I am chasing a rough man in the 80s
Chapter 820 Poor Excuse

Chapter 820: Chapter 820 Poor Excuse

The evening meal at the Yu Family was as lavish as usual, with the skills of the housemaid being quite remarkable, and Wang Cuihua had added her specialty dish, sauerkraut stewed with glass noodles.

Normally, Suizi would show her appreciation by eating an extra half bowl of rice, but today she seemed preoccupied, busily shoveling rice without touching much of the other dishes.

Wang Cuihua thought her cooking might not be up to par, so she sampled it with a chopstick—no, it tasted just fine.

Then she looked at Yu Shuisheng beside her, who was devouring his food like a starved pig, having wolfed down three bowls of rice.

"Eat less tonight, don’t get indigestion!"

"Oh..." Yu Shuisheng gave up on the idea of getting more rice and went straight for the vegetables~

His wife’s unbeatable sauerkraut truly was delicious.

"Suizi, is there something at school that’s been bothering you? Has someone been bullying you?" Wang Cuihua asked.

"It’s—" Suizi paused, "there is something that’s been bothering me."

Wang Cuihua was deeply concerned and immediately put down her chopsticks to ask.

"What happened? Your classmates have been picking on you?"

"It’s not really bullying, it’s just that a few senior students conspired to change the authorship order on a major paper."

Suizi was new, and theoretically she shouldn’t have been part of this project, but the Tutor saw she had a good foundation and included her in it.

When it came to the actual work, Suizi did most of it, and by rights she should have been the first author, but the seniors used her inexperience as an excuse to bump her down to second author.

Wang Cuihua didn’t quite understand these academic issues, so Suizi made an illustrative analogy.

"It’s like Zhang San and Li Si getting married, with the bride price paid by Zhang San, but when it comes time to enter the bridal chamber, it’s Wang Er-mazi who takes over."

"!!!" Got it in a second!

"When Tiegen gets back, let him put a sack over that bullying senior’s head! No, no need to wait for him, your father can do it! Are our family members to be taken lightly?"

"That won’t be necessary." When Suizi heard her mother-in-law mention Jingting’s return, her heart felt like it had been pricked by a needle.

Fearing that her mother-in-law might become suspicious, she hurriedly seized the opportunity to speak up.

"Mom, I’m thinking of asking for a week off to visit Jingting. I really can’t stand seeing those people at school anymore."

After saying this, Suizi didn’t look at her mother-in-law but stared directly at her father-in-law.

The most discerning person in the family was the Fourth Uncle, and if he couldn’t detect anything amiss, she would be able to keep her secret safe.

Yu Shuisheng, who was about to pick up more sauerkraut, paused and looked up at Suizi.

Suizi held back her feelings of guilt, forcing herself not to look away, maintaining eye contact with the Fourth Uncle.

A clash between masters is decided in an instant; the Fourth Uncle glanced at her briefly before bowing his head to continue eating.

"So you’re just missing Tiegen, eh? I thought it was something serious." Wang Cuihua let out a sigh of relief, "It’s fine for you to go visit him; he’s been away for quite a while—nothing’s wrong, right?"

"Nothing’s wrong, I spoke to him on the phone last night, and everything is fine. It’s just that the payment from that end is really slow, so he has to wait a few more days, probably around ten days before he can come back. My school is not too busy at the moment, so it would be good to get away and clear my head."

Suizi stuck to her prearranged story, and Wang Cuihua didn’t suspect a thing, nodding in agreement.

"Alright then, you go and visit him. And if Tiegen dares to indulge himself in other pleasures and doesn’t behave like a man should, you take our family’s ancestral feather duster and whip him with it!"

"Cough pfft!" Fourth Uncle choked on his glass noodles.

The noodles almost came out of his nose, but he finally managed to cough them up.

"Cuihua, don’t invent strange terms while I’m eating—what the heck is ’male virtue’?

"Every show on TV preaches about women’s virtues. Just watching it pisses me off—are we women supposed to be confined while you men go out and fool around?"

Recently, a period drama series began airing during the eight o’clock slot, which had Wang Cuihua cursing and muttering as she watched.

"Mom, don’t worry, Jingting is really busy over there, he has no time to mess around, and he’s not that kind of person."

Suizi forced a smile, trying to appear natural, so as not to let her in-laws see any hint of what was going on.

Especially her father-in-law, being so astute, would start to think that if it were just a little friction among schoolmates, it wouldn’t be enough to make Suizi run off to find Yu Jingting.

She was certainly capable enough to handle such petty school scheming, so using the excuse of being ostracized by her schoolmates was indeed a significant loophole.

Maybe it was because the pickled vegetables made by her mother-in-law were too delicious, but Tiegen’s attention didn’t seem to be on Suizi, and he didn’t nag her with questions.

After dinner, Suizi began packing her bags. She stuffed her clothes into the suitcase in a frenzy and, upon hearing Chen Lijun’s voice, hastily wiped away the tear stains on her face.

Since Chen Lijun got pregnant, her interests gradually aligned with those of normal women.

She recently started watching melodramatic TV series with Wang Cuihua, the two women cursing and eating from the fruit plate, creating a remarkably harmonious atmosphere.

Hearing that her daughter was going to see her son-in-law, Chen Lijun took the opportunity during the opening credits to come over and ask a few questions. Suizi, holding back her inner turmoil, pretended nothing was wrong and brushed off her mom.

She prided herself on her acting skills, thinking she could deceive the elders, but a mother knows her daughter best, and Chen Lijun always felt that Suizi was acting a bit strange.

After walking a few steps, she turned back, scrutinizing Suizi’s face.

"You and Jingting, you’re really okay, right?"

"We’re an old married couple, what could be wrong?"

"Then why do your eyes look a bit red?"

"Where are they red? Take a close look, they are fine. Alright, the opening credits are over, you better go watch the show with my mother-in-law now."

After repeated checking and getting no information from Suizi, Chen Lijun finally went back to watch the drama.

Suizi closed the door, ensuring no one would come in, and then allowed herself to continue crying silently.

With elders in the house, no matter how heartbroken she was, she couldn’t let the elders see it.

Especially because her mother was pregnant, she couldn’t have the slightest emotional fluctuation, and her mother-in-law also had a bit of high blood pressure, which could not be aggravated.

Suizi glanced at the clock. Now, even if she were anxious, she had to wait. There were no flights today, and taking the train would be too slow. The earliest flight tomorrow wouldn’t be until the morning.

Thinking of Yu Jingting, Suizi’s heart was shattered.

She hated that she didn’t have the power to fly across distances, so she couldn’t be there for him when he needed her most.

All she could do now was stabilize the elders at home, keep them in the dark, secure the situation once she got there, and then think about how to explain to her family.

Suizi knew that at a time like this, she had to keep steady. She was the person he trusted the most. If he couldn’t make decisions, then she had to handle everything well.

But waiting, every second and every minute, was torture. She finished packing quickly, specifically taking both the company’s official seal and her personal one. The money Yu Jingting left for household expenses had already been withdrawn by her, and she even stuffed some of her jewelry into the suitcase.

If it came to that point, she would sell the jewelry.

Everything that could be done was now done. Waiting felt like an endless black hole, where the worry transformed into sharp little knives, slicing her soul to pieces.

And at that moment, all she could do was helplessly and painfully endure being cut apart.

The door was knocked twice. The children’s milky voices rose.

"Mommy~"

"Coming!"