Chapter 12

Chapter 12

But the warmer they were, the more embarrassed I felt about asking what exactly was going on with Zhao Linfeng’s family.

All I could do was transform into a praise machine. I complimented the decor, then the cleanliness, then the food, then the drinks. “Did your family make this lemonade yourselves? It’s really good!”

“My dad made it. You just need lemons, honey, and brown sugar. The only thing is, you have to remove the peel and all the veins from the lemons bit by bit. That way the lemonade won’t taste bitter.”

Something that meticulous would be time-consuming even for an able-bodied person, let alone her father, who was like that…

Yuan Lina was clearly nowhere near as restrained as I was. While eating beef, she asked outright, “Why is your dad in a wheelchair?”

“He used to be a middle school teacher. One of his students tried to jump off a building, and he went to talk them down. In the end, the student was fine, but he fell and became a high-level paraplegic.”

“Oh.” Yuan Lina poured a big helping of scrambled eggs with tomato over her rice, as if high-level paraplegia were the most ordinary thing in the world. “How much does it cost to cure him?”

Zhao Linfeng froze. “It can’t be cured.”

Yuan Lina said, “Oh,” again. “Then did the kid’s family pay compensation?”

“Later, that child slit their wrists and killed themselves. Their parents divorced too.”

Zhao Linfeng didn’t say the rest, but we could all guess. The child was gone, and the marriage was over. Naturally, they were not going to keep paying money for a dead child.

At a time like this, Yuan Lina actually laughed. “Then wasn’t saving them for nothing?”

I got a little angry and pressed down on the hand she was eating with. “I think what you just said was really lacking in sympathy. It was hurtful.”

“Little miss, you’ve been sitting high above everyone for too long, haven’t you? What family doesn’t have someone sick in it? My grandpa slipped on a field ridge on a rainy day and ended up paralyzed in bed for thirty years. Compared to Zhao Linfeng’s dad, who at least got to be a hero once, my grandpa was just plain unlucky. My grandma couldn’t turn him over, so every time, I was the one who fetched water and washed him. He had no choice but to be stark naked in front of his underage granddaughter. But what were we supposed to do? Let him grow bedsores all over and die? Do you know what my grandpa hated the most? He hated it most when people looked at him the way you do, from up on high, pitying him.”

“I…”

Zhao Linfeng suddenly said, “Yeah. I agree with you. My dad doesn’t like being pitied either. Now he strings beads and makes takeout boxes at home. He can earn twenty yuan a day. That’s already much better than before.”

Zhao Linfeng didn’t like Yuan Lina. She had said so herself. But she had never denied Yuan Lina’s good points. As for me, I had self-righteously dragged out my own grand principles and started lecturing…

“I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Zhao Linfeng smiled. “It’s nothing. You just didn’t know. But promise me one small thing. In the future, don’t call my dad ‘Uncle Zhao.’ His surname isn’t Zhao. It’s Lin.”

Huh?

Zhao Linfeng’s mother was surnamed Li, and her father was surnamed Lin, so where did the “Zhao” come from?

Zhao Linfeng said, “My dad is my stepfather.”

Yuan Lina said, “So your biological dad’s surname is Zhao?”

Zhao Linfeng said, “No. My mom’s surname is Zhao.”

I said, “Isn’t your mom surnamed Li?”

Zhao Linfeng said, “That’s my stepmother.”

Yuan Lina said, “What? Uh… Your biological mom is surnamed Zhao, your stepfather is Lin, your stepmother is surnamed Li, and your stepfather and your stepmother… I was never good at biology. I’m kind of confused. Xu Woruo, help me sort this out.”

Yuan Lina, you’re overestimating me again at a time like this, aren’t you?

Who could possibly sort this out?!

Only after we finished the meal did we finally understand. After Zhao Linfeng’s biological parents divorced, custody of Zhao Linfeng was awarded to her mother. Her mother remarried Teacher Lin. Teacher Lin became paralyzed after saving a student, and Zhao Linfeng’s mother couldn’t withstand the blow, so she took pills and committed suicide.

And at that point, Teacher Lin, already a high-level paraplegic, was actually pursued by Aunt Li. Regarding this, Zhao Linfeng explained that Aunt Li had been married twice. Her first husband had been abusive, and her second husband had frequented prostitutes. Aunt Li felt that marrying Teacher Lin, who was already paralyzed, was a very good choice, because Teacher Lin had absolutely no way to commit domestic violence against her, and there was no way he could go out and hire prostitutes. On top of that, the marriage came with a bonus: a daughter who would definitely get into a prestigious university in the future and make lots and lots of money. Aunt Li felt that compared with her previous two marriages, this one was a tremendous leap forward. Although ordinary people would find it hard to understand, she herself was quite satisfied.

As for why Zhao Linfeng would rather stay with her stepfather than return to her biological father, that was because her biological father had already gone to prison for financial crimes.

The stepmother on Zhao Linfeng’s biological father’s side, along with the children that stepmother had given birth to, had long since taken the money her biological father had obtained and gone abroad to live it up. They would never return to the country in this lifetime, let alone take care of her.

Meanwhile, Zhao Linfeng’s maternal grandparents had also passed away long ago. Her aunt by marriage had a bad relationship with her biological mother and refused to raise her.

And so, Teacher Lin, Aunt Li, and Zhao Linfeng-three people who, by all rights, should have had nothing to do with one another-formed a complete family just like that.

Once we had sorted all that out, an even greater question arose: How had a family this complicated and this poor managed to raise a child like Zhao Linfeng?