“Your presence gives me life, I love you and say it every day, thank you for appearing in my world…”
Zhu Ling leaned against the elevator door, chewing gummy candies with a crunch, humming some nonsensical tune she’d picked up from who knows where, while looking down at her phone to text her boyfriend. A few seconds later, the elevator stopped at the floor she’d pressed—the 22nd floor. She wandered around the hallway and found that this floor housed only one company, some podcast art studio, and not the tattoo art studio she was supposed to go to.
To be safe, she went ahead and asked the receptionist at the podcast art studio, who said, “Everything above the sixth floor in this building is office space. There’s no way a tattoo shop would be here.”
So she called her friend to ask. Her friend, knowing she was directionally challenged, asked first thing, “Look at the address again carefully—did you go to the wrong place?”
She opened the address for the tattoo studio and looked closely—sure enough, the mall had two towers, and the tattoo art studio was in the adjacent Tower Two. She’d mistakenly entered Tower One, seen the word “art studio” on the directory board in the lobby, and without looking closely, taken the elevator up to this floor—completely unrelated to where she needed to be.
Her friend said, “Why don’t you just cancel? I’ll come pick you up in half an hour, and we can go shopping and play billiards tonight. I just finished discussing my design with the tattoo artist—we can go together tomorrow.”
She said okay and hung up. With half an hour to spare, standing at the entrance on the first floor would be a waste of time and hard on her legs. She happened to spot a restroom sign above and decided to touch up her makeup and have a cigarette before leaving. Just as she was about to go, she suddenly noticed a few people who looked like assistants bustling past with a slick-haired, flashy-looking man. From the back, he looked a bit like a male celebrity she really liked.
Zhu Ling was very interested in that male celebrity, but wasn’t sure if it was him, so she asked the receptionist, “Excuse me, who was that person who just passed by?”
This receptionist had already been staring at her for a while—probably taken aback by the young girl’s edgy outfit. Extremely long legs, an ultra-short pleated skirt, and minus the thickness of her shoe soles, she was a good 1.7 meters tall barefoot. Long legs, slim waist, perfect proportions—unfortunately, her makeup was way too heavy. Her face was powdered ghost-white, two smudges of black eyeshadow made her look like a panda, and the fake eyelashes were even more exaggerated—who knows how many layers she’d stacked, covering her eyes almost completely. Add to that a messy mop of brown hair cascading over her shoulders, and long and short cross necklaces hanging from her wrists and neck. It was unreal—she looked like a dark-style delinquent girl straight out of an anime.
The receptionist stared at her outfit and makeup—simultaneously edgy, gloomy, and flashy—with her mouth open, quite shocked, while thinking to herself that if she put on that much foundation and that heavy makeup, she’d have creases everywhere by the end of the day. Youth, after all—young skin can take the abuse.
Seeing the receptionist frozen, Zhu Ling asked again, and only then did the receptionist snap out of it. She turned to look behind her and said, “I didn’t see anyone. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Zhu Ling wasn’t ready to give up and looked again. Every room in the studio was brightly lit, with staff moving around, all in a flurry of activity. She pointed to a recording studio where the suspected celebrity had entered, named him, and asked if he was inside doing a show.
The receptionist turned to look in the direction she pointed and said, “That room? I think they’re interviewing a young entrepreneur.” She paused for a moment, then spoke again with a slightly proud expression and a somewhat reserved tone, “Also a scion of a wealthy family.”
It wasn’t the male celebrity she liked, so Zhu Ling was a bit disappointed. She then asked the receptionist, “Could I use your restroom?”
She was a random passerby who’d wandered in by mistake, and her outfit was truly outlandish—she didn’t look like a proper person at all. The receptionist could have refused her, but her tone of voice was gentle and soft, her voice sweet and pleasant—a stark contrast to her appearance. The receptionist was stunned both by the look and the voice, and in that brief moment of hesitation, she missed her chance to refuse. Though somewhat reluctant, she still pointed her toward the restroom and said, “It’s fine, go ahead.”
Before heading to the restroom, Zhu Ling turned back to glance at the recording studio once more, hoping her favorite male celebrity was sitting in there. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.
Inside that recording studio, a talk show about “the conflict between family duty and personal ideals” was halfway through.
Daniel, the investor of this podcast studio, had set up a show where he’d occasionally invite friends over to chat. The topics were all over the place—the whole point was just shooting the breeze. Today, he’d invited his college friend—the wealthy scion the receptionist had mentioned—Huo Shize.
Daniel and Huo Shize had been close friends during their school days, sharing everything with each other without reservation. Recently, Daniel learned that Huo Shize was about to take over one of his family’s five-star hotels and assume the role of hotel GM. He also knew that Huo Shize’s true passion was Taekwondo, so he invited him to be the guest on this episode, with the theme set as “The Conflict Between Family Duty and Personal Aspirations.” Besides the two of them, the talk show also featured a female host. This was the first time Huo Shize had met the host, but her focused gaze, well-timed responses, and impressive ability to pick up and continue the conversation made the entire discussion flow smoothly.
When the female host asked about his educational background, Huo Shize replied, “Elementary school in China, middle and high school in Singapore, and then I went to the United States for my undergraduate degree—I attended UPenn.”
The female host asked, “But I heard you returned to China about two or three years ago, yet you didn’t immediately join the family business. Instead, you opened a Taekwondo dojo, and during the early days, you even served as an instructor yourself?”
Huo Shize said, “I didn’t follow what my family expected—I didn’t immediately step into a management role in the family business, going to the office every day for a regular nine-to-five. It might sound like I was being irresponsible or unfocused, but I felt I needed some space. I needed to do this.”
Daniel looked at his expression and couldn’t help but laugh. “Speaking of that, it reminds me of a regret he had back in high school.”
The female host asked, “What was that?”
Daniel said, “Back in high school, he had originally planned to compete in a WT Youth Division Taekwondo tournament, but in the end, he couldn’t go because he had to prepare for an important exam.”
Huo Shize let out an “mm” and said, “That tournament would have taken about a week, and it conflicted with a major exam I had. After thinking it over carefully, I gave up the competition for the sake of the exam. Then, a few years later during college, I had a conversation with a philosophy professor I really admired about his views on life. I remember he said something: ‘All the brilliance in a person’s life exists outside their comfort zone.’ That statement made me start reflecting on myself, and it also caused me a period of pain.”
The female host picked up the thread: “That pain came from the fact that you didn’t take action back then?”
“Yes. Later, I thought to myself—what would have happened if I had taken a week off to go compete? I might have been scolded by my teachers, disappointed my family, and my exam scores might have suffered a bit. But so what? At the time, though, I was trapped by my own sense of responsibility. And now, if I had immediately taken over the family business after graduating, I would have had a high salary at a young age and a very comfortable life. But I didn’t do that.”
The female host nodded. “I can understand. You did that to step out of your comfort zone. But eventually, you’ll still have to return to and manage your family business—you’ll still have to go back to that office routine, right?”
He paused for a brief second before saying, “I’ll work hard to find a balance between the two.”
A few more questions followed about family duty and future life plans, and once that somewhat heavier topic came to an end, the female host shifted gears with a smile. “A guy like you must have been very popular with girls since you were young. In my impression, Taekwondo is a sport that girls really like.”
He smiled too and answered honestly, “I started practicing Taekwondo in middle school, and after that, I did indeed become quite popular with girls.”
He was already handsome enough as it was, and when he smiled, the female host, caught off guard, felt her heart give a little thump—it stirred. She had thought he was incredibly handsome from the very first moment she laid eyes on him, and his aura was truly one of a kind. Because of her work, she frequently dealt with all kinds of male celebrities. Having seen so many of them, most were just so-so. Their heavily made-up faces often couldn’t withstand her professional scrutiny—truly handsome ones were rare. But this Mr. Huo in front of her was something special. After a whole evening of close observation, he still held his charm and remained strikingly handsome.
Through her professional eye, she noted that his fair skin was one thing, but the key was his excellent nose—high and straight, a standard European nose shape. This kind of prominent bridge on an Asian face, combined with his deep, defined eyes, was what created his unique aura and captivating good looks. Before confirming him as a guest, she had done her homework. She’d looked him up online and found footage of his signature move from competitions—a triple flying kick in midair. Whether it was his tall, upright posture in his dobok with a black belt, or the powerful, explosive flying kick itself, everything about it was impossibly cool and unfairly handsome.
The female host snapped back to the present and continued the conversation. “Then let’s move on to talk about your personal love life. There’s been outside speculation that you recently became single again—is that true?”
Daniel studied Huo Shize’s face for a moment, recalling how their friends used to tease him: “Tear troughs under the eyes, peach blossom lines at the corners—definitely a player at heart.”
The female host smiled knowingly at that. In the two-plus years since he’d returned to China, there had been three or four rumored relationships circulating online, and recently it seemed he was in the middle of a messy breakup with a socialite model.
Just as Huo Shize was about to rebut Daniel’s claim that a person with eye-tail blossoms is bound to be a flirt, the phone in his jacket pocket vibrated. He initially intended to ignore it, but the caller was exceptionally persistent, with an attitude of calling until the end of time if he didn’t pick up. Although it was set to silent, the buzzing vibration startled the female host sitting nearby, and she asked with her eyes whether he needed a few minutes to step out and take the call.
He didn’t need to look to know who the nuisance caller was—they had already called several times during the day, and he had ignored them all. In the afternoon, they had quieted down for a few hours, and he thought the other party had exhausted their energy and given up hope, but it turned out they were just recharging their strength. He quickly powered off the phone, tossed it aside, and signaled the female host to continue.
The female host asked, “Do you have any specific plans for your marriage? For example, have you ever thought about roughly what age you might get married and have children?”
“I have no plans in that regard at all.”
The female host smiled and asked why, since at 27, it was about time to put marriage plans on the life checklist.
Huo Shize thought seriously for a moment, then said, “Love is a very complex thing. Between two people, there must be a unique, stunning, harmonious resonance of souls, even a fusion of bodies, to be called love. I don’t know when I’ll encounter such love, so I can’t precisely plan my marriage.”
The female host had seen a claim online before that the Huo family should also be quite worried, and that barring any surprises, he would likely find it hard to walk into the marriage hall before thirty. This wasn’t because he couldn’t meet someone who made his heart flutter, nor because no one was drawn to him—the core reason was that his family had too high expectations for him, making it difficult to find someone who could gain the family’s approval.
Additionally, the internet also said that among his past rumored girlfriends, the one most likely to satisfy the Huo family was the only daughter of a major department store tycoon, who held a bachelor’s degree in education from a prestigious overseas university and ran an international kindergarten in Shanghai as its teaching director. She was low-key enough and full of passion, and reportedly the two families’ elders were also inclined to play matchmaker, but for unknown reasons, the two of them had always remained at the level of rumored couple.
The female host thought these online claims were quite reasonable, so she disagreed with his statement about marriage planning: “But I feel that for you, having just a flutter of the heart and love isn’t enough, because you also need to face attention and influence from your family, relatives and friends, and even society.”
Huo Shize crossed his arms over his chest, smiling without speaking.
Seeing that he wouldn’t answer directly, the female host smiled and asked instead, “We’re all very curious—what kind of girl do you like? Can you give us a hint?”
He thought of that stubborn, frantic phone call from a minute ago. He remembered that when this relationship first began, the other party had been a fairly straightforward and free-spirited girl, but as time went on, she couldn’t escape the common pattern—first testing, then overstepping boundaries, pestering him to produce various proofs of sincerity. All those methods of entanglement seemed to have graduated from the same romance training camp as his previous girlfriends. No matter their original temperaments or how things started, given enough time, they all ended up on the same path.
He had long passed the age of longing for and anticipating love, and was currently in a rather unpleasant breakup phase, with no interest at all in discussing his personal feelings. Still, he put on a thoughtful expression, then answered, “I prefer girls who are a bit like cats.”
Daniel kept two sensitive Siamese cats at home, serving them carefully every day and accommodating their every whim, so he asked in surprise, “You like girls with quirky tempers?”
The female host was also astonished: “You want someone to throw tantrums and toy with you!” Then she smiled and asked, “Do you have any more specific requirements?”
Huo Shize said, “If I have to be specific, I think it should be someone who occasionally shows affection but whose thoughts are hard to pin down.”
The female host laughed exaggeratedly: “God, you’re so hard to understand!” She glanced at his refined, handsome face and added, “I think you’ve just had things too easy, and you want someone to give you a hard time, right?”