Lu Yubai was in a difficult position. He was angry too, so there was no way he could immediately say he forgave Jiang Haoxin. But she was an elder, and he could hardly push her away.
He was racking his brains for something to say when Lu Xiaoxiao pulled him over.
Lu Xiaoxiao hooked an arm around Lu Yubai's neck, looking as close as a sister and brother who got along wonderfully, while discreetly separating him from Jiang Haoxin's mother.
"Oh, Haoxin's mom, changing your tune that fast isn't exactly what you'd expect from a mature adult, is it?"
"You just said I was young, so surely you can forgive me for speaking bluntly? Our Yubai is rather naive. He certainly isn't as good at telling right from wrong as your son. If he were, he probably would have kept his distance from your son from the start!"
"You said Jiang Haoxin is about to take his college entrance exams, and that he only gets one chance in his life. So do Lu Yubai and Fan Chiran not have exams to take? Who's going to compensate them for the time they've lost?"
"Fan Chiran nearly lost his life, too. Trying to brush it all aside with a few casual words seems a little inappropriate, doesn't it?"
Jiang Haoxin's mother took two defeated steps back, left speechless by Lu Xiaoxiao's rebuttal.
The curly-haired boy's mother, who had initially been waiting to see how things played out, seized the chance to switch sides as soon as the situation turned around and accused her:
"Exactly! Now the truth is out. Your son was the one who led mine into doing bad things! He's rotten! Your family needs to take the main responsibility for this!"
Jiang Haoxin's mother knew she was in the wrong when facing Lu Xiaoxiao, but she couldn't stand what the curly-haired boy's mother said. Forgetting all about keeping up appearances, she launched straight into a shouting match:
"Your son is no better! If someone else bullies a classmate, he bullies them too. Then why doesn't he jump off a building when someone else does? How stupid does he have to be to let someone lead him around by the nose?"
Their argument raged on. Though the scene descended into chaos, it no longer had much to do with Lu Yubai. Lu Xiaoxiao said a word to Teacher Zhu and took him away.
Once they reached a deserted spot, Lu Xiaoxiao stopped and looked at Lu Yubai with her arms folded.
"All right, that's settled. If you don't want your dad and eldest brother finding out, tell me the truth. What's going on between you and Fan Chiran? Have you bullied him before?"
[Phew, that farce is finally over. So much drama!]
[I've figured it out. The place with the most drama isn't the entertainment industry at all. It's school! Anywhere full of kids is a headache!]
Listening to Lu Xiaoxiao's inward complaints, Lu Yubai awkwardly kicked at the small stones by his feet and forced himself to confess. "I... I used to bad-mouth Fan Chiran to them a lot. Other than that... nothing."
He still wasn't quite used to having a conversation without so many barbed remarks, or to being lectured like a child by Lu Xiaoxiao. But she had just helped him resolve a huge problem, so he had to keep his head down.
"Then did you know other people were bullying Fan Chiran in your name or not?"
"..."
"Answer me."
"I only knew a little! But I never told them to bully him!"
Lu Xiaoxiao looked at him expressionlessly. "But you let it happen. You didn't stop them. Didn't that indirectly encourage them? Don't you know that staying silent makes you an accomplice?"
Lu Yubai's face flushed red. Being lectured left him feeling humiliated, but he had to admit that Lu Xiaoxiao had a point. He couldn't come up with a single retort.
[Tsk, after all that, he still won't admit he was wrong. So stubborn. Clearly, talking alone isn't enough to teach kids a lesson. A beating still seems the most effective. Let me see where's best to hit him.]
Lu Yubai: "???!!"
Seeing the faint eagerness on Lu Xiaoxiao's face, Lu Yubai jumped in alarm and hurriedly shouted, "Okay, okay, I know I was wrong! I know I was wrong, all right?"
He blurted it out frantically, afraid that a slap would land on his head if he was even a moment too slow.
Lu Xiaoxiao froze, not understanding his sudden, dramatic reaction. She looked at him in bewilderment for two seconds, then nodded in satisfaction. "Good, as long as you know you were wrong. Let's go."
"Oh..." Lu Yubai breathed a sigh of relief and instinctively followed her. After two steps, however, he realized something was off and stopped to ask, "Wait, where are we going?"
He noticed that Lu Xiaoxiao was heading toward the school gates. Now that everything was resolved, shouldn't he be going back to class?
Was Lu Xiaoxiao actually going to take him out to skip school in broad daylight? Was she really that bold?
Hearing the brat's question, Lu Xiaoxiao replied without turning around, "To the hospital to see Fan Chiran, of course. I already asked Teacher Zhu to excuse you. In a few days, I'll be busy filming the show, and I won't have time to deal with this nonsense of yours."
"Huh? Why go see him? He and I don't really have anything to talk about..." Lu Yubai shuffled forward a couple of steps, reluctance written all over his face.
Lu Yubai wasn't bad at heart. Although he hadn't directly caused what had happened, he still had no idea how to face Fan Chiran!
Lu Xiaoxiao ignored his resistance. "Enough nonsense. If there's a misunderstanding, you need to clear it up sooner rather than later."
"Hey, hey! I still have my college entrance exams! I can't waste time!"
"Oh, please. You don't study properly at school anyway. You ranked near the bottom last time. Why pretend you love studying now?"
[This brat is such a terrible judge of character. Fan Chiran is going to make something of himself. If he'd just gotten along with him, he wouldn't have ended up so miserable later.]
[It's better to cut ties with those lousy friends now, too. When the Lu Family is on the verge of bankruptcy later, they're the ones who egg Lu Yubai on to borrow from loan sharks, then run off with the money. None of them are decent people.]
[Besides, the only reason Fan Chiran stopped Lu Yubai from confessing to the school beauty, Ye Ziqi, last time was that she's his half sister-they have the same mother! His little sister was about to get snatched up by some unreliable punk. I'd be frantic too!]
Lu Yubai: "???"
That string of inner thoughts left Lu Yubai stunned. There was simply far too much information in it.
What did that mean? Could Lu Xiaoxiao really predict the future? That was terrifying! From now on, he absolutely had to stay as far away as possible from those guys!
And Fan Chiran was actually Ye Ziqi's older brother?
Did that mean he had unknowingly offended his future brother-in-law? And even let his so-called "brothers" bully him?
Lu Yubai was filled with regret. Completely overlooking the fact that Ye Ziqi had never returned his feelings, he let his thoughts race far ahead and was already worrying that Fan Chiran might stop him from marrying the girl he liked in the future.
No, no, he had to apologize to Fan Chiran right this instant!
At that thought, Lu Yubai immediately jogged a few steps to catch up with Lu Xiaoxiao, suddenly looking even more impatient than she was. "Come on, come on! I thought about it, and you're absolutely right. We really should clear up the misunderstanding as soon as possible!"
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