So Su Tian decided to just take it with her and waited at the front of the school to return it to him after his mother was gone.
She figured if she had said all that itâd only embarrass him more, so Su Tian decided to skip all those words and continued to use the same spiel she used when she took the basketball with her.
After all, it wasnât much that she had done and she wasnât trying to make him feel that heâd owe her favor.
Sheâd never know whether Liu Kaiyan knew the true reason sheâd done what sheâd done. He looked at the basket and then looked away, âItâs alright. You can throw it away if you donât want it.â
Having said that, he gently struggled free of her grasp and walked away.
Donât have anything to do with anyone, he told himself. If Lin Xiuping finds out, sheâd start calling their parents again.
The young manâs lonely figure disappeared quickly among the other student, leaving Su Tian standing there motionlessly for a long, long time.
Ugh. All she did was saved a basketball from the fate of being thrown into a trash can then decided to return it to its original owner, how did that activate yet another villain boss?
If one would say that Xi Yunâs tragedy was a lack of love, then Liu Kaiyan was the exact opposite. He was being suffocated by love and finally meeting his fatal end.
Liu Kaiyanâs parents came from a big city. His father Liu Chaoyang was the professional of a college and his mother was also from a well-educated family. But, due to internal politics, they were âexiledâ from the core department of Didu to this small and remote town to lead a fringe research of no importance.
Liu Chaoyang wasnât aware of the reason of his âexileâ initially, but overtime, heâd heard from the grapevine that it was because of the âsmudgesâ in his resume. Diduâs core group only want â3Dsâ. â3Dsâ stand for all three degrees â Bachelor, Master, and phD all from Didu. Even though Liu Chaoyang was also from a very prestigious college, it still was half a notch below that of Didu. He wasnât able to get into Didu until his master degree.
Liu Chaoyang bought that explanation, as did Lin Xiuping. The two of them were so distressed over that. Watching their incredibly bright future slipped away between their fingers for a reason like that. Being demoted from capital city to a remote small town, one could imagine the difference in the quality of their lives.
Feeling unreconciled, the couple turned their attention to Liu Kaiyan, who was barely 3-year-old then.
And that was the beginning of Liu Kaiyanâs nightmare.
Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, he had to get up at 5 AM to study and go to bed exactly at 9 PM every night. Toy? Confiscated. Friends? Itâs a distraction, not allowed. TV? Donât even think about it. Even his clothing were only of black, white, or grey his entire life; as his parents believe that colors would also affect oneâs mood.
Those aside, for every examination, regardless of its level of difficulty, for each point that he missed heâd be made to kneel for an hour. Within 10 points, he knelt at home; 10 to 20, outside the door; 20 plus, in the middle of the street downstairs.
And that was Liu Kaiyanâs childhood. No entertainment, no friends, no self-esteem, just studying, day after day and year after year of studying.
The result of this kind of upbringing was obvious. Liu Kaiyan had been #1 of his class ever since he was a kid and never #2. It was only one time during his second year of high school when he underperformed due to illness, he earned #2. Lin Xiuping slapped him in front of all the students of the school and took away his only entertainment â his basketball.
His one and only entertainment that he begged and begged for.
Since that incident, Liu Kaiyan continued to keep his #1 place academically. Just when the school as well as his parents thought heâd no doubt get into Top2 and made his ancestors proud, he did something utterly unimaginable.