Chapter 32

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

Chi Ning smiled and turned to Class 2.

Teaching others came easily to him. All he had to do was move his lips a little, wait a few minutes, and he'd hear a chorus of enlightened "Ohhh~"s.

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

He could even lecture while letting his mind wander, thinking about how to use Sun Boxing's foolish move to make his father take the Suns seriously.

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

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

Would his father care?

What should he do?

Chi Ning thought about it all day.

After school, Chi Ning told 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 him off, hailed a taxi, and sped away.

Qin Heng: ...

Oh no. Had Teacher Chi gotten tired of him, someone who might only move up fifty places on the monthly exam?

Sigh... what should he do?

-

Chi Ning got out of the car at the front door and happened to run into Chi Baichuan and Chi Yang, who had just returned from the company.

Chi Baichuan was lecturing Chi Yang. "You still don't understand? 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 replace the vitamins in that coffee with sleeping pills, would you still think that pretty assistant was worried about you not getting balanced nutrition?"

Chi Yang was speechless.

The sleeping pills in his stomach hadn't worn off yet. He yawned and said, "What kind of father takes his son to work for the first time and teaches him that the pretty assistant beside him might be an undercover agent from a rival company?"

Chi Baichuan sneered. "What else? She graduated from a top university, has two postgraduate degrees from overseas, won the Harbor City Miss title, ranks first in both ability and business performance, bought herself a villa in Yangcheng, and she's decisive and capable. What could a girl like that possibly want from you?"

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

Chi Ning:?

Huh?

Was his brother's first day at work really this exciting?

His father's teaching methods were somewhat unusual...

In that case...

"Dad, have you ever considered that there might be even more undercover agents around you than around my brother? Like those buddies you often go out for skewers with," Chi Ning said, raising a hand beside his cheek and miming the act of grilling skewers in the air.

Chi Yang laughed. He reached out and ruffled 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 deep look. "Come tell me, have you already got someone you suspect?"

Everything this son of his 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 before taking out his phone. "Listen to this first. I'll explain after you're done."

Yue Yaozong 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 spotted the problem right away!

"Because he likes Shen Minyi."

Chi Yang made a sound of surprise. 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 explained everything, from Shen Minyi sending the gold medal to the birthday party to him overhearing Sun Boxing and Shen Minyi talking.

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

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

After gripping it for a while, he could no longer hold back. He abruptly stood up and smashed the little teacup onto the floor with a bang. "That old dog Shen Zongze! The son he raised is just as fucking disgusting as he is!"

They had both assumed that the newspaper photo incident was merely Mrs. Shen's doing. They had never considered what role Shen Minyi had played in it.

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

His younger 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?" Chen Mingxian came downstairs with her hair wrapped up, slipping into her hometown dialect. "What's all this yelling? Old Chi, why are you so angry? Are you trying to tear down the house?"

Chi Baichuan was furious. "Shen Minyi has designs on your son!"

Chi Ning: ...

Things had developed far beyond his expectations.

He had originally thought his father wouldn't believe him. After all, he had no evidence of the conversation between Sun Boxing and Shen Minyi. It was entirely his word alone.

Who would have thought...

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

Chi Yang pulled his sleeve back, then rolled it up instead. "You don't understand. The person Shen Zongze originally wanted to marry 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 stroked his younger brother's hair. "See? Now you know exactly how it feels."

It was the same principle.

After Chen Mingxian understood the whole story, she tore off the towel wrapped around her hair, no longer caring about her treatment. "That goddamn little bastard, that lunatic, he can't tell right from wrong at all."

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

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

She paused, then swept back her hair. "Invite Boss Xu too. Tell him to bring his son."

Chi Ning froze. Bring Qin Heng?

Why?

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

He really knew how to please his son.

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

Chapter 32

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

Chi Ning didn't dare ask. Quiet as a chicken, he helped his older brother carry the grill into the backyard. He put on a gray apron, sat on a small stool, and picked out the easy-lighting 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 lined with spikes.

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

Xu Jiahao stood outside the fence and clicked his tongue, tugging at his collar. "This makes me look like a witch coming to sell poisoned apples."

Qin Heng lowered his head and glanced at himself, his expression strange.

Xu Jiahao patted him on the shoulder. "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 raised his head and immediately met Qin Heng's gaze through the fence.

In that instant, a scene of Qin Heng jumping into the sandpit suddenly played in his mind like a movie.

Steadfast and confident.

Chi Ning blankly looked away. He suddenly felt that outdoor barbecue might not have been a suitable choice for today. The charcoal brazier was too hot...

It was a little warm.

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

He pushed for quite a while, but the stainless-steel trolley 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 cart.

Qin Heng watched, one brow twitching.

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

Even more deadly was the bow tied behind his waist, making his butt look perky and making him seem like someone dressed beautifully, waiting for his lover to come home...

"Whew." Chi Ning straightened up and exhaled at the nearly unmoving cart, deeply doubting the results of his workouts.

The rolling resistance of the caster wheels on grass had to be too great.

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

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

"One evening, Xiao Ming and twelve guests are camping on grass. Given that the barbecue cart has 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."

Wind speed and air resistance should be calculated too. The more conditions he added, the larger the calculations, the better.

Just as Chi Ning was about to torment the eager top students of Class 1, two more hands gripped the cart's handle.

He froze and turned to the person beside him. "Qin Heng?"

"Mm."

With two people and four hands, pushing the cart took much less effort. The trolley full of marinated meat soon stopped beside the charcoal brazier.

Chi Ning scratched his neck. "Thanks."

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

The air immediately fell silent.

Chi Ning started feeling a little warm again.

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

Today's small gathering differed from a banquet. Everyone who came was one of their own, so they were all dressed casually. One man addressed as President Lu had even come 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, proudly showing off. "Four-pound carp and snakehead fish!"