The driver didn’t hear a response and glanced at the rearview mirror. He saw the man in a tailored suit resting his chin on his hand, staring absentmindedly out the window.
“Mr. Shen, several calls came in asking where you went halfway through the trip.”
Shen Siren slowly withdrew his gaze from the empty café window. He pushed up his glasses with his index finger, his expression calm and unreadable.
“Tell them I had an urgent conference call. Head back.”
The car started moving. He raised the window, and condensation quickly formed on the glass.
Shen Siren’s eyes darkened. With his fingertip, he wrote three letters on the fogged-up window—
SSR.
This was Li Chuxia’s special nickname for him.
She had once been obsessed with gacha games. She would often curl up in his arms, holding her phone as she played. When she pulled a particularly dazzling, special-effect card, she would scream excitedly.
“Specially Super Rare—SSR. It means the rarest character in the game. If you get an SSR, it means you’re either a whale spender or insanely lucky.”
As she seriously explained this to him, he fed her a grape.
“So which are you? Lucky, or rich?”
Chu Xia smiled sweetly, eyes curved with mischief. “Hehe… I linked your account.”
She suddenly sat up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and looked into his eyes.
“I just realized… I don’t even need to bother pulling cards.”
Shen Siren looked at her gently, raising his brows for her to continue.
Chu Xia kissed him lightly and said with a smile:
“Because you are my SSR. My rarest guardian.”
The mist soon blurred the letters on the window. They warped and faded, water streaking down like silent tears.
Shen Siren raised his hand and wiped the writing away, closing his eyes briefly to hide the sting in them.
When he opened them again, he had returned to his calm, unfathomable self.
Chu Xia sat in a taxi, typing three letters into her notes.
SSR automatically suggested a name: Shen Siren.
How many times would you have to type something before even the most basic input method remembers it?
She thought to herself. The sadness lasted only two seconds before she deleted it.
If that night she and Shen Siren had truly done something, given his personality of always seeing things through, he would not be avoiding her now.
Chu Xia concluded that perhaps he had already moved on.
Only she was still standing in that rain from years ago.
“Exclude. Next.”
She opened the chat with Contact No. 4 and began typing a message, deleting and rewriting repeatedly.
Just then, her current boyfriend called.
“Xiaxia, you’re not home?”
“I went out to look at baby cribs,” she replied calmly.
The man on the other end hesitated before saying:
“Xiaxia… maybe we shouldn’t keep the baby. We’re still young. I mean…”
“Is that your idea, or your mother’s?”
“…Both.”
“So we’re not getting married either, right?”
“You know my mom has high standards…”
Chu Xia wasn’t surprised.
Families with status would never let their son marry an orphan whose adoptive father had been in prison. She was already used to it.
“Alright. I understand. Thank you for your time. Let’s break up.”
The man panicked. “You don’t have to use breaking up to force me into marriage. Just abort the baby and everything can go back to how it was before, isn’t that fine?”
Even though Chu Xia already understood men well enough, she still couldn’t help but laugh.
“Abort it”—how simple it sounded. Because the cost of pregnancy was never part of a man’s consideration.
“And everything goes back to how it was before” meant: I won’t marry you, but I still want to keep you.
She wasn’t angry. Everyone was just taking what they needed.
But she was very clear—the child wasn’t his. She was simply testing his attitude. If he had no intention of marriage, then he was out.
Her time was precious. She wouldn’t stay young forever. So she quickly filtered out the trash among wealthy men.
She choked out in a practiced sob, “We have no future. Please don’t hurt me anymore.”
Then she hung up and blocked him.
The driver glanced at her through the rearview mirror, slightly stunned.
One moment she was crying over a breakup, the next she was humming a tune. Was she okay?
But… she was really beautiful.
If she were his daughter, he would’ve beaten up whoever made her cry.
Chu Xia had no idea she had awakened the driver’s paternal instincts. As a result, when she got out of the car, he refused to accept her fare, leaving her confused.
She didn’t go home. She guessed that man would definitely come looking for her, so she detoured to an orphanage.
It was the fifth orphanage in Beijing. It had been funded by Chu Xia using the money she got from selling her villa and sports cars. Her only condition was that the director establish a special education department for disabled children.
She didn’t expect to encounter someone she least wanted to see.
In front of the playground slide, a cameraman aimed at a man holding a child. He was dressed low-key but expensive, hair neatly styled, giving him a capable and refined aura.
A reporter interviewed him:
“Mr. Jiang, we understand you’ve left politics for business. The reason has always been a mystery. Could you share it today?”
Jiang Suizhou smiled politely, lifting the little girl in his arms.
“I hope today’s interview focuses on these orphans. I won’t answer unrelated questions. Sorry.”
Chu Xia let out a soft scoff when she heard this.
Before she could hide her sarcasm, Jiang Suizhou saw her.
Their eyes met across a distance, separated by several staff members. Neither spoke. In the end, Chu Xia looked away first.
She went inside to greet the director, inspected the orphanage, noted missing supplies and stationery, and played with the children for a while. By the time she left, it was already dark.
And Jiang Suizhou was standing at the entrance, seemingly waiting for someone.
When he saw her, he instructed his subordinates and walked toward her.
“What a coincidence.”
His voice was calm, but carried an unmistakable sense of control, as if nothing in his life was ever out of his grasp.
“You seemed to disagree with my statement earlier.”
Chu Xia looked at the roadside pole. “Did I?”
“Yes.” He stepped closer. “Didn’t you call me a profiteer last time? Now I’m doing charity.”
Chu Xia’s eyes flickered. She looked up and met his deep gaze.
She had never liked his eyes, or the way he looked at her.
His eyes were phoenix-shaped, with long, sharp corners and deep sockets. Whenever he looked at her, it felt like she was being immobilized—unable to lie.
Partly because she was a little afraid of him.
And partly because she had once been his personally trained canary.
Back when she was freshly dumped by Shen Siren, she lived like she was already dead. Then she spent a year by Jiang Suizhou’s side—he took her abroad, taught her horseback riding and golf, supported her MBA studies, and personally showed her what high-society life looked like.
Looking back, he had played a significant role in who she became. In some ways, he could even be called her mentor—always patiently teaching her how to please men.
But the Chu Xia standing before him now had long since flown out of his grasp.
She met his gaze openly.
“I just think you didn’t need to emphasize in front of the children that they’re orphans. I heard from the director you’re planning to build a school here. On behalf of the children, thank you.”
She saw the muscles near his eyes tighten slightly—that was his sign of displeasure.
He stepped closer, cornering her.
The long-missed closeness made her slightly uncomfortable. They were so close she could hear his steady heartbeat.
He didn’t lower his head, only looked down at her with quiet authority.
“So,” he said, “when are you coming back to me?”