He Had to Get Out!

Jiang Xun lay back on the bed and crossed his legs, scrolling through his phone in a better mood than he had ever been.

Sure enough, the best cure for a bad mood wasn't beating someone up. It was watching idiots jump into a pit all on their own, without hesitation and convinced they were in the right.

Half an hour later, a servant knocked on his bedroom door.

"Y-young master," the servant's timid voice came through the door.

"Those friends of Young Master Jiang Yu suddenly started having... diarrhea, all of them, on their way home. Their parents are at the front door now, demanding an explanation from you."

Jiang Xun rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head. "They grabbed the liquor and drank it themselves. What the fuck does their stomachache have to do with me? It's not like I poured it down their throats. Let them make all the noise they want. Don't bother me."

The servant stood outside for a few seconds before the footsteps gradually faded, followed by even louder arguing downstairs.

Under the covers, Jiang Xun's lips curved upward.

He closed his eyes and quickly ran through how things would play out tomorrow.

Liu Wanying would definitely make a big deal out of this. After waiting so long, the woman finally had something substantial to use against him. There was no way she would let it go easily.

No matter how much Jiang Changping liked playing peacemaker, he couldn't turn a blind eye to something like this. Jiang Yanchu would probably come demanding answers with reddened eyes again.

But so what?

He would deal with whatever came his way. He, Jiang Xun, had never survived this long on anyone's pity or handouts.

Not a single person in this family treated him sincerely, so he had no reason to be polite to any of them.

The living room was as deathly still as the calm before a storm.

Jiang Changping sat in the seat of honor, with three cigarette butts already stubbed out in the ashtray before him.

He had barely slept in the past two days.

The news that five young masters from wealthy, prominent families were all suffering from relentless diarrhea had caused an uproar in their circle and even made the local entertainment news.

Jiang Changping had made over a dozen phone calls just to apologize, and had only barely managed to hush things up by throwing in two quarters' worth of the company's collaborative projects.

By that reckoning, every laxative pill had been worth a fortune.

Meanwhile, the culprit sat across from him in an armchair with his legs crossed, holding a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, a straw between his teeth and his cheeks bulging with each sip.

"Jiang Xun, do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused this time?" Jiang Changping began, suppressing his anger, his voice hoarse. "Do you think you can just use laxatives however you please? If they hadn't made it to the hospital in time-"

"Did I force them to drink it?" Jiang Xun scoffed.

Jiang Changping slammed his palm onto the coffee table. "What kind of attitude is that!"

Liu Wanying came down the stairs at just the right moment, wearing a simple, elegant house dress, her eyes red and swollen.

She sat beside Jiang Changping and reached out to pat the back of his hand, her voice frail and choked with tears. "Changping, don't get angry. It isn't worth damaging your health."

"Xun, I know you grew up in an orphanage and no one ever taught you these things. I don't blame you. But those boys are all Yu's good friends. Even if you don't like Yu, you can't go this far..."

Jiang Xun set his orange juice on the coffee table, folded his hands over his knees, and watched Liu Wanying's performance at his leisure.

Jiang Yu emerged from some corner or other. Two dark gaps still marked the places where his front teeth had been, making his words whistle, but that did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for adding fuel to the fire:

"Dad, he has to get out! If he dares drug Zhao and the others today, he'll dare poison the whole family's food tomorrow! With a lunatic like him in the house, I'm even scared to sleep at night!"

Liu Wanying pulled Jiang Yu to her side. With her eyes rimmed red and his teeth clenched, the two looked for all the world like a long-suffering mother and son being tormented by a bully.

Jiang Xun felt nothing.

He had anticipated this scene long ago. From the moment he poured the laxatives into the liquor bottle, he had known Liu Wanying would seize the opportunity to take a vicious bite out of him.

The woman had put up with him for so many days, waiting for a chance to crush him completely.

She really is a thousand-year-old fox spirit. Even her crying has layers.

Jiang Changping rubbed his temples, exhaustion written all over his face.

He had spent the past few days shuttling between the company and the hospital. Having finally managed to contain the situation, he still had to face this mess when he came home.

He looked at Jiang Xun's face, which bore a seventy-percent resemblance to his late wife's, and an emotion so complicated that even he couldn't put it into words welled up inside him.

This child had suffered away from home for seventeen years. He did owe him.

But the things the boy had done since coming back really had been increasingly outrageous.

"Jiang Xun," Jiang Changping said, his voice sinking, "you picked up plenty of bad habits during those seventeen years in the orphanage. This family has rules you must follow. You can't keep doing whatever you please."

He paused, fixing Jiang Xun with a grave look. "Starting tomorrow, I'll arrange an etiquette instructor and a private tutor for you, to make up for all the upbringing you've missed over these seventeen years."

"You are not to set one foot outside this house without my permission. And you will go to the hospital and apologize to those boys in person."

After hearing him out, Jiang Xun's lips lifted slightly.

"Rules?" He tilted his head toward Jiang Changping, those two dimples appearing again. His broad smile was one of undisguised mockery. "You're talking to me about rules?"

"I heard that when my birth mother was eight months pregnant with me, you were out fooling around with this Ms. Liu."

"When my mother was hemorrhaging while giving birth to me, whose bed were you enjoying yourself in? And where were you when someone carried me away from the hospital?"