Assistant Bai Really Does Have a Three Year Old Child - Chapter 11

Since he had been caught in the act, Huo Yang stopped pretending.

He slowly sat up and rubbed the space between his eyebrows:

“You are too noisy; I couldn’t sleep.”

Bai Tan softened his voice:

“I am sorry. The hangover soup is finished cooking. Please drink it before you go back to sleep.”

Huo Yang looked at that small half-bowl of hangover soup; it was not hard to guess why a full pot of soup ended up as only this much.

He took the bowl. As his fingers touched the wall of the bowl, he discovered it was not hot, and it was even covered in a thin layer of water droplets.

It appeared that both the soup and the bowl had already been passed through cold water.

Seeing him in deep thought, perhaps hesitating, Bai Tan gave a guarantee:

“Drink it with peace of mind. My culinary skills are very good; even people whose sense of taste has failed have praised my cooking as delicious.”

Huo Yang glanced at him from the corner of his eye and picked up the bowl.

He took a sip of the hangover soup, and his fingers suddenly froze.

Bai Tan looked at his frozen profile and tilted his head with a smile:

“What is it?”

“It is nothing.” Huo Yang swallowed the soup; the movement of his Adam’s apple sliding up and down was very obvious.

“After you finish drinking, please rest early. You can take a proper shower when you wake up tomorrow; there is an itinerary tomorrow.” Bai Tan pulled the blanket upward, considerately covering Huo Yang, then turned around to go back to watching his World Cup.

In the darkness, Huo Yang looked at the bowl of soup in his hand, his sharp brows furrowing deeply.

He raised the soup bowl to his lips, hesitated for a moment, and then put it back down.

It was very, very hard to drink.

The next day.

The heavy rain had stopped, but the sky remained gloomy.

Huo Yang was participating in a signing ceremony for a certain watch brand. Bai Tan, as usual, sat in the corner clutching a large tool bag and dozing off, the underside of his eyes tinged with a faint cyan.

Dammit, Barca pulled off a 2-0 upset against Real Madrid; he had wasted the whole night without closing his eyes to cheer for Real Madrid until dawn.

Bai Tan slowly closed his eyes, letting his mind go blank. Just as he saw a blurry old man in ancient costume with a white beard, an ill-timed phone ringtone chased all his sleepiness away.

The caller ID showed a local unknown number.

Bai Tan pondered for a moment and answered. A familiar yet strange female voice came from the other end:

“Is this Bai Tan?”

“I am. May I ask who you are?”

“I am Xiao Wan, Lin Zhiwei’s daughter.”

The hand Bai Tan used to hold the phone twitched violently; subsequently, his five fingers gradually tightened.

“Is something the matter?” He lowered his voice to make his tone sound natural enough.

“MEET Cafe, twelve o’clock noon. I have something to say to you.” The other party’s indifferent tone sounded like she was issuing an order.

“If there is something, say it over the phone.”

“It cannot be explained clearly over the phone, but I think it is a good thing for you. Whether you come or not is up to you.” Xiao Wan hung up the phone after finishing her sentence.

Bai Tan stared blankly at the phone, which had returned to the main interface, his beautiful eyebrows furrowing slightly.

A good thing? Coming from Xiao Wan’s mouth, could it be a good thing?

At this time on the stage, Huo Yang signed his name with a grand flourish of his hand. The handwriting was vigorous and powerful, and the structure was standard and elegant.

Afterward, he and the brand representative faced the camera to take photos together.

His gaze, intentionally or unintentionally, swept toward the corner.

He saw Bai Tan staring at his phone in a daze. That beautiful face, which was always smiling, now had sorrow gathered between the brows, and his lips were tightly pursed.

When the shooting ended, Bai Tan found Huo Yang to indicate he wanted to take leave at noon. He asked Huo Yang what he wanted to eat, saying he would leave after getting the meal.

Huo Yang did not even look at him; his fingers stroked the watch given to him by the brand representative as he said nonchalantly:

“No need. You go ahead first. The brand representative will be responsible for lunch.”

Bai Tan nodded, picked up his tool bag, and left in a hurry. He rushed straight to the organizer’s backstage and said to the setting director:

“I want to borrow something from you. I will only use it for one noon and return it in the afternoon.”

Just as the person left, the boss of the brand approached:

“Teacher Huo, please do us the honor of having lunch together at noon.”

Huo Yang checked the time and gave a polite smile:

“My apologies, I have other arrangements at noon. After the work is finished, I will treat you to a meal.”

MEET Cafe was not far from the signing venue; Bai Tan walked there.

He was anxious to see the person and walked very fast, not noticing at all the vehicle slowly tailing him from not far away.

Inside the cafe.

This was not the first time Bai Tan had seen Xiao Wan, but it was the first time he truly faced her head-on.

She possessed the elegant temperament unique to a scholarly family and had inherited the superior genes of her parents. Her features were exquisite and beautiful; sitting there, she looked like a porcelain doll painstakingly crafted by a master.

Xiao Wan looked at Bai Tan once, her eyebrows relaxed, and she smiled slightly:

“I will keep it short. Sunday is my birthday. My parents will hold a birthday party for me, and I want to invite you to participate.”

“Invite me? Why?” Bai Tan did not think things were that simple.

Xiao Wan smiled, the slightly upturned corners of her eyes revealing a hint of coquettishness:

“I know my mother was divorced and has a son. I also know that children will deeply love and rely on their own mother. You have been separated for sixteen years; do you not want to see Mother once?”

Bai Tan’s fingers under the table moved.

This was an extremely tempting condition; he could be certain of that.

“Previously, when I knew of your existence, I was indeed very dissatisfied, but later I also came around. Since a part of the blood in our bodies comes from the same mother, we can be considered siblings. For a younger sister’s birthday party, inviting an older brother is this not common human ethics?”

Bai Tan looked into her smiling eyes. His body, which had been tense all along, gradually relaxed, and his expression also softened.

“You are right. It was I who was too narrow-minded.” Bai Tan lightly curled the corners of his lips.

Xiao Wan stretched out her hand, which was adorned with a heavy yet extremely exquisite double-layered gold bracelet in the shapes of four-leaf clovers and lotuses:

“Then we are considered reconciled.”

Bai Tan smiled and shook her hand:

“Alright.”

“We must work hard together to jointly repay Mother’s kindness for raising us.”

Xiao Wan’s smile deepened a bit, and she placed special emphasis on the word “raising.”

Bai Tan gave a light laugh and nodded.

The two of them ate a little bit of food and chatted about various things under the sun. Xiao Wan put down her knife and fork, her expression surfacing with a hint of curiosity:

“By the way, I remember you are currently working as Huo Yang’s assistant.”

Bai Tan was drinking coffee and gave an “Mm.”

“The female lead of the drama he is currently filming wasn’t there a problem? I heard rumors from people within the industry saying that the female lead is going to be replaced temporarily. Is it true? If she is replaced, wouldn’t the scenes already filmed have to be refilmed entirely?”

The hand Bai Tan used to hold the coffee cup paused, and he smiled:

“This matter involves the privacy of the production crew. I can only say I have no comment.”

“What ‘no comment’ is there with me? I knew about it long ago,” Xiao Wan said.

Bai Tan raised an eyebrow and asked in return:

“Who told you that the female lead of the drama Huo Yang is currently filming has been temporarily replaced?”

“I write books; basically all of them have been adapted into films and television. I frequently have to communicate with screenwriters and participate in casting. Isn’t it very normal to know a few industry insiders?”

Bai Tan still smiled:

“Regardless of whether this is indeed the case, it is a secret after all, so do not spread it further.”

“Alright.” Xiao Wan put down her cup. “The meal is almost finished. I have to accompany my father to a book club this afternoon, so I won’t stay. Remember to come on Sunday. See you.”

Xiao Wan put down a stack of banknotes, picked up her bag, and turned to leave.

In front of the floor-to-ceiling glass outside the cafe, Xiao Wan stopped her footsteps. Looking at the back of the figure still deep in thought in the booth, she smiled so hard that every muscle on her face was activated.

It is said that in a family, the mother gives the child love and courage, while the father teaches him the experience to establish himself in society.

But a child who is neither loved by his father nor his mother is, in the end, naive in every way.

And naivety can sometimes be called.

Stupidity.

Xiao Wan sat in a private car and dialed a number:

“I have already done as you said. I hope you don’t look for me again because of this kind of thing. Calling that person ‘brother’ made me lose my appetite for a whole week. Do you understand, Teacher Yang?”

“Thank you. The marketing package for your new web novel that I promised is on me. I will definitely make you an existence in the web novel world that absolutely cannot be surpassed,” the man on the other end of the phone laughed.

At this time, inside the cafe, Bai Tan still had his head lowered, thinking about something unknown.

In a booth in the corner, a half-man-high potted plant blocked a tall figure.

Bai Tan’s mind had been entirely on Xiao Wan; he did not notice the man who had followed him all the way.

The man pushed up his sunglasses. Seeing Bai Tan leave, he then lightly tapped the phone screen, ended the recording, and put away the phone.

A few young girls nearby huddled together, whispering toward that tall figure:

“Is that Huo Yang? I think he looks very much like him.”

“He probably just looks like him. Have you ever seen a celebrity wandering around everywhere on the street without a personal assistant or manager?”

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