PPS Chapter 96
by Volare“Brother Sanmu?”
“Hmm? Awake?” Gu Yusen turned his head, his hands covered in dark mud, his entire person dusty.
Beside Gu Yusen, by the window, sat a small pot of flowers.
A single red rose.
“Ayi, look, this thing was grown at the old house. My dad grew a whole field of them for my mom. I don’t know what kind they are, but I heard they’re expensive.”
The roses Gu Yusen used to coax him by the living room window were mostly dried up and not very pretty. Chu Zhaoyi refused to throw them away, and Gu Yusen felt increasingly uncomfortable looking at them.
After thinking about it,
he moved a live one into the bedroom.
This time, the rose wasn’t to coax him,
but to make Chu Jiaojiao happy.
Gu Yusen’s hands, the ones he used to play the piano and sign contracts, were covered in mud. He wasn’t used to this kind of work and was clumsy, even getting mud on his face.
Gu Yusen wanted to make Chu Zhaoyi happy.
Chu Zhaoyi stared blankly at the vibrant rose, truly a superior breed. The petals were layered upon layered, soft as velvet, a passionate and deep red.
“So pretty.”
Gu Yusen’s rose, intended to please, received its owner’s sincere praise.
Chu Zhaoyi’s mood visibly improved. During dinner, his feet swung back and forth under the table, and he even ate half a bowl more rice.
After dinner, Gu Yusen sat Chu Zhaoyi down on the sofa, grabbed a stool for himself, and sat seriously in front of Chu Zhaoyi.
“Chu Zhaoyi.”
Gu Yusen rarely called Chu Zhaoyi by his full name.
Chu Zhaoyi touched Gu Yusen’s hand on his lap, puzzled: “What’s wrong? Brother Sanmu?”
“Confession time.”
“If you’re hiding anything from me, I advise you to tell me quickly, or else…”
“Or else I won’t let you draw for a whole month. The competition’s over anyway.”
Gu Yusen had a hold on Chu Zhaoyi’s lifeline. Sure enough, Chu Zhaoyi’s eyes widened.
“Brother Sanmu!”
Gu Yusen snorted. In recent days, he’d combined what he’d investigated with what he already knew to piece together some of Chu Zhaoyi’s story, but some things still needed to be said by Chu Zhaoyi himself.
“I’ll ask, you answer.”
Chu Zhaoyi was in a good mood and nodded obediently. He didn’t have anything to hide. He, Chu Zhaoyi, was open and honest!
“When did you find out about Li Yurong and Xie Haoran’s relationship?”
Chu Zhaoyi thought for a moment: “Eighth grade. My illness might have been more severe then. Li Yurong thought I was an idiot and lowered her guard. I overheard her on the phone. Li Yurong said it herself.”
“And then you found an opportunity to install spyware on Li Yurong’s phone?”
“Yup, yup. I’m so smart. Brother Sanmu, praise me!” Chu Zhaoyi’s little face was full of pride as he said this.
Gu Yusen ignored Chu Zhaoyi’s playful grin and moved on to the next question.
“When did you find out about Zhang Anru and your relationship?”
“Right after graduating junior high, from listening to Li Yurong’s phone. Then I went to ‘coincidentally’ meet Zhang Anru, grabbed a strand of her hair, and did a paternity test.” Chu Zhaoyi frowned, not receiving praise, but still obediently answering the question.
“So why didn’t you take the paternity test to the Xie family?”
“One is a blood relative, the other is a child they raised for sixteen years. I didn’t think the Xie family would choose me.” Chu Zhaoyi didn’t go to the Xie family to acknowledge his relatives; he was merely assessing, assessing whether the Xie family could give him a brief period of shelter.
But clearly, he felt that between himself and Xie Haoran, the Xie family valued Xie Haoran more. What’s more, Xie Haoran was very hostile towards him.
Going back wasn’t a wise choice.
Gu Yusen sighed. Actually, what Chu Zhaoyi said wasn’t unreasonable. At that time, Xie Haoran was still the Xie family’s well-behaved son. Chu Zhaoyi might have lived a period of stable days after returning home due to the Xie family’s guilt.
But Xie Haoran wasn’t easy to deal with. Chu Zhaoyi couldn’t compare to Xie Haoran when it came to pretending to be weak and pitiful.
The end result might be that the Xie family was deceived by Xie Haoran, thereby developing dissatisfied emotions towards Chu Zhaoyi.
Chu Zhaoyi didn’t like trouble. Compared to that, it was better to maintain the status quo, at least no one would disturb his painting.
“What about your ears? You were injured for three years, so the problem happened after graduating junior high.”
“I took the paternity test to find Zhang Anru. Although I didn’t do anything, Chu Yu was a lunatic. He hit me. It hurt so much.” This time, Chu Zhaoyi didn’t lie. Instead, he touched his ears with a wronged expression, not very happy.
Actually, at the time, he didn’t really care when he realized he couldn’t hear.
Although Gu Yusen had already anticipated it, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of anger when he heard the answer with his own ears. However, he tried his best to restrain his emotions, not letting any anger show, and simply nodded lightly, as if thinking about something.
Chu Yu died too early.
“So, Li Yurong and Chu Yu’s psychological suggestions didn’t work on you?” Clearly, Chu Zhaoyi knew Li Yurong and Chu Yu’s true colors from beginning to end.
“Hmph, the psychologist they found was too unskilled.”
“You were acting good in front of the police, little Chu Zhaoyi.” Gu Yusen stroked the teenager’s head. All of this was enough to prove that Chu Zhaoyi wasn’t some innocent person. At the very least, he was a black sesame filling.
But Gu Yusen still felt heartache, heartache that the teenager knew he didn’t belong to this family at such a young age, heartache that the teenager coldly watched the Xie family’s loving scene in the rainy night.
Gu Yusen hesitated, carefully choosing his words, and finally asked, “Were their deaths related to you?”
Chu Zhaoyi blinked, recalling everything that happened back then.
“The night before Chu Yu died, Li Yurong wanted to stimulate me to have an episode, but her methods were too low-level. I had to cooperate a little.”
Chu Yu was indeed killed by Li Yurong’s design. Li Yurong had resented her husband for harboring another woman in his heart forever for a long time, and there was always a time when she couldn’t bear it anymore.
What’s more, she had to face that woman’s child day and night.
Naturally, there would be a time when she couldn’t bear it anymore.
“As for Li Yurong, blame her for her weak tolerance.” Chu Zhaoyi’s dark eyes were full of indifference, and he spoke of these two people as if they were strangers, not his parents who had raised him for eighteen years.
From beginning to end, Chu Yu and Li Yurong were just thieves.
“So you called her…” Gu Yusen knew that before Li Yurong died, the two had a phone call. That hospital nurse told the police that. He vaguely felt something was wrong, so he went to find the nurse and paid her to change her statement.
“I don’t know.” Chu Zhaoyi frowned. He wouldn’t lie in front of Gu Yusen, but in his memory, Li Yurong’s mental state was already very unstable when they talked on the phone, looking like she had been stimulated.
He admitted that he had the idea of killing Li Yurong along with it, because only in this way could he become a fatherless and motherless “orphan” and openly walk to Gu Yusen’s side, so Li Yurong had to die.
But he originally had other plans, and before he could implement them, Li Yurong died.
He didn’t think his few words could stimulate someone to this extent.
Gu Yusen thought for a moment, feeling that there was something fishy about it. He initially thought Chu Zhaoyi did it, but looking at it this way, it didn’t seem to be. Li Yurong, someone like her, valued herself and her biological son the most.
Chu Zhaoyi’s few words shouldn’t have stimulated her to this extent.
“Didn’t Ayi put spyware on Li Yurong’s phone? Was the content from the night before Li Yurong died recorded? Can you show it to me?”
“Brother Sanmu is so smart.” Chu Zhaoyi blinked. Oh right, he put spyware on it.
He probably didn’t care much about it and just threw it to the back of his mind.
Chu Zhaoyi took out an old cell phone from the drawer in the bedroom and handed it to Gu Yusen. This was a phone he had secretly bought with the money he got from selling paintings, used to extract the recordings from Li Yurong’s side.
After the incident, Li Yurong, Chu Yu, and his own cell phones were all taken away by the police for inspection, but he said he didn’t have a cell phone at the time.
This cell phone wasn’t bought under his name.
Speaking of which, he still had to thank the person who bought his painting.
Only then did Gu Yusen confirm that Chu Zhaoyi didn’t have any feelings for Li Yurong and Chu Yu, let alone hate.
Indeed, to Chu Zhaoyi, these two people were just fools dominated by emotions.
If it weren’t for Li Yurong, he would have done it himself.