YA Ch101: Poetry Collection

The waiter came to serve the dishes, and the two fell into a brief silence.

Two identical pre-dinner desserts were served in green-glazed bowls. Black, pebble-like grains were topped with flowers the color of cookies.

Lu Yu reminded, “The flowers on top are just decorations; it’s the small stones underneath that are edible.”

This dessert was complimentary, and every table received the same one. When he tried it yesterday, he had bitten into one of those wax flowers, and after calling the waiter for clarification, he learned that the “stones” underneath were actually rice crisps coated in chocolate. He and Ming Yan had laughed about it for quite a while.

Li Moqiao picked up a piece of the black rice crisp. “You call these ‘small stones’? You do take after your father, with such rich emotions.” The term “small stones” not only describes the shape and color of the rice crisps but also adds a bit of playfulness.

Lu Yu hadn’t expected the first topic to involve his biological father, which instantly made him nervous. He carefully observed the expression of the person opposite him. However, Mitchell’s expression remained unchanged, as calm and natural as discussing today’s weather.

“Do you know my biological father?” Lu Yu gritted his teeth and asked a seemingly nonsensical question.

Li Moqiao paused for a moment, then suddenly smiled again—that same perfect curve—and said, “Is that another joke? Haha, of course I know him.”

The odd feeling in Lu Yu’s heart grew stronger; this really felt like talking to a bionic human. He held his breath and instinctively used the phrasing he would use for training AI assistants: “He bullied you, which resulted in me, an illegitimate child, right?”

“Of course not; why would you think that?” Li Moqiao shook her head, expressing surprise at Lu Yu’s statement.

Lu Yu sighed in relief and said in a low voice, “That’s what the Lu family told me.”

“Oh, how despicable,” the woman opposite him blinked and gave a straightforward evaluation. Then, she tapped on the AI on her wrist and said, “Blake, bring that book over.”

Soon, a young white man came in and placed a thin paper book on the table. After nodding slightly to Lu Yu, he left without saying a word.

Li Moqiao pushed the book toward Lu Yu and said, “He was my senior and a poet. This is the last collection of poems he published before he died.”

Before he died…

Lu Yu’s hand paused as he reached for the book. The phrase “before he died” carried a lot of complex information. He had considered that his father might be in prison, might be married to someone else, might be a playboy, or might not even know of his existence. But he had never thought that his father might already be dust.

Looking down, he gazed at the book.

It was a poetry collection with a milky white cover, titled “Feelings Are Not Grass.”

The back cover had a few lines of excerpted poetry:

_I wish you were thorns, blooming with flowers,_

_Wrapping around my chest, turning wounds into flames._

_But you are tumbleweed, gently passing through the moonlit wasteland…_

The poet’s name was Pei He.

Lu Yu gasped. He had heard of this name before. Pei He was a well-known modern poet, famous because he had committed suicide at the height of his fame. Artists who die young are always remembered.

“He died, and you couldn’t raise me alone, so you abandoned me. Is that right?” From those few lines of poetry, Lu Yu sensed a deep love and sorrow, which gave him the courage to ask this question.

If it was because her boyfriend had died suddenly and she was too young to raise him, that reason, Lu Yu felt, he could accept.

However, Li Moqiao denied his guess: “I could afford to raise you, but I couldn’t.”

Lu Yu’s hands clenched on the table. He held his breath and stared into Li Moqiao’s abyss-black eyes, desperately wanting to say, “Just lie to me. Say you had no choice; I’ll believe you.”

“Perhaps you’ve already noticed; I’m not normal. I have a congenital emotional deficiency.” Li Moqiao didn’t give him room for fantasy. Her tone was like that of a lecturer explaining a lesson, strictly logical to the point of cruelty. “Back then, Pei He pursued me, hoping his abundant poetic emotions could heal me. Although I didn’t think I needed treatment, it would be nice to be normal. Unfortunately, he couldn’t cure me, and he himself became sicker. After he died, doctors suggested I give birth to you. Maybe the hormones involved could give me a mother’s natural instincts and help me feel genuine emotions. But, sadly, even the hormones didn’t change my condition.”

Like presenting a lecture slide, Professor Li projected a baby photo from her AI. “I can recognize that you were adorable, but I couldn’t feel pity for your crying.”

Lu Yu felt he could understand each word individually, but when combined, they turned to mush in his mind. Using pregnancy hormones to cure congenital emotional deficiency? What kind of quack theory was this? It was even more unreliable than the theories of Que De.

He asked, breathing heavily, “So, you handed me over to the Lu family and went abroad to study?”

Li Moqiao nodded and sincerely said, “I thought you needed a normal family. If you stayed with me, you might have self-destructed early, like your father.”

Just like the title of the poetry collection, Feelings Are Not Grass. If a child constantly faced a mother who was like a piece of wood, he would develop serious psychological problems—either becoming like his mother, emotionally disabled, or falling into breakdown.

“Reality has proven that this decision was correct,” Professor Li smiled. It was like she was verifying an experiment, and her eyes lit up. “You inherited your father’s sensitivity and fragility.”

Lu Yu scooped a large spoonful of black rice crisps and stuffed them into his mouth, as if trying to fill his body with desiccant, hoping the bitter rice would absorb all the moisture. He didn’t want to shed tears in this absurd situation.

Seeing him eat, the waiter came over to take away the dessert and start serving the dishes.

The exquisite dishes looked vibrant and glistening under the spotlight.

Lu Yu adjusted his expression, his throat no longer tightening, and continued his questioning: “Why did you choose the Lu family?”

Li Moqiao took a bite of food, hummed softly, and said, “You can’t find such authentic Chinese food in M Country. Their taste is always too sweet.”

Lu Yu didn’t respond to her comment, and she didn’t mind. It was as if she was just making a perfunctory small talk following a social formula, then automatically cut back to the topic. She answered, “Lu Jincheng had a cooperative relationship with my mentor at the time. He and his wife had no children but were wealthy enough to raise you well.”

“So, you just handed me over to someone else and never inquired about me again. Did they give you an allowance for selling your child?” Lu Yu’s tone was sharp, his face filled with a mocking smile.

Faced with his questioning, even provocation, Li Moqiao remained unaffected. She continued tasting the delicious food and calmly said, “Of course not. I gave them a patent license to use for free, as the funding to raise you.”

A patent?

Right, her initial research focus was on mobile phone electronic components that the Lu family could use.

No wonder the Lu family hadn’t caused him trouble online over the past decade. As a public figure on the internet, he was quite susceptible to attacks, but the Lu family had never publicized his break from the family. It turned out it was because of this patent.

Lu Yu’s clenched, white fingertips slowly relaxed, finally feeling a bit of warmth. His mother had taken responsibility and had provided money. For twenty-eight years, she had not collected any patent fees. A patent for an electronic component could make a lot of money…

He sniffed, like a fledgling bird that had finally found its nest after wandering for a long time, and couldn’t help but start to voice his grievances: “But after I turned ten, they had their own child and no longer loved me. They lied to me, saying they gave you money for my living expenses. I ended up paying them three million.”

Li Moqiao furrowed her well-defined eyebrows. “How vile.”

Lu Yu asked, “You didn’t know any of this?”

She thought for a moment; it seemed the question was a bit complex. “I had someone investigate it recently, so I know a bit now, but I didn’t know before. I emailed you every year, but you never replied.”

Lu Yu’s eyes widened. “What emails?”

Li Moqiao mentioned an email address.

It was the first email address Lu Yu had registered when he was seven. As a kid, he used it to sign up for all sorts of odd websites, so that inbox was always filled with spam. He had long stopped checking it and therefore never knew about the messages his biological mother sent.

He hurriedly logged into that email using his smart assistant, and Dongdong thoughtfully filtered out the emails likely sent by Professor Li.

Sure enough, starting from when he was eight, there was one email each year on June 3rd, with the same content:

“Hi, how was your year? Please complete the survey:

1. Have you suffered any abuse?

2. Have you encountered any serious illnesses?

3. Are you short on pocket money?

4. Are you attending school normally?

5. Any other comments?”

There was no greeting, no well-wishing. Cold, official, like a product after-sales survey.

Twenty emails in total, nineteen unread, one read.

A massive sense of absurdity hit him, and Lu Yu suddenly burst into laughter, “Hahaha…”

He remembered now; he had seen this email. To be precise, Lu Dayu had seen it just shortly before he fell unconscious and “crossed over.”

Lu Yu covered his forehead with one hand, pressing his temples hard with his thumb and ring finger to withstand the oncoming waves of pain, but what came out of his throat was low laughter.

This biological mother of his regarded him as a byproduct of a failed experiment and provided a lifetime of after-sales service. But this after-sales service was not diligent—every year, there was a hard-to-notice survey email, and if there was no response, it was assumed that everything was normal.

He didn’t know what Lu Dayu had thought when he saw this email, but at this moment, he clearly understood the meaning of Pei He’s poem. Lu Yu would rather his mother in front of him be covered in thorns, hating him, and inevitably loving him at the same time. But no, there was nothing, absolutely nothing.

Lu Yu numbly listened to the woman across from him speak.

She said, “Since the Lu family did not fulfill their responsibility after you turned ten, I will have a lawyer demand the patent fees for the last eighteen years. These will be given to you as compensation. The three million you were scammed out of will also be recovered.”

She continued, “Now that you know I am your biological mother, even though you are an adult, I will always be responsible for you. You can change your surname to Li or Pei if you want. I have no other children, and when I die, all these patents and assets will be yours.”

Seeing that Lu Yu didn’t respond, she thought for a moment and added, “As for the license from the AI Data Alliance, if you need it, I can help you with that too.”

Lu Yu put down his hand and looked up with bloodshot eyes.

The AI Data Alliance license was about Zheng Wuqiong and his old brothers’ futures and about the Ming family’s comeback this century. At this moment, it was within easy reach.

If it were Lu Dayu, perhaps he would have lowered his head just like he did with the Lu family and said to the woman in front of him, “Thank you.”

But he was eighteen-year-old Lu Xiaoyu. From his throat, he uttered a suppressed, low sound: “No need… I don’t need it!”