Using Marriage as Bait

Chapter 39: So, He Helped Her so Much

Even if Lin Xiyu and Lu Junting were officially divorced, Lin Xiyu had not returned to the Lu House for a long time. He was afraid that they would be embarrassed to see each other.

There was nothing harder than a divorce than not being able to see your child every day. Lin Xiyu wanted to see the child, but she couldn’t go to Lu Junting’s place anymore, and she couldn’t go to Lu’s House, so her best friend came in handy.

Lu Yuan knew that she wanted to take advantage of Lu Junting’s business trip to bring the child out, right in the park next to Moon Bay no. 1.

Lin Xiyu waited in the park, and after a while, she saw Lu Yuan pushing a stroller over. Lin Xiyu hurriedly ran over, and he was very happy to see his mother. He stretched out his hand to her quickly. Lin Xiyu hurriedly hugged the child, kissed his face, his forehead, and his nose.

“Little Baby, Little Baby, mom loves you, mom misses you very much. It’s not that mommy doesn’t want you, mommy just can’t take you from your daddy.”

She rubbed his cheek and said over and over again that she loved him.

Lin Xiyu bought small toys that Little Baby liked. Little Baby liked the kind of toys that could move, such as toy snakes, toy caterpillars, and bamboo dragonflies.

Lin Xiyu hugged his Little Baby and played with him in the park. Lu Yuan was nearby to protect against the wind, afraid that Lu Junting would suddenly return.

The mother and son were having fun when Lu Yuan suddenly received a phone call from the nanny and said that Mr. Lu was already on the way back. Lin Xiyu and Lu Yuan were startled, and Lin Xiyu reluctantly kissed his son on the face several times before putting him on the stroller. Lu Yuan hurriedly pushed the stroller back through the back door.

When Lu Junting came back, he didn’t see Chengmao and asked. Lu Yuan hurriedly came back from the backyard and said to him, “Is big brother back? I saw that the weather is nice today, so I took Chengmao out to play.”

When Lu Junting saw her, his face sank and asked, “Why are you here?”

Lu Yuan giggled and said, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen my little nephew, I miss him.”

Lu Junting didn’t ask anymore, he walked over and picked up Little Baby, but as soon as he hugged him, he saw a bamboo dragonfly fall from Little Baby. Little Baby hurriedly stretched out his hand and said anxiously, “Mommy, mommy.”

Lu Yuan’s heart thumped at once, she looked towards Lu Junting. His expression didn’t change much, he picked up the bamboo dragonfly and handed it to the little guy, asking him, “You mommy gave it to you?”

The little guy took the bamboo dragonfly and shook it happily, giggling, “Mommy, mommy.”

Lu Yuan was almost scared to death, she was afraid that Lu Junting would ask her, but to her surprise, Lu Junting didn’t say anything, and went upstairs with the child.

Lu Yuan was completely relieved, she felt that her legs went weak with fear and hurriedly sat down on the sofa holding onto the wall to catch her breath.

Later, when Lu Yuan told Lin Xiyu about this, LIn Xiyu was also frightened at first, but she couldn’t help but be surprised to hear that Lu Yuan said that Lu Junting did not pursue it.

Although Lu Junting did not mention in the agreement that she could not see her child, he had told her before that she should never see the child if he agreed to a divorce. Even she found it unbelievable that he just turned a blind yee, knowing that she had gone to see the child.

However, Lu Junting watched over Little Baby very closely, and basically brought the child with him to work every day. The other half of his office had been modified to make a small playground, which contained a lot of inflatable children’s toys facilities, and Little Baby could play on it.

Only when Lu Junting went on a business trip, Lu Yuan could help her bring Little Baby out to meet her, but Lin Xiyu felt that Lu Junting should know that she was secretly seeing Little Baby, but didn’t say much.

Shortly after Lin Xiyu and Lu Junting divorced, Lin Xiqian received a call from the USA side, there was an urgent matter there, telling him to go back. Lin Xiqian came to Lin Xiyu before leaving.

“I’ll go back to the USA next week. You’ll come with me then.”

Lin Xiyu refused without thinking, “I don’t want to go over there.”

“You divorced Lu Junting, what are you still doing here?”

“I like this place, I like the culture here, and it has nothing to do with whether Lu Junting and I are divorced.”

“You’ve never been to the USA, how do you know you don’t like the culture there? I’m not very relieved that you stay here alone. Come with me and I can take care of you.”

Lin Xiyu said, “I really don’t want to go, my child is still here, I don’t want to go so far away.”

Lin Xiqian saw that he couldn’t persuade her. He sighed softly and said, “It’s okay, if you don’t want to go, I won’t force you. However, you have to tell me about your situation often on video and tell me if you encounter anything.”

Lin Xiyu smiled and said, “Okay, I know.”

The day Lin Xiqian left, Lin Xiyu went to the airport to see him off, and the two waved goodbye at the security checkpoint. She suddenly thought of the first time Lin Xiqian went to the USA, her parents were there, and the little boy was sitting in a wheelchair wearing an oxygen mask, looking weak and reluctant to wave to them.

Now he had grown tall and straight, no longer the frail boy he had been.

Lin Xiyu felt that fate was really complex and changeable, making it unpredictable.

The days passed without waves, but the work was much busier than before, because Du Ruoting was married and was prepared for the birth of a child. Du Xingguo was too old to manage so many things, and most of the work of the club fell on Lin Xiyu’s shoulders. Du Ruoting’s wedding Lin Xiyu also participated, the other party was a tall and handsome young man, his family was engaged in textile business, and he was also a dignified figure in Ancheng. It was said that the two have known each other since childhood, they were childhood sweethearts, all the way from the school to wedding dress, which was truly enviable.

Now the person in charge of the club was Lin Xiyu alone, many important things needed Lin Xiyu to make decisions, and some outings had to be taken care of by Lin Xiyu.

In the first week of summer, Lin Xiyu was invited to Japan to participate in an event, a cultural exchange meeting, and she was invited because she was the inheritor of Lin’s calligraphy.

Each person would bring a piece of their own work, and they would take turns to introduce their work on stage, and they could communicate independently after the meeting. The cultural event was held in a cultural palace in Wakkanai City, Hokkaido, and after the event, Lin Xiyu came out of the cultural palace.

It was already summer, the wind in Hokkaido was still cool. A gust of wind blew her and she tightened her clothes, and a person suddenly walked out from the tunnel next to her to stop her. Lin Xiyu looked at the people with a puzzled look.

It was a tall and thin man who bowed to her a standard 45 degree and said in a not very fluent Chinese, “Hello Miss Lin, I’m Mr. Fujiwara’s housekeeper, and I was entrusted by Mr. Fujiwara invited Miss Lin to the house for tea.”

“Mr. Fujiwara?”

The man continued, “Mr. Fujiwara is a friend of Mr. Lin. The two had close contact before Mr. Lin’s passed away.”

Lin Xiyu remembered that her father, Lin Daguo, did have a japanese friend, and many of her father’s works were collected by that friend, and even the letter that her father wrote to her was said to be sold to that Japanese friend.

“I wonder if Miss Lin is willing?”

Lin Xiyu came back to her senses, her father’s friend’s invitation; She naturally couldn’t afford to shrug it off. She smiled and said, “I’d be happy to.”

Lin Xiyu followed the butler to the Fujiwara’s house and met that Mr. Fujiwara. Mr. Fujiwara was in his fifties, his face didn’t look old, but his hair was already white.

Mr. Fujiwara didn’t speak much Chinese, and his butler, who followed him around, translated for him.

“I heard that you came here as the inheritor of the Lin Family calligraphy to participate in the event, and it just so happened that I lived here, so I asked the housekeeper to invite you to come and have a seat. Your father and I are friends, you don’t need to be formal, prepare a little bit of thin tea, I hope you like it.”

Lin Xiyu hurriedly said, “My father often mentioned you when he was around. You are his friend and my elder, I’m honored to be invited by you.”

Mr. Fujiwara was an approachable person, and Lin Xiyu was very relaxed talking to him. Both of them talked a lot about Lin Xiyu’s father’s life, and then about his departure and both of them were overwhelmed with emotions.

Mr. Fujiwara seemed to think of something and said, “By the way, where is your husband? He didn’t come with you?”

Hearing this, Lin Xiyu looked puzzled. How did Mr. Fujiwara know that she was married?

“Do you know my husband?”

Mr. Fujiwara said, “I only met him once, and I remember that in early December last year, he came to my house and asked me to sell him that letter, which was the letter that your father wrote to you.”

Hearing this, Lin Xiyu couldn’t help but be stunned for a moment. The letter written by her father to her was photographed by Lu Junting and given to her. But she didn’t know that Lu Junting had even come to ask Mr. Fujiwara.

Mr. Fujiwara probably saw that something was wrong with her expression, and he asked tentatively, “You didn’t know he was here?”

“I don’t know.”

Mr. Fujiwara smiled and said, “I like collecting very much. I also admire your father, in my opinion, although the letter does not have the essence of his calligraphy, but I like it very much. After your father sold it to me, I collected it. My collection is usually not for sale, but on that day, your husband heard that the letter was in my hand out of nowhere, and he came to me and hoped that I would sell the letter to him.”

“I didn’t agree at first, he wanted to buy it by force so I threw him out in a fit of anger. He had been standing in my doorway. At that time, the winter in Hokkaido was very cold, the weather in December had already started to snow, and there was also a blizzard on that day, he stood from morning to night, and then I was moved by him to agree. But because I’m a man of honor, I didn’t sell it to him directly, but to an auction house, and did he auction that letter off?”

Lin Xiyu held the tea in her hand, and did not move for a long time. Lu Junting had taken the letter and given it to her, she knew it but she didn’t know that there was this past before taking the letter.

December… It was probably when she first suspected that he was cheating on her, and during that time she remembered that she was very cold to him and did not share a room with him. She didn’t care about him going on a business trip, but then he suddenly said that he would take her to the auction. She didn’t agree at first, and then she accidentally saw him holding the child, so she agreed to go for the sake of the child.

Seeing her in a daze, Mr. Fujiwara asked curiously, “Did he take the letter?”

Lin Xiyu came back to his senses and replied, “He took it, and now the letter is in my hand.”

Mr. Fujiwara said, “That’s good.”

Lin Xiyu sat at Mr. Fujiwara’s house for a while and then left. She walked down the road and a gust of wind blew, scratching her face. It was already summer, and the wind in Hokkaido was chilly, let alone in December.

He actually stood in the wind and snow all day to beg Mr. Fujiwara for that letter?

She was just a person he was using, why would he do it?

Lin Xiyu suddenly wondered if there was really any misunderstanding between her and Lu Junting, Lin Xiyu shook her head immediately. Even if there was really any misunderstanding, it was true that he lied to her, and the situation between her and Lu Junting had become a foregone conclusion, and it was useless to think more.

Lin Xiyu occasionally met with Little Baby with Lu Yuan’s help. Little Baby would walk, he also began to speak words slowly. She didn’t know whether Lu Junting was intentional or not, but he would put Little Baby in Lu's House from time to time. Lu Yuan would call her as soon as Lu Junting left. Although she divorced Lu Junting, Lin Xiyu and Little Baby met a lot of times.

However, she and Lu Junting had not met once since their divorce, even if they were both in Lu’s House, Lin Xiyu was also very self-aware to stay in the third house and not go over. Of course, Lu Junting would not come to find her.

At first, Lin Xiyu thought that she would not have much feeling after divorcing Lu Junting, after all, there was no emotion between both of them. This man was particularly hateful, deceiving her a lot, but she did not know why, since divorcing him, she often dreamed of him.

Dreaming about the little things that made up the smallest part of life. On his six-month birthday, they prepared a cake for Little Baby, after all, it was his birthday so they gave him a bite, but unexpectedly Little Baby still wanted to eat it. However, little child could not eat too much of it, so Little Baby cried with grievances because they didn’t give him the cake.

Lu Junting hugged him to the window and coaxed him, “Don’t cry, daddy will take you to see the stars.” He pointed to the sky. “Look…”

However, looking up, the sky was dark and bare, Lu Junting coughed lightly with a slight embarrassment. “Well, there are no stars today.”

She didn’t know if Little Baby felt that he was tricked by his father, crying even more, but Lu Junting was still patiently coaxing him, “Okay, Daddy will give you a little ball to play with, your favorite one, the one that rattles when you pinch it?”

He sat on the sofa with the child in his arms, holding the ball for him to play, and Little Baby really stopped crying as soon as he played with the ball. Lin Xiyu watched from the side, and couldn’t help but cover her mouth and smile, especially when she thought that Mr. Lu was holding Little Baby to see the stars when it was clear, without stars.

She smiled happily when Lu Junting saw it as soon as he turned his head. He said with a wry smile, “Quite happy?”

Nor was it that kind of reproachful tone, the soft eyes seemed to contain pampering.

And every time she woke up at night, she looked at the quilt that was shrunk to her waist, and her mind always thought of the time she had slept with Lu Juning. Several times she woke up in a daze to see him helping her to cover up the quilt that she had kicked off.

Her habit of kicking the quilt had not changed, but there was no longer anyone around to help cover the quilt.

Even sometimes she thought of him by chance, such as seeing the balloon seller, she would think of that day when they took their Little Baby out to play, and he handed her the balloon and siad, “You’re also a child.”

That day the sun shone brightly, the sky was blue and cloudless, and he stood under the clear blue sky. The clear weather seemed to be wrapped in softness under his sharp eyes.

In the future, she also encountered clear weather, but she always felt that it was no better than the blue sky that day.

Just like spring and autumn, on the Qingming Festival in the 2nd year of Lin Xiyu and Lu Junting’s divorce, Lin Xiyu returned to Wucheng to his parents to sweep the grave. The sky on this day started to drizzle, the mountain was foggy, the ground was wet, moss grew, and the mountain was filled with the fragrance of tea trees. Lin Xiyu stayed alone in front of his parents’ grave for a while, drenched in water.

Before returning to Ancheng, she made a trip to the orphanage in Wucheng. The dean was very happy to see her coming and asked her, “How have you been doing lately?”

“I’m fine, how about you dean?”

“I’m fine too.”

The dean took her around the orphanage, the children were playing, they were still at the age of innocence, a little bit of fun could make them happy for a long time. They didn’t yet know the cruelty of the world when they grew up.

There was an open space next to the kindergarten, and at this time there was an excavator working on the open space, which was crackling and noisy ah. Lin Xiyu saw this and asked, “What is this for?”

The dean smiled and said, “It’s to build a small playground.”

“The orphanage build it?”

“Yes, but the money didn’t come from the orphanage, it was donated by a kind gentleman.” The dean thought of something and said, “By the way, I remember I told you last time that I have always received donations from a kind gentleman here, do you remember?”

Lin Xiyu said, “I remember, could it be that this playground was also funded by him?”

“That’s right, it’s him.” The dean sighed regretfully, “He donated a lot of money to our orphanage. Originally I always wanted to thank him in person, but since he has been making donations anonymously, I don’t even know who he is. Here is only the note he left us when he first donated, just write a few words, and he doesn’t disclose any information about his identity. I don’t know how to find this kind gentleman, if I know who he is one day, I must thank him. But speaking of which, this gentleman’s writing is really good-looking.”

“Oh?” Lin Xiyu suddenly became curious. “Can I take a look?”

Lin Xiyu was a calligrapher, and she became interested as soon as it was said that the characters looked good.

The dean generously said, “Of course.”

Lin Xiyu followed the dean to the storage room, but saw that the dean carefully took out a box in the cabinet, opened the box with the key, and there were a lot of letters in it. He rummaged through it and handed her a very ordinary A4 paper and said, “That’s it, you do calligraphy, you should know better than me, anyway, I think his writings are quite good-looking.”

Only a few simple words were written on the paper, “Great Love without boundaries.”

Lin Xiyu had practiced calligraphy since she was a child, she was very sensitive to fonts. Everyone’s handwriting would be different, with their own characteristics, especially after teaching others calligraphy as a teacher in a club. Although they were all the same strokes, different people wrote them differently, and what kind of characters were written by what kind of people, she would basically look at them once and memorize them.

Therefore, seeing these words, she recognized it almost immediately, this was Lu Junting’s word.

It was still raining outside, pattering, a lingering drizzle in the twilight spring weather. The cold wind containing moisture blew in, Lin Xiyu only felt as if her body was frozen by this burst of moisture, she stared at the words for a long time without moving.

So, the person who had been anonymously donating to the orphanage was Lu Junting?

“Xixi, what’s wrong with you?”

The dean’s words pulled back Lin Xiyu’s thoughts. She returned the A4 paper to the dean, and the dean carefully put it away, and asked her, “What just happened to you? Why are you staring at those words in a daze?”

Lin Xiyu said, “It’s nothing, I’m just lamenting there are still a lot of good people in this world who will give generously.”

The dean laughed, “Yes, it’s quite a lot.” The dean was in a good mood, coupled with his age, sometimes his speech was not so rigorous, and when they were chatting, he casually mentioned, “This gentleman is like this, and the gentleman who helped you pay off your debt after your family’s accident is like this as well.”

Lin Xiyu was obviously stunned when she heard the 2nd half of the dean’s words, and she hurriedly asked, “The gentleman who helped my family pay off the debt? What do you mean? I don’t quite understand.”

The dean then realized that she had misspoken, and she smiled awkwardly. “It’s nothing, I remembered wrongly.”

But just now Lin Xiyu obviously heard, she sensed that the dean had something to hide from her. The dean packed up the box and prepared to go out, Lin Xiyu hurriedly stopped and asked, “Dean, you just said that someone paid off the debt for my family, what debt to pay? Can you make it clear?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just that I’m confused and remembered it wrong.”

The dean obviously wanted to muddle through, but Lin Xiyu wasn’t that easy to food and she said, “Are you guys hiding something from me? I’m grown up now, if there’s something going on, can you make it clear to me? Otherwise, I will always remember, and my heart will always be uneasy. Dean, please tell me, okay?”

Lin Xiyu’s life was pitiful, and the dean had pity for her, so he softened his heart when she begged him like this. He sighed heavily. “Zhang Yao told me not to tell you about this.”

“Aunt Yao?”

“Yes, when your parents had an accident, they owed a lot of money to the bank. Originally the husband and wife had decided after the establishment of the orphanage at Linjiang County, didn’t you were in the high school at that time? The couple originally planned to accompany you in the following days to the entrance college examination and then talk about charity when you finish high school. The money was originally owed to the bank and the couple worked hard for more than ten years to pay it off, who knew that there was a sudden  car accident.”

Lin Xiyu was puzzled, “I remember didn't I sell the family's paintings and calligraphy at that time?”

“Where is that enough? Your family still owed over ten million even after selling everything of value.”

“More than ten millions?” Lin Xiyu was stunned by the number. “How can there be so much?”

The dean sighed. “Where’s it so easy to build an orphanage ah? At that time, you were still young and Zhang Yao didn’t tell you about this, but then a gentleman helped your family to pay off the debt. Zhang Yao didn’t let me tell you.”

To be honest, Lin Xiyu was shocked by this news, she remembered that after selling the valuable things in her family, there was more than one million left, which was told to her by Aunt Yao herself, and this more than one million was enough for her to finish her college tuition and living expenses. But now the dean told her that his parents still owed more than ten million back then. Where did that extra million come from?

Lin Xiyu felt that there was something strange about this. She hurriedly said goodbye to the dean and left directly for Ancheng. Lin Xiyu came to Lu’s house, and Zhang Yao happened to be at home, she called her friends over to play mahjong. Seeing her back, she was surprised and asked, “Come back so soon? I thought you’d be in Wucheng for the rest of Qingming.” After Zhang Yao finished speaking, she noticed that her face was not very good. She got up from the mahjong table and walked to her. She asked with a worried face, “What’s wrong with you? Why do you look so bad?”

“Aunt Yao, I have something to ask you.”

Zhang Yao saw that she asked seriously, she hurriedly said, “Okay, okay, okay, we’ll talk slowly if there’s something.” She finished saying goodbye to her mahjong friends and took her to her room.

As soon as she entered the room, Zhang Yao held her shoulder and said, “What’s wrong Xixi? Don’t scare me, what happened?”

Lin Xiyu kept himself calm and said to Zhang Yao, “I went to the orphanage today, I learned from the dean that I owed a large amount of money to the bank after my parents died, and then an unknown person helped to pay the money back. Aunt Yao, tell me, is this true?”

Hearing this, Zhang Yao’s eyes flickered a few times in a panic, and then waved his hand and said, “How can this happen? Don’t listen to the dean’s nonsense, he is old, old and confused. Look at you, I thought there was something wrong with it scaring me, there’s no such thing, don’t worry about it, okay? I’m going out to play mahjong.”

Zhang Yao’s flustered look just now did not escape her eyes, Lin Xiyu hurriedly blocked her way, she said, “I’m no longer a child. Aunt Yao, you tell me what happened at the beginning, who was the person who helped me to pay off the debt back then, and you told me that there was one million left in the family after paying off the debt, what is going on with that one million?”

“I said it didn’t happen.”

But she was clearly saying this unconfidently, and she didn’t dare to look at her when she spoke.

“Aunt Yao, I beg you, will you tell me? I’m no longer a child, I have a right to know.”

Zhang Yao saw Lin Xiyu’s anxious expression, she looked unbearable and finally sighed and said, “Back then, your parents suddenly had an accident, and you didn’t have any relatives in your family, and I also helped you take care of your parents’ affairs. Your parents did owe a lot of money to the bank for charity work. Your uncle Liang and I scraped together all the money we had plus sold your father's paintings and your family's real estate, but we still couldn't pay it off. You also know that although your uncle Liang belongs to the Lu family, the largest property of the Lu family is not in his hands, so he can only rely on the salary in his hand and the interest that the family gives him every year, and we really can’t pay off the remaining more than 10 millions. Later, Junting suddenly came to me, he said that he respected Mr. Lin and his wife, and he could help pay off his debts, and even willing to pay your living expenses and tuition. He also gave me a million for me to falsely claim that it was the rest of the money left over from paying off the debts so that you could stay in Lu’s House at ease.”

Lin Xiyu felt a sudden buzz in her brain, she was in a trance for a moment, and subconsciously took a step back.