Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 11: Calm Before the Storm

Lu Qi stared at her with a pair of darkened eyes, and did not say anything.
Lu Yuan couldn’t help herself and laughed out loud, using a finger to poke him on the forehead.

“Oh you! Stop trying to think of ways to scam money out of us.
A man must be strong by himself.
Mom said that I can’t secretly slip you anything, in case you fool around.”

“I never planned on asking mom for money.
If I have to suffer, then I will suffer as a man.
Just take care of yourself.”

Their father had passed away early and both of them were raised entirely by their mother.
As she grew older, her health began to deteriorate and the entire family became dependent on her retirement pension.

Lu Yuan was not bad at studying.
Her leaving straight for the workforce after high school was partially because she wanted to try to succeed, to rise up, while the other part was in order to feed her family.
It seems glamorous, but no one knew about the pain of her struggling by herself out in the world, away from her family.

The two of them idly talked for a bit before Lu Yuan checked her phone for the time and discovered that 3 hours had already passed.

“Ack, it’s getting late.
I have to go.”

Lu Qi stood up and picked up her work bag full of papers.

“Let’s go, I’ll walk you.”

“Alright.
I’m going to be heading to the airport with my boss.
He’s nearby, in a hotel to talk about business.
It’s not that far from here.”

Lu Yuan smiled and hooked her hand around Lu Qi’s arm, with her head resting on his shoulder.
Her voice was filled with a bit of regret,

“I meant to go back home for New Year’s last year, but who could have expected that the secretary of our big boss would get fired.
I somehow got promoted to her spot, and there were so many people eyeing my position with jealousy.
I didn’t dare take a holiday.”

Lu Qi listened to her babbling, and didn’t feel annoyed.

“How is your boss? If it’s hard, endure it for a few more years.
Once I graduate, I’ll take care of you.”

“If you could manage it.
It would be enough for me if I no longer need to take care of you.”

Lu Yuan remembered something then and her eyes looked distant,

“I was actually a regular employee at another small company.
Some things happened and by coincidence, I helped my current boss with a big favor.
He recruited me into his company, otherwise there’d be no way I could get in with my education.
What he is like, I won’t judge, but he’s alright to me.”

The two of them walked and talked all the way to the hotel entrance.
Lu Qi looked at the hotel’s extravagant entrance way and thought that Lu Yuan’s boss must have a lot of money.

He gave the work bag back to Lu Yuan,

“Then I’ll just stop here.
Make sure to take care of yourself.”

“Mhmm.
You too.”

Lu Yuan walked to the entrance, and turned her head around.
She saw Lu Qi still standing at the door, and she felt her heart soften.
She smiled, running back to hug him and said elongating her syllables,

“Big brotherrr~”

She rarely experienced the feeling of being the younger sister, and didn’t say anything other than this.
Lu Qi patted her head, voice extremely gentle,

“Be good.
Once you get paid, remember to send some money to your brother.”

Lu Yuan immediately changed her attitude, and angrily pushed him,

“Your personality never changes! I’m leaving now.”

Lu Qi laughed in delight.
No matter if it was in this life or the previous one, he had very few memories where he was truly happy.
This kind of bright and handsome youth drew in the gazes of random passersby like moths to a flame.
Yet this scene, in someone’s eyes, stung.

“Ming Chen, what do you keep looking at outside? Are you listening to what I’m saying to you?”

The Huo family dinner was at a nearby hotel, and traffic was jammed.
Cars were moving very slowly, and with one random glance outside the window, Huo Ming Chen could see a very familiar face.

Lu Qi was walking with a beautiful woman.
Kissing and hugging.
Both of them had smiles on their faces, and their background was a hotel.
It was hard not to imagine that something was going on between the two.

Huo Ming Chen’s eyes began to darken with some kind of emotion.
His eyes stayed on Lu Yuan’s seductive and attractive face for a very long time.
But then the driver began to move the car, and their bodies began to disappear from his sight, as if it was just a mirage.

Somehow Huo Ming Chen was able to control himself and did not immediately get out of the car and murder those two fucking adulterers.

He replied to his older brother,

“Not looking at anything.”

He closed his eyes, and was unusually quiet.
However the surging dark aura emitting from him and the veins popping from his forehead made Huo Ming Cheng sense something.

“I know you don’t want to go for dinner, but it’s rare for our uncle to come back.
We still have to show some respect and show up.”

“I know.”

Huo Ming Chen only said this one sentence for the rest of the ride.
His entire person was like a ticking time bomb.
A random word, a random event could set him off.

Oblivious to everything, Lu Qi went to the bank to take out the money in the card.
With everything that he had saved up till now, he discovered he could pretty much pay back his debt.

Once he realized that, he suddenly felt lighter.
It was as if he was finally cured of a long-standing heart problem.
A feeling of no longer being in debt, a feeling of freedom.
He called the unfortunate loan shark to set up a meeting to return the money.
The loan shark was so happy that he almost cried, and stuttered his words,

“Yes, yes yes, I have time this weekend.
At that time, I’ll bring all the pieces of identification that you gave and the debt slip.
I must say, a student from a well known university, is definitely stronger than people like me, so fast at earning money…….”

Lu Qi did not listen to what he was babbling on and on about.
He hung up the phone, and began to seriously think about something for the first time.