Chapter 10 Hello, my name is Tao Si...
"You lied to me last week and said you were on a business trip, but you actually went back to your hometown and arranged everything without telling me. Now you're notifying me, right?"
With a "bang", the master bedroom door was slammed shut, and then intermittent quarrels were heard from next door.
There was an Oxford Dictionary on the desk. Tao Siyun supported his chin with one hand, his eyes lowered, and flipped through the pages one by one under the desk lamp, but he could not concentrate on reading anything.
Qin Ru had someone specially renovate her room according to the standards of a piano room. It has excellent sound insulation, so she won't disturb others when practicing the piano.
But now Qin Ru and Yan Bin were arguing, and both of them were angry at the moment, so they did not lower their voices, and some words could still be heard through the wall.
"Originally, her mother wanted to send her back to Nanze and leave her to my parents, but Zhiru is now in adolescence and difficult to discipline. After all, my parents are old and can no longer take care of Jiawei. She has just been expelled from school and must be feeling very disappointed. If I, as her biological father, don't care about her anymore, what kind of person would I be?!"
"Yan Bin, can you please discuss with me before you do anything? Can you please respect me?!"
"Isn't that what I'm discussing with you now? Your sister mentioned Si Yun was going to apply to a music conservatory, and without a second thought, you used your connections to get Si Yun transferred. You also found the best cello professor at the conservatory to teach her, tutor her for the art exam, and even picked her up every week. And as her uncle, I didn't say anything. Don't I respect you enough?!"
"Don't try to avoid the main issue and bring up Si Yun. I just want to ask you one thing. If your mother hadn't called me suddenly just now, would you have planned to bring Zhiru back next month? At that time, I would have to accept it even if I didn't want to. That's what you think in your heart, right?!"
After a long silence, Yan Bin's guilty voice rang out from the master bedroom.
"Wife, I understand you, can you also be a little understanding of me? I know it's hard to be a stepmother. We did agree on this before we got married, but now in this situation, what should I do? What should I do?!"
"Yan Bin, who do you think I am? If I minded you having a child, I wouldn't have married you in the first place! But you hid such a big thing from me! You took the initiative to take Zhiru home without my knowledge. Have you ever thought about the consequences? Have you ever considered my feelings?!"
"Her mother and I divorced a long time ago, and now her mother is going to settle down in another place, so I want to bring her to live with me. I haven't fulfilled my responsibilities as a father to her over the years, and Jiawei... I owe these two children too much. Qin Ru, please bear with me for a while, just consider it a favor and see if you can find a school for her here."
"You can ask Zhiru to wait a little longer. You are not allowed to bring her here before I am mentally prepared. I need to give myself some buffer time to accept it and prepare everything she needs. It is not as simple as you think to just bring her here. I can't let your daughter mistakenly think that I, her stepmother, don't welcome her. Otherwise, how can we get along in the future?"
After an unknown amount of time, the room finally became quiet, and the quarrel that had lasted for a long time stopped and gradually faded away.
Time flies. The campus of No. 1 Middle School is very quiet in the midsummer of May. On Saturday morning, only students who are participating in the school's art performance come to the school for rehearsal.
Tao Siyun ran out of the school gate and headed towards a car not far away. After opening the car door, he said breathlessly, "Auntie, the teacher asked me to practice a little longer today. I wonder if my uncle and the others have arrived yet. Let's hurry to the airport now and don't keep them waiting too long."
"It's okay. It's still early. We can make it." Qin Ru looked down at his watch. "I just finished a call and my phone is off. I think he hasn't gotten off the plane yet. He might be late again."
After saying that, he started the engine, turned the car around, and drove quickly towards the airport highway.
"Oh, that's good. By the way, aunt, didn't my uncle's ex-wife always prevent him from seeing his daughter? Then why did she suddenly agree to bring her over?"
"She is planning to remarry soon."
…
"Zhiru, call someone."
At the airport, the girl looked reluctant, chewing bubble gum, and asked in a very aggressive tone: "What should I call you? Stepmother or stepmom?"
Yan Bin's hands, which were pushing the luggage, became stiff in an instant. His face looked ugly, his brows were furrowed, and his lips moved, as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't say anything. He could only look at his wife opposite him with embarrassment, his eyes full of helplessness and a plea for her not to take it to heart.
Yan Zhiru's face was heavily made up, her features barely visible, and her hair was bleached and dyed a light color. She wore a loose black T-shirt, the hem of which almost completely covered her denim shorts. Her fishnet stockings and white sneakers made her look both mature and childish.
Her dressing style clearly reflects the rebelliousness of this 17-year-old bad girl.
Tao Siyun looked at his aunt's beautiful face, which was obviously stunned and frozen, with some worry in his eyes. He reached out and quietly held Qin Ru's cold hand, trying to silently give her strength in this way.
Qin Ruhui held her hand and squeezed her fingers soothingly, as if silently telling her that it was okay. With an elegant and proper smile still on her face, she said gently, "You can call me Auntie if you want."
Yan Zhiru said maliciously, "It sounds better to call her Aunt Qin. It sounds like calling the nanny at home." After saying that, she squinted her eyes and looked at Tao Siyun sarcastically, asking provocatively, "Is this your daughter?"
"No, she is my aunt."
Tao Siyun didn't allow her to be rude to Qin Ru again. He took a step forward, extended his right hand generously, and introduced himself: "Hello, my name is Tao Siyun."
Yan Zhiru whispered sarcastically, "A burden."
Yan Bin and Qin Ru had no plans to have children, so they did not consider moving to a new house when they got married. The house they lived in was still the one Qin Ru lived in before marriage. It was not big, with only two bedrooms and a study.
After Qin Ru and Tao Siyun discussed it, they replaced the original big bed and bought a new bunk bed to put in her bedroom, freeing up extra space for a set of desk and chairs.
Only after she had done all this did she let Yan Bin go to her hometown to pick up Yan Zhiru.
"I don't want to live in the same room with others." Yan Zhiru crossed her arms and looked at Yan Bin who was busy packing her things, deliberately making things difficult for her.
Seeing that she refused to go in, Yan Bin forcibly pulled her into the room, closed the door, and said patiently, "Zhiru, Dad has just been transferred from Nanze to Huxi. We are not yet able to buy our own house. We don't have any extra rooms at home. You and Si Yun can live together for now. She has good grades, so you can ask her if you have any questions about your studies."
"Isn't her family from Jingfu? Why does she have to live here? Either let her go, or send me back home right now!"
"Stop messing around. Si Yun is going to take the arts exam next year. Your Aunt Qin specially found a teacher for her and asked her to transfer here. She can't return to Jingfu until before the college entrance exam."
Yan Zhiru sneered and said sarcastically, "My mother said that you and that woman were first loves, and her niece is the same age as me. Could she be your illegitimate daughter?"
"What nonsense!" Yan Bin raised his hand and was about to give her a hard slap, but in the end, the debt he felt towards Yan Zhiru for more than ten years made him temporarily control his temper.
Yan Zhiru looked at Yan Bin's raised hand in disbelief. Although the slap did not fall on her face, her father's behavior was enough to make her lose control of her emotions.
She kicked over the suitcase in front of her and yelled at Yan Bin, "What nonsense am I talking about? If she's not my biological mother, why would that woman be so obsessed with her? I'm your biological daughter. Why, do you want to hit me for an outsider?!"
Yan Zhiru's incongruous outfit had already greatly stimulated Yan Bin's self-esteem as a father. She repeatedly challenged his bottom line with words, and Yan Bin couldn't help but get angry!
"Look at yourself. Do you even look like a student? What kind of person are you dressed like? You're so young, but you don't study hard. You hang out with a bunch of hooligans all day and cause trouble. I really don't know how your mother taught you all these years to make you like this!"
"I'm just a person who has no one to teach me! What's wrong? You can't stand it now, what were you doing before? Have you ever cared about me in all these years since you divorced? Have you ever cared about me? My mother hooked up with a rich man and left me behind, she ran off with him. You're not a good person either, you're all the same!!!"
Yan Zhiru kept provoking him with words, and Yan Bin couldn't bear it no matter how good his temper was. He ran out of patience, loosened his clenched fist, and slapped her loudly with his backhand.
***
"Oh my god! Tao Siyun, how did your performance clothes become like this?!"
"It's your turn to go on stage soon!"
"What should I do now? It's over, it's over. Such a big area is dirty. This is a white skirt, oh my god!!!"
"Who was so wicked as to throw an unsealed ink bottle in there? Where's the person in charge of the costumes? What's going on? Who did this?!"
“!!!”
The backstage was in complete chaos, with everyone talking and arguing at the same time, and everyone's face was filled with panic.
The footsteps coming and going around were so quick and urgent that they kept rubbing against Tao Siyun's eardrums. His ears were buzzing and his brain was blank.
The teacher hurried backstage to find out what was going on.
Tao Siyun squatted on the ground, holding the ink-stained skirt in her hands, and said in a trembling voice: "I don't know, everyone's performance clothes are all put together, I didn't touch them..."
"It's too late. Who of you brought a coat? Go out and borrow one. It needs to be dark-colored—"
However, before the teacher finished speaking, the host's announcement suddenly came from the stage!
"Now please enjoy the cello solo by Tao Siyun from Class 1 (2) of Senior High School—"
“……!!!”
Tao Siyun suddenly woke up from his dream.
Half asleep and half awake, she reached out to turn off the night light that had been on at the head of the bed all night.
It was five o'clock in the morning, and the sky outside was not yet completely bright. In the half-light and half-dark bedroom, almost nothing could be seen clearly. The brief drowsiness before dawn made the room with the lights off extremely depressing.
She closed her eyes in a daze and fell into a deep sleep again.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
