Fu Mingyu was, in some ways, quite similar to Mr. Fu.
He had a powerful presence that was hard to refuse.
Of course, he was still young, so this presence wasn’t that impactful yet.
Since they had promised to go out to sea, Yun Linhai and Yun Linhe began their preparations.
After breakfast, Fu Mingyu and Yun Jiao got ready to go see the puppies.
He was going to take a puppy with him today after they returned from the sea, as he would be leaving tomorrow.
Fu Mingyu was actually reluctant to leave. He liked the Yun family.
But he knew even more clearly that it wasn’t realistic for him to stay here.
He was very rational. He would leave with his grandfather, but he would also remember this place forever. When he was capable enough, he would come back.
They hadn’t gone far from the house when someone suddenly darted out and blocked their path.
It was even an acquaintance of Yun Jiao’s.
Yun Zhaodi.
"You’re Fu Mingyu, right?"
Yun Zhaodi flashed a brilliant smile at Fu Mingyu, completely ignoring Yun Jiao, who was standing right next to him.
Yun Jiao looked at Yun Zhaodi with an indescribable expression.
’Seriously, what is this girl up to?’
Yun Zhaodi had smeared something on her face. Her normally dark, sallow skin had indeed turned white, but it was a ghastly, artificial white.
And then there were the two garish, prominent red splotches on her cheeks and her bright red lips.
’What is she doing? It’s a good thing it’s not nighttime, or I would’ve socked her one for sure.’
"Hello, my name is Yun Zhaodi."
Fu Mingyu took a small step back, frowning.
Yun Zhaodi quickly said, "I want to be friends with you. Where are you going? I know all of Bailong Village, I can show you around."
Fu Mingyu said, "No need."
He turned sideways, taking Yun Jiao’s hand to leave.
Anxious, Yun Zhaodi reached out to grab Fu Mingyu’s hand.
Fu Mingyu’s eyes turned cold.
Although he was young and his face was still boyish, he had a rather cold and severe look. When he stared at someone with his dark, bottomless eyes and a blank expression, he exuded a chilling, hair-raising indifference.
Yun Zhaodi was so taken aback by his gaze that she subconsciously took a step back.
"Get lost."
Yun Zhaodi stammered, "Wh-what did you say?"
’This kid is so creepy, even weirder than Yun Jiao.’
But for the sake of those things, Yun Zhaodi really wanted to become his friend—ideally, by snatching him away from Yun Jiao.
"I-I can cook. My food is really good. Do you want..."
Fu Mingyu repeated, "I said, get lost!"
Then he led Yun Jiao away, leaving Yun Zhaodi standing there, stunned, for a long moment.
After a while, her expression turned resentful as she watched Fu Mingyu and Yun Jiao’s retreating backs.
"Why does Yun Jiao get everything good! What part of me is worse than her?!"
Yun Jiao already has so many brothers who dote on her, and doting parents too. Why should she also get such a rich and generous friend?
A friend this rich should belong to a pitiful person like me!
"Little bitch, vixen..."
Yun Zhaodi muttered curses, but she didn’t dare to follow them.
Meanwhile, Yun Jiao was laughing.
"What was that stuff on her face? It was so ugly, hahaha..."
As someone with a normal sense of aesthetics, she really couldn’t understand what Yun Zhaodi’s goal was in making her face look so ghastly.
Fu Mingyu didn’t understand Yun Zhaodi’s thinking either and strongly agreed with Yun Jiao.
When she first popped out, he had actually been quite startled. It was only his blank expression that made him seem so calm.
Arriving at Granny Liu’s house, they both put Yun Zhaodi out of their minds and went to see the puppies.
Fu Mingyu asked Granny Liu in great detail about how to raise a dog.
He was relieved to confirm that the puppies could now be separated from their mother and eat on their own.
After seeing the puppies, they headed back, just as Yun Linhai and the others finished preparing all the gear for going out to sea.
Yun Jiao brought the fishing rods Fu Mingyu had given her.
These proper fishing rods were much lighter than the bamboo ones and even had reels, which meant the fishing line could be let out very far.
Yun Linhai and Yun Linhe were also curious about the rods and examined them for a moment.
"Alright, let’s head out."
They weren’t expecting to bring back much of a catch today; the main goal was to take Fu Mingyu out on the sea for fun.
They had heard Fu Mingyu was leaving tomorrow. The boy had brought them so many gifts, so they wanted to take him out for some fun before he left.
"Wait a second."
Fu Mingyu went to the car and got a camera.
"Let’s go."
"You have a camera too?"
Fu Mingyu paused. "Who else has one?"
Yun Jiao replied, "You don’t know him. It was a big kid from a leader’s family who came to visit before."
On their way to the docks, they ran into Yun Zhaodi, who was being chased and beaten.
And the one hitting her was none other than her own mother.
"You damn girl, are you crazy? You actually smeared the family’s white flour on your face! Look at you, you made your face look like a ghost! Who are you trying to scare to death?"
"Flour is so precious! I need it to make baozi for your little brother! How much did you waste smearing it on that face of yours? You get back here!"
Yun Zhaodi ran and cried, repeatedly shouting that she was wrong and wouldn’t do it again.
But when she was caught, she still got a beating.
Yun Jiao remarked, "So that white stuff on her face was flour."
Yun Zhaodi had done it simply because she wanted to make herself a little fairer and prettier.
She thought the reason Yun Jiao was so popular was surely because of her fair skin.
As for the blush and lipstick, she had learned to apply them from a girl in the village who was good at dressing up.
Since she didn’t have lipstick, she had used a type of red paper that bleeds color.
But she had never worn makeup before. Combined with her dark complexion, she had put on too much flour, then made her cheeks and lips bright red. The effect was similar to the paper effigies used in the funeral business.
The effect Yun Zhaodi wanted wasn’t achieved; in fact, she’d achieved the opposite.
And now she was getting a beating for wasting food.
Yun Linhe pulled Yun Jiao aside. "Jiaojiao, stay away from that Yun Zhaodi girl from now on. She’s full of petty schemes."
"Last time I saw her, she was threatening her younger sister to do her chores, and she even stole firewood other kids had gathered."
It was easy to pity Yun Zhaodi for her poor treatment, but there were plenty of people who had it rough these days.
But Yun Zhaodi was cunning. She often bullied younger children when adults weren’t around, stole their things, and then framed her own younger siblings for it. That made her unlikable.
If Yun Jiao didn’t have several brothers always protecting her, and if she weren’t so strong herself and unwilling to be bullied, she would have definitely been a prime target for Yun Zhaodi.
Yun Jiao nodded. "I know."
She didn’t like Yun Zhaodi either.
At the docks, Yun Linhai and Yun Linhe lifted the two children onto the boat and started heading out to sea.
The two of them rowed quickly, and soon they were far from shore.
Yun Jiao excitedly took out her fishing rod and the bait she had prepared earlier.
It was the same dried shrimp from home.
"I wonder where the sea turtle went."
After she greeted the killer whales, that pod of killer whales had stopped bullying the sea turtle, and it was finally able to return to the sea.
When Yun Jiao and her family went to their grandmother’s house, the big sea turtle had followed Grandpa Yun and the others out to forage on the tidal flats that same day and returned to the sea, never to be seen again.