Chapter 55 The Smell of Gunfire: You got married? I don't think I even knew. ...
Sister-in-law... Impulsiveness encouraged Jia Yang to shamelessly stay and join them, but reason extinguished such a shameful thought.
Jia Yang bent down to be at the child's height. He patted Liang Jiahe's chubby head, shook his head, and said, "You and your sister-in-law..." He swallowed the words back and readjusted his sentence, "You go with your sister. Uncle will stay here to read."
After saying that, he stood up and smiled at Zhou Jinqin: "I won't bother you any longer. I need to pick out a few books for my niece. I promised to reward her a long time ago, but I haven't been able to keep my promise because of my business trip. I can't break my promise this time."
Zhou Jinqin smiled at him shyly, then nudged Liang Jiahe in the back and corrected him, "This brother is my colleague, he's about my age, you should call him brother."
Liang Jiahe stole a glance at the man in front of him, his lips moving rapidly as he uttered a barely audible "brother," his voice as faint as a horse running on a stone slab, leaving no trace.
Zhou Jinqin had no choice but to explain to Jia Yang, "Children aren't very sensitive to age. You look very young, but you might look a bit serious in a suit. After all, her father always wears this, so he doesn't know what to call you. Don't mind it."
Jia Yang smiled nonchalantly: "No, it's just a form of address. Besides, my niece is about the same age as him, so it's appropriate for her to call me uncle."
As he spoke, he pointed the way: "If you want to eat ice, walk another twenty meters ahead and there is an ice room. The mung bean soup and red bean soup in the store are classic. The portions are not big and will not fill you up too much. You should be able to eat some after you have eaten."
After thanking him, Zhou Jinqin bought the book that Liang Jiahe had just been reading and gave it to him as a gift before leaving the bookstore.
The ice room is most popular in the summer. Fortunately, it was lunchtime and most people were eating their main meals, so the two of them were able to find a small table to sit down without any problems.
Liang Jiahe ordered a mango pomelo sago shaved ice. Zhou Jinqin wasn't very hungry, but since she was the one who suggested eating shaved ice, she didn't want to spoil the child's fun, so she ordered a red bean soup to try, as recommended by Jiayang.
The red beans were soft and melted in her mouth, sweet but not cloying, accompanied by the faint fragrance of early-blooming osmanthus flowers, filling her mouth with fragrance. Zhou Jinqin unconsciously ate a few more bites.
Across from him, Liang Jiahe was stuffing food into his mouth with gusto, making his already round cheeks even more bulging. Coupled with the faint blush on his cheeks that he always had, he looked like a red-streaked bun during a celebration, which was inexplicably festive.
Zhou Jinqin took a tissue and wiped his sticky mouth, saying helplessly, "Why are you eating so fast? Didn't you have lunch?"
"Yeah, I didn't eat." Liang Jiahe nodded and admitted, "I just sneaked out during lunchtime..."
After he finished speaking, he suddenly covered his mouth and fell silent, clearly realizing that he had let something slip.
The other party was already on guard, so it would be difficult to get anything out of him by directly questioning him. So Zhou Jinqin changed her approach to guide him to open up.
"Huh? How did you do that!" She pretended to be surprised, then changed to a troubled expression and asked, "I used to be unable to hide even when playing cops and robbers, but you managed to escape the teacher's sight."
In this atmosphere of being idolized, children whose thinking is not yet fully developed are easily tricked.
As expected, Liang Jiahe happily shared his experience.
Liang Jiahe did not attend a private school, but instead attended a public primary school like most ordinary children. He is currently in the fifth grade.
Except for a few special students, most of the children in the school eat lunch at school. Liang Jiahe's parents are busy with work and cannot find time to eat with him, so he also became one of the group.
At noon, taking advantage of the homeroom teacher's inattention, he spent twenty yuan to bribe a day student in the class and secretly slipped out of the school with the other person.
If a teacher finds out a child is missing, the sky will probably fall.
Zhou Jinqin had a bit of a headache, but she still patiently guided her: "Is school too boring? Why do you want to run away?"
“No…” Liang Jiahe shook his head, hesitating to speak.
"Can't you tell me?" Zhou Jinqin asked dejectedly. "I thought we were good friends after what happened last time when we kept a secret..."
Liang Jiahe immediately tensed up and quickly waved his hand, saying, "There's nothing I can't tell you. I want to be friends with your sister-in-law."
He hesitated for a long time before speaking: "Zhang Zixuan said I was fat, called me a fat pig, a lazy pig, and a stupid pig. Sometimes he would even drag Jiang Yuze and Wei Xiaoyu into laughing at me. I hate them. I don't want to jump rope with them this afternoon."
This situation cannot be comforted by common misconceptions such as pigs are not lazy, dirty, or stupid. In the public's stereotype, pigs represent laziness, filth, and clumsiness, so such a description is blatant verbal bullying from a child's perspective.
Zhou Jinqin wiped away his tears and said indignantly, "They are so rude. I will not be friends with them anymore."
With someone to listen, Liang Jiahe's tears flowed like a flood, rolling down his cheeks even more fiercely.
Zhou Jinqin asked him, "Have they been bullying you for a long time?"
Liang Jiahe shook his head and then nodded, saying in a muffled voice, "They used to only talk about me occasionally. But after we formed a sports team in fifth grade, they got upset because I could never jump high enough when I was jumping rope, so they started yelling at me."
He looked at his round belly with teary eyes and angrily declared that he would lose weight, but when he saw the shaved ice on the table that he had already eaten most of, he instantly gave up.
“No matter what, swearing is wrong,” Zhou Jinqin asked. “Have you talked to your teacher about it?”
Liang Jiahe said with a wronged expression, "Yes, the teacher criticized them, but they scolded me even more fiercely."
Seeing that she was trying to smooth things over, Zhou Jinqin knew she shouldn't overstep her bounds and interfere, so she asked again, "What about your parents? Did you tell them?"
He shook his head: "They're too busy to know, and they might even turn around and yell at me."
Zhou Jinqin thought of that serious, petite woman and thought to herself that it couldn't be like that, but then she inexplicably thought of her parents and finally couldn't bring herself to say it.
She sighed and said, "You can skip class this afternoon, but you have to ask for leave. Just imagine how worried the teacher would be if they suddenly found out you were gone. They might be searching for you all over the streets with the police right now."
Liang Jiahe was a little scared by what he was being told, and he asked nervously, "Then, sister-in-law, could you help me ask for leave?"
“I can’t, you need to find your guardian.” Zhou Jinqin shook her head. “Can I talk to your parents?”
"No!" Liang Jiahe strongly resisted. "If they find out I skipped class, I'm doomed."
“Then I’ll have to contact your brother,” Zhou Jinqin said.
Liang Jiahe hesitated, his voice trembling as he asked, "Will he scold me?"
"No, it won't happen," Zhou Jinqin promised repeatedly.
It seems he really didn't want his parents to know, and in the end, Liang Jiahe agreed to Liang Minghe's plan to pick him up.
The Liang family has complicated relationships, and in principle, Zhou Jinqin, as an outsider, shouldn't get involved. However, she couldn't just leave it unattended, so she had no choice but to ask Liang Minghe to intervene again. Fortunately, Liang Minghe didn't resent the mother and son. He could either contact the family driver to pick them up or talk to Liang Jiahe's mother directly. In any case, he couldn't let a child around ten years old run around outside on his own.
Zhou Jinqin had made plans long ago, and Liang Minghe estimated that they would arrive soon.
She scanned the code to pay for the meal, then pulled Liang Jiahe outside, saying, "Let's go, let's wait for your brother outside."
Liang Jiahe muttered, "Didn't I say I'd treat you?"
Zhou Jinqin laughed: "Then you owe me another meal."
The sidewalk had railings, so the two of them turned back in the direction they came from, intending to wait for Liang Minghe at the parking spot ahead.
On the way back, we passed the bookstore we had just visited. I don't know if Jia Yang had just picked out the books he wanted to buy, but he was standing at the door carrying a bag from the bookstore.
Upon seeing the two people, one adult and one child, he smiled and greeted them, "What a coincidence."
He looked at Liang Jiahe, who still hadn't wiped away his tears, and pulled a comic book out of his pocket and gave it to him: "Here, this is for you."
Liang Jiahe felt a little embarrassed and scratched the back of his head, saying, "Thank you, brother."
The three walked forward, and Jia Yang asked Zhou Jinqin what to do with the child, since she would be going back to work soon and couldn't bring the child with her.
Just as Zhou Jinqin was about to return, she suddenly saw Liang Minghe get out of the car. He was dressed simply today, but it was probably his overly flamboyant face that made him look like a colorful butterfly.
He glanced quickly at Jia Yang beside him, then smiled and naturally came over to take Zhou Jinqin's hand, saying he missed her. At that moment, Zhou Jinqin felt that she was doomed, and that she would have to spend the night crying and begging for mercy again.
Zhou Jinqin reluctantly introduced the two parties, and when she heard the difference in how her colleague and husband addressed each other, Liang Minghe's smile became more pronounced.
He reached out and shook hands with Jia Yang, smiling as he said, "I've heard so much about you, Mr. Jia. Thank you so much for helping my wife with her work. I'll definitely treat you to a meal sometime."
Jia Yang smiled and said, "To be honest, Mr. Liang has known me for a long time, but this is the first time I've heard of you. There's no need to be so polite about work. Jinqin is very smart, and I haven't helped her much. We're just work partners helping each other out. As for meals, Mr. Liang probably doesn't know that Jinqin has already treated me before, so there's no need to worry about it."
“My wife is indeed very smart. She does everything very well. Now that we’ve treated you to a meal, we don’t have to keep thinking about thanking you.” Liang Minghe pulled his hand back and stared at him, his smile not reaching his eyes. “She usually likes to share her daily life with me, from the osmanthus tree at the subway entrance that bloomed early to the fact that the company’s security guard X’s dog was neutered. We can talk about anything, so it’s not surprising that I know Mr. Jia.”
The air seemed to be filled with a strong smell of gunpowder, as if a major battle was about to break out.
Zhou Jinqin sighed and quickly stepped in to stop them, the first thing she had to do was to suppress the attackers' arrogance.
She tugged at Liang Minghe's sleeve and whispered, "Alright, I have to go to work now. You take Jiahe back."
Liang Ming kissed her palm, a dark undercurrent surging in his eyes: "I'll take you there."
"No need, it's just a short walk. Be careful on your way back." Zhou Jinqin whispered softly in his ear, standing on tiptoe. "Jiayang and I just happened to run into each other, don't be angry, I just..."
Before she could finish her sentence, Liang Minghe said it for her: "Only love me?"
"Mmm." Zhou Jinqin nodded, blushing.
Liang Ming's cold and hard emotions softened a lot. He kissed her cheek to say goodbye, and without looking at Jia Yang again, he urged Liang Jiahe, who was watching the show from the side, to get into the car and leave.
Jia Yang stared at the disappearing luxury car, paused for a moment, and then said, "You got married? I don't think I even knew that."
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Author's note: Thank you for the nutrient solution! [heart emoji]
Jia Yang: Who are you? Never heard of you.
Liang Minghe: My wife doesn't talk too much to unimportant people.
Jia Yang: Oh, so what's wrong? Your wife often mentions me.
Liang Minghe: Is that strange? She even told me about the neutering of the dogs your company keeps.
Jia Yang: Try saying that again [Clown]
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