Chapter 10
Most of the people around her were oblivious to the fact that she was transferring schools for Li Che from start to finish, let alone paying such a large sum of money for her early.
Obviously, this was not what Wen Ning wanted.
For an enrollment qualification alone, the two of them had made an equal exchange in that unspoken deal, but she had never mentioned the tuition matter, nor had she ever asked for his help. Once he had overpaid for him, the first thing she wondered was what she could give in return.
It didn’t matter what you owed, but it wasn’t the same with a favor.
Though the expense would certainly be a strain for Wenning today, she had never thought of covering the bill in such a way.
At that moment, Wen Ning was filled with the thought that she must be returning this sum of money to Zhou Yinchu as early as possible, but the next words she heard from the staff of Xin’an International made her mind spin.
“Your child’s tuition for the next four years has been paid in one lump sum,” the staff member personally escorted them down to the administration building, “Miss Wen, thank you for your recognition and support of our school.”
One hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year, she could barely pay it back nowadays.
How could someone pay for the entire elementary school stage at once?
That was a whole 720,000, she didn’t say she would take it out in one go, even if she took out her grandmother’s old raggedy house in the countryside and sold it, she might not be able to come up with this astronomical figure.
In fact, there is no need to think deeply, some people must be intentional.
Wen Ning’s throat was almost unable to make a sound, facing the teacher of her child’s future school still had to bargain stiffly: “Okay, thank you.”
The young student who stood in place and was suddenly admitted had a few moments of uncertainty.
Li Che also had a few moments of excitement in the depths of his eyes that he couldn’t hide, “Mom, I’m actually not quite sure why the school chose to accept me again in the end?”
With the same teaching environment, there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think about his dad at his own school, missing those times when they met during recess but pretended not to know each other.
At that time he didn’t want anyone to find out he was Mr. Li’s son at all, he didn’t want his classmates to think he was some kind of relation.
At that time he did not dare to call him “Dad” in the office crowded with grade math teachers.
But now, he did not even have the qualifications to call him “Dad”.
More than once, he wanted to get out of there.
When he stayed there, he always pretended not to care about his father’s death, but even though he wanted to forget, his classmates would always mention the dead Mr. Li after dinner.
Some teachers would show excessive care for him.
In fact, these care falls on his side, and how can not be familiar with his classmates noticed, they will say, he is a child without a father.
Even though he was still at the top of his class and did his best to be friendly to his classmates, the voices behind his back never stopped.
Boys who played pranks on him would be shouted at by his parents.
— “Do you know that people don’t have dads anymore?”
But not having a father doesn’t mean that he’s inherently weaker than other kids; they could have just blamed the boy for the mistakes he made, so why suddenly bring up the fact that he doesn’t have a father?
Just because he didn’t have a father didn’t mean that one day he wouldn’t become a man like his father.
Li Che stifled his voice and easily chose to forgive in front of the other’s reluctant apology. Going back, he didn’t tell his mom, he felt that his widowed mother was already vulnerable enough, what she needed should be protected, not to go through wild storms over and over again.
So he’d thought about running away, and more than once the idea of changing schools had occurred to him, but lest it affect his mother’s mood, he’d kept it to himself.
At the moment, his mother stood in the warmth and warmth of the sun, directly in front of him, pulling him to the new school of his dreams.
She told him verbatim, “You are the best baby in the whole world, if they don’t accept you as their student, then they must be very discerning.”
Li Che’s eyes were still not quite sure about being able to enroll in the school, as if a huge pie in the sky had suddenly fallen on his head.
He suspiciously asked one more question, “But before, wasn’t I clearly rejected?”
Wen Ning took out his long-prepared reply, “I let your Aunt He, who works in a foreign company, find a company executive to rewrite a letter of recommendation for you.”
“Then I’ll have to thank Aunt He properly afterward.”
The naïve Li Che was convinced of her words, while the weak-minded Wen Ning was still pondering on the way to refund the tuition fees, one moment first searching the internet on how to get back the prepaid tuition fees, and the next moment thinking about how to contact Zhou Yinchu for the refund of the fees; however, she also found out another tricky thing, contacting Zhou Yinchu became her top priority.
She thought that after the incident, their relationship would come to an end.
However, just the four-year tuition fee for the International Primary School Department had easily bound them back together.
The tuition was more than likely not refundable for the first three years, and she simply couldn’t afford to take out the entire four years; the most conventional way to do it would be for her to pay the one back personally, year after year.
She had thought that an all-or-nothing encounter from then on became impractical.
Soon, a not-so-glamorous thought flashed through her mind. Winnin was ashamed of that thought and thought she could never be that kind of woman.
An exchange that happened once was considered fresh, and if it continued for a long period of time, even she couldn’t guarantee that Zhou Yinchu wouldn’t get tired of her.
In the long run, it would only make Zhou Yinchu look down on himself even more.
She remembered the string of numbers she hadn’t touched in a long time, out of a sense of experimentation, but also guessed that some people who had been abroad for so many years would be unlikely to use the same number when they returned home.
Wenning watched as her child boarded the school’s special bus.
Li Che occasional trance also finally once again revealed a look of uncertainty, waving desperately towards her out of the car window, after the response, Wen Ning struggled to send a text message to the number that may have long been out of service:
[You paid for four years of tuition?
The number that had been dusty in her imagination for a long time suddenly gave a timely response: [Uh-huh.
Wenning: [Can you withdraw that money? You’ll be the one to initiate it if you can apply for the convenience of returning it the way it was. I’d like to pay it myself at each year’s rate.]
156521***34: [Don’t want to bother.]
Wenning: [Then what do you want, me to send you money at a fixed point in time every year?]
156521***34: [Are you sure you’re asking me what I want?]]
This message was quite playful, Wen Ning could almost imagine the sin-filled smiling face behind the text message, having to use the most mesmerizing face in the depths of youth to tell the words of the sinister heart.
156521***34: [See you on Friday.]
The desired thing, without having to say it explicitly, has been shamelessly put in the open by the man, in fact, this matter has the first time, it is difficult to ensure that there is no second time. Wen Ning hindsight to feel that they have been for the man pinch, this love she had to bear.
The most simple and effective way to return the favor is to sell your soul.
Simple and rough, but effective.
At this moment, she was sure that she wanted to find Zhou Yinchu nowadays to have a good time, she didn’t mind using some curse words that she had never used before, to greet this man who was so high and mighty in his eyes.
But then she realized that people simply wouldn’t go along with her continued drama.
The game of pulling back and forth was not something they hadn’t experienced in earlier years when they were on campus, and now, these conventions and childish tricks had become out of place.
Wen Ning is more clear than anyone else, the next text message, no matter what she said, he may not return.
It is useless to be self-centered.
Zhou Yinchu stared at the cell phone screen for a long time, flipping through the chat box between the two of them, if not unexpected, the last chat ended fifteen years ago.
At that time, he was using what should have been a folding Samsung.
He’d bought it randomly when he was out on a school trip and remembered giving her another color of this one, cherry blossom pink. But she felt that the black color in her hand had a better texture, and she had to exchange it with him.
How could a man use that girly color, not to mention was he going to be embarrassed at school.
It wasn’t going to happen.
He wouldn’t, so she tossed and turned for half a month without speaking to him.
In the end, he compromised and went for customized cases in other colors, ceding the black phone he was holding. She wasn’t grateful for that, “You’ve been using it for so long, give it to me when it’s no longer fresh, I don’t care for it.”
He was confused, but happy that she was willing to talk to him.
In the past, her bright side and now looks the same as all the edges, bubbling with naive stupidity, always give a person a kind of temperamentless illusion.
But when he peeled back that shell, he was the only one who had ever appreciated how much she was, how easily she could get angry, jealous, and upset, but he couldn’t deny how much those emotions tugged at him, and how much he was willing to modify his own boundaries and lower his norms even though he knew where his own boundaries were- until she had to pay a small fortune for her services, and then he was happy that she was willing to talk to him.
Until she chose to leave herself completely for a small, insignificant sum of money.
It annihilated his teenage spirit in an instant.
He realized that he had probably never mattered in her mind, and his mother had taken great pains to tell him that a hundred thousand dollars would be enough to buy him out, showing how worthless his feelings were.
Even though he would have been separated from her for half a month then, he still retorted for that:
“Not everyone has all this wealth like you,” the teenager no longer deliberately collected himself, “What I hate the most is that some rich people are excessively boring, testing the humanity in others at every turn.”
“Yinchu, don’t you get it now?”
“That girl doesn’t like you at all, even if she’s with you, she’s only doing it for the sake of your family’s money ……,” his mother’s words ringing in his ears, like the dullest of the dullest of sharps used to hurt people in the mist of the breaking dawn.
He ran away from home on that rainy day: “So what if you’re interested in my money?”
“When you were with my father, Grandpa was in the same situation, didn’t you see my father’s money?”
His strict mother gave him a heavy slap.
He left in anger.
High-minded and proud, but he did not allow himself to see the woman who dumped him with half a swollen face.
In the past it was uncontrollable, the underage man had no possibility of taking everything into his hands, but now, the situation was completely different.
He looked at the message dialog page that had not responded for a long time, and took a break from his usual emotions to add, back to his words, [The usual place.]