Chapter 5: Injury – The Chaos Caused by a Piece of Cake

In the evening, Fang Chuning was engrossed in playing a game in her room when the door suddenly opened from outside. Startled, she quickly hid her phone behind her back and picked up a book from the desk, pretending to read.

“Oh~ You’re playing games again!”

The one who entered was Fang Tianli, wearing cartoon pajamas. He looked smug, as if he had caught her red-handed, with his arms folded.

Fang Chuning sighed in relief, tossed the book aside, and ignored him, continuing to play.

Fang Tianli gently closed the door and, like a triumphant rooster, put his hands behind his back and strutted over with his chin up. “If you don’t want me to tell mom and dad, you’ll have to do me a favor.” “Damn it! Gao Qiong, kill her!”

Fang Chuning excitedly gripped her phone as if she was driving, leaning this way and that.

“You met Su Qi this afternoon, and what I need your help with is about him,” Fang Tianli paced back and forth in the room, talking to himself.

“The opponents are so arrogant! Just hang on a bit longer, and they won’t even have a chance to beg for mercy when I get there!” Fang Tianli: “He’s actually quite pitiful…”

“Alright, alright, I’m about to get a quadra-kill!”

Fang Tianli: “His mother passed away, and he only has his father to rely on. He can’t even afford his school fees now, that’s why he’s out there drawing to make money.” “Look at them crying and calling for their mommy, haha!”

Fang Tianli: “He’s a year younger than me. It’s so sad that someone so young can’t go to school.” “They look so pitiful, it’s not fun anymore. Let’s just push the tower.” The two of them were completely out of sync, one playing and the other talking.

At the moment of victory, Fang Tianli covered the phone screen with his hand, his eyes sparkling with anticipation. “So, can we sponsor Qi Qi to go to school?” Fang Chuning looked at him bewildered, “Why don’t you just talk to mom about this? It’s not like I’m the one paying, why are you telling me?”

“I want you to talk to mom about it.”

“Why don’t you say it yourself?”

Fang Tianli hesitated for a long time, “You can be more persuasive!” Fang Chuning looked at him inquisitively, “I think you’re just afraid of being scolded, right?”

Having his thoughts guessed correctly, Fang Tianli puffed up his pink cheeks and angrily snatched her phone. “I don’t care! You must help me, otherwise… otherwise, I’ll tell mom and dad that you play games every day until late at night!” Fang Chuning shrugged, “Go ahead and tell them then.”

Fang Tianli glared at her, and they reached an impasse. Seeing that he looked like he was about to cry from frustration, Fang Chuning sighed helplessly and advised, “Actually, dad’s not wrong. You can’t just help everyone you see on the street who you think is pitiful. There are too many pitiful people out there, can you help them all?” “…Wuu, I just want to help Qi Qi, I don’t care about others!” The boy whimpered, on the verge of tears.

Fang Chuning found it a bit strange, “Why do you insist on helping him?”

“Because, because he’s so good at drawing, I want to learn from him…” So that was the reason.

“If you really want to learn to draw, why don’t you just hire a teacher? Why go through all this trouble?” Fang Tianli’s love for drawing had been evident since he was young. It’s said that during his zhuazhou ceremony, he grabbed a paintbrush. Unfortunately, he had the heart but not the talent; his drawings were extremely abstract, only he could understand them.

“It’s not the same, I don’t want others to teach me, I just want Qi Qi to teach me! Please help me~” It was rare to see Fang Tianli being so vulnerable towards her. Fang Chuning twirled a pen in her fingers, pondered for a while, then held out her hand. “Give me back my phone first.” Fang Tianli obediently placed the phone in her hand with both hands.

Fang Chuning nodded with satisfaction, “I can bring it up, but whether mom agrees or not is not my concern.” Fang Tianli nodded happily, “Mm!”

…

Originally, Fang Chuning wanted to wait for a good opportunity to bring it up, but Fang Tianli was too impatient. He kept giving her meaningful looks, and his anxious behavior caught Fang Hong’s attention.

“Are your eyes twitching?”

Fang Tianli’s expression froze, and he shook his head frantically, then buried his face in his bowl to eat rice.

Fang Chuning swallowed the food in her mouth, pondered for a few seconds on how to phrase it, and said to Fang Hong: “I want to sponsor a student.” The directness made Fang Tianli choke, and he started coughing violently, covering his mouth.

Father Fang frowned: “Li Li, eat slower. You have no manners at all.” “Oh…”

Fang Hong glanced at her son, then looked at her daughter, “Why do you suddenly have this idea?” “I just think that boy’s painting skills are quite good, and Li Li happens to like painting. They’re about the same age, so they might have common topics and it could help Li Li with his painting. Don’t you also hope that Li Li could have an outstanding skill?”

It was too early to say whether the skill would be outstanding or not. Given her son’s scribbles, where was there room for improvement? However, sponsoring a student wasn’t a big deal for Fang Hong, she just wanted to know the reason.

“Wait,” Father Fang interrupted, “Ning Ning, are you talking about the child who came to our house yesterday?”

Fang Chuning glanced at the nervous Fang Tianli, “Yes.”

“No,” Father Fang rejected without a second thought, clearly having a bad impression of the boy from yesterday. “That child may seem timid on the surface, but he’s not simple. He’s only known Li Li for a few days and already knows to come and cling to our family.”

Father Fang’s thinking was probably along the lines of ‘my child is the best-looking and most innocent, children from other families who actively approach us must have ulterior motives, unless they’re from families of equal status.’

“Dad, I dragged Qi Qi home, he didn’t propose it himself!” Fang Tianli protested.

Father Fang glared at him, “You’re too young to understand!”

“I’m already fourteen, I’m not young, I understand!” After saying this, Fang Tianli turned to the person in the main seat, pleading pitifully: “Mom, please help him, he’s so pitiful…”

Fang Hong, feeling sorry for her younger son, immediately agreed, “I don’t have time to handle it personally, but I’ll ask your assistant uncle to take care of this matter, okay?”

“Mm!”

“Fang Hong—” Father Fang’s voice suddenly raised.

“Darling, Ning Ning is right. If that child is good at painting, he might really be able to guide Li Li well. It’s good for children to have their own ideas. We’ll deal with future matters in the future, these are all small issues.”

“Small issues, small issues, those things in your company are the real big issues!” Father Fang suddenly left the table, striding towards the second floor, followed by the sound of a door being slammed shut.

Fang Tianli was trembling, his helpless gaze turning towards his sister.

Fang Chuning intentionally scared him, mouthing “You’re in trouble” to him.

Fang Tianli was on the verge of tears.

Fang Hong wasn’t in a hurry. She instructed the housekeeper to have the kitchen prepare a few more dishes that Father Fang liked, and then told them when to send them to the room. When it came to coaxing people, she had at least a decade of experience. She knew exactly how to coax and when to do it.

“Eat well, and remember to drink more soup after the meal.”

With that, she also left the table and went to the second-floor room.

Only the two siblings were left at the dining table. Shortly after, Fang Chuning also stood up, “I still have a few games to finish. Take your time eating, and drink my share of the soup too, okay?”

Soon, only Fang Tianli was left at the dining table. For a moment, he felt a bit lonely.

“Young Master, would you like to drink some soup first?” the housekeeper asked from the side.

Fang Tianli shook his head, silently eating his rice.

…

The next morning, when Fang Chuning arrived at school, she happened to bump into Xu Muzhou getting out of his car at the school gate. She deliberately slowed her pace, and when the young man walked up to the same line as her, she cheerfully greeted him, “Good morning, classmate Xu!”

Xu Muzhou slightly turned his eyes, only giving her a faint nod.

Sure enough, any notion of their relationship being a bit better was just her illusion.

The young man quickly passed her and walked into the school. Fang Chuning walked behind him feeling a bit dejected. Soon, a hand wrapped around her shoulder, “Haha, I saw it! You took the initiative to greet the vice president, but he ignored you!”

Fang Chuning yawned and raised her hand to push her away, “Don’t be so clingy early in the morning.”

Gao Qiong shamelessly clung to her again, and the two of them entered the classroom while horsing around.

After one class, Fang Chuning was organizing her post-class materials when a figure suddenly approached her desk. She looked up to see the boy who sat behind her.

The boy had his hands behind his back and smiled at her, saying, “I have something I want to give you.”

“Huh?”

The boy placed what he had been hiding behind his back on her desk, smiling widely and openly, completely different from his previous blushing demeanor when he saw her. “This matcha cake is homemade. I couldn’t find anyone to taste it for me. If you don’t mind, class president, could you try it for me?”

“What?”

The boy looked at her pleadingly, “Please, class president…”

Fang Chuning glanced at the cake, nodded blankly, and said, “Alright, I’ll try it when I have time later.”

The boy’s actions were seen by quite a few people in the class. The male classmates, while envious, secretly cursed him as a green tea boy, all pretense.

When no one was around, Fang Chuning secretly took out the class roster from her drawer. After matching the names to the desks one by one, she finally knew the name of the boy sitting behind her.

“Jiang Luoyu…” she unconsciously read out.

Fang Chuning’s gaze fell on the matcha cake, next to which the boy had thoughtfully prepared a small spoon.

It looked quite appetizing.

Since she hadn’t eaten much for breakfast, Fang Chuning picked up the cake while looking at the book on her desk. Suddenly, a shadow stopped by her desk. She looked up.

“Turn in your homework.”

The young man looked down at her, his eyes beneath his glasses covered with a faint shadow, his attitude seeming even colder than usual.

“Oh, oh,” Fang Chuning put down the cake and started rummaging through her backpack.

Several girls in the classroom were chasing and playing around. As they passed by, the girl running in front seemed to trip on something and instinctively grabbed onto the young man’s clothes. The girls chasing behind couldn’t stop in time and all piled on. In an instant, the classroom was in chaos.

Fang Chuning sat in her seat, dumbfounded. She was still in the posture of flipping through her backpack, but in front of her was a mess. The desk had been pushed over, the cake she hadn’t had a chance to eat was smashed to pieces, and one of Xu Muzhou’s feet was trapped under the desk.

Seeing this, other classmates rushed forward to help move the desk away. Xu Muzhou’s face was pale. He slightly pulled up his school pants, revealing his ankle, which was normally fair but now was purplish-red and looked frightening.

Qin Shaoqing crouched down to support him and turned to scold those girls, “It’s all your fault! Look at what state you’ve put Muzhou in!”

Those girls scratched their heads, at a loss, “Should… should we take him to the infirmary?”

“Who asked you!” Qin Shaoqing snorted coldly, and together with two other boys, slowly helped Xu Muzhou up. During the process, because his right foot was accidentally touched, the young man’s face grew even paler.

“How about… I carry him to the infirmary on my back?” a female classmate suggested.

“No need,” Xu Muzhou shook his head in refusal. Although he looked as fragile as if he might break at any moment, he still pressed his lips together and endured.

In the end, several male classmates supported him to the infirmary.

The three girls in the classroom were about to breathe a sigh of relief when they turned to see the expressionless face of the class president. The three immediately became nervous again.

Fang Chuning tossed her backpack onto Gao Qiong’s desk and stood up to walk out, “You three, come with me to the president’s office.”

Sometimes she thought Xu Muzhou should go to a temple to burn some incense. He had been so unlucky these past few days, either catching a cold or getting injured. Later, when she thought about it carefully, it seemed that every time he was unlucky, it was indirectly because of her.

This realization was truly suffocating.