Chapter 4
The Lu family still lives in a row of bungalows. To get from the road to their doorstep, they have to walk through a long alley. The stone-paved road is rough, and there is some water on the surface. It is inevitable to get your shoes dirty when walking through it. Taxis cannot enter such alleys.
Jiang Huaiyu, carrying her suitcase, stood under a willow tree and peered into the alley—not sure which house belonged to the Lu family.
The electric tricycle, arriving late, was a step behind. Lu Mingxiao put his long legs on the ground and looked the young master, who was glowing white, up and down once again.
“Come on, I’ll take you inside. Your shoes…” he raised an eyebrow, “are enough to buy my tricycle, right? There’s no place that will clean your shoes if they get dirty.”
Jiang Huaiyu glanced at him but didn't bother arguing with him. He was different from this person; he wasn't a stubborn fool.
He put his suitcase in first, then stepped inside. There was a small chair with a brand-new cushion, but it wasn't very spacious. The young master's long legs had nowhere to go, so he curled them up awkwardly, placing his hands neatly on his knees. Lu Mingxiao, standing next to him, couldn't help but laugh when he saw his posture.
Jiang Huaiyu: "...What are you laughing at?"
Lu Mingxiao: "It's nothing."
That's how the young master looks; he seems rather well-behaved.
The tricycle entered the alley and bounced a bit. Jiang Huaiyu grabbed the handrail to steady himself. There was water on the road, and just as Lu Mingxiao had said, if he walked in like this, his shoes would definitely be ruined.
Jiang Huaiyu wasn't an ungrateful person, especially since he actually felt a kind of unspeakable guilt in front of Lu Mingxiao, after all, he had encroached on Lu Mingxiao's life.
"Thank you," he said softly amidst the clanging noise of the tricycle.
Lu Mingxiao had actually heard it, but he didn't say anything for a moment.
He was somewhat surprised to learn that the child who had been switched at birth wanted to come back to the Lu family for a visit. The young master of a top-tier wealthy family, who was used to living a life of luxury, suddenly discovered that he was actually a child from an ordinary family. This sense of disparity would be hard for anyone to accept. If Jiang Huaiyu resisted his biological parents and did not want to have any contact with them, it would be to be expected.
But then Jiang Huaiyu arrived.
At the train station exit, he felt restless in the shade of the trees. He looked up and saw the young master carrying a suitcase out of the station. He was quite tall, and surrounded by a group of dark-skinned, rough-looking unlicensed taxi drivers, he was practically glowing with white skin. Because he was carrying the suitcase up and down the stairs, his porcelain-white skin had a slight blush.
It's like a glutinous rice pastry with red bean paste filling, the kind that leaves a dent when you poke it.
This child is clearly someone who has been carefully raised.
Lu Mingxiao wasn't jealous of this kind of exquisite beauty. He had a strange intuition that even if he had grown up in a wealthy family, he wouldn't have developed such a quiet and beautiful appearance. Ultimately, it was because his parents knew how to give birth to such a person.
It's quite beautiful; just looking at it is like giving your eyes an ice pop—very refreshing.
But when he went to pick someone up under the scorching sun, the young master refused to ride in his luxury car and instead took a black cab, which made Lu Mingxiao a little angry.
He pretended not to hear the thank you and asked loudly, "What did you say?!"
Amidst the clanging and clattering noise, the young master remained silent for a moment, then said loudly, "Thank you!"
Lu Mingxiao was finally satisfied. When they arrived at the door, he even offered to help Jiang Huaiyu with her luggage.
Jiang Huaiyu's hand, which was reaching for her luggage, found it empty. She glanced thoughtfully at Lu Mingxiao.
Oh, it seems this stubborn one is easy to coax if you stroke him the right way.
As Lu Mingxiao fiddled with the rusty lock on the courtyard gate with his key, Jiang Huaiyu said softly, "Minors are not allowed to drive electric tricycles, let alone carry passengers. If caught, the vehicle will be impounded, and the guardian will be fined."
“Oh, so you’re saying I’m ignorant of the law…” Lu Mingxiao pushed open the black iron gate, carrying his luggage as he entered the courtyard first: “It’s only a ten-minute walk from the train station to the alley entrance, I can’t be that unlucky.”
Jiang Huaiyu shook her head, strongly disagreeing: "A sense of luck often triggers Murphy's Law."
Lu Mingxiao: "Huh?"
Jiang Huaiyu: "...It's just that what I feared most came to pass."
Lu Mingxiao: "Oh."
Just as he was about to tell the young master to speak more sensibly in the future, a large dog in the yard started barking at Jiang Huaiyu, interrupting their bickering.
Jiang Huaiyu's attention also shifted to the small courtyard.
The town's development is actually quite good. The main street is clean and tidy, with high-rise buildings everywhere. However, in these bustling corners, there are still some old houses scattered around that have not been demolished. The Lu family is one of them. Standing in the Lu family's courtyard, you can see the top floor of the upscale residential area not far away.
The courtyard can only be described as tidy and cozy.
A winding stone path runs through the center of the yard. The stone slabs are probably scraps from a construction site, so they are not very regular. But it is precisely because of their irregularity that they have a special charm. The path divides the yard in two, with a vegetable garden on one side and a flower trellis on the other. The orchids on the trellis are in full bloom, creating a colorful display that evokes the whole summer.
There was a wooden doghouse under the window of the house. The big, yellow, pointy-eared dog that was chained up was no longer barking. It was just looking at Jiang Huaiyu curiously, its fluffy tail taut with alertness.
The summer sun shines on the courtyard, and everything is thriving.
A thought suddenly popped into Jiang Huaiyu's mind.
Growing up here doesn't seem so bad.
Lu Mingxiao entered the courtyard on his own, and only remembered something after pushing open the door.
"Oh, Mom and Dad aren't home. Dad's old ailment has flared up again. They both went to the provincial capital."
Jiang Huaiyu had originally planned to stay for only three or four days, but seeing his biological parents was the main purpose of the trip. Unexpectedly, neither of them was there, so he immediately asked, "When are they coming back?"
"It could take a week at the shortest, or half a month at the longest." Lu Mingxiao asked, "What's wrong? Are you in a hurry to go back?"
This person is quite perceptive.
Jiang Huaiyu did want to go back. It wasn't that he disliked the environment, but he wasn't used to suddenly living under the same roof with three strangers. However, he didn't want to explain this to Lu Mingxiao, lest the other party call him a "spoiled young master" again.
He simply said, "No rush."
Lu Mingxiao carried his luggage into the house, and Jiang Huaiyu followed him in.
The house wasn't big, and the layout was clear at a glance: two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. The doors to both bedrooms were open for ventilation, and Lu Mingxiao carried his suitcase into one of the rooms.
Jiang Huaiyu stood at the door, looking at the "bedroom" where she would be living for a while.
A thin wooden board divided the original bedroom in two, showing that the "relocation" was done hastily. In Lu Mingxiao's half of the bedroom, his things were not yet organized and were piled up in a mess. The jar of glass beads had spilled, and several colorful beads had rolled out. A few steps ahead was a potted cactus.
Jiang Huaiyu was still thinking that this was a brilliant trap; whoever slipped on the glass beads...
Before he could even finish thinking, Lu Mingxiao suddenly saw something, rushed over, and stepped on the glass bead.
Jiang Huaiyu instinctively reached out her hand: "Be careful!"
Lu Mingxiao almost broke into a "street dance" routine, swinging his long arms and legs around before grabbing Jiang Huaiyu's hand. Jiang Huaiyu's athletic ability was, without a doubt, weak.
After struggling for a while, Jiang Huaiyu finally slammed Lu Mingxiao onto the floor, his head only two centimeters away from the cactus.
High-stakes inheritance battles often involve simple and brutal methods. Jiang Huaiyu almost single-handedly defeated his competitor and became the MVP.
Lu Mingxiao's lips collided with Jiang Huaiyu's forehead.
If this scene were in Jiang Huaining's short drama, there would be soft lighting effects and background music. However, this is reality, and the background music is reduced to just one loud line...
"Holy crap!"
Young Master Jiang's precious head suffered the greatest ordeal of his life—a purplish-blue mark from a front tooth was directly knocked onto his fair forehead, the skin was broken, and it was bleeding a little.
Young Master Lu fared even worse; his lips were swollen from the impact. His once cool face now had a strangely comical look thanks to his thick, distinctive lips.
"I give up..." he mumbled, holding a bottle of chilled mineral water to his lips. "I'm telling you, young master, if you hadn't pulled me up, we probably wouldn't have fallen."
He handed the band-aid to Jiang Huaiyu, saying, "Here, I bit you on the forehead and left a tooth mark."
Jiang Huaiyu was sitting at the dining table in the living room, with Li Qing's makeup mirror in front of her: "...I see, no need to remind me again, iodine, I need to disinfect."
“Tsk…” Lu Mingxiao went to get him some iodine.
With a cold expression on his fair and handsome face, Jiang Huaiyu disinfected himself and put on a band-aid.
He had initially felt guilty about taking half of the bedroom, but that subtle guilt had been swept away by the bump. He took his clothes out of his suitcase and hung them in the closet on his side.
While he was tidying up, Lu Mingxiao quietly put away the culprit that had caused all of this—two pairs of clean black boxer briefs that were drying in the sun. He had just been trying to collect these.
Silence fell over the small room for a moment. After a while, Jiang Huaiyu couldn't help but ask, "I don't see a bathroom. Where do I take a shower?"
After a long day of activity, the sun was almost setting, and Jiang Huaiyu could no longer bear the dampness and sweat on her body.
Lu Mingxiao said, "Do you see that small house in the southwest corner of the yard?"
Jiang Huaiyu recalled: "I saw it."
Lu Mingxiao said, "That's our newly built bathroom."
Jiang Huaiyu took her toiletries and was about to go out.
Lu Mingxiao added, "However, the waterproofing isn't finished yet, so it can't be used for the time being."
"..." Jiang Huaiyu felt a throbbing pain in the teeth marks on his forehead: "Is it hard for you to finish what you're saying all at once?"
"I'm happy~" Lu Mingxiao laughed unhappily: "Let's go, I'll take you out to wash up."
The two locked the door and went out together.
Just as he stepped out of the gate, a short, dark-skinned, thin boy darted out from the opposite courtyard. Upon seeing Lu Mingxiao, he shouted, "Brother Xiao, I heard from Grandma Li at the alleyway intelligence station that you brought back a fair-skinned young girl? Where is she?"
Jiang Huaiyu frowned: "What intelligence station?"
"It's that group of old ladies resting under the willow tree at the alley entrance. Their eyesight's failing, they probably didn't see you clearly and mistook you for a young girl." Lu Mingxiao's tone held a hint of schadenfreude, but the next second…
"Holy crap... Xiao-ge, did you cheat on your brother with someone else? Who made you look like a big-mouthed monkey?!"
Lu Mingxiao: ...
Jiang Huaiyu: "Pfft..."
Author's Note:
My goodness, I was jolted awake from my deathbed, and it's been two months since my last update. I'm so out of practice! I came home last night and just collapsed into bed, forgetting I was supposed to update yesterday. I got up to go to the bathroom and suddenly remembered. [Sigh]
Sorry for the wait, everyone! Leave a comment below and I'll send you a red envelope! [pigeon emoji]
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