At the entrance of the residential compound, Xu Yunzhou saw his parents getting out of the car from afar. He took a deep breath and quickly walked up to meet them.
"Dad, Mom."
Looking at his son standing alone in the cold wind, Xu Zhongshan's brows immediately locked tight:
"What's going on? Why are you standing here in this cold weather? Can't you go up and talk?"
His mother Yang Wenhui also hurriedly grabbed her son's hand:
"Xiao Zhou, when a couple argues, they fight at the head of the bed and make up at the foot of the bed. That child Ranran just has a little temper, coax her a bit more and it'll be fine. You can't impulsively talk about breaking up..."
(TL: "Fight at the head of the bed and make up at the foot of the bed" = Domestic couple squabbles are normal, fleeting, and easily resolved overnight.)
Xu Yunzhou didn't answer directly. He just pulled out a slightly exhausted smile, silently took out his phone, his fingertips swiping rapidly on the screen a few times, and then handed it in front of the two elders.
"Dad, Mom, you guys look at this first."
Xu Zhongshan and Yang Wenhui took the phone suspiciously. By the light of the streetlamp, they leaned together and looked carefully. Their expressions gradually changed.After quite a while, Xu Zhongshan sighed heavily, patted his son's shoulder, and his voice was somewhat hoarse:
"Since it's like this, Dad supports your choice. In short, don't wrong yourself."
Yang Wenhui's eye rims instantly turned red. She wiped the corner of her eye, her tone carrying heartache and relief:
"Mom knew... you're not someone who messes around, you must have been wronged..."
Xu Yunzhou took back the phone and shook his head:
"Dad, Mom, let's not talk about her matter right now. I have a more important matter to ask you."
Xu Zhongshan blanked:
"What matter could be more important than this?"
After all, with the wedding approaching, the marriage falling through meant huge losses not to mention becoming the laughingstock of relatives and friends.
Xu Yunzhou didn't explain. He directly pulled up the high-definition photo of Lin Ruoxuan in her youth that he had saved just now, and turned the screen toward his parents:
"Look carefully, do you still remember her? Fifteen years ago, when our whole family went traveling to Chengzhou, in front of the sugar painting stall in Jinli, did we meet this woman? She even talked to you guys back then!"
He didn't dare to directly bring out that video from the game. Firstly, he absolutely couldn't explain the source, and secondly, he was afraid of interfering with his parents' original memories.
Xu Zhongshan narrowed his eyes, staring at that woman in the photo, observing carefully for quite a long while, carrying a bit of uncertainty:
"Hiss... now that you mention it, it seems... it seems there was such a person? There was a quite eye-catching girl who came to strike up a conversation back then..."
"What seems! It is her!"
The floodgates of Yang Wenhui's memory seemed to be violently rushed open,
"I remember it clearly! That girl looked too beautiful, her temperament was exceptionally good! She even handed your dad a business card back then, acting all mysterious. I was still muttering in my heart, afraid we had encountered some high-level scammer!"
Hearing this, Xu Yunzhou's whole body trembled violently, a current-like shudder rushing straight from his spine to the top of his head!
The footage in the game... was actually real?
He forcefully suppressed his wildly beating heart, his voice taking on a bit of trembling due to eagerness:
"Then... then did she also give you guys a USB flash drive? Saying it was a gift for me, and even saying I could only open it ten years later?"
"Right, right, right! That did happen!"
Yang Wenhui was shocked,
"Look at my memory! I almost forgot if you didn't mention it! How do you remember everything!"
Xu Zhongshan also finally remembered and nodded repeatedly:
"That's right! There was a USB drive! I was curious about what was inside after going back, so I secretly opened it to look. As a result, it was full of English programs I couldn't understand, all a mess."
"I asked a few people and nobody understood either. So I didn't take it seriously and casually put it somewhere, I don't know where..."
"That USB drive! Where is it now?!"
Xu Yunzhou abruptly clenched his fists, faintly feeling that he was getting closer and closer to the truth.
"This... so many years have passed..."
Xu Zhongshan was startled by his reaction, trying hard to recall,
"It seems I just casually tossed it when I got home back then... whether it's still there now, it's really hard to say..."
"Let's go home right now and look for it!"
Xu Yunzhou's tone carried unquestionable eagerness, pulling his parents to go get the car.
Yang Wenhui was baffled by his burning-with-impatience appearance, muttering while following along:
"What matter is so urgent? That girl... calculating by age, she must be at least thirty-five or thirty-six now, right? Maybe her child can already buy soy sauce."
Xu Zhongshan also chimed in:
"Yeah, you brat, don't tell me you met her once back then and have been thinking about her ever since? Now that you've suffered emotional injury, you're thinking of your childhood goddess?"
Xu Yunzhou knew his parents misunderstood. He didn't have time to explain, so he directly took out his phone again, rapidly searched for the financial headline news of Lin Ruoxuan ringing the bell on NASDAQ, and shoved it in front of his parents' eyes.
"She is Lin Ruoxuan, founder of 'New Generation Technology,' went public on NASDAQ in the US fourteen years ago, a business Queen once worth tens of billions!"
Xu Zhongshan stared at that figure on the screen standing at the peak of the world's financial center accepting the attention of the masses.
After carefully identifying her, he opened his mouth wide in shock, and only spat out two words after a long while:
"My god! This girl... was actually this awesome?!"
Yang Wenhui was also stunned:
"And I thought she was a scammer back then?"
That vague guess in Xu Yunzhou's heart became clearer and clearer, but he still needed final confirmation.
Without another word, he pulled his parents and walked quickly toward where the car was parked.
"We'll talk on the way! Dad, Mom, buckle your seatbelts!"
Along the way, Xu Yunzhou drove the car extremely fast.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Xu Zhongshan nervously gripped the handle:
"Son! Slow down! Safety first!"
Xu Yunzhou's parents' home was in a town subordinate to Binzhou. The distance wasn't considered far; normally it took about an hour to drive.
But today, this stretch of road made Xu Yunzhou feel incomparably long.
Finally arriving home, looking at this old house he grew up in since childhood, Xu Yunzhou's heart uncontrollably beat violently, as if something was about to break through the soil.
The three immediately began to rummage through boxes and cabinets in the old house.
The era was distant, and the miscellaneous items were numerous. Looking for a tiny USB drive from over a decade ago was tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack.
Just as they were anxious, Yang Wenhui's gaze suddenly fell on a dust-covered ceramic piggy bank on top of the bookcase—it was in the shape of a chubby little pig, Xu Yunzhou's piggy bank from when he was a child.
"Eh? I seem to have a bit of an impression... Back then, did your dad think there was nowhere to put that USB drive, and just conveniently stuffed it into this pig's belly?"
Without a second word, Xu Yunzhou directly reached out and took down the heavy piggy bank, smashing it straight onto the ground!
"Crash—!"
With a crisp sound, the porcelain pig shattered into pieces. Countless yellowed coins and a few small-denomination bills rolled out, splashing all over the floor.
Right in the middle of that pile of loose change and ceramic shards, a slightly worn-out, outdated black USB flash drive lay there quietly.
"This... it's been so many years, can it still be used?"
Yang Wenhui looked at that inconspicuous little thing, her tone carrying worry.
Xu Yunzhou didn't answer, his fingers trembling slightly due to uncontrollable excitement.
He grabbed that old-fashioned USB drive and forcefully inserted it into the port of his laptop.
"Click."
A slight recognition sound effect appeared exceptionally clear in the silent room.
A notification immediately popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen—"Removable Disk (H:) connected."