As Su Su pushed open the study door, she came in with a bowl of sweet soup, smiling at him and saying, "Are you very tired today? Your voice was a bit hoarse when you were talking at dinner. Have a bowl of sweet soup to moisten your throat."
"Put it down first. I just ate a lot. I'll drink it later," Tian Yi said, masking his worry with a smile.
Su Su sensed he had something on his mind. She lifted his face with one hand and looked at him, asking, "You're not acting right. Is something bothering you?"
Tian Yi clasped her hand and said, "A project hasn't been going smoothly recently. It's just affecting my mood a little."
"Don't think about work when you're home. Smile happily," Su Su said, imitating his domineering tone.
Tian Yi quickly obeyed and forced a smile.
Su Su pinched his cheek and said, "It's still too fake."
"Wife, you're too demanding," Tian Yi said with a devilish smile. "If you want me to be truly happy, why don't we go to the room and have a good talk?"
"Is that all you think about every day?" Su Su pulled him up and said, "Let's go play with the children and Duoduo."
"Duoduo?" Tian Yi didn't know when another child had appeared.
Su Su smiled and said, "You forgot, Duoduo is the stray dog that Tiantian adopted. I took the dog to the pet hospital for vaccinations. It's a male, so Huahua wasn't suitable. The children came up with another name, saying it should be called Duoduo."
Tian Yi quickly asked, "Is someone watching them when they play with the dog?"
"Yes, Xiaomei is watching them in the garden."
Tian Yi took her hand and said, "Let's go and see..."
Before Su Su could finish, she pulled him and asked, "Do you dislike dogs or small animals? I noticed you were very repulsed by Duoduo the first time you saw it."
Tian Yi nodded, recalling some unpleasant memories. He said, "The Qin family always treated me like an idiot. My stepmother and Tian Lang deliberately raised those large wolfdogs to scare me. They trained that wolfdog so that as soon as it saw me or smelled my scent, it would bark ferociously and chase me to bite me."
Su Su finally understood why he was reluctant to get close to dogs and didn't want Tiantian to keep pets.
"Dogs are the smartest and most loyal animals. They are innocent and harmless by nature. It's the people who raise them that are bad. When they don't meet a good owner, they are taught to be very frightening."
"I understand that," Tian Yi said. "But being scared by dogs when I was young left me with a trauma that I haven't been able to overcome."
Su Su held his hand and said, "Then you can try to start by slowly accepting Duoduo. When we go to the garden later, we'll just watch from a distance. Let's take it slow, and this shadow will surely be eliminated."
"Okay," Tian Yi said, embracing her as they went downstairs.
Su Su thought she should tell the children that Tian Yi didn't like dogs and that it would be best to keep Duoduo in its cage when Tian Yi was home.
She couldn't make Tian Yi feel uncomfortable at home just because the children liked the dog.
Tian Yi saw the children chasing and playing with the dog from a distance, and then vying to hug it.
Tiantian even pulled the dog's tail several times, but the dog seemed to have no temper no matter how the children treated it. It was still very well-behaved.
In this regard, this stray dog was completely different from the large wolfdog he encountered when he was young, and he was no longer so repulsed by this adopted stray dog.
"Duoduo, this name is quite catchy. Since it's a stray dog, it shouldn't have come into this world in the first place; it's superfluous," Tian Yi said to Su Su beside him, remembering the name.
Su Su smiled and said, "The children definitely didn't think of this when they named it. However, your explanation of the name makes some sense."
"If you're not afraid of puppies and like dogs, then play with them more. I'll go back to the study for a while."
Su Su knew the reason why he was reluctant to get close to dogs and didn't force him anymore. "Go ahead, but remember to drink your sweet soup."
Tian Yi grunted and turned to leave.
In fact, he not only had a psychological shadow regarding dogs, but he was also still worried about Xiao Xingxing and wanted to go back to the study to ask if there was any new progress from the people monitoring the school surroundings.
...
In the hospital room, Meng Yao was massaging Song Jiaping, relaxing the muscles in his hands and legs to help his stiff muscles recover.
At this moment, her phone kept ringing. She didn't want to interrupt the massage, so she didn't answer it.
Song Jiaping, lying on the hospital bed, also heard her phone ringing and said, "Answer the phone, and take a break. Maybe Meng Qi has an urgent matter to find you for?"
Meng Yao stopped then, smiled at him, and took out her phone. It was an unfamiliar number.
After more than a week of recovery, Song Jiaping could not sit up or get out of bed to walk on his own, but his consciousness was completely clear, and his spirit had recovered a lot. He no longer spoke so weakly.
Meng Yao still answered. Just as she was about to ask who it was, the other party spoke, "Meng Yao, is that you? I am Jiaxi's grandfather."
"Yes, it's me." Meng Yao heard the voice of Elder Hong and immediately stood up, gestured to Song Jiaping towards the outside, and made a gesture, meaning to take the call outside the ward.
Song Jiaping gave her a smile, indicating that he understood her intention.
Meng Yao walked outside the ward and closed the ward door.
Elder Hong's voice was agitated. "Meng Yao, I have no face to find you. But for Jiaxi, for the bloodline of our Hong family, I have to beg you, please don't report Jiaxi, tell the police it was a misunderstanding, and don't let him go to jail."
Meng Yao remained silent, unable to agree to Elder Hong's request.
After Song Jiaping's accident, she never thought it was Jiaxi who did it. If Jiaxi hadn't sent people to the hospital to kill Song Jiaping after the car accident, which prevented Song Jiaping from dying, she and her sister wouldn't have called the police.
After calling the police, it was the police who found out that the mastermind was Hong Jiaxi. She and her sister were also called to the police station by the police to cooperate with the investigation.
This was no longer something that could be resolved by her and the police saying a few words and calling it a misunderstanding.
"Old Master, I can't help you with this matter," Meng Yao said calmly. "It's not a question of whether I want to let him go or not. He has seriously violated the law. No one can make the police release him."
Elder Hong coughed on the other end of the phone. Just as Meng Yao was about to hang up, the other party stopped coughing and said with a choked voice, "Just consider it doing a good deed. Try talking to the police. How will you know if it's impossible if you don't try? By the way, Song Jiaping has woken up, hasn't he? If you can get him to tell the police it was a misunderstanding, that would be even better..."
Meng Yao immediately interrupted him, saying angrily, "No! Jiaping is still recovering slowly, and I haven't told him about this at all. He can't even sit up yet. I won't let him say these things to the police!"
Elder Hong was still unwilling, his voice trembling, "The relationship between our two families has always been very good. You and Jiaxi grew up together. How can you bear to let him go to jail and ruin his life..."