Chapter 32

Li Qiuhe repeatedly said he wouldn't dare again. Even his little glasses couldn't hide his panic.

Chi Ning smiled and turned to Class Two.

Teaching was easy for him. All he had to do was move his lips a little, wait a few minutes, and he would hear a chorus of enlightened "Ohhh~"s.

It was far easier than dealing with guests at a birthday party.

He could even lecture while thinking about how to use Sun Boxing's blunder to make his father take the Suns seriously.

First, he would let his father listen to the recording from the teachers' office. Then what?

This testimony was only Yue Yaozong's side of the story. Yue Yaozong knew too little and had fallen straight into Sun Boxing's trap without even asking about his motive.

Would his father care?

What should he do?

Chi Ning thought about it all day.

After school, Chi Ning said to Qin Heng, "No tutoring today. Review on your own. I have something to do."

Before Qin Heng could even ask what it was, Chi Ning waved, hailed a taxi, and sped away.

Qin Heng: ...

It was over. Had Teacher Chi grown tired of him, someone who might only rise fifty places in the monthly exam?

Sigh... what should he do?

-

Chi Ning got out of the taxi at the entrance to his home and happened to run into Chi Baichuan and Chi Yang returning from the company.

Chi Baichuan was lecturing Chi Yang. "You still don't get it? The business world is a battlefield. You can't trust anyone easily. Look at what you did today. If I hadn't told my assistant to swap the vitamins in that coffee for sleeping pills, would you still think that pretty assistant was worried about you having an unbalanced diet?"

Chi Yang was speechless.

The sleeping pills in his stomach had not worn off yet. Yawning, he said, "What kind of dad takes his son to work on his first day and teaches him that the pretty assistant beside him might be a spy from the competition?"

Chi Baichuan snorted. "What else? She graduated from a top university, has two overseas graduate degrees, won Harbor City's beauty pageant, ranks first in both ability and performance, bought herself a villa in Yangcheng, and is decisive and capable. What could a girl like that possibly want from you?"

Father Chi patted his eldest son on the shoulder. "Stop dreaming and be more wary. She brought you coffee and fawned over you because I paid her enough to put on an act."

Chi Ning:?

Huh?

His brother's first day at work had been this exciting?

His father's teaching methods were certainly a little unconventional...

In that case...

"Dad, have you ever considered that there might be far more spies around you than around my brother? Like those brothers of yours who often go out for skewers with you." As Chi Ning spoke, he raised a hand beside his cheek and mimed grilling skewers in the air.

Chi Yang laughed and reached out to ruffle Chi Ning's fluffy hair. "You've made me hungry. How about we grill skewers at home tonight?"

"Sure." Chi Baichuan gave Chi Ning a long look. "Come tell me. Do you already have someone you suspect?"

Everything his son thought was written all over his face. Anyone could see through him at a glance, and he never spoke without reason.

Chi Ning hesitated for a moment, then took out his phone first. "Listen to this first. I'll explain after you're done."

Yue Yaozong's and Wang Quan's voices came through the speaker, crackling with static, but every word was still clear.

As he listened, Chi Baichuan's expression changed. "Sun Boxing deliberately spread rumors about you? Ruined your reputation? Why? You two shouldn't even know each other."

Chi Ning applauded wildly in his heart.

As expected of his dad—he immediately heard the problem!

"Because he likes Shen Minyi."

Chi Yang let out an ah. Leaning lazily against the sofa, he asked in confusion, "What does him liking Shen Minyi have to do with you?"

Suppressing his disgust, Chi Ning carefully recounted everything—from Shen Minyi sending the gold medal to the birthday party, to Chi Ning overhearing Sun Boxing and Shen Minyi talking.

After ten minutes, Chi Baichuan and Chi Yang sat silently on the sofa.

Chi Baichuan gripped the little wooden teacup in his hand until it creaked.

He held it for a while, but in the end, he could not endure it anymore. He abruptly rose to his feet and smashed the cup onto the floor with a bang. "That old dog Shen Zongze! His son is just as fucking vile as he is!"

They had all thought the newspaper photos were merely Madam Shen's doing. They had never considered what role Shen Minyi had played in it.

Chi Baichuan stomped back and forth across the living room several times, panting heavily, his blood pressure through the roof.

His youngest son was so wonderful. He had been raised in an ivory tower since childhood, so how had that filthy thing Shen Minyi set his sights on him!

"Are you dying or something?" Chen Mingxian came downstairs with her hair wrapped up, her hometown dialect spilling out. "Who got beaten? Old Chi, why are you this angry? Planning to tear the house down?"

Chi Baichuan was beside himself with rage. "Shen Minyi has his eyes on your son!"

Chi Ning: ...

Things had developed far beyond his expectations.

He had originally thought his father would not believe him. After all, he had no proof of the conversation between Sun Boxing and Shen Minyi. It was entirely his own account.

Who would have thought...

Chi Ning tugged at his older brother's sleeve. "Isn't that not the main point? Isn't the main point that Shen Minyi incited Sun Boxing to steal our family's research direction and research materials?"

Chi Yang pulled his sleeve back, then rolled up his sleeves instead. "You don't understand. The person Shen Zongze wanted to marry in the beginning was our mom."

Chi Ning's eyes widened, and he shot to his feet. "That's disgusting! How dare he? He doesn't deserve her!"

Chi Yang reached out and rubbed his younger brother's hair. "See? Now you know exactly how it feels, right?"

Same principle.

After learning the full story, Chen Mingxian tore off the towel wrapped around her hair. She could not even be bothered with her hair treatment anymore. "That damned little bastard! Crazy and completely incapable of seeing things clearly!"

Chi Ning opened his mouth, then obediently sat back down.

Chen Mingxian waved a delicate hand. "Old Chi, invite your brothers over for a barbecue. It's time for a little exchange."

After a pause, she brushed back her hair. "Invite Boss Xu too. Tell him to bring his son."

Chi Ning froze. Invite Qin Heng?

Why?

Chi Baichuan chuckled. "That young man is indeed clever."

He understood far too well how to please his son.

"We should invite him over and thank him properly."

Chapter 32

That "invite him over and thank him properly" sounded more like "invite him over and kill him properly."

Chi Ning did not dare ask. Quiet as a chicken, he helped his older brother carry the barbecue grill into the backyard. He put on a gray apron, sat on a small stool, and picked out easily flammable charcoal.

The daylight gradually vanished into the shadows of the trees. The dim gray-blue sky made the villa's fence look like a fortress ringed with spikes.

Only the small cluster of firelight in the open space was warm. Its orange glow fell across Chi Ning's cheeks, lighting up the small area before him.

Xu Jiahao stood outside the fence and clicked his tongue. He tugged at his collar. "This makes me look like a witch selling poisoned apples at someone's door."

Qin Heng lowered his head to look at himself, his expression strange.

Xu Jiahao patted him on the shoulder and said, "Dad might not have time for you today."

Sorry, bargain-bin son.

After patting Qin Heng's shoulder, he led him forward and knocked on the Chi family's backyard gate.

"Dong dong—"

Hearing the doorbell, Chi Ning looked up and met Qin Heng's eyes through the fence.

In that instant, it was as though a movie started playing in his mind, and the scene of Qin Heng jumping into the sandpit suddenly appeared.

Steadfast and confident.

Chi Ning dazedly looked away. Suddenly, he felt that having an outdoor barbecue in this weather was not very suitable. The charcoal brazier was too hot...

A little too hot.

Chi Ning turned around to help the live-in granny push over a cart loaded with marinated skewers. The weight of the cart full of raw meat exceeded expectations.

He pushed for quite a while, but the stainless-steel cart only moved a few centimeters.

Chi Ning: ...

How was that possible!

Gripping the handle, he tried to use his body weight to push the dark-green steel storage cart.

Qin Heng watched, one brow twitching.

Chi Ning leaned his upper body forward, the line of his back visible through his shirt. His white shirt was tucked into his waistband, outlining his slim waist and back.

Even more deadly was the bow tied behind his waist. It made his backside look perky, making him seem like someone all dressed up and waiting for his lover to come home...

"Huff." Chi Ning straightened up and let out a breath at the cart, which had barely moved. He began to deeply doubt the results of his workouts.

The resistance of the caster wheels against the grass must have been too great.

At that moment, an equation involving the ratio between resistance to motion and cross-sectional area, along with resistance force, appeared in his mind.

So annoying. It was so heavy. Tomorrow, he would make Li Qiuhe and the others solve a physics problem about it.

"One evening, Little Ming and twelve guests were camping on a lawn. Given that the barbecue cart had a load capacity of thirty-five kilograms..." Chi Ning paused and muttered softly, "No, it needs to be harder. I should add something like particle velocity."

He should include wind speed and air resistance too. The more conditions he added, the more calculations there would be. The bigger the workload, the better.

Just as Chi Ning was about to torment the top students in Class One who were eagerly waiting to be fed, two more hands came down on the cart handle.

He froze and turned his head toward the person beside him. "Qin Heng?"

"Mm."

With two people and four hands, pushing the cart became much easier. The cart full of marinated meat was quickly moved beside the charcoal brazier.

Chi Ning scratched his neck. "Thanks."

Qin Heng gave a quiet hum. "Just happened to do it."

The air immediately fell silent.

Chi Ning began to feel a little hot again.

While Xu Jiahao and Chi Baichuan exchanged pleasantries, the others gradually arrived as well.

Today's small gathering was different from a banquet. Everyone who came was one of their own, so they were dressed very casually. One man addressed as President Lu had even arrived in beach shorts and flip-flops, carrying a bucket of fish.

"Brother Chuan, I caught these in the Yangcheng river just now." President Lu held up four fingers and showed off proudly. "Four-pound carp and snakehead fish!"