Chapter 39: Seeking Help

The deserted morning streets were quiet.

With one hand holding Big Yellow and the other biting into a steamed bun, Lu Ran strolled along.

The recent weather had been pleasant.

The skies were clear, and after the winter solstice, the sunrise began to occur earlier each day.

Golden sunlight bathed the backs of passersby, bringing a warm sensation.

Lu Ran led Big Yellow towards the pet store where he usually boarded him.

Big Yellow nestled closely by his side, his two dark bean-like eyes fixated on the bun in Lu Ran's hand.

"Da Mai," Lu Ran calmly continued chewing on his bun, "you've already had your dog food."

Big Yellow yawned and let out two hurried grunts.

His gaze remained fixed on Lu Ran without blinking.

Lu Ran couldn't withstand the scrutiny any longer.

"Alright, just a tiny bite."

With that, he tore off a small piece of bun skin and fed it to Big Yellow.

Instantly, Big Yellow's gait became lively and joyful.

After sending Big Yellow to the pet store, Lu Ran turned and headed for the coffee shop where he worked.

Lately, he had been somewhat vexed.

Due to his experiences in his previous life, Lu Ran disliked having acquaintances disrupt his work.

But for the past few days, either Ji Min, who knew Shen Xingyu, would approach him with job offers, or Shen Xingzhuo, acting unusually, would show up to send him money.

On the surface, everything seemed to be for the better.

Yet, it made Lu Ran feel somewhat uneasy.

He took a shortcut through a nearby park and, after a few steps, spotted a familiar figure ahead.

Lu Ran instinctively quickened his pace, approaching to get a closer look before exclaiming in delight,

"Uncle! It's really you?"

The butler, Chen, was also slightly surprised.

He glanced at the dewdrops on Lu Ran's hair and smiled, asking, "Young man, you're still working hard today, I see."

"Of course,"

Lu Ran often found Ji Min to have a bad temper and be mentally unstable, but he liked Butler Chen who was always by his side.

Perhaps it was because Chen always looked at him with kindness in his eyes.

Never had his background or the ambiguous connection with the Shen family caused any strangeness.

"Did Uncle Chen not go to work today?" Lu Ran asked.

Housekeeper Chen chuckled. "At my age, I deserve more days off each week. Today, I've arranged to play chess with an old friend."

He showed Lu Ran the chess set he was carrying.

Lu Ran was slightly surprised.

That tyrant Ji Min actually allowed someone time off?

Housekeeper Chen seemed to have read his thoughts and chuckled, asking, "Thought I worked around the clock all year without breaks?"

Lu Ran nodded awkwardly.

Housekeeper Chen found it quite amusing.

Did Ji Min know how this young student perceived him?

They strolled along a path on the edge of the park.

From this spot, they could see a construction site nearby that was only half-finished.

The site was currently sealed off.

Courts' personnel were in the process of affixing seals to it.

Around the perimeter, safety barriers had been erected.

Lu Ran and Butler Chen paused to observe for a while.

Suddenly, Lu Ran realized that this seemed to be the Hu family's construction site.

Previously, the yellow-haired man had carelessly crashed his sports car into Lu Ran's dog.

Lu Ran had posted a video online, which sparked an unexpected chain reaction.

As a result, the Hu family came under investigation.

Various concealed issues had been unearthed.

Housekeeper Chen reminded, "This construction project was found to have problematic load-bearing materials. It will be demolished within the next few days."

Lu Ran exclaimed, "Thankfully, it was discovered."

They were originally planning to build a mall there. If something had really happened, the casualties would have been severe.

Housekeeper Chen looked at him and said, "We owe this to you, classmate."

"Me?" Lu Ran was somewhat bewildered.

He shifted his gaze and asked, "Didn't Mr. Ji do it?"

Housekeeper Chen carried the chess box forward. "Sir has limited energy and doesn't often intervene in the affairs of other companies."

Lu Ran fell behind.

Upon mentioning the Hu family, the scene from that night resurfaced in his mind.

When he had exhausted himself with his outburst, Ji Min's spacious and dimly lit limousine became the first place where he fell into a sound sleep in his life.

"What do you mean?" Lu Ran asked Butler Chen.

Butler Chen looked at him in surprise.

He thought to himself that he had truly done a good deed today.

Looking at Lu Ran, he explained softly, "Sir didn't have any intention of dealing with the Hu family. It was just a sudden impulse to help you and give them a warning. He didn't expect to uncover these issues, so he took care of them on the spot."

Lu Ran paused in his steps.

He lifted his head and gazed at the elder before him.

The brilliant golden winter sunlight shone upon his long and dense eyelashes.

It also illuminated the depths of his dark eyes.

It accentuated the gentle curve of his eyes, finally imbuing them with the characteristic innocence of his age.

The young man's lips moved slightly, and he asked in a soft voice, "Why would he help me?"

Housekeeper Chen gazed at him with a gentle, subtle affection in his eyes, "Because you've sought help from him before."

Butler Chen still remembered it vividly till this day.

Before Lu Ran got into the car that day, the partition between the front and back seats was already lowered.

The backseat was tranquilly silent.

All that could be heard were the tender, immature voices of the youth and his little dog as they conversed.

Later, the rear of the vehicle gradually returned to silence.

In this tranquility.

Behind the thin partition, a faint and hoarse voice, saturated with utter despair, pleaded softly:

"Save me."

"Save me."

Butler Chen raised the partition only to find the sleeping child murmuring in his sleep.

Even at the age of Butler Chen, such a concept eludes him.

How could a nineteen-year-old, in the realm of slumber, emit such a despairing plea for help?

It was the age when vitality should have been overflowing.

Yet, it felt as if they were submerged in an abyss of silence.

Ji Min sat motionless in his wheelchair.

With weary eyes closed, he gave no response, seemingly oblivious to the plea for help from the backseat.

However, upon Lu Ran's exit from the vehicle, things changed.

Butler Chen heard an order instead: "Investigate that sports car."

That was how the series of events unfolded in the Hu family.

Butler Chen gazed at the stunned teenager quietly.

It was precisely because he had heard Lu Ran's plea for help before that he always felt a sense of affection whenever he saw this child.

He always assumed that this young student must be going through a tough time.

Lu Ran remained dazed.

It wasn't until a group of schoolchildren ran past him with their backpacks swinging that he snapped back to reality.

So it wasn't because of... Shen Xingyu?

Back then, he had indeed dozed off in the car.

In the hazy realm of his dreams, he found himself back in that hospital bed, utterly immobile.

There was no one by his side, not even a whisper of sound.

He could only gaze futilely at the ceiling, silently pleading for help within his mind.

But he didn't even know who to address with his plea.

Yet, to his surprise...

Someone actually heard him.

Facing the elder's gaze before him, Lu Ran instinctively felt that this uncle, who resembled Director Lu, wouldn't deceive him.

Recalling his misinterpretations of Ji Min all along...

A flush instantly tinged Lu Ran's earlobe.

The warmth spread to his cheeks, mingling with a faint sense of awkwardness and the shame of having trampled on someone's kindness.

"I... um..."

Lu Ran stepped forward and took hold of Butler Chen's sleeve.

"What is it?" Butler Chen asked gently.

Lu Ran slowly withdrew his hand and lowered his head. "It's nothing."

Though he said it was nothing, Lu Ran spent the whole day thinking about it.

He was so distracted at the coffee shop that he nearly made a mistake in taking orders.

This left Little Wang utterly perplexed.

Lu Ran's awkwardness wasn't absolute.

There was something else mixed in.

He recalled a volunteer sister he had met when he was young, back at the orphanage.

When that sister visited, she brought a large package of Lay's chips.

Lu Ran had been very timid as a child.

While the other children eagerly surrounded the sister for snacks, Lu Ran pretended to be disinterested and focused on his homework, lying alone on his seat.

In reality, he had secretly imagined the taste of those chips in his mind.

They must have been delicious, with their rich tomato flavor exploding on his tongue.

But it remained only in his imagination.

Little Lu Ran had yearned to get closer, to sweetly call out to the sister like the other children, asking for a treat.

Yet, he didn't dare.

All he could do was bury his head deeper and deeper into his workbook.

When he lifted his head to look for an eraser, a crisp unexpectedly appeared before his lips without any prior notice.

His sister asked gently, "Do you want one?"

The child, who was concerned about his pride, swallowed his saliva, still pondering over how to politely decline.

But before he could say anything, his mouth was stuffed with the crisp.

Lu Ran didn't have an obsession with the taste of potato chips.

However, the sensation that exploded in his mind and chest at that very moment left an eternal memory in him.

It was as if a pot of boiling water was simmering in his chest, bubbles rising and bursting continuously.

Warmth surged through every limb, tingling even the tips of his fingers.

It was the first time Lu Ran had experienced such unsolicited kindness from a stranger.

In his life, such moments were as scarce as greenery in a desert.

The lingering gratitude remained eternally unforgettable.

Young Lu Ran instantly took a liking to that sister.

Each day, he would wait by the window for her to come.

But then, the teacher said that the sister had graduated and left the city.

Now, Mr. Ji was clearly not alike that sister from years ago.

Their genders were different.

Always wearing a solemn expression, not as cheerful as that sister.

He even often contradicted him.

But upon hearing Butler Chen's words, the same feeling from back then unexpectedly surfaced in Lu Ran's heart.

The pot of boiling water in his chest bubbled up once more.

The sensation lingered persistently.

It had been simmering all day long.

So it turns out that sending him abroad to study and changing his job...

All of these were to help him?

Wait a minute!

Study abroad?!!

Suddenly, Lu Ran, who was packing takeout, froze in his actions.

Observing his distorted expression, Little Wang was startled and asked, "What happened?"

Lu Ran pounded his chest in frustration, "Nothing."

It was merely losing a fortune of one hundred million yuan!

With the takeout bag packed, Lu Ran looked up, about to suggest, "Shall I deliver it?"

But in that moment, he saw Little Wang seize the paper bag and dash out with enthusiasm.

In the evening, Little Wang went out once more to deliver the dinner orders.

Lu Ran was contemplating how to tell Little Wang that he could deliver the Jiang family's takeout order by himself the following day.

He envisaged eight hundred possible scenarios in his mind.

Yet, he had yet to settle on a decision.

A familiar face appeared in the shop once more.

Looking up, Lu Ran recognized Chen Sheng.

"Whaddaya want?" Lu Ran asked bluntly.

Chen Sheng felt a little awkward under his scrutiny.

But he still mustered the courage to say, "Isn't it to apologize?"

"Apologize for what?" Lu Ran asked.

Scratching his head a few times, Chen Sheng eventually stepped closer and explained, "About those incidents before, we've all been feeling quite guilty. We thought we'd treat you to a meal as compensation."

Lu Ran intended to say he wasn't interested.

Chen Sheng immediately suggested, "How about a seafood feast?"

Lu Ran fell silent for a moment, considering that he should give the other person a chance.

And perhaps provide a home for those poor seafood as well.