end, and how is her life?"
This time, the old lady didn't choose to continue the conversation, but changed the subject lightly: "How is your father in the hospital?"
"You know everything?" Fang Qingzhuo widened his eyes slightly and leaned back on the sofa. "That's fine. You won't see anyone except me."
Unexpectedly, the old lady was waiting for this sentence: "Oh, grandma is a little sleepy, the kitchen just made some soup, you can bring it over."
An obvious order to expel guests.
How could Fang Qingzhuo, a shrewd man, not hear what was said? He picked up the thermos bucket that Zhang Ma handed to him in time, and even though he was unwilling to do so, he still drove to the hospital in order to cover up his lie.
In the huge luxurious ward, Fang Qingzhuo scratched his head and scrolled through the chat page with Luo Shu. Ever since he stood her up about sending the car last time, he ignored her messages and phone calls.
The bed in front of him was empty, and the soup that he had personally delivered to him was placed alone on the bedside table. Next to him was the doctor who was reporting on the situation of the past two days.
"This is a list of people who have come to the hospital recently to inquire about information."
Fang Qingzhuo glanced at the list roughly. From the deputy general shareholder of the group to the passers-by whose names he couldn't remember, it was really lively.
During this time, Tang Yan called, and Fang Qingzhuo answered the phone: "Mr. Fang, I just arrived at the hospital. Are you still upstairs? I have something urgent to ask you."
Hearing this, Fang Qingzhuo opened the curtains and saw Tang Yan hurriedly getting out of the car downstairs, as well as two business cars behind the car.
"You seem to have brought a tail with you."
As soon as Tang Yan appeared at the door of the ward, all the big names in the group emerged from all directions, clamoring to see Fang Jueshan.
"We want to see Mr. Fang."
"Mr. Fang hasn't shown up for almost two months. As company veterans, we have the right to know about his health condition."
"Yes, we must get an explanation today. We won't leave until we see Mr. Fang."
As soon as he finished speaking, Fang Qingzhuo and the attending physician hurried out of the ward.
"Thank you all uncles for your concern. My dad is doing very well."
Fang Qingzhuo's original intention was that recuperation was better than disappearing, but he didn't expect that these monsters would be exposed.
Vice President Li, who was in the lead, stepped forward and said, "Oh, Qing Zhuo is here too."
Fang Qingzhuo smiled and nodded: "Uncle Li, long time no see."
Vice President Li smiled with a dagger hidden in his heart: "Don't blame us uncles for coming uninvited. We are also considering the interests of the group. As long as President Fang doesn't show up, we won't feel at ease."
"Okay, then I'll be frank today. My dad just has an old illness and needs to rest." Fang Qingzhuo said in a resounding voice, "I understand your feelings. This concerns countless families throughout the group. Look, I'm also responsible for everything. If I remember correctly, my last name is Fang."
As soon as these words were spoken, the executives present began to whisper to each other.
Vice President Li smiled awkwardly and said kindly, "That's true, but you're a junior and have never been involved in group business..."
Fang Qingzhuo interrupted directly: "At this critical moment, I must step forward and lead the charge. Could it be that Vice President Li sees someone more suitable than me?"
The address subtly changed, and Vice President Li's expression turned grim, yet he had to force a smile. "That's great. Then, Qingzhuo, remember to attend the shareholders' meeting in two days.
Before he could finish, Fang Qingzhuo made a "please" gesture: "Vice President Li, take care."
As Vice President Li was asked to leave, the others also left slowly and dispersed.
Tang Yan stood there in stunned silence, clearly still confused, until he saw Fang Qingzhuo pacing towards the elevator without looking back. "Mr. Fang, where are you going?"
The elevator door dinged open, and Qingzhuo glanced at the front of the elevator. "Where else can we go? Let's find out where the old man has gone."
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The author has something to say: Parental love is a bit complicated. In fact, Shen Guanghan's first love was Zhu Jie. Starting from the next chapter, Xiao Fang's shoes will be wallpapered love?!
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