To Get Married - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Six o’clock in the morning, the sky was still dark.

Lu Yudong, as usual, immediately turned off the alarm on the phone.

It was Manzhu’s phone, and its price… seemed to be only ten or twenty yuan more than what Lu Yudong put on her own meal card for a week, not even a fraction of the cost of her new phone.

The floppy-eared puppy she had hugged to sleep was lying quietly next to her pillow, its fuzzy little head nestled in the crook of her neck, exceptionally soft.

She lifted the puppy high up, forcefully manipulated its tilted neck with her fingers. Seeing that it straightened for less than half a second before leaning back again, she, too, tilted her head, a smile irrepressibly lifting the corners of her mouth.

Manzhu had kept all the best things for her…

After a brief moment of absentmindedness, Lu Yudong turned to look at the still-sleeping Manzhu. Remembering the sweetness of the cake last night, a warmth rushed through her heart.

She quietly climbed out of bed. After gently pulling the blanket to cover the gap for Manzhu, she carefully placed the puppy near Manzhu’s pillow, then walked into the kitchen in the dark.

After Lu Yudong left for school, Manzhu slowly opened her eyes. She reached out her index finger and gently poked the little white dog on her pillow, her beautiful eyes curving into a smile.

After a moment of thought, she picked up her phone and composed a text message.

—Come over at noon and help me with something.

Something was off with Lu Yudong today. The moment she walked into the classroom with a beaming face, Zhang Ziyun noticed it.

After all, since the day she met Lu Yudong, Zhang Ziyun had never seen her look so happy.

In the past two days, the irritating boys led by Yang Kunpeng had become increasingly verbally abusive. Especially after they were punished by the P.E. teacher yesterday afternoon, they held a grudge, gathering together during every break to speak sarcastically, afraid that people wouldn’t hear their petty comments.

Zhang Ziyun thought if she were Lu Yudong, her composure would have cracked long ago.

Yet, Lu Yudong had gone home dejected last night, but this morning, she was not only fully revived but unusually vibrant.

What was going on?

Like someone sits up in shock on their deathbed, burning their calories?

“It makes no sense, Lu Yudong. Did you take the wrong medicine today?”

Faced with Zhang Ziyun’s confusion, Lu Yudong just smiled without answering.

The four classes in the morning dragged on incredibly slowly. Lu Yudong constantly glanced at the clock above the blackboard, finally hearing the dismissal bell ring.

The moment the teacher announced the end of class and walked out, she stood up and said to Zhang Ziyun, “I have to leave campus for a bit. I won’t be eating with you today. See you this afternoon.”

Zhang Ziyun was stunned. She looked up at the standing Lu Yudong. “Where are you going?”

Lu Yudong pulled her new cell phone out of her backpack. The usually reserved child had a rare, joyous hint of showing off in her eyes. “It’s a birthday present from my Elder Sister. She’s picking me up today to take me to get a SIM card.”

It was a gift from Manzhu!

“Birthday? Is it your birthday today?” Zhang Ziyun stood up and asked.

Lu Yudong narrowed her eyes and smiled. “It was yesterday.”

“You didn’t tell me!” Zhang Ziyun frowned, putting on an unhappy expression.

“I was wrong. Can’t you forgive me if I apologize?” Lu Yudong grabbed Zhang Ziyun’s hand and gently shook it.

Zhang Ziyun pouted. “Fine, fine. Hurry up and go. Don’t keep your sister waiting.”

“Bye.” Lu Yudong answered, put on her backpack, and was about to leave when Yang Kunpeng snatched her phone away.

“Oh! Lu Yudong, who couldn’t afford a meal a while ago, can afford a phone now?” Yang Kunpeng looked down at it and feigned surprise. “And it’s the latest model, over three thousand four hundred yuan!”

Lu Yudong reached out to grab it back but couldn’t reach it, her eyes quickly filling with anger.

“Just looking at it, why are you so excited?” Yang Kunpeng shouted. “Your sister must have worked pretty hard to buy you this phone, huh?”

The classmates who hadn’t left the room yet all turned their attention to them.

Zhang Ziyun was so angry that she slammed her hand on the table and stood up. “Are you sick?”

“What, you won’t let me tell the truth? What are Lu Yudong’s family circumstances? She has to split one meal into two and doesn’t have a single penny for pocket money. How can she afford a phone? It must be that her sister found a new client recently and could make some quick cash, right?”

As Yang Kunpeng said that, the few boys who had been punished yesterday burst into laughter, their voices particularly grating.

These boys were the bottom of the class academically. They didn’t know how to do anything else but gang up and bully classmates. They had focused on an introverted boy a while ago, and recently they had targeted the non-retaliating Lu Yudong.

Zhang Ziyun was furious. She looked back and glared at Zhang Hao, who was watching from the side.

Zhang Hao flinched, instinctively wanting to help, but suddenly lost his courage, thinking he might be ostracized by the group.

For a moment, the boys passed the phone around, running in circles around the empty desks, refusing to return it to the desperately chasing Lu Yudong.

“Your sister is earning ill-gotten money in a disreputable place! Why are you pretending? Don’t you know if your money is clean or not?”

“Why are you so angry? Did we hit a nerve? Tsk, so fragile.” The boy holding the phone laughed loudly.

The next second, his laughter abruptly ceased, replaced by a cry of agony.

His wrist was tightly twisted. The sudden pain even brought tears to his eyes.

The person who acted snatched the phone from the boy’s fingers, handed it back to Lu Yudong, and then, with amusement, asked the boy, “Why are you crying? Did I hit a nerve? Tsk, tsk, so fragile.”

The fragile little brat gasped in pain, trying to break free, but the harder he pulled, the more it hurt. He started yelling curses.

Zhang Ziyun was speechless with astonishment.

Lu Yudong opened her mouth in surprise. “Little Uncle Mu…”

“Who are you!” Yang Kunpeng and the other bullies were all shocked.

“Me? I’m the owner of the bar you’re talking about,” Mu Chensan said, releasing the boy, who was still crying in pain. He critically scanned the few little brats in front of him, then asked pointedly, “Was it you guys who said my place is disreputable? Do you little brats have excrement poured into your brains, and you only feel comfortable after spewing it out of your mouths?”

“Isn’t that true? Is a bar a reputable place?” Yang Kunpeng shouted.

“You seem to know a lot. Have you been there?” Mu Chensan countered flippantly.

Yang Kunpeng was about to retort when someone tugged his sleeve from behind and whispered in his ear, “Look at his neck…”

Alerted, Yang Kunpeng immediately noticed a nasty scar on the man’s neck, extending from just below the left ear and disappearing under his collar. It was impossible to tell how large the area was.

A man with long hair, a scar on his neck, who owns a bar… Could this be one of those guys who runs with the gangs?

“We… we were just playing a joke on Lu Yudong, just a joke…”

“A joke, you say?”

“Yes, yes, a joke!”

“That’s great. I love playing jokes without restraint.” Mu Chensan said, cracking his knuckles, which sounded like snapping bones, making him look like an unreasonable thug.

The children instantly panicked, not daring to speak.

Just as the atmosphere solidified, a calm voice drifted from outside the classroom. “The children are ignorant, and their families haven’t taught them. Why bother arguing with them?”

Lu Yudong looked in the direction of the voice. Manzhu was standing at the classroom door, smiling faintly at her. “Yudong, let’s go.”

Yang Kunpeng saw Lu Yudong leave with the woman and assumed the “Little Uncle” would follow, but the man had no intention of leaving. He simply tapped the desk with his finger and said indifferently, “No one leaves. Write down your names.”

The few children exchanged terrified glances. Could this be a hit list?

After leaving the school gate, Lu Yudong looked up at Manzhu, worried. “What will Little Uncle Mu do to my classmates?”

“Do you really think he’s in a gang?” Manzhu asked with a smile.

Lu Yudong was confused. “Then why did he ask for their names?”

Manzhu: “Bullying classmates at school should, of course, be handled by the homeroom teacher.”