What she said was simply not important.
If her words had mattered, five years ago, he wouldn’t have joined forces with Lin Jianguo to send her to prison.
“Mr. Jiang, I’ll say it again. I never intended to disrupt your life now. Even if the paternity test results come out, I don’t want to change your current relationship with Miss Lin. I just want to ask you to help take care of Xiao Youzi.”
This voice, so clearly distant, widened the gap between her and Jiang Yu.
Jiang Yu felt it keenly. “Lin Ting, are you blaming me?”
“…” Lin Ting took a deep, heavy breath.
Memories of the past surged in her mind.
She forcefully suppressed the pain. “Let bygones be bygones…”
Maintaining her distance and her plea, she said, “I only hope Mr. Jiang will tell me the test results soon.”
“…” Jiang Yu didn’t know how to respond.
After a long moment, he took out his phone. “Let’s add each other on WeChat. It’ll be easier for me to contact you later.”
But Lin Ting did not take out her own phone.
Looking at the WeChat QR code Jiang Yu displayed, she said calmly, “That’s not necessary. Once the results are out, you can have Shu Chen come find me.”
When she was released from prison, she stood on the street with two-year-old Xiao Youzi.
She was penniless, looking around helplessly, unable to take a single step.
And she had nowhere to go.
When she went to find Jiang Yu, she discovered he had long since moved. He had blocked all her contact methods.
He had Jiang Shuchen return all her belongings to her.
And had Jiang Shuchen relay a message: “Xiao Ting, A-Yu says he never wants to see you again. Don’t bother him anymore.”
Back then, Jiang Shuchen said many comforting words to her. She didn’t hear any of them. All she knew was that Jiang Yu had blocked her.
Since he blocked her back then, there was no need to add him back now.
By this time, most of the kindergarten children had left.
A few children whose parents hadn’t arrived yet were standing there, chattering noisily.
Lin Ting called Xiao Youzi back. “The school is about to close, Mr. Jiang. Xiao Youzi and I should go now.”
Holding Xiao Youzi’s hand, she glanced down at her.
Xiao Youzi understood and politely waved to Jiang Yu. “Goodbye, Uncle. Mommy and I are going home now.”
“Goodbye, Youzi!” Jiang Yu waved back, his heart filled with complex emotions.
His eyes held a trace of reluctance, as if there were still many things left unsaid, but the mother and daughter had already walked away.
He gazed for a long time at their retreating figures, one big, one small.
When they disappeared from sight, he felt an inexplicable emptiness in his chest.
Outside the school gate, Lin Ting got on her electric scooter.
The little head in the front child seat suddenly lifted and turned to look at her.
“Mommy, I know. That uncle just now is actually my daddy.”
“How do you know?” Lin Ting was momentarily distracted. Worried it wasn’t safe to ride, she stopped.
Looking at her daughter who had turned around, she didn’t know what to say.
Finally, she asked, “Did he tell you?”
Her daughter still looked up at her, but without joy. “No, he didn’t tell me. But I just know. I don’t like him. But don’t worry, Mommy, I’ll be very polite. As long as Mommy doesn’t leave me, I don’t care about anything else.”
These last words made Lin Ting ride her scooter very, very slowly when she started moving again.
…
The most reliable person by Jiang Yu’s side was his good friend Jiang Shuchen.
But this time, to ensure absolute certainty, he didn’t ask Jiang Shuchen for help. Instead, he personally sent his and Xiao Youzi’s hair samples for a paternity test.
He told no one.
The test results would take another five days.
Five days felt like five years.
In the following days, Jiang Yu’s emotions churned violently.
Even the weather mirrored his turmoil—two consecutive days of level-four southeast winds.
In coastal cities, winter sea winds cut like knives, chilling to the bone.
Around nine o’clock at night, Lin Ting was still out doing part-time work with her daughter.
Over the years, to care for her daughter, she hadn’t held a proper job. Who would hire a woman who insisted on bringing her child to work?
Moreover, she had only completed three years of medical school and didn’t even have a university diploma.
What’s more, she had served time in prison and had a criminal record.
But thanks to the Lin family’s heavy investment in her upbringing since childhood, she could compose music and play the piano, allowing her to work part-time at high-end clubs and restaurants, performing on the piano.
Her music carried depth, and her skill was high, earning her between 200 and 300 yuan per hour.
Sometimes, if she was lucky, customers listening to her play would even leave tips.
Other times, when luck wasn’t on her side, she would encounter men who coveted her beauty, causing trouble for her openly or covertly, pressuring or bribing her to add them on WeChat, and some would even block her path on her way home.
This kind of livelihood was highly unstable.
So she frequently changed jobs.
Fortunately, she could mostly keep her daughter by her side.
That evening, a bespectacled man with a large belly listened to her play the piano for a long time and intercepted her and her daughter on their way home.
The night was dark, and the wind howled as she held her daughter tightly.
Thinking she had encountered trouble again, the bespectacled man with the large belly instead handed her a business card. “Miss Lin, don’t be afraid. I’m from Zhou Pharmaceutical. Knowing you’ve returned to Pengcheng, I’d very much like to collaborate with you.”
Five years ago, she had been deeply embroiled in the storm of leaked medical research secrets involving the Lin, Jiang, and Zhou families.
Her closest father and the man she loved most, regardless of whether she was framed or wronged, had directly sent her to prison.
Now, she didn’t want to be dragged into that turmoil again.
She refused.
Over the next two days, this bespectacled man who had given her the card harassed her daily.
Fortunately, her attitude remained firm, and by the third day, the bespectacled man with the large belly no longer appeared.
The southeast winds in Pengcheng blew for five days straight.
On the fifth day, the wind grew even stronger, unsettling people’s minds.
Jiang Yu, staying at Jiang Pharmaceutical Group, received a call from the paternity testing agency at noon that day.
“Mr. Jiang? The test you had done at our agency has come back. You can come collect the results, or we can mail them to you.”
What churned violently was not just the wild sea wind sweeping past outside the window, but also Jiang Yu’s agitated and complex emotions.
He immediately stood up, not even grabbing his coat, and strode out with his phone in hand. “I’ll come collect them myself.”