Chapter 154: The Meeting Part 1

The CEO’s office was vast, housing a lounge with amenities as comprehensive as a Presidential Suite.

Under normal circumstances, Shen Yi loathed being disturbed while working. To maintain her figure, she rarely ate dinner unless it was for business. So, when the Head Secretary led the staff from the Catering Department to deliver the pre-ordered dishes, everyone couldn’t help but wonder: Who on earth is CEO Shen hosting?

The meal followed the CEO’s usual preference for light flavors, but there was a specific instruction: no ginger. Moreover, many of the dishes were clearly on the sweeter side, and a specialized dessert had even been prepared. This didn’t look like a business arrangement; it looked like… someone was trying to coax a smile out of a lover.

Xu Yinian was inevitably seen. Although she knew no one would dare label her as Shen Yi’s mistress to her face, the words the woman had just uttered—”Madam Shen” and “like you’re underage”—still echoed in her mind. The shame was a hundredfold; she didn’t feel better at all. Feeling the weight of their startled, speculating gazes, Yinian kept her head down, sitting in agonizing restlessness.

Shen Yi was used to being served and cared little for others, but seeing Yinian so flustered by mere catering staff made her eyes narrow. She swept a chilling, displeased glance across the room. The staff members who had lost their composure and tried to steal a peek felt a sudden shiver. None of them dared to cast another look at the delicate girl.

Secretary Zhou was the one who knew best what state this office—and that Little Ancestor—had been in before he left. Now, he looked at his boss’s usually meticulous desk. The Little Ancestor’s books had been swept aside to make room for a single person, several volumes stacked haphazardly.

Multimillion-dollar contracts and documents were scattered across the surface, the paper marked with telltale creases that screamed of intimacy, mingled with a faint, lingering dampness. It wasn’t hard to imagine the intensity of what had happened when she was pressed against and held upon that very desk.

Since his boss had said not to bother with it, Secretary Zhou naturally wouldn’t touch anything. Furthermore, knowing the value of those contracts the Little Ancestor had crumpled so carelessly, even a single touch made his heart skip a beat. Who else but CEO Shen would dare handle such a mess?

When he looked back at the Little Ancestor herself, her hair tie had been removed by someone. Under the messy, fragile strands of hair falling over her shoulders, there were vivid marks—evidence of having been loved and watered. She looked so radiant it was as if she had just been fished out of a pool.

If it weren’t for that unforgettable, captivating aura, how could those people have been so bewitched as to spy on her privacy right in front of the Sharp Woman’s overwhelming presence?

After that fleeting glance, Secretary Zhou quickly averted his eyes, only to be struck by another sight: his boss’s wrist now bore that familiar blue and white accessory.

Well, well… so that’s how you play with a custom-made hair tie!

He knew Xu Yinian’s personality all too well; there was no way in hell the Little Ancestor had put that on her! But the outsiders didn’t know that. This subtle declaration of sovereignty was more intimate and suggestive than any public announcement. As expected of his boss’s methods…

The two of them ate in silence. Yinian, far too dull to notice the effort put into the meal, ate slowly.

Since childhood, Xu Yihe had forbidden Yinian from eating any junk food and rarely allowed her to eat out. Yinian was so well-behaved that she would eat whatever was given to her, with the sole exception of ginger—which caused a physiological reaction involving red eyes, tears, and sneezing.

However, the consequence of being habituated to her mother piling food into her bowl like a mountain was that she didn’t know how to take food for herself. She often just ate plain rice, her appetite no larger than a kitten’s. Without someone to guide her, she was visibly wasting away.

It hadn’t been obvious initially because of the thick winter clothes. But after just being touched and held, Shen Yi had keenly felt the difference. Compared to the soft, pliant feeling of holding her at the banquet, she felt as thin as a sheet of paper now, as if she might disappear. Her bones had pressed against the books earlier; no wonder it had hurt.

It was finals week, and Shen Yi knew that when Yinian focused on her studies, she neglected herself. She didn’t attribute it to the girl being away from the Bai family’s youngest daughter or her own daughter. How could she know that beneath that submissive, quiet exterior, Yinian had been living with both of them alternately, kept well-fed day and night?

Shen Yi was a woman who prioritized profit and was accustomed to being served. The time she would spend cooking was better used on work; every second was a unit of efficiency. She didn’t pay attention to such “wasteful” trifles. Naturally, she didn’t know that since her daughter returned from Yuanwu, the girl often cooked for herself.

Xu Yinian wasn’t used to outside food. Beneath her lack of preferences and easy-to-please nature was a simple truth: if it wasn’t made by that person, everything else was just a compromise. No matter how expensive the delicacies, they couldn’t compare to something Xu Yihe made by hand. Taking Yinian to a pricey restaurant wouldn’t win her over in the slightest.

Xu Yihe’s care for Yinian was an extreme that had seeped into her very marrow. To leave a mark of “kindness” in the heart of a girl who had curled up in her own world was no easy task.

Shen Yi’s elegant voice was calm, yet an unspoken, stifling control began to spread. “Do you not know how to eat unless I feed you?”

Recalling the last time she had been held in the woman’s lap and forcibly fed cake, a deep crimson quickly flooded Yinian’s cheeks. Fearing the woman would actually follow through on her words, Yinian hurriedly took a few bites of the side dishes.

Sure enough, the meal meticulously prepared to suit her tastes was like casting pearls before swine. For Shen Yi, feeding Yinian with chopsticks was clearly unnecessary. If the girl wasn’t obedient, she wouldn’t mind holding her and feeding her a few more times.

Ideally, she wanted to breed the same “habit” in her.

A dark glint swirled in Shen Yi’s eyes. Under the double standard of habit, Yinian had thought it perfectly normal for her mother to dress her and comb her hair until high school. Yet, being fed by someone else made her feel as though she were drowning in shame. Both were forms of being cared for and controlled to an extreme degree; what was the fundamental difference?

Shen Yi knew who this would make the girl think of, yet when she spoke again, she wantonly encroached upon the privilege of caring about her grades: “You came here after your exam? How did it go?”

Yinian dazed for a moment. Her mother had always been strict regarding her grades. One could see glimpses of it in their standoff over the Major Transfer and the way she was repeatedly called to the board in the Competition Class.

But clearly, as dull as the girl was, many things could not be judged solely by her perspective. Xu Yihe knew better than anyone that her daughter couldn’t keep up with the pace. Furthermore, once in high school, every moment of self-study and every weekend was occupied by homework, making private tutoring unrealistic. This was why many students who maintained good grades through after-school tutoring in primary and middle school found themselves struggling in high school.

Calling her to the board in the Competition Class was so Xu Yihe could clearly see every step and every mistake her daughter made; even the explanations were tailored solely for her. Given that the mother-daughter relationship and Yinian’s forced entry into the Competition Class had already caused resentment among others, if she hadn’t hidden her favoritism this way—even going as far as to give her daughter “punishments” like cleaning the classroom or checking the windows and doors—Yinian would have been bullied even more severely.