Just when Gu Yebai felt he was one step away from throwing in the towel amidst laughter and chatter, Gao Hongzhi appeared.
Like a deity descending from heaven, like a timely rain, he instantly extinguished the flames that were about to spiral out of control.
At that moment, justice seemed to triumph over evil, reason seemed to triumph over tyranny.
Gu Yebai transformed in an instant from a startled bird into a fox borrowing the tiger’s might, strutting behind the tiger’s back.
He aimed his phone camera at himself, wearing an innocent expression that said, “You’ve really misunderstood—I just came out for coffee with Uncle Gao,” while sneaking glances at Gao Hongyi on the video screen.
Gao Hongyi’s voice came through the earpiece—soft, yet carrying a barely perceptible tremor.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Bai…”
“So from the very beginning, Uncle Bai just went out for coffee with Dad, that’s all?”
“What else would it be?”
Gu Yebai suddenly felt that the wronged party also had a right to be angry.
He deliberately made his tone sound aggrieved and stubborn.
“Hmph, if some beautiful girl really invited me for coffee, with you trusting me so little, I’d definitely go!”
“No! No! No!”
Gao Hongyi’s voice suddenly rose sharply, like a kitten whose tail had been stepped on, carrying a flustered urgency.
Gu Yebai sighed helplessly.
“Honestly… I’m just joking. You really don’t have to be so paranoid about this kind of thing, Hongyi. I won’t betray you. At most, I’d just make friends…”
Before he finished speaking, Gao Hongzhi had already stepped in front of the camera, wearing the warm, amiable smile of a successful businessman.
“Hongyi, how’s school going?”
“Don’t worry. Xiao Gu is with me. There’s no way he’d do anything to betray you.”
He paused, deftly steering the conversation toward the safest direction.
“Hongyi, I happened to be nearby discussing a project, so I brought Xiao Gu out for coffee and to talk about him enrolling at St. George’s.”
“Haven’t you been hoping to be in the same school as him?”
Gao Hongyi’s eyes lit up instantly.
“Uncle Bai is enrolling?”
“Yes.”
“That’s wonderful!” She laughed brightly.
“If we go to school together, I can keep an eye on Uncle Bai all the time~”
The red-haired girl in the frame tilted her head and added sweetly, “But Uncle Bai, you’re not completely innocent this time either.”
“Why didn’t you just honestly tell me from the start that Dad asked you out? Why did you act so flustered, as if you were really hiding someone? Why were you so slow to answer the video call?”
“Why didn’t you report to me in advance?”
“Haven’t I told you many times? Before you do anything, you have to tell me right away. And when I send a message, you have to reply within one minute. You know? Every second you’re late feels like a year to me, like a little knife slowly turning in my heart…”
“Do you have such a wicked heart? Do you enjoy torturing me?”
By the end, her voice had dropped so low it was almost a whisper, yet every word was clear.
“Sometimes I think, if some bad woman dared to lay a single finger on you, I’d just lock Uncle Bai inside a piano. Make you listen to me play for you your whole life, never see anyone else again, never go anywhere else.”
Gu Yebai’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
He instinctively shrank his neck back.
But Gao Hongyi suddenly smiled even sweeter, as if her previous words had just been a harmless little joke.
“But I’ll let it slide this time~ Since Dad brought you out, I won’t pursue it!”
She turned toward the other side of the camera, her tone instantly becoming obedient.
“Oh, and Dad, please keep an eye on Uncle Bai for me. Don’t let him have any unauthorized contact with other women! He’s mine!”
Gao Hongzhi smiled helplessly and reached out to ruffle Gu Yebai’s hair, like soothing a frightened little animal.
“Alright, alright. Focus on your class. I’ll take Xiao Gu to buy some decent clothes and then take him home. We won’t meet any unsavory people.”
Only then did Gao Hongyi nod, full of delight.
“Be good, Uncle Bai. From now on, send me a selfie every half hour to prove you’re behaving~ Love you!”
The video call ended.
The café fell silent again, save for the low hum of the espresso machine in the distance.
“Your espresso.”
The waiter set down a cup.
“Thank you.”
Gao Hongzhi took the coffee, sat down, and glanced out of the corner of his eye toward the restroom.
“Alright, child. Come out.”
Upon hearing this, Bai Xialin immediately poked half her head out of the restroom, like a vigilant yet curious little animal, her pupils glinting under the light.
Then she bounced out like a rabbit.
“Wow, Uncle Gao, your timing was really perfect!”
She clasped her hands together, ran back to the table full of energy, her face beaming with a pure, radiant, grateful smile.
“Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to come. You were a huge help! I really didn’t know how this would have ended otherwise. I almost got Little Guogu into big trouble!”
Gao Hongzhi picked up the freshly delivered espresso and took a small sip.
“Not at all, child… Didn’t you anticipate all of this in advance?”
Thirty minutes earlier, Gao Hongzhi had received a message from Baek Jeong-hun asking him to come to this café.
He had arrived with almost perfect timing, just in time to resolve Gu Yebai’s crisis.
He set down his coffee cup and swept his gaze discreetly between Bai Xialin and Gu Yebai.
If Bai Xialin hadn’t foreseen this so accurately, today his biological son Gu Yebai might have been bullied terribly by Hongyi.
Meticulous in everything she did.
Very impressive.
Bai Xialin returned to the table.
Seeing Gao Hongzhi sitting across from Gu Yebai, she promptly plopped down right next to Gu Yebai.
Whether she naturally had no sense of personal boundaries or did it on purpose, their shoulders were almost touching.
Move back.
Gu Yebai instinctively scooted half a centimeter away, but Bai Xialin naturally looped her arm through his and pulled him back.
Watching this, a flicker of amusement glinted in Gao Hongzhi’s eyes.
As a seasoned veteran, he could see the signs at a glance.
This child’s interest in Xiao Gu was clearly more than just simple curiosity.
When a girl likes a boy, it’s almost impossible to hide.
Especially since when his old friend Baek Jeong-hun spoke of his daughter, he mentioned that she always maintained a certain aloof distance from those who pursued her at the all-girls’ school.
But when it came to Gu Yebai, not only was there no distance, she kept taking great strides to close the gap.
It was incredibly obvious.
Gao Hongzhi quickly did some mental calculations.
If Gu Yebai and Bai Xialin truly ended up together—a cross-border marriage—it might not be a bad move for the Horizon Core Technology Group under the Gao family’s umbrella in terms of its East Asian market positioning.
In the East Asian market, cooperation with Korean corporate supply chains would make many problems at the negotiation table solve themselves.
A political marriage?
Not necessarily.
But it was an undeniable fact that “close business relationships” would make many issues resolve themselves.
But that would be unfair to Hongyi…
The crux of the problem was that Hongyi’s understanding of love was completely wrong right now.
The more she tightened her grip on Gu Yebai, the more she was pushing him right into Bai Xialin’s arms.
Loving too fiercely is the surest way to lose the one you love.
As Gu Yebai’s biological father, he didn’t intend to interfere too much.
Of course, he wanted Hongyi to be happy, so he would remind her to loosen her control over Gu Yebai a bit—this girl loved too heavily, so heavily that she was on the verge of crushing him.
But if she refused to change despite repeated warnings, then letting Bai Xialin benefit wouldn’t be so bad either.
This energetic, well-behaved, and sensible girl as a daughter-in-law wouldn’t be a bad thing either.
It all depended on fate…
Gao Hongzhi took another sip of coffee, hiding the complex smile at the corner of his lips.
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