Chapter 6
They ate breakfast at a small stall on the street corner. After finishing their meal, Jiang Huaiyu conscientiously got some dog food for Hu Zi. Hu Zi sniffed it, nudged Jiang Huaiyu's hand with its big, wet nose, and started whimpering in dissatisfaction.
Jiang Huaiyu patted Hu Zi's broad head and looked up at Lu Mingxiao: "What's wrong with Hu Zi?"
Lu Mingxiao was inspecting the delivered paint when he heard this. Without even looking up, he said, "He doesn't want to eat dog food. He wants to eat leftovers. My mom isn't home. Where would we get leftovers for him?"
Jiang Huaiyu cradled Hu Zi's large head and glanced at it: "He eats the same food as everyone else, but his salt intake is too high, which is why he has tear stains."
Lu Mingxiao laughed out loud: "Young master, this is a local dog that guards the house, not a pet dog, so it doesn't care about those things... Don't mind it, it's just being affectionate with you because it's easy to talk to. If you want to work, go inside and change into my clothes, your clothes can't withstand being worn out."
"Oh." Jiang Huaiyu patted the dog's head, then thought for a moment and asked Lu Mingxiao, "Where do you usually pick up your packages?"
"It's just on the street corner," Lu Mingxiao said. "Are you going to buy something?"
"Okay." Jiang Huaiyu nodded. "Could you send me... our home address?"
Lu Mingxiao took out his phone, found the QR code, and handed it to Jiang Huaiyu, "Add me on WeChat, I'll copy it and send it to you."
Jiang Huaiyu took it, scanned it, and the page redirected directly, displaying the name of AAA game boosting agent Xiaoming.
Jiang Huaiyu: ...
Haha, no wonder Xiaoming asked him about gossip about wealthy families; it turns out they were already caught up in the gossip themselves back then.
Without making a sound, he found his own WeChat ID on Lu Mingxiao's phone and glanced at the nickname.
Sponsor #3 (Rich, kind, and a good boy who follows orders)
Jiang Huaiyu: ...
He remained expressionless, deleted the string of notes, neatly changed it to his own name, and returned the phone to Lu Mingxiao.
Send me the address.
Lu Mingxiao glanced at the name in the contact, sent the copied address to Jiang Huaiyu, and after a moment, his eyes widened slightly as he scrolled up the chat history in disbelief.
It's all records of Boss J transferring money to him, wait, JHY... Jiang Huaiyu...
“Holy crap…” Lu Mingxiao glanced at Jiang Huaiyu: “This is too much of a coincidence…”
Jiang Huaiyu also found it somewhat amusing: "No wonder you asked me about the inheritance disputes and baby swapping in wealthy families that day..."
Lu Mingxiao was a little embarrassed and coughed lightly, "When I first found out about this, I was also very confused. I didn't know who to ask. If I asked my friends, well, do I look like a rich young master who has fallen on hard times? They would definitely say I've lost my mind. So I could only ask you in the world of anime, and I ended up asking the real person. This is really..."
He started laughing as he spoke.
"Brother, I truly believe that our fate is too deep, and we're probably destined to be entangled for life."
...
Following Lu Mingxiao's instructions, Jiang Huaiyu took two of Lu Mingxiao's old short-sleeved shirts, intending to change into them before working. After changing his clothes, he also remembered to use the new address to buy two bags of imported large breed dog food and some canned and freeze-dried food. He also wanted to buy a new collar for Hu Zi, but after looking around, he couldn't find one that suited his taste...
Lu Mingxiao's voice came in from the window: "Boss Jiang, I asked you to come inside and change your clothes, not to make clothes. Have you finished sewing yet?"
The collar had to be abandoned for now. Jiang Huaiyu went out of the house, and Lu Mingxiao handed him a spray bottle: "Go and spray the ground with clean water, just enough to wet it, but don't let any water stand up."
Jiang Huaiyu nodded, picked up the spray bottle and went into the small bathroom. Lu Mingxiao opened the paint bucket outside and added some water.
Next, the two of them each took a stiff-bristled brush and started painting. Jiang Huaiyu followed Lu Mingxiao's instructions and painted vertically, not too thickly... He had just finished painting one corner when he looked back and saw that Lu Mingxiao had already quickly painted over.
They look like skilled workers.
Jiang Huaiyu learned from the information that Li Qing had an all-female renovation team under her, and Lu Mingxiao probably often helped his mother with the work...
Young Master Jiang stubbornly pursed his lips and silently quickened his movements.
After finishing this round of reading, Lu Mingxiao clapped his hands and said, "Let's go, let's air it out first, go wash our faces, and then we'll go out for lunch."
The two boys had just finished tidying themselves up when the skinny, dark-skinned boy from yesterday knocked on the door again. He poked his head in and said with a grin, "Brother Xiao, my grandma said you should bring your cousin over for lunch. We're making stewed pork bones for lunch today!"
Li Qing and Lu Chuan have a good relationship with their neighbors. Neither of them has any elders, so they treat the elderly people in the neighborhood with the same respect they would show to them. Even though they live a frugal life, they always send them gifts during holidays. Because of this, the neighbors take extra care of Lu Mingxiao. When Lu Chuan was a child, he was often sick and had to go to hospitals in other places, so Lu Mingxiao practically grew up on the charity of many families.
He was quite adept at going to Grandma Li's house for dinner, but after glancing at Jiang Huaiyu, he raised an eyebrow and asked, "What do you mean?"
Jiang Huaiyu: "Isn't this a bit inappropriate...?"
"Ouch! Little brother!" Li Rui shouted like a beagle: "What's the big deal? Last year, my grandma went to the toilet at night, slipped and fell in the yard and broke her leg. There was no one else at home at the time. It was Xiao Ge who heard it and carried my grandma to the hospital in the heavy snow."
So we went to Li Rui's house for lunch.
After meeting Li Rui's grandmother, Jiang Huaiyu seemed to understand why the Li family was so grateful to Lu Mingxiao.
Grandma Li was a kind old lady with fashionable dark burgundy hair, slightly graying at the roots, and permed into small curls. She had a faint scent of floral water on her body and a warm, cheerful smile—she was just a little chubby.
Lu Mingxiao's act of carrying the plump Grandma Li to the hospital in the middle of the night amidst heavy snow was indeed a great act of kindness.
She looked at Jiang Huaiyu with a smile, her eyes full of affection: "What a handsome boy! Look at his gentle and refined appearance, and so tall. Hmm? You look kind of familiar..."
Lu Mingxiao quickly interrupted, "Grandma, he's a relative of my mom's, and he looks a bit like my mom, right? Okay, stop looking at his face, where's the braised pork rib?"
"Okay, okay, sit down and eat first, we can talk while we eat."
Jiang Huaiyu quietly nudged Lu Mingxiao's arm and whispered, "Are all your neighbors this enthusiastic?"
"Isn't that how neighbors are usually? Except for a few people who have too many problems and their neighbors wish they could avoid them, aren't most neighbors like that?"
Jiang Huaiyu: "...No, that's not true."
The villa area where the Jiang family lives emphasizes privacy. The residents who come and go are all wealthy and treat each other with polite distance. It is almost impossible for them to invite a neighbor to their home or bring them into their private space for a meal. Jiang Huaiyu has only been to her parents' friends' houses for a few meals, and each time she brought some small gifts.
He found it somewhat novel to have a neighbor who would invite him over for a meal, but he didn't dislike it.
Lu Mingxiao moved the table, and Jiang Huaiyu conscientiously moved the chairs. Li Rui carried a steaming pot of pork bones. They set out the bowls and chopsticks under the morning glory trellis in the yard. An old man returned carrying a birdcage. Upon seeing Lu Mingxiao, he greeted him with a hearty laugh: "Little Lu is here? Is this your cousin? The young man is quite handsome. What's his name?"
Grandpa looked somewhat familiar; he was the old man who had praised Lu Mingxiao for being "good-looking" in the bathhouse.
Jiang Huaiyu smiled sweetly: "Hello, Grandpa, my name is Jiang Huaiyu."
"Huaijin Woyu, what a fine name! Your elders have high hopes for you," Grandpa Li said with a smile.
Jiang Huaiyu's smile froze almost imperceptibly as she suddenly realized that this name was originally her maternal grandfather's expectation for his biological grandson.
The smile was just a tiny, barely perceptible curve; it was so small that it probably wouldn't be noticed even with a magnifying glass.
He looked down and suddenly a large bone appeared in his bowl. While putting the bone on Jiang Huaiyu's plate, Lu Mingxiao asked with a smile, "Grandpa Li, is my name good? Didn't you study fortune telling? Can you analyze it for me?"
Seeing that someone was supporting him, the old man immediately perked up. "Come, come, let me tell you something. Your character 'Ming' belongs to the fire element, signifying brightness and wisdom. Your character 'Xiao' belongs to the metal element, signifying bravery and decisiveness. Plus, your surname is Lu, which belongs to the earth element. Fire generates earth, and earth generates metal, so your fortune will surely be smooth and harmonious, both internally and externally..."
"Alright, alright," Grandma Li interrupted Grandpa Li's endless chatter. "Stop talking about your feudal superstitions and hurry up and eat. You didn't say a word, and the child just waited obediently..."
She picked up a large bone with her chopsticks and placed it on Jiang Huaiyu's plate: "Little Jiang, eat quickly, he's never stopping talking about it..."
Another chopstick hit Li Rui's wrist: "Eat, eat, eat! You've got food all over your face! Don't you have any manners?"
Li Rui, thick-skinned and tough, ate without hesitation: "Whose fault is it that I have no manners? It's Grandpa's fault for not giving me a good name. Otherwise, should I be called Li Huaixiao? Ouch! Grandma, you hit me again!"
...
After a noisy meal, Jiang Huaiyu offered to help wash the dishes. Lu Mingxiao didn't say anything and squeezed into the small kitchen with him to wash the pressure cooker used for stewing pork bones.
Jiang Huaiyu scrubbed carefully. Lu Mingxiao glanced at it, then smiled and said, "Scrub it a few more times, and you'll have polished the bowl. Alright, it's already very clean."
Jiang Huaiyu said earnestly, "Shouldn't the standard for cleanliness be that it neither condenses into small droplets nor flows down in streams..."
"My God..." Lu Mingxiao exclaimed in surprise, "So, Mr. Jiang, you've never washed dishes, you've only ever washed beakers in the lab?"
Jiang Huaiyu's ears burned.
In the first sixteen years of his life, he had never experienced setbacks, but after only a few days at the Lu family, he experienced them all.
He carefully stacked up the clean bowls that met the standards, then lowered his eyelashes to wash the next one.
"Thank you for earlier." This time he didn't hesitate, and spoke clearly, "Lu Mingxiao, you are really good. Mom, Dad and Grandpa will like you very much."
"Thanks, you're pretty good too. My mom... cough, our mom likes you too. When she heard you participated in the English competition, she was so happy she couldn't sleep at night. She said your language talent must have been inherited from her, since she can swear fluently in eight different dialects."
Jiang Huaiyu: ...
That's excellent, Mom.
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