Honest Man 08

Fang Zhiyi froze for a long while. Looking at his parents with their heads bowed in front of him, he called out cautiously, "Dad? Mom?"

Fang Shucai didn't dare to answer right away. He stared at his son for a moment, and only after seeing that his eyes had indeed returned to normal did he whisper, "Son?"

Fang Zhiyi nodded. "I really didn't do it. Grandpa told me to do it. He said otherwise these people would always think I'm a pushover... I also thought it wasn't good, but I couldn't just ignore Grandpa's words..."

Fang Shucai lowered his head and nodded after a moment. "Listen to your grandpa. After all, he is your grandpa, and my dad."

Only Li Qingmei remembered what Fang Zhiyi had said earlier. "Son, when you helped them out before, they didn't even give you a sip of water?"

Fang Zhiyi bit his lip and smiled foolishly. "Not exactly, Grandpa was exaggerating. I did drink some water. It's mainly that I hurried back right after helping out."

Li Qingmei, after all, wasn't Fang Shucai. Her expression turned ugly. "And they call themselves relatives. You helped them, and not only did they not keep you for a meal, they didn't even offer you a sip of water. Fang Shucai, are these the relatives you talk about?"

Fang Shucai muttered, "I didn't know either... Son, why didn't you say anything before?"

Fang Zhiyi's voice was a bit quiet. "I thought it wasn't a big deal. If I said it, it would make our family look petty."

"These bastards, do they really think our family is easy to bully?" Li Qingmei exploded. She was an honest woman, but she wouldn't just sit in silence watching her son get bullied.

When the relatives called again, Li Qingmei directly snatched the phone. "No time! Not going! Doesn't your family have sons and daughters? Can't you do it yourselves?"

Looking at his mother's state, Fang Zhiyi was a bit dazed. So his parents would stand up for him too?

"See that? When you are wronged, you have to speak up, not just work foolishly. That little bit of face you care about is worth jack shit," his grandpa's voice rang out.

Fang Zhiyi nodded gently.

What he didn't expect even more was that his usually honest father went out right after dinner that day, and when he returned, he was holding a few hundred yuan, which he slapped directly into Fang Zhiyi's hand.

"Dad? What is this?" Fang Zhiyi was very confused.

"The wages for helping your cousin last time! I went straight to their house to ask for it! Hiring a worker costs several hundred a day, but when it comes to you, they use the 'relative' excuse? On what grounds? Does our family eat their food or wear their clothes?" The flush on Fang Shucai's face hadn't faded, showing how agitated he had been. "But don't blame your uncle's family. Your uncle just found out about this too. When I left, he had already kicked your cousin to his knees."

Fang Zhiyi's eyes reddened slightly as he clutched the money in his hand.

"You... hurry up and go back to work tomorrow."

Fang Zhiyi's feelings of being touched were abruptly halted. "Why?"

"Damn it, when I look at you now, I don't know whether to call you son or dad!" Fang Shucai looked incredibly aggrieved. During dinner, he had wanted to show some care for his son, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Fang Zhiyi had roasted him, making him too scared to even utter a word. "Is your grandpa still there?"

Seeing Fang Zhiyi nod, Fang Shucai put on a miserable face. "Dad, pah, son, pah... well, ah! I've done everything I should do now, shouldn't you let your grandson off the hook?"

Fang Zhiyi stared blankly at his dad. After a long while, he said, "Dad, Grandpa says... says..."

"Says what?"

"None of your damn business."

Fang Shucai almost passed out from anger.

Fang Zhiyi really left the next day, practically pushed out the door by the Fang couple. They had learned that Fang Zhiyi wouldn't harm his grandson; he was just worried and wanted to take a look. They figured they might as well let Fang Zhiyi take his grandpa to his workplace to have a look. Maybe once the old man was satisfied, he would leave on his own.

"Grandpa, this is great. Now I can't even go home," Fang Zhiyi said, feeling a bit melancholy.

"None of my damn business. Don't just stay at home all day. Go out, eat, drink, and have fun!"

Fang Zhiyi returned to his rented apartment, waiting to report to his new company tomorrow. Thinking about changing environments, he felt inexplicably nervous. Fortunately, he could communicate with his grandpa in his mind. Listening to his grandpa's arrangements, Fang Zhiyi gradually calmed down and unknowingly fell asleep.

"Looking at it this way, not everyone in the Fang family is a bastard," Fang Zhiyi sighed emotionally as he watched the grandson he had randomly acknowledged fall asleep.

Little Hei said, "They never were all bad. In fact, there are quite a few good people around this kid. It's just that he always tends to overthink things and get stuck in a rut, and he always manages to run into those scumbags who take advantage of him. It's like his personality is especially prone to attracting bad people."

"Not gonna lie, it's pretty relaxing this time. I don't have to do a lot of things myself," Fang Zhiyi felt inexplicably satisfied.

"I never expected you to pretend to be someone else's grandpa. If the real one knew, he would probably crawl out of his grave to fight you to the death."

"When you're out and about, you give yourself your own identity," Fang Zhiyi didn't feel he was in the wrong at all.

Fang Zhiyi was still very honest. On his first day of work, his honest aura attracted the department supervisor. Zhao Qian placed a stack of materials that needed organizing on his desk. "You're new here, so you need to do a bit more. That way you can get the hang of things faster later on, understand?"

Fang Zhiyi nodded, his face full of smiles. "Okay, Supervisor."

After Zhao Qian left satisfied, the person next to Fang Zhiyi said, "Buddy, if I were you, I'd run. The last guy who sat here was driven away just like this."

"Why is that?"

"What do you mean why? She doesn't do a damn thing herself and throws all her work to the newcomers, but she takes all the credit. Tsk tsk, I advise you to start thinking about jumping ship as soon as possible." The man looked at Fang Zhiyi with some sympathy.

Unexpectedly, Fang Zhiyi just gave an honest and simple smile. "It's fine. I'm not very familiar with it anyway, so doing a bit more is fine."

Seeing him like this, the colleague just shook his head and went back to slacking off.

He watched as Fang Zhiyi began to frown and process those documents. He had previously only done factory work and wasn't very familiar with computers, so right now he could only do it slowly, bit by bit.

By the time work ended, Zhao Qian appeared in front of him again. "Are you done?"

Fang Zhiyi felt a bit embarrassed. "Supervisor, I'm not quite familiar with this, so I'm a bit slow..." Seeing Zhao Qian's expression turn ugly, Fang Zhiyi hurriedly promised, "I'll work overtime and finish it in a bit!"

Zhao Qian looked at his sincere expression and slowly nodded.

"You're not going to intervene?" Little Hei was full of doubts.

"No. He really isn't familiar with it, so just treat it as practice." Fang Zhiyi watched his grandson struggling to compare lines of data. "Although this kid doesn't have any special talents, his strength lies in being grounded and willing to work hard. If he wants to stand out and succeed, he has to eat the bitterness he's supposed to eat."

Little Hei nodded.

Fang Zhiyi gradually settled down in the company. He focused wholeheartedly on completing his work, and he gradually became proficient at processing those data files. Since he arrived, Zhao Qian's job had become increasingly leisurely, and at the same time, she didn't forget to keep stringing Fang Zhiyi along with empty promises.