PPS Chapter 76
by Volare“My parents have a great relationship! My mother accompanies me! My father comes home every night and makes delicious food for us! Even during my worst times, they are always there for me.”
“However, Chu Zhaoyi is a very guarded person. It’s almost impossible to use psychological suggestion on him.” This was what Mason found strange. Chu Zhaoyi was extremely wary of everyone except Gu Yusen. Even though he had been treating the young man for two months, Chu Zhaoyi’s guard hadn’t weakened much.
At most, during the current treatment, Gu Yusen could leave briefly without any major issues, unlike in the beginning when Chu Zhaoyi wouldn’t say a word if Gu Yusen wasn’t around.
But that was it.
“Ah Yi first received psychological treatment when he was a teenager. Could it be that he wasn’t as guarded back then?” Gu Yusen checked Chu Zhaoyi’s records after adopting him.
He was diagnosed with autism in the fourth grade of elementary school due to school bullying, and he had been seeing a psychologist since then.
Gu Yusen had been trying to locate the psychologist, but he didn’t know where he had gone.
“That’s possible,” Mason said. He found Chu Zhaoyi’s case to be very complicated, but the possibility that Gu Yusen mentioned did exist. However, his subconscious told him that it wasn’t quite like that.
Chu Zhaoyi was getting impatient waiting outside. Gu Yusen saw that the young man was restless and knew he wasn’t happy waiting, so he waved goodbye to Mason.
“Let’s leave it at that. It’s getting late, I’ll take him home.”
“Okay.”
*
The incident didn’t seem to have much of an impact on Chu Zhaoyi. After a week of not being able to paint, Chu Zhaoyi woke up early on Monday morning and pinched Gu Yusen’s nose, telling him to get up quickly and go to school.
Gu Yusen had never seen Chu Zhaoyi so eager to study. He turned over.
“Class is at ten, Chu Jiaojiao, don’t rush.”
“Yes, rush, Sanmu Gege get up, don’t sleep in!” Chu Zhaoyi climbed onto the bed, crawled over Gu Yusen, and reached over to pry open Gu Yusen’s eyelids.
“So sleepy, don’t want to get up,” Gu Yusen grabbed Chu Zhaoyi’s mischievous little hand and slowly acted coy.
“Sanmu Gege!” Chu Zhaoyi shouted loudly in Gu Yusen’s ear.
“Then I’ll go by myself!” He had a temper too. It was only a ten-minute journey; it wasn’t as if he couldn’t take a taxi!
Gu Yusen’s mind quickly flashed back to the only time Chu Zhaoyi went to school by himself and ended up in the hospital. He immediately sat up straight.
“Wait!”
Chu Zhaoyi sat beside him and huffed.
Gu Yusen looked at him, his teeth itching. The way he looked right now was just like a cat disturbing its owner’s sleep, getting the owner up and then sitting aside leisurely licking its paws, even giving the owner a disdainful and contemptuous look.
So arrogant.
After a chaotic morning, Gu Yusen still fulfilled Chu Zhaoyi’s wish and took him to the studio.
As expected, Chu Zhaoyi passed the preliminary round of the competition. Only a little over a hundred people entered the second round.
After the second round, there would only be 50 left.
This time, there was a restriction: traditional Chinese painting.
This wasn’t difficult for Chu Zhaoyi. Actually, he could use the paintings he had done before, but Chu Zhaoyi hadn’t painted in so long that his hands were itching, so he decided to paint a new one.
He didn’t even notice the time until class. Zhang Haoyu bombarded him with phone calls for ten minutes before he reluctantly picked up his phone and slowly moved towards the classroom.
As soon as he entered the classroom, he noticed a group of people surrounding Xie Haoran, chattering and flattering him. Zhang Haoyu sat to the side, not joining in, looking somewhat out of place.
Chu Zhaoyi didn’t pay much attention and sat next to Zhang Haoyu, taking out his tablet.
Zhang Haoyu paused when he saw this action, instinctively wanting to stop him. Zhang Haoyu had been watching him all week, not letting him paint, and he had gotten used to it.
Chu Zhaoyi glanced at him with his dark eyes and hummed softly, openly opening the painting software.
Zhang Haoyu sheepishly touched the tip of his pen.
It was almost a conditioned reflex now.
“Zhaoyi, you…” Zhang Haoyu hesitated, secretly glancing at Xie Haoran, who was surrounded by people, and then at the quiet Chu Zhaoyi beside him.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. It was all because of those people spreading rumors online! Otherwise, based on the fact that Chu Zhaoyi was Professor Qin’s student, Chu Zhaoyi should be the one being praised like this.
Today, as soon as Xie Haoran entered the classroom, someone asked him if he had passed the preliminary round of the “Huì yǐng liúguāng” competition. Xie Haoran smiled shyly, but the arrogance in his eyes couldn’t be hidden.
Then these people started to flatter him.
If it was just simple flattery, it would be fine, but what made Zhang Haoyu even angrier was that they would occasionally belittle Chu Zhaoyi.
Some people said some pretty nasty things.
After Chu Zhaoyi came in, the voices quieted down a bit, still considering the Gu family, and only dared to say a few words in private. No one had directly said anything to Chu Zhaoyi’s face yet.
Zhang Haoyu was furious, but Chu Zhaoyi always looked so calm and indifferent. He didn’t want to tell Chu Zhaoyi about many things and could only be angry by himself.
Although he thought it was impossible for Chu Zhaoyi to lose, he was still a little worried about whether he had passed the preliminary round.
He really couldn’t tell anything from Chu Zhaoyi’s expression and reaction.
The emperor wasn’t worried, but the eunuch was.
It was killing him.
“Passed,” Chu Zhaoyi knew what Zhang Haoyu wanted to ask. All his emotions were written on his face, and he was constantly angrily typing on his phone to battle with people online.
“I knew it! You’re so amazing, how could you be worse than that Xie Haoran!!!” Zhang Haoyu was relieved. He hadn’t disliked Xie Haoran much at first. It was just that he liked to act and liked to be praised.
It wasn’t incomprehensible. He had been praised since he was little, from his family background to his appearance, to his studies, talents, and gifts, he was always the best.
He could understand such people acting like that, after all, they were truly excellent.
But he vaguely felt that Xie Haoran never sincerely stopped the people around him from praising him and scolding Chu Zhaoyi. He had always thought it was okay that Xie Haoran pretended to say, “Chu Zhaoyi is also very good, just a little eccentric.”
He even thought that this person was alright, and that he knew how to speak up for his roommate.
It was later that Li Yu couldn’t stand it anymore and felt that Zhang Haoyu’s judgment of people was really bad, so he pulled him out of the classroom and reminded him: “If Xie Haoran sincerely stopped these people from saying bad things about Chu Zhaoyi, if he really didn’t dislike Chu Zhaoyi, would these people still have the guts to scold Chu Zhaoyi so unscrupulously in front of him? Use your brain!!!”
Anyone with eyes could see that Xie Haoran and Chu Zhaoyi had long been on opposite sides when they were compared together on the forums. They were as incompatible as fire and water.
Only a fool like Zhang Haoyu would really think that the two of them were good friends, just with a little misunderstanding.
Zhang Haoyu suddenly realized and the more he looked at Xie Haoran, the more he felt that he was acting.
Chu Zhaoyi had never liked to pay attention to others, but now his situation on the forums was getting worse and worse, and it was even spreading outside the school.
Especially after more and more people compared him to Xie Haoran.
And the “Huì yǐng liúguāng” competition was quite famous nationwide. As the two youngest participants, they were naturally the focus of attention.
After the preliminary results came out yesterday, the official website announced the results. In previous years, there were no rankings, but this year the official website did something and directly put out a hundred paintings for a public vote.
The voting results didn’t affect their next competition. The official website explained that it was just pursuing the trend of the times that they came up with the idea of online voting. However, because the competition involved professional fields, the voting results of netizens were only used as reference.
This vote directly pushed the “Huì yǐng liúguāng” competition to the hot search. Sure enough, this idea was very good and attracted a lot of sponsorship for the organizers.
As the “Huì yǐng liúguāng” competition entered the public eye, the participants were naturally pushed to the forefront, especially these two youngest people attracted everyone’s attention.
Chu Zhaoyi’s rumors naturally spread out.
Zhang Haoyu was so angry, but he didn’t dare to show Chu Zhaoyi these things. He always remembered that Chu Zhaoyi’s mental state was not very good, so he kept sending them to Gu Yusen!
He didn’t know why Gu Yusen hadn’t taken action, but he felt that Gu Yusen wouldn’t do anything to hurt Chu Zhaoyi. But even though he felt this way, he was still anxious and frustrated.
Chu Zhaoyi pressed down on Zhang Haoyu, who was angrily looking at the hot searches, worried that he would jump up in anger.
“Zhang Haoyu, are you going to the studio to paint?”
Zhang Haoyu’s mind was full of battling netizens, and he couldn’t react for a moment when he heard this sentence. He said foolishly, “Yeah, I go there occasionally, but there are too many people in the studio.”
They had a public studio that was quite crowded, and everyone had to bring their own paints and other things.
“Do you want to come here? You can use my things directly, there are few people, only me.” Chu Zhaoyi used his tablet to sketch a rose, put down the last stroke, looked at it up and down, and put down his pen with satisfaction.
He didn’t know the impact that this sentence had on Zhang Haoyu.
Zhang Haoyu was stunned: “Can I…can I? Will Professor Qin be angry?”
Chu Zhaoyi shook his head. Professor Qin’s studio had so many things that he couldn’t use them all by himself. He didn’t dislike Zhang Haoyu very much.
And he knew that Zhang Haoyu was angrily arguing and scolding people online every day for his sake.
The heartless Chu Zhaoyi was rarely touched.