Gu Zhiyuan had already arrived at the airport.
Mi Xiaoxiao was chatting with her childhood friend, but that didn’t stop her from observing almost every subtle expression on her father’s face. To put it frankly, she hadn’t been living with her dad for very long, just a few days since moving in. For more than ten years before that, she and her father had hardly been close. Still, for some reason, she felt that her dad’s smile just now was especially full of bad intentions.
And thinking about how the house would probably be swarming with visitors again this afternoon… Anyway, her dad had three pieces of “black technology” up his sleeve, so the Officials would surely cover for him… right?
She felt no fear of things going wrong and was happy to sit back and watch the show. So, she lowered her head and sent a message to her childhood friend, “Some good drama this afternoon, hurry up and come over!”
Mi Xiaoxiao could sense that the atmosphere was off, making her even more excited in that “can’t wait to watch the drama unfold” sort of way. As the Fate’s Son who hadn’t squandered all his family’s fortune, Gu Sheng’s intuition surpassed Mi Xiaoxiao’s by a long shot.
He could sense that his dad didn’t have good intentions toward the client he’d introduced, but so what? As long as he could please his dad and make up for the points he’d lost in his father’s eyes, he didn’t mind digging a pit for someone else or handing out shovels.
Not to mention, this was a great chance to stick around and finally talk to his dad about those three pieces of “black technology.”
Even so, he kept his composure, watching his father sketch on the computer.
His father’s girlfriend and his sister, one reading, the other working on problems. All four of them sat in the sixty-square-meter living room, and for some reason, it all slowly grew peaceful.
At lunch, he took the initiative to ask about everyone’s food preferences and let his assistant order takeout.
Originally, he’d wanted to bring in their family’s chef, but his dad asked for his sister’s approval since the kitchen was arranged by her.
And his sister said no.
Gu Sheng learned something more from that and let his assistant handle the food order.
After lunch, Mi Xiaoxiao requested permission to go to the airport to pick up her little childhood friend.
According to the plot, before Ling Yu’s rebirth, Mi Xiaoxiao and her first love, childhood friend Gu Zhiyuan, stayed together for a lifetime. After Ling Yu’s rebirth, she first enraged Mi Jingzhou to death, then took control of Mi Xiaoxiao and forced her to get plastic surgery, and finally handed Mi Xiaoxiao over to the third male lead, Mr. Zhang, the “aristocratic business heir” of the city. Meanwhile, Gu Zhiyuan, while searching for his beloved, “died in an accident.”
Ling Jing also said, “That young man, he’s someone who can live a good life.”
Qin Jingzhou agreed to let Mi Xiaoxiao go pick up the guest in person.
Seeing this, Gu Sheng volunteered to accompany his sister. Since Mr. Zhang wanted both his dad’s and his help, what harm was there in waiting a little longer?
Mi Xiaoxiao blinked and said to her father, “It’s natural for him to fawn over you, but now he’s started buttering me up too?”
Qin Jingzhou waved his hand, “Do as you wish.”
Sitting in Gu Sheng’s car, Mi Xiaoxiao was still puzzling over her father’s intentions.
After picking up Gu Zhiyuan, she introduced her childhood friend to her half-brother, Gu Sheng.
Gu Zhiyuan sensed a subtle tension between the siblings and, being polite, greeted him, then promptly turned all his attention to comforting his girlfriend.
Sitting side by side in the back seat, the young couple held hands and continued talking via their phones.
Mi Xiaoxiao reassured her boyfriend ahead of time, “At home, only my dad calls the shots. As for my brother... just don’t get on his bad side. Miss Gu… that’s your aunt, right? Honestly, I’m not close to her at all.”
Gu Zhiyuan replied, “I’m not close to my aunt either. But honestly, she’s one of the rare normal ones in that whole family.”
Mi Xiaoxiao nodded, “You can tell. When I left the house, Miss Gu was still clutching a copy of ‘Fundamentals of Hardware Technology’ and reading it.”
Gu Zhiyuan wasn’t surprised, especially after he’d wandered around the Mechanical Heaven Forum. “My aunt’s always been a top student.”
The young couple not only held hands but leaned their faces close together… Gu Sheng caught everything in the rearview mirror without saying a single word.
As soon as the car pulled into their parking space, Gu Sheng got a call from Mr. Zhang. After getting out, he glanced around and, sure enough, spotted Mr. Zhang smiling at him from the nearby pavilion.
Gu Sheng led his sister, her boyfriend, and Mr. Zhang—the one who had come to order a custom prosthetic—back to the house.
Mr. Zhang had just accepted a teacup when Ling Jing’s phone rang again. She glanced at Mr. Zhang and purposely said, “Ling Yu really nailed the timing.”
Mr. Zhang set down his teacup with a warm smile. “It’s not that she’s got good timing. I’ve worked with Miss Ling quite a bit. She said she needs something from you, and I thought about it and decided to lend her a hand.”
Even as composed as Gu Sheng was, he couldn’t help but laugh in exasperation. “Mr. Zhang, you’re feeling pretty confident, aren’t you?”
Mr. Zhang grinned shyly, then his gaze landed on Mi Xiaoxiao. “Not that confident. It’s just, well…” He tapped his temple, “I trust Uncle Mi’s principles. Even if he doesn’t like a customer personally, once he takes an order, he’ll do things by the book. A true gentleman always holds to a code.”
Qin Jingzhou suddenly laughed.
No wonder he was the one who gave Mi Xiaoxiao hell in the story—he truly was deranged.
Something about Mr. Zhang’s tone was deeply displeasing.
Gu Sheng frowned hard. This was his first time networking for his father… and this guy was looking at his sister more and more brazenly! Neither his dad nor he was blind. If he didn’t speak up, his dad might even blame him, too!
So his tone grew cold. “Since that’s how it is, Mr. Zhang, please leave.”
But Mr. Zhang’s smile didn’t fade. “It’s not your call.”
This time, he didn’t spell things out, but the menace in his words made Gu Sheng and Mi Xiaoxiao’s faces both darken.
Ling Jing patted Qin Jingzhou’s hand. “Jingzhou, he’s pushing things too far.”
Qin Jingzhou remained unruffled. “Looks like Mr. Zhang has backing.” He dug a screwdriver out of the toolbox beneath the coffee table, undid a latch, and, not hurried at all, started unscrewing the long screws from the tabletop. “On my advertisement on Mechanical Heaven, I stated clearly that since these are custom prosthetics, as a rule I don’t turn down orders—unless the client doesn’t pay.”
Mr. Zhang’s face relaxed, but his focus stayed locked on Mi Xiaoxiao, who was already getting uneasy. “A wise man submits to circumstances…” Before he could finish the sentence, his eyes went wide…
Qin Jingzhou, having removed the bolts fixing the tempered glass of the coffee table, casually picked up his pusher and aimed it at the panel. The panel, which weighed dozens of catties, was nothing for the pusher. With a flip of his wrist, it stood up easily, giving Mr. Zhang and his bodyguards no time to react. The tempered glass panel went flying straight at Mr. Zhang.
In less than a second, the once-cocky Mr. Zhang, together with his wheelchair, was pinned tightly against the wall by a panel nearly as tall as a person. He couldn’t move an inch. He couldn’t even breathe properly.
Ling Jing leapt up as well and, swinging her long legs, took out both of Mr. Zhang’s bodyguards with a kick each.
Gu Sheng stared, stunned. After a moment, he pressed his chest with lingering fear: Back then I only got a single stainless steel slipper as a reward… I really am my father’s son!
Gu Zhiyuan was clearly startled too, but seeing his girlfriend, Mi Xiaoxiao, clapping with a bright smile, he quickly followed suit and applauded in earnest.
Gu Sheng’s assistant, sitting in the corner, was even more excited, his applause louder than the young couple’s.
With Mr. Zhang still not dead after being pinned, Qin Jingzhou signaled for everyone to stop clapping. Then he calmly explained, “Usually, I don’t refuse clients, but they need to cooperate with a series of tests. If the tests aren’t completed, it doesn’t matter. As long as the money’s paid, I’ll still make the prosthetics as agreed. Rest assured, I always keep my word.”
About five minutes later, Ling Yu walked in with her superstar boyfriend, hand in hand, following the subtly affected Gu Sheng into the small living room, where they saw a scene they would never forget for the rest of their lives: The business prodigy of a past life, Mr. Zhang, was wedged between the wall and a deformed wheelchair, and a tempered glass panel taller than most people… Mr. Zhang’s face was one of utter despair.
Meanwhile, Mi Xiaoxiao, under her father’s personal guidance, was adjusting the data on a small box in her hands.
With every parameter she tweaked, Mr. Zhang’s expression twisted visibly.
Ling Yu: …So I’ve really been reborn into a parallel world, haven’t I…