Nothing happened in the next few days following Yan Shuyu’s conversation with the boss, so she was all the more certain that they had agreed to an amicable split.

She was, naturally, quite happy about the outcome. She was confident that she and her instant son were now completely rid of the male lead and his dad and would be able to march toward their nice, new lives. She was dumbfounded when she suddenly received a call from the boss on Friday night.

That was right. Yan Shuyu, in addition to friending the boss on WeChat, had also exchanged her cellphone number with him. Except that she was a passive participant when that took place, so she had a hard time calling that an honor.

Looking at the call, Yan Shuyu told herself to remain calm. She had turned him down explicitly and the boss had accepted reality as well. There was no way the boss was the stalker type, so perhaps, he was calling her for some legitimate reasons. As much as that possibility was slim to nil, it wasn’t against the law for her to fantasize about it for a bit. After all, the boss already knew the building and unit that they lived in. Should he turn into a stalker, whether she picked up his call or not wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

That being said, after her experience of opening up to the boss, Yan Shuyu had seen a whole new side of him. The male lead’s father might seem like a very by the book kind of person, but there was certainly a wicked side of him. For example, she had looked for so many excuses earlier to turn him off, including but not limited to ruining her own image, and he knew from the very beginning that she was just making them all up to turn him away. Even so, he played along the entire time just to mess with her until she finally gave up and bluntly told him that she was no longer interested in him and did not want to pursue a relationship with him. He had accepted that calmly.

Perhaps that was just a common issue with those in leadership roles. They could toy around with others, but they wouldn’t allow others to do the same to them. That’s the stubbornness of a boss. And the biggest lesson that Yan Shuyu had learned from this incident was that truly to beat around the bush with the boss with her limited intelligence would simply never end well. She might as well just be open and honest from the very beginning.

After she was done preparing herself mentally, Yan Shuyu finally decided on avoiding it and bravely picked up the call before it stopped ringing. “Hello?”

To her surprise, it wasn’t the boss’s voice that came from the other end, but a familiar milky voice that said to her, “Hi, Aunty Yan.”

Oh, it was the little male lead. Yan Shuyu let out a sigh of relief right away and her tone became cheerful. “Oh hi. It’s you, little Zhou Yi.”

Yan Shuyu had always referred to the male lead as a little kid, even though the male lead and his dad had introduced them on the very first day. Yan Shuyu’s thought process was that she was just the cannon fodder stepmother, so she should know better than to refer to the male lead intimately and had always been politely distant with him. But now that the male lead had called her up, it wouldn’t be right for her to call him little kid anymore.

“Yeah, it’s me,” replied the little male lead seriously. “You can call me Xiao Yi, Aunty Yan.”

Yan Shuyu, being in a good mood, was very agreeable. “Okay, Xiao Yi. And why are you calling me?”

Zhou Yi didn’t respond to her question right away but properly exchanged pleasantries with her. “Have you had dinner yet, Aunty Yan?”

“Yes, I have.” Yan Shuyu was very cooperative when she wasn’t talking to the boss. “How about you?”

Normally speaking, Zhou Yi was just a 4-year-old child, so there must be an adult next to him. Plus, he was calling her from his father’s cellphone. Technically, Yan Shuyu should ask about his guardian just to be polite, but she didn’t want the boss to take over the phone, so she never brought up a word about him.

She may not have asked, but the little male lead, on the other hand, replied very properly, “My dad and I had steak and salad for dinner. What about you?”

“We had fried rice at Sunshine House.”

“Was it good?”

Yan Shuyu realized that the boss had no intention of taking over the phone, so feeling more relaxed, she smiled and said, “It wasn’t bad. You can come and try it next time too.”

“Okay, I will.” Zhou Yi seriously made a mental note before he brought up the real purpose of his call. “Aunty Yan, it’s the weekend tomorrow, will Yuanbao be at the shop?”

Yan Shuyu paused for a little after she heard that. Not so much from the little male lead’s question but his referring to her son by his nickname surprised her.

Her instant son used his nickname a lot, especially when he was around Yan Shuyu’s little buddies at work. Most of them had probably forgotten about his real name by now. She didn’t know when it started, but even Instructor Lin from his school started referring to him that way. When Yan Shuyu dropped her son off at school lately, she even heard some of the other kids referring to him as Yuanbao. Which was why she didn’t think too much when the boss also referred to him as Yuanbao just like everybody else. As the saying goes, devils are in the details. Naturally, the boss would notice something like that, for someone who had such attention to details.

But it completely caught her off guard that the male lead referred to his future cannon fodder stepbrother in such an intimate way. Her instant son would look up to the male lead’s father so much that after his mother married into the Zhou’s, he even voluntarily changed his name to Zhou Yuanjia. As such, there was no way he’d bring a childish name like “Yuanbao” into the male lead’s home. Even if he did, there was no way the male lead would refer to him as such. The two of them were doomed to be archnemesis.

Now that the male lead was so friendly toward her cannon fodder son, even to the point of using his nickname. Did that mean her son’s cannon fodder fate has officially started to be altered?

Yan Shuyu couldn’t read the boss, but she has some idea of the male lead’s personality. In the novel, it was said that the male lead was the distant CEO type who lacked love since childhood. The little male lead she has been in contact with was not yet withdrawn and has a lot of personality. It might not be easy to warm up to him, but judging from the way he was referring to her son, he had already officially accepted him as a friend and her son had also started his friendship with the male lead.

Once she got to this point of her thought process, Yan Shuyu became happy instantly. Even if she didn’t become his stepmother, her son being good friends with the male lead was a good thing too. The male lead has his male lead halo. It couldn’t go wrong being around him! She eagerly responded back to him, “Did you want to go play with Yuanbao-gege at Sunshine House? Tomorrow is not a good day. How about Sunday?”

The little male lead went silent for a little bit over the phone, as though he was pondering over it. Yan Shuyu had no choice but to wait for him patiently.

In reality, where she couldn’t see, Zhou Yi had moved the cellphone away from himself and turned and gave his father a troubled look. The father and son communicated for a bit with their eyes before he picked up the phone again. Using a serious but still very milky voice, he asked, “Does Yuanbao have plans tomorrow?”

As he was asking about Yuanbao and his voice was so harmless, Yan Shuyu didn’t even give it a second thought before she smiled and said, “Yes, he does. There are some activities at the musical institution tomorrow and we have already promised we will show up. So what say you two hang out on Sunday instead?”

Yan Shuyu was still working hard on nurturing the friendship between her son and the male lead when the caller on the other end had been switched. “Can we attend the activities tomorrow too?” Came Zhou Qinhe’s refined and cultured voice.

Yan Shuyu, who was completed blind-sided, “……”

Boss, how do you have so much free time as of late?

She was thinking that in her head but also blurted it out uncontrollably. Zhou Qinhe chuckled and said, “I haven’t had too much free time as of late, but thank you for asking. “

Oh, ho ho. Yan Shuyu was speechless.

Seeing that she has not yet responded to his question, he repeated himself again, “So is it okay tomorrow?”

The boss was just asking her. Did that mean she can just say “No”? Yan Shuyu’s eyes flickered, and she was very tempted to say just that when she heard the boss say in a very nonchalantly way, “When you said activities, you are referring to Liu Ci’s musical institution, right? I still have Instructor Liu’s business card that he gave me last time. I happened to have some questions for him. If you don’t think it’s appropriate, I can reach out to them directly.”

Yan Shuyu: “……”

Zhou Qinhe sounded very reasonable, but Yan Shuyu knew full well that Liu Ci already knew of the boss’s real identity. In addition to being a very outstanding musician, Lui Ci also wanted to have a very successful business. Meaning, if the boss was to reach out to Liu Ci, Liu Ci would arrange for the boss to come no matter what hoops he had to jump through, never mind that it was just regular pre-opening activities tomorrow.

So what was the point to make the boss go the indirect route and have him hold yet another grudge against her? As much as she had an inkling that the boss was threatening her a bit, she still replied with feigned enthusiasm, “No, it is fine. I just heard that there will be lots of kids there tomorrow. It’ll probably be pretty noisy and I worry that it isn’t exactly your scene.”

Yan Shuyu really hoped that the boss would think this whole thing through. This father and son pair were standing at the top of the world. She could only imagine them going to places with others of their same caliber and the venues that were resplendent and magnificent. Definitely not activities that were so peasant-like.

Nevertheless, Zhou Qinhe had already made that decision single-sidedly. “That will be fine. Xiao Yi and I would like to check it out as well. What time tomorrow?”

Things didn’t exactly go as she had hoped. Yan Shuyu replied a little distressed, “I heard there will be some games as well. It’ll be from 2 PM to 5 or 6 PM.”

Zhou Qinhe responded with a “Mm” before he suddenly asked another question, “Do you have plans tomorrow at noon time?”

Yan Shuyu had a bad feeling. “Perhaps, maybe… I don’t think so?”

“Then why don’t we have lunch together?” asked Zhou Qinhe directly without letting her tone bother him a bit. He then added, “Yuanbao can have seafood, right?”

He didn’t ask whether Yan Shuyu could have seafood, but as soon as she heard the word, her eyes beamed. All the words she had prepared to turn him down turned into, “What kind of seafood.”

“They have every kind.” Zhou Qinhe reminded nicely, “I heard that this restaurant is by reservation only. If you would like to go, this is the perfect time to make a reservation. If we wait any longer that might be a problem.”

A restaurant that even someone with the boss's status had to make a reservation to eat there? Exactly how Tall, Big, and High (Class) was this restaurant? If Yan Shuyu was only tempted earlier, she was now completely fixated. Struggling, she asked, “Zhou Yi will be there as well?”

“Of course.” Laughed Zhou Qinhe. “That way we can just head over to the activities after lunch.”

Yan Shuyu thought she got it now. The boss was treating them as a token of appreciation for her and her son taking him and his son out for fun. There was no reason to turn him down.

As such, why should she? It’d be an extra opportunity for her son and the male lead to get closer to each other. And that was how Yan Shuyu happily made her decision. She was still being polite verbally though. “Oh, I would hate for you to spend so much….”

“Quid pro quo. You treated me to coffee last time.”

Trading a seafood meal from the boss with a $20 cup of coffee was a steal. Naturally, Yan Shuyu, being the one who came out ahead in this, would not remind him that the mathematics didn’t really work out that way. With her lips curved madly up, she nodded. “Alright.”

“We will go pick you up at 11 AM, will that work?”

Yan Shuyu thought about it for a bit. She really wished the boss would give her the address, so she and her son could just take the subway over. But she figured that the boss’s gentleman etiquette would never let her do that.

Welp, he already knew where she lived, so what difference would that make now? She nodded happily and said, “Okay, I will see you tomorrow then.”