The following week went like this.

Xu Ye spent his days at the company slacking off and killing time, and his evenings back at the hotel on video calls with Chen Qingqing until all hours. Now and then Zhao Ming dragged him out to dinner. That was how the end of August arrived, in a blur.

When Lü Cheng and the others got back, they told Xu Ye how things stood at Yingke Live. Some of it was good and some of it wasn’t.

The good part was that the company’s three founders had all worked at a major firm before, and they understood the technology and understood the market.

The bad part was that the company was very small — the same as Qingye Investment, only a dozen or so people all told — and the whole operation was holed up in a two-story house.

Xu Ye talked it over with Lü Cheng for more than an hour, then called Zhao Ming and told him he had decided to invest. Zhao Ming didn’t hesitate for a second and said straight out that he was coming in too, five million from each side.

With that settled, each side assigned people to negotiate the details of the investment with Yingke.

And once that was taken care of, Xu Ye got on a high-speed train to Jiangzhou.

Driving would have taken too long, and that many hours at the wheel would have been exhausting. By high-speed rail he could get there, have lunch, and take the train back — ten hours round trip, and if everything went smoothly he would be back by seven or eight that evening.

Chen Qingqing had known since the night before that Xu Ye was coming back to Jiangzhou that day. She had only just woken up when she started packing; she couldn’t wait. Her mood was a great deal better than it had been the past few days.

Jiang Meilin saw it and said nothing.

And when Chen Hansong learned his daughter was leaving for Shanghai that day, he came over to the house early. Seeing Jiang Meilin busy alone in the kitchen, he asked, “Where’s Qingqing?”

“Upstairs packing.”

“Why so much food today?”

“Xiao Xu’s coming over in a bit.”

Chen Hansong thought about the treatment he got when he came to the house, and then about the treatment Xu Ye got when he came, and the vinegar jar in his chest was knocked straight over.

And at that very moment, Chen Qingqing was upstairs holding a pair of ultra-thin nude summer stockings, hesitating over whether to put them on.

Before college, Chen Qingqing had never worn stockings.

One reason was that her legs were perfect as they were. She had no need to shape the line or cover up flaws the way other girls did.

The other was that she thought wearing stockings made a person look far too grown-up.

If she hadn’t discovered that Xu Ye had a “special thing” for them, she would never have tried it at all.

Even so.

The sheer nude kind was still as far as she could go.

She didn’t think about it for long. She put them on.

Her whole outfit that day was very girlish — a short denim skirt with a pink T-shirt, her soft hair tied into a pair of cute pigtails — and on top of that she looked genuinely happy, so the whole picture was nothing like the way she usually looked at home.

Chen Hansong saw his daughter come down the stairs and hurried to praise her. “My daughter looks lovely today.”

At that, Chen Qingqing broke into a happy smile.

But it didn’t take Chen Hansong long to catch on.

His precious daughter had not put this outfit on for him at all. She had put it on for that little bastard Xu Ye…

He felt another knife go into his chest.

Jiang Meilin checked the time, saw that it was already twelve, and picked up her phone to call Xu Ye. When he told her he would be at the station in another half hour, she gave her instructions at once. “Chen Hansong. Drive to the train station.”

“What for?”

“To pick up Xiao Xu.”

Chen Hansong’s eyes went wide. “You want me to go pick him up?”

Jiang Meilin gave him a threatening look. “Are you going or not? If you won’t, I will.”

Chen Hansong looked at Jiang Meilin, then at Chen Qingqing, and caved on the spot. “Going, going, going. I’ll go right now.”

Chen Qingqing was afraid her dad and Xu Ye would rub each other the wrong way in the car later, so she quickly chimed in. “Dad, I’ll come with you.”

Chen Hansong was hardly going to refuse.

Father and daughter got into the car and set off for the train station.

And Jiang Meilin, humming a tune in a fine mood, started on the rest of the dishes.

……

They were in the car.

“Qingqing, tell your dad the truth. How far have things actually gone between you and this Xu Ye character?”

“Dad!”

“If you’re too embarrassed to say it, then I’ll ask and all you have to do is nod or shake your head. That works, doesn’t it?”

Chen Qingqing neither agreed nor refused.

Chen Hansong started asking.

“The two of you hold hands regularly now, right?”

Chen Qingqing nodded, a little embarrassed. She knew that if she said no, her dad wouldn’t believe her anyway.

Chen Hansong went on. “Has he kissed you?”

Chen Qingqing pinched her right hand with her left, then her left with her right, and nodded, deeply embarrassed.

Chen Hansong swallowed the hurt and pressed on. “And have you kissed him?”

Chen Qingqing nodded again. Her head was all the way down by now, and the flush in her cheeks was quite sweet.

But seeing his daughter like this, Chen Hansong felt worse than he could say.

There was a short silence.

Chen Hansong finally lowered his voice and went on. “You two haven’t… you haven’t ever slept together, have you?”

Chen Qingqing was too embarrassed to nod. She didn’t shake her head either.

But she was his daughter, after all. He knew that even without the nod, a reaction like that amounted to admitting it.

Chen Hansong put a hand to his chest and found it hard to breathe.

He got the window down quickly, and only when the fresh air outside reached him did he feel even slightly better.

“I have no idea what you even see in him.”

“Dad?”

Chen Qingqing finally couldn’t hold it in. “Why do you keep disliking him? What exactly is wrong with him?”

“Everything’s wrong with him. One look at him and you can tell he isn’t honest.”

“You’re so honest. So why did my mom divorce you?”

“I—!” Chen Hansong flared up. “How is that the same thing? Your mom and I didn’t divorce over that.”

Chen Qingqing pouted. “Xu Ye has been trying the whole time to get you and Mom remarried. He makes openings for you every chance he gets. And you? Every time you see him you look at him like he’s an enemy. Dad, if you keep this up I won’t help you anymore either.”

“So by your account, your dad is the one in the wrong?”

“You are.”

Chen Hansong let out a long sigh at that, and said earnestly, “The truth is your dad knows he’s outstanding for his age. But you’re my precious daughter. In your dad’s heart you’re the most important person there is, and whoever you were dating, your dad would have a problem with him. It isn’t Xu Ye in particular. Put any boy at all beside you and your dad would go after him exactly the way he goes after Xu Ye — maybe worse.”

Chen Qingqing said in a small voice, “But I’ve already fallen for him.”

Chen Hansong knew what it meant for his shy, well-behaved daughter to say a thing like that: Xu Ye had already taken up a very large place in her heart.

He pulled the car over at the curb outside the train station and said quietly, “All right. Then from now on your dad will—”

Before he could finish, Chen Qingqing had unbuckled her seat belt and was out of the car, trotting the whole way toward Xu Ye, who had just come out of the station.

Chen Hansong watched his daughter run the rest of the way to Xu Ye and be taken into his arms, then sighed and looked away.

(End of Chapter 284)