Boss Fang told him about going to the school today, “What was that girl thinking? I really don’t know what that girl was thinking, actually claiming to be my lifesaver. How can you pretend something like that?” He was very angry. If she hadn’t cried, he would have already cursed at her.
“But the little girl who saved my life looked so outstanding. There’s no way people at your school wouldn’t know her, right?” Boss Fang refused to give up. “A’Zhe, if you have time, can you help me keep an eye out?”
The dream last night had been too real. He could still remember the pain in the dream even now. If he didn’t properly thank that little girl, he always felt uneasy.
“I’ll describe the little girl to you. She was tall and slim, with very long hair.”
Hearing this, Su Ci, who was in Lu Zhe’s arms, twitched her mouth. Any random girl could look like that. Was she really that ordinary?
Boss Fang slapped his leg. “Right, her skin was really, really fair, and her features were very delicate. Anyway, she was pretty. Much prettier than that girl today who pretended to be her.”
Lu Zhe stayed quiet for a moment before asking, “No other distinguishing features?”
Boss Fang half-squinted his eyes, trying to recall. His gaze fell on the little rabbit in Lu Zhe’s arms, and he suddenly slapped his forehead. “I remember now — that girl had a red string around her ankle. It looked very similar to the one on your rabbit’s foot.”
Back then the situation had been urgent. The little girl had been lying on the road. When he tried to help her up, he had seen it by accident, and only remembered now.
Su Ci froze. She instinctively curled her little foot with the red string on it.
“Mm, Uncle Fang, I’ll keep an eye out for you,” Lu Zhe replied.
By the time they left the computer shop, it was already nine at night. The street outside was lively. This was the peak of the night market.
Smelling the aroma of barbecue drifting through the street, Su Ci’s red eyes lit up, greedy beyond belief. Except for the hard, cold piece of bread she ate after turning back into a human that day, she had been eating rabbit food this whole time. She was about to throw up.
Seeing a girl walking by with a skewer of grilled squid in her hand, she swallowed enviously.
Lu Zhe didn’t know that the rabbit in his arms was staring fixedly at all the street snacks with her red eyes. His pace wasn’t fast — he was even walking slower than the pedestrians beside him.
Up ahead, a bicycle was coming their way, and Lu Zhe stepped aside.
The next second, while holding the rabbit with one hand, Lu Zhe suddenly tripped and fell to the ground.
Su Ci was stunned. Before she could even react, she was already wrapped tightly in Lu Zhe’s arms, his large hand shielding her whole body.
The girl on the bicycle was startled. She hadn’t hit him. Her bike had clearly been several hand-spans away.
“Are you okay? My bike didn’t touch you.” The girl nervously asked the fallen Lu Zhe, worried she had run into a scammer.
Lu Zhe lowered his head and looked at the rabbit in his arms. Seeing that it was unharmed, he propped himself up with one hand and slowly stood up. Ignoring the strange looks from people around them, he said coldly, “I’m fine.”
Only then did the girl notice that the boy who fell was very handsome. She stared blankly. “As long as you’re okay.”
Lu Zhe left with the rabbit in his arms.
Under the dim yellow streetlights, Lu Zhe’s stiff, chilly face looked even colder in the night.
Su Ci felt something was off. She didn’t know why Lu Zhe suddenly fell like that.
Back home.
After preparing rabbit food for the rabbit, Lu Zhe walked to the corner, picked up a dumbbell, and started doing bicep curls — one after another, slow and steady, the muscles in his arms tight and powerful.
After what seemed like over a hundred curls, Su Ci saw Lu Zhe lower himself to the ground and start doing push-ups.
Bored, Su Ci counted for him. When she reached the fiftieth and saw that he was still going, she blinked in surprise.
She remembered that once, during the filming of a variety show, a male celebrity had been punished to do push-ups. He couldn’t continue after the twenty-eighth one. Only then did she learn that men could generally do twenty to thirty push-ups, and being able to do fifty in one go was already very impressive. But now, Lu Zhe still seemed relaxed?
Su Ci became interested and continued counting.
When he reached the one-hundredth, Su Ci saw that Lu Zhe still didn’t seem like he was about to stop. She gave up counting and simply watched with bright eyes.
Lu Zhe’s forehead, neck, and back were covered in sweat. His school uniform was soaked and stuck to his body, and Su Ci could faintly see the well-defined muscles of his back.
She didn’t know how long it took before Lu Zhe finally stopped.
He sat on the ground, leaning against the wall, panting. The bangs on his forehead were wet with sweat. His expression was still stiff and cold, but his pair of pitch-black eyes were very bright.
The boy in front of her was unbelievably handsome.
Su Ci narrowed her eyes and directly jumped onto Lu Zhe’s body. Now was the perfect time to kiss him.
Feeling something on his leg, Lu Zhe, leaning against the wall, lowered his head. Sweat slid from the arch of his brow, down the side of his face, and disappeared into the collar of his uniform.
Seeing the snowball-like rabbit hopping onto his leg, Lu Zhe tugged at the corner of his mouth. His cold, large hand pressed down on its little body that was restlessly trying to climb upward.
“Wu—” Su Ci struggled. She smelled a thick masculine scent on Lu Zhe, completely different from his usual cool fragrance. It must be the smell of sweat.
The little rabbit struggled in his hand. Lu Zhe was covered in sweat and couldn’t hold it. He pinched the rabbit’s pink-white ears, and instantly, as if deflated, its body softened and it stopped fussing.
Lu Zhe’s lips curved.
He placed the rabbit on the desk, then opened the drawer, took out some medicine, and used the water in the cup beside him to swallow it.
Su Ci’s body was still soft. She stretched forward and peeked into the drawer.
The next second, she froze.
The drawer was closed by Lu Zhe.
Su Ci lifted her head in shock to look at Lu Zhe. She had seen the three words on the report inside: Gradual Freezing Disease [ALS].
So, Lu Zhe had ALS?
No wonder his life value was only three years.
She had once seen some information about this illness online — patients would have weakness in their fingers and arms, numbness, fatigue, muscle twitching, muscle atrophy, easy tripping while walking. Later they couldn’t walk, their body felt like it was frozen, unable to move, and eventually their speech became unclear and swallowing became difficult…
She couldn’t imagine that the tall, strong, and powerful handsome boy in front of her would one day become like a withered vine branch that would shatter with the lightest step.
Su Ci looked at Lu Zhe with a complicated expression.
So the reason Lu Zhe suddenly fell on the street earlier was because his legs had already started to weaken?
No wonder he exercised so intensely after returning home.
On the other side, Zhao Youyou, completely ignoring the misunderstandings and ridicule from her classmates, immediately left after school and ran to the lottery shop.
“Little girl, here to buy lottery tickets again today?” The shop owner had seen Zhao Youyou for several consecutive days.
“Yeah.”
Zhao Youyou gave a shy smile. She dawdled as she began selecting numbers, but her eyes kept falling on each customer who walked in.
Until a chubby man wearing floral pants and black-framed glasses appeared. Zhao Youyou’s eyes lit up, and the hand gripping her clothes tightened.
She had been waiting in the lottery shop for days, and this was the person she was waiting for.
“Dong Jian is here? What numbers do you want to buy today?” The lottery shop owner recognized the man in floral pants. After all, the man had been buying lottery tickets here for more than two years, but had never won.
The man in floral pants scratched his head, picked up a pen, and began writing the numbers he wanted, then had the owner print the ticket for him.
Zhao Youyou walked to Dong Jian’s side. She stared at the ticket in his hand and smiled with shy gentleness. “Uncle, today is my mom’s birthday. I just saw that a few of the numbers you bought are connected in a way that matches my mom’s birth date.”
Without heavy makeup, Zhao Youyou’s appearance was clean and pretty. And since she had cried at school, the corners of her eyes were still red, giving her a pitiful look that softened people’s hearts. She asked softly, “Could you sell your ticket to me? I want to give it to my mom as a birthday present. I can pay you a hundred yuan for it.”
Dong Jian looked at her strangely. “You can just buy one yourself.”
The lottery shop owner, seeing the pitiful expression on the girl, chimed in, “Forget it, Dong Jian. You never win anyway. Just sell it to the girl. Maybe she’s doing it to show filial piety. You can even earn a hundred yuan and buy more tickets. You’re not losing anything.”
Zhao Youyou hadn’t even seen the numbers on his ticket. Afraid he would refuse, she quickly pulled out the money. She looked at him sincerely. “Is that okay, Uncle?”
Dong Jian scratched his head, took Zhao Youyou’s money, and handed her the ticket. He wasn’t losing anything anyway.
“Thank you, Uncle. You’re so kind.” After getting the ticket, Zhao Youyou gave him a grateful look and left the shop immediately.
The lottery owner asked Dong Jian, “So? Want to buy another one with the same numbers?”
“Help me change one of the numbers.” Dong Jian thought for a moment, then changed one of the digits from the original set.
After returning home, Zhao Youyou forced herself to hold back her excitement. Only when she saw the winning numbers on the computer that night — identical to the ones on the ticket she held — did her heart finally settle.
She immediately told Father Zhao and Mother Zhao the news.
“What did you say? Five million?” Mother Zhao’s voice rose sharply.
Frightened, Zhao Youyou quickly covered her mouth. “Mom, keep your voice down.”
Mother Zhao looked at the ticket her daughter handed her, her hands trembling. “I’m not dreaming, am I?” Their family’s savings at most amounted to fifty thousand.
Beside her, the short-statured Father Zhao was also excited. He swallowed several times, the hand holding his cigarette trembling again and again. “Youyou, are you sure it’s really five million?”
“It’s really five million.” Zhao Youyou nodded hard.
In her previous life, the person who won five million was that man in floral pants who was at the lottery shop today.
Her family lived on the fifth floor, and that man lived on the eighth. After he won the prize, everyone in the neighborhood found out. Father Zhao had even regretted that he didn’t like buying lottery tickets.
After being reborn, she had been thinking about this constantly. And now, the winner was her.
“After we collect the five million, let’s give some money to Gege for treatment,” Zhao Youyou suggested.
“You child, have you gone crazy from happiness? What nonsense are you talking about?” Mother Zhao tapped her daughter’s head.
“No.”
Father Zhao also disagreed. “His illness can’t be cured. Spending money on treatment is the same as throwing it into the sea.”
Zhao Youyou thought of the last time she saw Lu Zhe in her previous life — his cheeks had been thin and sunken, his limbs stiff, and he had walked with one leg dragging behind. ALS truly had no cure.
Father Zhao’s eyes were small, and when he squinted, there was a trace of malice that made people uncomfortable. “Tell Lu Zhe to come home tomorrow and move all his things out.”
This money belonged to their family. Lu Zhe shouldn’t even think about taking a single cent.
Clearly, Mother Zhao thought the same. “Right. We raised him for so many years for nothing. There’s no reason we should still be dragged down by him now. Our family’s money is our own. It has nothing to do with him.”
Lu Zhe had a terminal illness and had become a useless person. To them, he was of no value. Father Zhao and Mother Zhao were both afraid that once Lu Zhe learned they had won five million, he would cling to them for a share. Right now, they couldn’t wait to cut all ties with him immediately.
Zhao Youyou opened her mouth but, in the end, didn’t say anything.
Comments for chapter "Chapter 7"