The next moment, Yan Sheng's eyes widened suddenly, and a look of confusion appeared in his clear pupils—Yan Shenyu had actually stuffed a piece of pastry into his mouth.
The next moment, the boy's cheerful voice rang out: "Since it's poisonous, then I'll just have to make you die with me."
How dare he?!
Yan Sheng opened his mouth to refuse, but the latter took advantage of the situation and stuffed the pastry into his mouth.
Yan Sheng held a piece of pastry in her mouth, unsure whether to swallow it or spit it out, and finally swallowed it all in humiliation.
The person who started it was still laughing, and while laughing, asked him, "Want more?"
"I don't want to!" Yan Sheng said angrily, pushing Yan Shenyu out of the room.
“Oh right, I forgot to tell you,” Yan Shenyu’s cheerful voice came from outside the door, “I didn’t wash my hands after using the toilet, and the hand I used to feed you happened to be the dirty one.”
Yan Sheng: "..."
Get out of here!
Yan Shenyu left, satisfied with the gift Yan Sheng had given him, and went downstairs.
Separated by a wall, Yan Sheng pressed her hands behind the door, her eyes reddening with excitement.
In fact, the gift he gave Yan Shenyu was not a pastry or local specialty, but a beautiful Suzhou embroidery.
But recalling what the other person said on the phone, and their deliberate teasing earlier, Yan Sheng angrily stuffed Su Xiu into the bottom of the wardrobe.
He absolutely refused to give this to Yan Shenyu! That man was utterly wicked and didn't deserve such a carefully chosen gift at all!!
Downstairs, Yan Shenyu ate beef rice noodles while looking at the "Loving Family" group that had been blocked. It turned out that Yan Sheng had arrived in the afternoon, and he had joined the group three days ago, even sending him a WeChat friend request.
Yan Shenyu accepted the request and sent a random emoji, but the other party did not reply.
Yan Shenyu didn't take it to heart and started replying to other messages.
He wasn't too afraid of becoming cannon fodder because of Yan Sheng's return. He believed that the future was determined by his current actions, not by unfounded assumptions.
His principle in dealing with people is to first show kindness. If others reciprocate with kindness, he will continue to treat them well; if others reciprocate with malice, he will not sit idly by.
So far, he has received positive responses to the olive branches he extended to Yan Sheng. Therefore, he will not harbor any hostility towards her, at least not for the time being.
Moreover, Yan Sheng's return would be far more beneficial than harmful to him; at least he could ask Yan Zhengang to let him move out. He couldn't believe that Yan Zhengang wouldn't agree to such a huge favor after he had done him so much.
...
The following morning, at breakfast, a rare occasion for the Yan family to gather together, Yan Shenyu once again raised her need to move out.
Yan Zhengang remained silent for a moment.
Yan Sheng, sitting next to him, tightened his grip on his chopsticks, a sudden wave of disappointment washing over him. Yan Shenyu really didn't like him; otherwise, why would she have been so eager to move out the very first day he returned?
After a while, Yan Zheng spoke, no longer as resistant as before, and his tone softened: "You really don't want to live at home anymore?"
Yan Shenyu: "It's more convenient to live alone."
Yan Zhengang: "Then I'll think about it."
Yan Shenyu said "Oh" and said indifferently, "It's okay if you don't agree. I'm just informing you."
"You—" Yan Zhengang's temper, which he had barely managed to suppress, exploded again. He slammed his chopsticks on the table and said angrily, "Are you trying to drive me crazy? Yan Sheng just got back and you can't wait to move out!"
"I didn't do it on purpose, it just happened to be the same time," Yan Shenyu said, her eyes wide and looking at him innocently. "I told you before that you wouldn't let me move, and you insisted on making sure it was after Yan Sheng came back. Now look what happened, Yan Sheng has misunderstood again."
Yan Zhengang: "..."
It seems that's indeed the case...
"I'm fine," Yan Sheng forced a smile. His skin and lips were pale, and his smile was as fragile as a snowflake in winter. "If Shenyu wants to move, then she can."
Receiving his support, Yan Shenyu quickly looked up and smiled at him, "Thank you, Second Brother."
Yan Zhengang was still unhappy. He couldn't understand why Yan Shenyu had left, and he also felt sorry for Yan Sheng, who had just returned.
However, before he could express his opinion, Yan Yu, who had been silent all along, spoke up: "Dad, I also want to move out."
? ?
Yan Zhengang raised his eyebrows: "What are you moving this time?"
“Dad,” Yan Yu put down his chopsticks, a hint of helplessness appearing on his usually stern face, “I’ll be thirty next year, and I need to start thinking about my personal life.”
"So what?" Yan Zhengang asked, puzzled. "Our house is so big, it's not like there's no room for you. When you get married and have kids, your wife will have plenty of space to walk in."
Imagining that scene, Yan Yu suddenly felt suffocated. He wanted to say something in his defense, but Yan Weiwei next to him also put down her chopsticks.
The next moment, the girl looked up, her face serious: "Dad, I want to live at school next semester."
? ?
Yan Zhengang was completely stunned, his eyes widening like saucers: "Which boarding school did you live in during high school?"
Yan Weiwei looked impatient, but patiently explained, "I'm going to be a senior in high school soon, so it's convenient for me to review."
Yan Zhengang: "..."
Yan Shenyu: "Dad, I'll move first."
Yan Yu: "Dad, I will be living at the Yan Mansion from now on."
Yan Weiwei: "Dad, I'm going to summer camp this summer. We'll move after school starts."
The buzzing sound kept ringing in his ears, and Yan Zhengang could no longer hold back, shouting angrily, "What are you moving?! Don't move any of it out!!"
Breakfast ended amidst Yan Zhengang's furious outburst.
"Why did you two betray me?" Yan Shenyu was speechless. He cornered the two siblings in the restaurant, indignant. "I was the one who first suggested moving out. I wanted to move out even before Yan Sheng came back. Now that I finally have the chance to live on my own, you two have gone crazy too. Now look what happened, the old man has completely lost it."
Yan Yu said slowly and deliberately, "I'm just stating my needs."
After all, his position in the Yan family is now secure, and he no longer needs to curry favor with the old man.
Yan Shenyu felt that he was deliberately causing trouble: "You've been living here for 30 years and you've endured it for the past 30 years. Why can't you hold back now?"
"Please understand me," Yan Yu said calmly, his face still expressionless. "I am a man who is almost thirty years old, and I also need my own private life."
Yan Shenyu: "What private life?"
Yan Yu: "For example, bringing a woman home for the night."
Yan Shenyu: "Then bring him home. Isn't Dad looking forward to your marriage?"
Yan Yu gave him a look that said, "What nonsense are you talking about? How could I possibly bring that kind of woman home?"
Yan Shenyu: ? ?
Do you act all serious at home, but actually turn out to be a complete jerk outside?
Unable to reason with Yan Yu, Yan Shenyu turned to Yan Weiwei: "And what about you? Why do you suddenly want to live at school? I know you often skip classes, don't try to fool me with that nonsense about needing to study hard."
Yan Weiwei wasn't angry when she was caught skipping class. She explained in a serious manner, looking exactly like Ms. Xu Jingshu: "I'll be a senior next semester, and living at school will make physical training easier."
Yan Shenyu: "I remember your dad didn't allow you to study sports, right?"
Yan Yu frowned and said unhappily, "Why should a girl learn sports?"
To be honest, Yan Yu completely misunderstood Yan Weiwei's career path. A perfectly fine rich girl, yet she insisted on building up a muscular physique and associating with those sweaty, impoverished people from the countryside. Her father only didn't interfere because he doted on her, and as her stepbrother, he couldn't really intervene. If Yan Weiwei were his daughter, he would have given her a good beating and forbade her from doing so long ago.
These words immediately infuriated Yan Weiwei, who retorted, "Why can't girls learn sports?"
"What can a girl do after studying sports? Become a PE teacher? Become a gym coach?" Yan Yu said coldly. "Think about it yourself, what job is respectable for someone who studies sports?"
Yan Weiwei: "But Olympic champions also studied sports!"
"Olympic champion?" Yan Yu sneered. "Who are you? You can bring glory to the country, but can you win an Olympic gold medal?"
Yan Weiwei retorted, "Then I'll show it to you!"
“Anyway, you’re not allowed to move now,” Yan Yu said coldly. “If you want to move, you have to wait until I move out first, otherwise I’ll tell Dad that you’re keeping it a secret from him that you’re a sports student.”
"Who's afraid of who? Go ahead and tell him!" Yan Weiwei put one foot on a chair, revealing her well-defined muscles beneath her pleated skirt. "I'll turn around and tell Dad you're messing around with other women!"
Yan Yu: "You—"
Yan Weiwei: "Hmph!"
Yan Shenyu: "..."
Alright, alright, you two can argue all you want. It would be best if you started fighting. A small fight every three days, a big fight every five days, that way your father won't dare put you two in the same cage anymore.
Yan Shenyu, thoroughly annoyed by the torment, clapped his hands and turned to leave.
Regardless of what their relationship is like, his moving is a done deal.
After considering her assets, Yan Shenyu decided to buy a house and move in. Although Xu Jingshu said he could live in her CBD apartment, it wasn't her own property, and she didn't feel very secure. She worried that if they fell out and she was kicked out, or coerced into doing something, it would be a huge loss.
Yan Shenyu started looking at houses online. He thought he could finish in one morning, but he spent the whole day looking and got dizzy without finding a house he liked.
Although he had a lot of money, the housing prices in Beijing were too inflated. He looked down on ordinary houses, and he couldn't afford the top-tier luxury mansions that cost nine figures.
Yan Shenyu is not particular about anything else. He rarely buys luxury goods and has little need for things like private jets and yachts. The only thing he cannot compromise on is housing. After all, he only plays around with other things occasionally, but home is where he spends every day.
Buying an unfurnished apartment and letting the smell dissipate after renovation would take at least a year and a half, and Yan Shenyu didn't want to wait that long, so he turned his attention to fully furnished large apartments.
Although fully furnished apartments come with everything, the aesthetic sense of developers these days is hard to describe.
Yan Shenyu looked around all day, but nothing caught his eye.
That evening, Yan Zhengang seemed to have barely managed to control his temper after returning from the company.
“Alright,” the usually tough father surprisingly compromised, “you can move if you want, but it’s summer vacation now, so you can stay together until Weiwei and Shengsheng start school before you move out. Also, you can live on your own, but you must come back for dinner on weekends.”
Yan Shenyu agreed. Buying a house was a more time-consuming project than he had imagined. It was only two months, and he could wait that long.
Moreover, as for coming back for dinner, he can come back when he has time, but if he doesn't have time, Yan Zhengang can't let the police arrest him and take him back.
"In addition, since you are moving out, I have prepared a house for each of you," Yan Zhengang said, taking out four keys and handing them over. "The house was originally a gift for Sheng Sheng when he came back, so you can be considered to be benefiting from his kindness."
"Thank you, Dad!"
"Thank you, Dad!"
"Lord Yan is mighty!"
Seeing this scene of fatherly love and filial piety, Yan Zhengang also smiled, but there was a hint of bitterness in his smile.
That night, Yan Zhengang lay in bed in his pajamas. He glanced at Xu Jingshu, who was applying a face mask, and sighed deeply: "I never expected that they would all be moving out."
Xu Jingshu: "Isn't Yan Sheng here with you?"