Early that morning, Fang Pingping brought Gu Xi some food. Gu Xi had been staying up late memorizing her lines, and after that, she would watch dramas to study acting techniques, often not sleeping until past midnight. Lately, Fang Pingping had been bringing her breakfast so she could sleep in a little longer.
Today, Xiao Chen came along too. Both he and Fang Pingping pulled out the latest model of a fruit-brand phone. Neither of them had even opened the packaging. They placed the phones on the dining table, and Fang Pingping said, “That assistant from yesterday sent these over. We tried to decline, but he insisted. They’re too expensive—you should return them for us.”
They had come with Gu Xi on salary and didn’t want to take advantage like this.
Gu Xi knew how that man operated—he wouldn’t care about small matters like this. Sending these was probably Fang Qi’s idea. Chief Assistant Fang had always been tactful. Seeing that his boss would personally deliver food to her, he would naturally extend extra courtesy to the people around her.
In her previous life, after that man died, Bai Yuzhou tried to hire Fang Qi at a high price, but Fang Qi refused and jumped ship to another major company.
Gu Xi opened her food container and began eating. “Just keep them. They’re loaded.”
“…”
Fang Pingping wanted to say more, but Gu Xi said with complete seriousness, “Really, they have more money than you can imagine. Good luck like this might not come around again. If I return them, it would actually be an insult to them.”
“…”
Well, since Gu Xi put it that way, the two of them could only accept the gifts with a mix of excitement and unease.
Fang Pingping couldn’t help sighing, “Rich people really are generous.”
Gu Xi didn’t agree with that. “There are stingy ones too. I remember a rich wife showing off a necklace her husband bought her—said it was a European royal piece auctioned from abroad, the only one in the world. Later, people found out it was fake, and the real one was with his mistress.”
Fang Pingping’s mouth fell open in shock. “Wouldn’t that make her furious?”
How humiliating.
Gu Xi shook her head. “That rich wife did it on purpose. Her husband saw her wearing it out every day to show off and was afraid someone would find out, so he had no choice but to swap it for the real one. The mistress only made it public after blowing things up.”
Fang Pingping opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say.
She could only conclude that she didn’t have the brains to be a rich wife.
Gu Xi smiled, and seeing the awkwardness fade from their faces, she dropped the subject.
In the days that followed, Gu Xi threw herself entirely into filming. This time, right up until the end when she returned to City C, she encountered no unpleasant people or incidents. Gu Xi went back before the semester started. Before parting ways, she settled Xiao Chen’s wages, paying him for two positions. On top of that, she gave him a red envelope as a personal token of appreciation.
Regardless of how their paths had crossed in the previous life, he had genuinely helped her a great deal this time. Her work hours were irregular, yet he was always on call, accompanied Fang Pingping to buy breakfast early in the morning, and ensured her safety. He was quiet on the job, never leaked any information about them to others, and didn’t smoke or drink. Gu Xi had asked around about other actors’ bodyguard salaries—they were all quite high. She had gotten a real bargain.
Xiao Chen looked at the thick stack of cash in his hand with surprise—it was far more than what had been agreed upon. But he was awkward with words and could only say, “This is too much. It shouldn’t be this much.”
Gu Xi nodded. “I know. I’m giving you this because you performed well. You’re a decent person—maybe we’ll have a chance to work together again in the future.”
She said “work together.” Xiao Chen’s nose stung. This was the first time since his release from prison that someone had treated him as an equal. Over the past days, following her around the set, he had seen many big stars ordering their assistants around like dogs. But what he thought was—he was worse than a dog. He didn’t know if he’d ever find such a good job again.
Xiao Chen hesitated, then reminded her, “That phone was already very expensive.”
“That was a gift from someone else—it doesn’t count as from me. Just keep it and use it.”
Xiao Chen nodded. Initially, he had planned to sell the phone for cash after the job ended—that money would last him a long time. But now he hesitated. Maybe there’d be a chance to meet again, so it was better to keep it. It looked more impressive anyway—all those celebrities and crew members used big-brand phones.
Gu Xi had already settled Fang Pingping’s wages long ago and had even given her a big red envelope on New Year’s Eve—more than enough for Fang Pingping to focus on preparing for her postgraduate entrance exams after graduation.
On the way back to school, Gu Xi finally opened some of the apps on her phone. Her call log showed several unfamiliar missed calls, plus a few from Gu Chenghai. She glanced at them and decided not to call back. There was also a friend request from Bai Yuzhou on a messaging app, and her stepsister had sent her messages asking if she was coming home for New Year’s Eve dinner.
Gu Xi’s relationship with her stepsister was lukewarm at best. The reason she had sent so many messages was probably because her stepmother had asked her to.
In her previous life, she had hated that mother-daughter pair with a burning passion. She no longer had a mother, and everything that should have been hers was taken. Yet Gu Chenghai treated a daughter with no blood relation better than he treated her. Now, looking back, she realized it was all rather meaningless.
Gu Xi called Grandpa Bai back. He asked when she would come over to visit. Gu Xi thought for a moment and said, “School starts tomorrow, so I need to go back and clean the dormitory. If I have time this weekend, I’ll come over.”
Grandpa Bai’s voice carried a hint of disappointment. “Alright. I’ll have your aunt cook some extra dishes then.”
“Great! The dishes Aunt Lin made last time were all delicious. Grandpa, please thank Aunt Lin for me.”
“That means more than any thank-you. Your Aunt Lin loves it when people praise her cooking.”
Gu Xi laughed out loud. She looked up at the gray-blue sky and felt that this was good enough. Sure enough, staying busy kept her mind from wandering.
Gu Xi and the others were education majors. Their final semester of senior year was for internships. Gu Xi was assigned to the No. 7 Middle School, which was nearly an hour’s commute from campus.
Fang Pingping wasn’t assigned to the same school. The other two girls in the dormitory had also moved back in—one had broken up with her boyfriend and was preparing for civil service exams, and the other stayed up until one or two in the morning on the phone every night.
There weren’t many classes in the second half of senior year. After just one week of classes, Gu Xi and her classmates were sent off for their internships. The school they were interning at was a middle school, and since the students had morning reading sessions, they all had to go in very early on the first day. The members of their group had already set up a chat and agreed to leave at 5:30 a.m.
When Fang Pingping learned which school Gu Xi was assigned to, she felt a bit sorry for her—it was way too far from campus. “Go to bed early tonight.”
Gu Xi nodded. She was in bed by 9 p.m. with her alarm set. Her sleep wasn’t great. Before, when it was just her and Fang Pingping, Fang Pingping rarely made any noise at night. But now, things were different—there were two more people in the dorm. One would study until 11 p.m. and make loud banging noises while washing up, and the other would talk on the phone for hours.
Before going to sleep, Gu Xi made a point of telling her two other roommates in advance. But at 11 p.m., she was still woken up. After one roommate finally finished washing up and got into bed, the other started making phone calls.
By the time Gu Xi actually fell asleep, she had no idea how late it was. The next morning, still deep in sleep, she was jolted awake by her alarm.
Fang Pingping also got up when Gu Xi was leaving. Seeing the dark circles under her eyes, she felt a bit sorry for her. “Maybe don’t come back to sleep here tonight. If anything happens at school, I’ll let you know.”
Gu Xi finished the coffee in her cup. “We’ll see how this afternoon goes.”
On the first day, they arrived a little early, but not by much. Quite a few students were already at school. They waited outside the office for a while before the teachers started arriving one by one.
Each intern was assigned to a teacher. Gu Xi was paired with a middle-aged female teacher who taught two classes.
In the morning, they were arranged to observe a class, and then they helped grade homework and journals.
In her previous life, Gu Xi had never done an internship and didn’t know the routine. She simply followed what everyone else did.
The school didn’t have a cafeteria, so Gu Xi ate out with the others at noon. Regular college students didn’t have much of a food budget. They had chipped in for a taxi in the morning, and at noon they found a clay pot rice restaurant nearby. The food wasn’t great, but everyone finished their meals.
They returned to school at 12:40. Standing in front of the office door, they tried pushing it a few times but couldn’t get it open. They exchanged puzzled looks.
The weather was still very cold, and the only heated room in the school was the office. After a brief discussion, they headed to a nearby classroom.
Someone couldn’t help but whisper, “My teacher asked me to heat up her lunch in the microwave earlier. They’re inside right now—they just don’t want to let us in.”
“The curtains are drawn, and I heard talking just now. They’re deliberately keeping us out.”
Gu Xi thought about renting a hotel room nearby but didn’t want to seem unsociable, so she followed the group to the classroom.
The classroom was freezing. They huddled in a corner reading. After a while, someone couldn’t take it anymore and stood up to move around and warm up.
Luckily, it was only the first day, so there wasn’t much to do. After she had graded two sets of homework in the afternoon, the teacher Gu Xi was assigned to told her she could leave.
But that kind of good fortune only happened once. The next day, Gu Xi’s teacher had the last class of the afternoon. After class, she handed Gu Xi her lesson plans and left directly.
Gu Xi had no choice but to head back alone. The office was already empty. Her teacher tended to run late, so by the time she finished, only a few minutes had passed, but the hallways were already empty of students.
That day, everyone had taken the subway. The morning rush hour had been packed, and now she was hitting the evening rush hour too.
It was drizzling outside. Gu Xi looked up at the gloomy, overcast sky. There was actually another option—Lan Garden was very close by.
But in her current life, she had no connection to that man, and she had also broken up with Bai Yuzhou. Going there felt a bit awkward.
That thought changed by the time she reached the school gate. Darkness was falling fast, and there wasn’t a soul around. She pulled the hood of her down jacket over her head, but rainwater still trickled down her cheeks and into her collar. Without hesitation, she turned and walked in the other direction.
It was a twenty-minute walk, but for Gu Xi, that felt close—just getting to the subway entrance alone took ten minutes, not to mention the transfers and the walk back to campus.
Aunt Zhao probably hadn’t expected her to show up so late. Outside, it was pitch black. Gu Xi was drenched in moisture, her face pale from the cold. Aunt Zhao paused in surprise. “What happened? Come in, quick!”
The house was warm, and the wave of cozy heat washed over her. Gu Xi’s expression softened. “I’ll go upstairs and take a shower first.”
“Alright, alright. Go on. Have you eaten dinner? I’ll stir-fry a couple of dishes for you.”
At this point, Gu Xi didn’t bother with politeness. “I haven’t eaten. I’m a bit hungry.”
“Good. Go take a hot shower. By the time you come down, there’ll be food ready.”
“Mm.”
Aunt Zhao turned back to the kitchen and saw that her boss was still eating. She had been lazy today and only made three dishes. Her boss wasn’t picky about food, so he wouldn’t give her a hard time about it. But now with one more person, there wouldn’t be enough.
She quickly explained, “Miss Gu is here. She hasn’t eaten yet. I’ll go make a couple more dishes.”
The man lowered his gaze and gave a cool “mm,” seemingly indifferent.
Aunt Zhao didn’t dwell on it and happily busied herself in the kitchen.
Day in and day out facing her boss’s cold face, having a sweet, soft-natured girl like Gu Xi around brightened her mood.
After her shower, Gu Xi came downstairs and found that he was still there, sitting on the sofa reading. She hesitated for a moment, then walked over to greet him. “Uncle Bai.”
The man lifted his gaze from the book and looked up at her. “What brings you here today?”
Gu Xi’s eyes traced his features and landed on the small mole on his right earlobe. It was tiny—if not for their intimate relationship in her previous life, she would never have noticed it.
That mole stirred up memories. Sometimes, when she couldn’t help herself, she would lift her head and nibble on it. It seemed to be a sensitive spot—just a light touch would make his body tremble slightly. Later, whenever she wanted to cut things short, she would deliberately bite him there.
They rarely kissed, but in those moments, he would turn his head to capture her lips and tongue.
Those stifling, humid, tender moments had faded with time. Now, facing this man again, Gu Xi felt a strange sense of dissonance in her heart.
She lowered her gaze. “My internship school is nearby. It was too late to head back alone, so I came here.”
Before coming, she had hoped she wouldn’t run into him. It seemed luck wasn’t on her side.
Aunt Zhao called out from the kitchen, “Xixi, the dishes are ready. Come eat!”
“Coming.”
Gu Xi said to the man, “I’m going to eat now.”
The girl’s figure disappeared at the entrance of the dining room. Bai Shulin’s eyes returned to the pages of his book, but after a long while, he hadn’t turned a single page. Finally, he closed the book, stood up, and left.
After finishing her meal, Gu Xi went back upstairs and called Fang Pingping to say she wouldn’t be returning that night. All her clothes were still in the dormitory, and the ones she had worn after her shower were the same ones from earlier—half-damp and clinging uncomfortably to her body.
Having been reborn, Gu Xi didn’t want to make things hard on herself, so she got up and opened the door to step out.
There should be clothes in Bai Yuzhou’s room, but she didn’t want to wear his. Instead, she knocked on the familiar door.
He didn’t keep her waiting long and opened it to look at her.
The man had apparently just showered—his body still carried a faint dampness, with a few strands of hair falling over his forehead. Droplets of water traced down his strong jaw and into his neck. Maybe it tickled, because his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His voice was hoarse as he asked, “Something wrong?”
Only then did Gu Xi realize she had been staring at him for too long. She quickly averted her gaze. “Uncle Bai, could I borrow a set of clothes?”
The man across from her said nothing. Gu Xi looked up and met a pair of calm, quiet eyes.
She felt a strange flutter in her chest and belatedly realized how ambiguous her request sounded. She quickly explained, “There’s nothing in the wardrobe, and my clothes are still wet.”
She raised her arm to show him. The girl was wearing a light-colored, form-fitting base layer that hugged her graceful figure. She tugged at the sleeve near her forearm and pulled it a little, revealing a sliver of fair skin in the process.
It was indeed damp. Bai Shulin didn’t look closely—his gaze subtly shifted away from that pale, delicate patch of skin.
He lifted his eyes to meet her earnest gaze and gestured toward the door. “Come in and pick whatever you like.”
Gu Xi watched his back as he turned and walked inside, then hesitated before following. His walk-in closet was huge. She had been there in her previous life—it was divided into casual and formal sections. From the casual section, she chose a white T-shirt and a pair of black mid-length shorts. She looked over at the man beside her, who said calmly, “Those shorts should be unworn.”
“Oh, okay.” Gu Xi gave an awkward smile, put down the T-shirt, and picked another one.
This time, the man nodded.
She took the clothes and left. Bai Shulin closed the door and returned to the bathroom to dry his hair. The movements of the man in the mirror gradually slowed. Locking eyes with his reflection, his calm, indifferent gaze slowly became tinged with a hint of desire.
He recalled the moment he had opened the door earlier—the way the girl’s eyes had looked at his body with a trace of longing. It was utterly captivating. He closed his eyes, trying to suppress the restless private desires stirring within him.
But then his mind conjured the image of her slender fingers gliding one by one over the clothes he had worn—the phantom touch almost as if landing on his own body.
Something seemed to have changed somewhere along the way.
He tossed aside the towel and composed himself with cold restraint. He didn’t want to admit that he had developed different feelings for her.
But as he met his own restrained gaze in the mirror, there was a moment of defeat.
Gu Xi returned to her room and changed into the clothes. They were much too big on her—the white T-shirt hung down past her hips like a dress. Still, it was far more comfortable than wearing damp clothes.
That night, for the first time in a while, Gu Xi slept soundly. The room was warm, the bedding was soft, and there wasn’t a single disruptive noise all night. She woke up still wrapped in a deep sense of contentment.
So, Gu Xi decided to be shameless and stay at Lan Garden for the next few days. After her morning internship, she went back to school, packed up her laptop and a few changes of clothes, and took them with her.
That evening, Bai Shulin came home to find the living room lights on. He had returned quite late tonight; by this time, Aunt Zhao would usually be asleep.
Back when Bai Yuzhou used to live here, Bai Shulin hadn’t come back often—he didn’t like being disturbed. Now, however, he found himself coming home every day. Deep down, he was a sentimental person. This was the first house he had ever bought, after all—it held a certain significance.
Even with the housekeeper—talkative, lazy, and sometimes prone to taking small advantages—he had never thought of replacing her.
The sound of him opening the door caught Aunt Zhao’s attention in the dining room. She put down what she was doing and came out to see. Meeting her boss’s calm
expression, she tried to act composed. “Are you hungry? Would you like me to make you a late-night snack to take upstairs?”
Bai Shulin said flatly, “No need.”
His eyes fell on her flour-dusted fingers. “What are you making?”