CFRFGC Chapter 3

⌈It is better to be dead than to be disabled and unable to move.⌋

Lu Ran didn’t hesitate and walked toward the car, holding the dog.

After placing Da Huang inside, he turned back to take a photo of Huang Mao’s sports car license plate with his phone.

Once he finished that, he thought of something else and glanced at the roadside. He found a girl, said a few words to her, and then returned to the car.

Throughout the entire process, he maintained the “personality” of the person who had been hit, limping slowly.

Surprisingly, the driver of the business car didn’t urge him.

Watching Lu Ran get into the car, Huang Mao sat down hard on the ground, muttering, “I’m done for!”

As he spoke, he hurriedly called Shen Xingzhuo: “Brother Zhuo, how did you get me into this mess?”

On the other end of the line, Shen Xingzhuo was still asking about the dog.

Huang Mao completely broke down, yelling, “Is this even about the dog! How the hell did you get me on this road!”

Inside the business car.

Lu Ran sat quietly in the back seat.

This car was surprisingly spacious.

It seemed to be configured for eight seats, but for some reason, a row of seats in the middle had been removed.

Lu Ran sat in the last position, with a black divider in front of him.

The entire car was quite dark, with only occasional beams of streetlight filtering through the windows.

Lu Ran didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings.

His focus was entirely on the little dog in his lap.

Although Da Huang was called Da Huang, he was actually quite small, not even reaching Lu Ran’s knees when standing; he could comfortably curl up in his lap.

Lu Ran carefully examined Da Huang’s fur and the injuries on his legs.

As a student at the Animal Medical College of Y University, he had chosen this major for Da Huang.

After a thorough check, Lu Ran finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He affectionately stroked Da Huang’s head: “Did you miss Daddy? Daddy missed you so much!”

Lu Ran kissed Da Huang several times.

Da Huang whimpered, licking his face just like that winter nine years ago.

Lu Ran’s eyes felt a bit moist.

Perhaps in Da Huang’s eyes, he was just the owner who had been away for a few hours.

But Lu Ran had already lost Da Huang for over a decade.

During those times lying on the hospital bed, the one he missed the most was Da Huang. Watching the Shen family cause Da Huang’s death was Lu Ran’s biggest regret in his previous life.

He suppressed the warmth in his eyes, pinched Da Huang’s paw, and said nonchalantly, “Fortunately, it’s not a serious injury. If you were really crippled and couldn’t move at all, it’d be better to just die.”

Lu Ran wasn’t talking about Da Huang; he was talking about himself.

As soon as he finished speaking, a sound unexpectedly came from the previously quiet cabin.

Lu Ran raised his head to look at the divider.

After a moment, the divider was pulled open slightly, and a middle-aged man looked in.

The middle-aged man had his hair neatly combed and was dressed impeccably.

But his attitude was warm and gentle as he quietly asked, “Excuse me, young man, we’re approaching the police station. Would you prefer to go to the hospital first or stop at the police station now?”

“Neither. Please take me to the nearest veterinary hospital,” Lu Ran replied.

The middle-aged man was taken aback for a moment and glanced at Lu Ran’s knees.

Lu Ran was sitting steadily in the back seat, with a dog resting on his lap.

No matter how you looked at it, he didn’t appear to be the kind of person who had just been limping.

Lu Ran calmly met the man’s gaze, showing no signs of guilt about being exposed for scamming.

The middle-aged man had good composure as well; he simply smiled and accepted the reality.

He turned around, seemingly to consult others for their opinions, and then continued to face Lu Ran, smiling as he said, “Alright, it’s on the way.”

The divider was pulled up again.

The journey was a bit long. Lu Ran calmed down, feeling a little drowsy.

At the Shen family, he had slapped Shen Xingran twice and spat at Madam Shen.

On the way, he saved Da Huang and had a good laugh at Huang Mao.

While doing all these things, Lu Ran acted freely and without restraint.

But in reality, he couldn’t distinguish whether he had truly returned to the time before Da Huang’s death, or if this was just a dream while he lay in a hospital bed.

When he opened his eyes, he would still be met with cold instruments and a closed room.

After hesitating for a moment, Lu Ran decided to let it go.

Whatever.

As long as he was alive, the Shen family wouldn’t have it easy.

Lu Ran hugged the warm Da Huang tightly in his arms.

In a hazy state of consciousness, he thought about the car.

He couldn’t tell what brand it was, but it seemed quite expensive.

The clothes worn by the middle-aged man who had just appeared, he had heard the Shen family refer to as professional butler attire.

In his previous life, when Lu Ran was cornered and had just lain down on the hospital bed, he often dreamed of someone suddenly appearing to uphold justice for him.

But after lying there for ten years, that wishful thinking had long since faded.

“Excuse me, young man? Young man?” A kind voice rang in his ears.

Lu Ran jolted awake, his dark eyes unfocused for a long time, still staring at the simple patterns on the hospital ceiling.

He could remember every pattern and how many strokes each one had; they were deeply etched in his mind, impossible to forget.

“Excuse me?”

Only when he felt the warm temperature on his knees did Lu Ran’s gaze finally focus on the middle-aged butler’s face.

“We’ve arrived at the veterinary hospital,” the butler said.

“Oh, thank you.” Lu Ran shook his head, hugging Da Huang as he stepped outside.

As soon as his toes hit the ground, he stumbled immediately.

The butler quickly caught him, feeling a pang of guilt.

How could he think this young man was scamming him! He was clearly too worried about his pet to even care for his injuries.

Seeing how badly his leg was hurt, he couldn’t even stand steadily.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” the butler asked.

Lu Ran looked at him in confusion, thanked him, and then entered the veterinary hospital with Da Huang.

Was he going to go to the hospital just because his leg was numb?

This wealthy family was too particular.

In the hospital, Lu Ran had Da Huang thoroughly examined.

Da Huang’s leg wasn’t too severely injured; he would just have a slight limp when walking in the future. Since the leg injury made it inconvenient for him to move, he needed to stay in the hospital for a few days.

After taking care of Da Huang’s wounds, Lu Ran sat in front of the cage for a while.

During this brief moment, he took out his phone and received a video.

Right before he got into the car, he had gone to the roadside to find the kind person from his past life who provided him with the video, to obtain the footage.

This video fully recorded the process of Da Huang’s accident.

From the very beginning, where the sports car deliberately crashed into Da Huang who was hiding by the roadside, to later accelerating towards him on purpose.

Lu Ran cut out his own part of the video, leaving only the segment where the sports car intentionally hit the dog, and posted it online.

In his previous life, the content of this video had been even more tragic.

But after Lu Ran obtained the video, he was afraid of causing trouble for the Shen family, so he forced himself to act as if nothing had happened.

Now… he couldn’t care less about the Shen family.

After the video was posted, its popularity gradually increased.

At first, it was just a condemnation of the rich second generation for hitting a dog with a sports car.

As the heat intensified, someone even dug up that this sports car had previously been involved in a hit-and-run on campus.

More scattered and clearer videos began to surface.

They showed a secluded road at a local university, where several luxury cars surrounded a student who had fallen to the ground.

The cars pretended to accelerate and crash into him, then barely stopped next to the student, playing cat and mouse in a manner that made viewers’ scalps tingle.

The eye-catching red sports car belonging to Huang Mao was among them.

The incident quickly exploded.

More revelations emerged, stating that the student in the video had sustained some injuries, but several rich kids had banded together to pressure the school to suppress the incident.

Such a thing was simply unfathomable.

Netizens lambasted Huang Mao and the other cars involved mercilessly.

They even directly attacked the official Weibo account of the implicated school.

Lu Ran watched for a while, then put his phone away and looked at Da Huang, who was receiving an IV drip in the cage.

He opened the cage and patted Da Huang’s head. “Rest well; Daddy will come to see you another day.”

After saying goodbye to Da Huang, Lu Ran exited the veterinary hospital.

He lingered on the road for a bit, then without hesitation, hailed a car and went straight back to the Shen family.

Not long after he left, the extended business vehicle passed by the entrance of the veterinary hospital again, coming to a smooth stop.

The car remained quietly parked on the roadside, with no one getting out.

After a while, a low, deep voice came from behind the partition in the back seat: “Forget it.”

As soon as the words were spoken, the car started up again.

Lu Ran quickly returned to the Shen family.

Logically, he should have left the Shen family directly with Da Huang.

But the events of his previous life had already shown that the path to leave was blocked by fate.

Besides, why should he leave?

Lu Ran swaggered into the living room, only to find the villa empty.

Currently, the head of the Shen family, his father Shen Hongyuan, is away on a business trip.

The heir of the next generation, his older brother Shen Xingyu, was busy with a project abroad. As for the second-generation scion¹a descendant of a notable family, his second brother Shen Xingzhuo, his relationship with the family wasn’t great and he lived outside most of the time.

At this moment, Lu Ran wasn’t surprised at all about where Madam Shen and Shen Xingran had gone.

Given how protective the Shen family was of Shen Xingran, if he tripped over a stool, they would have rushed him to the hospital for a check-up.

Now that he had slapped him twice, they weren’t nervous enough to insist on a full-body examination.

Checking his brain wouldn’t be a bad idea; it would be better to treat any issues early on.

Lu Ran relished the quiet.

He went straight back to his room, washed up without a care, and went to bed.

The next morning, Lu Ran got up and walked to the dining room.

The housekeeper had already prepared breakfast.

Lu Ran had classes early in the morning, so he usually left home before anyone else was awake.

But even when time was tight, he patiently waited until everyone was up before daring to pick up his chopsticks.

However, the Shen family had never waited for him to eat.

That day, Lu Ran ignored the unwritten rules and, under the disapproving gaze of the housekeeper, directly lifted the steamer lid and took a steamed bun to eat.

He also served himself a bowl of congee.

Before long, he heard some commotion coming from upstairs.

It was Madam Shen coming down.

Lu Ran glanced up.

Madam Shen had an air of calm about her.

She walked down leisurely and sat at the table.

Seeing that someone had touched the breakfast on the table, Madam Shen immediately raised her gaze to Lu Ran.

There was a hint of distant disdain in her eyes, but it was quickly suppressed.

She nonchalantly picked up her chopsticks and said with an accusatory tone, “Ranran took the day off today and doesn’t even want to come out of his room.”

Lu Ran pretended not to understand and asked blankly, “Why doesn’t he come out? Is it because he’s too embarrassed to face anyone?”

Madam Shen could no longer hold back: “Your brother got beaten up like that and you still have the nerve to come down for breakfast! How can you be so shameless?”

Lu Ran quietly listened to Madam Shen’s words and suddenly chuckled.

The pampered Madam Shen clearly wasn’t very good at scolding others.

But being called shameless by his mother was quite a novel experience.

In his last life, when he first heard such words, Lu Ran was deeply affected, filled with self-doubt and hesitation, and he didn’t even dare to say much.

This time…

Lu Ran casually nodded, “Ah, yes, yes, yes.”

As he spoke, he reached over and took the basket of crab roe buns in front of Madam Shen, dumping it onto his own plate.

“People who grew up poor haven’t had the chance to eat anything good; please forgive me, Madam,” Lu Ran said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Madam Shen, who’s chopsticks snapped at nothing: “…”

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  a descendant of a notable family