Chapter 15

Just as She Rui was leading Zhong Yao out, they ran into someone she knew. Zhong Yao, sensing the need to give them space, said she’d go ahead first.

She was still a bit anxious. The villa wasn’t actually that big, but somehow it felt like she hadn’t moved very far.

Zhong Yao kept wondering what she should do when she saw Qi Yu and Tang Yiming. Should she greet them naturally, or pretend not to know them? But it seemed like Jin Chuan already knew about their joint trending topic online, so there was probably no use hiding it.

“Zhong Yao?”

Speak of the devil—an all-too-familiar voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

She turned slightly and saw Qi Yu standing beneath a ginkgo tree. Apparently, he hadn’t gone to the private room yet.

“What are you doing here?” Qi Yu walked toward her, no longer sounding as cold as before.

Zhong Yao thought for a moment and responded normally, “I’m here to eat with… my guardian.”

“Pretty annoying, huh?” Qi Yu noticed she didn’t look particularly happy and added,
“I can’t stand these kinds of dinners either. They always try to introduce you to a bunch of random people—now even illegitimate children have to be paraded around.”

Zhong Yao pressed her lips together and fell silent.

It took her a while before she said quietly, “I’m going in to eat now.”

Qi Yu watched her walk away, sensing something was off. She didn’t have the liveliness she had after school, but she also didn’t have the distant politeness of an ordinary classmate.

She seemed awkward… uneasy. But he hadn’t said anything wrong just now, had he?

“Zhong Yao,” he suddenly called after her, “Want to ditch this dinner and go eat somewhere else with me?”

He just assumed her unhappiness came from the same reason as his: she hated being dragged to social dinners by adults.

Zhong Yao paused, her eyes looking at him more complexly than ever.
“No. If I leave now, he’ll be really embarrassed.”

Then she turned and left without another word.

Qi Yu stood there, completely confused.

“He?” Who was he—her guardian?

He couldn’t wrap his head around it. This girl always seemed to think differently from everyone else. Weren’t these types of dinners just excuses for adults to make connections? If the kids ditched, wouldn’t it actually make things easier for them?

Qi Yu kept grumbling inwardly, but his feet had already started moving toward the private room. If even the girl could endure this kind of awkward dinner, he figured he could too.

Except—

Qi Yu never expected that the moment the private room door opened, he’d see Zhong Yao sitting properly at the table. And sitting right next to her was none other than the renowned new Cannes Best Actor—Jin Chuan.

The girl looked up, and their eyes met mid-air.

Qi Yu’s body went rigid. He remembered what he’d said just moments ago—that she was one of the “random people” being introduced tonight… that she was an illegitimate child.

This… this was worse than his worst nightmare.

Crap!
Had he walked into the wrong room?!

“Yu-ge! Surprise or what?” Tang Yiming stood up, laughing nervously,
“Turns out Zhong Yao is Uncle Jin’s daughter! Don’t just stand there—come sit!”

Whenever Tang Yiming got nervous, he started spouting nonsense. His childhood friend Song Shi, clearly noticing the strange tension between Qi Yu and Zhong Yao, yanked Tang Yiming back and scolded, “Would you shut up already?!”

Just then, She Rui entered from behind:
“Qi Yu, you’re here too? Come on in and have a seat. Auntie wants to ask you to take care of someone for me.”

Like a zombie, Qi Yu was shoved into a seat next to Tang Yiming.

Everything was a reminder:
The person he was supposed to meet tonight was Zhong Yao—
And just minutes ago, he had insulted her right to her face.

“Aunt She Rui, actually, we already know each other. I know Tang Yiming too, though I didn’t realize before that you’re his mom.”

Zhong Yao smiled openly and explained everything without hiding a thing:

“Only Song Shi is someone I met for the first time today. There was a bit of a misunderstanding between me and Qi Yu before, but it’s all cleared up now.”

Upon hearing that, Jin Chuan raised his eyebrows.

“Seems like we made a pointless effort then?”

He lifted his wine glass, his tone hovering between serious and teasing:

“In that case, I’ll leave Zhong Yao in your care, kids.”

Qi Yu’s mother, Xiao Manru, chuckled and clinked glasses with Jin Chuan:

“Judging by how fast they were trending the other day, I’d say someone finally managed to rein in our little tyrant.”

She even raised her glass to Zhong Yao:

“Yaoyao, if Qi Yu ever bullies you again, don’t hold back. He needs a good disciplining!”

Zhong Yao’s face flushed a little with embarrassment and surprise, but she pressed her lips together and politely said,

“Aunt Xiao, Qi Yu actually isn’t that bad.”

The more polite she was, the more unsettled Qi Yu felt. He was starting to suspect that Zhong Yao had known all along who she’d be meeting tonight. Otherwise, how could she seem so unfazed?

Damn it.

Qi Yu suddenly realized—she already knew when they ran into each other outside.

But now she was saying to his mom that he wasn’t that bad?

Frustration gnawed at him. The entire dinner felt like chewing wax—tasteless and tiresome.

As the atmosphere lightened, warmth filled the room.

Qi Cheng, Xiao Manru, and Jin Chuan were chatting over drinks;
Tang Yiming was getting an earful from his mom, She Rui, about taking good care of Zhong Yao at school—like a real older brother;
Song Shi, with her boyish energy, moved to sit next to Zhong Yao, brushing her short hair aside as she launched into some kind of story.

Only Qi Yu remained uneasy, squirming in his seat with every passing second.

If it weren’t for the presence of all the parents, he probably would’ve lost it already.

What the hell was Zhong Yao thinking? Didn’t she even care when others spoke about her like that? He almost preferred the version of her who would point at his nose and curse him out.

“I’m leaving.”

Qi Yu finally couldn’t take it anymore and stood up abruptly.

“My teacher told me to re-dye my hair tonight. If I don’t go now, I won’t get any sleep.”

“I’m leaving too. If I don’t go now, I won’t finish my homework!”

 Tang Yiming sprang up from beside She Rui as if he’d just been granted amnesty.

He turned to Song Shi and added, “Shi Tou, are you going back? Isn’t your school a boarding school? If you don’t leave soon, your dorm’s gonna lock up, right?”

Song Shi gave him a “good buddy” glare but stood up to say goodbye to Zhong Yao.

Xiao Manru and She Rui shared a knowing laugh about the kids, while the three childhood friends made a break for it together, fleeing the room in sync and leaving Zhong Yao alone in the adult world.

As Qi Yu turned back, his gaze met Zhong Yao’s dark, steady eyes—and for some reason, he froze.

Without thinking, he walked back and asked,

“Zhong Yao, you coming?”

Zhong Yao hadn’t responded yet, but Xiao Manru paused slightly.
Ever since her son hit puberty, she’d never seen him act so proactively toward any girl other than Song Shi.

“Go ahead, Yaoyao. Let them take you home,” she said, patting the girl on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry about your dad—he’s just drunk.”

Jin Chuan, evidently tipsy by now, waved her off as well.
He’d brought her here tonight to introduce her to some new friends, especially after hearing about that fight she’d had with her usual circle.

Qi Yu, the infamous school troublemaker, showing her this much respect—he had no reason to object.
He nodded at the “little radish head”:

“Go on. I’ll be home later.”

Only then did Zhong Yao obediently say goodbye to the adults and walk over to Qi Yu and the others.

They walked in silence.

When they were finally far enough from the room, Qi Yu suddenly said to Tang Yiming,

“You take Song Shi back to school. I’m going straight to the salon.”

“No way. With Shi Tou being from a martial arts family, we should just be grateful she doesn’t beat people up.”
Tang Yiming looked disgusted.
“Yu-ge, I’m going with you. We can game in between.”

Song Shi finally lost her patience with his cluelessness. She slung an arm around his neck and physically dragged him away:

“Tang Duck, one more word and I’ll delete all your game builds tomorrow! Aunt She Rui told me not to let you go until you finish your math homework!”

Under Song Shi’s enforcement, the two of them drifted farther and farther away—until they eventually got into a car and left.

Zhong Yao withdrew her envious gaze and turned to Qi Yu.

“You really don’t have to force yourself.”

“Huh?”
Qi Yu was confused.
“Force myself to do what?”

The girl took a deep breath and gave him that same smile that always annoyed him:

“You don’t have to listen to the adults about taking care of me. I know it’s a bit much to ask. Everyone already has their own friends—it’s awkward to force something that’s not there.”

She paused, then explained,

“Believe it or not, I didn’t know I’d be seeing you guys tonight. I thought Jin Chuan was just introducing me to some of his friends.”

Qi Yu immediately noticed—she called her dad “Jin Chuan.”

His chest twisted into a knot. He didn’t know what to say, so he simply replied:

“Zhong Yao, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it’d be you tonight. What I said—I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

Tsk.

 The more he talked, the more idiotic he felt. He licked his back teeth and dryly added:

“I was just… surprised, that’s all.”

But Zhong Yao said,

“You don’t need to apologize—because you weren’t wrong.”

Qi Yu froze.

Zhong Yao looked up at him.

“My mom and he never got married. I am an illegitimate child. Qi Yu, you’re a celebrity. Whether we met tonight or not, we were never going to have much to do with each other. So don’t feel guilty—just… let’s go back to how it was before.”

Just like that moment after school in the hallway, she turned and walked away without the slightest hesitation.

Qi Yu watched her figure grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared entirely into the moonlight.

And the frustration in his chest—had long since turned into something even he couldn’t explain.

He had originally wanted to walk her home, just to make up for the way he’d put her down before dinner.
But she left him with no openings, shutting him down with one sentence after another.

Why was she always so good at stirring up his frustration?

——

Zhong Yao, in fact, had to muster up a lot of strength to convince herself.

Hearing Qi Yu call her a “illegitimate child” again and again—saying it didn’t hurt would be a lie.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized: that was simply an unchangeable truth.

She remembered how, when she was little, after watching wedding scenes on TV, she had once pestered her mother to show her a wedding photo.
She remembered it clearly—her mother had smiled and said she never got the chance to wear a wedding dress.

Later, as Zhong Yao grew older, she began to understand: her mother had given birth to her without ever getting married.

She had always assumed her father had died and that’s why there was no wedding.
Until the moment Jin Chuan showed up—she understood then that she had been an illegitimate child all along, someone not meant to see the light of day.

She couldn’t really blame Qi Yu or Tang Yiming for saying what they did.

Back when she used to watch TV, she noticed that “illegitimate children” were always talked about—and the way they spoke wasn’t even as harsh as what was said on TV.

Someone like Qi Yu, who could ignore fans that traveled from far away just to see him, had been dragged to a dinner to meet her—it wasn’t entirely unreasonable if he was annoyed.

Zhong Yao sat by the bay window and sent a message to Sun Shiwu:

【Shiwu, why does everyone always hate on illegitimate children? Are we really that unpleasant to be around?】

It was already very late. Technically, Sun Shiwu’s phone should have been confiscated by Aunt Liu by now.
But moments later, Zhong Yao’s phone buzzed twice.

Hopeful, she quickly checked—only to find the messages were from Song Shi.

Song Shi was a childhood friend of both Qi Yu and Tang Yiming. She had told Zhong Yao that when she was younger, she participated in a parenting variety show with Tang Yiming, and the two had remained friends ever since.

Zhong Yao never expected to become friends with Qi Yu or Tang Yiming, but she truly liked Song Shi.

Because Song Shi reminded her a lot of Sun Shiwu—with her short hair, bright laughter, candid personality, and friendly ease, it was like she was another Shiwu living in a different part of the world.

Zhong Yao wanted to be friends with Song Shi, so during dinner, they had exchanged QQ contacts.

But she hadn’t expected Song Shi to be messaging on Qi Yu’s behalf:

【Yao Yao! Qi Yu said he needs to talk to you and asked me to give him your QQ.】

【Since you two know each other, I gave it to him~】

【Qi Yu is sooo annoying! He made me remind you to check your contacts list.】

【Yao Yao, are you asleep? If you are, good night then!】

Even the tone of her messages was like Shiwu’s. Zhong Yao couldn’t help but smile, then quickly forwarded the whole exchange to Sun Shiwu before checking her friend requests.

There were three pending friend requests:

“I’m Qi Yu, the guy 300 million people want to add on QQ.”

“I’m Qi Yu.”

“The first one was sent by Tang Yiming, not me.”