Chapter 8: [Are You] Kidding me??
“President Shou?” Guo Duoyu’s dad was made to laugh heartily by Shou Jiaxun. “Have you ever done business, kid? What are you going to use to take me flying? …Remote control plane or bamboo dragonfly?”
President Shou disdained to argue, but he had to instill some imperative confidence in this uncle. “It’s better than me sitting around eating away my resources! Besides, your son will definitely go abroad to a prestigious school next year. Even if tuition can be covered by scholarships, don’t you have to pay for food, drink, and living expenses? Can you afford it just by setting up this broken little stall?”
Uncle Guo curled his lip. “You know about work-study; doesn’t he know to get a job? Tch, if he can’t afford to study, then don’t study.”
Shou Jiaxun clicked his tongue. “How can that work? While others engage in prestigious school social networking to accumulate connections, your son is washing dishes, chopping vegetables, and working illegal jobs. Wouldn’t his ten years of hard study become suffering for nothing?”
Uncle Guo was shocked, his eyes widening round. He opened his mouth but seemed to be choked; only after a few seconds did he make a sound. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to… like Guo Duoyu, would you?”
Shou Jiaxun looked like he had eaten something bitter. “Then you are overthinking it.”
“I am quite worried about him in this aspect, honestly…” Uncle Guo suddenly bent down and mysteriously asked Shou Jiaxun for gossip. “You’ve been classmates with him for over two years. Have you heard of anyone seriously liking him?”
Shou Jiaxun chuckled simply and lifted the plastic bottle at his feet for a tactical water drink.
“I knew it… neither of us father and son are cut out for that.” Uncle Guo pursed his lips and stood up, muttering as he went to the tricycle to get fruit crates, preparing to close the stall.
Seeing this, Shou Jiaxun naturally stood up to help. The topic of refunding tuition to open a shop together ended there.
There was no certainty in setting up a stall. If sales were good at the morning market, they went home to sleep. If too much was left, they had to go to more remote neighborhoods to be itinerant peddlers. If they still couldn’t sell out in the streets and alleys, they could only continue to catch the night market.
After all, fresh produce didn’t store well. Without a freshness-locking cabinet, slightly more delicate fruits would rot by at least half overnight.
The two had good luck today. After 6:00 PM, they met a late rush hour wave of people getting off work, and the last few boxes of honey peaches sold out in the blink of an eye.
On the way home, with Uncle Guo pedaling the tricycle, he started soliciting Shou Jiaxun’s opinion on dinner again. “What for tonight? Noodles or rice?”
President Shou sat on the tail of the cart with hands on his waist and back arched, dangling two thin legs and sighing. “Hungry. Next intersection, whatever is there, we eat.”
As a result, the first place at the next intersection was Chengdu Snacks. The two entered and sat down. One ordered rice with toppings, the other ordered beef noodles. They shared a couple of bites with each other—having both noodles and rice, the best of both worlds.
Uncle Guo hadn’t spoken much while setting up the stall in the afternoon. Now, having finally thought things through, and after finishing most of the rice and noodles on his side, he put down his chopsticks and looked at President Shou with a solemn face. “I’ve saved over two hundred thousand these past years. …Uncle is old, I can’t take advantage of you. If you really want to do it, we each put up half—you twenty, me twenty. We keep the rest in our pockets for emergencies. How about it?”
Shou Jiaxun nodded busily. “That’s settled then. As soon as my money hits the account, we start.”
Uncle Guo nodded and didn’t speak again.
After paying the bill at the eatery, they switched, and Shou Jiaxun pedaled the tricycle toward home.
Shou Jiaxun had previously commissioned Guo Duoyu to help him find a place. Guo Duoyu scoured rental websites for two days and couldn’t find an “old, broken, and small” place with lower rent than his own home. In the end, he could only rent out his own sleeping spot to make a temporary nest for Student Shou.
But anyway, as long as school wasn’t on break, Guo Duoyu could stay in the dorms, so it didn’t affect him much.
Guo Duoyu’s secondary gender was Alpha. After developing, a curtain was pulled between his and his Omega biological father’s double bed to separate them, each sleeping on one edge.
With Shou Jiaxun, not only did they not need to pull the curtain, but they didn’t even need to avoid each other when bathing or wiping down.
The shabby little room of ten square meters or so looked much more spacious than before.
The big and small Omegas washed up slightly upon returning home and immediately lay flat on the bed.
Because Uncle Guo had to run to the wholesale market at four or five in the morning to stock up, he never delayed for half a second if he could sleep a minute earlier.
However, today, because he had made an important decision, Uncle Guo’s heart was surging, and he found it difficult to fall asleep for a while. After tossing and turning, he started whispering, “Our shop should best be opened inside a residential area, convenient for people to buy. I’m telling you… as long as the price is reasonable and we can stick close to two old neighborhoods, it’s enough to feed us.”
Shou Jiaxun’s thoughts were different from his, but he couldn’t come up with a good argument to change Uncle Guo’s thinking at the moment. He turned sideways to look at the back of the uncle’s neck and asked curiously, “Uncle, why do you always stick an inhibitor patch on your gland? Are you afraid others won’t see you’re an Omega, or do you have heat very frequently?”
Uncle Guo raised his eyebrows, showing a helpless expression. “Two years ago, one day while sleeping, I suddenly went into heat and gave off a huge smell. It happened that Guo Duoyu was home on break. Luckily he reacted fast and rolled out without stopping, wandering the main roads for half the night. Otherwise, where would our father-son relationship go! Sigh… that time gave me psychological trauma. Can’t sleep without sticking a patch.”
Shou Jiaxun sighed repeatedly. “No wonder Guo Duoyu says his biggest dream is to be able to afford a big house.”
“Yeah,” Uncle Guo responded in a low voice. “Being a bit down-to-earth, I hope this time next year, I can bear to rent a good apartment first.”
“Then I think the problem isn’t big,” President Shou assessed with a grin. “Definitely no problem.”
Uncle Guo also grinned. “It’s good to be young.” …Very silly and very naive, ignorant and optimistic.
The uncle only lamented the second half in his heart and didn’t say it out loud.
He naturally didn’t understand that Shou Jiaxun’s optimism wasn’t due to naivety, but because he had confidence in his “Positive Wealth Luck.”
In Idiot Meng’s words, Lord Yama’s Underworld was a prestigious, orthodox big brand. Setting aside the ambiguous dispute parts, as long as the items checked in the contract were concerned, they would absolutely output with guaranteed quality and quantity.
So President Shou made a great vow with certainty: “Uncle, I feel I’m particularly lucky, really… If we partner up, we’ll definitely make big money.”
Uncle Guo felt his breath hitch. Looking around his own tattered shack, then glancing sideways at this little Student Shou—who was a wealthy young master last month and heavily in debt this month—his face was full of disbelief, as if silently questioning: Are you kidding me?
Shou Jiaxun’s mouth corners lifted to reveal two playful little canine teeth, and two intoxicatingly deep dimples appeared on his cheeks. Just as promised in the Underworld contract, this handsome and joyful face could definitely be called “loved by all.”
But paired with the “mysteriously confident” smiling face at this moment, it inexplicably made one’s heart palpitate.
Uncle Guo thought, Could this child have been over-stimulated by his family affairs and gone crazy?
The matter of opening a shop together still needed to be observed further.
The next day, because Shou Jiaxun had to go back to school to process the refund, he didn’t accompany Uncle Guo to the wholesale market early in the morning. He entered the school a quarter of an hour earlier than the appointment time with Li Mai’s finance department. First, he went to the administrative office to return his access card, meal card, and student ID.
Then he went to the School Registry Office to retrieve his student file.
It was all agreed upon; just going through a process, it should have been done quickly. But for some unknown reason, after Shou Jiaxun reported his name, the registry administrator didn’t go to check the file cabinet but instead picked up the phone and dialed right in front of him.
While flashing a placating smile at Shou Jiaxun, the registry teacher tipped off the person on the other end: “Teacher Deng, student Shou Jiaxun from your class is here to pull his file. Can you come over now? …Oh. Send him to Academic Affairs? Mmhmm, okay, I’ll tell him.”
Then she put down the phone and continued to smile at Shou Jiaxun. “Teacher Deng asked you to wait for him at the Academic Affairs Office. He has something to say to you.”
“Huh?” Shou Jiaxun frowned and grimaced, his face full of “I don’t understand.” “I’ve already dropped out; do I need to be given a demerit again?”
“Probably not. Don’t think blindly; go quickly.” The registry teacher put away her smile and waved her hand to urge him.
Shou Jiaxun had to leave the School Registry Office with a head full of fog.
The offices managing academic affairs in their school were all in one corridor. Shou Jiaxun turned left after exiting, walked a few steps, and soon knocked on the door of the Academic Affairs Office.
Hearing the sound, the Academic Affairs teacher looked up. “Looking for whom? What is it?”
Shou Jiaxun stood at the door with an innocent expression and reported, “Teacher Deng from Year 3 Class 1 asked me to come.”
The Academic Affairs Office had an outer and inner office. Before the teacher in the outer room could speak again, the Dean’s voice came from inside first: “Is it Shou Jiaxun? You come in.”
President Shou moved his feet inward with a baffled look, then stopped at the door of the inner compartment. “Hello, Director Sun.”
“Come, come in and sit.” The Dean waved at him, pointing to a chair for him to sit and talk.
Then he personally got up to pour a cup of cold water and placed it in front of Shou Jiaxun, speaking to the dropout with a beaming smile: “It’s like this. Regarding your improper off-campus work, the school leadership re-evaluated and believes we can revoke the punishment against you and restore your student status.”
As he spoke, his smile gradually widened, appearing as if he were about to give Shou Jiaxun an extra-large surprise. Even his tone suddenly became rousing: “Welcome back to the team! Student Shou Jiaxun.”
Shou Jiaxun was dumbfounded, freezing for a few seconds. His body involuntarily leaned forward as he questioned, “Why? I signed the ‘Withdrawal Notice’ last week!”
The Dean chuckled silently, his eyes and gestures simultaneously “exerting power” to comfort Shou Jiaxun. “The school has learned that your family has some problems and understands your motivation for working off-campus. The key is that you were able to realize your error and return to the right path, correcting your mistake in time, and there was an act of persuading a classmate to return. Although you didn’t succeed in the end, you tried your best. The other party’s lack of repentance is his problem. So the school has decided to give you another chance. As long as you promise not to work blindly off-campus again, we are willing to let you stay and continue your studies to complete your education.”
Shou Jiaxun laughed and cried, rejecting decisively: “Really no need, it’s unnecessary… Sigh! Many thanks to the teachers for your consideration, but if I don’t work, I won’t even be able to eat soon. Right now, I really just want to focus on making a living.”
The Dean nodded with a prudent frown. “Understood, clear. So the school not only agrees to restore your student status but also plans to specially award you an unlimited meal card as a reward. You study and prepare for exams with peace of mind. Li Mai is your alma mater; the more special the period, the more we must escort your studies.”
“No, no, no…” Shou Jiaxun refused repeatedly, shaking his head and waving his hands with a firm attitude. “I know what I need. The tuition refund is very important to me… Don’t…”
The Dean raised his hand to interrupt him, but his gaze passed over Shou Jiaxun toward the door. “Teacher Deng, you came just in time.”
Teacher Deng was a middle-aged, infertile Beta male, affectionately called “Old Deng” by the students of Year 3 Class 1. However, “Old Deng” was used behind his back; to his face, one still had to be polite and call him “Teacher.”
Old Deng dragged a stool straight over and sat next to Shou Jiaxun, but he turned sideways against the Dean’s desk, facing little Student Shou directly. He asked, “Director Sun just told you, right? The school has revoked the previous punishment against you and restored your student status. Come back to class immediately, no problem, right?”
Although he put a question mark seeking an opinion at the end of the sentence, his tone was certain, clearly waiting for little Student Shou to express gratitude.
Unfortunately, things went contrary to wishes.
Shou Jiaxun frowned tightly and also turned sideways to face his homeroom teacher directly. “There is a problem! I insist on dropping out.”
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