Rebirth: At the beginning, the cool school beauty was caught stealing in the supermarket

Chapter 816: Is it that I am not worthy of being trusted?

On the way back, Lu Yuanqiu took out his phone and sent three words to Liu Chengye.

Lu Yuanqiu: Lin Ping'an.

After waiting for a while without receiving a response, Lu Yuanqiu put his phone in his pocket, not expecting Liu Chengye to reply.

"I have to stay in Lucheng for the next few days, so I won't be going to Zhucheng with you," Bai Songzhe said from the back seat.

This was the first time that Lu Yuanqiu and Bai Qingxia were in the same car, but they didn't sit together. Instead, Bai Qingxia and Bai Songzhe were in the back seat, while Lu Yuanqiu was alone in the passenger seat.

Bai Qingxia: "Aunt Zhang isn't going either, right?"

"I didn't ask that," Bai Songzhe replied, then after a moment said, "She probably isn't going, right?"

Lu Yuanqiu blinked quietly, Bai Qingxia blinked quietly, and Bai Songzhe looked at the two of them with a strange expression.

He answered his own question: "She definitely won't go."

Lu Yuanqiu smiled and said, "So you knew, Uncle Bai, that Aunt Zhang had feelings for you."

Bai Songzhe sighed and turned to look out the window: "At my age, I could be her father... If Ruo'an were still here, I'd probably be a grandfather by now."

Bai Qingxia gently exhaled and turned to look at her father.

But being a grandfather is out of the question; I don't want to be a grandfather so soon... Bai Songzhe glanced at his daughter and silently added in his mind.

"Drip drip."

Lu Yuanqiu's phone rang, and he saw that it was Ruan Yueru tagging someone in the group chat.

Ruan Yueru: The most unhappy Mid-Autumn Festival ever! So boring! What are you guys doing? @Lu Yuanqiu @Bai Qingxia @Cao Shuang
Lu Yuanqiu sighed, "Sigh, if you're going to ask, why did you have to involve the two of us?"

Bai Qingxia smiled as she looked at her phone. Lu Yuanqiu responded in the group chat on her behalf, but Cao Shuang remained silent.

Lu Yuanqiu sent Cao Shuang a private message demanding an explanation.

Cao Shuang then responded in the group chat. Ruan Yueru received the message quickly, but Cao Shuang's response was not as enthusiastic as before. It was unclear whether he was busy or upset about the Mid-Autumn Festival incident.

Logically speaking, Cao Shuang shouldn't be that petty.

Seeing that Ruan Yueru was practically putting on a solo show in the group chat, Lu Yuanqiu couldn't help but send Cao Shuang a private message to ask about the situation. Ruan Yueru clearly wanted to chat with Cao Shuang in the group chat, but she chose to chat in the group chat instead of in a private message, which meant that the atmosphere of their private chat was different from before.

Cao Shuang's reply surprised Lu Yuanqiu.

Cao Shuang: The reason her mother wouldn't let Ruan Yueru come to my house for the Mid-Autumn Festival was because she knew about my past association with gangsters and my frequent fights.

Cao Shuang: Brother Qiu, does having this kind of experience make you seem untrustworthy?

Lu Dasheng: You did it for your mother.

Cao Shuang: But I'm too embarrassed to tell her about my mother's situation, because I'm afraid that if her mother finds out, she will dislike my family situation even more.

Lu Dasheng: How exactly did her mother find out about this?

Cao Shuang: I don't know. Her mother called me alone, just like in the TV series, telling me to stay away from Ruan Yueru. Of course, she didn't say it so directly, but that was the gist of it. Ruan Yueru probably doesn't know about this yet.

Lu Yuanqiu bit his fist and saw Bai Qingxia looking over from the back seat. He said, "One of the two couples you're currently shipping has run into big trouble."

Bai Qingxia took the phone.

She looked up: "Could it be Li Bowen who said it?"

Lu Yuanqiu: "It's possible, but it's also possible that her mother found out on her own, since Cao Shuang was quite famous at school before."

Bai Qingxia shook her head: "I don't know what to do. What about you?"

Lu Yuanqiu sighed. He hadn't had the energy to deal with anything else lately; he was already overwhelmed with tasks. The Xia Yiwan Noodles project at the branch office was about to start production, and there was new progress on the car accident case. Most importantly, Cao Shuang's situation was indeed difficult to resolve. His decision to associate with shady characters to take care of his mother was a mistake from the start.

But Cao Shuang, who was just a child at the time, had no choice. He had to turn bad so that he would be able to take care of the whole family. If he didn't turn bad, he would only be able to live the kind of hard life that Bai Qingxia lived, which Cao Shuang's personality wouldn't allow him to endure.

In the bedroom, Ruan Yueru, sitting at the table, saw that the entire chat window was gradually filled with her messages, and Cao Shuang had stopped responding. Her typing fingers paused, and she silently deleted the content in the chat box, placing her phone aside.

"Sister, it's stopped barking."

The adorable little brother ran over holding a toy gun. Ruan Yueru turned her head and helped him play with it. The toy gun started buzzing again, and the little brother ran away happily. Ruan Yueru, however, remained expressionless. She tucked her long hair behind her ears and covered her face with her hands, rubbing her face.

"Knock knock knock." A knocking sound came from behind.

Ruan Yueru turned around, saw it was her father, and smiled.

A man in a white shirt walked in, smiling, and said, "Whose daughter is this? She's getting more and more beautiful."

Ruan Yueru asked listlessly, "What is it?"

Ruan's father sat beside her, chatting about trivial matters until Ruan Yueru couldn't take it anymore and asked him, "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"Uh." Mr. Ruan chuckled, took a deep breath, and seemed to hesitate. He said, "I've heard some things recently. It's about your friend Cao Shuang. It seems... he used to like hanging out with hoodlums, you know?"

Ruan Yueru was stunned for a moment. She immediately turned around and looked towards the door. Sure enough, she saw her mother sitting in the living room glancing in this direction.

"Did you say something to him?!" Ruan Yueru frowned.

Mr. Ruan was taken aback, not expecting his daughter to be so clever.

Ruan Yueru wasn't particularly clever; she simply didn't believe that Cao Shuang would suddenly become cold towards her for no reason, especially not just because of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Shuang Ge wouldn't do that; Shuang Ge will always be enthusiastic towards his friends.

Mr. Ruan didn't know how to answer, so he turned to glance at his wife. Seeing this, Ruan Yueru got angry and asked again, "Is that right?!"

A faint reply came from the living room: "Yes."

Sitting on the sofa, Ruan's mother replied, "You still want to go with him to such a far place for the Mid-Autumn Festival? Are you really at ease? No matter how brave you are, you're still a girl. Do you even know you're a girl?"

Ruan Yueru became anxious and stood up: "His mother is seriously ill, and he has had to take care of her since he was a child. What can he do?"

Mrs. Ruan: "This has nothing to do with us, and it has nothing to do with you either. Let's try to contact each other less in the future."

Mr. Ruan didn't want to put his daughter in such a difficult position. Seeing Ruan Yueru's anxious look, he said with some heartache, "Your parents are just concerned about you. I sympathize with his experience, but I can't truly understand it. We only care about your safety. Besides, your mother has already said that it's probably difficult for you two to reconcile. Why don't you just gradually stop contacting each other?"

"You and Bowen are quite close, aren't you? You two often hang out together, right?"

Ruan Yueru shouted back, "I don't want to!"

Mr. Ruan said helplessly, "Why? You and Bowen have known each other since you were little."

Ruan Yueru turned her head away, thinking about what happened at Lujiazui that day, about the noodles Cao Shuang had made for her at the Polytechnic Institute, and about her mother talking to Cao Shuang about these things. Her chest felt heavy. She knew Cao Shuang must be very sad. Thinking of this, she suddenly felt very sad too.

Looking at the group chat where she was the only one performing.

"because……"

Ruan Yueru was breathing heavily.

"I like Cao Shuang."

After she finished speaking, she clenched her fists sadly, and two lines of tears streamed down her face.

(End of this chapter)