Chapter 98#

The Disabled Big Shot’s Stepson#

When Ye Shiyuan stepped into the castle again, he clearly felt that the atmosphere was different from before.

In previous years, the castle had always been empty and cold, lacking any human touch. The people working and living there were all serious-faced and in a hurry, not daring to stay in front of Lin Pei for a moment longer.

But now…

“A real lucky star, indeed.” He shook his head with a smile and climbed up to the second floor. Seeing the master bedroom door ajar, he didn’t think much of it and pushed the door straight in.

“Head of the Family, Xiaodong, I’ve—”

He looked at the two people sitting on the sofa, closed his mouth, and put on a look of tooth-aching awkwardness.

“…Mr. Ye, why have you come so late at night?”

Lin Xiaodong was startled and quickly jumped off Lin Pei’s lap. The youth’s lips appeared unnaturally flushed under the lights, their sparkling texture soft and moist, and slightly swollen, like the color of a ripe peach.

Sitting on the sofa, Lin Pei pursed his lips as if he hadn’t had enough, straightened his messy clothes, and looked with a frown at the stunned Ye Shiyuan standing at the door. “Speak. What is it?”

The implication was: if you don’t have something important to report, you’re dead.

Ye Shiyuan’s body stiffened, but he bit the bullet and said, “Head of the Family, regarding that gang of mercenaries who attacked you originally, we’ve caught one of them.”

Although they had all been masked at the time, Ye Shiyuan had firmly memorized the physical characteristics of the leader during the melee, especially his voice, which had a distinct Spanish accent. After a series of investigations, they finally succeeded in closing the net today and bringing him back.

“And the result of the interrogation?” Lin Pei asked.

Ye Shiyuan said, “This person has clearly received interrogation training, likely a retired special forces soldier from some country. We sent a psychological expert to assist the police in a three-hour interrogation, but he still refuses to reveal the employer’s identity.”

Lin Pei’s face darkened slightly. “Then keep interrogating until he’s willing to talk. These mercenaries sell their lives for money in the first place; how much loyalty do you expect them to have?”

The man was clearly a bit annoyed. If Ye Shiyuan couldn’t even handle such a simple matter, he was really going to doubt his subordinate’s competence.

“But Head of the Family,” Ye Shiyuan said with difficulty, “although we didn’t get the person behind that attack, we unintentionally obtained a very crucial piece of intelligence… regarding their team’s current mission target.”

He walked over and whispered a sentence into Lin Pei’s ear.

Lin Xiaodong, standing nearby, suddenly widened his eyes. He too had heard that crucial name, one that could even be heard frequently on television news. He turned to look at the solemn-faced Lin Pei. “This is a massive deal, isn’t it?”

Lin Pei nodded slowly.

This matter indeed had little to do with the Lin family, but once they succeeded, the entire upper levels of the country would be shaken. Especially since the person they caught was only a small leader in the entire mercenary team—if a small leader could cause the Lin family’s security such heavy losses, what would happen when the whole group moved out in full force?

“It happens that person isn’t in the capital recently. For such a large operation, there are likely politicians from other countries secretly funding it behind the scenes,” Lin Pei pondered for a moment and looked up to ask, “Who else knows about this besides you and the interrogators?”

“No one else.” Ye Shiyuan shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. The moment I learned the news, I had everyone informed placed under control. The intelligence absolutely won’t leak.”

He pushed the wheelchair over and, along with Lin Xiaodong, helped Lin Pei sit in it.

“You rest first,” Lin Pei said to Lin Xiaodong, his stern expression softening slightly. “I’ll come back to accompany you after I handle things in the study.”

The youth said helplessly, “I’m not a three-year-old child.”

But in both Ye Shiyuan’s and Lin Pei’s eyes, Lin Xiaodong was a child.

After a winter of evaluations and assessments, in the end, Lin Pei overrode all objections and decided to accept Lin Shanshan as his successor, and began to consciously teach her some methods of handling matters. Lin Xiaodong could often see the girl in the study, ponytail swinging, standing by the desk and whispering questions to the man.

The sharp girl also seemed to have sensed the extraordinary relationship between him and Lin Pei. After a few days of low spirits, she quickly adjusted her mood and began to work hard with the position of Head of the Family as her goal.

Lin Xiaodong really wanted to photograph the reports Lin Shanshan stayed up late to write for Lin Pei and slap them on the faces of those stubborn old men in the Lin family who shouted that “women cannot hold power,” to let them see if their own level was worthy of evaluating this fourteen-year-old girl.

But he also knew that this matter was different from before. Even if Lin Pei consciously wanted to train Lin Shanshan’s ability, he would absolutely not let her participate in this.

Therefore, Lin Shanshan, who had finally relaxed, simply came to find him.

“When are you going to university?” the girl asked with some regret, sitting on the steps at the castle gate and looking at the workers and flower farmers busy in the garden. “Once you go to university, I’ll probably be bored to death alone in the castle.”

“How could that be? There’s still the supervisor and the others.” Lin Xiaodong casually nibbled on the chocolate in his hand and gave a piece to Lin Shanshan. “If all else fails, you can go find Lin Pei. Despite how he looks, he actually likes being with children.”

Thinking of the Head of the Family’s handsome but aloof and indifferent face, Lin Shanshan couldn’t help but shiver.

“I think I’ll pass,” she said with lingering fear. “It takes a lot of courage every time I ask him a question. I really don’t know how you can chat and laugh with him.”

Lin Xiaodong thought about it. “…Do I?”

When he was with Lin Pei, they were either bickering, or kissing, or… cough, anyway, there were simply no “chatting and laughing” moments.

“Anyway, the university I’m attending isn’t far from here, less than two hours’ drive.” He stretched, hands behind his head, and lay lazily on the steps soaking up the sun. “What about you? I remember you have the high school entrance exam this year too, right?”

Occasionally, when the tutor wasn’t around, Lin Shanshan would bring her homework to ask him questions. Unfortunately, Lin Xiaodong even had the system fudge most of his own homework, and he had long since forgotten most middle school knowledge. To avoid misleading her, he had specifically bought a pile of middle school teaching aids to brush up, which made Lin Pei moody for several days, reeking of jealousy.

“Right, I still have a practice paper to finish!”

Unexpectedly, these words reminded Lin Shanshan. The girl slapped her head in annoyance and, before even saying goodbye, stood up and ran off with a thud-thud-thud.

“…It’s good to be young.”

Lin Xiaodong sighed with deep emotion and, under the bright sunlight, lazily performed a “salted fish roll.”

“That child, really.” On the second floor, Ye Shiyuan saw this through the window and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But he soon restrained his smile and continued to handle the current incident with Lin Pei, contacting relevant personnel and investigating various forces… They currently had too few clues to form evidence; even if they spoke out, no one would believe them.

“But Head of the Family,” Ye Shiyuan couldn’t help but ask, “do we really want to wade into these muddy waters? Politics is the kind of thing… even for the Lin family, one wrong step and there’s no turning back.”

“It’s no longer a matter of whether we want to wade in or not,” Lin Pei said, looking up from the thick pile of intelligence materials and gazing at him calmly. “Why do you think that mercenary, who refused to say the employer’s name even unto death, would tell us this so easily? Do you truly think he just ‘accidentally let it slip’?”

Ye Shiyuan was startled.

“You mean,” he said hoarsely, “someone is calculating against us, deliberately trying to pull the Lin family into the water?”

“Most likely.”

Lin Pei tapped the armrest, pondered for a moment, and ordered decisively, “Tell those Lin family members who are currently on business trips to be careful, especially those abroad. It’s best if they all come back for now.”

“Understood.”

This year’s summer arrived earlier than usual.

The green screens in the castle garden had all been removed. In the greenhouse, the thriving sunflowers hadn’t reached their blooming season yet, but a few scattered flower heads could already be seen in bloom. Having looked forward to this all winter, Lin Xiaodong began to rub his hands in anticipation, ready to show off his skills once they matured.

The entire summer vacation, he had nothing to do, so he planted flowers on the castle terrace, along with scallions and garlic. Not only did he take over the supply of scallions, ginger, and garlic for the entire cafeteria, but he also took Lin Shanshan to catch rabbits and hunt birds in the forests surrounding the castle, calling it “reliving the joys of childhood.” This greatly annoyed the teacher responsible for teaching the girl etiquette.

But even if the teacher complained to Lin Pei, it was useless. Lin Pei’s indulgence of Lin Xiaodong in this regard could be described as outrageous; it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he’d give him the stars if he asked.

All the toys left in the castle as rewards ended up with Lin Xiaodong, and thousands of collectibles and souvenirs filled a whole room. After being deeply “poisoned” by SpongeBob SquarePants, Lin Pei not only didn’t hate the yellow square as others might expect, but even personally hired a band to the castle hall to sing the SpongeBob theme song for Lin Xiaodong after his college entrance exam results came out…

Upon learning of this, even Ye Shiyuan couldn’t help but sigh: Where in the world is there someone who pampers a child like this?

But Lin Pei didn’t feel he was pampering him, and Lin Xiaodong wasn’t his child either. Regarding his own behavior, the man appeared exceptionally calm—pampering one’s own wife is only right and proper; is there anything wrong with that?

Of course, Lin Pei wouldn’t dare say this to Lin Xiaodong’s face.

After all, he still had a “handle” held by the youth.

“I hate this position,” Lin Xiaodong would always grip his shoulders tightly with his fingers in the dead of night, panting softly and biting his lower lip as he asked him, “it’s simply… anti-human. When on earth can you stand up?”

Lin Pei had no solution for this. Although he quite liked it—not only could he see the youth’s beautiful face with a faint flush, but also that look of both boldness and shyness, with a hint of dazed distraction that always made his heart itch. However, circumstances were stronger than the individual. After experiencing the cold and lonely consequence of accidentally teasing someone until they exploded and were left alone in bed, Lin Pei finally learned his lesson.

When he heard similar complaints later, he would first coax the youth in his arms with good words, then go to the gym the next day to work desperately on his arm strength…

As a result, he found that when Lin Xiaodong saw his freshly minted abs, a light that made one’s heart skip a beat suddenly erupted in the youth’s eyes. His enthusiasm that night almost made Lin Pei feel overwhelmed by the favor.

“Dear, darling,” the youth turned on his side, affectionately stroking his abs, and confessed passionately, “I knew it. You love me so much, you definitely won’t leave me.”

Lin Pei, leaning against the headboard and contemplating life: “…………”

Although these words were indeed addressed to him, why did he always feel that something was not quite right?

When the last trace of chill on the earth was dispersed by the warm breeze, finally, the sunflowers in the castle garden bloomed.

This sun-facing flower is different from all others; it is born to belong to the light. The golden-yellow petals are layered, crowded together in a bustling mass. The tall flower stalks seem to want to grow all the way to the sun, all facing the direction of the sunlight, swaying with the wind like a golden ocean of rising and falling waves.

When Lin Xiaodong came back from school on weekends, he would often take out his large drawing board, move it to the edge of the garden, and paint for an entire afternoon.

The sunflowers under his brush were always brilliant, vibrant, and full of fiery power. After the paint dried, Lin Pei would carefully collect every painting, regardless of quality. Lin Xiaodong had once thought about selling a few for money, but after meeting with firm opposition, he reluctantly gave up the idea.

As the sunflowers gradually matured, the garden also attracted a large number of birds to steal the sunflower seeds. Lin Xiaodong spent an entire day making a scarecrow, but it wasn’t very effective.

In the end, he got so angry he simply put on a straw hat himself and stood in the flower bushes pretending to be a scarecrow. Whenever a thief bird dared to approach, he would immediately “revive” on the spot, waving his arms and legs to scare them away.

Sitting in his wheelchair, Lin Pei watched from afar as the youth in the straw hat ran back and forth with full vitality among the sunflowers, and a deep smile couldn’t help but rise on his lips.

If it had been a few years ago, he wouldn’t even have imagined such a happy life in his dreams.

“I’ll pluck all your feathers and put you in the pot sooner or later!”

Lin Xiaodong shouted, pressing down the straw hat on his head and pointing at the group of crows circling in the air, still stubbornly persistent.

The crows gave a couple of “caw-caws,” their harsh, unpleasant sounds seeming like mockery.

Don’t be fooled by their ugly appearance; crows’ intelligence is among the best in birds. And another thing: they are extremely, incredibly, exceptionally vengeful. If you harm a crow and accidentally let it escape, you’re finished—it was once reported abroad that a man accidentally injured a crow’s wing with a mousetrap. As a result, all the crows within a radius of several kilometers kept watch outside his house day and night. Whenever he or his family stepped out, they were met with a frenzy of pecking and flapping. They even went to his car and rooftop to poop desperately, eventually leaving the family in such a mess that they had to move away.

“Why bother with a bunch of animals?” Seeing the youth walking over muttering curses, Lin Pei couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll just have people put up a few more scarecrows in the bushes then.”

“It’s useless! These crows are almost taking over the sky!” Lin Xiaodong complained, his gaze falling on the wheelchair beneath the man, and he realized, “Is it time for rehab? Look at me, I forgot everything because of these birds.”

After several months of rehabilitation, with the help of instruments, although he still couldn’t stand independently, Lin Pei could already walk slowly on his own without using handrails. Occasionally, when Lin Xiaodong woke up late on weekend mornings, he could see the man with instruments strapped to his legs, walking slowly in the corridor like an astronaut on the moon—to be honest, although he didn’t say it out loud, the feeling was a bit unsettling.

As soon as Lin Pei saw the expression on the youth’s face, he knew he was daydreaming again. The man coughed and said helplessly, “I’ve already finished today’s exercise. I just came to remind you not to forget the banquet tonight.”

Both Lin Pei and Lin Xiaodong were people who preferred peace and quiet, but they had the entire large Lin family behind them, so social interaction was unavoidable. It had been suspended for a long time after Lin Pei was injured, and now that his health was gradually recovering, the banquets naturally had to resume.

“I’ve put the suit in the bedroom for you. Remember to take a shower before changing,” Lin Pei said. “And the stylist and makeup artist—don’t let them wait for you too long.”

“Makeup too…”

Lin Xiaodong sighed.

In this world, his [One-Click Change] skill was almost useless, which made Lin Xiaodong feel for the many points he had exchanged back then.

He came out of the bathroom after his shower and found that Lin Pei had prepared a white, youthful-style suit for him, with an iris pinned to the chest, looking quite flashy.

By the time the styling and everything else were completed, it was more than an hour later.

Lin Xiaodong leaned against the wall boredly playing a matching game, rubbing his empty stomach. Being at a high-society banquet with clinking glasses and pleasant conversation, all he could think about was having the chef make an extra lamb chop for his late-night snack later.

The snacks at the banquet simply weren’t enough to fill him up!

But this was indeed his first time seeing so many guests in the castle. Lin Xiaodong glanced around and found at least a hundred guests, but he didn’t recognize a single one. So he lowered his head with peace of mind and continued playing on his phone.

“Everyone, please be quiet.”

Ye Shiyuan’s voice came from the front. Accompanied by the slight movement of the wheelchair, he pushed Lin Pei in front of everyone.

To attend the banquet, Lin Pei had also changed into a sharp black suit. Although the man was in a wheelchair, his back was straight, and his presence was not inferior to any of the standing guests present.

He took the microphone handed to him by Ye Shiyuan and gave a brief speech. The content was nothing more than the development of the family over the past two years, expectations and blessings for everyone, and so on. Although this banquet couldn’t be counted as a family dinner, most of those present were from the Lin family proper, including many parents of the original sixteen children.

Lin Xiaodong found it boring and simply took an opportunity to sneak out of the hall, going alone to the terrace to catch the breeze.

The originally empty terrace now had a ring of various flower pots. After the castle chef repeatedly pleaded with Lin Pei to stop Lin Xiaodong from planting those stunted scallions, ginger, and garlic, he had no choice but to regretfully give up the idea of self-sufficiency and turned to planting other flowers instead.

Tonight the moon was bright and stars were few, the weather was just right. He leaned against the railing, head back, counting the stars.

The stars in the suburbs were much clearer than in the city. The crescent moon was reflected on the distant lake, with layers of ripples following the evening breeze.

Who knows how much time passed. Just as Lin Xiaodong was troubled over whether he had counted to the four hundred and sixty-eighth or the four hundred and eighty-sixth star, a door opening sound suddenly came from behind—

Creeeak

Lin Xiaodong turned around and saw the man coming over in his wheelchair, asking with a smile, “Bored?”

“Yeah.” Lin Xiaodong narrowed his eyes and curled his lip. “A banquet like this is not as satisfying as me taking you to the night market for some teppanyaki.”

Lin Pei gave a low laugh. “I knew you were hungry. Don’t worry, I’ve already instructed the kitchen to make a late-night snack. They’ll bring it up in a bit.”

He pushed his wheelchair to Lin Xiaodong’s side and said flatly, “Actually, this banquet is just a pretext. You know, because of what happened before, I told the Lin family to be careful lately and preferably not go abroad. But there will certainly be those who don’t listen, so I simply held another banquet to gather as many people as possible. If they’re smart, they should have seen the clues from this series of actions.”

“I see,” Lin Xiaodong looked down at the man’s well-defined profile and asked again, “but what if someone still refuses to come back?”

“Good advice is lost on those hell-bent on their own destruction,” Lin Pei said with a slight smile, his words being quite cruel. “For a large family, it’s also necessary to prune the branches properly.”

Lin Xiaodong was silent.

Lin Pei thought he was frightened by his attitude just now and was about to weigh his words to explain, when he saw the youth gripping the railing, suddenly sniffing his nose and frowning. “Do you smell something?”