***
Bonus chapter! Thank you to katt for the donation! ^^
***
After blowing, Xu He wiped the tears from Ruan Qing's face again. However, while wiping, he suddenly paused.
One tear had slid down to the corner of Ruan Qing's lips, very close to his pale pink, delicate lips.
So close that even the slightest movement could have brushed against the corner of Ruan Qing's mouth.
Xu He's fingers stiffened slightly, but in the end, he carefully wiped away the tear without touching Ruan Qing's lips at all.
He was exceedingly gentlemanly and respectful, without giving off any sense of offense.
Perhaps because someone was there to comfort him, Ruan Qing's tears stopped. The look he gave Xu He carried a newfound sense of closeness.
Xu He was likely one of the only two people Ruan Qing felt close to at that moment.
Seeing that Ruan Qing had stopped crying, Xu He gently ruffled his hair, "Aren't you afraid of the dark?"
"I'll stay with you tonight."
Before Ruan Qing could respond, Zhou Jinchen scoffed coldly. He looked at Xu He with a mocking expression and said, "Stay with him?"
"Are you staying with him?"
"Or is he staying with you?"
Yan Lulin, who was standing nearby, furrowed his brows and looked at Xu He with a stern expression, his tone carrying a hint of warning, "Until this matter is resolved, I don't want any accidents."
Duan Ming also glanced coldly at Xu He, though it was unclear what he was thinking.
Only Ruan Qing tilted his head in confusion, seemingly not understanding what they meant.
As soon as the others finished speaking, Xu He withdrew his hand. He didn’t respond to their words and didn’t even turn around, as if he hadn’t heard them at all.
But clearly, Xu He had heard them. He didn’t mention staying again and instead gently said to Ruan Qing, "After I finish moving the things from the basement, I'll find you a lamp."
Ruan Qing looked up at Xu He with a hint of hope in his eyes, "Will it be bright?"
"Yes, very bright," Xu He nodded with a smile. "It will be enough to light up the entire room."
Since the construction site alternated between day and night shifts, there was no shortage of electricity or lamps.
Running electricity over wasn’t actually too difficult either.
Moreover, there were many incandescent lamps at the construction site. They provided both warmth and light, making them extremely convenient.
Ruan Qing nodded happily, his beautiful eyes sparkling as if shimmering light was swirling within them. Anyone could tell that he was genuinely happy.
Even though the young man had grown up surrounded by luxury, he was now overjoyed just because of a lamp that could light up the room.
It made people feel a bit sorry for him.
The boy seemed easy to please; a little coaxing was all it took, and he was incredibly obedient.
He really didn’t seem like Ren Yanqing’s son.
However, the records did show that Ren Yanqing only had this one son.
None of the others had any objections to Xu He’s suggestion. It looked like the boy would have to spend the night here, so bringing a lamp over would be helpful.
After all, early autumn nights were still somewhat cold, not to mention the dark and damp basement.
They looked at the remaining items in the basement, rolled up their sleeves in silence, and helped Xu He move them out.
Their efficiency was much higher with several people working together, and within two or three minutes, everything in the basement had been cleared out.
The only thing left was a chair.
The chair was fine for sitting on for a short while, but spending an entire night on it wouldn’t do.
Xu He brought his own blanket and somehow found a wooden board. He laid the blanket over the board, making it just barely suitable for one person to sleep on.
The blanket was easy to handle since the workers’ dormitory was not far from the construction site, conveniently close for resting and working.
Xu He took advantage of the dark to bring the blanket back, and no one noticed him on the way.
However, it wouldn’t be so easy to bring in a lamp without being seen.
Instead of running a power line directly to the basement, they ran several lines to various parts of the building.
This made the setup less conspicuous.
In fact, Yan Lulin still felt it wasn’t safe enough, so he hid the power line leading to the basement. Without a close inspection, it was completely invisible.
And on a cluttered construction site, if it wasn’t part of their job, workers typically wouldn’t bother inspecting the wires in the corners.
They also wouldn’t notice anything unusual about the basement.
In less than an hour, the basement had completely transformed.
Some people believe it’s plausible that a worker might have been temporarily resting here.
The rest environment on the construction site was far from ideal, but the conditions in the basement were no worse than in a proper break room.
Bright lights illuminated the entire room.
In the corner, a small bed had been laid out, and someone—though no one knew who—had even left some food and water nearby.
Xu He placed the lamp next to a stool, and seeing this, Ruan Qing obediently sat down on the stool, stretching out his hands to warm them by the lamp.
The lamp was a heat lamp, emitting a warm yellow glow that cast a beautiful filter over Ruan Qing, as if enhancing his already striking appearance.
It was so beautiful, it felt like a wonderful dream, one you wouldn’t want to wake from.
Everything that had happened today felt like a dream.
If someone had told Xu He that one day he would go to such lengths for the son of an enemy, he would have scoffed at the idea.
But now, he found himself willingly accepting it.
Even if this was just a fleeting dream, he wanted it to last a little longer.
Zhou Jinchen paid no attention to Xu He, since the young man would forget everything that happened in a day if he didn’t take his medication.
No matter how much Xu He did, the boy wouldn’t remember a thing.
It was as if the boy and they lived in two separate worlds, two worlds that would never intersect.
Zhou Jinchen casually sat to the side and sent the video he had just recorded to Ren Yanqing’s phone, using a new number without even checking it.
He didn’t care that the first half of the video, due to his own actions, hadn’t captured Ruan Qing at all.
***
The sky had already darkened completely. Most people had finished work for the day, but in a bustling office building, a man still sat, seriously reviewing the documents in his hand.
"Ding-dong!"
"You’ve received a new message, please check it."
The system notification from the phone on his desk caught the man's attention.
The man paused for a moment when he heard the sound, then casually picked up the phone to take a look.
The sender was an unknown contact, and the content appeared to be a video.
The video thumbnail was very dim, appearing to show a dark room. It was unclear which gloomy corner had been filmed.
There was no one visible in the image.
The thumbnail didn’t seem to be carefully chosen; it was obviously just the default first second of the video used as the cover.
In the first second of the video, the camera wasn’t pointed at anyone, which was why no one appeared in the thumbnail.
The man glanced at it and put his phone down, showing no intention of opening the video.
Because even without opening it, he already knew what the content would be.
It was nothing more than another scene of his "cheap son" being abused, used to threaten him into giving money.
The man had no interest in it whatsoever. After putting down his phone, he simply went back to work.
It was as if he had only received some kind of spam message.
What son of a bitch (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ
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