A little over twenty minutes later.

Xu Ye pulled up outside the gate of an upscale residential compound in Jing'an District, and Chen Qingqing sent Jiang Meilin a message.

After about five minutes' wait, a woman in a gray pencil skirt came out of the compound. She was around one meter sixty-two, in heels, and as she walked toward them she held her phone up, checking it against the license plate number Jiang Meilin had sent her.

Chen Qingqing recognized her from a long way off, and as Yang Lin came up she pushed the car door open in a hurry and got out, waving first. "Auntie Yang Lin~"

The moment Yang Lin caught sight of Chen Qingqing, her whole face lit up. She put the phone away and came over quickly, took the girl's hands in hers, looked her over from one side and then the other, and finally pulled her into a hug. "Oh my — our Qingqing gets prettier and prettier. And here I was thinking you wouldn't recognize me."

"Of course I would~"

Only then did Xu Ye get out. He gave her a mild smile. "Hello, Auntie."

Yang Lin heard the voice and turned her eyes on him at once.

On the phone yesterday, Yang Lin had heard that Chen Qingqing already had a boyfriend, and the news had astonished her. She knew Chen Hansong and Jiang Meilin had always doted on the girl, and under ordinary circumstances neither of them would have agreed to her dating this early. On top of which Chen Qingqing was on the introverted side to begin with, and had barely a handful of friends — so how had she suddenly acquired a boyfriend?

Which was why Yang Lin had been so quick to get her over to the apartment. Partly it had been a long time since she had laid eyes on the girl, and partly Yang Lin wanted to see exactly what sort of boyfriend Chen Qingqing had found herself.

Yang Lin's eyes went over Xu Ye twice, up and down. Then she smiled and asked Chen Qingqing,…