During those three seconds of silence that fell over the entire office, a security guard passed by outside the window and glanced in.

At that moment, Zhu Wenshu had no time at all to worry about whether Ling Chen might be recognized—she was only worried whether this man was about to start something right then and there.

Clearly Wang Xiaopeng’s mother shared this same worry.

She pulled Wang Xiaopeng’s hand and took another step back, her eyes darting left and right, unable to find any opening for a comeback.

Under Ling Chen’s gaze, she held out for a long while but couldn’t figure out how else to stay defiant, and finally, stiffening her neck, said without much conviction, “What more could I want, I wouldn’t dare offend the teacher, I was just making a suggestion, that’s all.”

Having said this, without waiting for Zhu Wenshu to say anything more, she grabbed Wang Xiaopeng and prepared to leave.

“Wait a moment.”

The moment she turned around, she heard Ling Chen’s voice ring out again.

“Isn’t it your side’s turn to apologize now?”

Mrs. Wang froze for a moment, then stiffly gave her own child a push.

Wang Xiaopeng, pouting, said, “Teacher already had me apologize yesterday…”

So Mrs. Wang immediately raised her eyebrows. “He—”

“I wasn’t talking about him.”

Ling Chen stared at Mrs. Wang and said nothing further.

Under his gaze, Mrs. Wang struggled with herself for a long while before turning to Zhu Wenshu and saying, “Sorry, teacher, I spoke too harshly just now.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, in the future let’s…”

Before Zhu Wenshu could finish her polite remarks, Mrs. Wang had already grabbed her child and turned to leave the office.

Once the mother and son had completely disappeared from sight, Ling Chen finally straightened up and turned to Zhu Wenshu. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going too?”

Zhu Wenshu had absolutely not expected today’s parent meeting to end this way; still half in a daze, not quite grasping the situation, she nodded blankly.

“Oh, sure.”

It wasn’t until the two figures, one tall and one small, had left the office that she suddenly realized she’d forgotten something, and hastily grabbed her bag and rushed out after them.

“Ling—Siyuan! Wait!”

The two of them stopped in their tracks and turned around.

Zhu Wenshu ran up to Ling Chen in just a few steps. “Do you not really check the DingTalk group? I’ve never once seen you respond to any announcements posted there.”

“What…”

Ling Chen asked, puzzled, “…thing is that?”

Zhu Wenshu: “…”

Right, how could she expect a superstar like Ling Chen to use something like DingTalk.

“How about this—let’s add each other on WeChat.” Zhu Wenshu lowered her head and began digging out her phone. “Whenever there’s something about Ling Siyuan, I’ll contact you directly on WeChat, so we don’t keep missing each other on calls.”

Ling Chen’s gaze lingered on her phone for two seconds before slowly shifting to her face. He neither refused nor agreed.

Yet inexplicably, he gave a small smile.

Zhu Wenshu felt there was some hidden meaning behind that smile, and immediately added, “It’s just for discussing Yuanyuan’s affairs. I absolutely won’t give your WeChat to anyone else, don’t worry.”

“Dad! Add her!” Ling Siyuan also tugged at Ling Chen’s clothes, gently shaking them, pouting and saying pitifully, “Otherwise I can never reach you…”

Meeting Ling Siyuan’s wildly hinting gaze, Ling Chen gave a faint smirk and took out his phone.

“It’s fine, I suppose.”

He looked down at his phone, opening his WeChat QR code, and said flatly, “But I don’t guarantee I’ll see and reply to your messages promptly.”

“That’s fine, I… huh?”

After scanning the QR code, Zhu Wenshu looked up in surprise. “You don’t even have friend verification set up? You can add you directly?”

Ling Chen said nothing, his eyes fixed straight on Zhu Wenshu, his expression somewhere between a smile and not.

The late autumn evening was stifling, the very air feeling parched and hot.

Yet Zhu Wenshu felt that Ling Chen’s smile was distinctly chilly.

After staring at each other for a good while, Zhu Wenshu was still utterly baffled.

Ling Chen withdrew his gaze, turned his wrist, opened his friends list, and scrolled down.

He found Zhu Wenshu’s WeChat.

Zhu Wenshu: “…?”

Then he tapped open the chat box and sent a “1.”

[Sorry, you are not yet friends with this person. Please add them as a friend before chatting.]

Zhu Wenshu: “………”

Help.

Help!!

How could this be happening!!

In the tail end of this scorching season, Zhu Wenshu’s cheeks were turning red at a visibly perceptible speed, matching the sunset glow on the horizon.

She had absolutely no memory of when she’d ever added Ling Chen, nor any memory at all that such a person had once existed in her WeChat.

She didn’t know whether, during some past round of cleaning out her friends list, she’d casually deleted everyone she hadn’t given a nickname to or never spoken with…

When she’d deleted him, she’d been certain their paths would never cross again in this lifetime—who could have imagined she’d be caught red-handed by the man himself, face to face?!

“Um…”

Zhu Wenshu’s expression had already shifted through several shades, but Ling Chen just kept looking at her without saying a word, very much in the posture of “let’s see how you’re going to explain this.”

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t delete you on purpose.”

Even the speed of Ling Chen’s blinking turned deliberately unhurried.

“So?”

Zhu Wenshu’s fingertips burned, her eyelashes fluttering nonstop to mask her evasive gaze.

“I forgot I’d ever added you as a friend—I had no impression of it at the time, so I deleted you by mistake.”

“…”

A moment later, Ling Chen quietly dropped a single line: “You’d have been better off not explaining at all.”

Then he grabbed hold of Ling Siyuan’s backpack strap and turned to head down the stairs.

Dusk was closing in on all sides, only the last thread of the setting sun still churning beneath the dark clouds on the horizon.

In the kitchen, ribs coated in wheat flour went into the pan, the hot oil sizzling and popping, the aroma spreading everywhere.

Ling Xingyan came home, took off his coat and tossed it onto the sofa, then went to the counter in the dining area to pour himself some water.

Catching his breath, Ling Xingyan wanted to ask the nanny, Auntie Xiao, about his son, but she was busy cooking, with a lot of smoke from the stove and the door closed, so she probably couldn’t hear anything from outside.

So he decided to just go take a look in his son’s room himself.

Holding his water cup, just as he was about to step forward, the front door of the house suddenly opened.

Who would be coming at this hour?

Just as Ling Xingyan was puzzling over this, he saw his own son walk in with his backpack on.

“Dad!”

Ling Siyuan rushed up and wrapped his arms around his waist, rubbing his head against him, then turned to look at the kitchen. “It smells so good! I’m hungry! Food, food!”

Following behind him was Ling Chen.

Ling Chen walked in, glancing at his cousin-and-manager. “You’re back?”

Then, not waiting for a reply, he headed straight for the study.

“Wait a second.”

Ling Xingyan finally snapped back to his senses, and without even attending to his own son, took off after Ling Chen. “Did you take Yuanyuan out to play?”

“No.”

Ling Chen took off his mask, folded it, and tossed it into the trash bin in the hallway. “I went to school to pick him up.”

“What?”

Ling Xingyan thought he’d misheard. “You went to pick up Yuanyuan from school? You went to the school to get him?”

“What else would I do?”

“?”

“…Are you out of your mind?!”

Ling Xingyan nearly choked on his own saliva, his face flushing red. “Doesn’t Auntie Xiao know how to pick him up? Did it really need to trouble you personally?”

Compared to the agitated Ling Xingyan, Ling Chen’s mood was far calmer.

He pushed open the study door, piled the things on the sofa into a corner, then flopped down into it as if boneless, even grabbing a magazine to cover his eyes.

“Is there a problem with me picking up my own nephew from school?”

If it were anyone else, there’d be no problem at all.

But when you, Ling Chen, do it, that’s a huge problem.

Ling Xingyan was so exasperated he laughed instead, setting his water cup down heavily on the table. “Quite something, Ling Chen. Other male celebrities don’t even dare ride in the same car as a female producer, and here you are, going straight to school to pick up a kid.”

Ling Chen said nothing, and it wasn’t clear whether he was even listening.

Ling Xingyan’s voice gradually turned colder.

“Fine, go ahead and pick him up, do it every day. Worst case, someone photographs you and the whole world finds out you have a seven-year-old son—that kind of massive publicity is something other people dream of getting.”

After a good while, the mouth beneath the magazine finally moved.

“It’s only the true things that are frightening. What’s there to be afraid of with something fake?”

Ling Xingyan: “…”

That actually made a fair amount of sense.

After a good while of silence.

“Don’t you go making up crooked logic like that for me.” Ling Xingyan snapped back to himself and launched into a tirade. “How come I never saw you being this thoughtful before? I bet it’s just because you’ve had a few days off and have too much free time!”

“That’s enough.”

Ling Chen waved a hand at Ling Xingyan. “Go worry about your own son’s studies. Don’t worry about me.”

“…”

This clearly wasn’t the kind of thing an artist should be saying to his manager.

But the situation between Ling Chen and Ling Xingyan was different from the norm.

Ling Xingyan had a background in law and had originally been a legal staffer at Ling Chen’s talent agency, before later becoming his executive manager, specifically handling business inquiries.

Later still, Ling Chen had left his original agency to strike out on his own, and at the same time Ling Xingyan had grown into his role, developing the comprehensive skills of a full-fledged manager.

Naturally enough, this cousin had become Ling Chen’s manager as well as his studio partner.

But in terms of the company’s equity structure, Ling Chen was the one who was the boss, holding absolute say over decisions.

So while Ling Xingyan normally had full authority over Ling Chen’s business affairs, when it came to music and personal freedom, Ling Chen always made his own decisions.

“Fine.”

Seeing that Ling Chen wouldn’t budge no matter what, Ling Xingyan could only talk himself into accepting it—there had just been a lot going on lately, and he’d been overly jumpy.

But thinking it over carefully, Ling Chen picking up a kid really wasn’t that big a deal—if he really did get photographed, a clarification would suffice.

It wasn’t as if his son could actually turn into Ling Chen’s son, could he?

Never mind.

Ling Xingyan muttered a few complaints under his breath and was about to turn and leave when, catching sight of Ling Chen’s sleeping posture, he couldn’t help saying, “What are you doing sleeping on the sofa? If you need to catch up on sleep, go do it in your own room.”

Ling Chen’s own house was currently being renovated, and staying in a hotel wasn’t convenient either, so he’d simply been staying at Ling Xingyan’s place for a while.

After a good while, Ling Chen finally gave an impatient “tsk.”

“If you have time to worry about where I sleep, you’d be better off worrying about your son’s report card.”

“My son is far easier to manage than you.”

Ling Xingyan opened the door, but couldn’t resist adding one more piece of advice. “Still, you should be more careful going forward. Don’t go to the school for no reason—if you want to spend time with him, just play with him at home.”

Ling Chen rolled over, his voice already carrying a hint of drowsiness.

“Don’t worry, I don’t have that much spare concern to go worrying about your son.”

Although when adding Ling Chen on WeChat, Zhu Wenshu had said it was for convenient communication whenever something came up.

Several days had passed, yet she’d remained too self-conscious to reach out and talk to him.

Until this particular evening, after finishing her lesson prep at home, a friend invited her out to dinner.

The two of them agreed to meet at a shopping mall. Zhu Wenshu took the subway there, replying to parents’ messages the whole way.

Coming out of the subway exit, the pedestrian street was bustling, lively beyond measure.

The moment Zhu Wenshu looked up, she saw Ling Chen’s watch endorsement ad glowing on the mall building’s giant LED screen.

Seeing that face, she still felt somewhat dazed.

Just a week ago, Zhu Wenshu had been living a life confined to the triangle of classroom, office, and cafeteria.

Sometimes seeing news about Ling Chen, she’d even feel a pang, thinking how they’d clearly once been classmates, yet now had become two entirely different kinds of people, worlds apart.

And now.

Whenever she saw Ling Chen now, all she could think about was his unknown son.

As well as the awkwardness of that day, when he’d discovered she’d unilaterally deleted him on WeChat.

Should she try explaining herself again?

After all, if nothing unexpected happened, she’d be Ling Siyuan’s teacher for the next five years, and would inevitably have to deal with Ling Chen—having a rift between them wasn’t a viable way forward.

So Zhu Wenshu immediately took out her phone and scrolled to Ling Chen’s WeChat.

She typed out a few words, then felt it wasn’t quite right.

What was done was done—explaining herself further didn’t seem like it would do much good.

Maybe a superstar like him hadn’t even taken it to heart at all.

Right.

Living every day amid the glitz and glamor of fame and fortune, how would he have time to care about whether some high school classmate had deleted him.

Thinking of this, Zhu Wenshu deleted those few words again.

Maybe she should chat with him about something else instead, at least to break the ice.

It just so happened that the day before yesterday, Ling Siyuan had sprained his foot while playing at school, and she didn’t know if it was still bothering him.

Remembering this, Zhu Wenshu felt a bit put out.

The child was even limping when he walked—how could his own father not even ask about it?

But after typing a few words, Zhu Wenshu hesitated again.

It had happened two days ago—if she only brought it up today, wouldn’t that make her look irresponsible?

Never mind, never mind, let it be.

Zhu Wenshu, irritated, deleted those words again.

Her finger was pressed down on the screen.

Ling Chen’s WeChat name suddenly changed to a line reading “the other person is typing.”

Zhu Wenshu instinctively stopped in her tracks, a twitch at her brow, staring intently at their chat window.

The next second, a message from Ling Chen did indeed pop up.

[C: Teacher Zhu]

Huh?

Speak of the devil!

Zhu Wenshu hurriedly replied.

[Zhu Wenshu: Yes, I’m here, I’m here.]

[Zhu Wenshu: What’s up?]

That “the other person is typing” indicator appeared again at the top.

But this time, that typing indicator kept appearing and disappearing over and over, yet no message from Ling Chen came through for a long while.

Was he writing an essay or something?

Several minutes passed before a new message finally popped up.

[C: How did my kid do at school today?]

Zhu Wenshu: “?”

“………”

In the midst of the bustling shopping street full of people coming and going, Zhu Wenshu stood in the middle of the path, staring at her phone with a blank expression.

She’d never been left this speechless in her entire life.

[Zhu Wenshu: I probably wouldn’t know.]

[C: ?]

[Zhu Wenshu: Because today is the weekend.]