Chapter 25 Part 3

Another added, “Tell me about it! I was at an internet cafe gaming with some online buddies, right in the middle of bragging, when suddenly a bunch of guys came looking for me. That scene was just way too cool!!”

“Young Master Zhuo is a true bro, not forgetting us for a perk like an all-expenses-paid trip to Hai City.”

They must have been briefed beforehand. The group was very tactful about not mentioning the earlier incident, and not a single person showed him the online comments.

Everyone sat in a circle, eating snacks and gossiping. Li Zhuo interjected now and then, or simply watched them quietly, just like back at summer camp.

This was a real birthday party, not one of those profit-driven banquets with clinking glasses and veiled dealings.

As the guest of honor, Li Zhuo was surrounded in the center. The dancing candle flames flickered in his pupils while everyone watched him, waiting for him to close his eyes and make a wish.

After the guest of honor made his wish and blew out the candles, everyone offered their goofy yet sincere blessings. Then began the cake-cutting segment.

Li Zhuo cut carefully, ensuring each person got a whole small animal decoration. He was pulled aside to take group photos with several people.

Even though they had come in a hurry, his classmates from Changyang had prepared gifts. Gifts worth a few dozen or a hundred bucks might be inconspicuous, but Li Zhuo still thanked each person one by one.

【Adorable…】

【Child talking with companions… like】

【Child amused by jokes… like】

【Child eating cake… like…】

Mo Liang watched adoringly as his child played a game called Number Bomb with several small humans.

The rules were simple. A number was preset as the bomb, and others called out numbers at random, narrowing the range more and more… Ah, it was his child’s turn to speak.

【Nervous child… like…】

【Child who hit the bomb… like】

Perhaps his gaze was too intense. Li Zhuo, who had stepped on the bomb and been “blasted out of the game,” seemed to sense something. He turned his head and met Mo Liang’s eyes.

When peers play games, a teacher regarded as an elder by everyone really shouldn’t join in.

Li Zhuo had thought Mo Liang had left, especially since so many people had been looking for him earlier, and he seemed quite busy.

But then, mid-game, he suddenly realized Mo Liang had been there the whole time, not far away, watching him with a beaming smile.

Li Zhuo carried a slice of cake he’d set aside just for him. He didn’t ask Mo Liang why he’d invited everyone, but the latter proactively explained.

“We don’t have the concept of birthdays. I specifically searched it; it seems to be a very significant day for you all, meant to be spent with friends and family…”

“When you’re with them, your happiness hormones are a bit stronger than usual. So I sent people to invite them. Looking at it now, that decision was incredibly right…”

Mo Liang felt immensely relieved that he had accepted the system’s suggestion instead of stubbornly following his own desire: to spend this day alone with his child.

He was not human, after all.

Li Zhuo looked over at the crowd laughing and joking over there and suddenly said, “Don’t do this again next time. What if some people didn’t actually want to come?”

“I would naturally not invite that type of person.”

“……”

Silence spread through the air.

“Right, that woman named Lu Fei called you, but I intercepted it.”

Since Li Zhuo woke up, this was the first time Mo Liang had brought up anyone from the Li family in front of him. His attitude before had been as evasive as possible.

“Oh…”

“The Li family is experiencing some internal issues right now.”

Mo Liang furrowed his brow, summarizing the Li family’s internal conflict with the briefest phrasing. In the end, it all boiled down to one word: interests.

As for Li Huachuan and Lu Fei’s situation…

Li Huachuan was hospitalized—some heart trouble—and was still resting quietly, with Lu Fei staying by his side the entire time.

The day after that incident, Li Xuan stepped up to hold a shareholders’ meeting. He implemented multiple measures, successfully suppressing all the negative reports from that day and minimizing the fallout. With such composure and capability in the face of crisis, he reassured the subsidiary companies and shareholders under the group…

Even in an unexpected crisis like that, he handled it so flawlessly, not a single fault to be found.

“Truly impressive ah…”

Li Zhuo complimented.

He was simply surprised. Why was Li Xuan in such a rush? Even if he did nothing, given the current situation, everything would eventually go to him sooner or later anyway.

But Mo Liang didn’t answer that question. He stated in a flat, declarative tone, “Whatever you want to do, I will support you. If you’re interested in the Mo family, I’ll just annex it and give it to you…”

The clashes of blades in the business world are often invisible. There exists an unseen food chain: big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp. This has been the way since ancient times.

Sometimes targeting someone doesn’t require much effort at all. You just need to position them as the target of public criticism, and others will naturally attack them.

Like tossing a piece of bloody meat into a pool of sharks—the outcome is predictable.

From the man’s expression and tone, Li Zhuo judged that he was absolutely serious. It sounded incredibly tempting. He thought for a while, but finally shook his head and refused. “I don’t have any relevant experience, and I don’t want to get involved…”

Mo Liang once again wore that indescribable expression. “My child, you are truly kind…”

“Uh…”

The sky gradually darkened. Some of the villa’s servants tidied up the post-party venue while others guided the young guests from afar to their respective guest rooms.

What the villa had the most of were rooms. Accommodating Li Zhuo’s several classmates was way too simple.

After bidding farewell to his friends, Li Zhuo returned to his bedroom. Mo Liang, behind him, naturally followed him through the bedroom door as well.

Looking at the tall figure behind him, Li Zhuo asked, “Are you staying in my room tonight too?”

After all, Mo Liang had slept in his room the previous night, staying by his side without leaving an inch all night. Tonight would probably be the same.

“Yes, I’ll accompany you through tonight.”

Li Zhuo had already washed up and changed into his home pajamas, shuffling in his slippers to sit at the bedside. He happened to hear Mo Liang’s reply. “The way you say that makes it sound like tonight is some really important day or something…”

Mo Liang deftly pulled out a children’s bedtime story collection from the bedside table and flipped to a marked page. “Let me tell you a bedtime story to lull you to sleep. Let’s pick up right from the story after last night’s.”

Li Zhuo lay down. As his gaze fell on the man beside the bed, he found it inwardly amusing. At his age, he was still being coaxed to sleep like a little kid.

“Hm, yesterday was ‘Little Rabbit Finds Friends.’ Let me see what today is… ‘The Taste of the Moon’…”

“On a tranquil night, a crescent moon hung in the deep blue sky. A group of small animals gazed up at the moon, each thinking to themselves: What does the moon taste like? Is it sweet, or is it salty?”

Every time Teacher Mo soothed him, he deliberately elongated the final syllable of his sentences by a few beats, like a kindergarten teacher speaking to small children.

But he couldn’t deny that this manner of speaking made his voice sound gentler and more affectionate. Combined with his actions and expressions, it effortlessly created a light and cozy atmosphere.

Lying on the soft, large bed, Li Zhuo gradually felt drowsiness creeping in. His eyes squinted slightly, and the figure by the bedside blurred into an indistinct dark silhouette.

In that single second, it struck him that Mo Liang felt so familiar, as though he had seen him somewhere before…

He thought it, and he spoke it aloud. “Teacher Mo, you don’t know, but when I was little, I used to have the same nightmare over and over…”

Mo Liang locked his voice frequency into the 120-160Hz range, the band that most easily helped Li Zhuo relax, and asked gently, “What nightmare was that?”

“I’d dream about some terrifying scene. Every time, a huge monster would chase after me. No matter where I ran, it kept following me…”

“……”

“In the dream, I would run and run, really fast. But whenever I looked back, I could see it. Obviously, there were plenty of people around, but they all seemed unable to see it. Only I could see it…”

“Once in the dream, I just couldn’t run anymore, so I hid inside a big building. But then I looked up and still saw that monster’s eyes through the window…”

“Do you know how big that monster was? Even bigger than the giant monsters I’d seen on TV! The entire window was filled with its red pupils…”

“In the dream, I could feel it searching window by window, looking for me. I could even understand the meaning it was trying to convey. It said: Found you… my something something—I forgot the rest. Then I screamed and woke up.”

Even now, thinking about those dreams still sent a chill down Li Zhuo’s spine. “It was really so scary…”

Because he was cultivating drowsiness, Li Zhuo spoke with his eyes closed the entire time. After talking for a while without hearing Teacher Mo’s response, he opened his eyes and saw the man beside the bed wearing a rather strange expression.

“……Very scary?”

“Of course! I don’t know why it kept chasing me. I wouldn’t even be enough to fill the gap between its teeth…”

Li Zhuo grew more and more sleepy, his speaking pace slowing down until his voice gradually faded into silence.

Thus, he completely missed the expression on Mo Liang’s face.