Ch.44 – Alienation

Shen Yu quietly looked at Yi Heng’s seemingly sincere face.

He didn’t speak for a long time.

After all this time, he found out that his original assumption was wrong. He thought that through his intervention, Yi Heng and Tang Li could live in harmony. Unfortunately, he ignored the fact that the two men themselves were the biggest enemies in the original novel.

Shen Yu was suddenly very depressed.

Now that had Yi Heng left such obvious bruises on Tang Li’s face, Shen Yu couldn’t help complaining about Yi Heng in heart.

“We aren’t planning on having dinner with them. So it would be more convenient for you to follow the vice principal and the teacher.” Shen Yu’s face was covered with a fake smile that did not leak any of his inner thoughts.

However, Yi Heng didn’t seem to understand the intent of refusal in Shen Yu’s words and said, “It’s just that I don’t want to be with them, so can I follow you for dinner?”

Shen Yu: “…”

Previously, he thought that Yi Heng was just a lonely child, but now it seems that this child’s face is very thick.

Shen Yu was gradually becoming more agitated. He didn’t want to be around Yi Heng anymore and was ready to refuse him straightforwardly.

However, before Shen Yu could utter a word, he heard the voice of Tang Li coldly reply, “Are you still not leaving? Do you plan to stay here for the night?”

Hearing these words, Yi Heng was stunned, and then he turned his eyes to Tang Li.

Although there was no expression on Tang Li’s face, his eyes were extremely cloudy. Even at a distance, Yi Heng could feel a strong sense of unhappiness around him.

Yi Heng has always been sensitive to his surroundings, and naturally caught the deliberately concealed vigilance in Tang Li’s eyes. He stared at the bruise on Tang Li’s right cheek for a moment. Finally, he understood what was happening and laughed, “What are you so anxious about?”

Tang Li narrowed his eyes and his lips clenched shut.

“Does Uncle Shen know where the bruise on your face came from?” Yi Heng shrugged his shoulders before giving Shen Yu a meaningful look. “He bumped himself into the bedframe.”

Shen Yu took a deep breath: “I know.”

“I just pushed him carelessly, but he bumped into the bed frame and hit his face.” At this point, Yi Heng suddenly paused and laughed more brilliantly. “Uncle Shen, you’re being so cold to me, don’t you think I hit him?”

“Of course not.” Shen Yu’s words were concise.

But even if Yi Heng didn’t directly do anything to Tang Li, Tang Li’s injury had something to do with Yi Heng.

Maybe this time it’s just a quarrel, but next time it will be an all-out battle.

After this incident, Shen Yu felt more and more that he should get Tang Li away from Yiheng. He could not intervene with the natural animosity between Yiheng and Tang Li, so he could only try to distance them.

Yi Heng’s eyes wandered over Shen Yu’s face. He seemed to have guessed Shen Yu’s intention. The laughter that had flowed into his eyes dispersed like the tide, and he soon regained his usual indifference.

“You…”

Yi Heng’s words had just begun when suddenly, Tang Li rose up.

Then there was a bang…

The door was closed.

Tang Li turned to the leader sitting in the driver’s seat and said, “Uncle, can we go now?”

The leader wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and thought that the young man’s temper was too fierce. He subconsciously looked at Shen Yu through the rearview mirror.

Shen Yu nodded, “Let’s go.”

Tang Li, who had just been so outspoken, sat back in his seat and turned into a miserable little daughter-in-law. He hung his little head and dared not look up at Shen Yu.

Shen Yu laughed at Tang Li’s helpless appearance before rubbing Tang Li’s hair. “Okay, stop pretending.”

The camouflage was broken, and the regretful expression on Tang Li’s face disappeared in an instant. He looked up at Shen Yu, and only after he was sure that Shen Yu was not angry, did he speak carefully: “You don’t blame me?”

“Why blame you?” Shen Yu said, “That child is really a bit pestering.”

Tang Li’s eyes brightened before he frowned in disgust. “Like a piece of taffy candy, you can’t shake it off.”

Uncle Zhang, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat, listened to this and said with amusement, “Young master Tang Li, since you came to the Shen household, isn’t that how you stuck to young master Shen?”

Tang Li was silent.

No one could tell what he thought of, but the tips of his ear became instantly became ruddy.

As Shen Yu saw this, his hands seemed itchy, so he quietly clipped the earlobe of Tang Li with his forefinger and thumb and pinched it lightly.

Ah…

It feels so good!

It feels even better than pinching Tang Li cheeks!

Shen Yu was as happy as he could be to discover this new world of possibilities, but he didn’t notice that the red on Tang Li’s ears spread directly to him cheeks. At last, he was so red that he could almost drip blood.

After a while, Tang Li stammered, ” Expect me, no one can stick to Shen Yu.”

“Who said so?” Uncle Zhang deliberately teased Tang Li, “Miss Jenny Yang came to see the young master a few days ago.”

Tang Li was stunned and looked at Shen Yu.

Why was Tang Li’s stare so sharp?! Shen Yu actually heard a “swish” like it was a knife penetrating the air.

Somehow, Shen Yu was suddenly frightened and started sweating all over. He quickly released Tang Li’s earlobes and waved his hands like wind shield wipers. “Jenny Yang called me on another person’s phone and asked me to go out for dinner, but I refused!”

Finally, Shen Yu emphasized, “I didn’t promise her anything!”

Tang Li’s blushing face collapsed. With a soft hum he turned his head towards the window.

“Ah…” as a new headache was developing for Shen Yu, he did not forget to stare at Uncle Zhang, the original trouble maker.

Even knowing of Tang Li’s insecurities, he deliberately mentioned that woman’s name.

It’s true that once said, something can’t be unsaid [1].

Uncle Zhang, who was being stared at, knew that he had said to much. He quickly turned away, looking straight ahead and pretending nothing had happened.

The originally lively car suddenly became quiet. The leader and Uncle Zhang’s nerves were both tense. While Uncle Zhang didn’t dare to even breathe loudly. He did listene to Shen Yu’s comforting Tang Li in a soft voice. Suddenly, Uncle Zhang shed some tears in his heart.

The noble and cool master of his family…

He had never lowered himself to coax anyone before, even Miss Du Pingting, whom his young master has loved for many years, has not enjoyed such treatment. How can he become a slave to a mere child now?

Child-rearing is harmful to the mind!

Ah…

It’s funny, too.

Shen Yu was angry in the morning, and it was now Tang Li’s turn to be angry in the evening.

In fact, Tang Li seldom gets angry with Shen Yu. Even when the little villain is unhappy, Shen Yu doesn’t need to take the initiative to coax him. In a short time, Tang Li will turn into taffy and stick to Shen Yu immediately.

This time, however, Shen Yu was caught by the sudden eruption of a volcano that had been silent for a long time. He kept coaxing Tang Li for three or four hours.

At eleven o’clock in the evening, Shen Yu let Uncle Zhang return the little cold-faced villain to his room before breathing a sigh of relief.

For the first time, he found that children could be as difficult as girlfriends.

In the past, his married friends complained to him about how disobedient the children were and how they were often nothing but headaches. Shen Yu felt that his friends were making a big fuss over nothing. A child’s world was very simple, and you could coax a child with whatever they were interested in.

Now it seems——

At that time, he really was talking out of his own ass.

Shen Yu sighed softly, took out his phone, looked through him mailbox, and held a video conference with Kang Lin for half an hour before he packed up his night clothes and went to the bathroom to take a bath.

Now Shen Yu was able to barely stand for a little more than ten minutes. However, that’s under the assumption that there is no extra strain on his body, so each bath is still quite troublesome.

It took Shen Yu more than an hour to take a bath.

After a long day’s tossing and turning, he was already exhausted, and as soon as he laid in bed, he fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Shen Yu was awakened by a slight knock on the door. He opened his eyes in the dark and listened carefully for a few seconds to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Indeed, someone was outside the door.

Shen Yu raised him upper body and turned on the light that rest on the nightstand.

Dim light instantly engulfed some of the darkness. Shen Yu got up and got out of bed, pushed aside the wheelchair parked by the bed, and with the support of the wall, walked slowly towards the door.

The whole process took nearly twenty minutes. When he finally came to the door sweating, the slight knock on the door had disappeared into silence, as if it had just been Shen Yu’s hallucination.

There was a peephole in the door, but Shen Yu could only see the empty corridor outside.

“Chestnut.” Shen Yu softly called out.

No one answered him.

Shen Yu directly opened the door and saw Tang Li crouching on the ground with his pillow.

Tang Li was wearing green frog pajamas bought by Shen Yu and was stealthily hiding outside his room like a burglar.

After hearing the sound of the door opening, Tang Li was momentarily stunned. Then he looked up at Shen Yu with a dazed expression while gradually becoming more and more nervous.

Shen Yu looked down at the nearly shrunk Tang Li and opened him lips expressionlessly: “You…”

“I didn’t knock on the door!” Tang Li shouted out.

Shen Yu shut him mouth and was silent for a while before he said, “… I’m not asking you about that.”

Tang Li: “…”

Shen Yu added, “And I said I didn’t like lying children.”

Tang Li was flat-mouthed and looked a little aggrieved. Just now he knocked on the door before instantly regretting it. He wanted to avoid the peephole and leave quietly, but Shen Yu guessed that the knocker was him and directly opened the door.

Truthfully, Tang Li was happy inside.

The explosive joy gushed out of his heart like it wanted to drown him.

He was willing to drown.

Nevertheless, none of these feelings were shown by Tang Li’s expression. He was still playing a wronged and pitiful child, standing up slowly with his pillow in his arms and hesitating to say, “I don’t want to sleep in a room with that boy.”

Shen Yu said, “That…”

Tang Li quickly interrupted him: “I don’t want to sleep in a room with Uncle Zhang either.”

Shen Yu paused for two seconds and said, “Otherwise…”

Tang Li continued to interrupt him: “It’s too much trouble to get another room.”

Shen Yu: “…”

What the fuck!

How does this kid know what he’s going to say?!

Shen Yu is not completely foolish; besides, Tang Li has clearly shown that Shen Yu is only an amateur at guessing the little villain’s thought.

Considering the state of his legs, Shen Yu wanted to refuse. Unfortunately, the eyes of Tang Li, which were full of expectations, seemed to glitter with hope. Even after half a day, Shen Yu wasn’t able to refuse.

Finally, he sighed, “Come in.”

Shen Yu didn’t notice how long he stood in front of the door. When he was ready to turn around and go back to his room, he found his legs were numb and almost unconscious. He quickly told Tang Li to push his wheelchair over before returning to bed.

Tang Li climbed into the bed and gave Shen Yu a leg massage with ease and familiarity.

After massaging for more than an hour, Shen Yu felt better and his expression was no longer as burdened as before.

When Tang Li saw the situation, he immediately went to the bathroom to get a wet towel and wipe Shen Yu’s face and body down so he wouldn’t be covered in cold sweat.

Tang Li was extremely serious, serious as if he were performing a task of life and death. Shen Yu’s cheeks were burning slightly under the little villain’s attentive eyes.

In fact, Tang Li never did these things for him, not that he didn’t want to, but that Shen Yu wouldn’t let him.

There are so many inconveniences in his life that even when he first came to this world, he needed Uncle Zhang to stand outside the shower curtain to help deliver things.

As the elder of Tang Li, he was still unwilling to be seen in such a manner by Tang Li.

But tonight…

Ah, forget it.

Do disabled people need self-esteem anyway?

Shen Yu looked down and thought about it.

Suddenly, he felt arms gently wrap around his neck, followed by the warm touch of Tang Li’s face against his neck.

Tang Li is hot all over. The warmth sticks to Shen Yu like a fireball, but it feels quite comfortable in a room with plenty of air-conditioning.

“Don’t let Yi Heng come near you in the future.” Tang Li kept his voice low and said almost imploringly, “That fellow has a bad mind, it’s sour and jealous. He must have been a sauerkraut fish in his last life.”

Shen Yu, who was in a bad mood, was instantly amused by Tang Li’s description and patted the little villain on the back, “You two are birds of a feather.”

Tang Li disagreed: “I am much better than him!”

Shen Yu raised him eyebrows: “Didn’t you intentionally hit the bedframe so that I would alienate him?”

Tang Li: “…”

[1] Originally it was an idiom that said something like, “to pick the kettle that is not boiling.” Basically, it’s used to indicate that someone is saying or doing something that shouldn’t be mentioned in front of others, or that someone is bringing up a sensitive subject. It’s based off an old story that I provide a link to better explain.