The two of them stayed quietly in the study for a while.
Mo Yuncheng continued to write with his brush while Bai Nanxing watched from the side, consistently maintaining a safe distance.
Perhaps because Bai Nanxing had been gone for too long and could not be found, his phone rang after about half an hour.
Bai Nanxing picked it up to look; it was a call from Bai Yi.
“I’m sorry, I need to go out to take a call.”
He then hurriedly ran out of the study.
Mo Yuncheng stopped writing as well and subsequently picked up his phone to call his assistant. “Come to the study area and take him back to the main hall. If Bai Yi makes things difficult for him, tell him it’s my instruction.”
After hanging up, Mo Yuncheng continued to complete the characters he hadn’t finished writing. By this time, Bai Nanxing had finished his call. When he walked back in, he didn’t know how to speak up; the man before him was Mo Yuncheng, after all. If the man became unhappy, Bai Nanxing estimated he might not even be able to leave today.
“Finished the call?”
He didn’t expect Mo Yuncheng to be the first to ask.
Bai Nanxing answered truthfully, “I’ve finished.”
“Was it Bai Yi calling?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say “father” but addressed him directly as Bai Yi; it seemed Mo Yuncheng didn’t hold the Bai family in any regard at all.
“What did he say to you on the phone?”
Bai Nanxing hesitated. Although he hated Bai Yi, if Bai Yi were to fall right now, his own situation wouldn’t be much better. He ultimately didn’t speak the truth about the call’s contents. “He didn’t say much, just that he was a bit anxious when he saw I was missing.”
Mo Yuncheng remained silent.
The air suddenly became very still.
Bai Nanxing feared this feeling most of all—the invisible pressure was incredibly suffocating, making even breathing difficult. The “kindness” from a moment ago truly felt like an illusion.
However, Mo Yuncheng slowly said, “You aren’t a three-year-old child who needs constant watching for fear of getting lost. You are an adult; what does he have to worry about?”
Bai Nanxing’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, but for some reason, it wasn’t out of fear this time. There was a strange, indescribable feeling mixed in. “For real parents, no matter how old a child is, they are always children in their eyes, aren’t they?”
Mo Yuncheng looked up at him and gave a rare smile. “You are right.”
This sentence was heartfelt, to the point that Bai Nanxing almost couldn’t believe his ears.
Naturally, Bai Yi wasn’t worried about him being lost; he was worried that if the boy went missing, Mo Yuncheng wouldn’t be able to find him and might think the Bai family was playing tricks on the Mo family. In a fit of rage, Mo Yuncheng could very likely bankrupt the Bai family.
For someone like Bai Yi, who was accustomed to a luxurious life, it was easy to go from rags to riches, but going from riches back to rags would be more painful than death.
Bai Nanxing really wanted to leave, but as long as Mo Yuncheng didn’t speak, he couldn’t go.
Just then, a man about the same age as Mo Yuncheng walked in from outside.
He first respectfully addressed Mo Yuncheng as “Lord Cheng,” and then spoke to the boy. “Young Master Nanxing, please come with me.”
Bai Nanxing didn’t dare move; he glanced at Mo Yuncheng.
Noticing his gaze, Mo Yuncheng set down his brush and waved his hand. “Go with him. I still have things to do; I’ll head over myself in a bit.”
Only after receiving Mo Yuncheng’s permission did Bai Nanxing dare to turn and follow the assistant.
Bai Nanxing remained silent along the way. The assistant, thinking he was frightened, comforted him: “Lord Cheng is a very good person. Young Master Nanxing, don’t listen to those rumors outside. If people haven’t done anything wrong, Lord Cheng won’t just move against them.”
Is he explaining this to me?
Though Bai Nanxing didn’t particularly want to know what kind of people these elite families were—and he had his own ways of hearing gossip—he was, after all, going to enter the Mo family’s door. He would eventually have to call Mo Yuncheng “Dad.” If he didn’t understand more, he wouldn’t even know how he ended up dead when the time came.
“Did they… do something bad?”
The assistant asked, “Do you remember that entertainment news story?”
Yan Mo had mentioned it to him, but Bai Nanxing didn’t pay much attention to the entertainment world himself, so he wasn’t clear on what exactly happened. “Sorry, I… don’t really follow that sort of thing.”
The assistant didn’t seem to mind and continued, “Back then, the Mo family invested in a play. Suitable actors had been selected in advance, and everything was ready. However, on the night of the opening ceremony, that kid from the Li family took a liking to the female lead and used means to ruin her. The girl just wanted justice. If that kid from the Li family had been sensible, he would have spent a few years in prison at most. But he just had to seek his own death. Lord Cheng couldn’t stand it and directly served the Li family a ‘deluxe package’.”
Bai Nanxing remembered Yan Mo saying that the family had gone bankrupt. The “deluxe package” the assistant mentioned likely referred to that.
Having a large family and business was certainly powerful.
No wonder Bai Yi was such a sycophant; who would refuse the chance to soar to the top of a branch and become a phoenix in one leap?
“So those people basically brought it on themselves.” The assistant suddenly stopped and turned around.
Bai Nanxing followed suit and stopped.
The assistant said, “I hope Young Master Nanxing can distinguish right from wrong and not be led astray by those with ulterior motives.”
Bai Nanxing didn’t understand why the assistant was telling him this. He hadn’t even married into the family yet—was there already this much trust?
But then again, with Mo Yuncheng there, unless one thought their life was too long, who would dare do anything?
Bai Nanxing gave a perfunctory reply: “I won’t, please rest assured.”
By the time they returned to the main hall, the seating area was almost full.
Bai Yi was sitting in a spot not far from the entrance, with Bai Ruoning beside him.
No wonder Mo Yuncheng had asked him that; it turned out he wasn’t the only “protagonist” today.
Bai Nanxing didn’t know where he was supposed to sit. His status was truly awkward. As a sacrificial lamb for a marriage alliance, his birth was “unpresentable,” yet if they were to expose it directly, the Mo family likely wouldn’t be happy. No matter where he stood, it felt inappropriate.
At that moment, Bai Yi saw Bai Nanxing. Likely because the boy had wandered off, Bai Yi’s expression showed suppressed anger. However, because they were currently at the Mo residence and he couldn’t lash out, he signaled Bai Ruoning with his eyes to go over.
But just as he started to approach, the assistant led Bai Nanxing toward a different seating area.
Bai Nanxing asked in confusion, “Shouldn’t I be sitting over there?”
The assistant explained, “Young Master Nanxing, I hope you remember one thing: in the future, you will be allied with the Mo family through marriage. You must adapt to your status in advance.”
Adapt to my status as a sacrificial lamb…
Never had Bai Nanxing felt as pathetic as he did at this moment, yet he still had to maintain his proper manners.
In the end, he chose to stay silent.
Mo Qingqing was also in that area. Seeing Mo Yuncheng’s assistant bringing Bai Nanxing over, she ran to meet them and grabbed Bai Nanxing’s hand, pulling him toward a seat.
“Little Sister-in-law, you sit here!” Mo Qingqing stood behind him, leaning on the back of the chair. “I went back to look for you earlier and found you weren’t there. I asked Big Brother and Third Brother, and they both said they didn’t know. So, Little Sister-in-law, where did you go by yourself just now?”
Bai Nanxing stammered, “I got lost just now and accidentally stumbled into Chairman Mo’s study.”
As soon as these words came out, not just Mo Qingqing, but also Mo Yichen and Mo Leyang nearby, all three wore identical expressions of disbelief.
Mo Qingqing asked, “Did my dad… do anything to you?”
Bai Nanxing could completely understand why she would ask. Mo Yuncheng’s tone at the time had indeed sounded terrifying. “No.”
“He didn’t do anything to you?”
“Then… what did you want him to do to me?”
The dialogue was so strange that Bai Nanxing soon heard laughter coming from Mo Leyang.
The laughter grew louder and louder.
Bai Nanxing was incredibly embarrassed but couldn’t talk back to Mo Leyang in person, so he had to pretend he couldn’t hear anything.
Just as he turned his head, Mo Qingqing said, “The study is a place my dad values very much. He doesn’t allow anyone to enter—not me, not Big Brother and the others, not even Mom. Once, a long time ago, I accidentally ran in there to play. When Dad found out, he made me kneel outside the study door for a whole day and scolded me for a long time. So, why didn’t he do that to you when you went in?”
Bai Nanxing was very confused himself. Mo Yuncheng’s attitude toward him had indeed been different, and even his initial gaze had been odd.
Could he really have taken a liking to me?
Though it felt shameless to think so, Bai Nanxing couldn’t find any other reason to explain Mo Yuncheng’s abnormal behavior.
The future father-in-law taking an interest in the future daughter-in-law—if that got out, it would be explosive news anywhere.
Bai Nanxing didn’t want to think in that direction, but Mo Qingqing’s words only reinforced the idea.
“Is it because… I am a guest?”
Mo Qingqing added, “If it were any other guest, if they dared to barge into the study, they might not be found in Yancheng by tomorrow.”
Bai Nanxing hadn’t realized the consequences were that severe. That made it even more inexplicable why Mo Yuncheng had let him go and hadn’t pursued the matter.
If things were truly as Mo Qingqing said, Mo Yuncheng should have buried him alive right there in the study, rather than specifically calling his personal assistant to escort him back.
Why would Mo Yuncheng do this?
Because of his status as the Mo family’s future daughter-in-law?
No, Mo Yuncheng clearly wasn’t that kind of person.
One could tell from those conversations that Mo Yuncheng had an unpredictable temperament; no one could see what he was truly thinking. His mind was terrifyingly deep.
He perfectly fit the image of an “Old Fox.”
But Bai Nanxing didn’t voice his inner thoughts. Instead, he pretended to understand nothing. “Then your dad… what does he mean? Is he… going to settle the score with me later?”
Mo Qingqing comforted him: “No, no. My dad usually beats people up on the spot. Since he didn’t make things difficult for you in the study, he definitely won’t in the future. Don’t worry, Little Sister-in-law.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bai Nanxing caught a glimpse of Mo Leyang, who was still laughing. It was obvious this man had been thinking the “wrong” thoughts from the very beginning.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t refute it here and could only let Mo Leyang keep laughing.