Chapter 44: Ruining Her Plans

No one was at the Chu residence.

Shu Lingchen knocked on the door for a long time.

"Chu Aunt? Chu Aunt, are you there? Chu Chu?"

However, there was no response.

Could it be that Chu Chu hasn't come back from school yet? And where is Chu Aunt? Why isn't Chu Aunt here either?

Shu Lingchen took out his phone and called both of them, but the ringing continued until the call ended with no one answering.

He couldn't reach either of them.

—This was a situation that had never happened before.

Shu Lingchen suddenly thought of something, his expression changed, and he hurried to the opposite door to knock on the neighbor's door.

The person living opposite was a woman in her forties; when the door sounded, she was cooking, with an apron tied around her waist, and she opened the door with an impatient look: "Who is it? What do you want?"

Shu Lingchen asked anxiously: "Sorry to bother you, Aunt. I wanted to ask whether the household opposite you has had debt collectors come to the door?"

Besides debt collectors showing up, Shu Lingchen couldn't think of any other possibility to explain the current situation.

He was very worried, worrying that debt collectors had come and that Chu Aunt and Chu Chu were hiding outside, afraid to go home.

As a result, the woman gave Shu Lingchen a strange look.

"What debt collectors? Young man, you've got the wrong information. No debt collectors have ever come to this building. In this law-abiding society, who would dare be so blatant? It's not like we're in a TV drama."

Shu Lingchen said anxiously, pointing behind him.

"It's the household opposite you. Inside lives a mother and daughter. Because the husband gambled, owed money, and ran away, debt collectors often come to the door to intimidate them into repaying his debts."

The woman looked over as if confirming: "You mean Luoping, and her daughter?"

Shu Lingchen: "Yes, yes, yes, that's them!"

Then the woman's expression became even stranger: "Luoping's husband doesn't gamble; he's in poor health, bedridden year-round, can't even leave the door—how could he go gamble? Because of that, he remained a bachelor for a long time."

"Later, Luoping brought in an outsider daughter and married him, thus forming a family. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't last long before he died. The apartment opposite still belongs to him, and after his death he left it to Luoping and her daughter to live in."

"……" Shu Lingchen stared, stunned: "What did you say?"

He couldn't understand.

"You, you're talking about whom? You've got the wrong person." Shu Lingchen guessed: "You… haven't been living here long, have you?"

Hearing this doubt, the woman pouted, and her voice grew louder: "What do you mean I've only just moved here? I've lived here for decades! This is my house!"

"How could I be mistaken! It's just Luoping, right? Her daughter is called Chu something-something—I forgot."

Shu Lingchen's pupils contracted as he heard the woman continue: "The opposite apartment has always been where this mother and daughter lived; they moved out a few years ago, I heard they were going to live in some luxury housing estate, and Luoping even showed off to me about it."

"I thought she had hooked up with a rich tycoon and made it big, but nope—humph, she recently moved back here to live."

The woman looked at the dazed Shu Lingchen standing there: "You're done asking, right? Hurry up and leave, you're delaying my cooking!"

Having said that, she slammed the door shut.

Shu Lingchen sat at the stairwell entrance until the sky grew slightly dark.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, his profile fell into shadow, and he appeared to be lost in some dazed reverie, unable to recover his senses for a long while.

At that moment, the old stairwell's motion-sensor light turned on, and someone came up the stairs.

Chu Lian had just turned the corner, her steps light, her mood good, when she saw a dark figure crouched at her own doorstep and jumped in fright.

"Chu Chu."

That dark figure rose and shouted.

Hearing the familiar voice, Chu Lian frowned: "Ah Chen?"

"It's me."

"…… You, how come you're here?" Chu Lian expressed surprise.

Shu Lingchen lowered his gaze and happened to see Chu Lian's phone, its screen lit up in her hand.

Chu Chu was looking at her phone.

But he never received a reply from her the whole time; her phone remained quietly in her pocket.

Shu Lingchen's voice low as he explained to Chu Lian why he was there: "You and Chu Aunt didn't reply to my messages, and I couldn't get through on the phone—I was worried something had happened to you."

"Oh… is that so."

Chu Lian's expression was awkward for half a second; she hadn't even noticed that Shu Lingchen had sent her a message, because she had long since blocked him.

Anyway, she couldn't get any money from him, and she didn't expect him to hook up with the wealthy Shu Shu, so why would she bother spending the effort to reply to him every second of the day?

As for Chu Mother.

Chu Lian guessed that Chu Mother had just come out of the mahjong parlor at this moment, and her attitude toward Shu Lingchen would be about the same as hers—both not really wanting to deal with him.

Chu Lian neither explained nor clarified; she only curled the corner of her mouth into a gentle but perfunctory smile: "Ah Chen, you're overthinking it—what could possibly happen between me and my mom?"

Shu Lingchen looked at Chu Lian's smile, his tone showing nothing unusual, and said: "I'm afraid those debt collectors will come over."

"No way, Ah Chen." Hearing mention of debt collectors, Chu Lian's face showed not a trace of the fear and hatred that someone constantly harassed by debt collectors ought to have; instead she said lightly: "Didn't I tell you before? Those people haven't come in a long time; they should have given up by now."

After hearing that, Shu Lingchen remained silent for a long time.

Chu Lian saw Shu Lingchen still standing there, not even indicating he wanted to come inside, and feigned puzzlement: "Ah Chen, is there anything else? I'm really tired from class today."

She casually made up an excuse, hoping Shu Lingchen would leave on his own; she didn't have the time to deal with him again.

"Yes." Shu Lingchen said: "Someone on the school tieba has been spreading rumors about you and Shi Jin; I tried to clarify it on the tieba, but it didn't help. Chu Chu, you'd better come out and clarify it yourself."

Upon hearing that, Chu Lian's face suddenly turned somewhat ugly, her voice panicking: "... No need for you to help me clarify!"

Chu Lian had invested a lot of thought into getting involved with Shi Jin.

Everyone knows that Shi Jin, the wealthy son from Jing Shi, excels in both character and academics; in less than three months he was unanimously elected class monitor, and after becoming class monitor he has been very responsible and looks after his classmates.

But aside from the duties of class monitor, Shi Jin appears gentle on the surface, yet in reality he is somewhat hard to approach.

When he first arrived, Chu Lian had shown goodwill toward him, but she was constantly blocked by a vague sense of distance.

Thanks to the good fortune of Shu Lingchen's confession at the school gate, Chu Lian began to occasionally use the excuse that Shi Jin had once helped her out of a predicament to openly approach Shi Jin.

Finally, thanks to her relentless effort, the distance between them finally went from strangers to almost friends.

Chu Lian knew about that Tieba post, and the rumors of her and Shi Jin's gossip made her so happy she could barely contain herself; watching the post's heat keep rising, who needed Shu Lingchen, that idiot, to help her clarify?

Isn't this spoiling her good fortune!