Bird's-eye view Lin Tianxiong: A mask is ultimately just a mask, what do you say, Dean Chen

On the plane.

“Why hasn’t he replied to my messages yet?” Tang Yuyao furrowed her willow brows as she stared at the enormous stretch of green chat bubbles on her phone, every single one marked unread.

It had been nearly two days since she had messaged Ye Cheng. Ever since the game suddenly disconnected yesterday, Ye Cheng had seemed to vanish off the face of the earth.

But… how was that possible?

“Ah, he’s probably being kept under control by Zhixia and the other one again, right?”

Tang Yuyao muttered to herself, answering her own question. After taking one last look at her phone, she sighed and put it away.

She closed her eyes, preparing to rest for a while. It would be several hours before they arrived, and then she would have to transfer to another vehicle and have the people from her second brother’s side come pick her up…

Tang Yuyao thought through the itinerary ahead of her and closed her eyes, ready to sleep. Out of the corner of her eye, however, she suddenly noticed a miserable little fatty sitting beside her.

The whole world has abandoned me. Let them mock me as they will…

The youngest boy looked utterly defeated, radiating negative energy from every pore. He leaned against the airplane window, the flesh on his cheeks squished flat against the glass, distorting and re-distorting until it looked oddly bouncy.

Tang Yuyao: “…”

Was it really necessary?

Tang Yuyao was speechless. Were children these days really so mentally fragile? A few words and they fell apart?

Well, it was probably because they had it too easy. When she was little, she had watched her fourth brother get hung up and beaten without making a peep…

Whether he had actually been knocked unconscious was beside the point.

The important thing was that he hadn’t made a sound!

“Ahem, Xiaobao, you know your auntie didn’t mean it that way. I was just talking with a friend about work. It was something important, so I was a little irritated.”

Tang Yuyao coughed twice and began explaining with a perfectly serious expression.

He was her nephew, after all. She couldn’t just bully him mercilessly because he was little, could she?

She wasn’t that heartless of an auntie…

But apologizing was out of the question. At most, she could give him an opportunity to back down gracefully. If the little fatty refused to take it, then he couldn’t blame her.

She would simply have to take advantage of her seniority and bully him!

After speaking, Tang Yuyao stretched her neck and leaned over the window in the direction Xiaobao had pointed earlier. Before she could even get a clear look, the words had already left her mouth.

“Wow, you’re right! Xiaobao, you’re amazing! Your eyesight is so good. There are so many people down there, and so many cars too…”

Xiaobao: “…”

Auntie, do you have any idea how fake you sound?

Do you really think I’m still three years old?

He was already five—a mature senior kindergarten student who was about to become an elementary schooler. He was no longer a little child. Those words…

They were a blatant insult to his intelligence!

But after imagining his auntie flying into a rage and beating him into a gummy candy once he exposed her hypocrisy, Xiaobao silently abandoned the idea of saying anything.

Besides, there was an old saying: a gentleman is judged by his actions, not his intentions. His auntie wasn’t a gentleman, so there was no need to judge her by either her actions or her intentions.

Yes… That was perfectly reasonable.

Having already experienced the harsh beatings of society, Xiaobao had learned the principles of moderation and the rules of survival at home despite his young age. At present, he was at the very bottom of the household food chain.

Anyone could step on him a couple of times.

Above him was a hot-tempered mother; below him were his exploitative older brothers and sisters; and every now and then, his evil little auntie would respawn.

Life was truly too difficult. If things continued like this, he would leave home sooner or later.

Sigh…

“Hm? Why are there so many people?” Tang Yuyao had only intended to put on an act, pacify Xiaobao, and then sit back down to continue sleeping.

But then she suddenly noticed that, below the plane, everything was shrouded in darkness except for one brightly lit area. It looked like… an orphanage?

The structure and the sign hanging above the orphanage both seemed familiar. The only problem was that the characters were too small to read. Tang Yuyao took out her phone and snapped a picture, then zoomed in again and again before finally making out the words.

It really was an orphanage—the Dahai City Welfare Institute?

The name sounded vaguely familiar.

As it happened, Tang Yuyao was the only person around Ye Cheng who had never investigated his background or identity. The two of them had ended up together purely by coincidence.

As for Ye Cheng’s identity and family background… Tang Yuyao didn’t care in the slightest. As long as he was hers, that was all that mattered.

The result was that Tang Yuyao knew almost nothing about him. Everyone else had already raced down the highway, while she was still here going, “Maka Paka.”

Why did the name Dahai City Welfare Institute sound familiar?

It wasn’t because of Ye Cheng. She had simply seen the name before among the donation projects at her fourth brother’s company.

Tang Yuyao had even gone there as a volunteer once…

That had been when she was young, during her first year at university. She hadn’t yet become the battle-hardened corporate wage slave she was today.

Back then, she had been full of enthusiasm for all sorts of things and willing to devote her energy and genuine sincerity to them!

But that was then. Now, she was nothing more than a salted fish. Her enthusiasm… had long since vanished, and as for her energy, there wasn’t even any left to talk about.

Sincerity? She could shove that where the sun didn’t shine. The things she hated most were going to work and doing work.

If she had the choice, she would happily remain a salted fish for the rest of her life and lie around forever. Her material desires were modest, and she had plenty of savings. It was more than enough.

“Dahai City Welfare Institute? Xiaobao, does that name sound familiar to you?” Tang Yuyao asked, frowning.

Before Xiaobao could answer, she began rapidly snapping pictures of the orphanage below as it receded into the distance. It would soon disappear from view. They had only recently taken off, after all.

They were still in the troposphere.

In a little while, they would enter the stratosphere, and then she wouldn’t be able to see anything anymore. She was simply curious why so many people had gathered at an orphanage in the middle of the night.

“Dahai City Welfare Institute? Let me think…” Xiaobao rubbed his smooth, double chin and put on a thoughtful expression. “I think I’ve heard of it. Dad seems to like donating to welfare institutes like that whenever he has nothing better to do.”

Speaking of which, Xiaobao quite liked visiting welfare institutes. No matter what he did there, neither his dad nor his mom would get angry. The food was pretty good too, and on the way home, they would even praise him for being such a sensible child.

Yes… He loved welfare institutes most of all. The children there were all incredibly talented, and every one of them was so pleasant to talk to.

Wait…

There was one welfare institute that wasn’t very good. The food there was lousy, and the children all looked kind of ugly…

He had even been frightened into tears there once…

No, that wasn’t right. It was just that his tears had been unusually rebellious, and his nerves had automatically elbowed his tear glands, causing him to display the fragile side of a “real man.”

He absolutely had not been scared into crying.

Absolutely not!

It had happened one or two years ago. How old had Xiaobao been back then?

A little over three, probably. He had still been wearing split-crotch pants…

And the reason for that was because he was too fat. Normal pants were too hot, while split-crotch pants were much cooler and more comfortable!

Did anyone really expect a three-year-old to have a good memory?

Come on, you’re being really mean…

Those bizarre, uncanny "little wonders" at the orphanage were far too shocking for the little boy back then, leaving a huge psychological and physical impact on his young self that he still remembers vividly to this day. Now that Tang Yuyao mentioned it, those long-dormant memories came flooding back all at once... Dude, that was totally wild!

"Anything else?" Tang Yuyao asked without looking up, her eyes still fixed on the photos on her phone.

The little boy nodded. "Sure there is. Some of the guys there looked just like Teletubbies. Good thing I was brave — any other kid would've been scared to tears..."

He was talking big without any real sense of how tough the situation was, a hint of pride lacing his tone... after all, as the saying goes, little kids don't have "waists" (they can't get tired from standing for too long, so he had no right to act like he was overexerting himself).

"Teletubbies?" The familiar phrase made Tang Yuyao think of Ye Cheng again. For all these years, the only two people she'd ever heard use that term were Ye Cheng and this little boy right in front of her... It stirred up a whole wave of old memories and tangled feelings she'd been trying to ignore.

Tang Yuyao's mood soured instantly. She backed out of the photo album, opened WeChat, and checked her chat status with Ye Cheng. Even though her phone hadn't made a single notification sound, and the outcome was already obvious, she was still clinging to a sliver of hope, telling herself he must have boarded the plane already and the bad signal was just stopping his messages from coming through.

This little bit of self-deception and wishful thinking lasted right up until she pulled up WeChat, only to be greeted by a long string of her own sent messages, all still marked "unread"... That was the final straw.

Tang Yuyao's anger meter shot straight up to +999... Why are there still no replies? Stupid phone!!!

Her grip on the phone tightened so hard her knuckles turned white, like she was about to crush the device right in her hand. Little did she know that her furious, random tapping accidentally pulled up the photo she'd just taken, and then... she zoomed in, zoomed in even more, zoomed all the way in.

The frame finally settled on the President, who was standing there with his arms crossed, a deep scowl plastered all over his face.

The little boy just stood there, speechless...

Watching his cousin look like she was about to blow up again, the little boy quietly closed his eyes, deciding he'd just take a nap to avoid the crossfire.

Oh right, there were two reasons the little boy tagged along on this trip to the Northwestern region of China. First, he was supposed to act as an informant for Tang Shouye, reporting back on how things were going. Second, he was basically brought along like a cute little pet to keep Tang Yuyao company and help her beat the boredom.

After all... the Northwestern region was really, really desolate. Even with all the massive government support and environmental improvements, the harsh natural climate still meant there were very few people scattered across the vast landscape.

For someone as pampered and privileged as Tang Yuyao, this trip was way more than just a little hardship. Tang's Mother felt so bad for her that the two of them cooked up a plan together, and decided to send the little boy along with her.

Sounds pretty selfish, right?

The little boy was over the moon. Because that meant he could play on his phone nonstop!

Yep, he'd finally gotten his phone back, no more restrictions, and he didn't even have to worry about his mom yelling at him for it — his grandma would have his back no matter what.

Hell yeah, this was the life!

"Cousin?" The little boy was just about to drift off to sleep when he spotted the heavily zoomed-in President on Tang Yuyao's phone screen.

Even with the high pixel level stretching the President's features out so much they were almost unrecognizable, the little boy still knew exactly who it was. Don't ask how — he just had a feeling!

"Cousin? What cousin?" Tang Yuyao blinked in confusion, following the little boy's line of sight before picking up her own phone to take a closer look.

She squinted and studied the blurry image for a minute...

Tang Yuyao: ???

Dongfang Zhixia?

Something suddenly clicked in her head. Tang Yuyao frantically dragged the zoomed photo around, searching for something. It didn't take long before another familiar blurry figure popped into view — the eldest young lady, right behind her was Sister Lin...

Tang Yuyao: ???

She jolted upright so fast her whole face pressed up against the plane window, her eyes glued to the rear view of the orphanage they'd just flown past.

Even though they were already so far away it looked like nothing more than a tiny little dot, it stood out so sharply against the pitch-black, empty landscape around it.

Tang Yuyao's eyes were almost popping out of her head. "Why are the three of them together?!"

Meanwhile, completely ignored, the little boy had been squished up against the wall like a folded phone, too scared to say a word even though he was totally uncomfortable...

Little boy: Someone please send my peanuts my regards...

Rumble——

Whoosh——

The plane kept moving, heading straight for the Northwestern region. In less than a few minutes, it had completely left the boundaries of Dahai City behind.

The camera slowly pulled back, showing the plane getting smaller and smaller in the distance.

Finally, the frame settled on that single tiny "bright spot" glowing alone in the middle of the endless dark world...

Dahai City Orphanage, second floor, the director's office.

"Director Chen, we've known each other for almost six years now, right?" Lin Tianxiong lit a cigarette, held it between his lips, and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

The office was dimly lit. The only light on was that faint, yellowed incandescent lamp sitting on Chen Youliang's desk. In its glow, you could make out that Lin Tianxiong wasn't his usual gentle self — his expression was deep, sharp, and laced with hidden malice.

There were only the two of them in the room.

"That's right, Boss Lin, it's been almost six years. Back then, that girl Bai Zhi..." Chen Youliang put on his usual warm, kind old man smile and spoke, acting like the bruises on his face and everything that had just happened earlier didn't exist at all.

Lin Tianxiong didn't say a word, just sat there quietly watching Chen Youliang put on his little performance.

After a while, his cigarette burned down to the filter. Lin Tianxiong finally spoke, cutting the other man off mid-sentence.

"Director Chen, you've been wearing that mask for so long you've forgotten who you really are, haven't you?"

His voice was completely calm, but Chen Youliang felt like he'd just been struck by lightning. His pupils constricted sharply, and he stared at Lin Tianxiong in total, utter disbelief.