Lu Yixin felt that lately, the adults’ world was turning upside down.

These days, Fang Yongnian and her father were practically glued together. Even Yu Hanfeng, who was usually extremely busy, frequently appeared in the hospital ward. Together with a few other adults, they would close the door and talk about something she didn’t understand.

One night, when Yu Hanfeng wasn’t around and Lu Yixin was curled up in Fang Yongnian’s suite doing her homework, she heard her father settling accounts with Fang Yongnian.

He was calculating the expenses for this hospitalization, along with a bunch of miscellaneous media fees and other costs she didn’t understand.

“All this money was paid by Yu Hanfeng?” Lu Boyuan, who often handled project budgets, felt his head spinning when he saw the total amount on the bill.

Even between a couple, such a sum would be a lot—let alone when they weren’t even a couple.

In his view, Yu Hanfeng was already listening to Fang Yongnian to the point of total compliance.

Lu Yixin lowered her head and pricked up her ears.

“The Yu family runs a business.” Fang Yongnian’s attitude toward Lu Boyuan had softened quite a bit lately, but after so many years of estrangement, it still felt a little unnatural for him to speak calmly. “She wouldn’t give me so much money for nothing. All of this will have to be repaid.”

Lu Boyuan was dumbfounded.

Lu Boyuan’s daughter, Lu Yixin, also forgot to pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping. She looked up, equally dumbfounded.

Father and daughter, identical expressions and movements.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

“So your Fang Yongnian still owes money?” Zheng Ranran held a black bra in one hand and a gray one in the other, compared them, pouted, then put both back.

She still preferred white ones.

“Mm.” Lu Yixin felt that the amount of information she had been forced to process these past few months had aged her rapidly. “He still owes a lot.”

Not just the expenses from this hospitalization, but also all the sources of Fang Yongnian’s funds that her father had once been suspicious of.

Each transaction was a huge sum. Added together, it was an astronomical number.

Zheng Ranran clicked her tongue.

“Have you realized your love life is full of potholes and not a single smooth road?” She had originally thought the age gap was already a big issue, then there was Fang Yongnian’s disability, then their difference in generation—and now, financial problems on top of that.

“Do you want to reconsider?” Although she believed in Lu Yixin’s fighting spirit, the obstacles were too many.

Lu Yixin shook her head, picked up a flesh-pink, middle-aged-style bra, looked at the price, and shook her head even more firmly.

“I don’t want to reconsider!” she pouted.

In this world, the only person who could move her heart was Fang Yongnian.

“Besides, didn’t the teacher say it too? The fragrance of plum blossoms comes from bitter cold, good things take time, ten years of hard study…”

Zheng Ranran: “…”

Fine. Logical and well-reasoned.

“Have you picked one yet?” She followed Lu Yixin around and realized that Lu Yixin had gone full circle back to the very first lingerie shop they’d entered. She finally began to lose patience.

They had already gone around four times.

“They’re all too expensive. I can’t afford them…” Lu Yixin muttered softly under her breath.

“Then why do your parents’ wedding anniversary need you to buy the gift?” Zheng Ranran also lowered her voice to match.

“Because my dad forgot.” Lu Yixin continued in a small voice, “I’m going to buy it and give it to my mom, then tell her my dad forgot. That way, my dad will be in deep trouble.”

Zheng Ranran: “…”

“I’ll just buy this set.” After almost two hours of picking, if she didn’t head back soon, her dad would probably call her.

Lu Yixin frowned, looked solemnly at the price tag, and did some mental math with her little stash of savings.

To make her dad suffer a bit, she felt this investment was worth it.

Her dad had been so irritable lately that it was reaching new heights. She was almost tempted to get a paternity test.

“Ranran…” Lu Yixin glanced toward the entrance and tugged at Zheng Ranran, who was about to go with her to the cashier. “Have you noticed that man at the door’s been following us?”

Zheng Ranran glanced over.

There were many people at the entrance, but among them was a tall man in a black T-shirt. He did look somewhat familiar—after all, the girls had wandered around several times already, and it seemed like she’d seen that same man near the entrance of each store they passed.

“You know him?” Zheng Ranran turned her face naturally, the man appearing to be around Fang Yongnian’s age.

“I don’t.” Lu Yixin was a little on guard. “But he looks a bit familiar.”

This trip out, she’d used the excuse of accompanying Zheng Ranran shopping, but in truth she wanted to buy her mom a set of high-end lingerie. Because they were visiting only women’s lingerie shops, she had felt awkward having those two burly bodyguards follow too closely. The two guards were now stationed separately at the entrances and exits. If anything happened, it would be hard for them to rush over quickly in a crowded mall like this.

Was she just being paranoid?

While paying at the counter, she turned back for another look at the unfamiliar man.

The stranger caught her gaze and actually smiled at her, stepping forward quickly.

Lu Yixin clutched the newly purchased high-end lingerie and took a cautious step back.

“You’re Lu Yixin, right?” The man grinned. “We’ve met. I’m Professor Wu’s son, Wu Tao.”

Lu Yixin tilted her head in confusion.

Zheng Ranran, without changing expression, subtly held Lu Yixin’s hand.

The name Wu Tao, Lu Yixin knew it.

Professor Wu had his son late in life. That precious son’s name was Wu Tao.

Her father would occasionally mention him to her mother, saying that he’d taken a completely different path from Professor Wu. He was an impressive person in his own right—he’d started a venture capital company, did big business, and made a great deal of money.

During New Year’s or holidays when their family visited the old professor’s home, they occasionally ran into the professor’s son. But most of the time, the interaction was nothing more than her greeting him as “Uncle Wu,” and him giving her a red envelope. They weren’t familiar at all.

At least, not to the degree where running into him in a large shopping mall should warrant him walking up to greet her.

“Uncle Wu,” she greeted sweetly, flashing her most harmless, well-behaved smile.

Wu Tao smiled back.

He looked well-dressed, with clean-cut features and a tall build. There wasn’t the slightest hint of sleaziness about him; he didn’t look like a bad person at all.

Maybe… he really was just here to say hello.

Lu Yixin tried to reassure herself.

“It’s like this…” Wu Tao hesitated, looking rather uneasy. “Your dad ran into my dad on his way to the hospital just now, so they went there together.”

Lu Yixin looked at Wu Tao.

Professor Wu had never gone to the hospital with her father. In fact, during this whole period, other than Yu Hanfeng and Zheng Fei, she hadn’t seen any outsiders at the hospital.

“He was worried it’d be too late for you to go home alone, so he asked me to come pick you up and bring you to the hospital. He said we’d have dinner together tonight.” Wu Tao smiled again, this time even a little bashfully. “You see how awkward this is. I don’t really know you, followed you all this way, and only confirmed it was you when you looked right at me.”

Lu Yixin maintained the same polite smile, but her hand holding Zheng Ranran’s was starting to sweat.

Her father had no idea which mall she was going to.

This trip was meant to surprise her mom and get her dad into trouble, so there was no way she would’ve told him which mall she was visiting.

And besides, she had bodyguards with her. Her dad, being the straight man he was, would never show up to “pick her up.”

“Grandpa Wu and my dad went to the hospital to visit Uncle Fang?” she tilted her head, asking with innocent curiosity.

Zheng Ranran glanced at Lu Yixin, keeping her smile and staying silent.

To an outsider, the two girls looked completely innocent, without the slightest hint of wariness.

“That’s right.” Wu Tao sighed. “After all, your Uncle Fang is one of my dad’s most outstanding students. Something that big happened, of course he had to visit.”

Lu Yixin’s smile grew even sweeter.

Her “Uncle Fang” was perfectly fine, he’d eaten two bowls of rice last night and even took one of her lollipops.

She glanced toward the mall entrance.

It was the weekend, and the mall was packed with people, every store doing sales and promotions. She couldn’t spot either of the two bodyguards anywhere in the sea of shoppers.

Wu Tao was tall, well-dressed, and didn’t look like a bad person at all. If they really got into a scene here and he claimed she was his niece, most bystanders probably wouldn’t question it.

After all, she’d seen plenty of news stories just like that.

“Do we have to go right now?” Zheng Ranran blinked, lifting the lingerie she’d been about to pay for with a hint of regret. “I still have one set I haven’t tried on.”

“The underground parking lot’s full. I had to park on the street, and I’m worried about getting a ticket.” Wu Tao looked a bit troubled. “How about this—you can stay and try on your clothes, and I’ll take Yixin to the hospital first?”

She’s a big girl, he thought. In broad daylight, she can make her own way back.

“Trying on a set won’t take long.” Lu Yixin quickly tugged Zheng Ranran toward the fitting rooms, all the while smiling as she spoke to Wu Tao. “Uncle Wu, you just wait right there. We’ll be done in a moment.”

The mall was crowded with people. Wu Tao frowned and tried to reach out to stop her, but the girl dodged with a bright grin. Before he could grab her again, she and Zheng Ranran had already darted into the fitting room, laughing.

That silly-looking girl—

Wu Tao’s expression darkened.

She shouldn’t be that sharp. And in a place like this, she couldn’t possibly run far.

He leaned against the corridor wall outside the fitting room, checking his watch impatiently.

Getting those two bothersome bodyguards out of the way hadn’t been easy. He’d waited an entire week for Lu Yixin to be alone.

This—this had to be Lu Boyuan’s doing.

Strictly speaking, this was his own carelessness.

He had thought Lu Boyuan was a timid man, and after Fang Yongnian’s accident, he assumed the matter was over.

But that seemingly quiet, unremarkable man had stirred up such a commotion after Fang Yongnian’s car crash. The few people who’d been locked up hadn’t confessed yet, but the car accident from four years ago had already been reopened as a case. If things were left unchecked, it was only a matter of time before the truth came out.

He had to strike first.

He had to make that man surnamed Lu too frightened to keep digging. Had to make him incapable of providing more evidence. Had to make this reopened case fade away once again, unresolved.

Anyone who provoked him never came to a good end. It had always been that way.

Wu Tao’s well-shaped features twisted into a distorted smile as he rubbed his chin.

He’d never realized before—Lu Boyuan’s daughter was actually quite pretty, bright and delicate.

He had originally planned to toss her into some warehouse and be done with it, but now he felt that might be a waste.

If he hadn’t wanted to draw too much attention, even the little girl accompanying Lu Boyuan’s daughter looked rather decent.

Both of them were fresh and tender, the kind of youth that seemed to glisten with dew when touched.

He lowered his head and let out a faint, quiet chuckle.

To go against him—whether it was Fang Yongnian or Lu Boyuan—they were still far too naive.