Liang Shi turned to the two children and asked, "Do you want to go eat or play?"
Rainbow put down her book first. "Sister Liang, can I have both?"
"You're so greedy," Bell paused the cartoon and said dismissively.
"Then you don't want it?" Rainbow asked back.
Lingdang was silent for two seconds, then looked at Liang Shi with a sweet smile, "Auntie, I want to eat something first before I play."
Rainbow: "..."
She sighed helplessly.
Liang Shi looked at Lingdang, who was leaning her head close to his, patted her head, and readily agreed, "Okay."
She then asked Rainbow for her opinion, to which Rainbow replied nonchalantly, "Anything is fine."
The bell scoffed.
The two children don't seem to get along.
Liang Shi had heard Lingdang mention it before; it seemed that Lingdang was hostile towards Rainbow because the little boy she liked liked Rainbow.
However, Rainbow was still immersed in his own little science fiction world, acting like a little adult, and didn't understand Bell's inexplicable hostility at all.
However, when it came time to eat, Liang Shi still whispered to Lingdang, "Rainbow is my aunt's friend's child, you can't bully her."
“I didn’t,” Bell said proudly. “I didn’t even lift a finger.”
Liang Shi: "..."
She clenched her fist and waved it in front of the bell, "If you dare to lay a hand on me, I'll beat you up."
Lingdang pouted, "Auntie, you're being unfair."
Liang Shi: "I'm teaching you that you can't target other children."
“Shen Yiran stopped playing with me because of her.” Lingdang’s eyes welled up with tears as she spoke. “She even said she wanted to transfer to Zhou Caihong’s class, sob sob sob.”
Liang Shi: "...?"
“She said she’d transfer classes, but her mom might not necessarily let her,” Liang Shi reassured her. “Besides, you don’t only have Shen Yiran as a good friend; you can also be good friends with Rainbow.”
"I don't want to!" Lingdang said angrily. "She actually said that 'Rabbit Doesn't Cry' is a childish cartoon."
Liang Shi: "..."
Having never dealt with such a childish conflict before, Liang Shi felt quite troubled. She pressed her temples and immediately changed the subject, letting the matter drop.
She chose to let nature take its course.
She still ate fast food with her two children.
The original plan was to eat Cantonese food, but Bell said she didn't like soup, so Rainbow suggested she wanted a hamburger.
Faced with the two children's pitiful, pleading eyes, Liang Shi had absolutely no judgment.
I drove to McDonald's almost in a daze.
The shop was quiet and not crowded at the moment.
The entire floor had only two tables where people were chatting, and another table where people were working diligently on their laptops, which was quite relaxed.
Rainbow politely put the book down and then asked Liang Shi, "Sister Liang, what do you need Teacher Qi for?"
"Just saying hello," Liang Shi replied. "We've known each other before."
Rainbow frowned, looking conflicted.
"What's wrong?" Liang Shi asked. "What do you want to say?"
Rainbow thought for a moment, then beckoned Liang Shi to come closer.
“Ms. Qi was absent from work on Monday and Tuesday,” Rainbow said in a low voice. “We had PE class on Wednesday, and I saw that Ms. Qi’s knees… were purple.”
"Also, she has very serious marks on her back. I accidentally patted her back before, and..."
At this point, Rainbow felt very guilty and said dejectedly, "Was Teacher Qi bullied by bad people?"
Liang Shi frowned, unsure how to explain this to the children, so he could only say perfunctorily, "I'm not sure yet, I'll ask Teacher Qi later."
Rainbow nodded.
Liang Shi then asked, "Has Teacher Qi ever had this kind of wound before?"
Rainbow thought about it carefully, "In April of this year, she took half a month off. When she came back, she was limping. I heard from the teachers that she had sprained her ankle while climbing the mountain. But I also saw her applying medicine to her knee that time, which looked similar to the wound she has now."
Because Rainbow is smart, and Zhou Li is often too busy to pick her up, she spends more time with her teacher than other children and gets to know her better.
Liang Shi asked Rainbow some more questions, but after all, he was still a child and didn't know much.
But even just these things sound terrifying enough.
This means that Qi Jiao had been enduring domestic violence from Mrs. Qi.
It really reached the point where a criminal sentence could be imposed.
After hearing this, Liang Shi felt a tightness in his chest. He took out his phone to send a text message to Qi Jiao, but he didn't know what to say.
The words Mrs. Qi had used to threaten her were still echoing in her ears.
Sending this text message might not affect her personally, but Qi Jiao will still be threatened by Mrs. Qi.
Liang Shi then gave up.
She texted Xu Qingzhu, asking what she wanted to eat that night, and also told her that she was bringing a child home that evening.
Xu Qingzhu quickly replied: 【I'll eat whatever the kids eat.】
Liang Shi smiled at the reply and tapped the screen: 【Okay, you're just like a kid.】
Xu Qingzhu: [?]
A few seconds later, Xu Qingzhu posted: "Teacher Liang, I feel like you're subtly criticizing me."
Liang Shi immediately replied, "How could that be?"
— Be confident, and let go of your feelings.
Xu Qingzhu: [Furious.jpg]
Liang Shi: [Just kidding, Professor Xu, please continue with your work.]
Xu Qingzhu: [It's almost time to leave work. Teacher Liang is having a great time skipping work.]
Liang Shi: [It's alright, after all, compared to Teacher Xu, I'm just a salted fish...]
Xu Qingzhu: [Helping your boss take care of their child is also a job; Teacher Liang is essentially passionate about her work.]
Liang Shi: [...]
In the area of sarcastic remarks, she lost.
Liang Shi smiled and turned off the screen, only to see Lingdang pouting, looking unhappy.
"What's wrong?" Liang Shi put the fries in front of her, but Lingdang crossed her arms and refused to eat, so Liang Shi dipped some ketchup in them and fed them to her.
Bell said angrily, "Hmph, I don't want to know your little secrets!"
Liang Shi: "..."
She smiled helplessly, her smile full of affection, but she teased Lingdang with her words: "Then you shouldn't know our little secret, okay?"
Bell's eyes widened, like two glowing black grapes, but she ate the fries that were offered to her.
Liang Shi wiped his hands, then casually pinched her cheek.
Suddenly, Lingdang looked out the window and excitedly patted Rainbow on the shoulder, "Isn't that someone from your class?"
Rainbow followed her gaze and nodded: "Yes, it's Su Yu."
“Isn’t it Sheng Yu?” Lingdang frowned. “I heard Shen Yiran say that’s her name.”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “She introduced herself as Su Yu.”
Upon hearing the name Su Yu, Liang Shi subconsciously touched the silver bracelet on his wrist and immediately turned his head to look. He saw that a man and a woman had already pushed open the door of McDonald's and walked in.
The woman wore a dark blue trench coat, light-colored jeans that visually lengthened her legs by several centimeters, and eight-centimeter stilettos. She had long, brown curly hair, wore sunglasses, and held the hand of a beautifully sculpted little child in one hand. She then walked straight to the counter to order, her voice crisp and clear, "One Set Meal A."
"Hello, would you like to eat here or take away?" the waiter asked.
"Take him away," the woman said.
Liang Shi stared intently at her profile, while the woman crouched down to look at the child beside her, smoothing the wind-blown hair and whispering, "You can only drink half a cup of cola, understand?"
The beautifully sculpted child nodded, then pointed in their direction and asked, "Mommy, can I go say hello to my classmate?"
The woman suddenly looked in Liang Shi's direction and their eyes met.
Liang Shi immediately looked down at her phone. The screen displayed the photo she had just found: a red carpet photo of Su Yao winning the Outstanding New Designer award more than 20 years ago.
Although the person in front of me has the marks of time on their face, their features remain as they were before.
Suddenly, Lingdang said, "Auntie, she looks just like my aunt!"
Liang Shi's breath hitched.
Qi Jiao once told Liang Shi that Su Yu came from a single-parent family and that her mother's name was Su Mu.
Chapter 65
Liang Shi's right hand caressed the silver bracelet on his left wrist. The bracelet had intricate patterns, and his fingertips could feel its texture.
It is clearly a silver ornament that is out of step with the times, but it still looks elegant and beautiful.
Even her colleagues in the office praised her bracelet, saying it was more exquisite than many silver ornaments available today.
It is a very exquisite old-fashioned handicraft.
Silver jewelry becomes brighter and more lustrous the more it is worn and polished.
The bracelet looked much brighter on Liang Shi's wrist than before.
Even though she and the woman were face to face, the woman still didn't take off her sunglasses, only nodding slightly at her.