Yu Jiadong had seen photos of people after fights before, but never had he felt as tense as he did now.
He swallowed hard and replied:
[Yu Jiadong: What do you want?]
[Xiao Qiao: No rush. You must think I’m only capable of beating you up, right? Let’s see who has the greater influence you or me.]
After sending this message, he decisively logged out of WeChat.
Then, he opened his contacts and dialed a number. The phone rang twice before it was answered.
“Hello, young master ”
“Put Lu Guoan on the phone. Tell him I’m at the Mo family’s place right now.”
The man on the other end was stunned, even forgetting to question Lu Qiao’s direct use of Lu Guoan’s name. The voice suddenly became muffled, as if someone had covered the phone and whispered something to the side. Soon, the phone was handed to someone else, and a familiar, sycophantic voice came through:
“Ah Qiao, you’re looking for your dad?”
Lu Qiao curled his lips. Dealing with someone like Yu Jiadong didn’t require much effort on his part letting dogs fight dogs was more than enough.
Lu Guoan was a tool about to expire, and Lu Qiao had no intention of being polite to him. He went straight to the point:
“Dad, I’m at the Mo family’s place right now.”
Without waiting for Lu Guoan to respond, he continued, “I’m here because yesterday, Yu Jiadong sent people to cause trouble for me. Coincidentally, Mr. Mo saw it and brought me back to his home.”
The breathing on the other end paused.
Lu Qiao said calmly, “Mr. Mo is very angry. Of course, so am I.”
“Dad.”
The boy’s tone suddenly shifted from calm to one dripping with sarcasm:
“Your stepson’s son is stepping all over your own son. Is the Lu family’s bloodline really this shameless?”
After saying this, he hung up directly. Listening to the beeping tone from the phone, Lu Guoan’s face darkened instantly.
Lu Guoan was a man with strong patriarchal pride. You could slap his son’s face, but you could never slap the face of “his” son. He knew Yu Muqing spoiled her child and usually let it slide, but he never expected someone from the Yu family to dare bully someone from the Lu family. What did they take the Lu family for?!
Lu Guoan’s blood boiled with rage, unable to calm down. He immediately called Yu Muqing and started berating her:
“What’s going on? I told you to take good care of Lu Qiao, and this is how you do it?!”
Yu Muqing was at a spa getting a treatment when Lu Guoan’s sudden outburst left her utterly confused.
“What’s going on? What happened?”
“You still ask! Your precious son sent people to harass Lu Qiao, and Mo Hanzhou happened to witness it. Now Mo Hanzhou suspects our family is mistreating Lu Qiao. This marriage isn’t about forming an alliance it’s about making enemies!”
Yu Muqing panicked too: “I didn’t know about this.”
“You didn’t know? You’re at home every day, and you don’t know how your son treats my son? Do you think I’m blind?!”
To save face for Yu Muqing, Lu Guoan rarely made Yu Jiadong’s status so explicit. Usually, everyone avoided saying “your son” or “my son,” muddling through life just to keep the peace. But this time, he was truly furious and held nothing back in his words.
“You can spoil your son all you want, I don’t care, but if he dares to cause trouble for my son, don’t blame me for being harsh. You’re part of the Lu family, and after all, Yu Jiadong still carries your surname. If he were to take your husband’s surname, then he’d have nothing to do with our Lu family!”
“You’d better remember what this family’s surname is!”
Lu Guoan unleashed a torrent of scolding, venting some of the anger he’d felt from Lu Qiao, before hanging up the phone in a huff. But no sooner had he put down his phone than his assistant timidly approached, holding another phone, and said:
“Mr. Mo is on the line.”
Mo Hanzhou’s words were far more artful. Using his usual business tactics, he offered a measured reminder:
“It seems there’s some discord in your family. Lu Qiao is my fiancé, and I only hope he can live happily every day.”
Lu Guoan quickly agreed, nodding and bowing in front of Mo Hanzhou, but as soon as he turned away, his temper flared again. He called his assistant in and said bluntly:
“Freeze all the cards I gave to my wife. Don’t listen to anyone else until I say otherwise!”
What could the assistant say? The assistant could only say, “Yes, boss.”
Meanwhile, Yu Muqing, still at the beauty salon, was trying to process Lu Guoan’s words in a daze when she looked down and received a text about her cards being frozen. Her vision went dark, and she hurriedly called her son. After learning about the foolish thing Yu Jiadong had done, she angrily took back all the allowance she had planned to give him.
Now it was Yu Jiadong’s turn to be dumbfounded.
But what did this chain reaction have to do with Lu Qiao? He was just a weak, helpless, pure, and kind-hearted young master who had been bullied by his stepbrother.
Lu Qiao was in his room, engrossed in a soap opera. The show he was watching was called Endless True Love, and the plot had reached the point where the female lead was being mistreated by her in-laws, misunderstood by her husband, and after running away from home, she cried herself unconscious in the arms of the second male lead, only to be discovered by the male lead, kicking off a new round of convoluted drama.
Lu Qiao watched with great focus, feeling like he had learned a lot.
Ah, the complexities of love and relationships in this world are truly fascinating.
As noon approached, Lu Qiao went downstairs. Since Mo Hanzhou wasn’t home, and everyone else in the house were servants who couldn’t easily converse with him, Lu Qiao felt a bit lonely.
Well, seemingly lonely.
He didn’t ask whether Mo Hanzhou would be back for lunch, what kind of office worker (or boss) would come home for lunch? Did they think this was Guangdong, Fujian, or Xinjiang, where people get two-hour lunch breaks and can even go home for a nap?
But because his lonely expression was too obvious, even the butler couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him:
“In the afternoon, someone from the house will be delivering medicinal soup to the young master. I wonder if you’d have time to go along, Master Lu Qiao?”
“Medicinal soup?” Lu Qiao’s eyes lit up, but then he thought of something and showed a worried, puzzled expression:
“Is Mr. Mo not well? Does he need to drink medicinal soup?”
The butler simply smiled faintly: “It’s an old issue. Medicinal cuisine is nourishing, and since the auntie at home has free time anyway.”
Lu Qiao understood. He didn’t press further, just said with an obedient expression: “Can I really go? Will Mr. Mo be happy to see me?”
The butler replied with a pleased look: “Of course, the young master will definitely be very happy to see you.”
“Then I want to go!”
The butler had contacted Assistant Fang in advance, and since the Mo family’s delivery of medicinal soup was a regular occurrence, the receptionist simply registered them and let them go up. They took the CEO’s private elevator, which went directly to the executive floor. This floor housed only the CEO’s office and the finance department, and with the big boss stationed there, it felt rather quiet, the air thick with a cold, elite atmosphere.
It wasn’t until they gradually approached the CEO’s office that Lu Qiao began to sense some human presence. An assistant was on the phone, and whatever the person on the other end said, the usually calm and composed assistant responded with a cold expression, spitting out each word deliberately:
“Manager Mo has been with the company for many years. If he still doesn’t know the basic company regulations, I suggest he undergo new employee training again. I hope to receive a more practical answer before the end of the workday, not this kind of pointless back-and-forth.”
With that, she hung up the phone coldly and ruthlessly.
Lu Qiao: Wow, cool.
The assistants in the CEO’s office were already accustomed to the Mo family delivering medicinal soup in the afternoon, so they didn’t pay much attention. One of them sitting outside turned his head and greeted them, “You’re here.”
Before his smile could fully form, a stranger’s face suddenly appeared in his line of sight. Startled, he instinctively exclaimed:
“Hello! May I ask who you are.”
“Hello.”
Lu Qiao greeted him with a beaming smile.
By then, the others had also noticed the commotion and turned their heads. A female assistant sitting at the front stood up and said, “You must be Mr. Lu. Manager Fang has already informed me. President Mo is still in a meeting. Please wait in the office for a while.”
She stood up and led the two into the adjacent office. Mo Hanzhou’s office was separated from the CEO’s office by only a door, but the soundproofing was excellent once the door was closed, no noise from outside could be heard.
Lu Qiao sat inside with only a servant accompanying him. He stood up and surveyed the office, feeling nothing but an overwhelming sense of shrewdness. A few finance-related books were placed by the desk, but he wouldn’t read those anyway.
After waiting in the office for ten minutes with no sign of anyone returning, Lu Qiao grew bored and walked to the door to open it.
As soon as he opened the door wow the entire room of assistants turned to look at him. Under their collective gaze, Lu Qiao paused, then flashed a sweet smile at his “brothers and sisters”:
“Is there any milk tea? I’d like some milk tea.”
The assistant sister had earlier served milk coffee, but perhaps following the boss’s taste, it was more milk than coffee. In the past, when Lu Qiao was on missions, he often stayed up all night. Whenever he felt tired or irritable, he would replenish his energy with sweets a habit he had developed.
“Yes.”
The youngest assistant quickly replied, “I have original flavor, barley flavor, and chocolate flavor. Which one would you like?”
It seemed like the assistant’s personal stash.
Lu Qiao smiled, his eyes curving into crescents. “Original flavor, please. Is it very sweet?”
“Not too sweet, just the right amount.”
“Thank you for the trouble.”
The assistant sister worked quickly, handing Lu Qiao a cup of fragrant milk tea in less than two minutes. Lu Qiao took it and walked back into the office, enthusiastically asking his companion if she wanted any. His companion expressed her pursuit of health and aversion to sugar, to which Lu Qiao nodded understandingly.
This time, he didn’t close the door. Instead, he sat on the sofa, flipping through the books on the table in an attempt to understand the boss’s inner world while sipping his milk tea.
Suddenly, he noticed someone peeking at him. Turning his head, he met the gaze of the person outside. Seeing him look over, the person hurriedly lowered their head. Lu Qiao smiled even the seemingly professional and composed assistant had a gossipy side.