The sudden word “little brother” made Qin Yi’s heart skip a beat—especially when he caught sight of Chen Jinghui’s half-smile and ambiguous gaze.
What did that mean? Could it be that this guy knew something about the Qin family?
Questions popped up in his mind one after another, but Qin Yi quickly calmed himself down. So what if he knew something about the Qin family? He had already severed ties with them. Whether others knew about those disgraceful matters meant nothing to him now.
Even if someone publicly announced that he was the Qin family’s biological son who had been lost for over ten years, he would still refuse to acknowledge it. Besides, if that really happened, the ones who’d have to worry would be the Qin family. After all, to protect the “psychological well-being” of their precious substitute, they had hidden him away for three whole years.
Whenever he thought about that, Qin Yi couldn’t help but laugh.
“You even know Qin Yi’s little brother? Wait… since when were you two so close? Did you know each other from before?” Tong Gaopeng was surprised.
“Take a guess,” Chen Jinghui raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm… childhood friends?”
Tong Gaopeng’s curiosity was thoroughly hooked. But Chen Jinghui just smiled without saying a word.
Qin Yi stayed silent. He felt that Chen Jinghui was a bit odd, but he couldn’t be bothered to dig into it. He was actually a little curious to see what kind of trick this guy was trying to pull.
“Oh come on, don’t act all mysterious! No one likes a riddle-speaker!”
Tong Gaopeng grew visibly anxious when Chen Jinghui kept him hanging. There’s a kind of torment in only hearing half the story. And some people seem to enjoy delivering exactly that kind of torment.
Qin Yi figured Chen Jinghui was that type of person. From his quiet observation, he could clearly sense the mischievous glint in the guy’s eyes.
The bell for morning self-study rang.
Having gotten no answers, Tong Gaopeng could only sulk back to his seat in frustration. As for Qin Yi, he didn’t care either way. Whether Chen Jinghui really knew something about the Qin family or was just talking nonsense—it didn’t matter to him.
If possible, he would have loved to install some sort of mental filter to block out anything related to the Qin family entirely.
The morning passed quickly.
As the teacher on the podium collected the teaching materials, Tong Gaopeng, who had been holding back all morning, shot up from his seat and made a beeline for Chen Jinghui’s desk. During every break, Chen Jinghui had been deliberately avoiding him.
At this point, Tong Gaopeng had made it a mission. Even though he could’ve just asked Qin Yi, he was determined to hear it from Chen Jinghui himself.
But when he got there, the seat was empty.
“Where is he?!”
“He left a while ago,” Qin Yi pointed at the back door of the classroom.
“Damn! How is he so fast?!”
Frustrated, Tong Gaopeng scratched his hair into a mess. “He’s gotta eat sometime! I’ll go wait in the cafeteria. I don’t believe I can’t catch him all day!”
With that, he dashed out of the room.
Qin Yi watched him disappear from view and began gathering his things to go eat too. But just as he stood up, a familiar figure popped up in front of him.
“Hey, let’s grab lunch together?”
Chen Jinghui had somehow returned to the classroom without anyone noticing, smiling at him like nothing had happened.
“…” Qin Yi stared at him in speechless disbelief.
To be honest, he didn’t really want to eat with this weird guy. They hadn’t interacted much in the past three years. Now, with Chen Jinghui suddenly acting so enthusiastic, Qin Yi couldn’t help but feel guarded.
Seeing that Qin Yi didn’t reply, Chen Jinghui tried again, “My treat.”
“No thanks. I’ve got a meal card at the cafeteria,” Qin Yi declined without hesitation.
There’s an old saying: when someone’s being overly nice for no reason, they probably want something from you.
Someone he barely knew suddenly offering to buy him lunch? It was hard not to be suspicious—especially after that cryptic comment earlier about the Qin family.
“You’ve eaten cafeteria food for three years already, aren’t you sick of it? Come on, let me take you out for something better!”
Before Qin Yi could object, Chen Jinghui suddenly crouched and, with a move straight out of a judo manual, grabbed both of Qin Yi’s legs and hoisted him up over his shoulder.
“?!!”
The unexpected move completely shocked Qin Yi.
“Bro, you’re seriously light. Do they not feed you at the Qin house or what?” Chen Jinghui remarked with a rare expression of surprise. He adjusted his grip, noting that Qin Yi felt lighter than even his own younger sister.
“Put me down!” Qin Yi’s face turned grim as he struggled fiercely.
“Don’t thrash around. If you fall and hurt yourself, it’s not my fault,” Chen Jinghui warned and then took off running toward the staircase with Qin Yi still slung over his shoulder. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
“What the hell are you trying to do?!” Qin Yi’s expression changed drastically. Being carried like that made it impossible to balance. With each step down the stairs, he felt like he might get dumped head-first at any moment.
“Just taking you out for lunch!”
Chen Jinghui ran down four flights in a row and then bolted toward the school gate, barely breaking a sweat. His stamina was ridiculously good.
But Qin Yi didn’t care about that at all. All he wanted was to cuss him out and then punch him in the face. Unfortunately, he was too scrawny and couldn’t even break free.
“Huh? Chen Jinghui?”
A female teacher near the school gate spotted them and called out, “What are you doing?”
“It’s nothing, Miss Gong! Just horsing around with a classmate. Taking him out to eat!”
Chen Jinghui shouted back cheerfully while speeding up and dashing out the gate.
“Oh, alright. Be careful then. Come back early after eating!” the teacher called after them.
Although she vaguely heard the student over his shoulder yelling “Teacher, help me!”, she didn’t think too much of it.
After all, Chen Jinghui was famous for being an excellent student, polite and never causing trouble. He often chatted with teachers after class and was generally seen as someone you didn’t need to worry about.
Besides, she’d seen boys at school doing all sorts of incomprehensible games during breaks—human pyramids and whatnot. This wasn’t even the weirdest thing.
Once outside the school gate, Chen Jinghui rushed into a nearby burger place.
“Boss! The usual—two servings!”
He called out to the owner, then finally put Qin Yi down and walked behind the counter like he owned the place, pouring himself a cup of soda and gulping it down.
The shop owner didn’t seem surprised at all, clearly used to it.
“You’re insane!” Qin Yi cursed, face dark with anger, and turned to leave.
Seeing that, Chen Jinghui quickly ran to the entrance and blocked his path. “Hey, you’re already here. I even ordered for you. Just stay and eat, alright?”