Chapter 84#

The Disabled Big Shot’s Stepson#

When Lin Xiaodong woke up, he thought he was already dead.

He lay flat on the bed, his expression serene.

Ah, he was already a useless person.

But when he heard the sound of wheels nearby, Lin Xiaodong blinked and still struggled to turn his head to look.

But just such a simple movement, because it involved the sore muscles of his body, still made him grimace for quite a while.

“Are… are you the soul-hooking messenger come to take me away?” In the dark room, the pale and thin youth stared blankly at the man sitting by his bed, clutching the quilt on his body, and asked in a low voice, “May, may I ask, are you Ox-Head, or Horse-Face?”

At these words, Lin Pei’s face immediately darkened.

“It seems you have rested well,” he said in a flat voice while looking at Lin Xiaodong’s drama-queen-like appearance, “then get up. It happens you can still make it to this afternoon’s class.”

Lin Xiaodong immediately returned to normal and rejected righteously: “Then there’s no need. I feel I’ve caught a disease where I’ll die if I leave the bed.”

Lin Pei and the youth, whose whole face was written with the word “sincere” in large characters, looked at each other for a moment. Suddenly, Lin Pei let out a snort through his nose, pushed the wheelchair to the head of the bed, and poured him a glass of water.

“Thank you.” Lin Xiaodong took it, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the favor.

“Physical fitness is too poor; it’s obvious you don’t exercise properly usually.” Lin Pei looked at the youth leaning against the headboard, holding the glass and gulping down water. For some reason, he actually felt a sense of satisfaction as if feeding a hamster.

He forced himself to ignore this feeling, tapped the armrest with his knuckles, and continued: “And both the posture and the breathing method when running were completely wrong. With all these combined, you actually almost finished the whole course, which barely lets me have a higher opinion of your perseverance.”

“You can just say I don’t know anything and purely rely on being reckless, right?” Lin Xiaodong put down the glass and curled his lip, “I wasn’t good at running originally, and I dislike exercise even more. But, at least…” He glanced at Lin Pei’s legs, which were covered by a blanket all year round. The implication was already very clear.

But Lin Pei unexpectedly did not get angry.

“You compare yourself with me?” He raised his eyebrows, “When I was running fifteen kilometers in field training, you probably weren’t born yet.”

“You were in the army?”

“Doesn’t count as being in the army,” Lin Pei said, “just received training related to special forces.”

And that’s not counted!?

Lin Xiaodong twitched the corner of his mouth, but also felt a deep sense of pity for the man from the bottom of his heart—once an elite at the top of the pyramid in terms of physical strength, intelligence, and endurance, but now only able to be accompanied by a wheelchair and pain. This huge gap alone is enough to drive a normal person crazy.

“Can I ask you a question?” He thought for a moment and asked.

“You ask,” Lin Pei said. His temper seemed exceptionally good today. “But I won’t necessarily answer.”

Lin Xiaodong didn’t care either; in his view, this was the kind of answer Lin Pei would have. He asked: “That night, what was wrong with you?”

He was talking about the sound he heard when he first came to the castle. Lin Pei was silent for a moment. Just when Lin Xiaodong thought he wouldn’t answer, the man said flatly: “Just complications.”

“Then why don’t you let the doctor prescribe some painkillers for you?”

Pain that even Lin Pei felt was hard to bear—Lin Xiaodong couldn’t imagine what kind of torture that was.

“Prescribed before,” for some reason, a trace of sarcasm appeared on Lin Pei’s face, “thanks to my few good opponents, I not only almost couldn’t feel pain again, but also almost caused drug addiction that couldn’t be quit for a lifetime.”

Lin Xiaodong was suddenly speechless.

But Lin Pei didn’t seem to intend to complain about his miserable experience to an outsider. Moreover, in his eyes, the youth in front of him was just an ignorant, stupid, and stubborn brat. He asked calmly: “Do you have anything else you want to ask?”

Did he take the wrong medicine today? Lin Xiaodong thought in disbelief.

But he still seized this rare opportunity and put forward a request that would probably make Ye Shiyuan turn pale with fright on the spot if he heard it: “Can I see your legs?”

As the words fell, there was silence in the room.

Lin Xiaodong quickly changed his tune: “If you are unwilling, then forget it…” He leaned against the headboard, scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly, seemingly wanting to explain that he didn’t mean to offend. However, Lin Pei just gave him a deep look.

The man said nothing and silently lifted the blanket covering his legs.

At first glance, there was nothing unusual, because Lin Pei was still wearing a pair of black long pants. But when he bent down and slowly rolled up his trouser leg, revealing the pale and thin calf below, Lin Xiaodong’s breathing instinctively hitched.

It wasn’t to say how ugly it was. With the Lin family’s financial resources and Lin Pei’s own strong self-esteem, even if he was disabled, he could still maintain a relatively good state—but this was only compared to other patients with the same condition.

The man’s legs were not deformed. Even if only looking at the calf part, they could be called good-looking, very much in line with the current “white, young, and thin” aesthetic. However, when placed on a man who was nearly 1.9 meters tall, it would only make people feel an absurd sense of contradiction.

Because this was not an effect that could be achieved by weight loss and exercise at all, but merely unhealthy thinness caused by long-term muscle atrophy.

While Lin Xiaodong lowered his head to observe, Lin Pei also kept staring at the expression on his face.

There was no sympathy on the youth’s face; only doubt and a little bit of absent-minded thinking.

This couldn’t help but make Lin Pei a little annoyed, and also a little helplessly amused—he had taken the initiative to expose his greatest hidden trouble, and this brat actually dared to wander off in front of him?

“What are you thinking about?” But at the same time, he couldn’t help asking curiously.

“I was thinking…” Lin Xiaodong opened his mouth, but quickly glanced at him again and closed his mouth, “forget it, better not say.”

Lin Pei frowned: “Say it.”

“Then you promise not to be angry?”

The expression on the man sitting in the wheelchair was unpredictable. Lin Xiaodong looked at him somewhat anxiously. After a while, Lin Pei nodded slowly.

“You say it,” he said calmly, “I promise not to be angry.”

As for whether he would settle accounts after the fact, that’s not certain.

But the youth obviously believed it. He cheerfully pulled back the quilt and cocked his long, slender, and straight legs in front of Lin Pei, his fair little feet even swinging in the air: “I was thinking, although I can’t run fifteen kilometers, I still quite like my pair of legs.”

As he spoke, he also smugly gave a “yay” with his big toe to the man, appearing very much in need of a beating.

Lin Pei: “…………”

Very well, his fists are clenched.

Lin Xiaodong, who felt a chill surge up his spine, immediately restrained his smile and looked at him with a face full of vigilance: “We agreed just now; you’re not allowed to be angry!”

“…I’m not angry.” Lin Pei took a deep breath and squeezed out a smile that was more like a grimace to him.

The man pinched the space between his eyebrows, thinking to himself what more expectations could he have for Lin Xiaodong. This brat probably never knew what it meant to read people’s expressions.

But undeniably, Lin Xiaodong’s nonchalant attitude instead made Lin Pei let out a sigh of relief, and his long-tensed back also slowly relaxed.

“Informing you, because of the heavy rain yesterday, you are the only one who persisted in completing the punishment, so Ye Shiyuan decided to reward you with an extra fifty medals.” Before Lin Xiaodong could be happy, Lin Pei’s next words broke his illusion, “But, you still didn’t complete our bet, so according to the previous agreement, you have to promise me one request.”

The youth sat blankly on the bed, let out a long sigh, and revealed a face of admitting bad luck.

“Tell me, what request?”

“Before this, I have to ask you a question first.” Lin Pei asked back instead, “Regarding your own future, what dreams do you have?”

My dream is to get five Good Person Cards early, find the one surnamed Gu to have a sleep, and then run away, Lin Xiaodong thought expressionlessly.

Although the system repeatedly told him that Lin Pei in front of him was Gu Xi, and there was no lack of hope for the man’s legs to recover, and the functions of that and that were not affected… but Lin Xiaodong refused to accept this cruel fact.

Give back his eight-pack abs!

However, in front of Lin Pei, the youth still answered very obediently: “My idol is Van Gogh; I want to be a great painter like him.”

“Van Gogh…” Lin Pei frowned slightly, “So that night, you suggested I plant sunflowers outside the castle?”

“Pretty much.”

“Alright then,” Lin Pei smoothed his brow, the corners of his mouth slightly curved, and suddenly gave him a dazzling slight smile, making Lin Xiaodong dazed for a moment, “my request is: from now on, draw one sunflower every week and hand it to me on Friday afternoon.”

“For you, it shouldn’t be difficult, right?”

Lin Xiaodong was forced to accept a bitter pill and could only bite the bullet and agree: “It’s possible, but what do you want my paintings for?”

Lin Pei looked down at his legs.

“The height of the wheelchair is not enough,” the man whose heart was as small as a needle point smiled slightly and turned the wheelchair to leave calmly, “drawing a few more is just right for footstools.”

Lin Xiaodong raised a vicious middle finger to his back.

“Too bad!” He held a pen, sitting in class and listening absent-mindedly to the teacher in front, but couldn’t help complaining to the system in his heart, “He’s definitely not Gu Xi! Gu Xi wouldn’t be like this!”

The system was all ears: “Like what?”

“Small-minded, teasing people, and very jealous…” Lin Xiaodong’s words became more and more wrong. Isn’t this exactly the impression Gu Xi has always given people?

He propped his chin up annoyedly, gave a tsk, and his right hand doodled intermittently on the notes.

“Lin Xiaodong!”

Accompanied by a burst of thud-thud-thud footsteps, before Lin Xiaodong could react, the notebook in front of him was snatched away by the teacher.

The children who were sleepy in class turned their heads, faces all revealing an expression of watching a show. Lin Qi even took the lead in letting out a loud laugh of mockery.

Only that short-haired little girl Lin Shanshan, who had taken the initiative to cooperate with Lin Xiaodong in the ghost-catching competition, pinched the pencil in her hand and cast a somewhat worried look at him.

“How many times is this that you’ve wandered off in class?” The teacher stared at him and criticized heart-wrenchingly, “Already took a penalty medal, yet still won’t restrain yourself! Not listening to the class properly, drawing what messy things in class—” He looked at Lin Xiaodong’s drawing, and the words just halfway through stopped abruptly.

Because what Lin Xiaodong drew was no one else but Lin Pei.

To be precise, it was a man sitting in a wheelchair but with a bit of Gu Xi’s shadow in his eyebrows.

“…Forget it, don’t do it again.” The teacher’s lips moved a bit, and he put down the notebook in his hand. Under Lin Qi’s disappointed gaze, he only warned Lin Xiaodong and didn’t give him more punishment.

“Students, before the next class starts, remember to tidy up your tabletops,” he stood on the podium, his eyes sweeping across the entire class with keen gaze, “and also, be sure to show your best mental state and speak actively! Because someone will be listening to the class in the back then. Those who perform well will have rewards, heard?”

“Heard—”

Lin Xiaodong originally didn’t want to answer, but as the teacher on the stage swept an eye-knife over, he could only sit properly obediently.

After class, the youth immediately lay on his seat without love for life, thinking that in this world he was already in high school, yet he still had to have classes with a group of middle schoolers. It was simply a day more unbearable than hell.

Lin Shanshan, who was sitting in front, glanced at him from afar, hesitated for a while, and still took the initiative to walk over.

“During the previous competition,” the little girl said to Lin Xiaodong in her usual mature tone, her calm appearance truly not like a child who was only a dozen years old, “actually the more correct way should have been for you to leave me behind and escape directly. That way, before Mr. Ye caught you, at least you had a chance to get more medals. Sacrificing my value is much greater than yours.”

“Just a game, and I didn’t think that much at the time,” Lin Xiaodong raised his head, “so you’re also here to criticize me?”

“No!” Lin Shanshan immediately denied. She blinked quickly, seemingly somewhat embarrassedly avoiding the youth’s gaze, “I just wanted to say thank you to you. Never…” She took a deep breath, her voice a bit trembling, “never has anyone been willing to stand in front of me.”

“Ding, Good Person Card +1.”

Lin Xiaodong knitted his eyebrows, thinking to himself what kind of life this little girl had in the past. But the system soon answered his doubt: “She is a collateral descendant of a collateral branch of the Lin family. Her parents divorced when she was eight, and no one was willing to look after her, so she also grew up in relatives’ homes.”

Lin Xiaodong understood.

A girl who just started middle school is exactly at an age lacking love, and obviously, Lin Shanshan’s character is very strong.

Unlike him, who is both a salted fish and big-hearted.

“No need for thanks.” He gave the little girl a smile and pulled out a coin chocolate from his pocket to hand to her. This was what he took from Lin Pei’s room. Anyway, the man didn’t eat it; putting it there was just a decoration. “This is for you, consider it as celebrating our happy cooperation.”

“Chocolate!?”

Lin Shanshan exclaimed, and her eyes instantly lit up with the light of surprise.

Under the condition of the medal system implemented in the castle, candies and snacks are all too luxurious things. She hadn’t tasted chocolate for a long time. Under the envious eyes of the children around, she peeled off the outer packaging of the chocolate and put it in her mouth in front of them, showing Lin Xiaodong a cute smile with curved eyes and eyebrows.

Lin Pei, who was pushed to the classroom by Ye Shiyuan, saw this scene as soon as he looked up. The man’s expression didn’t change, but his lips couldn’t help but purse.

“Remember to add a rule to the regulations,” he looked at the back of the youth sitting in his seat and said in a low voice, “inside the castle, puppy love is prohibited.”

Ye Shiyuan: “…Yes.”

But he thought to himself that this rule probably didn’t apply to Lin Xiaodong.

Because in not many days, the youth would be 18 years old, so naturally it wouldn’t count as puppy love.

“It would be great if I had a daughter like this.” However, Lin Xiaodong, who was still unaware of Lin Pei’s arrival, was still sighing with the system, “Unfortunately, I like men.”

System: “Actually, if you really want to, I can also apply to the headquarters to let you go to a world of male-on-male pregnancy for missions next.”

Like the previous mermaid world, if it wasn’t because of reproductive isolation, with Gu Xi’s rigorous research attitude toward various positions, maybe the little mermaids born would be running all over the place.

Lin Xiaodong: “…Thank you, no need.”

For some reason, he suddenly shivered. And when Lin Xiaodong looked back and saw the black-haired man sitting in a wheelchair, he finally understood where the feeling just now came from—good heavens, it really is you!

Although he thought about going over to ask Lin Pei why he was so free lately, the teacher had already come in at this time. Under helplessness, Lin Xiaodong could only turn around, listening to the teacher on the podium bursting out with incomparable passion, and began to teach them with great enthusiasm.

Halfway through the class, Lin Xiaodong’s eyelids began to fight again uncontrollably.

He propped his head up with his elbow, looking forward with half-closed eyes, struggling to keep himself from falling asleep. The teacher who was teaching saw his appearance, then looked at Lin Pei who was slowly coming from behind pushing the wheelchair, and tactfully decided to act as if he saw nothing, going on with his class on his own.

Lin Pei pushed the wheelchair to behind Lin Xiaodong. Looking at the youth whose back even exuded the three words “I am so sleepy” but appeared exceptionally energetic when class was over, he couldn’t help but curl the corners of his mouth, and a thought slowly formed in his heart.

Lin Xiaodong was in a daze when suddenly a large hand with distinct knuckles reached over from the back-left and took away the notebook he had placed on the tabletop.

Instantly, the sleepiness in his head was swept away. He turned around abruptly and indeed saw the man sitting in the wheelchair looking down and flipping through his notes with a flat expression. Lin Xiaodong took a deep breath, quickly glanced at the teacher who was still teaching, and said in a low voice: “Give it back to me quickly!”

Lin Pei didn’t even lift his head: “Listen to your class.”

But when he flipped to that portrait Lin Xiaodong drew in the previous class, his movement paused unconsciously. Lin Xiaodong seized this opportunity and snatched his notebook back from his hand.

“Who allowed you to look?” The youth stared at him angrily, his cheeks a bit red.

Whether it was because of anger or because of shyness, the youth’s pair of spirited big eyes were as bright as if they had been washed with water. Seeing this, Lin Pei was momentarily stunned, staring at him blankly, not speaking for a long time.

It wasn’t until Ye Shiyuan walked over that he slowly lowered his eyes and said: “Sorry.”

Lin Xiaodong, who didn’t expect Lin Pei would actually apologize, had a breath stuck in his chest, couldn’t go up and couldn’t come down.

“Forget it, I won’t lower myself to your level.” He muttered and turned around, making Ye Shiyuan so angry that he gave a knock on his head: “How are you talking!”

“Head of the family, do you want to continue watching?” he asked Lin Pei.

The man shook his head: “No, let’s go back.”

Ye Shiyuan gave an “en,” and under the teacher’s slightly disappointed gaze, pushed Lin Pei and left the classroom.

Pushing the wheelchair through the corridor filled with sunlight, Ye Shiyuan was afraid Lin Pei was angry, and also took the initiative to say two words for Lin Xiaodong: “Xiaodong is just naughty; don’t lower yourself to his level, head of the family.”

The man didn’t answer.

So Ye Shiyuan asked again: “These children have been in the castle for nearly a month. Head of the family, do you have any one you favor? Soon the second stage of training will begin; I’ll let the supervisor pay more attention.”

After a moment of silence, Lin Pei turned his head, looking at the desolate garden outside the castle, and suddenly asked a question out of the blue:

“Do you think sunflowers growing under the sun will only chase the sun?”

Ye Shiyuan was stunned for a moment and answered somewhat puzzledly: “Probably… at least I only know that sunflowers have phototropism and will keep growing in the direction of the sun. When night comes, they will slowly move back.”

“Then what if there is no sun all the time?” Lin Pei persisted in asking.

“Then they will definitely die. Not only sunflowers, without the sun, no plants can live.” Ye Shiyuan was increasingly unable to make head or tail of it. How come Lin Pei had to repeatedly ask this question that even elementary schoolers know?

“…I see.”

Lin Pei lowered his head, his gaze calmly falling on his own knees, and suddenly said to Ye Shiyuan: “You go back first. I want to sit here alone for a while.”

Ye Shiyuan didn’t suspect anything and agreed.

But when he turned to leave, his peripheral vision saw Lin Pei sitting in the wheelchair quietly looking at the scenery outside the window. The sunlight cast a dividing line on the floor tiles in front of him. The man in the shadows, although his expression couldn’t be seen clearly, gave off an indescribable sense of desolation and loneliness.

Ye Shiyuan’s footsteps paused.

He stood in place for a few seconds, but in the end still changed direction and walked toward the classroom.