You Like The Smart Ones? You Should Have Said So Sooner! - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: My Mom Died Here

Qin Mian found an empty stairwell and finally picked up the phone that had been ringing for a long time.

“What is it?” His tone was cold.

Hearing this, the person on the other end exploded instantly. “Qin Mian, is that how you speak to your old man?! If I don’t call you, you’d never think to contact me, would you?! I see your wings have truly grown strong!”

Qin Mian furrowed his brows in annoyance. “Did you call just to scold me? If there’s nothing else, I’m hanging up.”

“You dare! I haven’t finished speaking!” Qin Hongde roared.

“Then say it already!” Qin Mian’s temper flared up as well.

Every time he spoke with Qin Hongde, he lost all patience. The father and son were like mortal enemies; they couldn’t exchange two sentences without a shouting match.

Heavy breathing came from the other end of the line. Qin Hongde was clearly fuming and trying to steady himself.

“I called to ask why you were hospitalized and didn’t even tell me!” Qin Hongde’s voice was stern.

Qin Mian replied icily, “What does my being in the hospital have to do with you?”

“I am your father! How can you ask what it has to do with me? I see you don’t respect me in the slightest!”

“That’s right, I don’t! When have I ever respected you?” Qin Mian shot back directly.

Qin Hongde breathed heavily, starting to bring up old grudges. “Before, I told you to apply for Management majors, and you didn’t! I told you to come to Linjiang, and you didn’t! You insisted on repeating a year and staying in that dump called Dong’an! Are you just doing this to spite me, to show off?!”

Qin Mian couldn’t stand it when Qin Hongde belittled Dong’an City. He was instantly triggered. “Bullsh*t! What do you mean by ‘that dump’? Just because you, a man named Qin, became successful, you look down on the place where you first made your fortune?”

“Don’t you have any idea why I’m staying here and refusing to leave?!”

“My mom died here. I’m not going anywhere! I’m not ungrateful like you!”

Qin Mian screamed into the phone until his voice went hoarse, gasping for air in his fury.

The other end of the line went silent.

The bright afternoon sun poured through the windows into the corridor. A gentle breeze blew through the camphor trees outside, causing the leaves to rustle. The father and son remained in silence, yet neither hung up.

The death of a woman stood between them like an impassable, bottomless chasm.

After an unknown amount of time, the phone crackled again. It was Qin Hongde. However, his voice now carried a heavy exhaustion, sounding like a frail old man. His previous explosive momentum seemed like a mere hallucination.

“I don’t want to talk about this with you. About your hospitalization… how is your health?”

After the question was asked, there was a long delay. Qin Mian gripped his phone, his lips pursed, staring blankly at the floor as if he hadn’t heard the question.

After a long while, a cold, hard voice replied briefly: “Not dead yet.”

Qin Hongde was silent for a moment. He didn’t expect a better answer. He changed the subject: “What about the money? I put money in your card, why haven’t you touched it? How are you paying for school?”

“Don’t need it. My mom left me money,” Qin Mian said succinctly.

Qin Hongde clearly had more to say, but Qin Mian had clearly run out of patience. He cut him off irritably: “Anything else? If not, I’m hanging up. I have class.”

The other side didn’t reply. Seeing this, Qin Mian hung up immediately.

Outside, the cicadas continued their drone and the sun continued to shine, but Qin Mian felt waves of coldness. His body felt like it was rusting; every movement was sluggish. He sat down slowly on the steps, resting his head against the railing.

After a while, Qin Mian’s lips moved slightly. Without looking closely, one wouldn’t even realize he was speaking.

He whispered a tiny, resentful mumble: “Hypocrite!”

On the other side, in Linjiang City.

A man in his thirties, dressed in a business suit like a typical white-collar worker, held a stack of documents and knocked on the Chairman’s door.

No response.

He knocked again. Still no response.

Doubt crept into his mind. Normally, Chairman Qin would be in his office at this hour. He suddenly remembered Qin Hongde’s poor condition over the last few days and a bad premonition arose. He pushed the door open.

In the next moment, his pupils shrank. He rushed forward to support a swaying Qin Hongde.

“President Qin!”

Documents scattered across the floor, but he had no time to care. He quickly helped the man into his chair. Qin Hongde’s face was pale, and his vision was swimming. He sat there for a long time before finally coming to his senses.

“Secretary Chen… thanks to you,” he rasped. At his age, if he had taken a fall just now, there was no telling what damage it would have caused.

Secretary Chen looked worried. “President Qin, you haven’t been in a good state these past few days. You should go to the hospital as soon as possible. You can leave the business matters to me. Why push yourself so hard?”

Qin Hongde waved his hand. “Fine. I understand.”