When Tao Xi returned to the bedroom that night, Pan Yan grabbed him and said indignantly: “Xi da, when did you make a friend like Lin Qinhe, and the relationship is so good, you didn’t even tell me!”

“Friends” and “good relationship” made Tao Xi couldn’t help but laugh, but he replied hypocritically: “It’s okay.”

“That’s okay?!” Pan Yan widened his eyes, “That’s Lin Qinhe! Not only are his grades awesome and he’s handsome, okay? Did you know that his grandfather was once the secretary of the municipal party committee of our city, his uncle is the current secretary-general of the provincial party committee, and his father is the chairman of the Ruize Group. There is also a pianist’s mother. With this background, let alone students, many teachers have to fawn over him, okay?”

Tao Xi was dumbfounded.

Although Lin Qinhe was full of the temperament of a wealthy man, he had never thought that Lin Qinhe’s family background would be like this.

So far out of reach.

Tao Xi couldn’t help being worried. Can he catch up with Lin Qinhe?

“Xi da, why are you so scared? You don’t know it yet, do you?” Pan Yan thought Tao Xi had deliberately spent a lot of effort to get on Lin Qinhe’s network.

Xu Ziqi, who had been sullen and silent for a long time, snorted coldly, speaking with a strange air of yin and yang: “Will those social climber, those who climb the dragon and stick to phoenix1?won’t inquire about these clearly?”

Pan Yan was worried that he could not find anyone to fight the ring, so he sneered: “Oh, who was with Lin Qinhe every day last semester, but in the end, except for Yang Duole giving some face, Lin Qinhe didn’t even look at him.”

Xu Ziqi’s face was blue.

Tao Xi glanced at Xu Ziqi and smiled: “You are right, I just want to climb the dragon and stick to the phoenix.”

Xu Ziqi glared at him, perhaps because he didn’t expect such a brazen person.

During the lunch break the next day, Tao Xi was approached by Zhou Qiang, he thought it must be Jiang Lei who approached Zhou Qiang to give him a lecture.

As a result, Zhou Qiang didn’t even mention it. He just mentioned another thing: “Tao Xi, remember the funding project I told you about last time. All the expenses for your studies and allowance in Wenhua No. 1 High School come from this and given to you by the school.”

Tao Xi nodded, and suddenly became nervous, subconsciously wondering if this project was about to stop.

Seeing Tao Xi’s nervous look, Zhou Qiang smiled clearly, and his tone became more kind:

“Recently, the sponsor of this project asked the school to adjust the funding plan. Taking into account the current cost of living and study costs, there will be no monthly allowance. You will be given 50,000 yuan first, and 50,000 yuan next semester. If you have difficulties at home, you can apply for more.”

“???”

Tao Xi looked at Zhou Qiang in shock, he couldn’t believe his ears.

However, Zhou Qiang had not finished speaking: “In addition, your future university funds, that is, the expenses and scholarship for going to university, are also included in the fund of this project. I didn’t tell you before, mainly because I was afraid that your psychological burden would be too great. Now I want you to study more steadily and at ease, not to be distracted by other things.”

Tao Xi hadn’t recovered from the shock. He was dumb for a while and couldn’t help asking: “This sponsor..can you tell me who it is?”

He sketched out in his mind an old grandfather with a head full of white hair and a kind face, the philanthropists in the newspapers usually looked like this.

But was this doing charity?

This was simply raising him as a son!

Zhou Qiang still did not disclose specific information like last time: “The sponsor does not want to disclose the name. Don’t have too much pressure. Just concentrate on studying. For example, try to enter the top fifty in this mid-term exam and stay in the first class. Isn’t it a good reward?”

Tao Xi knew that the question could not be asked, so he did not insist anymore, and nodded, “I will definitely enter the top fifty in the midterm this time!”

The gaze was so firmed that it made Zhou Qiang startled.

Zhou Qiang patted Tao Xi on the shoulder and encouraged: “Good boy, I believe in you!”

Tao Xi walked out of Zhou Qiang’s office, his mood had not calmed down at all, and his eyes were a little red.

He thought, in fact, he also had good luck.

Although his life had been exchanged, he still met Lin Qinhe through the remote live broadcast class. There was also such a generous and kind funder who helped him come to Wenhua No. 1 High School to study, and even paved a broad road for his future.

Those difficult problems seemed to be solved instantly.

He thought that he must be admitted to the best university in the country like Lin Qinhe, and then thanked the kind benefactor, and then passed this kindness to more people like him.

He just didn’t know, did Lin Qinhe want to go to Tsinghua University or Peking University?

Tao Xi walked back to the classroom in a daze, and found that Lin Qinhe was already sitting in his seat. He couldn’t help but threw himself on the seat with excitement, talking to Lin Qinhe with bright eyes:

“It seems like I can treat you to a better meal right now! The school suddenly gave me a lot of money!”

Lin Qinhe glanced at him lightly, without saying anything.

Tao Xi suddenly thought, to Lin Qinhe, what delicious food he had not yet eaten?

But he just wanted to invite Lin Qinhe to dinner.

Tao Xi struggled for a while, trying to summon the courage to say to Lin Qinhe: “Are you free on Sunday? I want to invite you to dinner to thank you for helping me out yesterday.”

He looked at Lin Qinhe anxiously, but Lin Qinhe refused without hesitation: “I have something on Sunday.”

“Then, I will invite you when you are free in the future.”

Tao Xi couldn’t help being disappointed, but there was still time for that later. He could always find a chance to ask Lin Qinhe out.

He didn’t say anything else, picked up a pen and started to do practice papers. After a while, Bi Chengfei rushed over and asked: “Xi ge, are you free on the Sunday? I have an appointment with a few buddies in junior high school for a basketball game. You can help me play. There are many girls coming to watch.”

Tao Xi refused: “No, I have to do my homework on Sunday.”

The midterm was coming soon, except for Lin Qinhe, he didn’t want to waste any time on anything.

Bi Chengfei was crying sadly. Suddenly, there was a flash of inspiration, and he leaned to Tao Xi’s ear to say, “Didn’t you ask me how to chase people last time? I have a buddy who is so awesome that he chased their cold high school flower.”

Tao Xi really was persuaded.

Bi Chengfei kept whispering. “That school flower is incredible. Her dad is a high-ranking official, mom is an artist, and comes from a real scholarly family. Many boys couldn’t chase her, but my buddy did. He must be very experienced!”

Tao Xi couldn’t help but feel a little moved. This situation was simply in line with Lin Qinhe.

Bi Chengfei felt that he was being stared at by an unkind gaze. He consciously sat back in his seat and stopped whispering to Tao Xi, but was still tempting him: “And you can get to know more friends, my buddies are very good, they will like you too.”

“Sunday, at what time?” Tao Xi asked Bi Chengfei.

He thought, playing basketball for an hour or two was nothing, but as soon as he finished speaking, he heard Lin Qinhe’s serious voice:

“Aren’t you asking me to eat on Sunday?”

This rhetorical question was affirmative in tone.

Both Bi Chengfei and Tao Xi were taken aback.

Tao Xi replied, uncertain, “Didn’t you say that you have something on Sunday?”

“It’s fine.” Lin Qinhe said without changing his face.

Tao Xi was not angry at him going back on his words. Instead, his eyes were shining and his tongue was tied with joy: “Good, good, then I’ll find out which restaurant is better.”

Bi Chengfei wanted to say that he could still come to play after dinner, but Lin Qinhe glanced at him and suddenly he couldn’t say it.

Tao Xi was excited for the whole day that he could invite Lin Qinhe to dinner. In the evening, he went back to check the delicious restaurants on his mobile phone for a long time, and had a lively discussion with Pan Yan, who knew the most about food.

The old house of the Lin family was also very lively that night. The old man Lin Weiliang paid attention to tradition and had the habit of holding family banquets on a regular basis. On the day of the family banquet, there could be no fewer children and grandchildren of the Lin family. Lin Qinhe directly took a leave for the night study.

Lin Jixuan was talking to her father, Lin Zeqiu, and her five-year-old son Tang Nan kept annoying her on her side. She yelled angrily: “Go, let your little uncle tell a story.”

She had originally agreed with Lin Qinhe to let him help take care of her son this Sunday, so that she and her husband could go to an important meeting, but Lin Qinhe just broke the appointment with her.

Not long after Lin Zeqiu came back from the provincial government, he smiled after hearing the words: “Qinhe and Zeshi have the same virtue, how can he tell stories to children.”

Tang Nan was sent away by his mother, and with his short legs, he ran to Lin Qinhe who was sitting on the sofa. He pulled Lin Qinhe’s pants and said, “Uncle, my mother wants you to tell me a story.”

Lin Qinhe was reading a small comic. He picked Tang Nan up on his lap with one hand, and asked casually, “What do you want to hear?”

Tang Nan was attracted by the comic in Lin Qinhe’s hand, and reached out to catch it, but Lin Qinhe folded it.

Tang Nan pressed his mouth. He grabbed the clothes on Lin Qinhe’s chest and said coquettishly, “Uncle, I want to see this.”

The entire Lin family couldn’t do anything when he acted coquettish.

“No.” Lin Qinhe refused directly.

“Why?”

“Because this is mine.”

Lin Weiliang, who was reading the newspaper on the sidelines, couldn’t stand it anymore. He glared at Lin Qinhe and waved to his beloved great-grandson: “Nan nan, grandpa is here, grandpa will tell you a story.”

Tang Nan jumped off Lin Qinhe’s leg and ran to Lin Weiliang’s leg to give a little report: “Uncle is so stingy.”

“Yes, it’s too stingy!” Lin Weiliang scolded together, telling Tang Nan the story of the Red Army crossing the grassland2. Tang Nan fell asleep as he listened.

After a while, Lin Zeshi finally rushed to the old house and as soon as he entered the living room, he was scolded by his father: “Your brother is not even as busy as you at the provincial party committee, you might as well eat at the company!”

Lin Zeshi lowered his head and was scolded honestly.

The family finished their dinner silently, except for Tang Nan’s whose mouth was covered by Lin Jiaxuan, talked from time to time.

After the meal, Lin Zeshi was lectured by Lin Weiliang again.

“Are you planning to live apart like this for the rest of your life with Luo Zhengyin? Or just divorce. It’s not like I would disagree and Qinhe will definitely not object.” Lin Weiliang said to Lin Zeshi after the nagging.

He had countless glories in his life, and both of his sons are dragons and phoenixes, but the only thing he regretted most was the marriage of his younger son Lin Zeshi.

At the beginning, he arranged a marriage to let Lin Zeshi marry Luo Zhengyin, the daughter of his family friend Luo Zhongyun. It took a long time to realize that the two people had agreed so readily and they had already conspired to get married. The husband and wife did not disturb each other’s private life, and even their only son, Lin Qinhe, was a test-tube baby because of the pressure of both parents.

The two had been separated for more than ten years, but the strange thing was that Lin Weiliang had not seen any lover of Lin Zeshi, and his private life was completely clean, only working.

Lin Zeshi said to Lin Weiliang without hesitation: “If she doesn’t ask for divorce, I won’t get divorced.”

Lin Weiliang sighed: “This is your business anyway. You two may be worthy of yourself, but you must be sorry for the kid Qinhe.”

Lin Zeshi was silent upon hearing this.

When Luo Zhengyin suffered from depression after giving birth, Fang Sui’s death aggravated the condition. Fearing that she would be stimulated, Lin Zeshi had not dared to let Luo Zhengyin touch his son for five years after that. Lin Qinhe had been raised in his brother Lin Zeqiu’s home.

It wasn’t until the Fang family’s child named Yang Duole called Luo Zhengyin ‘mother’ that Luo Zhengyin gradually got out of depression, took Lin Qinhe back, and let the two children grow up together.

But the intimacy between mother and child had never been cultivated, and there was always a layer of politeness and unfamiliarity, far from the intimacy between Luo Zhengyin and Yang Duole.

Lin Zeshi walked out of the study and found his son, whom he hadn’t seen for a long time. The father and son went to the courtyard outside the old house and chatted under the pavilion.

After an autumn rain, the night sky was clear, and a bright moon hung at the corner of the pavilion.

“How is your mother? I heard that she caught a cold last week?” Lin Zeshi asked. He looked at his son and found that he was almost as tall as himself.

Lin Qinhe said, “Already well.” He paused, “If you care about her, you can go and see her directly.”

Lin Zeshi took out a cigarette, thought about it, put it back, and sighed: “Forget it, there’s no point. I saw her at the charity exhibition for Fang Sui last month. She looked very good.”

Luo Zhengyin might not discover in this life that the husband who had agreed to marry her fell in love with her long time ago, but Lin Zeshi knew from the beginning that Luo Zhengyin had only one woman who had been away for many years in her heart.

Lin Qinhe said nothing.

Lin Zeshi knew that Lin Qinhe did not like to mention the dead woman, and began to care about his son’s university: “Have you thought about which school in the United States to apply for?”

“It hasn’t been determined yet. I may go to some interviews at the end of the year.” Lin Qinhe said flatly.

Lin Zeshi stopped worrying. In other words, he had nothing to worry about his son since he was a child, and he rarely asked him for anything. He turned to ask:

“Last time I forgot to ask you, why did you sponsor the first place in Qingshui County to come to your school? I did it for your mother. What did you do for? I thought you wouldn’t be interested in these things.”

His assistant Su Yun had been following up the Qingshui County remote teaching project. At that time, it was decided to sponsor the live broadcast equipment of the county’s high schools in Qingshui County, but there was no plan to sponsor the first place to study in Wenhua No. 1 High School.

After he learned about it from Su Yun, he was surprised for a while. Today he also learned that this project for Qingshui County’s first place project had changed, and the funding for the project had always come from Lin Qinhe himself.

He was really curious, why did this indifferent son like him do this.

For what?

Lin Qinhe looked at the bright moon hanging outside the pavilion.

In fact, he never believed that there would really be people in this world who would be willing to run to another person regardless of everything.

But he knew that someone saw him as the moon in the sky and could run towards him, running over the mountains and seas for him.

He had never been expected to do well, because he could always do well, and and he never expected anyone to do anything for him, even his parents, because he didn’t like to owe anyone anything.

He took all the relationships in the world, including parental affection, with indifference.

But when he couldn’t help but open the letters that span thousands of kilometers, watching those clumsy handwritings carefully disguised as girls, like a fire, the stars burned hot and innocently yearning for him.

As if he was the only one in the world.

As if it could burn all for him.

He didn’t know what made him endure these swarms of letters, let alone when it started. From the initial boredom, to the habit, to the expectation that he had never had before.

He suddenly wanted to know that if he dropped a rope that was insignificant to him into the deep well, would the fool who thought of him as a light and walked out of the night, vowed to go to him, thought he was clever but was exposed early, grab the rope he gave and try to walk to his side?

Qiao Yitang teased that he was playing a nurturing game, but only he knew it was not.

He was not doing charity, neither was it a game.

What was his original intention?

Lin Zeshi saw his son staring at the moon in a daze, and asked again in the night breeze:

“Could it be that you are also doing it for your mother?”

Lin Qinhe returned to his senses, smiled lightly, his eyes seemed to be softened by the moonlight. He slowly replied:

“No, it’s just watching a person walk very hard at night, I can’t help but want to illuminate him.”

He just wanted the person who rushed to him so hard to have a better, less hard life as he wished.

This was easy for him.

This was just his original intention.

_________________________

The author has something to say:

Xiaolin is the sponsor of Xiaotao

趋炎附势 – to carry favour/social climbing

攀龙附凤 – the same meaning

The long march of CPC, happened in 1934-35