Wearing a deep brown knitted dress, Zhu Jia blended seamlessly with the golden surroundings, while still standing out in her own elegant way.

Satisfied with her outfit, she adjusted it, certain the photos would turn out beautifully.

Mo Yichen snapped several pictures of the mother and child and handed the phone to Zhu Jia.

Zhu Jia gasped in disbelief. “Mo Yichen, did you do this on purpose? Why are my eyes closed in every shot? And look at this one—Xiaowen’s mouth is wide open! He looks so silly!”

Frustrated, she switched the camera to selfie mode, framing herself and Xiaowen in the shot. Just as she was about to click the shutter, Mo Yichen stepped into the frame, placing his arm around her shoulder and tilting his head slightly toward her.

In the golden grove, Zhu Jia’s smile was radiant, Xiaowen’s expression adorably goofy, and even Mo Yichen’s typically stoic eyes softened with a hint of warmth.

…..

Zhu Jia quickly started her routine of attending university three times a week. Since her trip to school with Mo Yichen, she had already received her course schedule for the early childhood education major, selecting three courses to take on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

When Zhu Jia went to class, she entrusted Xiao Wen to Aunt Liu’s care. However, after thinking it over, she decided to hire another maid for the household, as she would definitely become busy in the future and would struggle to juggle everything.

She added this task to her to-do list.

The drive from her home to City University took about twenty minutes. She checked her class schedule for the day—her class would start at four in the afternoon.

She wore a white sweatshirt, canvas shoes, and had her hair tied up in a ponytail. As she walked on campus, she looked just like any other college student.

Today’s class was about early childhood education curriculum design. The lecturer, Teacher Jiang, was a woman in her forties, with clear speech, a fast-paced delivery, and a good sense of humor. However, Zhu Jia had missed the first half of the semester, so she found the class a bit difficult to follow.

After class, she approached Teacher Jiang to ask about some points she hadn’t fully understood. Teacher Jiang smiled when she saw Zhu Jia and said, “Come to my office, we can talk there.”

Zhu Jia followed Teacher Jiang to the office in the academic building. The office, which was designed for four people, was empty. Zhu Jia saw that Teacher Jiang’s nameplate on the desk read “Jiang Qingsi.”

Teacher Jiang politely made a pot of tea for Zhu Jia before answering her questions.

At the end of the conversation, Teacher Jiang even recommended a few books to Zhu Jia on early childhood curriculum design, environmental setup, and play-based curriculum theory.

“Mrs. Mo, I didn’t expect you to be interested in this,” Teacher Jiang said.

“I just enjoy interacting with children,” Zhu Jia replied with a smile.

“Right now, we’re learning about early childhood education from a theoretical perspective, but in practice, it can be very different,” Teacher Jiang remarked.

Zhu Jia nodded. Indeed, no matter how meticulous the design, it couldn’t compete with the wild ideas and actions of energetic, uncontrollable children.

After chatting with Teacher Jiang, it was already past six, and the sky had darkened. The last ray of sunlight had just dipped below the horizon.

The area around the academic building was full of sidewalks, and her car couldn’t get close. After bidding farewell to Teacher Jiang, Zhu Jia hurried to the school parking lot.

She wasn’t yet familiar with the campus, and as she walked, she found herself at the basketball court. At this hour, the court was quite crowded, with all six hoops occupied by people.

Zhu Jia looked around at her surroundings and realized something was wrong. This definitely wasn’t the way to the parking lot. Realizing her notorious sense of direction, Zhu Jia quickly pulled up the map of City University on her phone and began to search.

She zoomed in on the map, scrolled a bit, and found it! The basketball court’s distance to the parking lot was…

“Bang!” With a sudden blow, Zhu Jia’s head went dark, her vision filled with stars. She was knocked backward by a strong force, falling heavily to the ground. The phone she was holding also slipped from her hand and crashed to the ground.

A basketball came flying toward her, hitting her right on the brow bone. It was so close that it almost hit her eye!

It hurt terribly! Zhu Jia held her face, feeling a swelling forming almost immediately.

She heard the basketball bounce away, followed by several people rushing over. “Are you okay?”

A person squatted down, his voice full of concern, “Can you still walk? I’ll take you to the medical room.”

Zhu Jia opened her wet eyes and saw a young man around twenty years old, handsome, with a slightly damp face, his hair sticking to his forehead from sweat. He exuded the unique heat of a boy that age.

Zhu Jia was about to touch the spot where the basketball had hit her, but before she could, her hand was grabbed by a hot palm. “Don’t touch it, it’s broken. Let me take you to the medical room.”

Zhu Jia nodded, still dizzy from the blow, and sat on the ground for a while to recover.

“Yan-ge, I… I didn’t mean it. I was just trying to intercept your shot, but it ended up going in this direction,” said a slightly chubby boy, lowering his head.

The young man stood up and patted the chubby boy’s shoulder. “You should apologize to her.”

The chubby boy immediately crouched in front of Zhu Jia, his tone sincere, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s fine…” Zhu Jia slowly stood up, and her phone rang. It was the driver, Old Xu.

She bent down to pick up her phone and noticed the screen was cracked. Still, she managed to answer the call, “Old Xu, you’ll have to wait a bit. Something happened here.”

After hanging up, Zhu Jia checked her phone again—it seemed only the screen was broken, and the rest of the functions still worked.

“Let us take you to the medical room. We’ll compensate you for the phone,” the young man in black basketball gear said as he looked at her injury. His voice was clean and clear, quite different from Mo Yichen’s deep, smoky tone.

Zhu Jia took a moment to properly look at the young man. He was tall, probably about 185cm, with deep-set eyes, a high nose, and a beautiful jawline. His forearm muscles were tight, and despite wearing a summer black basketball uniform in late autumn, he didn’t seem cold at all.

“Thank you,” Zhu Jia said.

She followed them through the basketball court, and the medical room was not far away.

The school doctor carefully treated her swollen wound, “Luckily, it didn’t hit your eye. That shot had a lot of force.”

“Ah, be gentle, that hurts.” The school doctor was a bit rough while disinfecting, and Zhu Jia winced, almost in tears from the pain.

The young man in black frowned while the chubby boy next to him kept his head down, looking awkward.

The doctor bandaged her wound with a small piece of gauze. “Remember to disinfect it when you get home. Don’t get it wet these next two days.”

By the time Zhu Jia left the medical room, it was already late. She quickly pulled out her phone to call Old Xu.

“Let me add you on WeChat. I’ll compensate you for the phone in the next few days.” The young man in black basketball gear stood in front of her, showing his WeChat QR code.

It was the first day of class, and Zhu Jia was in a bad mood. Since he offered to compensate her, she thought, why not? She scanned his QR code and added him as a friend.

Soon, a new conversation popped up in her WeChat, showing the young man and a two-colored Ragdoll cat in the profile picture. His name was “Y.”