Chapter 92: A Favor With Payment
With just a blink, it was already Thursday.
Early in the morning, Lin Muqing poked her head out from under the blanket and reached out to turn off the ringing alarm on her phone. She opened her sleepy eyes and slowly sat up in bed.
After yawning and stretching, she sat there for a bit in a daze before finally remembering she had class today.
“Ugh… such a hassle.”
While scratching the back of her head, Lin Muqing noticed her hair was a bit messy. She sighed, knowing she’d have to spend time fixing it again. That was one of the annoying parts of having long hair. If she didn’t take care of it often, it would look bad and feel uncomfortable.
She had actually thought about cutting it short before. But just as she was about to sit down at the salon to chop it off, she ran into Sister Yu.
“What!? You want to cut it short like a boy’s haircut? If you do that, don’t bother coming to work anymore!”
After hearing her plan, Sister Yu immediately pinched her cheeks and looked very angry, more like shouted, actually. After that, she scolded her and gave her a whole lecture about the benefits of girls keeping long hair and the downsides of short hair.
In order to keep her job, Lin Muqing had no choice but to give up the idea of cutting it, and in the end, she even got a new hairstyle chosen by Sister Yu.
She got out of bed, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and then started fixing her messy hair. After finishing all of that, she put on her jade pendant.
Standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, Lin Muqing checked to make sure she looked neat and tidy before finally heading out to school.
As usual, she met up with her good bro on the way and went to school together. Everything felt very normal, just like always. The only difference was that even after the morning reading class started, Lin Wenbin’s seat was still empty.
“Hey, Boss, do you know what happened to him?”
During break time after morning reading, Lin Muqing looked at the empty desk next to her, then turned to her good bro.
She remembered that he knew Lin Wenbin, so she curiously asked, wondering if there was any juicy gossip worth hearing.
“Rumor has it… an ambulance showed up at Lin’s house last night.”
Ye Ziming raised an eyebrow slightly and turned to look at Lin Muqing.
Once he saw that she didn’t look worried at all, only full of “gossip-loving” energy, he slowly started to explain.
“Huh? Don’t tell me he got beaten up so bad they had to send him to the hospital?”
As soon as she heard the word “ambulance,” Lin Muqing immediately thought of that, and honestly, it sounded pretty believable.
“No. He tried to climb over the wall and run away… and almost broke his leg.”
Ye Ziming said this with a blank expression, cutting her off mid-sentence.
“...Ah.”
After hearing that, Lin Muqing could picture it clearly in her head. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized this story really fit Lin Wenbin’s personality.
Thinking that, she suddenly understood why he didn’t show up to school today.
“So… he’s an idiot, huh?”
“Yep.”
After the short chat, they went back to class. Lin Muqing was only in it for the gossip anyway, so she didn’t look into it any further.
In the end, Lin Wenbin wasn’t seriously hurt. Ye Ziming said he was brought back home that night and placed under house arrest.
But seriously, if he had broken his leg trying to jump the wall… Lin Muqing probably would’ve laughed at him for years.
The rest of the morning went by without anything major happening. At one point, she heard someone talking about the “school beauty ranking,” but she didn’t react much. In her mind, that had nothing to do with her. She was just a regular high school student, after all.
When school ended at noon, Lin Muqing went home with her good bro again and had lunch together.
Just as she thought the Lin Wenbin thing was over, she suddenly got a phone call.
At first, she saw it was an unknown number, so she instinctively hit reject, but the call came again right away.
“What is it?”
Seeing Lin Muqing hesitating while looking at her phone, Ye Ziming asked with a bit of confusion, "It’s an unknown number. Are you going to answer it?"
Hearing her good bro’s voice, Lin Muqing turned around and handed the phone to him, directly asking for his opinion.
"Should I answer it?"
Frowning slightly, he felt that the number looked kind of familiar, so he told Lin Muqing to go ahead and pick up the call.
"Hello?"
After hitting the answer button, she also turned on speaker mode, wanting her good bro to hear too.
"Hello, is this Lin Muqing? I’m Lin Wenbin’s father."
Hearing the deep voice of a middle-aged man on the line, Lin Muqing was suddenly surprised. She turned to look at her good buddy, hoping to get his opinion.
"Mhm."
He nodded calmly and gave her a reassuring look, telling her it was okay to continue the conversation.
"Ah, yes. Uncle, what can I help you with?"
"It’s like this... I’d like to ask you for a favor..."
The call didn’t last long. Lin Muqing quickly found out what he wanted, he wanted her to secretly keep an eye on Lin Wenbin. According to the father, Lin Wenbin didn’t like studying and was always causing trouble. As a parent, he was constantly worried sick.
"Uh… sure, leave it to me."
She glanced at her good bro, who gave her a look filled with unspoken meaning. Reading between the lines, Lin Muqing agreed to the request. According to her good bro, this was actually a good thing to agree to, there wouldn’t be any problems.
"Great, thank you so much! If only Wenbin were as mature and sensible as you, hahaha!"
"Ah, it’s nothing really."
They chatted a bit more after that.
Listening to the man praise her so much, Lin Muqing felt a little embarrassed.
Especially when she looked up and saw her good buddy smiling at her, her cheeks suddenly felt really warm.
From Ye Ziming’s point of view, everything the man said was true. After all, his Muqing was really outstanding. No doubt about that.
"Are you sure this is okay?"
After hanging up the call, Lin Muqing turned back to look at her good bro, her eyes full of doubt.
That so-called “favor” was basically reporting on Lin Wenbin every now and then, like being a spy for his dad.
"Of course it’s fine. You’re doing this for his own good. If he keeps messing around like this, what college do you think he’ll get into?"
Ye Ziming nodded confidently and replied with a smile.
You could tell from his face that he was enjoying this just a little too much, his grin had a mischievous edge.
"That’s… true."
After thinking it through, Lin Muqing nodded. She felt like what her good bro said made a lot of sense.
While the two were still chatting, Lin Muqing suddenly got a friend request on WeChat. The request note said it was Lin Wenbin’s actual father.
Just like before, she looked at her good bro first. When he gave her another nod, she tapped "Accept."
Right after accepting the request, before she even had time to think of what to say, a money transfer notification popped up on her phone screen.
To her… it was a huge amount of money!