RRMGEH Chapter 45

In the morning, Gu Changheng arrived at the classroom. As usual, his first reaction was to look at Zhou Li’s seat. He walked over and naturally wanted to borrow his homework to copy.

But today Zhou Li’s seat was still empty.

Gu Changheng glanced at his watch. It was 6:50. There were still ten minutes until morning self-study began. He assumed that Zhou Li was just late today, so he decided to sit in Zhou Li’s seat and wait for him.

But even after the bell rang, Zhou Li still didn’t show up.

A hint of uneasiness appeared in Gu Changheng’s heart.

This uneasiness reached its peak when Zhou Li didn’t show up for lunch or the afternoon class, and by the next day, he was still missing.

Where could he be?

Did he drop out of school?

If he dropped out, where should he go to find him?

For the first time since his rebirth, Gu Changheng felt this kind of panic. He had a feeling that he would lose Zhou Li. Just the thought of it made him breathless.

No!

He absolutely could not accept such an outcome.

On the afternoon of Zhou Li’s second day of absence, Gu Changheng rushed to the class teacher’s office and asked if there was any way to contact Zhou Li.

The class teacher flipped through a pile of contact lists and found the number for Zhou Li’s aunt and said, “Zhou Li sometimes stays at this house, sometimes at that house. I often can’t reach him either. Here’s the phone number. You can give it a try.”

“Thanks.”

Gu Changheng took the phone number and immediately called Zhou Li’s aunt.

After a short wait, a middle-aged woman’s voice came through the line: “Hello, I’m a classmate of Zhou Li. He hasn’t been to school for the past two days. Do you know where he is?”

Zhou Li’s aunt replied, “He’s not studying anymore.”

Gu Changheng froze, confirming the worst guess in his heart.

He felt an intense anger rising within him. After all the effort he had put into convincing Zhou Li to study together and go for the same high school, after digging out all the textbooks and exercise books from his first to third year of junior high school to prepare for a big tutoring, he never expected Zhou Li would give up on school entirely.

But since he was talking to Zhou Li’s elder, Gu Changheng couldn’t vent his anger directly. He suppressed his temper and asked, “Where is Zhou Li now?”

“I don’t know,” Zhou Li’s aunt said. “I think he’s working at some repair shop, but I’m not sure which one it is.”

“Thank you.”

Gu Changheng hung up the phone and decided to skip class. He called Uncle Zhao, the family driver, to come pick him up.

Although Gu Changheng performed well academically, he had never been a model student despite his family’s wealth and influence.

He used to skip class to hang out with his “buddies”. But since the start of the third year of junior high school, he had changed his ways and went out less with those buddies. He spent most of his time in class “accompanying” Zhou Li.

The teachers were hesitant to discipline these rich second-generation kids. They usually turned a blind eye to their antics.

Therefore, Gu Changheng skipped classes smoothly.

Uncle Zhao arrived at the school entrance shortly after.

Once Gu Changheng got in the car, Uncle Zhao asked, “Where to, Young Master Gu?”

“The repair shop!” Gu Changheng replied, looking out the window coldly. “We’ll check every repair shop in the city.”

Uncle Zhao asked, “Looking for what?”

“Looking for someone!”

Uncle Zhao drove Gu Changheng from the southern part of the city, stopping at every repair shop along the way. They continued searching from nine in the morning until after five in the afternoon and finally made their way to the northern part of the city.