Forcing Me to Be Reborn?!-Chapter 205 - 176 The Counselors Breakdown
Chapter 205: Chapter 176: The Counselor’s Breakdown
Chapter 205: Chapter 176: The Counselor’s Breakdown
“Done shooting.” The female waitress said in the hot pot restaurant.
After the photo was taken, she whispered, as if afraid that people at other tables would overhear, “Handsome guy, beauty, you two are the most photogenic guests I’ve snapped today.”
“Here’s the photo.” She handed over the photograph.
“Thank you.” Cheng Zhu took it.
Photos from an instant camera don’t immediately reveal the image; many people choose to shake the photo by hand, as if it makes the image appear faster.
Cheng Zhu had always found, the most intriguing part of using an instant camera was this process.
Slowly watching the image appear bit by bit on the photo, from partial to whole, from blurry to clear.
He didn’t rush to sit back across; instead, they sat together on the same bench in the hot pot restaurant, watching the image gradually appear on the photo.
Then, a problem arose.
They were neither spouses nor a cohabiting couple who could bring a single photo back to a shared home.
Now with only one photo, whom should it go to?
Undoubtedly, Shen Qingning hadn’t yet thought about this.
She now stared intently at the photo, intrigued by the gradually appearing image.
Clearly, she also found the process interesting.
Even looking at the group photo spread a curious emotion within her.
It seemed not just the objects in the photo were emerging and spreading, but her own inner world as well.
Cheng Zhu in the photo looked a bit roguish, after all, he was joking around while taking it.
Shen Qingning seemed to lack some of her usual icy demeanor.
Seeing Cheng Zhu’s hand posed behind her head, for some reason, a slight smile appeared on her face.
Cheng Zhu watched her, and only then leisurely asked, “Do you take this photo, or shall I?”
“Huh?” Shen Qingning turned to look at him, only then realizing there was just one photo.
This hot pot place is really stingy.
She really wanted the photo.
At that moment, she didn’t think deeply about how, if she added a photo with a boy to her collection at home, she might need to find a good hiding spot for it, rather than display it openly.
“Forget it, you can have it.” Cheng Zhu simply said.
If it was just that, it would only barely pass, just adding a photo of him to this girl’s home.
But Cheng Zhu was not one to settle for just that.
So, he definitely had to make a move, to heat up the ambiguous atmosphere a notch.
Just as Shen Qingning was about to tuck the photo away into her bag, he suddenly said, “Wait a second!”
The icy girl paused, unsure of what he was up to.
He grabbed his phone, rapidly turned on the camera, and took a quick shot of both her hand holding the photo and the photo itself.
After doing all this, he calmly sat back across from Shen Qingning.
…
…
After the meal, Cheng Zhu smelled his clothes after paying the bill and muttered, “Man, smells like hot pot.”
Hearing this, Shen Qingning also lifted her arm slightly to smell her clothes.
“You came here in the same car with your aunt this afternoon, didn’t you?” he asked Shen Qingning.
“Yeah.” She nodded.
This meant she now had no car; Wang Yushan had driven it away.
“Aunt said she would pick me up, she didn’t return home and was just busy around here,” Shen Qingning said.
“Alright.”
“And you?”
“Me? I rode my little electric scooter here,” Cheng Zhu said with a smile.
This reminded Shen Qingning again of that breezy evening.
After they parted, Shen Qingning got into Wang Yushan’s car.
“Had hot pot, huh?” Wang Yushan asked Shen Qingning.
“Yeah, it left a scent on me,” Shen Qingning responded.
“Then go home and wash your hair and take a bath.”
“Yeah.”
As a stepmother, although she usually interacted with Shen Qingning like a friend, she didn’t inquire or comment much, nor specifically bring up Cheng Zhu.
Wang Yushan always thought Ningning was very determined.
Her emotional life was something she clearly grasped.
If she wanted to talk about anything, Wang Yushan was certainly willing to listen and discuss.
But if the other party had no such intentions, she wouldn’t probe further.
Of course, she was actually quite curious.
Once the white Porsche Cayenne parked at their home, the young mother and daughter entered their respective rooms.
Shen Qingning walked into her own bedroom and placed her handbag on her bag wall.
Her walk-in closet was spacious, one wall had more than twenty compartments all for bags.
But before this, she immediately took out the instant photo.
This cool girl looked down at the photo, at Cheng Zhu’s playful hand behind her, and for some reason, she went to the full-length mirror in her dressing room and mimicked his gesture, making a “victory” sign over her head.
“Silly,” she lightly critiqued with a soft smile on her face.
Yet for a moment, she was perplexed about where to place the photo.
She tore off a piece of paper, placed the photo inside it, and folded it, wrapping it up as if it were a letter in an envelope.
“I’ll use it as a bookmark,” she thought.
Shen Qingning opened the incomplete romance novel she was reading, removed the beautiful bookmark inside, and replaced it with this simple one.
She sat at the desk, somewhat distracted by her new bookmark.
“He even took a picture of the group photo with his phone.”
“I wonder what he meant by that.”
…
…
Meanwhile, Cheng Zhu rode his little electric scooter back home.
After coming home, he casually chatted with Liu Jiani for a moment before he said he had business to attend to.
Seriously, so impressive with her large bust, asking me to judge her new design right away.
I can barely understand these design drafts.
He idly scrolled through his social media.
Then he saw that his class advisor Chen Jieyu had shared an English song.
Cheng Zhu had listened to this song before; it was quite emo and somewhat depressing.
“It’s just early evening, why the gloom already?” he quipped lightly.
“She said she was going to visit her hometown during the National Day holiday, even promised to scold her brother good.”
“Her family background seems a bit troubled, wonder if something happened these days,” the young creditor thought.
In fact, Chen Jieyu had gone through a lot these days.
She had returned home on October 2nd.
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At home, her mother was as usual, warmly caring for her, asking about her life alone in Hang City.
Her father, however, was the same as ever, although a bit nicer this time since she had significantly helped the family, even actively served her food at the table.
Chen Jieyu was born into a family that extremely favored males over females; her mother was somewhat better, but her father and grandparents were particularly strict about it.
Growing up in such a family is actually quite sad.
It wasn’t just reflected in their daily life but also in the mental persecution.
Chen Jieyu was actually quite glad that they finally got their wish: her mother secretly had a second child, and fortunately, it was a boy.
It meant they wouldn’t chastise her mother in front of her anymore for not bearing a son, and indirectly made her feel their disdain and hatred.
Oh, right, actually, they had terminated a pregnancy before that.
She vividly remembered going to pay the fine for the second child; her father and grandparents were all smiles, and when neighbors asked about the fee, her father cheerfully said, “This is money well spent!”
While she was merely seen as a financial loss in their eyes.
Plus, her father drank heavily and sometimes, when drunk, would become violent.
Both she and her mother had been beaten, but the brother never had.
As a child, Chen Jieyu couldn’t understand why her mother didn’t divorce him.
But as she grew up and learned more, seeing more examples online, she gradually understood.
There are indeed many such couples in the world.
Human nature is very complex, truly.
Sometimes she felt she was also very complex, extremely so.
Speaking of which, Chen Jieyu didn’t harbor much resentment towards her younger brother Chen Qi.
In her heart, her brother wasn’t inherently bad; he simply took for granted the love his family lavished on him.
He had basic respect for his older sister, liked to hang around her as a child, and even protected her when she was hit.
That was the main reason she agreed to settle his 60,000 debt.
But the views her grandparents instilled in her from a young age, she had never embraced those; she later realized that living as they suggested would make her what the internet calls a “brother-shielding devil.”
She could help out in crucial moments, but she wouldn’t live for him!
These past few years, actually, Chen Jieyu’s life had been somewhat better.
Because she acquired a job her family could boast about externally.
For someone from a small place, having a respectable position in a Hang City university was indeed prestigious.
Also, she was indeed attractive, or rather, in their eyes, this wasn’t called beautiful, but… exquisite?
They firmly believed she could marry into a good family, confident they could sell her off well.
Little did they know she had no intention of marrying at all; she was a staunch believer in non-marriage.
She also didn’t want to add an episode of being “sold” into her life, as it would make her feel even more humiliated and devoid of self-respect.
Now, as she grew older, they kept saying she was an old maid, decreasing in value with age.
On October 2nd, when she returned home, her emotions were already slightly frazzled.
The reason was simple: her brother Chen Qi was not home, he’d gone out to have fun.
She had borrowed fifty thousand yuan from Cheng Zhu and for the coming months would have to pay him four thousand yuan monthly, leading a very strained life in Hang City.
And all this because he’d hit someone riding a motorcycle!
Yet this instigator was happily out traveling during the holiday.
She remembered when as a child, she accidentally broke something and was solidly slapped.
Just wasting money again, right.
But her darling son was different; he could even go out and spend money on trips.
Today, Chen Qi returned from his trip.
Upon arriving home, he saw Chen Jieyu sitting in the living room.
“Sis, where are mom and dad?” he asked.
“Playing cards,” Chen Jieyu responded indifferently. “Mom went to get some stuff.”
“Was it fun?” she suddenly asked Chen Qi.
“Yeah! Going out is always more fun with friends; it’s boring with family!” he replied.
“You still feel like having fun after hitting someone?” Chen Jieyu asked. “No guilt over causing such a loss and still spending money to travel?”
“What are you talking about? I did hit someone by accident, but that idiot wasn’t watching where they were going, what could I do?”
“And it was only a compensation of a little over eight hundred, not that much, right?”
…
(ps: Second update, request for monthly ticket!)
