Eighty-eight, Naive

At last, on this day, the plan for the new employee mixer was finalized, and Zhang Liling assigned everyone their duties immediately. When Pang Qi and Yang Xiaojun received their tasks, they could not help grumbling a little, but the mixer was a major project; every session required the entire department’s participation, so there was no shirking it.

On top of that, it happened to coincide with the midyear salary adjustment, and the whole department was nearly worked to madness. Luckily, several interns had arrived this month, otherwise they would have been stuck working overtime until eight or nine every night.

In the past, Chen Ruowen had always thought the work of a functional department was easy. Only after experiencing it firsthand did she realize that no position was truly effortless. Even someone like her, who had been assigned the lightest workload, could not leave the company until nearly six.

She found her family’s sedan in the underground garage. But when she pulled open the car door, she suddenly discovered someone already sitting in the back seat.

“What are you doing here?” Chen Ruowen climbed into the rear seat and shut the door. “Is No. 1 High on break?”

Seeing how unconcerned she looked, Bai Jinyan’s gaze dimmed despite himself.

What a heartless woman.

They had merely gone half a month without seeing each other, and already she had grown this indifferent. If he stayed away any longer, she would probably forget who he was altogether.

Bai Jinyan was sulking to himself, and only after half a minute did he realize that a pair of soft, boneless hands had curled around his waist.

“What are you spacing out for?” Chen Ruowen tilted her face up at him, laughter glimmering in her eyes.

Bai Jinyan quietly let out a breath of relief.

“I came to see whether you still recognized me.”

Chen Ruowen laughed. “Did you secretly go get plastic surgery behind my back? Otherwise why would you worry I wouldn’t recognize you?”

Thinking of the several vaguely suggestive posts Gao Tang had made over the past two days, Bai Jinyan gave a muffled sigh.

“Who knows.”

Yet Chen Ruowen seemed to be in an excellent mood, and she saw right through him. “You just missed me. Why are you too embarrassed to admit it?”

Bai Jinyan avoided the question. Instead, he rubbed her hair and changed the subject.

“Don’t you get off at five-thirty? Why are you so late today? Busy?”

“There does seem to be a lot going on, but no one dares make me do any heavy work,” Chen Ruowen said indifferently.

Bai Jinyan patted her twice more and said gently, “Then I’ll take you home. Eat dinner and get some proper rest.”

“Huh?” Chen Ruowen gave a dramatic wail inside the car. “Weren’t you here to see me? Why are we going home? No, I’m not going back. I want a date with you. I’m not going back!”

“Old Cui, drive. Back to Clearwater.”

Old Cui turned the key in the ignition.

“No!”

Old Cui quietly kept his foot on the brake.

“Back to Clearwater.”

Old Cui moved the gear lever and stealthily shifted into reverse.

“...Then come back with me?”

Old Cui began backing out with great relief.

“All right.”

“Come eat at my house?”

“All right.”

“Stay with me after dinner?”

“...All right.”

Overjoyed, Old Cui drove the sedan out of the underground parking lot.

As for Bai Jinyan coming back with Chen Ruowen, the two elders of the Chen family found it both unexpected and somehow perfectly natural.

These past few days, Chen Ruowen seemed to have grown closer to Gao Tang again. Though Chen Liwan kept saying he did not like that boy from the Bai family, he had long since grown used to the fellow constantly appearing before him. If someone else suddenly took his place, Chen Liwan felt it would take him years to adjust psychologically.

But when, after dinner, Chen Ruowen dragged Bai Jinyan into her room, shut the door, and no one knew what they were doing inside... Chen Liwan grew irritable again.

“I told you, didn’t I? This boy is the most dangerous one!” Chen Liwan pressed his ear to his daughter’s bedroom door, lowering his voice, his face twisted with conflict. “Who knows what they’re doing in there. Why shut the door, honestly.”

“If they didn’t shut it, should they wait for you to interrupt them? Young people want time alone together. Why are you always eavesdropping?”

Chen Liwan gave two dry laughs. “Oh, spare me. If you’re not curious, then why are you crouching here with me?”

Yang Anxin twisted a pinch of flesh at her husband’s waist. “I... I’m concerned about our daughter. On principle, that makes me completely different from you. The two things can’t even be compared!”

“Do you believe that yourself?”

Chen Liwan muttered a complaint, then made a shushing gesture at his wife. The couple exchanged a look, understanding each other perfectly without a word.

Inside the room, Chen Ruowen was half leaning against Bai Jinyan’s shoulder, curled up with him on the sofa in the outer sitting room, watching a dull television program and chatting idly.

Bai Jinyan replied to a message from Qi Faran urging him to come home. Just as he was about to lock his phone, his finger paused.

He glanced at Chen Ruowen beside him and remarked, as if casually, “It looks like Gao Tang changed his profile picture.”

Chen Ruowen shot him a strange look. “What’s there to talk about in changing a profile picture?”

Bai Jinyan pushed his phone toward her. Chen Ruowen glanced at it almost reflexively, then laughed.

“He’s using another giant selfie of his own face as his profile picture. Why is he so narcissistic?”

“This one seems to have been taken the day before yesterday when you two went... out together, right?” Bai Jinyan said lightly.

Hearing that, Chen Ruowen took another look at the picture. “Seems like it.”

“Zoom in.”

She did as he said.

“What do you see?”

“A giant face.”

Bai Jinyan pointed to the half-empty space deliberately left on the right side of the profile picture, and to the lone female figure seen from behind in that gap.

“Look carefully.”

Innocently, Chen Ruowen said, “Didn’t he just accidentally catch me in the shot?”

“I think he likes that photo quite a lot. He posted it, and he made it his profile picture too. What a pity there isn’t a front-facing photo of the two of you together.”

Chen Ruowen did not know whether to laugh or cry. “When we go out, haven’t you posted too? And when Song Yunhui and Man Hao post, I don’t see you having this much to say.”

“You’re comparing Gao Tang to me?” Bai Jinyan immediately felt his position was under severe threat. “And besides...” He paused. “Weren’t all those posts of mine made by you? You’re always using other people’s accounts to post, while your own page stays perfectly clean.”

Seeing Chen Ruowen’s somewhat stunned expression, Bai Jinyan swiftly glanced at his watch to cover the lapse in composure he had just revealed.

“I... it’s getting late. I should go.”

Without waiting for her reply, he rose from the sofa guiltily, pulled open the door, and fled as if escaping.

The two elders of the Chen family, who had been sprawled against the door eavesdropping, were caught red-handed. All they could do was give Bai Jinyan an awkward yet polite smile.

After he got home, Bai Jinyan worked through two full test papers in a row to vent his runaway emotions. So it was only when he habitually checked his phone before bed that he discovered Chen Ruowen had posted a new update.

It was a nine-photo grid, every picture featuring the same man: front view, side profile, and back view. Some of them even seemed to have been taken without his noticing, and he himself had no idea when she had secretly snapped them.

In the very center was a photo of the two of them together, the one she had taken on his phone in a fit of pique the last time they went to the movies, then posted.

The caption was only five simple words:

A man’s childishness.

Below it was a string of comments from mutual friends.

Chen Liwan: furious.jpg

Gao Tang: I can see that. Pretty childish indeed.

Song Yunhui: Sister Wen, did someone snatch your phone?

Ma Yunan: Sitting quietly at home, and dog food falls from the sky.

Man Hao: Sister Wen, if you want to show off your romance, then show it off. Why make up an excuse like this? As a man, I’m offended.

Geng Jiaojiao: Sob sob sob, that side-profile shot in photo three is so handsome! I’m using it as my lock screen!

Kang Wenbo: Geng Jiaojiao, come out and take your beating!

Without the slightest change in expression, Bai Jinyan tapped Like.