About 10 days before Liu Qing officially went back to work, the company had already stopped paying Xiao Wen the caregiver fees. This was because Liu Qing no longer needed help to move around. He could even make his own way to the canteen for meals.
Xiao Wen still lived there though.
Their colleagues at the company already knew about this and tacitly thought that the two of them were already together.
When they went to the canteen for lunch, their colleagues were all clamoring for Liu Qing to give them wedding candies.
Liu Qing wanted to explain the situation, but when he opened his mouth, he did not know where to start.
They were already sleeping on the same bed. It did not make sense to tell people that they were not seeing each other.
Although the two of them did not really click and did not get involved romantically, only the two of them understood how it worked and no one would believe them even if they said it out.
"Who cares?" Liu Qing thought. "I'm going to resign soon anyway. When I'm not even here anymore, they can think whatever they want.
He was going to become a rich second generation and definitely would not continue to be a security guard here.
There was only one possibility of him interacting with these colleagues in the future, and that was if he bought a house in this apartment complex.
Usually, he would take his time to have lunch. The company rule was that the lunch break could not exceed half an hour so he would sit in the canteen until the entire half hour was up before leaving.
However, on this day, he was afraid that he would miss the timing that Ding Yun came looking for him. He finished his food in just a few minutes and rushed back to his sentry post.
The other colleagues having lunch in the dining hall found it unbelievable and went to check with Xiao Wen.
"Is Liu Qing usually this fast?"
Xiao Wen knew that nothing good came out of the mouths of these pervs so she rolled her eyes and did not bother to answer.
After Liu Qing returned to his sentry post, the patrol guard who was standing in for him also found it quite unbelievable. This was the first time he had seen Liu Qing eat so quickly. He asked Liu Qing a question worriedly.
"Is the lunch today especially awful?"
"It's not too bad," Liu Qing said. "About the same as usual."
"Then why are you done so soon?" the colleague asked.
Liu Qing smiled and said, "Perhaps I'm just worried that I would hold you back from having lunch?"
He was not going to say that he was afraid of missing his chance to become a rich second generation.
He knew that he was being overly nervous, although he did not need to be.
However, this was a matter about whether he could become a rich second generation who inherited assets worth tens of billions of dollars. It would be a lie to say that he was not nervous.
Usually, he would nap in the sentry post after lunch, but he was not sleepy at all today and kept checking the main door frequently.
He looked like a good and dutiful security guard.
At around 2:00 p.m., Manager Zhou of the property management company did his routine spot checks. When he saw this scene from afar, he sighed and thought to himself, "Xiao Liu is really a good security guard! I have to think of a way to promote him to team leader this year."
At around 3:00 p.m., when Liu Qing had become very tense, he finally saw a Rolls-Royce coming down the road.
In his memories of that life, Ding Yun had turned up in a Rolls-Royce to look for him this afternoon.
His rebirth had not changed the course of history.
His heart began to pound hard.
Taking a deep breath, he recited to himself silently.
"Don't be nervous. Please don't be nervous. Be calm."
He had imagined this scene in his mind many times over and he had also repeatedly rehearsed his reaction when they met.
He thought that he could take this situation in his stride.
However, when he saw the car coming, he could not help himself from feeling nervous.
He quickly took a sip of water and avoided looking at the car. Instead, he looked towards the apartment complex and started thinking about something else.
"The woman in yellow and the cleaning lady in green walked towards each other from opposite directions. The distance between them is 50 meters. The woman in yellow advanced 1.3 meters per second. The cleaning lady in green advanced 1.5 meters per second. Please work out how long it would take before the two of them met."
This was a habit he had developed since young. When something major happened, he would do a math question to calm down.
Before he found the answer, he would regain his composure.
Holding a pen, he wrote down a list of formulas on the back of the registration form. Before he could begin doing the calculations, he heard a woman's voice.
"Are… are you Liu Qing?"
The voice sounded familiar, yet it also sounded unfamiliar.
It was familiar because Liu Qing heard this voice every day many years ago.
It was unfamiliar because it had been years since he last heard that voice.
Over the years, the voice in his memory had become a little more fuzzy. The person who spoke with this voice had also aged and her voice had changed.
Liu Qing put down his pen and looked up.
It was his mother, Ding Yun.
It was his mother—the person who had divorced his father after the car accident, and abandoned both his father and him when he was still in middle school to marry a rich man.
It was a person he had hated for over a decade.
After not having seen her for more than 10 years, seeing this woman—whom he should address as mom—again brought back a lot of memories.
He realized there was still hatred in his heart.
Why were you so heartless in the past?
Your husband of more than 10 years, bedridden and in need of care the most. That was when you left him.
A teenager, your own child, still in middle school. You abandoned him as well.
Did kinship really mean so little to you?
He kept reminding himself.
"She's your biological mother!"
"She's not just your biological mother. She's the current chairwoman of Tianyuan Group. She's someone who inherited tens of billions of assets."
"If you address her as mom, those tens of billions of assets will be yours in the future."
"If you reject her, you will have to continue working as a security guard here."
"She will only give you this one chance. If you refuse, there will be no chance for regrets."
"Those things are over. Let's move on!"
"Let's look towards money!"
Even so, he still could not let go of the anger that had accumulated in him for more than 10 years.
He wanted to do what he had done in that life. He wanted to question her loudly why she had done that in the past and why was she so cruel? Why was she so heartless?
Why did she not seek him out even once in the past decade or express any concern for him. It was as if she had never had this son.
He controlled that impulse.
However, he could not bring himself to look pleasantly surprised.
His planned reaction was to give Ding Yun a surprised and happy expression when he saw her. He would address her as mom affectionately and then they would hug each other and cry. Their reunion would then be complete.
That way, he would stand to inherit assets worth tens of billions.
He thought that after his suffering in that life, he had seen through the woes of this world and could let go of his resentment.
Yet when the moment came, he realized he could not let it go.
The pain of his youth was his deepest pain and it had been carved into his bones and his soul.
He was unable to let it go.