Lin Tingyue turned her face away in anger.
[If I'm a money grubber, then my second brother is a cheapskate.]
[Cheapskate, cheapskate, cheapskate!]
Lin Shengyan: "..."
Lin Tingyue, do you dare say that to my face?
Bai Yaxin asked in confusion, "Four people? Why two million each?"
[Dad must have counted Mom's share too.]
"Yaxin, there's a share for you too."
Understanding dawned on Bai Yaxin. Meeting Lin Rusong's eyes, she said, "I don't want it. Split my share among the four children."
But Lin Rusong insisted on giving Bai Yaxin her share. In the end, two million landed in Lin Tingyue's account.
Lin Tingyue: ≧▽≦
So happy~
On Friday, Lin Xiawan's senior invited her to camp on a mountaintop over the weekend, and Lin Tingyue happened to overhear.
[A mountaintop? Camping? Why does that sound a little unsafe?]
Lin Tingyue sat down beside Lin Xiawan and asked, "Xiawan, is it just the two of you?"
Lin Xiawan said, "His good friends are coming too. He said I could bring my good friends along as well. Tingyue, do you want to come?"
Back when Lin Tingyue worked at the company, she had a coworker she was particularly close to. They ate together, commuted together, complained about their boss together, and dreamed of achieving financial freedom one day so they could camp on mountaintops and ride horses across the grasslands.
After all, every beast of burden had a wilderness in its heart.
Lin Tingyue nodded, but said warily, "It doesn't seem very safe with just us two. Let's bring our second brother and Qingqing."
[My second brother is a man. Most importantly, there's Qingqing. Qingqing's combat power is off the charts.]
Lin Shengyan, holding his coffee: "?"
What does she mean, I'm a man? My combat power is off the charts too, okay?
Lin Shengyan showed off his powerful biceps.
Lin Tingyue warned him, "Whatever you do, don't do that in front of your fans."
"Why?"
Afraid I'll charm a whole crowd and cause an accident, right?
Lin Tingyue said earnestly, "It's too greasy and affected. They'll stop being your fans."
[If I were his fan, I'd have already stopped being one.]
Lin Shengyan: "."
He gritted his teeth. "Lin Tingyue, come over here if you've got the guts."
Lin Tingyue shrank back. "I don't."
[Only an idiot would go over there.]
Lin Shengyan felt even more frustrated. Why did it feel like he had become the idiot?
The weekend arrived.
Fan Qing appeared before Lin Xiawan and Lin Tingyue in a cowboy hat, looking cool and dashing.
Lin Tingyue jogged over to cheer her on. "Qingqing, you're so handsome!"
After exchanging nods with Lin Xiawan, Fan Qing suddenly caught a rose between her teeth and winked madly at Lin Tingyue. Heh, Lin Tingyue, how could you not fall head over heels for this?
Lin Tingyue: "...Qingqing, you're overdoing it a little."
Fan Qing stumbled.
"Also, where did you get that rose?"
"My pocket. I brought a whole bunch. Want some?"
"I'll take one."
So when Ying An appeared, what he saw was Fan Qing handing Lin Tingyue a rose. He suddenly felt that Lin Tingyue looked very much like a lychee rose. Ying An paused before walking over.
Lin Tingyue took another rose from Fan Qing and handed it to Lin Xiawan. Catching sight of Ying An out of the corner of her eye, she asked, "What brings you here?"
Ying An said, "I really like camping too."
[We've got this in the bag.]
[We have two men on our side, plus our mighty woman Qingqing. Whatever crooked ideas that senior has, we'll make sure he gets more than he can stomach.]
Ying An's lips curved upward.
Lin Shengyan smiled and rested a hand on Ying An's shoulder. He thought that the two men on their side, even with Fan Qing added in, were no match for Lin Tingyue.
That senior had better pray for his own good fortune.
Otherwise, man or woman, everyone would end up a cha in the melon field.
Ying An gave Lin Shengyan a strange look. "What are you smiling about?"
"Nothing."
Whenever Lin Shengyan thought about what might happen shortly, he couldn't help smiling.
Considering that there were girls in the group, the senior, Yang Hui, chose a mountain of a suitable height. It wasn't steep, was easy to climb, and had beautiful scenery. He also created a temporary group chat and arranged to meet at the foot of the mountain.
Yang Hui was good-looking and came from a good family. When he saw Lin Xiawan and the others arrive, he hurried over to help carry her luggage. He was very considerate, but his intentions toward Lin Xiawan were a little too obvious.
Besides, all his friends were boys. If Lin Xiawan had only asked Lin Tingyue, and just the two of them had come, wouldn't this have been a coordinated hunt targeting girls?
Lin Tingyue hadn't had much of a favorable impression of Yang Hui to begin with. By now, it was almost in the negatives.
Even the usually grinning, playful Lin Shengyan looked displeased when he saw the people on the other side. Weren't they plainly setting their sights on his two younger sisters?
He and Ying An stayed with Lin Tingyue and the other girls, never leaving their side.
But even that failed to prevent it.
Once they reached the summit and started pitching their tents, Yang Hui suddenly confessed his feelings to Lin Xiawan.
[Huh?]
[Wait, what kind of confession is this? You're forcing this on her!!!]
[My sister never said she liked you at any point, did she?]
Looking at the flowers in Yang Hui's hands, Lin Xiawan asked coldly, "What do you mean by this?"
[Aaaaaah, the last person this guy liked was actually his stepmother... What a pervert!]
Chapter 27
Lin Xiawan's side and Yang Hui's friends were stunned at the same time.
Yang Hui's friends knew that his father had remarried five years earlier, when Yang Hui was about to take his college entrance exams. None of them understood why his father had chosen such a critical time to remarry. What if it affected Yang Hui and he performed poorly?
Besides, with a stepmother came a stepfather. They all looked down on Yang Hui's dad.
What was more, ever since Yang Hui started university, his relationship with his family had grown worse and worse. In his junior year, he had nearly been thrown out of the family.
They wouldn't believe that woman hadn't whispered into his father's ear even if someone beat them to death.
[Yang Hui's stepmother was actually pretty good to him. She was also afraid people would say she mistreated her stepson, so she took care of him in every aspect of daily life. When it came to his studies, she even stood up for him. During that period, Yang Hui couldn't focus on studying, and his ranking dropped more than ten places. When his stepmother attended the parent-teacher meeting, she thought her marriage to his dad had affected him, and firmly believed he could return to the top ten in his year.]
Yang Hui's friends looked at each other. Why was this completely different from what Yang Hui had told them?
Wasn't that stepmother a bad woman?
[Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried to stand up for him, her relationship with Yang Hui remained terrible. She thought that was simply how things were between stepmothers and stepsons, never imagining... Tsk, tsk, tsk.]
Never imagining what?
The suspense is killing us!
Fan Qing was dying of impatience too. Lin Tingyue didn't pause for breath like this when she spoke, so why did her inner voice keep cutting off?
[It wasn't that she wasn't trying hard enough. Yang Hui had ulterior motives!]
[The very first time he met his stepmother, Yang Hui had already started having other ideas. After she married into the family, he began writing her anonymous love letters. In his junior year, he even burst into her room and roared-]
What? What? Fan Qing pricked up her ears.
[If my dad can, why can't I?]
Fan Qing: ?
How was that any different from a deranged pervert!
[Seriously, this is real life, not stepmom fiction!!!]
Everyone around them sucked in a cold breath.
Lin Tingyue looked at them strangely.
[Why are they reacting so strongly too?]
Fan Qing immediately tried to cover for them. Rubbing her arms, she said, "It sure is cold up here, huh? Yueyue, are you cold?"
"Is it cold?"
Now that Fan Qing mentioned it, Lin Tingyue seemed to feel cold too.
Fan Qing said, "Look, you've even got goosebumps from the cold."
Lin Shengyan took out three blankets, and Fan Qing helpfully bundled Lin Tingyue up tightly.
Lin Tingyue: "..."
Fan Qing blinked and asked, "Not cold anymore, right?"
"Not anymore."
[I'm not cold anymore, but the disgust Yang Hui gave me just won't go away.]
Fan Qing and Lin Xiawan deeply shared that
feeling. Lin Xiawan in particular looked at Yang Hui as though she had seen something filthy and moved a little farther away from him.
Yang Hui, down on one knee with flowers in his hands: "?"
He asked in confusion, "Xiawan..."
Lin Xiawan cut him off coldly. "Don't call me that."
Yang Hui had guessed that Lin Xiawan might reject him, but such a firm rejection still left him a little embarrassed.
He wanted his friends to help back him up, but when he turned around, there was no one behind him.
When had they moved so far away from him? Hadn't they said they were here to be his wingmen?
Why couldn't he count on a single one of them now?
[After this incident, his stepmother avoided Yang Hui like the plague and told his dad about it. After giving Yang Hui a savage beating, his dad declared that he would throw this unfilial son out of the family. In the end, he couldn't bear to and took Yang Hui to a psychologist.]
[I don't think Yang Hui's dad is any good either. Luckily, his stepmother divorced him!]
Was that what happened?
Hadn't Yang Hui said his stepmother despised his dad for being old?
Was this destroying someone because you couldn't have their love?
[Yang Hui even went around badmouthing his stepmother... Emmm, I've never seen such a petty man.]
[Hiss, so his stepmother wasn't the first woman much older than him that Yang Hui fell for. Before her, he'd also liked his high school English teacher...]
[Because Yang Hui was good at English, he became the English class representative and had plenty of opportunities to interact with the English teacher. Yang Hui was much bolder back then. He confessed to his English teacher outright...]