Chapter 3

Take three bites.
Ying Baiqing ended the call and came back inside. Seeing He Mingye was nowhere to be found, he asked, “Did Young Master leave?”
“Yeah,” Zhou Lubai answered. “Said he was going to feed a cat.”
“A cat?” Ying Baiqing looked genuinely surprised. “He Mingye keeps a cat now?”
In Ying Baiqing’s memory, He Mingye hated trouble. Forget cats and dogs—he couldn’t even be bothered with living, breathing people.
That careless coldness was carved into his bones. They’d grown up with everything they could possibly want, so they’d also seen the other side of the world too early. After you’d seen enough, you stopped being impressed. You needed something—anything—to jolt the brain. Only when adrenaline spiked did you feel alive.
They all chose different outlets.
Zhou Lubai was addicted to racing, and the Zhou family could afford his expensive tastes. That row of supercars was practically a Zhou family emblem. Shen Minglin went into business—hedge funds, futures, finance—and he played the market like it was his own backyard.
Among this generation in the compound, Ying Baiqing was the most by-the-book. He’d walked the path Ying Zhaohui wanted: defense university, then graduation. But then, out of nowhere, he grew a spine. He refused to follow his father’s arrangements, turned around and filed the paperwork, volunteering himself for a transfer to the Liaobei border.
Only He Mingye was impossible to read. If you said he loved to play, he didn’t actually care for any of their usual entertainments. Whatever he did, it was always “fine,” always indifferent—no obvious emotional swings, as if the entire world bored him. His threshold for feeling anything stayed locked at a steady, balanced line.
Ying Baiqing couldn’t help wondering what, exactly, He Mingye truly cared about—what could make the high walls around him collapse in one clean crash.
“Who knows,” Zhou Lubai said. “He barely contacts us these past two years. When we set something up, he can’t be bothered to show. If it weren’t for you coming back tonight, we’d have trouble even seeing that pampered young master once.”
Shen Minglin gave a knowing little smile. “Young Master’s ‘cat’ is precious. Hard to raise, proud as hell, and doesn’t really pay attention to people.”
Zhou Lubai clicked his tongue. “Sounds exactly like him. Guess you raise what you are.”
Ying Baiqing didn’t comment. He only smiled along.
Shen Minglin asked, “Little Peach isn’t mad at you anymore?”
If there was anyone in this world Ying Baiqing truly feared, it wasn’t the decisive, iron-handed Ying Zhaohui, and it wasn’t the controlling, domineering Wen Yalan.
It was Ying Tao.
Ying Baiqing guarded his little sister like he guarded his own eyes—treasuring her to the point of obsession.
Back when Ying Zhaohui and Wen Yalan divorced, they fought viciously over custody of Ying Baiqing. In the end, Ying Baiqing compromised for his sister’s sake and chose to go with Wen Yalan.
The day he left the compound, he’d met privately with the guys. Zhou Lubai had asked why he’d chosen to follow Wen Yalan—staying in the compound was clearly more advantageous.
Ying Baiqing had said, “If I stay, Tao-tao won’t have a good life with my mother. She’s pampered and has no ability to protect herself. If she stays here, even if my father treats her badly, she still has all of you. Uncle He and Aunt He are also good to Tao-tao. Even if I’m gone, they’ll help look after her.”
Letting Ying Tao grow up here—in a familiar place—was better. The uncles and aunts in the compound had watched her since she was little. With the relationships between their families, who would ever treat her like an outsider? Even if Ying Zhaohui and Wen Yalan couldn’t make it and divorced, it wouldn’t affect the bond between the younger generation.
Ying Baiqing chose to leave so that Ying Tao could grow up in a relatively simple, safe environment.
Of course, “leaving” didn’t mean going far. The capital was big and small at the same time. Ying Baiqing’s school wasn’t somewhere an ordinary person could get into. Wen Yalan wouldn’t sabotage a child’s future for selfish reasons. Ying Baiqing simply stopped living in the compound. They could still meet at school. Over the years, aside from not living under the same roof, it was almost the same as childhood.
The real separation came only after Ying Baiqing graduated—when he filed the report and requested a transfer to the Liaobei border.
Ying Tao had been furious about his decision to move first and tell her later. She hadn’t even shown her face the day he left.
Ying Baiqing had wanted to do better, but the border was harsh. Patrols, training, missions—contact with the outside world was difficult unless absolutely necessary. He’d been injured more than once these past years. He knew Ying Tao would worry, and he couldn’t bear to make her sad, so he’d kept it to himself.
Thinking of his sister, Ying Baiqing smiled and shook his head. “Tao-tao is very sensible. She wouldn’t truly hold a grudge against me.”
Shen Minglin laughed softly and didn’t reply. Only Ying Baiqing would call that little ancestor “sensible.” Even now, he had no idea what kind of trouble she’d once stirred up.
“By the way,” Ying Baiqing asked Zhou Lubai, “your uncle is back in the capital too?”
Then he added, “Tao-tao told me her tooth has been hurting these past few days. When she went to the hospital, she ran into your uncle.”
Ying Tao had loved sweets since she was little. When she was losing baby teeth, she’d cried over cavities more than once—pain so bad she’d sworn she’d learned her lesson. And then she’d do it again. If you told her not to eat sugar, she’d just sneak it.
She looked so sweet and well-behaved, and she was clever. She’d toss out auspicious phrases to anyone she met and charm the uncles and aunts in the compound into giving her anything she wanted.
The result was toothaches. Rotten cavities had to be drilled, then filled.
The Fourth People’s Hospital—an affiliated military hospital—was the one they’d grown up going to. Any little illness or ache, they went there. It just so happened that day was Zhou Chaoli’s shift.
At that, Zhou Lubai nearly choked on his tea. He answered vaguely, “Yeah. He’s back. Grandma’s been nagging him nonstop—how could he not come?”
Not many people knew Zhou Chaoli had returned. Over the past two years, Grandma had become more and more forceful, leaving the younger generation no room to argue, arranging their futures with one hand.
Luckily, Zhou Lubai had Zhou Chaoli to take the lightning first. Only then could Zhou Lubai breathe.
But facing Ying Baiqing—the ultimate siscon—Zhou Lubai still felt guilty. Even though he wasn’t the one who’d “provoked” Ying Tao, they’d grown up together. He still felt like he had no face.
After all, Ying Tao was basically their own little sister too. Who would ever lay hands on their little sister? That would be inhuman.
So after that incident, they’d all silently agreed to bury it. To this day, Ying Baiqing still didn’t know about the mess between Ying Tao and Zhou Chaoli.
Zhou Lubai shifted uncomfortably, guilt prickling.
Shen Minglin, as always, remained calm and sipped his tea. “Is Little Peach studying fine arts now? Really giving up gymnastics?”
“Yeah.” Ying Baiqing’s smile thinned a little. “It’s better like this—less pressure. I just want her to graduate, find a stable job, and live peacefully. But Tao-tao has her own opinions. She doesn’t need me making decisions for her.”
“Mm.” Shen Minglin couldn’t help laughing. “She has very strong opinions.”
—
Ying Tao’s toothache was brutal. She gargled twice with saline, but it did nothing. The tooth that had just had a root canal still felt numb and swollen; the slightest touch sent a spike of pain through her.
She’d added Zhou Chaoli on WeChat—at his request, so it would be easier to communicate about follow-up treatment and the timing of the extraction.
Holding a cup of water, she rinsed her mouth while scrolling through his Moments. Zhou Chaoli’s feed was as dull as it got: a few shared maxillofacial surgery case studies, nothing interesting. In any case, the professional terminology was beyond her.
Bored, she backed out and scrolled elsewhere.
Miao-miao had already gone to Lu Ziyue’s birthday party. By the time, she should have arrived. Miao-miao posted a video—apparently the villa party scene. It was loud, crowded, and lively.
Ying Tao liked it, then kept scrolling, and ran straight into Zhou Lubai’s latest post.
Zhou Lubai: Jingcheng’s F4 reunion—Young Master stealing the show as always. [Photo]
One look and you could tell Zhou Lubai had taken it secretly. None of the other three were looking at the camera. Zhou Lubai threw up a V-sign in front of his chest. Ying Baiqing at least played along, lifting a hand in a casual wave. Shen Minglin only adjusted his glasses.
As for Young Master—
He sat alone on the couch in a lazy sprawl, one arm draped along the back. Black windbreaker. Sharp, lean bones. Long legs for days. In the shifting light, the clean, hard lines of his profile were carved out—prominent throat, phoenix eyes lowered. Cold, and yet infuriatingly tempting.
Ying Tao flipped through the comments. They’d all grown up together; their circles overlapped heavily. Under Zhou Lubai’s post, a bunch of familiar names were clowning around.
—Damn, Young Master still has it.
—That face is the golden ratio in human form.
—That waist is a spring blade on the banks of the Seine.
Ying Tao couldn’t help laughing. Then laughing made her tooth throb. Enduring the pain, she typed a comment with one hand:
—Couplet: Peacock spreading its tail.
But almost immediately, someone replied under her comment.
He Xiaogou replied to Sweet Peach: ?
He Xiaogou: Come down.
And then it turned into a direct message.
Come down?
Ying Tao frowned and typed a question mark slowly.
Sweet Peach: ?
The next second her phone vibrated.
He Xiaogou: Downstairs. Now.
Ying Tao went blank for a moment.
No way. It was this late—was he really here? And with how flashy he was, if he showed up here, did he not care about waking up on trending headlines tomorrow?
From what she knew of He Mingye, it was probably like when they were kids—he was messing with her again.
Sweet Peach: Keep dreaming.
You tell me to come down and I come down? What would that make me?
Her tooth had hurt all day, a knot of frustration stuck in her chest. For some reason, in that moment, the anger she couldn’t swallow finally found an outlet.
He Xiaogou: Three minutes.
He Xiaogou: [Photo]
He Xiaogou: If you’re not here in three minutes, you know what happens.
Ying Tao looked.
It was a photo from the year she got braces—an ugly picture he’d taken of her. Her bangs had been butchered too. Miserable.
Back then she’d wanted to try the straight bangs all the other girls had. He Mingye happened to be home. He’d lazily claimed he could cut them, even swore he’d learned a few tricks from the stylist of her favorite actress.
Then—snip, snip—
Her bangs turned into something a dog had chewed.
She’d been laughed at for ages.
She’d gone home and cried. He Mingye had only laughed, completely unbothered, and even took a photo—calling it a “trophy,” worth keeping.
Bastard.
So that was his game. He’d kept the photo all these years.
Ying Tao took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
Peacock: One minute.
She was absolutely—absolutely going to kill this asshole.