noffsinger Chapter 152 Demanding Gu Huaizhou's Later Life from Grandpa Gu
Chapter 152 Demanding Gu Huaizhou's Later Life from Grandpa Gu
The next day, when Li Xi woke up, he heard people talking outside the small building.
She drew back the curtains to observe the area downstairs, and saw that Grandpa Gu had arrived at the Lakeside Villa, where Ying Chengfeng was chatting with him.
Gu Huaizhou stood silently to the side, occasionally offering a word or two in agreement.
Even Ying Li got up and was painting on her easel, painting the oak forest path outside the Lakeside Cottage.
So she's the only lazybones, huh?
Li Xi quickly changed her clothes, brushing her teeth while replying to the New Year's greetings sent by Zhou Zui and Xie Zheng.
Everyone knew that Li Xi was busy during the Chinese New Year, so her colleagues didn't bother her. They waited until the fourth day of the Lunar New Year to tag her in the group chat and ask if she was free so they could get together privately before work resumed.
After some thought, Li Xi decided to hold the dinner tonight and instructed them: "[It's a private gathering; you can bring trusted family members along.]"
Zhou Zui was the first to speak: [No family, all alone.]
Xue Ni: [+1, I'm a single dog with no family.]
Xie Zheng: [Then shall I bring Xie Jian along for some fun?]
Li Xi: [If Xiao Jian is willing to join in the fun, of course she's welcome!]
Xue Ni suddenly popped up in the group chat and asked Li Xi: "Xi Xi, are you taking Zhen Ge with you?"
The thought of Gu Huaizhou's fear of the dark made Li Xi instinctively want to refuse.
At this moment, Xie Zheng suddenly chimed in, saying, "Let's bring Mr. Gu along. Last time we were detained, Mr. Gu helped us out and put in a lot of manpower; everyone is very grateful to him."
Zhou Zui echoed, "Yes, Li Xi, why don't we bring Mr. Gu along for the fun?"
Li Xi hesitated: "[...He's rather reserved and doesn't like crowds.]"
Xie Zheng, however, said: "I think Mr. Gu is quite enthusiastic about your matter. Perhaps he's secretly hoping you'll introduce him to everyone."
Xie Zheng's last words touched Li Xi.
Wiping the foam from the corner of her mouth, Li Xi asked Gu Huaizhou on her phone if he wanted to go to a private dinner with her that evening.
Gu Huaizhou replied relatively quickly, his answer being: 【Go.】
It seems he really wants to be made public.
Li Xi chuckled to herself as she replied in the group chat: 【Then I'll bring my family tonight too.】
After sending the message, Li Xi left the chat group and privately messaged Xie Zheng: "Zheng-jie, due to some special reasons, my boyfriend has some reservations about women in white dresses. Could you and Xiao Jian please try to avoid wearing white?"
Xie Zheng, being sensible, didn't pry, only saying, "Okay, it's the New Year, let's wear red."
Li Xi: [Thanks.]
Just as Li Xi finished replying to the message, she heard a knock on the door.
"Please come in."
Gu Huaizhou walked in carrying breakfast on a tray. "It's past ten o'clock. Have something to eat first to fill your stomach. Grandpa will have lunch here at noon."
"it is good."
Gu Huaizhou placed the food on the small table: two finger-sized fried dough sticks, handmade soy milk, and a stack of crystal buns.
Li Xi was eating her breakfast in small bites when she heard Gu Huaizhou ask, "Who's here tonight?"
"I only invited Zhou Zui and Xie Zheng, who are the few I can trust. I didn't even invite the other main actors."
Nodding, Gu Huaizhou said, "I'll accompany you back to the city after lunch. I've arranged to meet Officer Zhou this afternoon, and I'll go directly to the dinner venue to find you later."
"Just send me your location when the time comes."
Li Xi finished her soy milk, put it on the table, and looked up to ask Gu Huaizhou, "Are you going to talk to Officer Zhou about the progress of the case?"
"Yes, he has already found information on several orphans who were sponsored by Mr. Chen."
"Then you go ahead and take care of your business. It's okay if I'm a little late."
After Li Xi finished breakfast and quickly washed up, the two of them went downstairs.
"Good morning, Grandpa Gu. You look very energetic today." Gu Wentao was wearing an ochre-red Tang suit and black glasses. He had a natural air of a Confucian businessman about him.
Gu Wentao smiled broadly and asked Li Xi, "Are you getting used to living here?"
Li Xi's cheeks flushed slightly. "...It's a habit."
If she's not used to it, she can sleep until late morning.
"I'm glad you're comfortable here. I'll come visit often in the future."
Gu Wentao reached out, and Du Yusheng handed him the cane.
Gu Wentao took the cane and said to Li Xi, "Xi'er, yesterday Grandpa promised to sit around the stove with you and brew tea. Let's make up for it today."
"Okay."
Ying Chengfeng was quite sensible. "Mr. Gu, you can chat with Li Xi about everyday things, so I won't join in."
Pointing to Ying Li, who was painting next to him, he said, "I'm painting with Ying Li."
"it is good."
Gu Huaizhou instinctively wanted to go along, but Gu Wentao disapproved, saying, "I'm going to talk to Xi'er, so you don't need to come."
"Go to work."
Gu Huaizhou: "..."
Li Xi smiled sympathetically at Gu Huaizhou before helping Gu Wentao into the carriage, which then took them to the Lakeside Pavilion.
Du Yusheng had already had charcoal and tea set up, and had also prepared some snacks suitable for grilling.
Bored sitting there, Li Xi simply asked the cook to leave and started baking the food himself.
Watching her bustling around, Gu Wentao's smile never stopped. "I didn't know what you liked to eat, so I just asked the kitchen to prepare some random things."
Li Xi picked up a small tangerine from the table; it was an old variety that was rarely seen on the market anymore. This kind of tangerine tasted sour, but it was the taste of Li Xi's childhood.
Li Xi said, "When I was little, people in town would roast oranges over firewood in the winter. While the adults chatted, I would squat next to the firewood pile and roast these oranges."
"These old varieties of oranges taste sweeter when roasted, and they also have a cough-relieving effect."
Nodding with a smile, Gu Wentao sighed with a touch of nostalgia, "Roasted oranges do have this effect. When I was young, I lived in Qingying's hometown. Conditions were tough back then. When we caught a cold in winter, this was how we treated our coughs."
"In the blink of an eye, sixty or seventy years have passed. This year marks the fourth anniversary of Huaizhou's grandmother leaving me."
Gu Wentao enjoys sitting around a stove and brewing tea in winter. What he loves is not the tea itself, but the people who used to drink tea and watch the snow with him in his memories.
Li Xi could sense Gu Wentao's longing for his deceased wife.
She had heard Gu Han's housekeeper mention that when the old lady Chu Qingying was alive, every winter when it snowed, she and her husband would play chess and brew tea around the stove in the pavilion in the middle of the lake.
Presumably Grandpa Gu was missing his lover, Li Xi said, "To support each other through thick and thin, to grow old together, to be one lover for life, this is the common dream of lovers all over the world."
"Grandpa Gu, you and the old lady have known each other since you were young and have spent more than 60 years together. This is the happiest thing in the world."
Gu Wentao wasn't too sad, after all, his wife was quite old when she passed away, and she died peacefully.
He wasn't sad, but he couldn't help but reminisce.
Staring at Li Xi's bright and charming smile, Gu Wentao sighed, "If Grandma Huaizhou were still alive, she could have seen the girl Huaizhou liked, and perhaps she could have passed away in peace."
"Unfortunately."
"She doesn't have that kind of luck."
Upon hearing this, Li Xi asked, "When the old lady left, she probably didn't know Xie Jiaoyue's true colors, right?"
Seeing that Li Xi brought up Xie Jiaoyue on his own initiative, seemingly not minding her existence, Gu Wentao said, "Of course I don't know."
"In the first two years, Huai Zhou's memory was severely confused. He insisted that Xie Jiaoyue was not his savior, saying that the characteristics of her hands did not match. At that time, we all thought he was hallucinating."
Little did they know that Gu Huaizhou had actually seen such a hand!
Staring at Li Xi's left hand, and noticing the red and black moles on her ring finger, Gu Wentao felt a pang of shame.
"My dear girl, I'm so sorry."
"If my husband and I had believed Huaizhou back then and taken the initiative to help him find you, perhaps you wouldn't have been bullied so badly by the Xie family..."
There are no "what ifs" in life.
Li Xi comforted Gu Wentao instead: "Grandpa Gu, you don't need to apologize to me. The Xie family is guilty. I know who to blame and who to deal with."
Seeing that Li Xi was so sensible and reasonable, Gu Wentao felt even more ashamed.
“If you were a little more unreasonable, a little more demanding, and took the initiative to ask me for some compensation, I would feel more at ease.”
But the fact that this girl didn't ask for anything made Gu Wentao feel even more guilty.
"Grandpa Gu, who said I didn't ask for anything?"
"Oh?" Gu Wentao's eyes lit up. "Whatever you want, just tell me and I'll try my best to satisfy you."
"Grandpa Gu, I want to ask you for Huaizhou's life."
After peeling the first roasted orange and placing it on Gu Wentao's plate, Li Xi looked down and asked Gu Wentao, "Grandpa Gu, would you be willing to give Huaizhou to me?"
"Good good!"
Gu Wentao laughed loudly, "Now that you've brought it up, I declare that Huaizhou's future is in your hands!"
"Xi girl, I'm not afraid of you wanting it, I'm just afraid you won't want it!"
"No returns once you've bought it!"
"..." Li Xi smiled brightly, "Alright, since Grandpa Gu dares to give it, I dare to accept it. Don't worry, I will love him, respect him, and cherish him."
"Yusheng, did you hear that? Even our taciturn son of ours has found a good girl willing to take him on."
Du Yusheng also had a smile on his face, "Old sir, you heard right, Miss Li Xi really is asking you for the lifelong ownership of Huaizhou."
Gu Wentao laughed even more heartily.
Seeing the old man's beaming smile, Li Xi finally responded to the matter Gu Wentao had mentioned earlier.
“Grandpa Gu, you just said that the old lady passed away early and didn’t have a chance to see me. Actually, for the old lady, Xie Jiaoyue was the best candidate for her granddaughter-in-law at that time.”
"Having seen Xie Jiaoyue, she felt a little comforted."
"So Grandpa Gu, don't be too sad."
Upon hearing this, Gu Wentao held Li Xi in even higher regard.
Look at this girl, she really speaks with class.
“Li Xi, perhaps it is the blessing that my husband Huaizhou met you that we, the old couple, have received for our good deeds throughout our lives.”
Li Xi could sense the sincerity in Gu Wentao's tone.
Realizing that the old man truly thought so, Li Xi felt unworthy of the honor, but she still promised, "Since Grandpa Gu thinks so highly of me, then Li Xi will definitely be a good mascot."
"Grandpa Gu, don't worry, I'll go with Huaizhou to uncover the truth and help him overcome the shadows of his childhood."
"it is good!"
*
After lunch, Ying Chengfeng left first, but Ying Li stayed behind, becoming Gu Huaizhou and Li Xi's "little tail".
Knowing that Gu Huaizhou had important business to attend to in the afternoon and Li Xi had other plans for the evening, Gu Wentao did not insist that they stay overnight.
After Ying Chengfeng left, Gu Wentao took out a thick red envelope from his coat pocket and handed it to Li Xi.
"Xi'er, here, this is a little red envelope from Grandpa for you, take it."
Li Xi and Gu Huaizhou looked at each other.
Seeing Gu Huaizhou nod, Li Xi stood up, bowed slightly, and solemnly accepted the red envelope with both hands.
"Thank you, Grandpa Gu."
"Let me see." Gu Huaizhou snatched the red envelope and opened it in front of everyone. Inside was a stack of red hundred-yuan bills, with a one-yuan banknote on top.
The word "块" (kuài) means one in ten thousand, which represents Gu Wentao's approval of Li Xi as his granddaughter-in-law.
Gu Huaizhou was satisfied. He put the red envelope back in its original place and returned it to Li Xi. He then said to Gu Wentao, "Grandpa, is this just a small red envelope? Nothing else?"
Li Xi tugged at Gu Huaizhou's arm, trying to persuade him to have some self-respect, but Gu Wentao laughed and said, "Yes! That red supercar at the door is my gift to Xi-yatou."
"Oh right, the things in the car too."
After saying that, Gu Wentao was about to get up.
Li Xi and Gu Huaizhou stepped forward in unison to help him up. The old man looked at the young people on his left and right, and a smile appeared on his face again.
“Xi girl, come visit me anytime you have time. Even if Huaizhou is busy, you can still come and play by yourself.”
"Alright, Grandpa Gu!"
As soon as Gu Wentao left, Gu Huaizhou took Li Xi to get the gifts.
The red supercar was parked by the roadside in the oak forest. When I opened the car door and the front trunk, I found that they were full of gifts.
Gu Huaizhou had Butler Zhou bring over a small knife, and together with Li Xi, they unwrapped the gifts.
Gu Wentao was very sincere, giving Li Xi all sorts of precious items that girls would love, such as limited edition women's watches, matching priceless jewelry, and bags from various brands...
Finally, there was a violin made by a master craftsman.
It's clear that Gu Wentao did background research on Li Xi and knew that she had studied violin under a famous teacher when she was young.
However, after the kidnapping incident, she became mentally unstable and had to stop studying. When she recovered, she found that she could no longer play a complete piece of music.
As she stroked the zither, Li Xi suddenly said, "I just remembered why I'm afraid of whistles."
Gu Huaizhou suddenly looked at Li Xi.
Leaning against the car, Li Xi recalled in a daze, "That wasn't a whistle, it was the whistling sound of a violin..."
"That person can't play the violin, but she always deliberately plays it in my ear to ignite my spirit, trying to persuade me to give up."
"Oh right, that person always wore a fox mask when they appeared, but I remember their eyes were blue..."
"Blue eyes?" Gu Huaizhou searched his memory carefully before saying, "No, blue eyes are very striking. I've seen that person before. If they really had blue eyes, I would definitely remember them."
"...So, she was wearing colored contact lenses?" Li Xi wasn't quite sure either.
"Maybe?"
maybe.
"Whether the other person was wearing colored contact lenses or some other disguise, I will tell Officer Zhou about your findings when we meet later."
"Alright, let's go back to the city first."
Li Xi pointed to the supercar beneath him and said with a smile, "How about we drive it to the city? I'll give you a ride."
Seeing that Li Xi was eager to drive a sports car, Gu Huaizhou couldn't bear to disappoint her and had no choice but to accompany her, even at the risk of his life.
After getting into the car and fastening her seatbelt, Gu Huaizhou reminded her, "Drive slowly on the mountain road; you're not familiar with the new car."
"Don't worry, I will definitely get Chairman Gu to the police station safely."
"...Does this sound like an insult?" Sending someone to the police station doesn't sound like a compliment.
"I didn't mean that."
The two bickered as they got into the car and drove off.
Butler Zhou and Gu Han stood by the lawn, listening to the two's flirtatious conversation the whole time. Gu Han smiled like a kind old father.
Butler Zhou uttered that inescapable line from CEO romance novels: "It's been a long time since I've seen Mr. Huaizhou laugh so happily."
Gu Han: "...That's really true."
Since the kidnapping, Gu Huaizhou has been like a machine devoid of emotions.
Only recently have these vivid expressions of emotion emerged.
"Miss Li is truly a lucky star."