“Elder Brother, are you free?”

“Hm?” I tilted my head to look and found Chu Yuan poking her head out from the room door. Her eyebrows were pressed together and she was looking at me expectantly with a pair of teary eyes, clearly pretending to be pitiful. I knew that if I dared to say no, she would definitely cry immediately.

I put down the document in my hand and said with a smile, “I’m free, what’s the matter?”

Chu Yuan’s eyes lit up, a little excited, and ran over joyfully. “You don’t need to read the documents anymore?”

I couldn’t help feeling a little headache when she mentioned this. This thick stack of documents was sent to me by Mo Fei, who was angry with me, before I left the company. It was a detailed overview of Min Rou’s Moon Valley New Energy Ltd. and its cooperation projects. In addition, it also included Fengchang Corporate Group’s market transformation plan, and the cooperation contract between them, which added up to hundreds of pages. Mo Fei actually asked me to read it all today, and sum it up with my own opinions, because it might be discussed in the meeting tomorrow.

This is really ridiculous. Even if it might be discussed in the meeting, it would be a meeting of senior executives. So what did that get to do with me? It was said that just for this contract alone, Fengchang had hired forty lawyers and formed a team to discuss the matter collectively for two days, but there was no progress made. Even a group of professionals found it difficult, so what could a small office worker—me—possibly contribute to the meeting?

But Mo Fei’s attitude was resolute; she insisted that I had to read them, so I had no choice but to read them. She was my boss after all. Afraid of not being able to finish reading it, I even held two pages of the documents while I was eating dinner.

I, who was always lazy, became a workaholic for the first time. No wonder Chu Yuan was so careful when she asked her question now. Dong Xiaoye also went to bed early; she gave up watching the TV series that she liked for fear of disturbing me.

“Mhm. My eyes hurt from reading it…” In fact, I had already finished reading it. However, because there was too much content, my brain couldn’t digest the information quickly enough, so I was in a daze while holding the last page earlier. Only when I was called by Chu Yuan did I come back to my senses.

Looking at the time, I was surprised; it was almost midnight. More than four hours seem to have passed in the blink of an eye. I wanted to sit up on the sofa to make room for Chu Yuan, but the sore muscles around my neck, shoulders, arms, and back were collectively afflicting me. It was so painful that my mouth was twitching in pain. It turned out maintaining one position for too long could really cause so much pain. “Why are you still awake?”

“I haven’t finished my homework.” Chu Yuan pouted her mouth and looked very aggrieved. Hearing my painful groan, she quickly pressed me to lie down.

“Your back injury hasn’t gotten better, so it’s better to lie down.” After that, she lifted up my quilt without any scruples and sat down beside me. The faint flower-like fragrance slowly permeated the air, making me who was exhausted felt an indescribable comfort.

The sofa was narrow and I was lying on the inside. Chu Yuan could only sit on a small section on the edge, and her posture seemed very uncomfortable. I thought this girl was worried that I would feel uncomfortable, so she didn’t want me to make some more space for her.

I was deeply moved and wanted to tell her that my back actually didn’t hurt anymore, and I just wanted to sit up and stretch my body after lying down and looking at the documents for too long. But before I could say anything, this bratty girl lifted her legs and placed them on the tea table. Then she leaned backwards against my chest, using me as a meat pad!

“This position is much better… ahem, I mean, you and I will both be comfortable.”

How am I comfortable? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But I didn’t bother to scold this lazy girl who completely didn’t care about her image at home. She didn’t have much weight, so it wasn’t very uncomfortable. “What are your teachers thinking? It’s almost near the final exams, but they still give you so much homework? Are they not worried that the students will collapse because of exhaustion?” Maybe it resonated with Mo Fei’s exploitation and oppression of me, so I felt extremely dissatisfied.

“The homework isn’t that much, it’s just too difficult.”

Chu Yuan actually said that the homework was difficult! I was surprised. It should be known that Chu Yuan was a veritable top student. Although she was rarely seen studying, her grades had always been at the top of her year. If she found it difficult, how were other students going to complete their homeworks?

“What kind of homework is so difficult? Dongfang also can’t do it?”

Chu Yuan snorted. “Her? She has already completed the transferring procedures. She didn’t plan to do any homework at all. I was scratching my head trying to finish it, but she sat in front of the computer all night playing games. And now she’s sleeping soundly in the room. I can’t believe that she’s my friend, she didn’t even want to help me. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about her!!”

Either Chu Yuan envied Dongfang, or Dongfang made Chu Yuan angry again. I couldn’t help shaking my head with a smile. Although these two bratty girls were good friends, they often fought each other. “Show me your homework. If it’s science, I should be able to answer it.”

“It’s not a science subject.” Chu Yuan showed her empty hands and said, “If I could take it out, I wouldn’t have a headache. It’s an essay left by Ms. Antique.”

I was taken aback. “Shu Tong?”

“Mhm.” Chu Yuan pouted her mouth. “She has been acting very strange these days. She was always absent-minded in class, and was no longer as lively and energetic as before. In the last few classes, she just read what was written in the textbook to us. When she had nothing to do, she would zone out. For example, in yesterday’s mock exam, she was distracted again. Lv Siqi was cheating right under her nose, but she turned a blind eye—what was even more ridiculous was that she even praised Lv Siqi today, saying that he has made great progress…”

I couldn’t help sweating inwardly. Although I was not sure, Shu Tong’s abnormality was most likely because her mother had misunderstood our relationship more and more…

“Today she left us another strange essay titled ‘On – Is White Lie Advisable?’—Elder Brother, I think this essay doesn’t seem to be left to me, but to you by her.”

Sure enough, I couldn’t treat this bratty girl as a child. It was not that she was stumped by this essay, but rather she knew why Shu Tong had been acting strangely recently. She clearly came to give me a hard time. “I knew it. If you really have a genuine question for me, you would never dare to sit on top of me…”

Chu Yuan said embarrassedly, “What do you mean?”

“That’s what I want to ask as well, Yuan Yuan, don’t beat around the bush, just tell me what you want to say. Your elder brother knows that you have something to say.”

“Humph, smart guy! But I don’t want to know how you are going to deal with the mess between you and Ms. Antique,” Chu Yuan said angrily, pressing me twice as if taking revenge on me. “The essay is not difficult to write, but Ms. Antique asked us to write our true opinions and not a pile of flowery words—this is too difficult. Elder Brother, do you think white lies are good?”

Our true opinions… I was also a little at a loss.

Seeing my expression, Chu Yuan snorted. “Look, it’s hard, right? It must be because of the lies you guys told that she gave us this assignment. Now that her lies got so big to such an extent that her parents think it’s real—and she doesn’t know how to explain it—she wants to see if she can find some solutions from our essays. She probably thought that our essays would be able to help her decide whether to confess to her parents or continue lying. But Elder Brother, she’s one year older than you, and much older than us—even she herself doesn’t know how to deal with it, let alone a group of students who haven’t graduated like us.

“But I don’t think the lie that she told Grandma Shu that she already had a boyfriend was a white lie at all. Her original reason was that she was annoyed by her family constantly nagging at her. She just didn’t expect that it would turn out to be like this today. Unlike her, the reason why you played along was kind and sincere. So after I thought about it, I realized that there are different kinds of white lies in our lives.

“For example, you were worried that Mom and Dad would be worried about you, so you told them that the police sent Elder Sister Xiaoye to protect you. Also… Elder Sister Ziyuan not telling you everything was also a kind of white lie. Moreover, although Elder Sister Xiaoye is staying with us everyday, she also has many secrets. Every person who tells white lies has their own reasons, all for the sake of others. But those who are being lied to won’t be happy, will they?”

Those who are being lied to won’t be happy…

Chu Yuan’s words gave me a great shock. Yes, if my parents were in danger and they didn’t tell me, would I be happy? Wasn’t I trying to find out what exactly Ziyuan was suffering from every day, but was very frustrated because I couldn’t do anything? Dong Xiaoye and I were friends with similar personalities, and we would support each other without any hesitation—but she never told me about the negative impact of Xu Heng’s case on her. This was because she didn’t want me to worry about her. But did it make me happy? It only made me want to hit Wang Jie a few more times to vent my frustration…

Chu Yuan had really grown up and was no longer the little bratty girl who only knew how to be unreasonable and rambunctious. She not only paid attention to everyone and everything that happened around her, but she also had her own understanding of every matter…

“Do you think white lies are advisable or not?” I habitually raised my hand, wanting to stroke Chu Yuan’s head. But I immediately put it down again. The radiance from this girl’s mature side made me feel like I shouldn’t treat her like a kid anymore.

Chu Yuan noticed my actions. I thought she would be happy because I didn’t see her as a child anymore, but I didn’t expect that she would hit my stomach with her elbow unhappily. Without explaining why she was doing it, she gritted her teeth and uttered a very philosophical answer. “I think people should be frank when it’s necessary, but when they are too frank and too direct, they will hurt others. So white lies are essential…”

Is this girl naive or mature? I pondered her words, which seemed to be easy to understand yet involved profound knowledge; it was just like her…

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep