Chapter 69: unbearable stomach distention, high school years
(Part 1)
For the entire Saturday, apart from her morning exercises with Lu Anhu during sunrise, Lu Anran shut herself in her room. In the afternoon, Ji Rou also entered Lu Anran’s room, and the pair of mother and daughter stayed in there without even eating lunch, only finally appear in front of everyone at dinnertime. Seeing their appearances, especially Ji Rou’s, were as though they had been busy until now and have not slept for the whole night.

The beautiful eyes of both mother and daughter were covered with a layer of redness startling everyone when they appeared at the dinner table. Today, Lu Junfeng and his wife came to accompany Lu Jianfeng every weekend as usual, so everyone was present at the dinner table other than Lu Junan’s family.

“The both of you didn’t sleep?” Xu Lianxin’s eyes were filled with surprise, “What are you busy with?”

“I told Mum about my idea last night and showed her a distribution map of Long Corporation’s shopping mall. Then Mum rushed through the night to design a set of implementable plans using both of our ideas!” Lu Anran said smilingly. Although she was tired, the smile on her face was very bright. “I’ll show you!” Lu Anran took out the printed backup copy and distributed it to everyone.

When everyone received the design, their eyes shone. The design of ancient style and charm made the allocated space very reasonable and there was also a C-MAP that presented a preview of the effect. This kind of decoration was unheard of. Lu Jianfeng nodded his head in satisfaction and said, “Anran, give me a copy of your decoration proposal before next weekend. At that time, I will arrange someone to start decorating the new store according to your proposal. As for advertising……”

“Dad, about the advertising, I will submit the proposal to you before next Wednesday, also……” Ji Rou stretched her hand to rub Lu Anran’s head, “also, Anran won the rights to advertise at the first- floor entrance area of Lu Corporation shopping mall for two months so I will write some articles based on this point!”

“What?” Everyone was stunned and looked towards Lu Anran in disbelief. She actually managed to obtain the advertising rights to the first-floor entrance area during the hottest period? This was a rare advantage ah!

“Anran, how did you get this advertising rights?” Lu Jianfeng expressed his shock with a tinge of doubt.

“Two months ago, at Long Corporation’s banquet, I went to find that heir of Long Corporation to discuss about this matter. He said this was a provided benefit for the five newly selected stores but because I was the first to visit and he could see our sincerity, he then gave me the best position in advance.”

“This!” Lu Jianfeng looked at Lu Anran. His eyes were full of pride, “This is my, Lu Jianhao’s granddaughter! Great!”

The others at the dinner table also threw admiring gazes at Lu Anran.

“Anran, if you need help, don’t hesitate to ask your brothers, Anshuo and Anming!” Lu Junfeng was also very pleased to see such promise from his eldest brother’s daughter and decided in that instant. Since he himself, was unable to assist his elder brother, then his two sons should wholeheartedly help the only daughter of his elder brother!

“Thank you Second Uncle!” Lu Anran beamed, and shot a glance at Lu Anming, “Bro Anming helped me a lot yesterday! I should properly treat Bro Anming to a large meal the next time……”

“Ugh…..” Upon hearing this, Lu Anming’s stomach churned noisily.

“What’s wrong?” Xu Lianxin looked towards her own son.

“No……Nothing……” Though he managed to finally suppress that nauseated feeling, Lu Anming looked very pale. Waving his hand at Xu Lianxin, he said, “I…… I’m full. You guys slowly eat……” Even though a day has passed, this feeling of ‘being bloated to the point of wanting to vomit’ still lingered.

“You haven’t even eaten much ah!” Xu Lianxin was a little worried, “Is your stomach feeling uncomfortable?”

“No… Nothing…..” Lu Anming waved his hand weakly, “I’ll go up first!” Saying that, he left the table.

Lu Anhu took a sympathetic look at the far- away Lu Anming. He understood this kind of agony very well……However, the concerned party, Lu Anran only smiled innocently.

Once the decoration matters were completed, Lu Anran felt relieved, yet her mood was extremely complex as she was going to attend S city’s First High starting from tomorrow.

“You are going to register at S city’s First High tomorrow?” Lu Jianfeng looked towards Lu Anran and asked.

“Yes ah!” Lu Anran shrugged her shoulders and pretended to be relaxed while saying, “Class allocations will be released on Sunday tomorrow and classes will formerly begin on Monday.”

“What time do you have to register tomorrow?” Xu Lianxin asked.

“The registration time is before 9 AM.” Lu Anran replied, “I think I can come home for lunch at noon tomorrow. I have also asked Teacher Qin to come over at night.”

“Pa” The spoon in Lu Anwei’s hand dropped, making a crisp sound as it knocked against the soup bowl that contained winter melon soup.

Lu Anran looked at Lu Anwei, and took in his trace of panic. She felt somewhat sorry for this cousin brother who was a little emotionally insensitive. She was a spectator who had observed and seen through everything. They were clearly two people who were in love with each other. Why had it reached this point? Lu Anran did not understand and did not wish for the situation to be like so.

The Lu Anran in the previous lifetime gave her sincerity, love and whatnots to the wrong people. To the Lu Anran who has lived for two lifetimes, these kind of flashy, no-substance, vague and insubstantial things were far less important compared to Lu Corporation…. Lu Anran herself has already given up on romantic love. In this lifetime, all she wants to do is to protect Lu Corporation, and everyone around her. She hopes that everyone around her could be happy and believes the love between Lu Anwei and Qin Shuhan. She hopes that both of them could attain happiness and have a good future.

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(Part 2)
“What’s wrong?” Xu Lianxin looked towards Lu Anwei. Why are each and every of these kids all acting so weirdly?

“Nothing.” Lu Anwei took up a serviette to wipe his mouth and pushed away the cutlery in front of him, “I’m full.” He then got up and left the dining table. He had clearly made up his mind to hide Qin Shuhan deep in his heart, yet his heart still involuntarily moved when he unexpectedly heard her name. “I…. I’m going to the bookstore.”

“Go and return quickly.” Lu Anran’s expression did not reveal any of her thoughts and only continued to eat her own breakfast.

“Mm.” Lu Anwei answered and strode out of Lu Residence.

Ji Rou looked pensively at Lu Anran and inquired using eye signals. The latter nodded calmly further confirming Ji Rou’s guess.

While sipping the winter melon soup, Ji Rou shook her head helplessly. Young people nowadays ah…… But she was also not qualified to say all of these. That year, after she and Bro Hao fell in love at first sight, they also went through three years of pulling and pushing each other before being together officially.

The dining table became quiet once more. Everyone ate dinner while occasionally discussing a couple of business matters, or Lu Anran’s schooling matters. After dinner, Lu Anran went back to her room to pack her schoolbag and prepare her clothes for tomorrow.

She double checked her graduation certificate for high school enrolment and placed it into her new backpack. After that, she also placed her little book she used to record stuff and chose a few newly bought stationaries and put it into her bag.

After packing her schoolbag, she got up to get ready the clothes that she will wear tomorrow. She bought several pretty dresses yesterday morning with Ji Ling. Lu Anran placed each dress against her body and compared them. Once she has decided on the coordination, she hung it up and placed it aside. The schoolbag was also placed on her desk. Lu Anran then sat on the soft bed as if in a trance.

In her previous lifetime, under Chu Yao’s warm ‘help’, Lu Anran spent the darkest years of her life in high school and suffered emotional abuse on campus. In such an environment, Lu Anran hated attending school, hated dealing with people. Once the inferiority in her heart grew considerably, her temper became even more irritable and was easily angered. Although no one really bullied her due to their desire for Lu Corporation, everyone’s gaze contained contempt and taunt. To have eye contact with such gaze, Lu Anran felt even more inferior and her personality became even more distorted.

Lu Anran clenched her fist and shook her head furiously, as though to forcefully shake out all the bad memories of her past life out of her mind. In this lifetime, she was still in the same high school as Chu Yao and both of them were still inextricably linked.

She remembered that in her previous lifetime, immediately after the military training of new students, it was First High’s school anniversary. She was originally chosen as the leading actress in the stage play and Chu Yao would constantly accompany her to rehearse and recite lines with her every day. On the day before the performance, because of an ‘accident’ she was not able to be present at the hall and Chu Yao who replaced her as the lead actress, received a standing ovation. As for her, rumors started flying about the “Young Miss who has a bad temper and refused to perform at the last minute”, presumably that was also part of Chu Yao’s evildoing! Shortly after that, she defended and fought for Chu Yao and was forced to transfer to another school. From then on, Chu Yao’s brilliant high school life officially begun. First was unprecedented admission to the Student Union in her first year of high school. Then in her second year, as a student representative she took part and attained an excellent ranking in the National Top Students Competition. In her third year, she became the president of the Student Union and even received many letters of admissions from famous Universities before even graduating……

In contrast, after the school anniversary, Lu Anran was completely buried in the lowest valley of life. Even after transferring schools and had several opportunities to improve her new classmates’ impression of her, these were also ‘inadvertently’ ruined by Chu Yao. Presumably it was because of this that Lu Anran who had such a large reliance on the Chu Yao who was always by her side, would fall in love with Lin Haosheng who suddenly popped up.

Thinking of Lin Haosheng, Lu Anran’s heart started aching again. She hated him, hated his cruelty and ruthlessness. The only man she loved in her short life was also the one who personally sliced off her tongue. Lu Anran felt her body tremble involuntarily, her fear mixed with loathing giving birth to an emotional ambiguity that she could not express clearly.

A sudden lightning ripped a hole in the perpetual silent night, and a rumble of thunder immediately followed, without giving anyone a chance to breathe, torrential rain poured from the sky. The clattering sound of the raindrops made people feel particularly depressed.