Chapter 17.2

After lunch, Sheng Zexi thought about taking the little one back to the office to rest. However, when Nuo Nuo saw the bubble pool in the adjacent children’s play area, where many kids were playing, her eyes lit up, and she pointed inside, saying, “Daddy, can I go play for a bit?”

If she played, it might take one or two hours, and Sheng Zexi had work to do. But since he hadn’t played with her much before, he thought that while work was important, so was his child’s childhood. So he agreed.

“Okay.”

Nuo Nuo cheered and dashed inside. Sheng Zexi, after a moment of thought, opened his laptop and sat down beside a flower bed, handling his work while keeping an occasional eye on the children. Since there was an admission fee to get in and a dedicated teacher supervising the kids, he didn’t need to watch them too closely; a glance every now and then was sufficient.

While waiting for his little one to finish playing, an unexpected event occurred.

A dispute arose in the bubble pool.

Seeing Nuo Nuo crying inside, Sheng Zexi closed his laptop and walked in to inquire about the situation.

As soon as Nuo Nuo saw her dad, she rushed over, holding the butterfly hairpin she had proudly shown him in the morning, looking very upset. “Daddy, my hairpin is broken! That naughty kid broke it!”

The other child was also crying, her face flushed, looking like she had been hit by Nuo Nuo.

Sheng Zexi picked Nuo Nuo up and looked at the teacher responsible for overseeing the children in the play area.

His gaze was icy. Although he was a handsome and youthful-looking man, the aura he exuded made others hesitant to provoke him.

A teacher dressed in black explained, “What happened is that the child named Jiajia tried to grab Nuo Nuo’s hairpin. Nuo Nuo wanted to get it back, but Jiajia wouldn’t let go. While they were tugging at it, the hairpin broke, and Nuo Nuo hit Jiajia.”

Jiajia’s mother stood by, trying to comfort her daughter, sounding a bit resentful. “It’s just a hairpin. It’s broken, so what? Why hit someone over it?”

The little girl cried heartbreakingly, hiding in her mother’s embrace, and Jiajia’s mother was nearly in tears, trying to soothe her child.

Nuo Nuo also realized that hitting someone was a bit excessive, but she was very sad about her hairpin, which her mom had bought for her. With tears in her eyes, she explained to her dad, “I didn’t mean to hit her! I told her before that this hairpin was bought for me by my mommy and asked her not to touch it, but she still tried to grab it!”

Jiajia’s mother immediately said, “It’s just a hairpin. Your mother isn’t dead…”

Before she could finish her sentence, she noticed the cold glint in Sheng Zexi’s eyes and froze. Sheng Zexi coldly replied, “Ma’am, there are surveillance cameras here. If you don’t want to receive a lawyer’s notice, feel free to spout nonsense. My legal team is always available for work.”

Sheng Zexi’s expression was extremely frosty. The woman glanced at him, noting that he was dressed in high-end fashion, clearly a wealthy man. However, her daughter had been hit, and she was fuming. “Is being rich really that impressive?”

With that, she scooped up her child and left, not even bothering to apologize.

Sheng Zexi’s gaze darkened.

Seeing her leave, Nuo Nuo was furious, looking as if she wanted to chase after her and bite her. “What did you say? How dare you say that about my mommy! Do you believe I’ll hit you and make you cry?”

Due to this incident, Nuo Nuo didn’t continue playing. When they were leaving the amusement park, she looked at her broken hairpin, feeling very distressed. “Daddy, my hairpin is broken! Wuwuwu.”

The little girl thought about it and started to cry.

Indeed, when a child is upset, it tugs at the heartstrings of the parent.

Sheng Zexi took out a tissue to wipe her tears and comforted her, “It’s okay. Daddy will have someone buy you a new one later.”

Hearing this made Nuo Nuo even sadder. “But there aren’t any left! Last time, when Mommy wanted to buy another one for me, the shopkeeper said they sell out quickly, and there aren’t any left!”

“It’s okay. Other stores will have them.”

Nuo Nuo still felt very upset. “But even if we buy a new one, it won’t be the same as mine!”

Seeing how stubborn she was, Sheng Zexi said, “Then Daddy will have someone help fix it for you.”

Nuo Nuo was a bit incredulous. “Can it be fixed?”

It was just a hairpin, but Sheng Zexi thought there was nothing wrong with fixing it.

“It can.”

Nuo Nuo was so happy! She excitedly handed it to her dad, “Thank you, Daddy!”

The little girl instantly stopped crying and smiled. Seeing her smile lifted Sheng Zexi’s spirits as well.

He didn’t return to the office immediately but took her to buy a box of new hairpins.

The hairpins Daddy bought for her had many designs: cherries, flowers, bows—a whole box, complete with a comb and a mirror. Nuo Nuo was overjoyed. After they finished building a palace together that night, she planned to show off to her mom and tell her all about what happened today.

When Xu Ai heard Nuo Nuo say that Daddy was going to fix her hairpin, she felt a bit confused.

Fix a hairpin?

It was the first time she had heard of such a thing. She wondered if Sheng Zexi was just trying to appease the child.

However, Sheng Zexi wasn’t joking around. In the afternoon, he had already instructed his assistant to find a way to repair Nuo Nuo’s hairpin.

At the time, the assistant thought he must have misheard. Why would they fix something as trivial as a hairpin? Wouldn’t it be better to just buy a new one?

But after Sheng Zexi reiterated his request, the assistant finally accepted that his boss genuinely wanted to have the hairpin repaired.

As a top assistant earning a six-figure salary, the assistant figured that if the boss wanted to repair a hairpin, then he would make it happen, even if it meant going to great lengths. So he took the hairpin and sought out a solution.

In the end, a craftsman specializing in hairpins agreed to help repair it. However, the cost far exceeded that of a new hairpin. The assistant muttered about it being extravagant but didn’t mind since it would be reimbursed by the boss and wouldn’t cost him anything.

Two days later, Nuo Nuo’s hairpin was repaired and looked as good as new. The little girl happily placed her hairpin in her drawer, protecting it carefully.

The incident in the bubble pool had initially seemed like a minor issue. Since the other child had left and he had managed to calm his own daughter down, Sheng Zexi didn’t think much more of it.

To his surprise, the other child turned out to be a little online influencer. After the child’s mother posted about the incident online, someone maliciously edited a video and uploaded it, starting to accuse Nuo Nuo.

Xu Ai often shared beautiful photos of her own daughter, and one day, her Weibo account was flooded with comments from people criticizing Nuo Nuo. Some pointed fingers and accused her of being cruel, even going so far as to edit Nuo Nuo’s photos into various unflattering memes.

Xu Ai had a modest number of followers, and her posts usually garnered a handful of comments, but now she found herself besieged by a horde of unfamiliar faces, some of whom defended her but were also insulted in return.

Xu Ai had been quite busy recently and hadn’t checked her Weibo for a while. It wasn’t until a friend messaged her on WeChat that she learned her account had been overrun.

Curious, Xu Ai took a look. The video showed Nuo Nuo hitting another child, and there was even a glimpse of Sheng Zexi, along with the other child and her mother, appearing quite helpless.

This was the first time Xu Ai encountered such a situation, and her eyelids jumped. However, she couldn’t believe her child would hit someone for no reason, nor could she fathom Sheng Zexi blindly defending Nuo Nuo.

Moreover, Nuo Nuo had already explained the situation once.

The blogger had twisted the story, editing it to create a narrative that leaned heavily in favor of Jiajia. The insinuation was that if her husband had been there that day, she and Nuo Nuo wouldn’t have faced such humiliation.

She took a screenshot of the post and sent it to Sheng Zexi.

At that moment, Sheng Zexi was discussing business with several department managers when he saw Xu Ai’s message pop up. He took a quick glance and immediately frowned deeply.

After finishing the discussions, he sat in his chair for a while before calling his assistant.

Within an hour, another video was uploaded online, accurately revealing the truth: it turned out that Nuo Nuo had hit that kid because her hairpin was stolen.

Moreover, that little influencer’s mother had made derogatory remarks. When Nuo Nuo expressed her distress over her gift from her mother, what did Jiajia’s mother say?

The video was widely shared, and Jiajia’s mother faced backlash, forcing her to go silent and hide like a quail.

However, Sheng Zexi had no intention of letting her off the hook. Initially, he had thought it was just a minor incident and that he shouldn’t stoop to the level of people lacking manners. Who would have guessed it would escalate again? He promptly instructed his lawyer to send a legal notice, not only to Jiajia’s mother but also to those who had insulted and photoshopped Nuo Nuo’s image in the comments under Xu Ai’s Weibo.

Jiajia’s mother was frightened and quickly apologized, messaging Xu Ai privately, but Xu Ai ignored her.

The clarified surveillance video was shared by many marketing accounts, and many were charmed by Nuo Nuo’s fierce yet beautiful demeanor. Within a few days, Xu Ai gained a significant number of new followers. People noticed that Nuo Nuo had great taste in clothes and looked beautiful in her outfits; some of her photos resembled a childhood fairy tale, simply stunning.

Many people shared the photos and asked for links to the clothing and the hairpin from that day.

As a result, during that period, the clothes featured in Nuo Nuo’s photos sold exceptionally well.

Xu Ai had never seriously considered managing her account. She initially used Weibo just to post whenever she felt like it, amassing a few tens of thousands of followers. After this incident, her followers increased by several tens of thousands. She then realized she wanted to venture into children’s clothing products. Rather than let others benefit from her daughter’s popularity, she decided to manage her account properly. Consequently, she began to post various videos and photos of Nuo Nuo more frequently.

When her mother wanted to take photos and videos, Nuo Nuo cooperated, though she also had her own vanity, asking her mom, “Mommy, please don’t post the pictures of me crying for everyone to see, okay?”

Hearing her daughter say this made Xu Ai chuckle. “So you know you don’t look good when you cry? Then try to cry less!”

Nuo Nuo disagreed, saying, “I’m still a little kid! Kids can cry.”

Xu Ai couldn’t help but laugh, her eyes filled with helpless affection as she looked at her.

At this time, Sheng Zexi also started paying attention to Xu Ai’s Weibo. When a notification popped up indicating that Xu Ai had posted, he casually liked the post.

Her posts often featured photos and videos of Nuo Nuo, and occasionally, herself. One day, he noticed comments praising both of them and asking, “Aren’t both Mommy and Baby beautiful? Isn’t Daddy also very handsome?”

He suddenly realized that indeed, his presence was absent from her Weibo.

Later, someone screenshot the earlier surveillance video and posted it in the comments, saying, “Dad is indeed very handsome.”

For some reason, Sheng Zexi felt a surge of satisfaction.

**

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