I'm not a drama god

"Bill, please!"

Li Shangfeng placed the chopsticks on the intact table and said to the waiter beside him.

The waiter, holding a tray, was standing there in a daze when he heard Li Shangfeng call him. He then seemed to snap out of his reverie and stepped forward to pay the bill.

"Thank you for spending so much." Chen Ling sat by the clean and bright window and smiled slightly at Li Shangfeng.

"Boss Chen has been very kind to my siblings and me, it's only right...it's only right."

Li Shangfeng handed over the money while his hands trembled, forcing a smile.

Neither Li Shangfeng nor Li Wanhua noticed that Chen Ling was missing someone, as if it were only natural.

They stood up naturally, laughing and joking as they walked through the orderly restaurant lobby, intending to go straight home, when Chen Ling spoke up:

"You guys go back first, I have something to take care of outside."

"Ah...oh, okay!"

Li Shangfeng nodded repeatedly.

Li Shangfeng naturally didn't ask any more questions and led Li Wanhua home.

"What kind of lousy high-end restaurant is this? It's so expensive... This meal made my heart bleed!" After walking a distance, Li Shangfeng clutched his chest and said with great heartache.

"Look how stingy you are!" Li Wanhua pouted. "When you invite Boss Chen to dinner, of course you have to eat the best... Besides, we've already tasted abalone and lobster, haven't we? It's all thanks to Boss Chen."

"Too……"

Li Shangfeng licked his lips, as if savoring something.

After a moment, a hint of doubt appeared in his eyes, and he spoke somewhat uncertainly:

"Abalone and lobster... um... what does it taste like again? I don't remember."

"Now that you mention it, I don't think I remember very well either... I feel like I've forgotten something important?"

"Oh no, we've lost a lot of money! We spent so much money and we can't even remember what abalone and lobster taste like!"

"..."

……

On the deserted street.

A figure wearing a vest darted through the air.

At this point, Li Lai De was already four or five blocks away from the Comet Hotel. He was confident that at this distance, even Chen Ling couldn't force him to rewind.

Li Lai De was never one to give up or accept his fate. Knowing he couldn't escape from Chen Ling on his own, he decided to use external forces to help him break free...

From the moment Li Shangfeng asked Chen Ling if she wanted to go out to eat together, he had already devised a plan to escape.

So he deliberately made his stomach rumble, subtly prompting Chen Ling to agree.

At the Comet Hotel, he claimed he needed to use the restroom, and he actually did, without doing anything out of line along the way… The only thing he did was deliberately slow down his pace, take a slightly longer route, and make sure the surrounding diners could see his face clearly. He also rudely asked several waiters for directions to the restroom to reinforce the impression.

In the end, he successfully attracted the people from Chengtian Prefecture, and this move of using one enemy to defeat another allowed him to escape.

"It wasn't a complete loss..."

Li Laid glanced at the gold bars in his arms and muttered to himself.

Although he had escaped, Li Laid did not let his guard down. He kept weaving through the streets, sometimes using his face to hide and disguise himself. He played this game with the void for several hours until the sun was about to set. Only after Li Laid was sure that even if someone was following him, they could not catch up with him did he head in a certain direction.

As Li Laid stood in front of an inconspicuous house, the pitch-black night had already enveloped the earth.

Scattered, faint lights shone through the windows of the house, dispelling a corner of the surrounding darkness... These were not the bright glow of electric lights, but rather the cheaper kerosene lamps.

The flickering light shone on the bedroom curtains, and vaguely, one could see a shadow sitting in a wheelchair, lost in thought.

When Li Laid saw the shadow, a complex emotion flickered in his deep blue eyes. He silently walked to the window, skillfully parted a corner of the curtain, and peered inside through the narrow gap...

She was a woman with the same slightly curly hair as Lilaide, except that her hair was not jet black, but an unhealthy pale white that cascaded down her back like a waterfall.

Under the lamplight, a three-dimensional and exquisite Western face was almost flawless, with exceptionally fair skin. Although there were some faint marks left by the years, it still looked like a work of art sculpted by a master craftsman.

She gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her other hand stroking an old, yellowed diary. In her deep blue, lake-like eyes, an indescribable sadness and longing welled up.

“Mother…” Li Lai De murmured to himself as he looked at the figure.

As the mother slowly closed the diary, the elegant English name on the cover was illuminated by the kerosene lamp:

——【Rider·Li】

That was Lee Laid's old diary.

For a considerable period, Lee Ryder endured bullying and violence at school. He didn't confide in his mother about it, but instead hid everything in his diary late at night. He had clearly hidden the diary in a secret compartment under his bed, but his mother still found it.

Li Laid knew what was written in it, and he knew how heartbroken and guilty his mother would feel if she saw it. He stared at the diary in silence for a long time, then turned and walked toward the door of the house.

Ding-dong-

The moment the doorbell rang, the mother looked up sharply.

Her whole body trembled slightly, and she grabbed the sides of the wheelchair with both hands, rushing towards the door. Her deep blue eyes were filled with tension and anxiety.

When she hurriedly opened the door, there was no one outside... only the stars twinkling silently in the sky.

The mother frowned slightly and slowly lowered her head. A gold bar lay quietly at the doorway.

She was stunned.

Her pale hair fluttered gently in the breeze. After a long while, she trembled as she picked up the heavy gold bar… Beneath the gold bar lay a slip of paper with a line of elegant handwriting, just like the one on the cover of her diary:

"Live well and get well soon, Mother."

The moment she saw those words, her eyes began to tremble, and tears streamed uncontrollably from her eyes.

She looked up at the empty night sky and shouted:

"Ryder! I knew you were still here!"

"Mom knows everything...Mom knows why you killed those people. It was Mom's fault. Mom should have taken better care of you and kept you from being bullied by them..."

"Mom doesn't blame you for killing someone, Mom is just worried about you... With so many people hunting you down, you must have had a very difficult time these past few days, hiding and living in fear..."

“Even so, you still secretly slip money to my door every month. Although I never see you when I check the door, I know it must be you… You don’t see me because you’re afraid those people will come after me and use me to deal with you.”

"But Ryder..."

"Mom misses you so much."