"I see. Well, that is unfortunate. Children can be so hard to find." They weren't - he knew where Chenglei was, he just didn't want to go and find him. It was a lot to be expected to find the child, train him and set him on his way to be a leader. All he had wanted was to win some favour with his father and now here he was, doing some old bastard's paperwork and accidentally becoming his babysitter too.
He looked up at Xue Yang and shrugged his shoulders, still writing even as he looked away. "I'm sure it'll happen any time soon." Likely when he finished all this paperwork.
"Uh-huh." Yeah, Xue Yang didn't buy that Meng Yao hadn't found the brat yet, but he also didn't think that it was him that he wanted to fool in that regard and he was sure it worked on others just fine. Still, made him curious. "So, what's he like, that brat?"
Was he so awful that he wanted to prolong the time before they'd have to deal with him? He could understand that, sounded like a bit of a ball-ache no matter what, honestly.
"He's a teenager. How else would he be?" Awful, he assumed. Based off his fucking awful grades and his last book report, he was a total moron. He really didn't want to help raise any child, he hated children and yet, here he was, trapped. He sighed and looked down at his paperwork, signing it underneath and getting the next one. "I just don't get why it's my job."
He got that Nie Mingjue wanted to talk him up but did he really have to focus in on all the tutoring and work he did to get Nie Huaisang a B average at school. Now the old man thought he could not only find his son but help him realise his potential. Pfft. As if.
"I dunno. No one's ever asking me to do stuff like that." Not so surprisingly, usually his jobs were more in the murder, torture and other similar assignments area. He was not complaining, but it probably explained why no one approached him about babysitting. "He doesn't have to be that good at school or anything, right? Just needs to be able to hold a gun and look scary."
"No, you have to understand things. Numbers, people, things, ideas. You need a good brain. Holding a gun and looking scary is what you do. If you get an idiot boss, you end up with a Wen Chao situation." The dumbass nearly got all the other mob bosses killed and ran away, leaving a mess behind and a ruined legacy for the Wen clan. It was never good to have an idiot in charge and if he was to help this boy then he was be culpable when it all went wrong.
Maybe he could just take power from him. "He lives in a crappy apartment two cities over, it would be like 5 hours on the train for his parents place."
"Huh. Well, we could go and meet him. Maybe he understands stuff and just thinks school is dumb." It was possible, that was definitely how Xue Yang saw things when he'd been a teenager. It had worked out all right for him, so it wasn't too much of an issue. "Anyway, if you make friends with him or something, you can probably just do his job for him. Teenagers are lazy."
"I suppose I could but it's a hollow victory." No acceptance from his father, no recognition and no real power. It was more work and less praise. He didn't know if it was the path for him but he knew he had to do it regardless so it was about time he came to terms with it. "You really want to go on a train for five hours?" He raised an eyebrow, not sure if Xue Yang was serious when he offered. God, he'd need to take a lot of candy to get him through.
"Might be fun for you, like a mini vacation. Where he lives, there's a mega mall. Apparently the food is great." Especially the cake stands.
"I like the snacks they sell at the train station." That was about eighty percent of his motivation. "And if he's annoying, I can scare him for you. You aren't very scary." He thought what Meng Yao was capable of was fairly scary, but as far as his intimidation factor went? People were more often creeped out or unsettled than truly scared. He did have weird frog eyes.
"And the mega mall sounds good too. I don't mind brats. I'm good with them." He was a bit of one himself, he could scare most of them, wasn't that big an issue.
"Fine, I'll go if you go. We can suffer the brat together." Meng Yao would never want to do this, it wasn't in his nature to be so selfless as to take care of a teenager and help them fulfil a destiny. He did it for duty, not for wanting. "Make sure to keep this to yourself, no one can know what the plan is. So many people are waiting for news on who'll be the heir and if it gets out that it's the boy, he might end up in danger."
They could off him before he even got into power. "This is between me and you, A-Yao. Promise?"
"Promise." It was an easy promise to make, Xue Yang didn't talk to many people in the first place and he never gave away information. Especially not anything he talked about with Meng Yao. That'd just be stupid. "Nobody ever thinks I know anything, you know that."
It was pretty useful. No one but Meng Yao really saw him as anything more than someone good at killing and hurting people. Only Meng Yao really knew him.
"That's why people are stupid." Meng Yao knew Xue Yang had more potential than anyone else he'd met, if only other people saw it. What he lacked, he made up for with his own strange sense of logic, ruthlessness and playfulness. He understood more than anyone gave him credit and, best of all, he cared about him. Meng Yao slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar, offering it to Xue Yang.
"I'll buy your train snacks. Now, if you could do me an amazing favour, please get that box down off the top shelf. I nearly died trying to get it down earlier."
"Sure thing, shorty." Xue Yang walked over and managed with relative ease, mostly by pulling himself up a little and just having superior strength and faster reflexes. Either way, he handed him the box, smiling.
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He looked up at Xue Yang and shrugged his shoulders, still writing even as he looked away. "I'm sure it'll happen any time soon." Likely when he finished all this paperwork.
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Was he so awful that he wanted to prolong the time before they'd have to deal with him? He could understand that, sounded like a bit of a ball-ache no matter what, honestly.
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He got that Nie Mingjue wanted to talk him up but did he really have to focus in on all the tutoring and work he did to get Nie Huaisang a B average at school. Now the old man thought he could not only find his son but help him realise his potential. Pfft. As if.
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Or whatever else a boss needed to do.
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Maybe he could just take power from him. "He lives in a crappy apartment two cities over, it would be like 5 hours on the train for his parents place."
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Most people were lazy, he figured.
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"Might be fun for you, like a mini vacation. Where he lives, there's a mega mall. Apparently the food is great." Especially the cake stands.
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"And the mega mall sounds good too. I don't mind brats. I'm good with them." He was a bit of one himself, he could scare most of them, wasn't that big an issue.
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They could off him before he even got into power. "This is between me and you, A-Yao. Promise?"
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It was pretty useful. No one but Meng Yao really saw him as anything more than someone good at killing and hurting people. Only Meng Yao really knew him.
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"I'll buy your train snacks. Now, if you could do me an amazing favour, please get that box down off the top shelf. I nearly died trying to get it down earlier."
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"Let me know when we go."