Because of You: Junping and Yuerong

Chapter Seven: A New Battle

The summer after that school year with Yuerong was the first time I had ever not looked forward to vacation break from school. Yuerong was going to be away the entire time, traveling with his grandfather, and I was going to be left behind, alone doing an internship at one of the bank branches in my father's company, something in which I had no interest. 

I was bitter and angry because I had had the opportunity to go with Yuerong. In fact, his grandfather had invited me himself. He even sent formal letters—handwritten (who does that anymore?)—to both of my parents: invitations for dinner so he could make the request in person. 

I had tried to persuade him that it wasn't a good idea, but he insisted.

"Junping, I would never let my grandson travel overseas with someone I had never met. How will they know that I'm reliable?" he had said.

I really liked Yuerong's grandfather. He had welcomed me into their home as if I had been coming there for years. He listened to me and Yuerong not as if we were children but more as if he pictured us as the men we would become. 

For some reason, I think I amused him, but not in a condescending way--more as if he really thought I was an interesting addition to the dinner table.  He said he liked playing Go with me more than with Yuerong because though his grandson had a great analytical mind, he thought I was more of a shark; I seemed lazy, but I had a killer instinct that Yuerong lacked.

I also knew he was brilliant beyond Go (I heard from Yuerong that people used to think he would compete internationally when he was younger); he had made his money by creating things and selling them for use to other companies, a kind of engineer that I hadn't heard of and didn't really get when Yuerong tried to explain. But I didn't think he understood my parents.

My parents didn't even make it to dinner with him together. Because of their schedules, they ending up accepting invitations on different dates. Once I realized that my mother and I would have to go to a dinner alone, I knew that I didn't stand a chance. Grandfather Yan was exactly the kind of my man my mother hated—a man that she couldn't charm. And without my father's presence, she would definitely say no.

And that's exactly what happened. Not only did she say no, but she was barely civil the entire time she was there and came just short of implying that Yuerong and his grandfather were trying to brainwash me, so I wouldn't take my rightful place as chairman of my dad's banking conglomerate. In another situation, I would have been rolling my eyes at her ludicrous assertions, but because it was Yuerong and Grandfather Yan, I was mortified.

We got in a huge argument on the way back to the house. In fact, we were still fighting when my father came back. My mother turned on the waterworks, and my father agreed to keep me at home and to find me something to do at one of the banks. I was furious. He had actually agreed to the trip when he had his dinner with Grandfather Yan a week earlier. How could he change his mind now?

My mother tried her tears on me. Asking me why I didn't want to stay closer to her over the summer.  She said she had planned to be home since whenever she had come during the year, I had been so busy with that Yuerong person and my math competitions that she hardly saw me. She wanted to know if I didn't realize that it was my turn to spend summer at one of the banks? Actually, it wasn't. Both my older brothers had did their internships at the bank the summers before they entered university. I had expected to do the same, but that would have been next summer not this one.

I couldn't believe that she was lying to me to my face. There was no way she would stay in the house for the whole summer. I looked at her in amazement because she clearly believed her own lies. It was the first time I really thought she was delusional.