Who Gets Hit First

The sun was quite strong today.

Little Darling was sweating profusely, her forehead glistening.

Lin Yu reached over, took the disposable wet wipe that Su Yuyao had prepared to wipe his sweat, and instead wiped it across Little Darling’s face.

But his movements were hardly gentle.

The soft wet wipe in his hand worked like a rag scrubbing a table, distorting Little Darling’s chubby little face as he rubbed.

Just as Little Darling was enduring her father’s torture— (scratch that) —

enjoying her father’s love—

the black luxury car they had arrived in appeared just in time to rescue her.

Lin Yu stopped tormenting Little Darling and instead picked her up, getting into the car with Su Yuyao. They followed their original plan to find that dessert shop.

It turned out that the dessert shop really was everywhere.

Before the car had even driven a kilometer, Lin Yu spotted a chain dessert shop by the roadside with the same name as the one in the plaza.

And no one was in line!

Lin Yu got out of the car with Little Darling in his arms, leading Su Yuyao and their daughter into the dessert shop.

Finding a spacious spot inside, Lin Yu handed Little Darling over to Su Yuyao.

He let her take care of feeding their daughter.

Lin Yu sat down across from the two, his gaze gently resting on Little Darling.

Little Darling now seemed no different from any other normal child.

She could cry loudly and laugh heartily.

She no longer gasped for air while crying, her little face turning purple like before.

When had all this change started?

Lin Yu remembered it clearly. It began the day Little Darling fell seriously ill and was rescued after emergency treatment.

Lin Yu recalled that on that day, he had been so anxious he had tripped and fallen.

He had tumbled from the fifth-floor staircase all the way down to the fourth floor, taking a pretty bad spill.

But after that day, Little Darling’s condition improved at a visible pace.

She gradually became healthier. Her cries grew stronger, piercing enough to seem like they could poke a hole in the sky.

Her energy also became abundant.

She turned into a real handful.

Of course, Lin Yu knew that Little Darling’s current changes had nothing to do with that fall he had taken.

Otherwise, he’d trip every single day if it meant keeping that intangible, untouchable fate from pushing him back onto the path the original owner was supposed to take.

He had thought a lot about that day while in the hospital.

After ruling out all other factors, Lin Yu found the only suspicious variables were that Super Part-timer and the small jade pendant that had broken into two pieces.

Realizing this, Lin Yu quickly sent people to retrieve the two broken jade pieces.

Luckily, the estate’s housekeeper was very professional.

Seeing the jade pieces of unknown value, she hadn’t thrown them away but had temporarily stored them, waiting for the estate’s owner to return and decide.

Unfortunately, after retrieving the two broken jade pieces, Lin Yu couldn’t find anything special about them.

He even had the jade pendant appraised. The appraiser took one look and said it wasn’t worth the effort.

The jade was an extremely cheap, low-quality type, worth even less than the appraisal fee.

And now it was broken.

Lin Yu didn’t give up. He tried to find clues from the pattern on the jade pendant.

But the jade pendant barely had any pattern—just a simple rectangular engraving around it.

It looked like a blank tile from a mahjong set.

Nothing useful came out of it.

As for that Super Part-timer, he was even more mysterious than the cheap jade pendant.

A year ago, Lin Yu had Qing Mo on one side and Zhao She on the other, mobilizing both the underworld and the legitimate world at full force—yet he couldn’t find any information about that person.

He couldn’t even get a clear picture of him.

Some people who had spent time with him, like the other bartenders and waitstaff at that bar, had only vague impressions of him.

If you asked them if they knew him, they’d say yes.

But if you pressed for details, they’d know nothing.

His name, home address, life story—all blank.

That Super Part-timer seemed to wear a mask, draped in a semi-invisible veil, living in the world like a thin mist that no one truly noticed.

The traces he left behind in this world were as faint and elusive as a wisp of fog.

Impossible to grasp.

“Pfft!”

The sudden sound snapped Lin Yu back to the present.

Looking up, he saw it was Little Darling.

The little one looked quite a mess.

Half of her chubby face was covered in sticky syrup, her new clothes were soaked in a large patch, and a few small, half-chewed pieces of black grass jelly stuck to her cheeks.

It looked like she had buried her face directly in the dessert bowl while eating.

Lin Yu guessed that the little glutton, while her mother wasn’t paying attention, had grabbed the bowl and tipped it straight into her mouth, choking herself in the process.

Su Yuyao was busy wiping Little Darling’s mouth and face.

Watching Little Darling with that greedy, disheveled look, Lin Yu’s lips curled into a faint smile. His mind wandered, thinking of his own parents.

He wondered if he had been as mischievous and troublesome as Little Darling when he was young.

If only they were here.

Then he’d know the answer.

Lin Yu’s eyes narrowed slightly at the corners.

The warmth in his gaze swept across the melancholy like a gentle breeze.

“Oh no,” Su Yuyao said.

“Little Darling has soaked her clothes.”

“There are no spare clothes in the car.”

She looked up at Lin Yu, silently seeking his opinion.

“Then let’s head home,” Lin Yu said.

“It’s crowded out today anyway.”

“We’ll come out again when there are fewer people.”

“Alright.”

Su Yuyao nodded, agreeing without hesitation.

She began gathering their things, preparing to leave.

Lin Yu sat quietly across from Su Yuyao and their daughter.

Su Yuyao would take a little longer to pack up, so he didn’t rush to stand.

Watching her methodically organize, and beside her, Little Darling—who had spilled her own dessert and was now slyly trying to sneak a sip from her mother’s bowl—

Lin Yu was suddenly struck by an overwhelming sense of happiness.

A stable life with these little interruptions.

It really was wonderful.

Lin Yu stood up, scooping up the now-dirty Little Darling. He walked toward the sunny outdoors with Su Yuyao, who had finished packing, by his side.

As for Xia Muzhu and Qing Mo’s baby-making plan, it had been restarted half a year ago.

So far, there had been no news from either of them.

Lin Yu wondered who would succeed first.

He murmured these thoughts to himself.