Who Bullied You? I'll Bully Them Back for You.

Diwu Ling hadn't expected Huo Jiu to contact him so quickly, and he was delighted. "I'm not picky. I'll eat whatever you make."

After hanging up, Huo Jiu looked at the stunned Lu Manzhen.

Lu Manzhen blurted out, "Were you just calling Diwu Ling? The newly appointed chairman of Turing Group? The one willing to pay a million for one of your dishes?"

Huo Jiu raised a brow. He had only just learned that Diwu Ling was Turing Group's chairman. Judging from Lu Manzhen and Su Shiyuan's reactions, Turing Group had to be something special.

But why had Turing Group never appeared in the original novel?

The flicker of suspicion passed quickly, and Huo Jiu had no intention of digging deeper. He had only known Diwu Ling for two days. Their relationship was purely business: Diwu Ling paid, and he cooked. A chef had no reason to interrogate a diner's family history.

Lu Manzhen opened her mouth, then instinctively turned to look at Su Shiyuan.

Su Shiyuan remained silent, apparently calculating something.

Huo Jiu couldn't be bothered to guess what Su Shiyuan was thinking. After changing clothes, he headed out and had the driver take him to a fresh food market near Turing Group.

He planned to use Turing Group's cafeteria kitchen to prepare Diwu Ling's lunch, making sure every dish Diwu Ling ate came fresh from the stove, with the best possible texture and flavor.

Turing Group's office building stood in the CBD, the busiest part of downtown. Towering buildings crowded the area, while the fresh food market lay tucked beneath their cold, glittering shadows.

Compared to the impersonal bustle of traffic outside, the noise and crowding of the fresh food market felt like another world entirely.

It was a little after ten in the morning. Many elderly retirees had gathered here to buy vegetables for lunch.

First-Rank Pavilion had sent over two boxes of premium shark fin and abalone. Huo Jiu didn't want to waste them, so he planned to cook them for Diwu Ling when he had time. On top of the one-million-yuan cooking fee for each dish, he could charge another round of procurement fees. It was practically a gold mine.

Unfortunately, soaking shark fin and abalone took time, so today was definitely out. As Huo Jiu was making his calculations, he suddenly heard someone call from behind him, "...Young man?"

Turning around, Huo Jiu saw an elderly woman dressed in bright clothes standing behind him, holding the hand of a little girl in a tulle dress.

"It really is you!" The old woman sounded delighted. "I thought I'd mistaken you for someone else."

She looked Huo Jiu up and down. "You went home? Are you better now? Where are your family members? Why aren't you in school at this hour? What are you doing at the market?"

Seeing Huo Jiu's hesitant expression, the old woman smiled. "Half a month ago, at the subway entrance. You were holding a sign saying you didn't have money for fever medicine..."

Huo Jiu suddenly remembered. There had been too many loops through the plot, and he had forgotten. This old woman was the one who had given him some change back then.

"Are you doing all right now?" the old woman asked with concern.

At the time, Huo Jiu had said that his birth mother and stepfather were inhuman, forcing him to run away from home and beg on the streets. He couldn't even afford fever medicine when he had a high fever. Then a group of fierce-looking bodyguards had come and taken him away. The old woman had worried greatly about how he was doing. Since she had happened to run into him at the market today, she couldn't help stopping him.

Come to think of it, the reason the old woman remembered Huo Jiu's face was because he was simply too good-looking. In her words, "...I've lived most of my life and never seen such a handsome child."

What a pity that he was good-looking but ill-fated. He was at the market buying groceries on a weekday morning. "Doesn't your family send you to school?"

That wasn't the case. No matter what Su Shiyuan truly thought, he had treated Huo Jiu quite well in the original novel. It was just that Huo Jiu had only recently been brought to the Su family, and Su Shiyuan wanted him to undergo the bone marrow transplant as soon as possible. The unimportant matters hadn't been dealt with yet.

Huo Jiu remembered that the original owner had enrolled in school three months after the bone marrow transplant. He attended the same school as Su Zhuo—the best private high school in the city.

But why should Huo Jiu explain things for Su Shiyuan? He flashed the old woman a brilliant smile and answered truthfully, "Not yet."

The old woman's expression immediately turned sympathetic and indignant. Grabbing Huo Jiu's hand, she said, "...What a pitiful child."

The old woman's little granddaughter hid behind her and echoed in a babyish voice, "Pitiful."

Huo Jiu smiled. Squatting down, he stroked the little girl's braided pigtails and asked, "What's your name, little darling?"

The little girl answered unclearly, "Little darling is Nannan. What's big darling's name?"

Huo Jiu froze. "Big darling?"

The little girl pointed at herself. "Little darling."

Then she pointed at Huo Jiu. "Big darling."

In her soft, childish voice, she said, "...We're both darlings."

Huo Jiu immediately beamed.

Author's note:

Today's chapter is extra long and meaty~~ Praise me already (:з"∠)

Who Bullied You? I'll Bully Them Back for You.

No one had ever called Huo Jiu big darling in all his life!

Just for those words, Huo Jiu could stay happy all day.

"Big darling's name is Huo Jiu." Squatting before little darling, Huo Jiu asked with a grin, "What tasty food does little darling want? Big darling can make it for you."

Before Nannan could answer, the old woman laughed. "She wants sweet triangle pastries. She was making a fuss and refusing to go to kindergarten, so I had no choice but to bring her out to buy some."

Kids loved sweet treats like that!

Huo Jiu raised a brow and asked Nannan, "Then do you like little animals? How about big darling makes you pastries shaped like chicks, ducklings, kittens, and puppies?"

—What a shameless guy, calling himself big darling just like that.

Nannan blinked her big, bright eyes and tilted her head. "What's that?"

Huo Jiu grinned. "Something delicious."

He looked up at the old woman. "Do you live nearby?"

The old woman smiled kindly. "Yes, nearby. I often take Nannan to dance at the plaza up ahead in the evenings."