Jiang Xiuzhen leaped up from the sofa and rushed toward the dining table, eager to settle scores, just as Yan Tuo was carefully examining the reddened claws of the little white dumpling.
Fortunately, they were indeed thicker than human skin—red, but not swollen. It was probably nothing serious.
Still, he couldn’t help the waves of heartache washing over him.
In years past, whenever this happened, he’d treated the visiting mother and son like a pair of performing monkeys. For his uncle’s sake, no matter how vicious their words, he’d let them roll off his back like so much hot air.
But today they’d gone after Bai Yiyi, and he simply couldn’t stomach it. One slap wasn’t nearly enough. He fixed the pair with a death glare as they geared up to throw a tantrum, his posture screaming that he was ready to swing again at any moment.
After nearly a decade in criminal investigation—armed with a gun, blood on his hands, lives risked against hardened criminals—that intimidating aura of his was more than enough to cow a pampered pair like Jiang Xiuzhen and her son.
Yan Tao clutched the side of his face, struggling to keep up appearances. “You… that’s assault! And you’re a cop? Breaking the law you swore to uphold—aggravated charges! I’m heading to get checked out right now. Just you wait for my lawyer’s letter!”
“Do whatever you want.”
Yan Tuo’s reply was ice-cold. Cradling the dumpling, he took two steps to the sofa and snatched up the latest limited-edition Hermès bag. With a straight-armed toss toward the front door, it hit the floor with a screech of metal fittings scraping against tile.
Jiang Xiuzhen let out a shriek. The terror on her face was even more profound than when she’d watched her son take the hit. She bolted out the door to rescue her poor, innocent purse.
Yan Tao’s eyes flicked over the sharply defined muscles of his cousin’s shoulders and back, then down to his own scrawny, poached-chicken arms. Discretion being the better part of valor—and civilized men not stooping to barbarians’ level—he spat a venomous “You just wait!” and chased after his mother.
Yan Tuo shut the door firmly and threw the deadbolt, muffling the shrew’s tirade from beyond.
He turned back with a gentle tone. “Still hurt? Let’s get some ointment on that.”
Bai Yiyi’s claws didn’t hurt. His face did.
He hurt for Ms. Yao Pei.
It turned out his mom had been venting that day about some freeloading deadbeat—and the man himself had been standing right there, hearing every word.
Talk about scolding someone to their face. And not one word had landed anywhere close to the truth—just a bunch of baseless busybody speculation.
He felt embarrassed now. “Yan Tuo, about my mom that day… don’t take it to heart. I know the kind of person you are.”
Yan Tuo let out a low chuckle. “Mm. As long as you know, that’s what matters. The rest? Who cares.”
The words carried a pointed edge, practically spelling it out. He was tempted to lay it all bare, to spill the joy bubbling inside him completely. But gazing down at the palm-sized little bird in his hands, he decided now wasn’t the moment.
Bai Yiyi spoke with utmost sincerity. “I still have to thank you. Ms. Yao Pei teased you pretty hard, but you didn’t hold it against her. You even stepped in to fix her work troubles. I…”
Yan Tuo ran his fingers along the dumpling’s wings, cutting off the formalities.
“Us two, trading thank-yous? Have you forgotten how much you’ve done for me? I couldn’t count it if I tried. Helping your aunt out? I’m thrilled just to do it.”
Petted and spoken to with such warmth, Bai Yiyi felt like he’d swallowed a miracle tonic. His spirits soared; even the scald on his claws faded to the back of his mind.
Someone else hadn’t forgotten, though.
Yan Tuo pulled out the tube of Purple Flower Ointment and carefully applied it to the reddened patches on the bird claws. Then he pulled out the old kid-coaxing trick, blowing gently on them with soft “whoos” and “hoos,” as if that alone could chase the pain away.
Such tenderness was the best medicine there was. It wasn’t just a minor scald—even if it had been a mangled limb, Bai Yiyi felt like he’d spring back to full health on the spot.
Deprived of their resident annoyances, man and pet finished their meal in peaceful quiet. Now and then, they’d glance silently at each other, a deep understanding passing between them wordlessly.
Two more hectic days slipped by. On the first day back at work after the long holiday, Yan Tuo carved out a few hours to head to the Zhizhen Building in the heart of the CBD for the annual shareholders’ meeting.
Bai Yiyi was curious, of course—but this was family business. He wasn’t sure whether to tag along or not.
Before he could decide, Yan Tuo—now dressed in a long-sleeved shirt—turned back from the doorway. “Come on. We don’t want to hit traffic and be late.”
Yan Tuo hadn’t picked up on his hesitation at all.
He was long since accustomed to the little white dumpling tagging along everywhere and hadn’t given it a second thought. Now, with certain ideas stirring in his heart, he was even less willing to part ways for half a moment. The thought of a boyfriend small enough to carry in his pocket? Utterly adorable—in the trendiest slang, an absolute showstopper.
They arrived at the building’s reception hall right on time. The front desk staff politely asked him to register his details.
He’d barely scrawled his name—no time for the phone number—when Executive Assistant Ren Yuankun strode up. “Little Director Yan! Director Yan’s waiting upstairs. This way.”
No one knew how word spread at lightspeed through a skyscraper like this, but by the time they reached the transfer floor and cut through a massive open office toward the executive elevator, heads were popping up from cubicles all around. Respectful smiles met them everywhere, cries of “Little Director Yan!” ringing out nonstop.
Under such a barrage of stares, Bai Yiyi half-wished he could whip out a QR code for payments, slap a hand-drawn sign next to it—”One yuan to glimpse Little Director Yan”—and watch the cash roll in.
The private elevator whisked them up another fifty floors to the chairman’s office suite.
With the assistant leading the way, they sailed through unimpeded, past several antechambers, and finally into the office itself. Bai Yiyi reined in his wild imagination and turned his attention to the man seated behind the massive executive desk.
Yan Zexing. Yan Bancheng.
Chairman and president of Zhizhen Group. His pet owner’s paternal cousin once removed.
The name evoked refined elegance, but the man himself was dark-skinned and burly as an old farmer.
Sensing their arrival, he set down his signing pen and looked up, his first words a grumble aimed at his nephew. “Why’d you go to the front desk? You’ve got your reserved spot in the garage—straight to the elevator from there.”
Yan Tuo grinned. “Haven’t been here in years. Forgot all about it.”
“You… Sigh. What am I going to do with you?”
The scolding words hovered on his lips before he swallowed them back. Yan Zexing sighed, at a loss with his bullheaded nephew. “Those two days—did Xiuzhen and Yan Tao come hassling you again?”
Yan Tuo dropped casually onto the nearest sofa, his fingers idly stroking the claw of the white dumpling perched on his right shoulder. “Happens every year. I’m used to it. No need to worry—just some trash talk. What can they actually do to me?”
Yan Zexing shot him a sidelong glance. “Worried about you? I’m worried about those two idiots. Push you too far, and with their scrawny builds? You’d pound them till their own ghosts wouldn’t recognize ’em.”
Yan Tuo blinked back with wide-eyed innocence. “Come on, that’s an exaggeration. I’m an officer of the law—no way I’d break it.”
He swiftly turned the tables. “Uncle, this is all on you. They only show up chasing the shares I’ve got. It’s not that I’m unwilling to hand them over—you’re the one who won’t take them! Leaving me to play the bad guy.”
That set Yan Zexing off.
“What did you promise me when you enrolled in the police academy? ‘I’ll climb to the city bureau, dig up the old case files, nail the real killer, then bow out and buckle down to take over the business.’ That was the deal. And now? Ten years in. Killer found? Ready to quit?”
Yan Tuo’s nose twitched inexplicably. He rubbed it and mustered a placating smile. “Making some progress. Real progress.”
Then he sighed, his expression sobering. “Uncle, no fooling you—I did think that way at first. But once you shoulder certain responsibilities, they’re not so easy to shrug off. I’m content with life as it is now. Time for you to start planning ahead.”
Yan Zexing looked stricken. His gaze drifted hazily toward his nephew on the sofa, brows knitting like some destitute tenant farmer from the old days, one short step from squatting down to wail in despair.
“Sigh. When I’m gone, how am I supposed to face your father?”
“What’s there to explain? Dad handed the company to you, and under your watch, it’s ballooned dozens of times over in just these ten-odd years. Yan Tao’s not entirely wrong sometimes—me sitting on the lion’s share all this time? Feels a bit like freeloading. Got a guilty conscience about it.”
“Guilty? If your dad hadn’t dragged me and those two fools out of the village, taught us the ropes of business and society from scratch, where would I be today? I took over smooth as silk because you were my ward.
Sure, I never cracked a book in school. But a real man repays his debts and stands for chivalry—that much I get. Wife and kid or no, even if the king himself showed up, what’s yours stays yours. No one takes it.”
Never cracked a book was pure self-deprecation on Yan Zexing’s part. One wall of his office groaned under the weight of a thousand volumes.
They were all wuxia classics—tales of the Seven Heroes and Five Righteousness, the Legend of the Condor Heroes. Martial legends and supernatural yarns were his jam. And here he was, dragging chivalric ideals into a family succession drama.
Yan Tuo couldn’t help but chuckle at the thick jianghu flavor of it all. He was genuinely baffled, too.
Every other bigwig was the shrewd, profit-driven elite type. But his wuxia-obsessed uncle? He ran his business and picked his friends putting righteousness first—and somehow stayed golden for over a decade, raking in fortunes. Talk about fate and personal quirks; the world’s full of wonders.
He just wondered how a man like that had produced such a pathetic excuse for a son.
To put it bluntly: probably took after the mother’s side.
Yan Tuo wrapped it up. “Anyway, I really can’t step in. If push comes to shove, groom a solid professional manager. And with your build? You could run this another twenty years easy. Bit early to worry, no?”
“Too early? How is it early? I’ll be 60 next year. At most I’ll work another 10 years until I’m 70—you still won’t let me retire peacefully? Are professional managers that easy to find? Someone good at scheming must have a very sharp mind too. In just three to five years, they’ll gut the company on you. Then you can explain it to your dad yourself—I’m not dealing with it.”
“Uncle, you’re perfectly fine—you could keep working till 80, you know. Look at Hawking: even though he was physically disabled, his will was unyielding; he lived to old age and worked to old age…”
Yan Zexing stared with bulging eyes, “You… you’re infuriating me to death, you unfilial son! I don’t care, I’ll give you at most another 5 years. You’re nearly 40 and probably can’t handle frontline work anymore. What’s the point of being a hands-off desk official? When the 5 years are up, you must come back to me, or else I… I’ll take out a newspaper ad cursing you! Can’t the People’s Government let people go home to be filial to their elders?”
That’s a dirty trick!
Yan Tuo immediately pictured it in his mind: streets full of all sorts of media, every one uniformly in big-character poster format: “Captain Yan, your eldest uncle is calling you home to inherit the family property.”
It’s over, the scene is simply unbearable to watch.
He was completely out of words and went silent from then on.
The uncle and nephew duo went at it in a fierce war of words, surprisingly over mutually shoving back and forth the life-and-death authority over a massive corporation with over ten thousand employees. Bai Yiyi, watching from the side, was utterly mesmerized—wasn’t it supposed to be Civet Cat for the Crown Prince? How did it turn into The Orphan of Zhao? Where’s the promised palace intrigue?
……The play is the wrong version; he wants a refund.
