I am chasing a rough man in the 80s
Chapter 932 is clearly not a good cookie

Chapter 932: Chapter 932 is clearly not a good cookie

Grandma Ma was getting on in years and her mind wasn’t as sharp as it used to be, which forced Ma Dong to take on adult responsibilities far too early.

A primary school student who talks about writing an IOU has clearly been battered by life.

Suizi had Yu Jingting find someone to check in Ma Dong’s hometown, convinced that some oddball relative must have bewitched the child for him to know about such things.

Investigations take time, and these past few days Suizi and her husband had been taking Grandma Ma to the clinic, hoping against hope for a misdiagnosis, praying for a miracle.

But Suizi was also mentally prepared; the chances of a liver cancer misdiagnosis were very slim. While it was possible in the early stages, by the time it spread, the probability of misdiagnosis decreased significantly.

Indeed, when the results came back, the doctor asked to speak with Suizi alone in the office.

Yu Jingting was outside with Ma Dong, who slipped off to eavesdrop at the office door while Yu Jingting went to the toilet.

The closed door muffled the voices, but Ma Dong pressed his ear against it, trying hard to listen.

"Is surgery not possible?" asked Suizi.

Ma Dong strained to hear, but just then, a noisy family came for their clinic visit, drowning out the conversation with their loud voices.

Ma Dong could only catch snippets of the doctor’s response.

"Surgery not recommended...expense high..."

That was all he could make out, which he easily misinterpreted to mean the surgery was too expensive for his mother’s family to afford.

In fact, the doctor’s full comment was: Surgery isn’t recommended, the expense is high but not the issue for you, but the elderly patient is too old and frail for such an ordeal.

For the elderly, surviving surgery itself was uncertain, and with such an advanced malignancy, the surgery wouldn’t have much significance.

When Yu Jingting returned, he found Ma Dong leaning against the wall, pale-faced with reddened eyes, as if he had been crying.

"What’s wrong?" Yu Jingting rubbed his head.

Ma Dong shook his head, but after a moment’s thought, he mustered the courage to ask, "Dad, can I earn money now? I need some."

"Sure, you can earn by mopping floors, five cents each time, washing dishes, ten cents per time, or by giving massages and running errands, which is how Jiaojiao makes her money. You two could compete for the job."

"It might not be enough, right?" Ma Dong furrowed his brows, weren’t there any other ways to make money?

"You’re still too young, child labor isn’t allowed, and no one will hire you for work, inside or outside the house. Just focus on your studies for now. You don’t need to worry about money; you have your mom and me."

Yu Jingting assumed the child simply wanted a toy but was too shy to ask directly.

"Out with it. What caught your eye? I’ll buy it for you, and if you’re worried your mom will scold you for losing focus, we just won’t tell her. We can bury it in the sandbox in the yard, she’ll never dig it up. You want a kick scooter or a skyrocketing monkey?"

Ma Dong shook his head, his heart growing heavier.

He wanted to earn money for Grandma Ma’s treatment but didn’t want to tell Yu Jingting that. In Ma Dong’s eyes, his parents were good people, their own lives were hard enough, and they had to support his younger siblings. He didn’t want to add to Suizi and her husband’s troubles.

"Jingting, come here for a moment," Suizi called out, poking her head out and beckoning Yu Jingting inside.

Yu Jingting told Ma Dong to stay put. The child was sensible and wouldn’t run off.

The couple went inside to discuss treatment plans with the doctor, while Ma Dong wiped away tears outside.

"Little boy, why do you call Yu Jingting ’Dad’?" a sudden voice asked from above Ma Dong.

Ma Dong looked up to see a man standing before him, his face covered in bruises and scratch marks along his cheeks.

"Who are you? Do you know my dad?" asked Ma Dong.

The man was Li Tieguang, whom Yu Jingting had recently outsmarted. He was there to see the Anorectal Department.

Yu Jingting had exposed him for secretly keeping a "2+1" scheme near his home, leading to a fierce beating by his wife and her family.

His wife, probably stewing in her anger, refused to forgive him and had tampered with his chair in the Study Room. The moment Li Tieguang sat down...

Chrysanthemum flowers wither all over the ground, their fall breaks the hearts of their beholders.

The Anorectal Department is next to the Oncology Department, so Li Tieguang overheard the conversation between Ma Dong and Yu Jingting.

He was perplexed; his investigative information had not mentioned that Yu Jingting had such an older son—and the age did not match up at all.

"Uncle is a good friend of Yu Jingting," Li Tieguang said the words "good friend" through clenched teeth.

His current state was all thanks to Yu Jingting!

If it weren’t for his meddling and indiscriminate tip-offs, he would now be surrounded by wives and concubines, living a life as good as it can get!

"He’s inside, should I call him for you?" Ma Dong was about to call out to Yu Jingting when he was stopped by Li Tieguang.

"No need, I’m very close to your dad, I can see him every day. You don’t have to call him out specially—" Li Tieguang’s eyes shifted, recalling that Ma Dong had just asked Yu Jingting about money.

"Little boy, uncle will give you this." Li Tieguang took out his wallet, and from it, he pulled out fifty yuan.

To an ordinary person, this amount of money was half a month’s salary. Li Tieguang was confident it was enough to buy any toy.

"Why are you giving me money?" Ma Dong asked.

He really needed money now, and as he looked at it, his eyes couldn’t help but reveal a longing glow.

Caught by Li Tieguang, there was another burst of smugness.

He was certain that as an old fox well-versed in the ways of the world, tricking a little bean sprout would be easy, wouldn’t it?

"It’s normal for an elder to give money to a younger one, but you have to promise uncle, you can’t tell Yu Jingting and his wife. This is our secret."

"Then I don’t want it." Ma Dong stepped back and even put his hands behind his back.

"Just take it! If you really feel bad, can you do a favor for uncle?"

"What favor?" Ma Dong asked.

"There’s a document in your dad’s drawer. It contains a game he played with uncle. Just tell uncle the numbers on it, and if you do it well, uncle will buy you a toy."

Li Tieguang stuffed the money into Ma Dong’s hand, his tone suddenly turning into one of threatening a child, "This is our secret. If you tell anyone, the big bad wolf will come to snatch you away and eat you up!"

He thought Ma Dong was just a little kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old, or even younger.

His own daughter was 7 this year and was even taller than Ma Dong.

Thinking it was easy to fool a child, he used a mixture of threats and deception.

"Be obedient, take the money and buy a toy, but don’t let your parents find out."

"How do I contact you?" Ma Dong looked down, holding the fifty yuan in his hand.

Li Tieguang, seeing this, beamed with joy, and quickly pulled out a pen from his pocket, writing a string of landline numbers on the money.

"Remember, children who don’t obey will be eaten by the big bad wolf!" With one last threat, Li Tieguang quickly left.

Ma Dong only lifted his head after Li Tieguang’s figure had disappeared from the doorway, muttering to himself:

"I stopped believing in the big bad wolf since first grade..."

His mother had said in her letters that all sorts of demons and goblins were nothing but superstitions, and anyone urging him to believe in those was not a good "cookie," and that uncle just now was clearly not a good "cookie."

The Clinic door opened, and Suizi and her husband came out, heavily burdened by their concerns. The couple exchanged glances, and Suizi’s nose tingled, unable to speak.

Yu Jingting patted her, acknowledging that by now, they could no longer hide the truth from their child.

"Mom and Dad, I have something to tell you," Ma Dong said, speaking first.

Before Ma Dong could tell them, Yu Jingting’s eyes were drawn to something in the distance. What was that?!

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