“Son, this isn’t our home, right?”
Shu Shu asked, questioning her life.
Shu Lingchen said, “No. I rented this place.”
“Huh? If we have our own house, why are we renting one?”
Shu Lingchen was silent for a moment and raised his hand to touch his nose. As his mother, Shu Shu immediately recognized it as the small gesture he only made when he felt guilty.
But Shu Lingchen only said, “Let’s go upstairs first.”
The house Shu Lingchen rented was a small two-bedroom apartment of less than sixty square meters.
As soon as they entered—
The living space didn’t feel very lived-in, but it was quite tidy.
Shu Shu subconsciously nodded.
Not bad. At least after growing up, her son had inherited one thing from her—he liked cleanliness.
“You can stay in this bedroom.”
Shu Lingchen pushed open the door to the empty bedroom in front of Shu Shu.
Shu Shu thought she would see an empty room.
Instead—
When the light was turned on, the bed was already made with sheets and blankets. There was a desk, a dressing table, and a wardrobe.
Ignoring the size, the layout and arrangement were exactly the same as Shu Shu’s room in Yujing Garden.
And the room was so spotless that it was obvious it was cleaned regularly, ready for someone to move in at any time.
“This is…”
“I did it.”
Receiving Shu Shu’s questioning look, Shu Lingchen lowered his head a little shyly. His voice sounded slightly disappointed, yet he tried to act casual.
“It’s nothing. I just thought… if I arranged it like this, it would feel like you were always here and had never left. And I wouldn’t feel like I was alone.”
For Shu Shu, the separation from her son had been nothing more than closing and opening her eyes.
But for Shu Lingchen, it had been thirteen long years of life without his mother.
“Son…”
Shu Shu looked at him and stepped forward.
Shu Lingchen also looked at Shu Shu and said, “Mom…”
He subconsciously opened his arms, ready to receive the emotional, long-awaited, warm embrace from his mother.
And then—
A loud smack landed directly on his forehead.
“Have you lost your mind? I have my own big room, so why did you make this little snail nest for me?!”
If Shu Lingchen had still been in a dreamy haze before, at this moment he truly felt that his mother had really come back.
Just from that smack alone, there was no need for a DNA test.
This was definitely his biological mother!
Shu Shu withdrew her hand and walked around the apartment.
Actually, it was more like she barely moved her legs—just turned her head and could see the entire place at once.
It didn’t even reach the passing grade she could accept.
“Now can you explain? What exactly happened to our house? Why are we living here?”
Shu Shu crossed her arms and stared at Shu Lingchen.
Shu Lingchen looked to the side, avoiding eye contact, and rubbed his nose again.
Shu Shu narrowed her eyes and was about to speak when the light above their heads began flickering.
After the third flicker, it went out completely.
The living room fell into darkness.
Shu Shu: Oh, this damn shabby house!
Zero points! Zero points!
“I’ll fix the light bulb first!”
It seemed Shu Lingchen had finally found a chance to breathe. He turned off the main power switch, took out a toolbox, moved a chair under the light fixture, and handed his phone with the flashlight on to Shu Shu.
“Mom, help me.”
Shu Shu reluctantly took the phone and raised her hand to shine the light for him.
Suddenly, the phone screen lit up.
It seemed to be a push notification from a campus forum he followed closely.
Shu Shu glanced at it casually and immediately saw words like “Shu Lingchen,” “confession,” and “School Beauty Chu.”
Her attention instantly sharpened and she tried to open it.
It didn’t open.
A password screen appeared.
Shu Shu thought about what password her son might use.
Three seconds later, she pressed 1-2-3-4-5-6.
It unlocked.
The screen immediately displayed the content from earlier.
Title:
[Shocking! School Bully Shu Lingchen Confesses to School Beauty Chu Again and Gets Rejected Again!]
The post had been made three hours ago, and the anonymous replies had already reached several hundred comments.
“Does the poster even know how to write a title? It should be: Toad Man Shu Lingchen shamelessly pursued School Beauty Chu, got rejected, and then angrily threatened her not to leave!”
“I was there today. I saw it from afar—it was exactly what the first comment said! If it weren’t for Class Monitor Shi from Class 1, who knows what would have happened.”
“In my opinion, Shu Lingchen and those hooligans around him are the scum of No. 3 Middle School. They should all be locked up in juvenile detention for reform!”
“…”
Among the hundreds of comments, eighty-nine percent were insulting Shu Lingchen, one percent were insulting his followers, and the remaining ten percent were concerned about Chu Lian’s safety.
Just then a notification popped up at the top of the screen:
“Your special-followed user has posted!”
Shu Shu accidentally tapped it while scrolling.
She saw a user with the ID “I Am Chu Xiao Lian” replying:
“Hello everyone, I’m Chu Lian. I’m fine and nothing happened. About what happened today, I believe Shu Lingchen only acted on impulse and didn’t intend to hurt me. So please don’t pay too much attention to it.”
Below it, she had also posted a selfie to show that she was doing well.
Someone immediately replied, crying and praising her kindness and beauty.
Shu Shu thought it was far too soft.
Even though the one causing trouble was her own son, if it were her, she would hang outside the guy’s door in the middle of the night and scare him half to death so he’d never dare like her again.
Then Shu Shu casually opened the selfie.
In the photo, Chu Lian looked harmless and slightly turned sideways. Whether intentionally or not, the upper right corner revealed a wall of Maotai bottles.
Shu Shu’s first reaction was—
Hmm?
Good taste!
Because she herself liked collecting Maotai. Whether it was vintage bottles or zodiac editions, she stored more than ten bottles every year.
An entire wall like that would probably be worth five or six million.
She hadn’t expected someone in Chu Lian’s family to share the same hobby.
“Oh my god, what am I seeing? So much Maotai! This is insanely rich!”
“This makes Shu Lingchen look even more like a toad wanting swan meat. A rich girl like School Beauty Chu being harassed by a poor guy like him is such bad luck!”
“Miss Chu should really hire a bodyguard. Let’s see if Toad Man dares to bother her again.”
“In my opinion, the only one in school who matches School Beauty Chu’s family background is Class Monitor Shi Jin from Class 1.”
Shu Shu zoomed in on the photo, preparing to admire the bottles more closely.
As she looked at them one by one, her eyes lit up again and again.
Not only were the tastes the same—even the collection types were the same.
So similar that—
The more she looked, the more familiar they seemed.
Wait…
Isn’t this her Maotai wall?!
Shu Shu quickly opened Chu Lian’s profile and looked through the posts she had replied to.
There weren’t many, mostly selfies.
Without exception, she stood slightly sideways, leaving the upper left or upper right corner visible.
As Shu Shu flipped through them one by one, she saw—
Her massage bathtub!
Her huge princess bed as soft as cotton candy!
Her custom solid-wood dressing table!
Her limited-edition figure display cabinet!
Her game console with the full deluxe set of game cards!
Her, her, her…
All of them!
Every single one was hers!
This was her three-hundred-square-meter Yujing Garden house!!!
Shu Lingchen was completely focused on fixing the light bulb.
But as he worked, for some reason he felt a chill on the back of his neck.
He turned around to look.
He was so startled that he almost fell off the chair.
Shu Shu’s face was illuminated pale white by the phone screen as she spoke slowly:
“Shu Lingchen, from this moment on, you have no right to remain silent. Everything you say next will become your final words before reincarnation.”
She held the Maotai wall selfie from Chu Lian’s post in front of him and said:
“Explain.”
“Why.”
“Is she.”
“In.”
“My house.”