The Useless Stepmom Brings Her Kids to Reality TV Shows to Photograph Them

92 Knot In Her Heart

Seeing the back seat’s partition fall, Secretary Han tactfully shut up.

Li Yanchen took out a small mirror and looked at his face. Back in Lan village, Lin Wan would always go to bed on time every day after the livestream ended. She said that if she slept well at night, she wouldn’t get any wrinkles. It was already eight at night and he still hadn’t eaten his dinner. When he returned to the hotel, he still had to sort out the contracts for the day, which meant another late night.

Li Yanchen took a closer look in the mirror and sure enough, he saw a thin line at the corner of his mouth. Although age didn’t matter so much to him, wrinkles were another matter entirely.

“I don’t want to eat. Let’s head straight to the hotel.”

!!

Secretary Han, on the other hand, was famished. After following Li Yanchen around for the entire day, he was starving. He had only had a few glasses of water and a few hurried spoonfuls of rice in the afternoon. ‘Is he punishing me for talking too much?’ lamented Secretary Han

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Mr. Li. I was just happy to see you smile more these days. I heard that smiling makes you appear ten years younger,” explained Secretary Han hurriedly.

‘Even Secretary Han thinks I am old,’ thought Li Yanchen, looking at the man’s back.

Feeling the temperature suddenly drop, Secretary Han regretted his words. ‘Did I say something wrong again?’

“I was also too serious in the past,” said Secretary Han. “This is good, is all I am saying. There is a really good restaurant just ahead. It’s very near. Just a serving of fried rice cake…”

“Take me back to the hotel. Then, you can go have dinner. I am very tired. The meeting tomorrow is at ten in the morning. Don’t wake me up before eight.” Li Yanchen furrowed his brows. But thinking about wrinkles, he smoothed his brows quickly.

“Oh, okay.” Secretary Han heaved a sigh of relief.

Back at the hotel, Li Yanchen took off his tie and looked around at the empty suite. His heart felt hollow.

After Lin Wan got out of the bathtub, she wrapped herself in a bathrobe and laid down on the bed. She rubbed her face back and forth on the silk bed sheet. It had been such a long time since she had slept on a soft bed.

Even though she had felt very tired after getting home, now she suddenly felt energetic after the bath. Lin Wan turned on the TV. She needed background noise to keep her company.

The woman held her phone and tried to type Yungang High School in the search bar.

The most recent post on the page was from a minute ago:

[I want to ask which class is better in Yungang? The arts class or the science class?]

She scrolled down a few pages and saw similar posts. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack if she wanted to find clues from ten years ago.

While he was still thinking about a way to quickly filter through the endless posts, a WeChat message popped up on her phone. It was from Luo Xi.

There were very few customers in the coffee shop at night. Luo Xi finally found the time to send Lin Wan a text. “I am traveling to Yun City at the end of this month. Do you want to meet for a cup of coffee?”

The invitation was a little direct. When they were in school, Lin Wan had rejected him even when he just wanted to sit beside her at the Computer Room after classes, let alone allow him to share a meal in the cafeteria. However, Song Jing had said that Lin Wan was different from before and that she wasn’t as introverted now. So, Luo Xi decided to give it a shot.

“It’s not just you and me. I also invited Yang Youyou. You two used to be very close in the past,” Luo Xi added. Lin Wan was a married woman now. He felt that it would make her uncomfortable if it was just the two of them.

‘Yang Youyou?’ Lin Wan tried to recall the name. That name had come up in the original owner’s diary entry. There had been only a few mentions but she remembered that Yang Youyou had complained to the teacher and had opened the bathroom door. Lin Wan searched for the name in her contacts but couldn’t find it.

In high school, Yang Youyou had been the closest person to Lin Wan. When Luo Xi contacted Yang Youyou to get Lin Wan’s number, he found out that she was not in touch with Lin Wan since graduation. Yang Youyou had confessed that she knew that Lin Wan had not stolen the diary, but she had been too scared to admit it.

There was a knot in her heart too. It took Luo Xi a long time to convince her to agree to meet Lin Wan with him at the end of the month.

Yang Youyou’s name made a breakthrough. Lin Wan replied, ” Alright, just tell me the time and the place.”

Luo Xi shot up to his feet, the coffee in his hand spilling all over the floor.

“Okay, I’ll arrange the time and the place. I’ll send it to you later.”

Lin Wan didn’t reply to that, but Luo Xi’s message gave her inspiration. She typed “Luo Xi”‘ in the forum.

Posts about him instantly popped up, and the most recent one was from a few days ago:

[Yungang High School’s outstanding graduate Luo Xi opens his 101st branch in City B.]

[Senior Luo Xi makes the best coffee.]

[Senior Luo Xi is still single; I really want to be Madam Luo Xi…]

To Lin Wan, this was all useless info. She scrolled down the pages. After a few dozen pages, she finally saw a post:

[Who still remembers the once-in-a-century school hunk of Yungang High School, Qian Luo Xi?]

The comments were:

[Schoolmate report: Luo Xi was so handsome back then, his grades were good, and he was the crush of many young girls.]

[He’s also my Prince Charming, but I can only look at him from afar. Now my baby is three years old, but he’s still single.]

[Logically speaking, he could have anyone so why is he still single?]

[Senior graduated many years ago, but there are still stories about him in Yungang High School.]

…

Lin Wan filtered out the useful information. The only things she found out from the posts were that many people liked Luo Xi, he was still single and doing well after graduation.

“This Sunday, at three in the afternoon. I will send you the location. See you there.” The text from Luo Xi gave the exact time and day for the meet-up. He had sent it to Yang Youyou too.

After receiving an affirmative reply, he booked a flight to Yun City for the very next day.

Lin Wan scrolled through Tieba until midnight. She only switched off her phone when she could no longer keep her eyes open.

It was already nine when she woke up the next day. There was an unread message from Li Yanchen. “I will call you after the meeting.”

Lin Wan scrolled through the records and confirmed that the number of messages Li Yanchen had sent to the host before the variety show were less than the ones he had sent in the past two days. Before, she had blamed him for being so cold and indifferent. But now that she knew him, she found out that he was indeed very talkative. Perhaps Li Yanchen had taken up his roommate duties very seriously.

Lin Wan found herself smiling. She washed up and did some basic skin care. She then headed downstairs.

Auntie Huang was cleaning the house. When she saw Lin Wan, she put down the cloth in her hand. “Madam, you are awake,” she said. “I warmed the breakfast. I will get it for you.”

“That’s alright,” said Lin Wan. “You can continue with what you were doing. I will get breakfast.” Lin Wan felt awkward when people served her.

After breakfast, she decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Although it was summer, the trees at Royal Water Bay were so lush that the heat of the sun was greatly subdued.

“Mrs. Li, this is the first time I’ve seen you in the neighborhood. I’ve watched the live broadcast of your family and I loved it!” A woman in a Cheongsam walked over to her and greeted her.

Lin Wan was at a loss for words.

“Oh, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m the owner of that house. I was hanging the clothes in the yard and thought it was you, so I came out to say hello. It’s really you! Do you want to come in and have a seat? My old Jin is in a partnership with your old Li,” she said. “I am Mrs. Jin. Please come in.”

...

Lin Wan did not know anything about Mrs. Jin. She panicked. “Maybe some other time. I have some things I need to do.”