At two in the morning, Shen Yi still hadn’t fallen asleep. He lay in bed tossing and turning, not the least bit drowsy.

He carefully climbed out of bed, cracked the door open, and peered into the living room. Rong Qian was still asleep on the sofa, wrapped tightly in a cotton blanket like a silkworm cocoon, curled up into a ball.

The living room in the dead of night was cold — winter had arrived, after all.

Shen Yi had initially told her to sleep in his room. Things were different now, and he couldn’t possibly let her sleep on the sofa.

But Rong Qian had refused to take his bed, insisting the sofa was perfectly fine. In Rong Qian’s eyes, Shen Yi was still a child who was growing — he needed to eat well and sleep well. How could she, a full-grown adult, take a child’s bed?

Having confirmed she was still in the living room, Shen Yi closed his bedroom door and tried to settle in and sleep. But half an hour later, he couldn’t resist getting up to check on her again. This repeated itself so many times that he lost count.

Rong Qian was completely oblivious to all of this, sleeping deeply and soundly.

It wasn’t until four or five in the morning that Shen Yi finally drifted off. He got less than three hours of sleep, but fortunately today was a weekend, and he could sleep until eight.

Upon waking, he folded his blanket out of habit and walked out of his room. He was about to check on Rong Qian — only to find the sofa empty. The entire living room was just as cold and quiet as ever.

Shen Yi’s expression faltered. Had she left again? Or had last night only been a dream?

But just as Shen Yi’s eyes were beginning to well up, Rong Qian came shuffling out of the kitchen at that very moment, wrapped in her blanket, yawning lazily. “Morning!”

“You — I —” Shen Yi was about to blurt out you didn’t leave and this isn’t a dream, is it? but caught himself in time, realizing how foolish that would sound, and quickly redirected: “Why are you coming out of the kitchen?”

“Woke up and wanted some water. You don’t have a water dispenser, so I just boiled some on the gas stove.” Rong Qian had only been up for a short while, and she was bleary-eyed and half-asleep. Maybe it was because of the change in season — her whole body felt sluggish and limp, utterly devoid of energy. She was just very, very sleepy.

As she spoke, she flopped back down onto the sofa and resumed her horizontal position.

Shen Yi glanced at her, went into the kitchen, and once the water had boiled, took out two cups and poured the water back and forth between them to speed up the cooling. Only when the water was no longer scalding did he call Rong Qian over to drink.

After draining a full cup, Rong Qian finally felt a bit more comfortable.

Shen Yi said to her, “You can go back to sleep for a bit. I’ll go buy some toiletries for you and pick up breakfast while I’m at it.”

“Sounds good.” Rong Qian was drowsy and languid, her eyes half-shut, like a lazy little cat nestled into the sofa with no desire to move.

The reason Rong Qian could relax so completely was in no small part thanks to Shen Yi.

The last time she had come, Shen Yi had still been quite young, and Rong Qian hadn’t dared to let her guard down for a moment. On top of that, in a place like that, relaxing hadn’t been possible.

But here was different. There was no need to worry about a surprise attack, and Shen Yi had already grown independent enough that she didn’t need to watch over him every minute.

Shen Yi had gone out to buy her daily necessities, and Rong Qian allowed herself to sleep in for another half hour — but before even that much time had passed, she heard a knock at the door.

She was jolted awake. Had Shen Yi forgotten his key?

Rong Qian went to open the door — and found two strangers standing in the doorway.

One of them was a woman, heavily made up, draped in jewelry, projecting an air of opulent grandeur.

The woman didn’t actually look that old — maybe in her mid-thirties — but she was dressed to look much older. Jewelry and accessories like hers tended to be things worn by wealthy matrons of more advanced years. But if her intention was to announce that she was one of them, that was another matter entirely.

Behind the woman stood a middle-aged man in a suit, posture upright, manner almost deferential — he carried himself like someone in the service industry. He was wearing white gloves on his hands.

It reminded Rong Qian of how wealthy people from the previous era always travelled with their own chauffeurs — chauffeurs who, unlike those of modern times, didn’t just drive but functioned more like personal attendants, serving their employers at all times.

While Rong Qian was sizing the two of them up, they were sizing her up in return.

Meng Yuxin carried herself with imperious hauteur, looking down at people with a gaze that always held a faint trace of contempt — radiating an arrogance that brooked no challenge.

Finding that the door had been opened not by Shen Yi, but by a woman wrapped in a blanket, hair disheveled, barely awake, a thought immediately took shape in Meng Yuxin’s mind.

“Well, that explains it,” she said. “A perfectly good school dormitory sitting empty, and he goes off to rent an apartment — all to stash away a woman, as it turns out!”

Meng Yuxin wore the expression of someone who had seen through everything, dripping with cold sarcasm, each word laced with cutting mockery.

“And to think he’s only sixteen,” she continued, holding a handkerchief up to her mouth as she spoke, affecting a prissy, squeamish manner — as though she might catch something from Rong Qian. Her expression was undisguised contempt and revulsion. “Starting to mess around with women already? And going specifically for an older, more experienced woman — looking to gain some… insights, are we?”

Rong Qian was no fool. She understood perfectly what the woman was implying.

Well, well! This woman was actually mistaking her, Rong Qian, for a woman of the night? And on top of that, she was smearing Shen Yi’s name!

This was beyond endurable!

“Lady, who are you exactly? Showing up uninvited at someone else’s door and saying things that only a filthy-minded person would think of — and look at you, holding up a handkerchief to your mouth while you talk. What’s that about — do you know your own breath stinks and don’t want to inflict it on others?”

Rong Qian deliberately put extra weight on the word filthy. When it came to verbal sparring, Rong Qian had never lost to anyone.

After all, a title like “Iron Lady” wasn’t earned for nothing.

Meng Yuxin was still processing Rong Qian’s earlier remark about having the wrong address and hadn’t quite caught up yet. After a long moment, her complexion began to turn an iron grey — and then the comeback hit her.

“You — you actually dare to talk to me like that? Do you know who I am?!”

Rong Qian rolled her eyes. “Lady, are you hard of hearing? If I already knew who you were, why would I have asked just now?”

“Who are you calling ‘Lady’?! Outrageous — not an ounce of breeding! No wonder you live in a run-down place like this. You’re clearly the kind of lowly person who does lowly work!” Meng Yuxin’s face twisted with fury as she pointed a finger directly at Rong Qian’s face, her sharply pointed crimson nail nearly grazing her cheek.

At the sight of this, Rong Qian desperately wanted to point out how absurd it was — what era did this woman think they were living in, still dividing occupations into high and low, talking about upper class and lower class people? But then she caught herself. She was in 1970s America…

Ah. Right. That actually made sense.

Rong Qian set her face into a hard expression. She smacked the door firmly and then pointed to the number 302 on the wall, making sure the woman looked at it clearly. “See that? This is my home. You’ve got the wrong door.”

“I came for 302 — isn’t this where Shen Yi lives?” Thinking she had genuinely gotten the wrong address, Meng Yuxin’s confidence immediately deflated.

Rong Qian knew perfectly well the woman had come looking for Shen Yi, but this person meant trouble, and Rong Qian had no intention of letting her anywhere near him.

So Rong Qian flatly denied it. She said she had no idea who any Shen Yi was, that this was her home — and then, right in front of the woman’s face, slammed the door shut.

Meng Yuxin nearly got her nose hit by the door and stumbled backward several steps in fright. Face dark with fury, she rounded on the middle-aged man beside her. “Didn’t I say it was 302 on Saint Roland Street, number 17? How did we end up at the wrong place?”

The man dabbed at his sweat. “It’s, it’s possible the person who did the checking made an error?”

“A bunch of useless fools! You’ve wasted my trip completely. You’d better have the correct information by the time we get back!” Meng Yuxin fumed with humiliated rage, spun on her heel, and left in a fury.

The middle-aged man hurried after her.

Rong Qian pressed her ear against the door, and only when she heard footsteps descend the stairs and fade into the distance did she breathe easy again.

In truth, Rong Qian had already figured out who the woman was.

She had heard Shen Shuhuai mention that a large part of the reason Shen Yi had left the estate was because of his stepmother.

This stepmother’s name was Meng Yuxin. She was around the same age as Yan Qingyao — a woman driven by vanity, always chasing fame and wealth. Nobody quite knew how she had managed to win Shen Chi’s favor, but she had borne him a son.

And Shen Chi had never known about it. She had raised the child on her own.

It was only later, when Shen Chi discovered her existence, that he brought both her and the child back to the estate.

Meng Yuxin was a textbook case of someone who had spent too long in poverty — the moment she had money, she splurged extravagantly in every direction, as though desperate to broadcast to the entire world that she had married into a wealthy family and become a grand lady.

And clearly, she had clawed her way into this position through her own means. Whatever it took, she would never allow herself to return to the hardship of her former life. Anyone who posed a threat to her and her son’s standing — she intended to eliminate.

Shen Yi was her greatest threat.

Because Shen Chi was grooming Shen Yi to be his successor — the company was to be handed over to him to manage.

So for the sake of her son’s future, Meng Yuxin was absolutely determined that Shen Yi would never return.