"Kill them all?" Wu Meng pulled a sealed bag from her bag and dumped out the threatening letter she'd found in Zhang Lie's schoolbag. "This is the third one Zeyu has received. It says, 'The son of a mistress should sleep on the street with your mother.'"
Teacher Lin suddenly looked up from the corner, remembering seeing Wu Zeyu staring blankly at his locker last week, clutching an ink-soaked test paper - the words "illegitimate child" were smeared across the score column.
At this moment, Wu Meng unfolded another piece of paper. It was the tax return of Zhang Lie's father's company. The many red annotations were as glaring as wounds.
"Look," she pointed at the entry for "Fake VAT Invoices," "I had my finance friend take a quick look, and they found so many problems." She scratched her fingernail over Zhang Jianguo's signature. "If you hand it over to the tax bureau, how many birthdays will you have in detention?"
Zhang Jianguo slumped into his chair, sweat staining the crotch of his suit pants. He suddenly remembered Chao Nanxing patting him on the shoulder over drinks three months ago: "Old Zhang, your son and my son Zeyu go to the same school, right? Young people should get along better."
Now I understand that the word "close" is a warning, an ultimatum from the wealthy to the ants.
"The terms remain unchanged." Wu Meng pushed the check over. The amount had an extra zero. "Your son will apologize to the entire class tomorrow. The letter of guarantee will be posted at the school gate, stamped with your company seal."
"I'll sign." Zhang Jianguo grabbed a pen and tremblingly signed the settlement agreement. The official seal was half an inch crooked as it was pressed. "But don't let me see you in the business district again!"
Wu Meng picked up the necklace, the pearls carrying her body warmth as they slid across her palm: "Mr. Zhang has misunderstood. I'm not from the business world.
The smell of iodine wafted from the school clinic. Wu Zeyu sat on the bed, letting the school doctor bandage his arm. The boy suddenly looked up and asked, "Mom, are you really a mistress?"
Her hand, peeling back the wrapper of a cream roll, paused, the cream clinging to her fingertips like a piece of unmelted snow. Wu Meng looked at the bloodstain on her son's school uniform and remembered the three packs of cigarettes Chao Nanxing had smoked outside the delivery room the night he was born. "Zeyu, some things aren't black and white."
"But what Zhang Lie said is true." The boy tore off the bandage, revealing the scabbed wound. "You destroyed someone else's family. Now you live in the Chao family villa, using their money. Even my last name, Chao, was stolen."
Wu Meng suddenly laughed, her pearl necklace trembling. She pinched her son's chin, forcing him to look into her eyes. "But do you think the Chao family would let an illegitimate child into the family? Do you really think those servants would call you 'Young Master'?" Her nails dug into his cheek. "Mom paid for it with her own dignity."
The boy's tears welled up, mixing with the scratches on his face. Wu Meng loosened her grip, pulled out a wet wipe from her bag, and gently wiped his face: "I'm sorry, Mom shouldn't have been so mean to you."
Her tone softened again, as if coaxing a baby. "But you have to remember, in the Chao family, tears are more useless than knives. If Zhang Lie dares to call me a mistress today, he'll dare to push you down the stairs tomorrow, because he knows that you and I are both rootless duckweed."
The school infirmary clock struck eight. Wu Meng looked in the mirror and touched up her lipstick. Her emotional upheaval had blurred her eyeliner, so she carefully wiped it away with a cotton swab, as if erasing her true appearance.
"Come home with Mom." Wu Meng took her son's hand, the pearl necklace rubbing against the back of his hand. "Dad has a social event tonight, so let's have your favorite braised pork ribs."
As the Bentley pulled out of the school gate, the setting sun dyed the school sign a bloody red. Wu Zeyu looked out the window and saw Zhang Lie being pulled by his hair by his father as he apologized. The letter of guarantee was posted on the notice board, the official seal as red as fire.
He suddenly remembered what his mother had just said, the sharpness hidden in the cream roll, and the calculation hidden under the pearl necklace.
"Mom," he touched the broken earphones in his pocket, "Don't you even love Dad? You only love the Chao family's money?"
Wu Meng didn't answer, but turned on the car's aromatherapy. The smell of cedar covered the smell of blood.
It turns out that some loves, having long since become moldy over the years, are picked up by others and used as keys to enter wealthy families. Just like the pearl necklace she is wearing now, each pearl is stained with the body temperature of the previous owner, but she has worn it with a new luster.
Wu Meng took off her pearl necklace and placed it on the crystal tray in the hallway. The sound of the pearls clashing was reminiscent of the crisp sound of her thermometer breaking in the hospital. She turned to her son and said, "Go change into some clean clothes. Mommy's going to stew some pork ribs for you."
When the boy went upstairs, he heard his mother walk into the study. He stood at the corner of the stairs and saw his mother handing him a document. His expression instantly eased.
"Zhang Jianguo has signed the settlement agreement," Wu Meng's voice came over. "We can develop the Jiangxinzhou land as planned."
Chaonanxing's laughter mingled with the smell of cigar smoke drifted out: "It seems that letting you handle household chores is the right decision. It's cleaner than me doing it myself."
Wu Zeyu touched the handrail of the stairs, and he suddenly realized that his mother's rescue was never to protect him, but to protect the reputation of the Chao family, the interests of the Jiangbei Group, and the position she had worked so hard to climb.
From the kitchen came the sound of a kitchen knife chopping bones, dong dong dong, as if shattering the last layer of fantasy.
Wu Zeyu walked into the room and looked at the "Hemingway Short Stories" on the bedside table. The ginkgo leaf bookmark between the pages was picked up by his mother and him on Binjiang Avenue last autumn. At that time, he thought that his mother's tenderness was real, and his mother's love was also real.
The phone vibrated, and Zhang Lie's new circle of friends popped up in the class group: "Bastard, your mother got to the top by selling her ass!" The picture was a photo of Wu Meng at a charity dinner, with a pearl necklace flashing coldly on her chest.
Wu Zeyu stared at the photo and found that his mother's hand was on Chao Nanxing's shoulder, and her smile was more dazzling than any diamond.
He suddenly remembered the burn scars on his mother's wrists, and her composure as she wrote checks in the academic affairs office. It turned out that all her gentleness was a disguise, all her protection a calculation, even the phrase "Mom loves you" was a must-have in the survival manual of wealthy families.
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