“Hilarious. Who wants to know where you live?”
Lin Zong gave him a sidelong glance. “Oh.”
If it were not for the fact that Huo You was practically always ranked first in their grade, Lin Zong would have seriously doubted his reading comprehension skills today, and then moved on to attacking his IQ.
Li Jianbing’s call came in right at that moment, and Lin Zong answered it.
“Oh lord, you finally picked up,” Li Jianbing sighed dramatically. “I almost thought my phone could not make outgoing calls, and even tried calling the class beauty to check.”
Lin Zong: “Ah.”
“The class beauty? You mean those half-dead Chinese roses on the windowsill?”
“What are you talking about?” Li Jianbing made a couple of noise-filled sounds before remembering. “Hey, none of that matters. Where are you? I saw aunt and uncle head out ten minutes ago. Do you know what they went to do?”
Lin Zong fell silent.
How was he supposed to tell Li Jianbing that their surveillance operation, one that had nearly stressed Li Jianbing to the point of a system crash, had completely fallen apart because he got too sleepy?
The tracking mission, half-completed, ended in a mid-stride slumber?
“This.” He kicked away a random little pebble rolling near his foot. “It is a long story.”
Li Jianbing: “Make it short.”
Lin Zong: “To be continued tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Li Jianbing said, deeply disappointed, his tone dropping flat. “Get out here, I am still waiting for you by the road. Birds shat all over the windshield; my older brother is going to smack me twice for this.”
“I will have Brother Cheng smack you instead,” Lin Zong said. “Hang up.”
Right as his voice trailed off, a powerful force slammed into his right shoulder.
Instantly, his phone went flying, performing a 360-degree mid-air twist and hurtling toward the ground with the distinct momentum of someone determined to shatter a screen.
Lin Zong mentally ran through his family tree with curses, but fortunately, his hands were faster than his brain.
Deploying both hands left and right, he managed to catch it literally one second before the phone could say hi to the pavement.
This was not just any regular phone; it was a treasure he had bought right after the gaokao, with a usage duration of not even half a month.
While Lin Zong was busy rescuing his phone, the culprit completely ignored him and stormed aggressively right up to Huo You.
With an overbearing and arrogant attitude, completely disregarding the objections of the disabled Huo You, he kicked right into Huo You’s wheelchair, sending Huo You and the chair stumbling forward as if they were about to fly off.
At the same time, he grabbed a little boy who was trying to bolt away from behind the wheelchair and smacked him twice hard across the back.
“Run! I told you to run! Did I not tell you not to come over here?”
Lin Zong was startled. Tucking his phone away safely, he took a large stride forward without a second thought, raised his chin, and asked the middle-aged man directly: “What do you think you are doing?”
Huo You steadied his wheelchair, opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Lin Zong charging in to demand answers.
Suddenly, he swallowed back the words that were right at the tip of his tongue.
For some reason, he suddenly wanted to see how Lin Zong would handle this.
“Who the hell are you?” The middle-aged man’s tone was extremely abrasive, his gaze sweeping over Lin Zong with overt hostility.
Lin Zong’s fiery temper flared up instantly, and he reached out to pull the cowering little boy over to his side.
Glaring with dissatisfaction at the middle-aged man, who wore a dark blue striped shirt and had somewhat thinning hair, he repeated, “I will ask you again, what are you doing?”
The man grabbed empty air, looking in astonishment at his empty hand, and then at the thin, tall boy standing half a head taller than him.
Offended that he was being publicly undermined, he roared, “I am his dad! I am calling my son to go home, what business is it of yours?”
Lin Zong froze, stunned by the roar, and looked back at the little boy with a mix of doubt and skepticism. “Your dad?”
The little boy smiled awkwardly. “Yeah.”
Refusing to believe it, Lin Zong turned his head and asked Huo You: “His dad?”
Huo You cleared his throat and gave a slight nod.
Out of options, Lin Zong let go of the little boy, but refused to back down. “Can you not just talk normally? Why are you yelling, are you deaf?”
The middle-aged man stepped forward, shoved Lin Zong aside, and hoisted his son up by his collar.
Right before leaving, he glanced at Huo You, who was sitting silently in the wheelchair, and said in a low voice, “You remember the promise you made.”
Huo You tilted his head, hiding his glowing blue left eye in the shadows, and gave a low, quiet hum.
The man fell silent for two seconds, seemingly having vented his anger, and asked, “What happened to your leg?”
Before Huo You could answer, the man made a guess.
“Got beat up? Kids your age love getting into fistfights,” the man sighed. “Whatever, it is none of my business, just do not go dragging my son down with you.”
Huo You did not speak, acting as if he had not heard a single word.
Seemingly annoyed at being ignored, the man looked at Lin Zong again. “Are you a friend of his?”
Lin Zong shot him a sideways look, immediately putting what he just learned into practice. “None of your damn business.”
The man was taken aback for a second, then turned back to scold Huo You: “Listen to that, what terrible manners. I knew nothing good could come out of hanging around with someone like this.”
“He.”
Huo You spoke slowly, the word “is not” still stuck in his throat, when Lin Zong completely exploded.
“You are the one who is no good! You nearly knocked my phone out of my hands and I did not even say anything, and now you are sitting here slandering me? I am way too nice for not cursing you out right now. Was the phrase lacking the dignity of an elder custom-made just for you? You look like a human being, so why do you never act like one?”
The man turned green in the face, spun around, sputtered you, you, you for ages, but completely failed to wedge a single word in.
He looked over at Huo You.
Lin Zong followed his gaze and noticed that Huo You had rolled his eyes.
Well, it might have been an eye-roll; anyway, his eyes were completely shut now.
“Dad, Dad, let us go,” the little boy said, no longer whining about not wanting to leave. He tugged hard on the man. “Let us go, the older brother did not call me over, I sneaked here on my own.”
The man hesitated for a moment, probably realizing he would not win by dragging this out, and walked off with a huff.
Lin Zong crossed his arms, looking immensely displeased.
Once the man had walked away, he took a couple of steps toward Huo You, rested his hand on the back of the wheelchair’s handle, and watched the man’s retreating figure. “Who was that?”
Two seconds later, no reply.
Lin Zong walked around to the front of the wheelchair and lowered his head to look at him. “Asleep?”
Looking somewhat helpless, Huo You opened his eyes. “My aunt’s husband.”
“Oh. What promise did you make to him?”
The two of them locked eyes. A few seconds later, Lin Zong tilted his head. “Can you renew the lease on your mouth? Why are you lagging like a broken record? What did you promise him?”
Given Lin Zong’s living environment, he was used to asking when he did not understand something.
His family basically had no secrets from each other.
Well, okay, maybe there was one recently, as his parents had been acting all stealthy and mysterious, which probably meant they were having a second child.
Even that could be asked about; the only reason he was not asking right now was simply because he wanted to experience the joy of personally unmasking the two of them.
Therefore, he had no idea how over-familiar and intrusive his current question sounded.
Under his intense, focused gaze, Huo You had no choice but to reply: “Some private matters.”
Lin Zong was still waiting for him to elaborate on what those private matters were, only to realize that was the end of the sentence.
He instantly lost interest and turned to leave.
“Hey,” Huo You called out to him. “Do me a favor and get me up.”
There were three steps right at the entrance of the apartment building. Because it was an older residential complex, it had not been equipped with a wheelchair-accessible ramp.
Lin Zong observed for a few seconds, walked over, and bent down.
He gathered all his strength, attempting to lift Huo You and the wheelchair together.
He grabbed the bottom of the seat with one hand and the wheel with the other.
Even Huo You lost his composure at that, speaking at a rare, rapid pace: “Do not. Just help me steady myself.”