Time and the air itself seemed to freeze.
At that moment, Shu Wan’s mind went completely blank.
Forget explaining herself—she could barely even open her mouth to speak.
And even an explanation might not have helped anyway, considering she had been the one to lie first.
“Don’t scare the child. Ask what happened first.”
A voice as clear and soothing as a mountain stream suddenly cut through the frozen silence.
Shu Wan took several deep breaths.
Her eyes shifted slightly, and only then did she realize that Meng Huaijin hadn’t come alone.
Jiang Jie was standing beside him.
“I still have something to take care of tonight. I’m not going upstairs.”
After saying this to Jiang Jie, Meng Huaijin walked straight toward them.
“Huaijin.”
Jiang Jie called after him from behind, but he didn’t turn around.
Their eyes met.
It was like ice colliding with fire.
Shu Wan instinctively wanted to step backward, but both her feet felt as heavy as lead. She couldn’t move an inch.
“Is this the person you were talking about?”
Zhou Ze was much calmer than she was.
After quietly asking the question, he deliberately put on a mature expression and extended his right hand toward Meng Huaijin.
“Hello, Uncle. I’m Zhou Ze, Wanwan’s classmate and childhood friend.”
Meng Huaijin acted as though he hadn’t heard him.
He didn’t even spare him a glance.
He continued walking toward Shu Wan.
The next moment, Shu Wan felt a tight grip around her wrist.
A force as powerful as steel pulled her forward, dragging her out of the hotel in large strides.
Shu Wan couldn’t keep up with his pace at all.
She was practically being dragged along.
“…Slow down. I can’t keep up.”
Meng Huaijin said nothing.
His long legs continued moving forward.
After they had gone another several dozen meters, Shu Wan called out to him several times.
Finally, her voice broke with tears.
“You’re hurting me.”
Meng Huaijin quietly slowed his pace.
When they reached the car, he opened the door and pushed her inside before getting in himself.
The door slammed shut.
The guard in the driver’s seat was startled.
When he turned around and saw Shu Wan’s frightened expression, he was just about to plead on her behalf when his captain shot him a razorsharp look.
“…I’ll get out and have a cigarette. Uh… Captain, whatever you have to say, just talk it out calmly. Calmly.”
After the guard got out, only Shu Wan and Meng Huaijin remained inside the car.
For a long while, the cramped space was filled with silence.
“Nothing to say, Shu Wan?”
Meng Huaijin took out a cigarette and rolled it between his fingers.
He didn’t light it.
His voice was like a dry well hidden beneath a thick fog—impossible to see through, yet filled with an ominous sense of danger.
Shu Wan rubbed her wrist, which was nearly rubbed raw from being dragged.
She hurriedly glanced at him before quickly lowering her eyes again.
“I’m sorry. These past few days, when I said I was going out with my deskmate, I was lying to you.”
“So, you went out with your boyfriend.”
Meng Huaijin stated it as a fact.
“He’s not my boyfriend, and I’m not dating!”
Shu Wan finally dared to turn around and look directly at him.
Meng Huaijin took in her embarrassed and angry expression.
“Shu Wan, you went to a hotel with him, and you still refuse to admit it?”
Those words were more painful and humiliating than a whip striking her.
That was what growing up was like.
Something trivial in other people’s eyes could feel like the end of the world to Shu Wan.
The tip of the girl’s nose twitched.
Her eyes reddened, and tears instantly welled up.
“In your eyes, am I really that kind of person?”
The tears trembling at the corners of her reddened eyes stung Meng Huaijin.
He had been interrogating her just moments ago.
Now she was the one questioning him.
The man’s handsome brows drew together.
His voice remained cold.
“Shu Wan, be reasonable. If he isn’t your boyfriend, why did you lie to me and say you were going out with your deskmate?”
Shu Wan didn’t know how to describe the generation gap between them.
Her cheeks flushed red with frustration.
“Last time, I only cried a few tears because I was upset about my friendship, and you immediately asked if I was crying over a boyfriend. What was I supposed to say?”
“If I told you that a boy had come to see me—and that he had flown here from more than a thousand kilometers away—would you really believe we were just friends?”
“You still wouldn’t believe me, would you?”
“Because adults like you only believe what you’ve already decided to believe.”
“But Zhou Ze really is just my friend…”
When she reached the painful part, the girl’s emotions finally collapsed.
She was already sobbing uncontrollably.
“He, Bai Fei, and I have been best friends since kindergarten.”
“But after something happened to my family, there were certain reasons we couldn’t avoid, so they stopped contacting me for several months.”
“For a while, I thought it was because there was something wrong with me. Maybe I wasn’t likable enough, and that was why I couldn’t even hold on to my friendships.”
“This time, Zhou Ze came all the way here knowing he might be kicked out of his family just to see me.”
“Even though I was nervous every single day, terrified that you would find out, I was still happy.”
“And today, I went back to the hotel with him because he and Bai Fei had brought gifts for me. I only went there to pick them up.”
“And then… you accused me of getting a hotel room with a boy.”
“Listen to yourself! Does that even sound reasonable?”
“I’m still a virgin, okay?!”
“……….”
Meng Huaijin pressed his fingers against his temples.
Faced with the girl’s barrage of words, he momentarily forgot what he was supposed to say.
Especially after that final sentence.
For the next two or three minutes, Meng Huaijin remained completely silent.
Only after Shu Wan’s emotions had mostly settled did he calmly pull out a tissue and wipe the remaining tear marks from her face.
“I say one sentence, and you fire ten back at me. You’ve really grown bold, Shu Wan.”
The girl pressed her lips together and lowered her eyes to her toes.
After a long while, she finally murmured weakly,
“Lying to you before was wrong too. I’m sorry.”
“But Zhou Ze really isn’t my boyfriend, and I didn’t get a hotel room with him.”
She wasn’t the type to stubbornly deny her mistakes.
If she was wrong, she admitted it sincerely.
But if she hadn’t done something, she would defend herself to the very end.
She certainly had principles.
Who had ever said she was merely obedient?
She was quite the debater.
Meng Huaijin withdrew his gaze and tossed the tissue aside.
His tone was as calm as ever.
“Next time a friend comes to visit, whether they stay here or somewhere else, I’ll have someone make the arrangements.”
“The condition is that you have to tell me.”
Shu Wan sniffed and glanced sideways at him.
“Got it.”
Meng Huaijin opened the window.
At last, he lit the cigarette he had been holding.
He took two shallow drags before extending his hand out the window and flicking away the ash.
“Shu Wan, there’s nothing shameful about being in a relationship. You don’t have to think that way.”
“I don’t object to you dating.”
“If you really have a boyfriend in the future, you can bring him home openly.”
Shu Wan hadn’t expected him to suddenly say something like that.
She blinked, momentarily unsure how to respond.
“But for now, dating is not allowed.”
“Even if he’s only a male friend, you still have to keep your distance from him.”
His tone left no room for argument.
It wasn’t a suggestion.
It was an order.
The words sounded somewhat overbearing.
Although Shu Wan wasn’t dating anyone, how many people could truly be rational during their youth?
She quietly asked,
“Did you date when you were young?”
Meng Huaijin held the cigarette between his teeth.
White smoke drifted from his nostrils.
He looked down upon the world with his usual intimidating composure.
“When I was your age, I spent all 365 days of the year in the military.”
“Even the birds perched on the utility poles in the military were male.”
“Who exactly was I supposed to date?”
The girl stared at him.
Her reddened, swollen almondshaped eyes remained completely still.
It took her a long while to remember to blink.
When she had been eight years old, it hadn’t been without reason that she had thought he looked like some terrifyingly handsome bandit.
Compared with the man before her now, strip away his rigid identity as a bureau chief, remove the powerful military and political background of the Meng family, and look at the way he held that cigarette between his teeth…
What else could he look like except a bandit with both ferocity and wildness?
And with his age and life experience, the uncle standing before her now was even more intimidating than the man she remembered from years ago.
His dominance was almost frightening.
“What about now?”
Shu Wan heard herself ask.
“Why did you and that beautiful, coollooking Miss Jiang show up at the hotel?”
“Were you there to get a room?”
“Or… are you two dating?”