CFRFGC Chapter 96

⌈Still awake…⌋

Shen Xingzhuo carried a cup of coffee up to the terrace on the second floor.

Shen Xingyu was sitting by the round table on the terrace, reading some documents.

The relationship between the two brothers wasn’t particularly good. They glanced at each other from a distance before minding their own business.

But Shen Xingzhuo couldn’t sit still. One moment he was sitting, the next he was standing, leaning over the terrace railing to look down.

Muttering to himself, he said, “Even I, his older brother, was stopped—Ji Min really has no shame.”

Shen Xingyu found his chattering irritating. He closed his file and prepared to leave.

Just as he was about to get up, Shen Xingzhuo leaned over to look downstairs again and frowned. “Why hasn’t the Lino family’s car left yet? The old man must be out of his mind—how did he get involved with their family?”

The Shen family and the Lino family were mortal enemies.

Even Shen Xingzhuo, a second-generation rich kid who seldom stayed home, had no goodwill toward the Lino family.

He looked down for a while before turning to ask Shen Xingyu, “Hey, does the old man have some ulterior motive? Do you know anything?”

Shen Xingyu furrowed his brows but didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “That’s our father. What kind of way is this to refer to him?”

Shen Xingzhuo rolled his eyes and ignored him.

After a while, when Shen Xingyu had already reached the door of the terrace, Shen Xingzhuo suddenly said, “He’s back today. Coming to his own house and he even brought two bodyguards.”

Shen Xingyu paused for a moment and quickly realized who this “he” Shen Xingzhuo was referring to.

His fingers, which were resting on the doorknob, loosened slightly. He slowly retracted his hand.

Instead of leaving, Shen Xingyu turned back to the terrace, casually picked a seat, and continued reading his documents, though he was clearly distracted.

“You’re not going down to see him?” Shen Xingzhuo asked.

“There’s no need.”

Shen Xingyu flipped through the pages in his hand one by one.

Shen Xingzhuo didn’t go downstairs either. He leaned on the railing, glancing down from time to time.

After a long silence, he suddenly said, “Is Ranran not home today?”

“I don’t know,” Shen Xingyu replied indifferently.

Shen Xingzhuo found his attitude annoying.

He wanted to leave the terrace, but his feet didn’t move.

Downstairs, Lu Ran was doing something, though it was unclear what.

To be honest, Shen Xingzhuo didn’t know how to face Lu Ran.

He had grown up doing things his own way.

Because of his family background, his usual companions always revolved around him.

Aside from Shen Xingran, Shen Xingzhuo had never gone out of his way to please anyone.

But treating Lu Ran the same way he treated Shen Xingran felt… odd.

And besides…

It’s always hard to face one’s own mistakes, let alone make amends for them.

Feeling irritable, Shen Xingzhuo found Shen Xingyu particularly unpleasant to look at.

“Hey, do you think he keeps bodyguards with him because of you? It’s all because you treated him so badly,” Shen Xingzhuo said.

Shen Xingyu’s hand, holding a page of the document, paused.

Suddenly, Ji Min’s words surfaced in his mind: “At that time, he treated me so poorly—probably because I knew you, his brother.”

But in just a moment, Shen Xingyu resumed what he was doing.

Shen Xingzhuo simply walked over and sat on the sofa beside him.

After thinking for a while, Shen Xingzhuo said indignantly, “Why? You treated him so horribly, but he’s always gone easy on you!”

“Gone easy?”

Thinking about everything he’d endured since returning to the country, Shen Xingyu raised an eyebrow.

Shen Xingzhuo gave it some serious thought.

Getting hit in the back with dog poop versus eating a cockroach—when comparing the two…

Shen Xingzhuo still felt he had it worse.

“All he did was scare you with some bugs. Do you even know what I went through?”

Shen Xingyu didn’t know, nor did he care to find out.

He simply found Shen Xingzhuo’s griping incredibly annoying.

Shen Xingzhuo continued to complain, “He really has gone easy on you. That guy’s been into you since he was little, hasn’t he? Always sticking to you, right?”

Shen Xingyu suddenly shut the file in his hands with a snap.

He stood up and left the terrace.

Back in his room, Shen Xingyu put the document down.

After hesitating for a moment, he opened the door and headed out.

Since his last meeting with Ji Min, he hadn’t seen Lu Ran again.

Slowly descending the staircase, Shen Xingyu expected to see Lu Ran and Shen Hongyuan in the middle of a heated argument.

To his surprise, the first floor was unexpectedly quiet.

Not only was Lu Ran nowhere to be seen, but the Lino family and Shen Hongyuan were also absent.

Frowning, Shen Xingyu glanced toward the courtyard.

The Lino family’s car was still there.

He stopped a passing servant and asked, “Where are the master and the guests?”

Seeing that it was Shen Xingyu, the servant responded respectfully, “Young Master Lu Ran seemed to have some business earlier. He stopped the master and the guests and went…”

The servant paused before pointing toward the restroom on the first floor. “They went to the restroom.”

“All of them? How long have they been there?” Shen Xingyu asked.

“It’s been a while,” the servant replied.

After thinking for a moment, the servant added, “It seemed like the two young masters from the Lino family followed Young Master Lu Ran into the restroom first. Later, Young Master Lu Ran ran out, found the master, and said something, and then the master went over.”

Hearing this, a deep furrow appeared between Shen Xingyu’s brows.

He didn’t ask further and instead headed straight for the restroom.

As he walked, his expression grew more severe.

Shen Xingyu could roughly guess Shen Hongyuan’s intentions.

With the HZ project, the Shen family and the Lino family would likely clash fiercely.

Currently, the Shen family faces significant financial deficits, while the Lino family, having recently relocated to the country, has yet to establish a stable foundation.

A collaboration between the two families was indeed a plausible solution.

Marriage was an effective way to secure such a partnership.

Even if collaboration fell through, a marriage alliance to temporarily stabilize the Lino family was still a reasonable strategy.

From the Shen family’s perspective, Shen Hongyuan wasn’t wrong in his actions.

Logically, Shen Xingyu had no reason to intervene.

But…

Shen Xingyu closed his eyes briefly.

He thought of the eldest son of the Lino family—a reckless man with a trail of scandalous and outrageous affairs abroad.

Still, this was the Shen family’s territory. Surely nothing would happen.

Shen Xingyu stopped in front of the restroom door.

Without knocking, he reached out and pulled the door open.

In an instant, the horrifying scene inside came into view.

Shen Xingyu instinctively raised his hand.

With a loud “bang”, he shut the door.

That instinctive reaction? Pure shock.

Forgive him—he had never in his life witnessed such chaos.

“Uh… what happened in there?” the servant beside him cautiously asked.

Shen Xingyu took a deep breath.

The responsibility of being the family heir weighed on him. After mentally preparing himself for a moment, he reopened the door.

By then, only the “victims” remained inside.

The eldest son of the Lino family was slumped against the toilet, his face pressed against it, looking utterly dazed.

The second son of the Lino family was bent over, desperately pulling a toilet brush out of his mouth while spitting and coughing furiously.

Old Mr. Lino had a plunger stuck to his forehead.

As for Shen Hongyuan, his clothes were soaked in the front and he was clutching the toilet while muttering incoherently, “Unfilial sons! Unfilial sons!”

Shen Xingyu silently confirmed the scene once more.

Yes, this was indeed the restroom.

Wiping his face, Shen Xingyu finally understood what Shen Xingzhuo had meant by “going easy”.

“Should we… call an ambulance?” he hesitantly instructed the servant beside him.

Unexpectedly, the Lino family trio reacted with sheer panic.

They jumped to their feet and exclaimed, “No, absolutely not!”

Seeing that the only onlooker was Shen Xingyu, who hadn’t witnessed the earlier chaos, they hurriedly explained, “Nothing happened! We were just playing around—no need for a hospital at all!”

If word got out that they had been humiliated like this in a bathroom, how would the Lino family face the world?!

Shen Xingyu: “…”

Meanwhile, Lu Ran hadn’t left yet.

He used a key to unlock the door to Shen Hongyuan’s study.

After entering and finding the cabinet Shen Hongyuan had mentioned, Lu Ran quickly realized that the old fox had lied again.

The cabinet was secured with a combination lock.

Lu Ran’s gaze darkened.

He left the study and spotted Shen Xingyu, immediately grabbing the man by the wrist.

“Come with me,” he demanded.

Shen Xingyu, who had been about to interrogate someone, froze, allowing the youth to drag him forward.

The grip on his wrist was firm, almost painfully so.

Shen Xingyu was suddenly reminded of his childhood.

When his relationship with his younger brother hadn’t soured yet and the child wasn’t afraid of him, there were moments when Shen Xingyu would have the leisure to play with the boy for a while.

One such time seemed to be after school.

As soon as he stepped into the house, a soft little hand grabbed his wrist.

The child excitedly tugged him along to the backyard to show him a small nest he had made for the rabbits.

Shen Xingyu blinked, and the hazy scene before his eyes dissipated completely.

The hand gripping his wrist was no longer that soft, chubby little hand without much strength.

Instead, it was a hand with rough calluses on the palm and fingertips, belonging to a youth accustomed to hard labor. It gripped tightly, with considerable strength.

The person pulling him wasn’t that short, round little dumpling from years ago either. The boy had long since grown into a slender, slightly frail figure.

Shen Xingyu was still lost in thought when he felt a sudden cool sensation at his fingertips.

His hand was pressed forcefully onto a fingerprint scanner.

What awaited him was not the soft, handmade little nest of paper towels and cotton from back then.

Snapping back to the present, Shen Xingyu frowned and asked, “What are you trying to do?”

Lu Ran didn’t answer.

Instead, he glared at the fingerprint lock, which showed an error message, and cursed under his breath.

Then, leaving Shen Xingyu behind, he dashed downstairs, grabbed Shen Hongyuan, who was in the middle of washing his face, and hauled him back upstairs.

Without hesitation, Lu Ran shoved Shen Hongyuan’s hand onto the scanner.

With a beep, the lock clicked open.

Shen Hongyuan was so enraged by this bandit-like behavior that he nearly exploded. Pointing at Shen Xingyu, he demanded: “Look at him! Aren’t you going to do something?”

Shen Xingyu opened his mouth, his lips moving slightly, but in the end, he sighed and asked Shen Hongyuan, “What exactly are you hiding?”

“Hiding?!” Shen Hongyuan fumed, his voice trembling with anger. “Everything in the Shen family belongs to me! What do you mean hiding something?!”

Lu Ran ignored the two entirely.

The cabinet was nearly empty.

As he had expected, someone like Shen Hongyuan, who didn’t trust his sons, wouldn’t leave anything important at home.

At the very bottom, there was an unopened box that hadn’t yet been dealt with.

Lu Ran glanced at the pattern on the box. It matched the gift box of the wristwatch Shen Hongyuan had given him earlier.

Picking up the box, Lu Ran waved it at Shen Hongyuan and said mockingly, “Old man, I really hate it when people hide my things.”

“But if you have a peculiar hobby and enjoy drinking toilet water, feel free to keep hiding stuff.”

With that, he walked away, not sparing the father and son another glance.

Carrying the box, Lu Ran left the Shen family residence directly.

That evening, Ji Min came home after work.

At the dinner table, however, one figure was notably absent.

Ji Min waited for a while, but the person still didn’t show up.

Somewhat surprised, he turned to Butler Chen beside him and asked, “This is rare. What could possibly keep him from eating dinner?”

Butler Chen replied, “He said he was a bit tired and went straight to his room to rest after returning.”

Ji Min paused for a moment but didn’t press further.

After eating a simple meal, he summoned the two bodyguards who usually followed Lu Ran.

“What happened today to make him so tired?” Ji Min asked.

At Ji Min’s question, the two bodyguards’ expressions instantly became quite colorful.

After such a big ordeal, how could he not be tired?

Seeing the two remain silent, Ji Min furrowed his brows slightly and said, “Speak.”

His usual presence was already imposing, but now, with just one word, the two bodyguards—who were already feeling guilty—immediately began spilling everything like beans from a jar.

“Apologies, boss. We didn’t mean to let Young Master Lu Ran handle it himself.”

“Even though shoving someone’s head into a toilet was pretty intense, we still stepped in to help in the end. Uh… I was the one who shoved in the toilet brush!”

The other chimed in, raising a hand like he was claiming credit: “I handled the plunger!”

Ji Min: “…”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead before saying, “Wait, that’s not important. I’m not asking about that…”

The bodyguards’ eyes widened in shock.

Not important?

That’s not important? Then what is?

Thinking they hadn’t been convincing enough, they quickly added: “Rest assured. In the future, we’ll take care of things like this. Whoever Young Master Lu Ran tells us to handle, we’ll handle!”

“We won’t let Young Master Lu Ran lift a finger again!”

Ji Min: “…”

These two used to be reliable.

How did hanging around Lu Ran turn them into this?

Raising a hand to stop their detailed recounting, Ji Min sighed again and asked, “What I meant to ask was, where did he go today?”

“Oh, the young master went back to the Shen family.”

Hearing this, Ji Min felt a vague sense of understanding.

Dismissing the bodyguards, Ji Min stayed downstairs for a while longer before taking the elevator to the second floor.

When the elevator doors opened, Ji Min turned his wheelchair toward his bedroom.

But his gaze lingered on the room at the other end of the hallway.

The lights in the corridor were half off, shrouding it in darkness.

Ji Min paused for a moment, then turned to Butler Chen and said, “Go check on him. If he’s not asleep, bring him something to eat.”

Butler Chen replied, “I’ll have to see what’s left in the kitchen.”

Without waiting for Ji Min’s response, he stepped into the elevator and left.

Ji Min: “…”

He remained where he was for a while before slowly turning his wheelchair and heading down the dimly lit, quiet hallway toward Lu Ran’s room at the end.

The wheelchair came to a stop in front of the door.

The door was still ajar, far from locked.

Ji Min raised his knuckles, intending to knock, but hesitated. He might be asleep—best not to disturb him.

In the faint light, the strict barriers that usually kept everything in check seemed to loosen slightly.

Ji Min gently pushed the door open and silently maneuvered his wheelchair inside.

The suite’s inner bedroom door was also open.

Warm, amber light spilled from within.

For some reason, Ji Min exhaled softly.

Still awake…

Inside the bedroom, the young man seemed to have just woken up.

His hair was a messy nest and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, intently focused on something, so much so that he didn’t notice someone entering the room.

Ji Min cleared his throat softly and tapped his knuckles on the bedroom door.

The young man on the bed was startled, scrambling to gather the scattered items on the bed.

In his haste, some of the items flew out of his grasp entirely.

Ji Min raised an eyebrow, glanced at him briefly, then bent down to pick up a piece of paper that had landed by his feet.

It was a photograph.

In the photo, a soft and chubby child had his arms stretched wide toward the camera as if asking for a hug.

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