|| It doesn’t matter if you’re beautiful in spring.
Song Yan slept very deeply.
It felt like he was making up for the sleep he’s been missing for days.
The scenes in the dream that brought him a strong sense of happiness also seemed to wash away his pessimism and anxiety.
When he woke up, the low-grade fever had subsided, he felt more energetic, and his whole body felt much better. However, the person who should have been beside him, Xia Zhiye, was not there.
He turned his head to look out the window – it was still evening, indicating he hadn’t slept too long. Pinching his brow, he stood up, opened the door, and called out in a hoarse voice, “Xia Zhiye.”
He heard some movement coming from the kitchen and thought that Xia Zhiye might be preparing dinner for him.
However, his call was answered by a gentle female voice, “Xiao Xia went back early today because school started today. He didn’t want to wake you up since you were sleeping so deeply.”
School started today?
Song Yan picked up Song Lele’s smartwatch and glanced at it.
August 31st at 18:22.
He slept all day and night.
“Then he…”
“Don’t worry, I bought him a plane ticket back, so he didn’t have to take the slow green train again,” Tan Qing said as she brought a bowl of porridge upstairs and placed it on Song Yan’s desk, her gentle smile carrying a hint of teasing.
Song Yan suddenly felt embarrassed. He remembered the messy bed sheets and the used tissues in the trash can. Feeling flustered, he was about to turn around to hide them, but he discovered that the entire room was spotless, and even the bed sheets had been changed.
And there was a glass of cold boiled water on the desk.
There’s no need to think deeply about it – it must be from Xia Zhiye.
That guy, who must be tired, still remained so reliable and considerate.
Song Yan remembered Xia Zhiye’s silly smile in his dream and couldn’t help but let out a silly laugh himself.
Tan Qing looked at Song Yan, who suddenly seemed to come alive. She found him cute and funny. “Alright, stop thinking about it. Eat your porridge quickly.”
“Well, okay, thank you Aunt… Tan.”
Just as Song Yan scooped up a spoonful of porridge and brought it to his mouth, his wrist froze.
His mouth was filled with a strange taste.
Tan Qing, who stood beside him, looked at him with a hint of expectation. “How is it? I followed Xia Zhiye’s grandmother’s recipe to cook it. Does it taste the same? Is it good? It’s my first time making porridge, so I’m not sure if it turned out well.”
No wonder when he was sick before, Tan Qing never cooked porridge for him.
It’s not that she didn’t want to, it’s that she couldn’t do it.
–Thankfully, she never did it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to live until 17 years old.
Song Yan silently swallowed. “It’s good.”
Tan Qing immediately became as happy as a little girl. “That’s great! I plan to learn more about making porridge and stewing soups in the future to help keep you healthy.”
“…” Song Yan resigned himself to his fate. “Okay, Aunt Tan.”
After saying that, as if remembering something, he turned to her and asked, “My father didn’t give you a hard time, did he?”
“Mn, we had an argument, but he couldn’t do much about it,” Tan Qing said, seeming to be in a good mood. “There was an issue with the land in Nanwu, so he rushed over there yesterday. He probably won’t be back for a while, and he’s likely overwhelmed with work, so he won’t have as much time to keep such a close eye on you, so…”
“What?”
“So, I bought you a new phone. Although you have to hand it over to your teacher during weekdays, you can still secretly contact each other on weekends. But be sure to hide it properly.” Tan Qing smiled as she placed the new phone in front of him. “Can you return Lele’s smartwatch to him now?”
It was only then that Song Yan remembered he had taken a Little Genius smartwatch and 500 yuan from a 9 years old kid yesterday, feeling a bit embarrassed. “Um, Lele’s pocket money, I’ll give it back to him.”
“I won’t meddle in the affairs between you and your brother,” Tan Qing said, seeming to enjoy seeing Song Yan’s childlike expression of embarrassment. She spoke with a hint of playfulness, less formal than before, but still restrained. “But Auntie wants to discuss something with you.”
Since Tan Qing said it like that, it shouldn’t be a trivial matter.
Song Yan put down the spoon. “Aunt Tan, tell me.”
Tan Qing sat down opposite him. “Although generally speaking, ownership inheritance of shares can be passed on when you reach eighteen years old, if the company has specific written regulations, it can exclude the automatic inheritance of shareholder status by heirs, only protecting the inheritance of assets. Your father’s company happens to have such a provision, so even when you turn eighteen, your father can still hold your shares on your behalf and become the largest shareholder.”
“So what do we do?”
Song Yan looked at Tan Qing.
Tan Qing asked him, “Did you notarize your mother’s will?”
Song Yan replied, “Yes, we did. The notarized documents and the will are all in the bank safe deposit box. They will take effect as soon as I turn eighteen.”
“Well, it’s like this. Actually, the shares of the company’s minority shareholders have been almost entirely acquired. Now, as long as the shares I hold exceed your father’s, the board of directors can pass a proposal to cooperate with a friendly acquisition. So, I’m thinking of directly purchasing all your shares on your 18th birthday. Are you willing?” Tan Qing asked Song Yan earnestly.
Because there’s a fundamental difference between directly receiving cash and becoming a major shareholder in a large company, she wasn’t sure if Song Yan was willing to give up the business that should rightfully be inherited by him.
However, Song Yan has no interest in inheriting Song Minghai’s company, so he did not hesitate in the slightest. “Mn, I’m willing.”
“Actually, there are still some issues,” Tan Qing didn’t intend to hide anything. “You should know that your father pursued me for the purpose of gaining the support of the Tan family, but it was all through technical patent shares. In reality, the Tan family doesn’t have much liquidity, and these past two years, due to the pandemic, cash flow has been even more difficult. So, I can’t pay the full amount for purchasing the shares at once. I can only give you 50 million first, and the remaining amount will have to wait until the acquisition is successful before it can be settled. So, if you’re worried…”
“I don’t have much to worry about, Aunt Tan. I trust you,” Song Yan looked at Tan Qing, like a calm and mature adult. “The reason why my father has been so confident is probably because he knows that you don’t have enough cash on hand to acquire too many shares. That’s why he feels he can secure his position as the largest shareholder. If we want to win, we have to catch him off guard.”
And only by thoroughly defeating Song Minghai can he, Tan Qing, and Song Lele have a future free from tyranny.
This was his only hope, so even if he ended up with nothing, he didn’t want Song Minghai to continue being so arrogant.
Moreover, now he has a guaranteed minimum of 50 million, and as long as everything goes smoothly, he would have a nine-figure sum in cash at the age of eighteen. What reason does he have not to believe in it?
And at that moment, facing such a smart child who knows what he wants, Tan Qing felt that there was no need to say much more. She just reached out and gently rubbed his head, saying, “Okay, we will definitely win.”
Just as Tan Qing said, Song Minghai was so busy that his feet didn’t touch the ground.
He, born in an orphanage, then built an enviable career from scratch, seeing his empire on the verge of collapse, finally had no energy to care about his son’s sexuality, which he disliked.
The private high school where Song Yan is newly enrolled was famous for its militarized management. It was so strict that metal detectors were used every day to check for anyone secretly using a phone.
So every Monday to Saturday, Song Yan could only hand in his mobile phone and communicate with Xia Zhiye through letters sent by SF Express.
But come Sunday, he could video chat with Xia Zhiye for a whole day and night. Compared to those days before, Song Yan already felt that this is especially precious.
He also began to slowly adapt to the new environment, no longer sinking into pessimistic anxiety. When he heard Xia Zhiye describe their future life that day, he began to have more realistic expectations and imaginations about their future, and everything started to look up.
He began to be able to sleep peacefully. He wanted to see his dream of future life with Xia Zhiye, complete with a dog and a cat.
He began to be able to eat seriously, three meals a day, whether it was delicious or not.
He even began running at night, using extreme physical exhaustion to consume unnecessary and useless thoughts he had.
The days passed by like this, with fewer and fewer mint candies but more stacks of letters. Song Yan’s weight finally recovered from severely underweight to moderately underweight, and his health improved significantly.
He studied, lived, longed for, and looked forward to the future with great seriousness.
On the day when Xia Zhiye came of age, Song Yan, an unfortunate senior high school student, was still taking exams.
Because it was an important exam to be recorded in the file, Song Yan was unable to go to Nanwu to see Xia Zhiye.
He felt an indescribable guilt about this, and Xia Zhiye had no intention of forgiving him so easily.
During their video call, Xia Zhiye coaxed him into calling him “Xiao Gege”, “Ye-gege”, “Husband”, again and again, until Song Yan was blushing all over. After signing and drawing to indicate that he owed Xia Zhiye an adult gift for his coming-of-age ceremony, Xia Zhiye reluctantly let him off the hook.
In addition, on that evening, Xia Zhiye also received a sigh from his grandfather: “Forget it, I’m old and can’t resist you young folks. Your father is the same, and so are you. Once you set your mind on something, you never let go or compromise. But this old man can’t bear to see another young person run away once again. So do as you wish, as long as you can take responsibility for your choices. And remember, visit home more often.”
Therefore, Xia Zhiye, the pure and beautiful high school student who had been supported by Song Yan for half a year, asked his cousin to organize a detailed list of assets and send it to his boyfriend that evening, fulfilling the promise he made to Song Yan on his seventeenth birthday to “hand over all the money to his boyfriend in the future.”
On the day Song Yan came of age, Xia Zhiye, also an unfortunate senior high school student, was also still taking exams.
That day was the second day of the city-wide mock exam in Nanwu.
He decided to fly to Beijing that evening to surprise Song Yan.
Unfortunately, the decision was never implemented in the end.
It was a rare sunny day.
Spring awakens with surprises, peach blossoms under the sun, cherry buds in the year’s light.
One could use all manner of beautiful words to describe the good weather of that spring day.
Song Yan seemed to be in a rare good mood that day.
He sat in the living room, waiting for Song Minghai, who had stayed up all night, to return – that man was filled with the smell of nicotine, sporting a wrinkled suit, looking dusty and exhausted.
Then he noticed that Song Minghai, who usually carried himself with an air of superiority, had some white hair and appeared considerably haggard.
That arrogant and dictatorial man would not allow himself any failure, which explained why he had pushed himself to such extremes.
Song Minghai sat down on the sofa opposite him, lit a cigarette, and threw a document in front of him. “Sign it.”
“Power of Attorney for Acting Shareholders’ Rights”
Party B: Song Minghai
Party A: To be filled
Song Yan wasn’t surprised.
Tan Qing had anticipated that Song Minghai would definitely demand to continue exercising his shareholder rights, so she had devised some methods to stall him, causing him to return only by noon.
And the reason why Song Yan was waiting here for him was simply to tell him to his face: “Sorry, Song-zong, I just sold off all the shares two hours ago, so I can’t sign this authorization letter anymore.”
Song Minghai’s knuckles twitched slightly, the crimson ember flickering abruptly between his slender fingers, then he lowered his head and casually crushed the cigarette butt. “Impossible, she doesn’t have that much capital on hand.”
Talking to smart people like Song Minghai was quite effortless. Song Yan didn’t even need to explain it to him.
It was also easier to make a fortune.
Song Yan remained noncommittal. “So I didn’t take her money. Or rather, I haven’t taken her money yet.”
With a sudden forceful motion, Song Minghai’s slender fingers crushed the cigarette butt, causing the cigarette holder to snap at an abrupt angle. The ashtray made a sharp, piercing sound as it scraped across the coffee table, shattering the oppressive calm in the living room.
Song Minghai lifted his head, his stern brows furrowing deeply with anger as he looked at Song Yan. “Song Yan, do you know what you’ve done?”
Song Yan calmly replied. “I know.”
“Do you really know? If so, you’re still doing this?” Song Minghai’s voice was thick with suppressed anger. “She has no blood relation to you. What makes you trust her?”
“Isn’t that a question you should be reflecting on?” Song Yan retorted, turning away. “Why would I rather trust someone unrelated to me than trust you? Haven’t you thought about the reason?”
“I’m your father! No matter what I do, I could never harm you!” Song Minghai’s knuckles hit the coffee table forcefully, his hand showing prominent veins. “Whatever I do, it’s for your own good! But why do you think an outsider like her would help you?”
“That’s not for you to decide.” Song Yan seemed to be in a good mood today. He stood up, grabbed his backpack, and continued, “Anyway, the contracts are all signed. No matter how much you say, it’s useless. Instead of wasting time here arguing with me, you better think about how to save your company. After all, you probably can’t beat me now, so we’d better part ways amicably today.”
Song Yan walked out the door without looking back.
Song Minghai stood up and shouted, “Stop for me!”
Song Yan really stopped in his tracks, then turned back, as if suddenly remembering something. “Oh,” he said, “I forgot to tell you. This weekend I’m going back to Nanwu to see Xia Zhiye and celebrate his birthday with him. I’ll also help you send regards to Elder Xia. You’re welcome, no need to thank me. As for what you said about being my father and not doing anything to harm me…”
“Well, it’s only a maybe.” Song Yan nodded slightly. “After all, almost landing me in the ICU twice, how could that be considered not harming me? It’s just that I can’t afford such a fatherly love. So now that I’m an adult, it’s best for us to keep a certain distance in the future. Wishing you a smooth acquisition, Song-zong. Goodbye.”
Song Yan really didn’t look back this time.
As the door closed, there came a violent crash of porcelain hitting the door panel from inside the house, indicating Song Minghai’s boiling anger. He found it oddly satisfying to hear. He looked up, squinting at the clear sky of spring, thinking that with such beautiful weather today, the plane surely wouldn’t be delayed.
