Chapter 122: Chapter 122: Mending an Uneasy Conscience

Just a few days after coming back from the golf course, Zhou’s announced their intention to collaborate with Ji’s.

Upon hearing this news, Su Linzhou was utterly dumbfounded.

“Are you out of your mind? How can you just give up such an important project and hand it over to Ji Tingyang like that?”

“Weren’t you highly interested in this project? You even dragged me into it. Now when President Zhou is ready to choose you, you reject it. Then what was all your recent hustle for?”

Su Linzhou couldn’t figure it out.

Xie Changyan sat in the chair with a lazy tone, “Perhaps it’s to make up for a slight pang of conscience afterward…”

Su Linzhou was momentarily puzzled but quickly caught on.

He was at a loss for words, “Holy shit, you’ve really set your mind on poaching their corner, haven’t you?”

What conscience.

He just wanted to snatch Ji Tingyang’s person, then compensated with a big project.

“Tsk tsk, if Ji Tingyang knew the little schemes in your heart, he surely wouldn’t let you off easy.” Imagining the two of them coming to blows, Su Linzhou’s smile carried a bit more schadenfreude.

“…” Xie Changyan gave him a sidewards glance and remained silent.

Ji Mansion.

Completely unaware of the situation, Ji Tingyang, after receiving the good news about President Zhou’s decision to collaborate with Ji’s, couldn’t help but feel a touch of pride in his eyes.

He was still upset about the new energy project that Xie’s had snatched away last time.

Being able to take Zhou’s project away from Xie Changyan this time, Ji Tingyang even felt a sense of relief.

Even though he appeared nonchalant, Lin Xu could sense the happy aura emanating from him.

“Amazing, you landed another big project. To celebrate, how about we have a feast tonight?” Lin Xu praised.

Pressing his lips together, Ji Tingyang’s eyes flickered with a hint of discomfort, “Can we not have a feast, but eat something else…”

“Sure, whatever you want to eat is fine.”

“I want to have scallion noodles…” his eyes shimmered.

Lin Xu had always told him to take care of his health and not work overtime too much.

As a result, he reduced the times he worked overtime at home, which meant he hadn’t had the late-night meals cooked by Lin Xu for quite a while.

Thinking this, he lifted his eyes to glance at Lin Xu.

Meeting her smiling gaze, a blush crept stealthily over the ears beneath his tousled hair.

“Okay, but just noodles might leave you hungry. I’ll ask Aunt Zhang to make some other dishes too, alright?” Lin Xu said.

He only had a craving for scallion noodles, everything else was inconsequential.

Ji Tingyang nodded.

“What should I tell Aunt Zhang to make?” Lin Xu murmured to herself as she went into the kitchen.

Having grown accustomed to the process, Lin Xu was much more adept at noodle-making this time. In less than five to six minutes, she brought out a bowl of fragrant scallion noodles from the kitchen.

Ji Tingyang picked up his chopsticks, just as a pair of hands suddenly reached out, snatching the bowl of scallion noodles from in front of him.

The person hoisted the large bowl and began slurping down the noodles with the broth.

In less than a moment, more than half of that bowl of scallion noodles had been devoured.

“What perfect timing coming back from work. How did you know I was hungry?” Ji Zeqiu held the bowl with a joyful expression.

Ji Tingyang’s expression darkened in an instant, like the sky before a thunderstorm, a storm ready to burst.

He enunciated each word through clenched teeth, calling out Ji Zeqiu’s name with a chillingly cold demeanor, “That was made for me by mother!”

“Oh.” Ji Zeqiu raised his eyebrows, pushing the bowl he was holding forward, “So give it back to you?”

The noodles, now halved, and the broth tinged with Ji Zeqiu’s saliva.

A cold gleam exploded from the depths of Ji Tingyang’s eyes, filled with menacing wrath.

Who would want to eat his saliva!

But…

This was the noodles his mother cooked for him.

They were cooked by his mother.

Ji Tingyang’s sense of coldness paused for a moment, a fleeting hesitation flashed in the depths of his eyes.

Before his internal struggle had ended, Ji Zeqiu had snatched the chopsticks from his hand and continued to eat the remaining noodles, “You’re the one who didn’t want them.”

“…” Ji Tingyang’s fist clenched tightly by his side, creaking in frustration.

Worried that the two brothers would start fighting again, Lin Xu spoke up, “There’s more in the kitchen, a bowl each, no more arguing.”

Upon hearing her words, Ji Tingyang’s expression finally eased a bit.

Before Lin Xu could return from the kitchen with another bowl of noodles, Ji Tingyang cast a glance at Ji Zeqiu, who was slurping away beside him, and a vein throbbed on his forehead, “Ji Zeqiu, are you sick!”

“Who told you to hog it all to yourself,” Ji Zeqiu snorted.

Ji Tingyang had made a point of flaunting to him before, both openly and covertly, that their mother had cooked him scallion noodles, and one could only imagine how sullen he felt at that time.

He wanted to eat them too.

But every time he saw Lin Xu’s smiling face, the words ‘I want to eat’ that were on his lips would go around and around, only to be swallowed back down.

This matter had been on his mind for a long time.

Little did he expect that upon his return this time, he’d coincidentally catch his mother cooking noodles.

Who cared about Ji Tingyang anymore.

Ji Tingyang bit his lip, suppressing the urge to expose all of Ji Zeqiu’s dark secrets.@@novelbin@@

As if worried that the last bowl of noodles would also be taken by Ji Zeqiu, Lin Xu had barely set it down before he hurriedly took a bite.

Ji Zeqiu rolled his eyes at him.

Watching the two bickering brothers, Lin Xu was caught between laughter and tears, somehow reminded of a past scene.

One noon, when Xiao Zeqiu was two or three years old, he woke up from a nightmare, crying and running out of the bedroom with a small teddy bear clutched in his hand.

No matter how the servants tried to soothe him, it was no use; he kept crying for his mother.

After receiving a call from the servant, Lin Xu rushed home in a panic.

Unexpectedly, on her return, the house was quiet.

Lin Xu was surprised, “Where’s Zeqiu?”

The servant smiled, “The eldest young master took the second young master back to his room.”

As Lin Xu walked towards the bedroom on the second floor, she quietly opened the bedroom door.

She saw the two children lying in bed together, fast asleep in each other’s arms.

Xiao Zeqiu’s rosy cheeks still bore the marks of dried tears, his little hands restlessly clutched Ji Tingyang’s clothes, their heads touching together, creating a harmonious and beautiful scene.

Even though the brothers were so close in their childhood, how did they become so antagonistic after growing up?

Lin Xu had even sneakily taken a photo back then.

Had she uploaded that photo to the cloud?

She wondered if it was still retrievable.

While Lin Xu tried hard to remember, a series of urgent phone rings pulled her back from her memories.

She picked up the phone and saw an unfamiliar number.

“Hello?” Lin Xu answered the call.

“Miss Lin, this is Shen Qingtang,” the person on the other end identified themselves.

“Are you looking for Ji Zeqiu? I’ll get him for you…” Lin Xu said.

After all, their only common link seemed to be Ji Zeqiu.

“No, it’s not that. I’m specifically calling for you,” Shen Qingtang hurriedly said, “I’ve thought about it for a while, and I believe what you said to me before makes sense.”

She took a deep breath.

“I’ve decided to go abroad.”

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