124: Chapter 124 Chen Muyang's "Refusal to Learn"

Chen Muyang stood in front of the mottled anti-theft door on the third floor, his schoolbag still in his hand, not yet put down.

The sensor light in the hallway was broken, leaving it pitch black, save for a sliver of ambiguous warm light seeping through the door crack.

The air was permeated with the musty smell peculiar to old buildings, but mixed into this moldy scent was a strong, cloying smell of Chanel No. 5 perfume, making one's nose itch.

He lifted his hand to check his watch: exactly eight o'clock.

He wasn't in a rush to knock.

First, he took off the plain-rimmed glasses he wore to look more mature and wiped them on his washed-out denim jacket.

The moment the lenses were back on the bridge of his nose, the coldness in the youth's eyes was well hidden.

"Knock, knock, knock."

As soon as the knocking stopped, the door opened immediately, as if someone had been waiting right behind it.

It wasn't his student, the chubby second-year middle schooler, who opened the door, but the boy's mother, Sun Li.

Sun Li wasn't wearing her usual casual cotton pajamas today; instead, she had changed into a wine-red silk slip dress, with a cashmere shawl draped loosely over her shoulders.

Her hair had clearly just been done, curled meticulously.

"Teacher Chen is here? Come in, come in." Sun Li stepped aside to make way, the smile on her face brighter than the sound-activated light downstairs. "I've prepared slippers for you, brand new ones."

Chen Muyang looked down at the pair of designer leather slippers on the floor, which were clearly meant for a man, and didn't move.

"Auntie Sun, where is Qiangqiang? Aren't we supposed to go over quadratic functions today?"

"Qiangqiang? Oh, he was just picked up for his grandmother's birthday." Sun Li reached out to grab Chen Muyang's arm, but he avoided it non-chalantly. "He isn't having a tutoring session tonight. I asked you over because there's something else."

Chen Muyang stood at the entrance, not even inching his foot into the room. "Since the student isn't here, I'll be heading back. There's no need to settle the tutoring fee for today."

With that, he turned to leave.

"Hey! Don't go!" Sun Li panicked, stepping out to block the hallway entrance. "Since you're already here, I'm not going to eat you, am I? Come in and have a cup of tea, just for ten minutes. It's about your father… Chen Fan."

Hearing this name, Chen Muyang stopped.

He turned around and, through his plain-rimmed glasses, quietly looked at the still-charming woman before him.

After a few seconds, he stepped into the room.

The furnishings inside were completely out of place with the exterior of the old building. European-style leather sofas, a crystal chandelier, and a bottle of wine that had been decanted were on the coffee table.

Chen Muyang didn't sit on the sofa but pulled over a dining chair, sitting with his back straight and his schoolbag on his lap.

"Speak."

Sun Li poured him a glass of red wine, pushed it toward him, and then sat on the armrest of the sofa very close to him. The scent of perfume became even stronger.

"Little Chen, Auntie only found out from the news today that the mysterious tycoon in our Yunzhou is actually your father." Sun Li swirled the wine glass in her hand, her tone probing. "You child, really, with such a wealthy family, why are you still working as a Tutor? Just experiencing life?"

Chen Muyang didn't touch the wine glass. "I'm working to support my studies and earn some living expenses. There's no shame in that."

"It's not shameful, but it's too hard on you." Sun Li sighed, took a thick envelope from under the coffee table, and slapped it on the table. "This is fifty thousand yuan. Consider it a bonus from me."

Chen Muyang glanced at the envelope but didn't speak.

Seeing that he didn't refuse, Sun Li felt a surge of joy and leaned toward Chen Muyang. "Auntie knows that for families like yours, there are many rules. Your father just returned, so he surely hasn't handed over the family's financial power to you yet, right? It's normal to be short on cash."

She thought she had seen through the youth's predicament.

A nineteen-year-old boy was at the age where he cared about face and wanted to spend money, but his father was a newly returned upstart who kept a tight leash on him. If she offered some sweetness now, wouldn't she have him under her thumb?

"My husband passed away early, leaving behind a construction materials company. Recently, I've been wanting to connect with Huihuang Group to get some renovation work for Longwan No. 1." Sun Li finally showed her true colors. "As long as you can help introduce me to your father, this fifty thousand is just a deposit. Once it's done, I'll give you a big red envelope. Even if you want a sports car, I can pay the down payment for you."

Chen Muyang looked at the fifty thousand yuan and suddenly laughed.

His laughter made Sun Li feel uneasy.

"Auntie Sun." Chen Muyang extended a finger, pressed it gently on the envelope, and pushed it back. "You are well-informed, but a bit behind the times."

"What do you mean?"

"First, my father isn't short of money, and neither am I." Chen Muyang stood up, the pressure of a superior radiating from him, making Sun Li shrink back subconsciously. "Last night, my sister was unhappy, and my father casually transferred one hundred million to cheer her up. Do you really think I would sell my father's favor for this fifty thousand?"

Sun Li's face froze, her mouth open wide enough to fit an egg. "One… one hundred million?"

"Second." Chen Muyang pulled a hundred-yuan bill from his schoolbag and pressed it onto the envelope. "This is the change for the lost time tonight. Your construction company was fined three hundred thousand by the Quality Supervision Bureau last month for cutting corners. With that kind of qualification, you wouldn't even be able to get into the trash room of Huihuang Group."

"You… how do you know that?" Sun Li's voice began to tremble.

"Background checks are a basic skill before becoming a Tutor." Chen Muyang straightened his collar, his tone as flat as if he were discussing what to eat for dinner. "Auntie Sun, free things are the most expensive. You want to take shortcuts, but that road doesn't work with me."

With that, he walked toward the door without looking back.

"Chen Muyang!" Sun Li shouted in anger and embarrassment from behind. "What high and mighty act are you putting on! Wasn't your father just a poor food delivery guy back then? Now that he has money, you look down on people?"

Chen Muyang's hand rested on the doorknob, and his footsteps paused for a moment.

"Yes." He didn't turn back, his voice echoing in the empty room. "Precisely because we crawled out of the mud, we know better what money is dirty and what is clean. Your money—it reeks. I find it dirty."

"Bang!"

The anti-theft door slammed shut, locking the flushed woman and the room full of greed behind him.

Walking out of the apartment building, hit by the night breeze, Chen Muyang let out a long breath.

He zipped his denim jacket up to the top, covering half his face.

This kind of so-called "upper-class" probing was much more disgusting than math problems. Those people were like sharks smelling blood; as soon as you showed the slightest opening, they would pounce and tear you apart.

Just then, the phone in his pocket vibrated twice.

Chen Muyang took it out, the faint fluorescent light from the screen illuminating his somewhat tired face. It was a WeChat message; the sender's avatar was a small orange cat lying on a windowsill.

Contact name: Lin Wanqiu.

"Um… Chen, sorry to bother you. I have a calculus problem I can't solve. Are you busy? If it's not convenient, never mind…"

Immediately after, she sent an image. It was a handwritten problem, the handwriting neat and tidy, with a cautious question mark drawn on the side.

Looking at this message, the hostility that had filled Chen Muyang just a moment ago inexplicably dissipated for the most part.

This was what someone at this age should look like.

Clean, pure, cautious.

His fingers tapped quickly on the screen: "Just finished. Which problem? Send a voice message, and I'll explain it to you."

After sending the message, he looked back at the brightly lit residential building, a mocking curl at the corner of his mouth.

Some people take fifty thousand yuan to try and buy a ticket to the upper class, while others, even when it comes to a math problem, are afraid to easily trouble others.

Chen Muyang stuffed his phone back into his pocket and strode into the night.

Tomorrow is Monday, the day to return to school. He had a premonition that with the exposure of his father's identity, the life he had at school, which had been as calm as stagnant water, was likely about to end completely.

And could Lin Wanqiu, that little kitten-like girl, withstand this coming storm?

At the end of the street, a black maybach glided silently over and stopped beside him.

The window rolled down, and Chen Haoyu's big face poked out, grinning sneakily. "Brother Yang! Second Uncle asked me to pick you up. How was it? That rich lady didn't eat you up, did she?"

Chen Muyang opened the car door, sat in, and threw his schoolbag to the side.

"Drive."

"Got it! Going home for a late-night snack! Auntie had the kitchen stew bird's nest!"

The maybach merged into the traffic, like a silent beast.

And in the female dormitory of Yunzhou University, Lin Wanqiu held her phone, listening to that cool and patient voice coming from the earpiece, her face as red as a ripe tomato.

She didn't know that the boy who was explaining the problem to her had just rejected a dirty transaction in the adult world and was walking toward her, carrying the weariness of the world with him.