Chapter 43 Part 1

On Monday morning, dark clouds hung low in the sky.

When Lu Ping pulled back the curtains that morning, a light drizzle pattered against the window, soaking the handful of glutinous rice he had specially left on the windowsill for the wild birds.

A tree grew in the Lu Family courtyard, and birds occasionally stopped there. Lu Ping quite liked small animals, but with all four family members busy, they had no time to care for cats or dogs. Lu Ping entertained himself by scattering handfuls of leftover glutinous rice from making glutinous cakes on the windowsill from time to time, which successfully attracted some birds to forage.

He swept the now-soaked rice aside and placed a fresh handful there. To prevent it from getting wet in the rain, he covered it with a large Coke bottle he had trimmed and modified himself, leaving only a small opening for the birds to enter and exit. Unfortunately, the weather was poor, and no birds appeared for a long time.

The sunlight hid behind the cloud layers, and the sky was dim. Lu Mom was already bustling about in the courtyard.

Lu Ping braced his hands on the window frame and poked his head out. “Mom, it’s raining. Are you still setting up the stall today?”

“I didn’t check the weather forecast yesterday,” Lu Mom said helplessly. “Your dad and I were busy all morning making the rice cakes. If we don’t sell them quickly, they’ll go bad.”

Lu Ping stretched his hand out the window to test the size of the raindrops. Fortunately, the rain wasn’t heavy, and Mom’s tricycle cart had a glass cover and rain shelter installed. Rain of this magnitude wouldn’t affect it.

“I’ll go with you,” Lu Ping said.

“No need.” Lu Mom waved him off. “Your wound hasn’t healed yet. Besides, with the rain today, there won’t be many people setting up stalls. It’ll probably sell out in an hour or so. Get ready and head to school quickly.”

Jiaojiang City was coastal, and it rained frequently all year round.

For locals, rainy days were more common than sunny ones. Whenever a typhoon made landfall, heavy rain poured down amid gale-force winds, shutting down work and school across the city. Some residential roofs weren’t sturdy enough and often got torn off by typhoons.

When Lu Ping squeezed onto the bus, he overheard two elderly men chatting in the seats next to him.

“The morning weather report said a typhoon is approaching! It’s already autumn—how is there another typhoon?”

“Typhoons in autumn aren’t uncommon. I called my daughter; she lives in a high-rise downtown with big windows. I told her to be careful.”

“Who knows if it’ll hit us. Last time, they drilled flood prevention for so long. My son is an auxiliary cop and was busy for a whole week, but it was all thunder and little rain—the typhoon dissipated right at sea!”

“Better that it dissipated… yeah, better that way…”

The bus rocked and swayed its way to No. 1 High School. When Lu Ping jumped off, the rain had picked up a bit.

He rolled up his pant legs to his knees and slipped two plastic bags over his sneakers. They rustled noisily as he walked. It looked a bit ugly, but this way his shoes and socks wouldn’t get wet. Plenty of other boys around him were dressed similarly. The girls were more reserved, carefully holding their umbrellas and skirting puddles, which seriously slowed their pace into school and caused a massive jam at the gate.

By the time they finally rushed into the Teaching Building, the crowd trying to shake off their umbrellas jammed up again.

The rowdier boys turned into “knights,” wielding their umbrellas like swords. The dripping water from the umbrellas became imagined blood spraying from the blade tips. They jabbed and thrust at each other, but their duels didn’t last long before the disciplinary director spotted them and sent them off to the office to write self-criticisms.

Lu Ping carried a folding umbrella (of course, not Ashley’s)—a plain dark blue checkered one with lightweight, durable ribs. It was said to be about the same age as him.

The homeroom teacher didn’t allow umbrellas in the classroom, so everyone propped theirs open to dry along the corridor outside the classroom door. The colorful canopies bloomed like flowers.

When Lu Ping set his umbrella down, Shen Yuze arrived.

He carried a straight-handled black umbrella with a wide canopy and dense ribs. It looked low-key at first glance, but when opened, the Porsche Cayenne logo was emblazoned in the center of the canopy, and the inside was bright red!

Lu Ping: “…You’re so flashy.”

Shen Yuze raised an eyebrow. “I’ll give you a chance to rephrase that.”

Lu Ping tilted his head up. “Young Master Shen, even when showing off your wealth, you need some basic principles. Putting a car logo on an umbrella? Afraid others won’t know how rich you are?”

Shen Yuze calmly opened his umbrella without changing expression and placed it next to Lu Ping’s worn but reliable old one. “I grabbed it randomly from the car. Whether it has a logo or not doesn’t affect its ability to block rain.”

As the two chatted, Chen Miaomiao approached with her head held high, strutting along. Then she snapped open her umbrella with a whoosh.

The entire canopy was printed with the classic brown-and-tan checkered pattern. Anyone familiar with luxury brands would recognize it at a glance. Unfortunately, Lu Ping was a “country bumpkin”—brown checks, tan checks, what was the difference from his own blue checkered umbrella?

Seeing Chen Miaomiao swinging her Burberry umbrella left and right, Lu Ping kindly asked, “Chen Miaomiao, can’t find a spot to dry it? You can squeeze it in over here with ours!”

Shen Yuze subtly kicked his own umbrella closer to Lu Ping’s, making them press even tighter together, then said, “No room to squeeze here.”

Lu Ping: “?”

Chen Miaomiao: “?”

In the end, after circling the cluster of umbrellas, Chen Miaomiao found a prime center spot to display her Burberry umbrella.

The three entered the classroom.

It was early morning, but the lights were on in the classroom. Outside, the sky was frighteningly overcast, and the light rain gradually turned heavier, falling without end.

Lu Ping and Shen Yuze returned to their seats. Seeing how heavily it was raining, Lu Ping grew worried and called his mom, reminding her not to sell anymore and to head home early.

“Mom, the typhoon might be coming. Hurry home, close all the windows, and push the cart to the first floor.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already gotten home. Your dad and I are checking the doors and windows.”

The mother and son spoke in the local dialect, with tones rising and falling, mixed with plenty of nasal sounds. To Northern ears, it sounded like another language entirely.

Shen Yuze couldn’t understand it, but he loved hearing Lu Ping chatter in his hometown dialect.

After Lu Ping hung up, Shen Yuze asked what he had said to his mom.

Lu Ping: “Just told her the typhoon’s coming and to hurry home and stop setting up the stall.”

“…Typhoon?” Shen Yuze paused. For someone who grew up on the Northern plains, typhoons were just something from weather reports. He looked out at the gloomy clouds. “Is this typhoon weather?”

“Yeah!” Lu Ping nodded. “They issued a typhoon warning over the weekend. Everyone on the streets was talking about it this morning. Didn’t you notice?”

Shen Yuze truly hadn’t noticed.

Because that weekend, his home had been swept by another kind of typhoon—his mother Deng Hong was “going crazy” again.

The reason was simple. After investigating, Deng Hong discovered that her husband’s mistress, Wang Shiya, had secretly returned to Jiaojiang because she was pregnant and needed to go back to her hometown to rest and nurture the baby!

Eighteen years ago, Deng Hong had become the third “Mrs. Shen” thanks to her youthful body and stunning beauty. Over the years of marriage, though Shen Guoning still had flings outside, no other woman had ever set foot in the Shen Family home.

Deng Hong thought she could laugh last as the ultimate winner, but she hadn’t expected that as her looks faded, her husband would find a new favorite.

She frantically called her son far away in Jiaojiang. Outwardly elegant and aloof, everyone who met her praised her as fairy-like, but no one knew that this fairy’s mouth could spew the vilest curses.

“That bitch Wang Shiya—Shen Guoning’s almost seventy and needs pills every time he gets in bed. She’s only in her twenties. Who knows what tricks she used to get him to the hospital for sperm extraction! I had someone investigate; she’d failed IVF several times. This one was done by a foreign doctor, and she finally kept it. Now she’s back in her hometown to rest… ” Deng Hong ranted hysterically. “As if I don’t know what she wants. She just wants to be Mrs. Shen!”

“Then give it to her,” Shen Yuze interrupted his mother on the phone. “You can divorce Shen Guoning right now. Let her be Mrs. Shen if she wants.”

“What nonsense are you saying?” Deng Hong roared. “Who am I doing this for? It’s all for you! Do you know, when I married your father, he tricked me in the prenup. If I divorce, I get nothing—no stocks, just a few tens of thousands in alimony per month and one villa!”

“…A few tens of thousands in alimony and a villa is already more than what most people actually have. Not to mention the jewelry and antiques in your safe, which are gifts from him that you can take entirely.” Shen Yuze pointed out. “And even if you don’t get much property, as his legitimate son, once I’m of age, I can claim some real estate and shares. If you’re willing, we can completely cut ties with the Shen Family and live on our own.”

Deng Hong was furious. She couldn’t understand why her only son wasn’t on her side! And now… now he even wanted her to divorce! What would all her sacrifices over these years count for? She’d given up her career, her beauty, her love—just to end up a divorced woman living off alimony?

On the phone, Deng Hong turned her filthy curses on her own son. They were mother and son, supposed to be the closest people in the world, but her words stabbed at his heart like the sudden gale and downpour of a typhoon passing through, mercilessly.

The entire weekend, Shen Yuze had been exhaustedly dealing with the “typhoon” at home, naturally with no attention left for the natural weather outside.

Now, Shen Yuze gazed at the wailing wind and weeping rain outside the classroom and gradually zoned out.

Lu Ping didn’t notice Shen Yuze’s expression. He propped his cheek on his hand and looked out the window, murmuring softly, “I love rainy days so much…”

“Why?” Shen Yuze asked.

“What’s to why?” Lu Ping said happily. “Rainy days are just great.”