Chapter 192 - The Duty Real and Fake (1/2)

“What?” Hao Ning was frightened when he heard the news, “How’s that? Auntie Zhou was so well before! No nonsense!”

“I’m not speaking nonsense.” Zhou Yuan took out his mobile, quivering, “It was my father who asked the old lady next door to give me the call!”

“Then why do we bother with an elevator?” Xiao Hong said hastily, “I’ll bring you on the Fire Flee. Tell me where to go!”

“No hurry.” Zhou Yuan stood up, timid, wiped his tears and said, “She was saved…”

“Eh, what a neurotic you are!” Hao Ning switched from being stunned to angry, “What’s wrong with you? Can you finish it once?”

“Then what do you want from us?” Xiao Hong was also so irritated that he lost his words. But he was mostly unsatisfied that Zhou Yuan occupied the time which could have been used by Hao Ning to find him a girlfriend.

“As for that…” Zhou Yuan, noticing the elevator reached basement level one, pointed at the parking space outside, “Let’s talk about it in the car.”

“Yuck!” Xiao Hong muttered while driving the car, “You begged me to save someone in your words, while you actually used me as a driver. Moreover, in my car!” But considering Zhou Yuan’s gloomy mood, and that he stayed in silence all the time while reserved in talking about it further, he just asked, “Tell us. What happened?”

“Just tell us.” Hao Ning noticed Xiao Hong’s temper towards Zhou Yuan and tried to persuade him, “Tell us and we’ll think up some solutions.”

“Ah…” Zhou Yuan sighed, “I don’t even know whom to blame.”

Then Zhou Yuan told the whole story: Zhou Yuan, after becoming the moment god, got much more capable in dealing with social relationships. But his family still held high expectations on him. Especially his mother, who kept repeating by his ears every day, “How about your future”, “Have a look at other children”, “Somebody is doing balabalabala”.

Though Zhou Yuan knew that after becoming a god his world view had changed and he despised what he once had pursued, he couldn’t tell his family that he was a god. Even if by showing a little divinity he would scare his family to death, let alone anything further. So the moment god suffered a lot between happiness when being away from home and the depression at home.

It had been well at the beginning. He’d had work to do with Hao Ning and Liu Shuai at night, or Zhang Chi Hang would come to find him and teach him the basic cultivating methods, so the family conflicts weren’t that pertinent. But the days before Zhou Yuan went back early, so that his parents grumbled more.

Zhou Yuan used to feel inferior to himself, so certainly he would let it go. But later he’d become a moment god with great pride, meanwhile, he wasn’t in a stable state at the beginning, so how could he endure those words?

Pushed too hard by his parents, Zhou Yuan ended up fabricating a Zhou Yuan, also the surroundings in his parents’ hearts with his talents. Since the fabricated Zhou Yuan behaved in the way exactly wanted by his parents, it solved both the contradictions in his heart and the expectations of his parents. He killed two birds with one stone.

While he hadn’t expected that his parents, after the fabricated Zhou Yuan fulfilled their expectations one after another, weren’t satisfied. On the contrary, they held even higher expectations. While the fabricated Zhou Yuan would have to continue fulfilling them based on the higher standard. It went this way for some time and Zhou Yuan’s status in his parents kept surmounting to an unbelievable level. Now in his parents’ imagination, Zhou Yuan had become the youngest, meanwhile the richest man in their country. He was influential in their region and he revered his parents. He’d dumped countless girlfriends whom his parents despised only for the wish of them ‒ though he had none in reality.

“It went too far…” Hao Ning pondered at this point, “But not far enough to make her take a suicide, did it?”

“Ah…” Zhou Yuan said with upset, “I didn’t expect that my parents, after being convinced that they had a rich son who repaid them a lot, should have…”

“Should have what?” Hao Ning couldn’t come up with any problem, “Even the youngest and richest son who respects his parents wasn’t good enough? You’ve done so much. What else do they ask for?”

“No…” Zhou Yuan covered his face, “I feel it shameful… For some reason, they began to doubt each other cheating in their marriage because of the fortune. While you know, my talent is to realize their thoughts in heart, so ‒”

“So, your parents really cheated in their marriage?” Xiao Hong stopped the car and turned back, staring at Zhou Yuan, “Like my dad’s relationship with an auntie fox?”

“You even call the fox auntie?” Hao Ning uttered without consideration. In Journey to the West, Bull Demon King did have cheated in his marriage, with a Jade Faced Fox. So, Xiao Hong’s appellation wasn’t wrong. But Hao Ning, after finishing it, began to realize that he went beyond the border and added hastily, “Sorry. It should be your business.”

“It’s all passed.” Xiao Hong’s eyes dimmed, “They love each other, anyway. Sure, my dad also loves my mum.”

“But they didn’t doubt each other, at least!” Zhou Yuan raised his head, “What tore me up was that, I don’t know where my parents picked up such a notion that their spouse would surely become unfaithful once they’d gained a fortune. Now, well. I was originally intended to deal with their dissatisfaction with me, but it ended up with their dissatisfaction with each other. Today it has been a big scene.”

“How? A fight?” Hao Ning thought that if they fought, he would give each of them two slaps on the face to calm them down, though he’d have another two from Zhou Yuan as a recompense.

“I’d rather they fought!” Zhou Yuan smiled bitterly, “My mum began to weep, yell and hang herself to death today. Because she doubted that my father was cheating on her, so the most logical plot following would be that when my mother took a suicide, my father didn’t care about her at all. So, the father in my mother’s heart really stopped caring about her! Then my mother thought, if you fell ill for a long time, certainly your son wouldn’t show his respect as much as before. So, the she in her imagination really fell ill, and I really began to betray her!”

“Eh, eh eh…” Hao Ning and Xiao Hong heard his words and lost their words, “Your talent really takes on people’s imagination! ‒ But the way of fulfilling people is too, stupid, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you identify it first? Women say a lot of opposite words!” Hao Ning teased, “She asks you to go, but you need to stay. She asks you if you’re busy, but she actually wants you to accompany her. She says you are cheating, but in fact, she wants to prove that you don’t!”

“Please!” Zhou Yuan covered his eyes, wordless, “Arts can’t beat the fate, and the fate can’t beat human’s hearts! What’s worse, it’s a woman’s heart. Even Manjusri Bodhisattva’s Hui sword couldn’t solve such a problem, so are you counting on a moment god as unreliable as me to sort it out?”

Hao Ning sighed. He had to admit that Zhou Yuan’s words made sense.

“If I had been at home, I could have managed to handle the situation,” Zhou Yuan went on, “But I have an important task today and overexerted my power. I didn’t keep my eyes on it. And in this way, my mum jumped into the river in front of my dad.”

“Jumped into the river?” Hao Ning pointed at the road urgently and said to Xiao Hong, “You’ve taken the wrong way. The river is there ‒”

“No need.” Zhou Yuan said, “Someone saved my mother. My mother had imagined that someone would save her, so he did.”

“Eh… Isn’t that good?” Hao Ning wiped his sweat, “The whole of your family was safe.”