Young Master Xiang, Leave Me Alone - C145
Chapter 145 – Together
“Chu Liang.”
Staring at the familiar side of his face, his intuition kept reminding him, but he did not have any evidence to prove that Lu Yu was Tao Chu Liang. Xiang Chen Xi moved his lips and muttered the word between his lips, concentrating on looking out of the window.
The Ferris wheel was rising very slowly, other than moving a little faster when it was rising from the ground, in fact, it was spinning slowly, taller than the crowd, taller than floors, taller than cables, all the way to the top, giving Tao Chu Liang the feeling of opening the glass door and touching the blue sky with his hands, giving Tao Chu Liang a comfortable feeling.
“Is it fun?” Xiang Chen Xi looked at the person who was enjoying it with his eyes closed, and asked softly.
The person in front of him nodded, and replied in a warm voice, “It feels very comfortable here.”
In the past, he had always felt that saying these words was too much of an affectation, but now he felt that everything had happened so naturally.
Xiang Chen Xi looked out the window at the scenery. They were on their way to the highest floor when Xiang Chen Xi told him this beautiful story.
After Tao Chu Liang heard the story Xiang Chen Xi told, he did not answer, but a few minutes later, he looked away. Tao Chu Liang saw the blurry shadow of the figure on the window and sighed, then spoke out softly, “Legends are just legends, after all.”
For a time, the two of them had completely different thoughts and were speechless. Until the Ferris wheel reached the starting point, every 360 degree rotation would be a cycle.
Time flew by quickly as they interacted happily. Unknowingly, the sun was about to set, looking at the colorful clouds in the sky, Xiang Chen Xi realised for the first time that there were many things that he had missed out on in this world.
“So beautiful.”
Tao Chu Liang looked into the distance in a daze as he lamented. Under the afterglow of the setting sun, the horizon seemed as if it was about to be set ablaze.
She had climbed the tallest hill in the village to see the sun rise or the sun set, but she had never seen anything so beautiful.
“Let’s go. It’s time to go back.”
Xiang Chen Xi pulled Tao Chu Liang’s hand, but Tao Chu Liang did not refuse, and blankly allowed his to hold onto his hand.
Tao Chu Liang and Xiang Chen Xi walked in the direction of the sunset, hand in hand. Occasionally, some tourists turned around to look at them and were shocked by the scene before them.
The two of them left slowly, the golden halo surrounding them giving off an unbreakable radiance. Looking from behind, the two figures seemed to match each other’s looks. The park visitors sighed in their hearts. The so-called golden couple was only mediocre.
Xiang Chen Xi brought Tao Chu Liang back to the little village, where someone started a fire in the village to cook. At the entrance of the village, one could see the smoke rising up, reminding the labourers to eat dinner at home.
There were more and more people rushing home, so Xiang Chen Xi didn’t want to send Tao Chu Liang back home. Bringing Tao Chu Liang out to play like this today, if he was seen by the stone slabs in the village, it would cause gossip and gossip to fill the sky.
“Alright, don’t send me off. Mr. Xiang, you should head back earlier as well. I had a good time today, thank you.”
Although Tao Chu Liang said it from the bottom of his heart, he didn’t want to part with him. She wanted to tell him to stay, but there were too many reasons for her to stop him.
“You can go.”
After remaining silent for a while, Tao Chu Liang told Xiang Chen Xi, who was standing in place, that he wanted him to leave.
It was just a few ordinary words that he could not hear clearly, but Xiang Chen Xi then turned and left with big strides, without a trace of hesitation.
Behind him, Tao Chu Liang kept waving his left hand, like a robot who had nothing to think about, constantly swaying it, his line of sight following Xiang Chen Xi’s back until he disappeared.
Tao Chu Liang then retracted his hand that was swaying weakly, with his eyes that were astringent, he turned and walked back home.
For a few days, Xiang Chen Xi did not appear. Tao Chu Liang’s life returned to its original state, he would teach whenever he had time, and would meditate on the small hill as per usual.
At noon that day, after Tao Chu Liang finished farming, she still took the time to head to the classroom. The children in the classroom were already waiting for her and they sat orderly on the stools with piles of textbooks piled up in front of them.
Because it wasn’t time for class yet, other than the children who were taking a nap, there were only the back silhouettes of the mischievous boys who were earnestly studying. Of course, the mischievous boys had already climbed up the big tree in front of the classroom to catch cicadas and dig for bird eggs.
Tao Chu Liang was also reading the teaching plans she had prepared for the past few days. He was preparing to teach the children new lessons and learn more.
The bell for class rang and the children woke up from their afternoon nap. The children stopped studying and took out the books they wanted to teach today. Even the naughty children outside the door hurriedly put their eggs back in the bird’s nest.
“Alright, students. Today, we will study a new textbook and open the new bookmark to page 145. Everyone, we will have to review first.”
The classroom was silent for a moment. Other than the sounds of flipping through books, there was nothing else.
Tao Chu Liang stood on the stage, his gaze sweeping across everyone’s faces, and the originally dishonest students, when Tao Chu Liang looked over, all became well-behaved, and earnestly stared at the words on the book.
Seeing that there was one less person in the furthest right seat, Tao Chu Liang frowned slightly and asked, “Who is in that vacant seat?”
Tao Chu Liang thought that the child must be mischievous and missed the lesson time, or the parent left the child to work in the dirt while the child was not allowed to learn.
The class monitor stood up and said to Tao Chu Liang, “Teacher Lu, Hu Zi hasn’t come to class for five days.”
Hu Zi’s family was rather poor, and he was very sensible. He really wanted to learn something, and in order to be able to come to class, Hu Zi would complete the task his parents had given him and flip through the books whenever he had free time.
But his parents would not allow him to come, and they thought that it would be better to work in the fields than to have a head in the classroom.
His parents also clenched their teeth and tightened their belt, allowing him to study. However, reading books still required a bit of tuition fees, and Hu Zi’s father suddenly became seriously ill. His family was already poor, and gradually, Hu Zi’s mother stopped allowing him to come to class.
In Tao Chu Liang’s impression, Hu Zi was a very sensible and obedient child, not to mention that the children of the poor families would quickly become their family leaders, and Hu Zi’s academic performance was also very good. Tao Chu Liang felt that it would be a pity if he did not let Hu Zi continue reading.
Just like that, the time for a few lessons quietly slipped away. Tao Chu Liang held onto the time and placed down a piece of chalk, followed by the sound of the bell ringing. This was the last lesson, so the children were considered to have finished school.
Tao Chu Liang waited for the students in the classroom to seriously take notes, and then left the classroom one after another. Whether it was in groups or in single file, he waited until the day that he would have finished cleaning the classroom on duty that day, and only after the last student left did Tao Chu Liang inspect the classroom once, closed the doors and windows, locked the classroom, and left as well.
As they walked along the road, Tao Chu Liang thought about Hu Zi’s lack of classes today and how he had missed them by several days. Because, in these past few days, other than today, she had been taking lessons with other teachers all the time, so Tao Chu Liang finally found out today.
Tao Chu Liang felt that she should pay a visit to Hu Zi’s parents and ruin a child’s future for the sake of his family’s livelihood.
Children were the future of the motherland. She would not allow selfish adults to “ruthlessly destroy flowers” for the sake of the immediate benefits.
Therefore, Tao Chu Liang raised his leg and turned to walk towards Hu Zi’s house. There was a lot of land here, and everyone’s land was pretty much in front of their own house, so it could not be separated too far. Thus, when Tao Chu Liang rushed to Hu Zi’s house, Hu Zi was labouring hard in the fields.
Seeing Teacher Lu coming to his house, Hu Zi felt a little embarrassed. Due to doing farm work, his suntanned face was a little red as he looked at Tao Chu Liang awkwardly, but he still warmly invited Tao Chu Liang to come in and sit. He even poured a cup of water for Tao Chu Liang.
Hu Zi also poured himself a cup. After all the work he had done on the ground, he was sweating too much. There was some dirt mixed in the bowl, and Hu Zi did not care too much about it.
Inside the house, there was a pit with Hu Zi’s father lying on it. He had been injured while working at the construction site, and suddenly the pillar of the family had turned into trash who could only lie on the bed.
And the burden of his home fell on Hu Zi. Hu Zi’s mother was a little further away plowing, and when she heard from the people around her that Teacher Lu had paid them a visit, she quickly carried the hoe and returned home.
Seeing that the person who came was Hu Zi’s mother, after Tao Chu Liang introduced himself briefly, he explained his purpose of coming here. He said that as the parent, he wanted Hu Zi to go back to school and not carry the burden of the family with his young age. This was too difficult for the young Hu Zi.
When Hu Zi’s mother heard Tao Chu Liang’s words, she wiped away her tears and started to complain about her pain.
The crafty contractor rejected all responsibility and refused to pay Hu Zi’s father’s medical expenses. For a poor family like them, the money needed to cure Hu Zi’s father was simply an astronomical figure. Every day and night, Hu Zi’s mother would think of how to collect this money.