Jiajiang Garden was a famously luxurious villa district in Sea City and across the entire country. Anyone able to live in Jiajiang Garden represented immense wealth and high status.
Jiajiang Garden was a purely independent villa district project developed by the previous head of the Lu Group. Built around the river, it embraced all the magnificent scenery Sea City had to offer.
Among the few villas in Jiajiang Garden, the one with the prime location was undoubtedly the Lu family's own villa.
At this moment, however, the members of the Lu family had no heart to appreciate the beautiful scenery outside the house.
In the Lu family's living room, silence reigned, and the atmosphere was as cold as frost.
Today was Saturday. Normally, Lu Qi would practically never wake up on weekends until noon, but just now, his father had suddenly called him and inexplicably said they were going to hold a family meeting, so Lu Qi had struggled hard to crawl out from under the covers.
After hanging up his father's call, Lu Qi rubbed his messy and fluffy sleep-tousled hair.
What a damned family meeting; he could not even remember when their family had last gathered together for a meal.
After Lu Qi went downstairs, it was not long before those two busybodies, his father and Ms. Li, stepped into the house one after the other.
Lu Qi sat cross-legged on the sofa right in the middle of the living room.
He propped his chin in one hand, looked at his father and Ms. Li sitting silently on the sofas to his left and right respectively, and spoke with feigned banter, "So after being away from home for over a month, are you two planning to come and stage a mime show?"
Although Lu Qi's tone was relaxed, his heart was beating a heavy tattoo like a pellet drum.
Damn it! The Old Man suddenly called Ms. Li home—could he be planning to divorce her?!
The more Lu Qi thought about it, the heavier his mood became.
Although theirs was a blended family and he was not Ms. Li's biological son—his own mother had passed away from illness not long after giving birth to him—after all these years of getting along, he had long since regarded Ms. Li as his own mother. If he really compared relationships, his bond with Ms. Li was probably even better than his bond with the Old Man.
Lu Qi secretly comforted himself, Don't think too much.
Although Ms. Li had harbored a grudge against the Old Man all these years because of that incident back then, maintaining a cold face toward him, based on his observations, the Old Man was completely infatuated with Ms. Li and devoted to her heart and soul. Therefore, divorce between the two of them was probably quite unlikely.
Lu Qi covertly glanced at his father, who was sitting on the sofa to his front left with a stern expression and tightly knitted brows, as if pondering something.
Just as he intended to withdraw his gaze, he unexpectedly locked eyes with his father, who had raised his head.
The moment his father saw his slouching, rebellious posture with one leg crossed over the other, he said in a cold voice, "You've got no posture at all. Put your foot down."
What Lu Qi hated most was his father's coercive, command-like tone.
Either his father would go out without returning for a month or two, or whenever he came back, he would strictly discipline Lu Qi as if he were a subordinate. Sometimes Lu Qi did not even know whether he wanted the Old Man to come home at all.
Just as Lu Qi irritably thought about opening his mouth to snap back at his father, Ms. Li spoke in a gentle voice, "Xiao Qi, put your leg down. Crossing your legs can cause spinal deformation and is bad for your health."
Lu Qi always responded to soft approaches rather than hard ones, and upon hearing Ms. Li say this, he did not say anything back. Instead, he obediently placed his foot flat on the floor.
Seeing that Lu Qi had put his foot down properly, Ms. Li looked toward his father, though her voice lacked a bit of its previous gentleness as she got straight to the point and asked, "What is the matter that you called me back? I have to go to Milan in two hours. If you haven't figured out how to talk about it yet, wait until I return from Milan before we discuss it."
Ms. Li and Lu Qi's father were both extremely busy people.
Unlike the Lu Group, which his father had inherited from his own parents, Ms. Li's AZ Fashion Group was built entirely from scratch by her own hands.
Back then, after Ms. Li graduated from high school, the Li family wanted to use her education to blackmail her into agreeing to an arranged marriage with an old man. With her proud temperament, how could she possibly submit to them? Naturally, she secretly fled from the Li family and severed ties with them.
To avoid the Li family's entanglements, Ms. Li applied to go to MOD Art Design Academy in Paris, a school also known as the "Harvard of the fashion world." During her university years, she broke into the Parisian fashion scene with a clothing brand she founded herself, rising to great fame in Paris's upper society. To this day, Ms. Li's AZ Fashion Group not only encompassed well-known luxury brands, but also possessed many high-end fashion magazines under its umbrella.
In fact, Ms. Li and Lu Qi's father were first loves. The two had dated for a period in high school while keeping it a secret from those around them. However, because Ms. Li later found his father too clingy, she ruthlessly chose to break up with him.
A few years after breaking up with Ms. Li, his father entered into a business marriage with his first wife. Later, his first wife passed away due to illness, and considering Lu Qi, his father originally had no intention of remarrying. Who could have imagined that during a chance encounter, his father and Ms. Li rekindled their old romance. Fearing that Ms. Li would run away again, his father even did something trendy and eloped into a flash marriage.
After the marriage, Ms. Li quickly became pregnant.
At that time, the entire Lu family—including Lu Qi, who was then a little toddler whose speech was still stuttering—was filled with anticipation for the arrival of this new life.
After deep consideration, Lu Qi's father and Ms. Li named the child Lu Yang, hoping his future would be as bright and warm as the sunshine.
Little Lu Yang's arrival brought a lot of joy to the entire Lu family.
As soon as he woke up every day, Lu Qi would pester the nanny, saying he wanted to go play with his younger brother.
Even his normally unsmiling father turned into a puddle of mush when facing this child, occasionally revealing a foolish father-like smile that drew a bout of teasing from Ms. Li, who said he was completely besotted with his son now.
Although little Lu Yang was still young, he was as clingy as a sticky rice dumpling all day long, not afraid of strangers at all, and would smile at anyone he saw.
On the day after little Lu Yang celebrated his third birthday, although reluctant, Ms. Li had no choice but to go abroad because of work commitments.
After Ms. Li left, little Lu Yang saw that his father was also going to work, so he whimpered and clung to him like a little tail. His father had no way to shake him off, so he could only have the nanny aunt bring little Lu Yang along to the office as well.
There was a small park near the Lu Group, and after eating lunch, his father carried little Lu Yang there for a walk to digest his food. Not long after arriving at the park, his father's phone suddenly rang. To avoid the noisy frolicking in the park, seeing that the nanny aunt was following right beside little Lu Yang, his father walked away directly to answer the call.
By the time his father finished the call and returned, the nanny aunt and little Lu Yang had already vanished without a trace.
His father initially thought little Lu Yang must have been taken back to the company by the nanny aunt, but when he returned to the office, he did not see the two of them. By the time he repeatedly called the nanny's phone and failed to get through, his father's expression instantly changed, and he hurried to call the police.
Ms. Li had just landed abroad, and upon receiving the call from his father, it felt like a bolt from the blue, so she rushed back home in a panic.
The Lu family possessed immense wealth and influence, and his father exhausted every means, casting a massive net, until he finally discovered the nanny's whereabouts in a rental apartment. After the police broke down the door, they found that the nanny had already committed suicide by taking pills, but they did not find any trace of the child.
Through criminal profiling and investigation of the nanny, the police discovered that her motive for kidnapping the Lu family's young master was purely born out of a mindset of retaliating against society. Therefore, they concluded that the likelihood of the child surviving in her hands was very low, and he was most likely abandoned in the wilderness.
Hearing this analysis from the police, Ms. Li—someone who had always paid such close attention to her image—suffered a complete breakdown on the spot and wept bitterly.
Ever since then, the Lu family seemed to have lost its joyful laughter.
Even though she knew this was an irrational and unfair transfer of her anger, over all these years, Ms. Li had never once given Mr. Lu a pleasant look, and it was extremely rare for the two of them to even sit down and converse calmly.
Therefore, it was hardly any wonder that Lu Qi was so shocked when Mr. Lu mentioned holding a family meeting.
Mr. Lu took a deep breath, looked at Ms. Li, whose makeup was cold, glamorous, and exquisite, and spoke in a deep voice, "That child has been found."
Ms. Li's face instantly turned ashen.
She clenched her hands so tightly that her fingernails instantly dug into the tender flesh of her palms, and her lips even trembled slightly with fear, "Wh-Where is he?"
Lu Qi's expression also grew solemn in an instant.
Over the years, Lu Yang's disappearance had always been a taboo subject that could not be broached within the the Lu family.
Although members of the the Lu family had never given up searching for Lu Yang's whereabouts over the years, as time passed, everyone had slowly begun to lose hope as to whether this child was still alive in this world.
When Mr. Lu suddenly brought this matter up, both Ms. Li and Lu Qi assumed that Lu Yang's body had finally been found.
Seeing how grave their expressions were, Mr. Lu immediately realized they probably misunderstood, and hurriedly spoke up to explain, "The child is alive and well, don't get me wrong!"
Hearing Mr. Lu's words, Lu Qi and Ms. Li both instantly raised their heads and stared at him.
Hearing that the child was still alive, the tears Ms. Li had just been holding back immediately rolled down in strings.
Lu Qi let out a breath of relief in an instant, and he angrily slapped the sofa beside him, "Dad, can you stop pausing so dramatically when you talk?"
Mr. Lu took out the photos he had ordered someone to secretly take and handed them to Ms. Li.
The moment she saw the young man in the photos, Ms. Li's heart suddenly seemed to be tightly clutched into a ball by a pair of large hands, and her tears inexplicably poured down uncontrollably.
The young man in the photo wore an ordinary blue-and-white school uniform, with his backpack slung over one shoulder as he leaned lazily against the wall.
He had a tall, slender, and lean figure, and a pair of deep, pitch-black phoenix eyes with slightly upturned corners. His features were exquisite, but his temperament was as cold and frosty as ice, faintly isolating himself from the bustling noise of the people coming and going around him.
It was clearly the most ordinary school uniform, yet he wore it with a pictorial, fashion-magazine feel.
The girls passing by him in the photo seemed to be secretly casting their gazes toward him, while he apparently paid no attention to these glances, keeping his brows and eyes lowered as if he were pondering something.
Mr. Lu pulled out a few tissues and handed them to Ms. Li, whose makeup was already mostly ruined by crying, and spoke, "That child is living in Mountain City now, and he has changed his name to Lu Yao."
"Lu... Lu Yao."
After murmuring and repeating the name Lu Yao a few times, Ms. Li raised her head and spoke with a hoarse voice, "Is he doing well?"
Hearing Ms. Li ask this question, Lu Qi also looked anxiously toward Mr. Lu.
Thinking of the contents of his investigation, Mr. Lu could not help tightly furrowing his brows, and spoke with a voice that struggled to conceal its heavy gloom, "Not well."
Not well at all.
Mr. Lu took out the investigative report on Lu Yao over the years and handed it to Ms. Li.
Hearing Mr. Lu say that the child had not had a good time over the years, Ms. Li's hand trembled slightly as she took that investigative report.
Seeing that Ms. Li's hand kept trembling and she delayed for a long time, not daring to open the first page of the investigative report.
Lu Qi sat down beside Ms. Li, soothingly grasped her hand, and spoke with a firm voice, "Mom, everything will be fine from now on."
The past could not be changed, but the future could.
Although Lu Qi and Ms. Li had both mentally prepared themselves, after reading that investigative report, their moods still could not help but feel heavy and astringent.
Especially Ms. Li; she only had one thought in her mind at this moment, which was to immediately go find that child and then bring him home.
Even though the the Lu family members were burning with impatience and Mr. Lu had even mobilized the family's private jet, Sea City and Mountain City—where Lu Yao was currently located—were a great distance apart, sitting at opposite ends of the north and south. A flight alone took over five hours, so by the time their plane landed in Mountain City, the sky had already turned dark.