Yu Hanfeng was a businesswoman. Fang Yongnian’s proposal was too subversive. She gave herself a month to think about it and did not immediately reply to him.

When the business talk was over, she couldn’t help but feel curious about Fang Yongnian’s private life.

“I thought you would recommend Lu Boyuan to take over your current position.” Yu Hanfeng’s expression was rather playful. “Didn’t expect you to actually find an outsider.”

Fang Yongnian smiled and said nothing.

Yu Hanfeng would never understand how much people like them—those “rigid scholars” in her eyes, disliked doing these project management things. They only did them because they had no choice, so that they could conduct their research in peace.

He and Lu Boyuan, if they could have a simple and pure environment where they only needed to focus on research, that might be their idea of completeness.

“I’m off work.” Fang Yongnian stood up.

He knew Yu Hanfeng would eventually agree to his request. Putting the right person in the right position was a required course every company executive had to learn.

Everything he said was the truth.

When speaking with someone as intelligent as Yu Hanfeng, telling the truth was the most effortless way.

“Going to pick up your little girl?” Yu Hanfeng couldn’t help but run her mouth.

When facing Fang Yongnian head-on, she rarely came out completely victorious. That annoyed her.

She decided to make him annoyed too.

“At your age, standing at the school gate must be quite the scenery.” Her mouth was sharp when she wanted it to be. “No idle gossip around that little girl?”

Fang Yongnian paused his motion of opening the door and turned his head.

Yu Hanfeng sat there leisurely, looking all ready for a beating with that “come on, hit me if you dare” expression.

“My psychological endurance isn’t very good.” Fang Yongnian still spoke lazily, his tone giving nothing away. “Such idle gossip would affect my work efficiency.”

After saying that, he didn’t stay any longer, opened the door, and left without looking back.

Yu Hanfeng, once again gaining nothing, was speechless.

This man was too stingy!

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ 

Fang Yongnian was indeed a little displeased.

The four-day data inspection was fully enclosed. All phones had to be switched off twenty-four hours a day. Before leaving, he had told Lu Yixin that if anything urgent happened, she must come to the company’s front desk to find him.

But in the end, there wasn’t a single urgent matter.

For these four days, Lu Yixin had been so well-behaved she almost didn’t exist. Other than the fixed “good night” voice message she sent him before bed every night, his WeChat wasn’t flooded when he turned his phone back on.

Fang Yongnian pressed his lips together.

The four-day data inspection finished half a day ahead of schedule. He originally planned to go find Lu Yixin right after finishing business with Yu Hanfeng.

But Yu Hanfeng’s words made him hesitate again.

Indeed, showing up at the school gate was too inappropriate.

Lu Yixin was only a freshman and hadn’t made any friends yet. If gossip started, it probably wouldn’t sound pleasant.

He took out his phone, hesitating.

Compared to making phone calls, Lu Yixin seemed to prefer using WeChat.

Fang Yongnian opened the WeChat page.

Ever since he got together with Lu Yixin, he had never cleared their chat history. The chat record was long. As he scrolled through casually, he realized that most of the time, he only replied with a few words.

Occasionally there were longer messages, but only when he was in a good mood or had free time.

He had never once taken the initiative to message her first on WeChat.

Fang Yongnian frowned.

As his fingers typed, he deleted and edited again and again.

In the end, he still only sent a few words. He wrote: The inspection is finished. Do you want to have a meal together?

The subject, verb, and object, as well as the punctuation marks, were all perfectly complete. After sending it out, his brows furrowed even tighter.

It seemed that… as long as Lu Yixin wasn’t the one to start the conversation, he didn’t quite know how to talk to her.

He sat in the car and looked out the window.

It was a workday. The business district was full of people and cars. He didn’t like crowded and noisy places, and now, seeing the scene, he felt even more irritable.

He found his emotions a little unfamiliar.

It was nothing new for him and Lu Yixin to go ten days, even a month, without seeing each other. But for some reason, this time, he felt particularly restless and uneasy.

He even began counting the seconds after sending the message.

WeChat didn’t immediately show that the other party was typing. Fang Yongnian’s fingers began to tap unconsciously on the steering wheel.

It was Wednesday today. At this time in the afternoon, Lu Yixin didn’t have class.

He waited for two minutes, frowned, and started the car.

That was when the phone rang. The caller ID showed Lu Yixin.

Fang Yongnian had just driven out of the parking space. Seeing the caller ID, he backed the car up again.

Still frowning, he pressed the speaker button.

Lu Yixin’s voice came through, slightly breathless. “Fang Niannian!”

She sounded so happy.

“Mm.” Fang Yongnian responded, keeping his hand on the key as if he were about to turn off the engine.

“I was in the library just now and couldn’t call. I ran outside to make this call.” She was still panting, out of breath. “Where are you now? Are you coming to pick me up?”

Every word she spoke was bouncing with energy, brimming with joy and excitement.

“I’ll come pick you up.” Fang Yongnian started the car again and drove out of the parking lot. “I’ll call you when I arrive.”

“Wait!” Lu Yixin shouted on the other end.

Her voice was loud. The car’s sound system was excellent, and her shout came through the speakers so clearly that the world seemed to fall silent for a moment.

The noise of traffic and chatter was all pressed down by that one loud call from Lu Yixin.

“What’s wrong?” His voice still sounded calm and unruffled.

But when he caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror, for the first time in the past four days, the corners of his lips had curved up.

Fang Yongnian coughed lightly.

He felt uneasy. The earlier restlessness and now this relaxed expression, neither were emotions he was used to.

“Wasn’t I very well-behaved?” Lu Yixin’s voice on the other end of the phone was sweet and coy. “I’ve been holding myself back these past few days, didn’t send you any messages on WeChat, and didn’t make up excuses to go to your company to find you!”

Fang Yongnian didn’t respond.

He silently drove the car out of the roadside parking lot, merging smoothly into the fast lane.

“Fang Niannian?” The car was filled with Lu Yixin’s soft, syrupy voice. Because it was so quiet, he could hear the faint trace of unease at the end of her tone.

Fang Yongnian’s grip on the steering wheel tightened slightly. He glanced again at the rearview mirror.

“Lu Yixin.” His speech came out a little fast, but his enunciation was clear. “You don’t have to be so well-behaved.”

“Ah?” There was a lot of background noise on Lu Yixin’s end.

But hearing that soft ah, Fang Yongnian suddenly thought of her round eyes and round face, her mouth slightly open, looking silly and adorable.

Forget it.

He smiled.

“You don’t have to try to be well-behaved, because I’ve been waiting for you to come find me.” His tone returned to normal, no longer suppressing the smile tugging at his lips.

Because the first thing he did right after the data inspection ended was open his phone to check WeChat.

Because during those four days, whenever there was a break between meetings, he would wander over to the company’s front desk to look through the visitor logs—so much that the receptionist had become jittery, thinking she had made some huge mistake.

He had already fallen long ago. It was only because it was unfamiliar, because it felt awkward, that he had kept avoiding it.

Lu Yixin, for once, was quiet for a long time.

Fang Yongnian listened to the sounds from her end. The footsteps, the chatter of passersby, and her breathing.

“A short separation… makes reunion sweeter?” Lu Yixin racked her brains and finally managed an unusually clever line.

She wasn’t used to being so sentimental, but she couldn’t resist the sweetness of it.

So she started chattering again.

For the past four days, she had been holding it all in to be “well-behaved,” so once she started talking, she couldn’t stop.

The drive from Yu Hanfeng’s company to Lu Yixin’s school was quite a distance and went through several routinely congested intersections, yet by the time Fang Yongnian reached the school gate, Lu Yixin was still talking nonstop.

“I’m here. Come out,” Fang Yongnian said after parking in the lot near the school gate. When Lu Yixin finally said she’d talked too much and needed to buy a bottle of water, he interrupted her, “I’ll go buy the water. You just come straight to the east gate parking lot. I’ll wait for you in the car.”

“You’re not coming to the school gate?” Lu Yixin, still in high spirits, froze for a moment.

There were often boys from other schools waiting for their girlfriends at the gate. She had even imagined what it would look like if Fang Yongnian were standing there waiting for her.

“No.” Fang Yongnian was already preparing to get out of the car to buy water as he pressed off the speakerphone.

The phone had grown a little warm from Lu Yixin’s nonstop chatter, and Fang Yongnian switched it to his other hand.

“But…” Lu Yixin hesitated for a moment.

Ever since she and Fang Yongnian got together, everything had progressed smoothly.

Fang Yongnian had always treated her well, and now that their relationship had added the layer of romance, that care and attentiveness had taken on a faint pink hue. These days, Lu Yixin’s life flowed seamlessly between happiness and utter bliss.

Fang Yongnian had been drawing closer to her. Slowly, yes—but every step he took was firm and steady.

At first, she’d worried that if she got too playful or pushed too far, he would scold her. But as time went on, she gradually adapted to being Fang Yongnian’s girlfriend, and she realized that her feelings toward him had changed a little too.

Before, what she cared about most was whether Fang Yongnian liked her. All her thoughts revolved around how to make him like her more. She would constantly mind every word she said, wondering what kind of reaction he would have.

Would he like her more? Or would he find her annoying because of something she said?

But as Fang Yongnian drew nearer, she slowly found herself no longer caring about that.

Now, what she cared about was him.

She was already so happy, then what about Fang Yongnian?

“It’s fine!” she quickly changed her words. “I’ll go to the parking lot to find you.”

Fang Yongnian didn’t like crowded places. Standing at the school gate would attract too much attention.

Her tone didn’t reveal any unease; it was still bright and lively, every syllable ending in a cheerful lift.

But as Fang Yongnian paid for the water, he paused for a moment.

“When I was in school, if a university girl dated someone already working in society, it seemed people would talk.” Someone who hadn’t gossiped in eight hundred years, Fang Yongnian sounded genuinely uncertain as he said it.

Probably, he thought—it was only human nature.

“You haven’t told your parents yet. If things spread and reach their ears, it wouldn’t be good.” He said this only after paying and stepping out of the convenience store.

Doing things secretly like this made him feel deeply uncomfortable.

“So, let’s tell your parents this weekend. I’ll treat them to a meal.” This time, he didn’t intend to give Lu Yixin any chance to object.

He’d pick a lively restaurant, not a private room.

That way, if Lu Boyuan got angry, at least the waiters could help hold him back.

The timing of someone’s anger was important. Once the temper passed, things could be reasoned out more easily afterward.

“Lu Yixin,” he said after returning to the parking lot, “I want to make us public.”

He wanted to stand at the school gate waiting for her after class.

He wanted to look at the company’s visitor list openly and rightfully.

He wanted, when Lu Yixin faced gossip, to be able to stand tall behind her.

Sitting in the car, he watched the girl who had already spotted his vehicle running toward him with her phone in hand.

He heard her breathless promise: “Okay!”

From several cars away, she waved at him and said firmly, “I’m not afraid anymore!”

—

Author’s note:

I know some little angels feel that Old Fang has always been passive, but there’s no helping that. After all, it started with the girl chasing the guy, and Lu Yixin has such an outgoing personality—it’ll gradually shift. Old Fang is the kind of person who’d suffocate without having any initiative…