“Don’t you scold me. It isn’t me who’s looking for you this time.”


  After the call connected, this was the first thing that Little Xiang Ning said as it was also accompanied by a little bit of uneasiness as well as a bit of long-accumulated emotions.

  While Xu Tingsheng was thinking ‘How could I bear to scold you’, he outwardly feigned calmness as he asked, “Who’s looking for me then?”


  “It’s Su Nannan! It’s her birthday today, and we’re outside singing now. She’s drunk some wine and insists on looking for you. Then she called that other phone of yours and found it turned off, so she asked me to help,” Little Xiang Ning carefully explained.

  Xu Tingsheng was rather bewildered, “Su Nannan? Why is she looking for me?”


  Ever since that park incident during the summer holidays, that girl who had matured early, Su Nannan, would frequently send some texts to Xu Tingsheng. After viewing their contents, Xu Tingsheng would sometimes reply and sometimes not.

  Little Xiang Ning had still yet to answer when her phone was taken away by someone, Sun Nannan’s voice resounding prettily, “Mister Xu, it’s my birthday today. We’re singing now, can you come over? I, we all miss you.”


  Indeed sensing some tipsiness in her tone, Xu Tingsheng thought for a moment before saying, “You kids have fun together, no need for me to come. Remember not to drink too much! You’re still young, and you’re girls.”


  But Uncle’s nagging was interrupted partway through as Su Nannan exclaimed, “But Ningning’s drunk some too!”


  She shouted, “Ningning, Mister Xu doesn’t want to come. You agreed to help me. Quick, come and help me ask him over.”


  Then, Little Xiang Ning’s voice resounded over the phone once more, “You, can you come?”


  “You drank alcohol?” Xu Tingsheng asked sternly.

  “Just a little bit! They’ve all drunk some too,” Little Xiang Ning said timidly.

  “Are you feeling dizzy?”


  “A little bit.”


  “You……” Xu Tingsheng sighed helplessly, “I’ll go over then, and send you home in a while.”


  “Huh? You’re really coming?”


  “What, you……”


  Xu Tingsheng could detect some abnormalities from her tone. Little Xiang Ning seemed like she actually didn’t really want him to go over.

  He was just about to ask her about this when Su Nannan had already taken back the phone. She gave him the address of some KTV and no chance to renege as she directly hung up.

  As compared to Little Xiang Ning, this girl had really matured too early. Xu Tingsheng actually didn’t really approve of Xiang Ning hanging out with her, yet could not very well interfere here. Such things really seemed out of his jurisdiction at the present moment.

  Virtually right as Xu Tingsheng hung up, everyone began streaming out of the meeting room.

  “The meeting’s over?” Xu Tingsheng asked.

  “Half over. A break. You’re done with your call?” Lu Zhixin asked.

  “Yeah, but something’s come up and I need to go out for a while,” With that, Xu Tingsheng headed downstairs.

  Having been looked down on by him just earlier, Fang Chen blocked his path, saying in an unfriendly manner, “Xu Tingsheng, you’re clearly calling all the shots yourself! It’s rare enough that only I had something to say amongst the shareholders, and you just totally ignored it. What did you call us shareholders over for then?”


  “I didn’t intend to listen to your opinions in the first place. The proceedings are just to make sure that the shareholders are in the know about what’s going on. Especially you, who don’t know anything at all and have the least shares. You really have no right to talk about anything.”


  As the two were adversaries in the first place, Xu Tingsheng skilfully angered Fang Chen without any qualms whatsoever before shoving past her and heading straight for the stairs, ignoring the clicking of high-heeled shoes that resounded as she chased after him throughout.

  Only when he had arrived beside his car did Xu Tingsheng realise that it was not Fang Chen but Tang Yufei who had followed him here.

  “Hey, Miss Assistant, I’m going to settle a private matter now. How about you go back first? Actually, I don’t need a secretary, I mean assistant most of the time,” Xu Tingsheng asked somewhat awkwardly.

  Tang Yufei smiled very calmly and professionally, “Zhixin’s, Boss Lu’s intentions are for me to follow you lest something comes up in the meeting that we need to ask you about and we are unable to contact you. She would be able to contact you through me.”


  Xu Tingsheng could feel imaginary beads of sweat staining his forehead. Actually, this sort of situation had indeed arisen before, but……

  Little Xiang Ning definitely couldn’t be exposed. For Lu Zhixin and his employees to know that he had dropped such an important meeting to go look for some young girls to sing songs with? That was even more of a no-no.

  “Well, how about this then. You go back and tell Zhixin that I’m the one who told you to return,” Xu Tingsheng said.

  Tang Yufei shook her head, smiling, “This is my first ever task since assuming my new position.”


  “Well, could you go up and help me take my bag then?” Xu Tingsheng hatched another scheme.

  “I already have it,” Tang Yufei held up Xu Tingsheng’s bag that she was carrying, having already brought it along with her when coming downstairs.

  “Speaking of which, carrying a sports bag seems a bit inappropriate for a boss,” Tang Yufei said.

  Xu Tingsheng recalled his previous image in which he had worn a high-end suit while carrying a sports bag. It actually wasn’t bad, right? When Brother Sharp goes viral, you guys will know the charm of incongruous matching.

  Reaching out and taking his bag, looking at the stubborn Tang Yufei before him, Xu Tingsheng said in a stern, serious tone, “I’m your boss. You can’t offend me! Even if I don’t fire you, I can still make things difficult for you in the future.”


  “I know,” Tang Yufei could not help but smile, “But everyone in Hucheng understands one thing, and that is that if we have to choose someone between you and Boss Lu to offend, choosing to offend you is really the wise choice.”


  Tang Yufei seemed confident that Xu Tingsheng had no real temper and would not be targeting her over this matter. Therefore, she was not flustered in the least.

  Seeing no way around this, Xu Tingsheng grumbled, “Good people are this easy to bully, huh?”


  Tang Yufei just smiled at him.

  “Alright, get on.”


  Xu Tingsheng opened the front passenger door of the G500 in a very gentlemanly fashion. Tang Yufei thanked him, got on the car and fastened her safety belt. Xu Tingsheng walked over to the door on the other side of the car.

  Then, he opened it and said, “Remember to call someone for help!”


  “Huh? What?”


  “The car keys are on the windshield.”


  With that, Xu Tingsheng closed the door and locked the car from the outside, leaving the car keys on the windshield.

  He took a taxi to the KTV, found the private room in question and knocked on the door.

  Then, Uncle panicked.

  There were more than ten girls of age fifteen to sixteen in the room and not a single boy at all.

  Xu Tingsheng saw that he had taught a few of them at the training institute over the summer holidays before. There were also some he had never seen before who were probably Little Xiang Ning’s and Sun Nannan’s classmates.

  Upon Xu Tingsheng’s arrival, the bunch of young girls began collectively cheering and applauding.

  Xu Tingsheng found Little Xiang Ning sitting in a corner of the room. Seeing him looking at her, she smiled and waved.

  Su Nannan wore a tiara and a white princess dress. She immediately rushed over joyfully and linked her arm around Xu Tingsheng’s.

  The cheering in the room escalated as it was mixed with various kinds of suggestive laughter.

  With the good living conditions in this day and age, children were growing very well such that were some of these girls of fifteen or sixteen to change their clothes, they would not be easily discovered even if they pretended to be twenty-year-olds. This applied to Su Nannan as well.

  From what Xu Tingsheng knew, Su Nannan was actually half a year older than Little Xiang Ning, having started dating boys since a long time back. Also, it was also with some questionable youths of society. She had called one of those over during the park incident back then.

  In the end, it had only made matters worse.

  Ever since then, Xu Tingsheng hadn’t had a very favourable impression of Su Nannan. Still, he was helpless against the fact that she was Little Xiang Ning’s best school friend ever since that long-haired girl had left.

  Of course, she might actually be rather good in how she treated other people.

  In his previous life, Xu Tingsheng had only ever met Xiang Ning’s friends from senior high and university, never having seen Su Nannan before. Still, he had heard Xiang Ning mention her a few times before. The twenty-year-old Su Nannan had apparently worked at Starbucks and as a part-time cover model as well. Though she was more casual and carefree in how she lived, whatever the case, her relationship with Xiang Ning had always been pretty good.

  There was something else which had left a deep impression on Xu Tingsheng, which was that Xiang Ning had always felt Su Nannan to be very beautiful, more beautiful than herself, the reason for this being the countless boys who had continually been pursuing Su Nannan.

  Currently, of the ten over girls in the room, there were around two or three more who were of the same kind as Su Nannan.

  The remainder were all like Little Xiang Ning as they were immediately recognisable as students from junior high school.

  Feeling rather uncomfortable, Xu Tingsheng tried to pull his arm free but to no avail. Su Nannan did not view herself as a young girl at all as she made use of her tipsiness to lean entirely on his body, clinging very tightly onto his arm.

  He snuck a glance over. Little Xiang Ning was talking to someone else as she was not looking in his direction.

  Finally, he entered the room and sat down.

  Surrounded by a bunch of chattering young girls, assaulted by toasts and forced to sing, Uncle felt much more nervous than when he had been with that group of second gens as he seemed tense and restless, not even knowing where he should put his hands.

  Young girls like this just loved to act mature as they performed ‘stiffly’ in front of Xu Tingsheng.

  As for Su Nannan and those other girls, they seemed perfectly acclimatised to this kind of setting.

  Little Xiang Ning went along and drank two glasses of wine. Unable to actually say anything, Xu Tingsheng shot her a warning look but was simply ignored by her. He knew of her alcohol capacity, especially for beer, where she definitely wouldn’t be able to finish a single bottle.

  As if they had been waiting for Xu Tingsheng to arrive, Su Nannan’s birthday cake had still yet to be cut.

  Someone turned off the lights.

  The birthday candles were lit.

  Xu Tingsheng just opened his mouth and mouthed the lyrics as they sang the birthday song.

  Su Nannan properly did the classic routine of making a wish before blowing out the candles.

  “Nannan, what did you wish for?” Someone asked even before the lights could be turned on.

  Su Nannan cut to the chase, “I wished that I will be successful in my confession, because I’m going to confess today.”


  With that, she turned and gave Xu Tingsheng a look. She actually already knew how to throw flirtatious glances at such a young age.

  Xu Tingsheng felt his hairs stand on end. This girl was entirely taking him as someone of the same age as her! Alright, if Xu Tingsheng was really twenty, it wouldn’t really be outrageous.

  But his mental age was that of an Uncle!

  Uncle completely understood it now. These young brats had collectively dug a pit especially for him! The problem was that Little Xiang Ning was actually one of the accomplices, and one who had played a key role at that. Just thinking about this, Xu Tingsheng’s heart instantly ‘shattered’.

  This felt just like if you finally managed to get a movie date with the girl you have a crush on, the goddess of your dreams, but just having arrived at the theatre, you learn that she brought along her bosom friend, wanting to introduce her to you……

  Su Nannan looked at Xu Tingsheng.

  Xu Tingsheng looked at Little Xiang Ning.

  Little Xiang Ning did not look at him.

  “So, I’ve been abandoned just like that?”