Chapter 48: Grandpa
Gu Ze had come out today because his grandfather had said that the security office at the entrance of the villa complex would recycle plastic bottles, one cent per bottle. Although it wasn’t much, they could earn some money if they collected enough.
Grandpa couldn’t leave his post. He had to water the flowers and trim the grass in the villa’s backyard every day, so he had instructed Gu Ze to take the plastic bottles to exchange for money.
Gu Ze loved to earn money. Perhaps because he was afraid of being poor, having once been so hungry with his grandfather that they only had two hard steamed buns to chew on, he would try any opportunity he got. The feeling of money in his hand made Gu Ze feel exceptionally at ease.
And so, Gu Ze had run out, dragging a bag, not even noticing the obvious look of relief on his grandfather’s face after he left.
Gu Ze ran very fast, but when he got there, the community security guard was even more puzzled than he was. “We don’t collect empty bottles. This isn’t a recycling station.”
The security guards in the villa complex were basically all students who had graduated from a sports college, tall and strong, and their salaries were also very high. They didn’t need to collect bottles to sell to scrap collectors like the guards in the neighborhood Gu Ze had lived in before.
Gu Ze nervously wrung his hands. After thanking them, he dejectedly dragged the bottles back.
All the way back, he couldn’t figure out why his grandfather had lied to him.
Perhaps it’s because “Grandpa” is no longer that grandpa, Gu Ze couldn’t help but think.
Adults might think that children have no memory, that after a change of person, they would probably forget everything in two or three days. But Gu Ze was a very sensitive person. After just a short time together, he had discovered that his grandfather was different from before.
Gu Ze was an abandoned baby who had been left in a trash can. It was Grandpa Gu who had found him while collecting trash and, unable to bear it, had taken him back.
But Grandpa Gu was not a good-tempered old man. His brows were deeply furrowed, and from as far back as Gu Ze could remember, he had told him that he was picked up, that he was eating his food and living in his house, and that all of this would be counted as money to be paid back in the future.
Gu Ze was also often scolded by his previous grandfather. He would be scolded for leaving leftovers, for getting his clothes dirty, and even for leaving the water on for a little too long.
But Gu Ze felt that he was no worse than the other children. Although the tin garage they lived in often leaked and was close to a pile of garbage, he still felt that it was his home with his grandfather.
Turning on a small light when coming home at night, it was also bright and warm.
Although his grandfather had a strange temper, he had never once really kicked Gu Ze out.
Until one rainy night, when his grandfather came back from collecting bottles, his face, which had been cold and unsmiling for years, actually smiled, the wrinkles crinkling.
At that time, when Gu Ze saw the kind smile on his grandfather’s face, he couldn’t describe what he felt, but the closeness he had felt before was gone.
He didn’t understand why his grandfather had changed. He would even occasionally wake up in the middle of the night and move his little body on the bed, a little further away from this grandfather.
Even though this grandfather was so good and gentle to him, and even though he had never been hungry or scolded since he came, Gu Ze still felt that he was very scary.
This was probably due to a child’s purest sensitivity to emotions. In a situation where Gu Ze didn’t understand what was going on at all, he had already automatically put up a defense.
Perhaps when Gu Ze was a little older and understood a little more, he would understand that his grandfather hadn’t changed, but had completely become another person.
This person had occupied Gu Ze’s grandfather’s body, trying to lead Gu Ze onto the path of righteousness earlier.
Just like today, when his grandfather had found an excuse to let Gu Ze go out, it was actually to give those children an opportunity to surround Gu Ze.
The sun in the sky gradually became hotter, and the carefully cultivated flowers on the roadside also drooped, not looking as bright and beautiful as before.
At this temperature, just standing outside for a while, even without doing anything, would probably make a person sweat.
When Grandpa Gu arrived with a chubby little child, Gu Ze had just managed to squeeze out of the fight, and the two of them, who had just arrived, stared at each other with wide eyes.
Grandpa Gu was stunned for a moment before he quickly walked over, wanting to grab Gu Ze’s arm and ask if he was injured. “It’s all Grandpa’s fault. If I had known Little Ze would be cornered, I wouldn’t have let you go out to sell bottles.”
Grandpa’s large hands were covered in rough, thick calluses, but when he reached out, Gu Ze lowered his head and dodged.
However, Grandpa Gu had never cared about these things. He looked at the group of children who had just stopped fighting over there and sighed with worry.
“Zhao Xiaodong! It’s you again! How dare you corner my little brother when I’m not looking? I’ll fight you!” the little fatty next to Grandpa Gu roared.
The little fatty Grandpa Gu had brought over looked like a well-risen dough ball, round and chubby. Although he was only three, he was big and didn’t look any weaker than the five- or six-year-old Zhao Xiaodong. Especially since Zhao Xiaodong had just finished a fierce battle and was sitting there with a bruised nose and a swollen face, panting heavily, he could barely even lift his arms.
Seeing the little fatty charge at him, Zhao Xiaodong let out a blood-curdling scream for help and was once again pressed under his body.
The little fatty and Gu Ze were not in the same weight class. When Gu Ze was pressing him, Zhao Xiaodong could still struggle, but when this little fatty was pressing him, he could only gasp for breath.
“Have you learned your lesson? Gu Ze is under my protection! Don’t look for trouble with him in the future, or I’ll beat you up every time I see you!”
The little fatty snorted. Seeing Zhao Xiaodong with his head drooping in defeat, he stood up, glared at the few little followers, and then proudly pulled Gu Ze away.
He didn’t have many children his age to play with. It was a rare occasion for Gu Ze to come, and before he could even take him in as a little brother, these scoundrels had come looking for trouble!
This was not just hitting Gu Ze, but also hitting his, Lei Xiaoyan’s, face!
After all, he was going to be the big brother. Lei Xiaoyan walked a certain distance, coughed a couple of times, and slightly lifted his little chin. The meaning was, “I’m amazing, right? Come and praise me, and be my little follower from now on!”
But Gu Ze was still turning his little face, staring intently over there.
Seeing that there was indeed no sign of Nuonuo, he finally retracted his gaze in disappointment.
Gu Ze hadn’t even had a chance to properly greet his little brother and say a word this time.
“Gu Ze, what are you looking at? Those kids have been dealt with by me. They definitely won’t look for trouble with you in the future.”
Lei Xiaoyan still liked Gu Ze very much. He had no one his age at home, so after Gu Ze came, he would often run over to find him to play.
Because of his grandfather, Gu Ze would try to avoid Lei Xiaoyan whenever he could, but this time, the other had genuinely come to save him, so Gu Ze still gratefully said thank you.
“Hey, it’s nothing. It was your grandfather who pulled me over. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have noticed, hehe.”
As Lei Xiaoyan spoke, he started to badmouth Zhao Xiaodong again. By the time they got back to the villa, his mouth was pouting so much you could hang a soy sauce bottle on it. “That Zhao Xiaodong is really, really bad. Whoever doesn’t play with him gets beaten up by him and his gang.”
Hearing this, Gu Ze suddenly thought of Nuonuo.
Zhao Xiaodong doesn’t dare to look for Lei Xiaoyan, so will he take people to look for trouble with Nuonuo?
His heart torn up, Gu Ze didn’t avoid Lei Xiaoyan and sat on the sofa, lost in thought about this matter.
And his grandfather, on the side, seeing Gu Ze and Lei Xiaoyan getting along harmoniously, couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
It seemed that even if he had brought Gu Ze here early, he would still become good friends with Lei Xiaoyan.
In the original plot, not only did Gu Ze and Lei Yan grow up together, but they were also partners who depended on each other for life in the later stages. After the villain began to destroy the world, they traveled together, fighting all the way from Yunzhou to Baizhou.
Gu Ze had even saved Lei Yan’s life many times, just because Lei Yan had stood up for him when he was being ganged up on as a child. That was why Gu Ze would take great risks to pull Lei Yan back from the brink of death.
Lei Yan was also an indispensable member of the righteous team, which was why Grandpa Gu had designed this scene to make an important plot point in the story appear early.
If it weren’t for the news from others that that Fei Nuo had actually returned to Fei Zhiyan’s home early, Grandpa Gu wouldn’t have had to go to such great lengths to do these things.
These transmigrators all had their own plans. For example, Dan Ran and Yingying wanted to conquer the villain through feelings.
And Grandpa Gu himself had traveled through multiple timelines and done so many missions. When he first arrived in this world, he had sensed that this world’s level was not low and had decisively given up on the path of fighting the villain, instead turning to find the world’s male lead.
The male lead was the chosen one of the world, blessed with luck. Even in the original plot, his final battle with the biggest villain, Fei Zhiyan, had only ended in a draw, but that didn’t mean his strength wasn’t strong enough. After all, before confronting Fei Zhiyan, Gu Ze had already had a lot of his spiritual power depleted by the small villains like Fei Jing and Fei Han.
That was why he had taken a different path from others. When Gu Ze’s grandfather had hit his head on a rainy day and was lying on the ground with no breath, he had chosen to transmigrate into his body.
As a veteran task-doer, he hadn’t even been like those young and reckless task-doers, who, for convenience, would choose to directly take over a person’s body control… That was just looking for death!
Those newbies only saw the immediate benefits but forgot that pies don’t just fall from the sky. And even if they did, they would only kill people.
At this thought, this person let out a light, cold snort and went to the backyard to continue trimming the flowers and plants.
And just as Gu Ze had worried, when Zhao Xiaodong returned home with a bruised and swollen body, his pig-head face almost scared his mother to death.
“Who did you fight with this time?!”
Zhao Xiaodong’s mother was wearing high heels and a matching suit. Her delicate face twisted with anger for a moment when she saw the bruises on Zhao Xiaodong’s face.
Zhao Xiaodong, on the other hand, felt it was too embarrassing to have been beaten up by a little brat, especially since he had several little brothers with him. He didn’t want to say it out loud and ruin his image. Otherwise, how could he be the boss tomorrow!
After a few whimpers, under his mother’s angry gaze, Zhao Xiaodong covered his face and hid in his room, not daring to come out.
Zhao’s mother had an important meeting to attend and really didn’t have the energy to care about what had happened to her son today. She just instructed the nanny and then rushed out.
Zhao Xiaodong had medicine applied to his face and, after taking a nap, woke up feeling more and more angry.
He had brought so many people, and yet that Gu Ze had still gotten away!
If this got out, how could he still be a big shot at Chun Tian Hua Hua Kindergarten!
When he went to school tomorrow, some kids would definitely laugh at him! When he went to primary school, what would he do if he couldn’t be the boss?
His little follower, who was playing with the latest model of a transforming little train at his house, saw this, scratched his head, and said, “I think it was all that kid named Nuonuo’s fault. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have fought.”
“How about we go and beat him up first!”
