Chapter 94: Grandpa
The morning sports event ended at noon. But by around 11:30, the cafeteria was already wiped clean.
When Li Mu got there, he could only stare at the empty food trays in a daze. Then he turned to Yu Fan and said, “Let’s eat outside. My treat.”
Last time, when Yu Fan gave him a ride home, Li Mu had casually said he’d treat him to a meal someday.
Yu Fan agreed, and now Li Mu didn’t want to go back on his word.
“Oh? For real?” Yu Fan stepped back in an exaggerated way, looking surprised. “Aren’t you the kind of guy who never spends a dime and always mooches off others? You’re actually treating me?”
“When did I ever mooch off you?”
Li Mu walked past him without any expression and headed out of the cafeteria.
Even though he said that, when he thought about it, most of the time when they ate out, it was Yu Fan who paid.
They didn’t eat at restaurants often, but like this morning’s breakfast, Yu Fan just handed it to him and never mentioned money.
Every time that happened, Li Mu would feel like Yu Fan was really cool, totally worthy of being the most popular guy in class.
The two of them walked slowly, one behind the other, toward a nearby Shaxian snack shop outside the school.
As they walked, Li Mu thought of his grandpa.
“After we eat, take me to the countryside.”
“In the middle of the day?” Yu Fan complained. “Don’t you have an electric scooter too? Why didn’t you ride it here? You treating me like your driver?”
“Riding is annoying.”
That flat, emotionless tone made Yu Fan choke up. He didn’t know what to say for a while.
This time, Li Mu was pretty generous, he ordered Yu Fan a plate of fried noodles and even added a fried egg on top.
After the meal, they got on the scooter and rode to the village on the outskirts where Li Mu’s grandpa lived.
They had a two-hour lunch break. It might be a little tight, but both of them were on good terms with Yang Ye. If they were late, they could just sneak back in and apologize.
Then Li Mu could even blame it on Yu Fan. With how Yang Ye usually saw them, he’d probably think Yu Fan had led him astray.
The scooter stopped outside his grandpa’s small yard.
Yu Fan yawned and leaned on the handlebars, resting in the shade under the roof. “Hurry up.”
“Got it.”
Li Mu got off the scooter and stepped through the old wooden gate, which had some worm holes in it. He called into the yard, “Grandpa! Are you home?”
There was a new wire fence inside the yard, with a few chickens running around. When they heard Li Mu’s voice, they started flapping and running all over the place.
But there was no reply from his grandpa. Instead, someone else came out from a side door.
“Grandpa’s taking a nap.”
It was Li Mu’s older cousin, Zhang Hui. After Zhang Hui had left that weird message about the city being too scary, Li Mu hadn’t talked to him since.
He thought Zhang Hui had already gone to work, but it turned out he was just staying at their grandpa’s place, living like a lazy guy.
“You didn’t go work?” Li Mu asked casually as he walked toward the main house.
Zhang Hui followed behind him, grumbling, “After I came back from your place, I had a fever for half a month. I just got better recently. I think your house has some bad luck or ghosts.”
“Don’t believe in superstitions.”
Inside the house, Li Mu glanced toward the bedroom. The door was open, and his grandpa was lying on the bed, snoring.
Old people’s energy is a mystery. Normally, the older you get, the less energy you have. But his grandpa could play mahjong late into the night and still wake up at 5 or 6 in the morning to buy groceries.
His naps only lasted 30 minutes to an hour, and even though he looked old, he was full of life, sometimes even healthier than young people.
“I’m in a hurry. Help me check the drawer.”
“Huh?”
“I’m looking for something my parents left behind,” Li Mu said as he opened the old wooden drawer and started going through the mess inside.
He could clearly feel Zhang Hui staring at him with a confused look.
“Your parents left you something?”
Actually, he didn’t even know what he was looking for himself, but still gave a short explanation. “All of it was taken away.”
Zhang Hui had heard about this before. He had been really angry about it for a while and had even scolded their grandpa, asking why he didn’t help Li Mu.
The two of them searched through the drawers in the main room, but they couldn’t find anything that belonged to Li Mu’s parents.
The noise from searching woke up Grandpa. He poked his head out from the bedroom, holding a rusty short knife, only to see his grandson and a girl going through the drawers.
“What are you two doing?!”
“Grandpa, did my parents leave anything before they passed?” Li Mu asked, frowning.
“Who’s your grandpa?”
“......”
Li Mu knew he had changed a lot. The small changes around classmates didn’t seem too strange, but to Grandpa, who hadn’t seen him in a long time, he now looked like a completely different person.
Zhang Hui looked at Li Mu, then at Grandpa, and finally whispered, “I wanted to ask earlier… why have you changed so much?”
“Zhang Hui, is that your girlfriend?”
“That’s Li Mu.”
Grandpa was stunned. He put on his reading glasses, walked a bit closer, and stared at Li Mu carefully. After looking for a while, he finally managed to see a bit of his grandson’s face under the new appearance.
He frowned and asked, “What about the living money I gave you? How did you get this skinny so fast?”
“I just lost a little weight,” Li Mu said helplessly.
Actually, compared to a girl’s figure, he wasn’t really that thin. But it seemed like his bones were getting smaller, so he looked much slimmer than before.
His weight hadn’t dropped by much, he still weighed around 50+ kg, but most of it had shifted to his chest and hips. Since he was wearing long pants and a jacket, no one could see the changes in those areas.
Still in a hurry, he asked again, “Grandpa, did my parents leave anything with you before they passed?”
“Leave something? No.” Grandpa’s face showed a sad expression. The loss of Li Mu’s mother had hit him hard.
Well, alright then.
Li Mu sighed in his heart. He hadn’t found anything that belonged to his parents in the drawers either.
“But I don’t know about your dad’s side. You might need to ask your uncle.”
“Uncle…” Li Mu frowned slightly, without showing much emotion. “Maybe next time. I’ll check your room too.”
He brought Zhang Hui into the bedroom. The room was simple. There were only two drawers in the TV cabinet. He opened them, took a look, but still found nothing.
Zhang Hui finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“My parents’ belongings,” Li Mu gave the same answer.
“And you… You’ve changed way too much these past few days. Did you get plastic surgery or something? Even medicine doesn’t work that fast.”
He had never liked guys who seemed too feminine, but this time, seeing Li Mu, he didn’t feel annoyed by his appearance.
Maybe it was because he was getting prettier.
“You think I have money for plastic surgery?”
Since he didn’t find anything, Li Mu went back to the main room. He saw Grandpa using his own body to block the view, then secretly stuffing a few red bills into Li Mu’s jacket pocket so Zhang Hui wouldn’t see.
Right after that, Grandpa smiled and asked cheerfully, “Did you eat yet? Stay and have a meal. Look at you, so skinny!”
“I have to hurry back for class.”
“Want your cousin to give you a ride?”
“No need.”
Li Mu politely turned down Grandpa’s offer, but he realized one thing.
Even if he really did become a girl one day, with Grandpa’s blurry eyesight and slightly confused memory, maybe… he could get away with it.