Jiang Silu muttered and cursed all the way back to school.
"That blasted Jiang Sifan. When I get home for winter break, I'm telling Mom everything, and I'll make sure she gives you a good thrashing. No, I'm telling her tonight."
Just as she got off the bus and started walking toward the school gate,
Lu Fan appeared.
In truth, he had known about Jiang Silu's trip to find Jiang Sifan at the Jinling Institute of Technology all along.
After all, the people he'd arranged to protect them were top-tier bodyguards. Besides being extremely discreet, they also had one other duty: to report all of their movements to Lu Fan at all times.
These bodyguards were the human tools he'd been rewarded with by the System.
They were 100% loyal to Lu Fan, their host.
That was how he was able to wait for her at the school gate before she even got off the bus.
When Jiang Silu saw Lu Fan, she instinctively tensed up.
This was their third meeting.
At their first encounter, Jiang Silu had thought Lu Fan was a good person. He had helped her push her bike in the rain and even paid the 20 yuan for the repairs.
The second time they met, warned by her mother, she didn't dare speak to Lu Fan and told him to stay away from her.
Now, at this third meeting, Jiang Silu already knew that this middle-aged man before her, dressed in a suit and brimming with charisma, was her biological father.
The very same biological father she had longed to meet ever since she was a child.
Although Jiang Silu knew that she and Lu Fan would inevitably meet again,
and she had mentally prepared herself,
but now, looking at Lu Fan before her, she was still so nervous she didn't know what to do.
But Jiang Silu still remembered that Lu Fan was the reason her mother often cried secretly at night. The hatred that had built up over nearly twenty years couldn't possibly be erased in an instant.
So, she asked coldly, "What are you doing here? I already told you, I don't want to see you."
"I was just passing by. I was thinking of seeing if I could spot you at school, and what do you know, I hadn't been waiting at the gate for more than a moment when you walked right up. What a coincidence," Lu Fan said with a smile.
Although Jiang Silu was only a freshman, she didn't believe a word of it. She was an adult, after all.
That line might work on a naive little girl, but Jiang Silu was no little girl.
She cut straight to the point. "If you came to see how I'm doing, you can go back now. I'm doing just fine."
"Is the new phone working well?" Lu Fan asked. "Oh, and does that makeup set suit you? I asked the manager at Chanel, and she said that particular set is quite gentle on the skin. I figured since your complexion is so good, you probably wouldn't have any allergies to it."
Jiang Silu glanced at the iPhone in her hand and said frankly, "I didn't want to take your things, and I don't want anything to do with you. But Mom said I shouldn't feel burdened by the things you give me, that I should just accept them, because it's what you owe us."
"But if you're trying to guilt-trip me with this phone and the makeup, I can give the iPhone back to you right now."
As she spoke, Jiang Silu held out the iPhone to Lu Fan, making a gesture to return it.
Lu Fan looked at Jiang Silu's earnest expression and thought to himself, 'She's so much like Jiang Yixia.'
'Yep, even their faces look identical when they're being stubborn.'
He quickly replied, "Don't worry, I won't guilt-trip you. I chose those gifts based on what I thought you actually needed. When you were getting your bike fixed last time, I noticed your phone seemed a bit laggy. I wasn't sure if you'd like an iPhone. If you don't, I can buy you another brand, like a Huawei or a Xiaomi."
"I quite like this iPhone." Although Jiang Silu knew perfectly well that Lu Fan was giving these gifts to her voluntarily, she hesitated for two seconds out of politeness before finally saying, "I should still thank you for giving me so many expensive gifts."
Jiang Silu gave a slight bow to show her gratitude.
"It's no problem. By the way, why don't you add my phone number? I know you definitely won't add me on WeChat, but if you save my number in your contacts, you can call me anytime if anything comes up."
Lu Fan continued to explain, "After all, your mother is in Yangcheng, which is quite a ways from Jinling. Distant water can't put out a nearby fire, as they say. Of course, your brother is also here in Jinling, but there will always be problems he can't solve. If you need help, it might be faster to call me."
Jiang Silu thought for a few seconds and finally agreed to Lu Fan's suggestion.
She took out her phone and handed it to Lu Fan. "Okay, you can enter your number. I'll add a note for it later."
"Alright."
Lu Fan expertly typed in his phone number and handed the phone back to Jiang Silu.
Jiang Silu glanced at it before putting the phone back in her pocket. Then she looked at him and said, "If there's nothing else, I'm going to go."
"Oh, right," Lu Fan continued. "The box of gifts I sent to your brother—he refused all of it, just sent it right back. I know your brother resents me, and that's understandable. So, I left the box for him at the security office of your dorm. You can hold on to it for now. Or maybe you can see if he needs anything from it and then give it to him under some other pretext."
"Okay."
This time, Jiang Silu didn't refuse.
Her brother, Jiang Sifan, had always been very headstrong and concerned with his pride.
Of course he wouldn't accept Lu Fan's eager attentions.
After Jiang Silu left, his assistant, Jiali, came forward and asked, "Boss, are we still returning to Yangcheng tonight?"
"Of course," Lu Fan said with a smile. "The baozi shop just opened. We have to keep up the promotional push."
Jiali was concerned. "Boss, you're flying back and forth every day. A single flight takes two hours. Can your body handle it?"
"Of course, it's no problem," Lu Fan quipped. "Back in my day, the title 'Seven-Times-a-Night Man' wasn't just for show."
Hearing this, Chen He was rather surprised. "Boss, you were that incredible back then?"
"I'm still about the same now," Lu Fan said with a wave of his hand before getting back in the car. "Let's go. To Yangcheng."
Meanwhile, on her way back to the dorm,
Jiang Silu took out her phone and looked at the number she had just entered. After a moment of hesitation, she finally saved the contact with a single label: [He].
Jiang Silu didn't want to just label him 'Jerk' or something like that; it felt too disrespectful. But she certainly wasn't going to use a label like 'Dad' or 'Father'.
At this stage, getting her to accept Lu Fan as her biological father was absolutely impossible.
After thinking it over and over, she felt that this single word best suited her current relationship with Lu Fan.
Back at the entrance to her dorm complex, she picked up the box from the security office.
The box was very heavy, so heavy that Jiang Silu couldn't help but wonder what was inside.
Once she was back in her dorm room, she opened it up.
An iPhone, a laptop, two down jackets, and a pair of sneakers.
"Holy cow. He bought so many nice things for Jiang Sifan, but he refused them all."
Of course, she could understand her brother.
After all, Jiang Sifan had harbored resentment all these years. Growing up, whenever his peers mocked him, that single phrase—"fatherless bastard"—was enough to shatter his defenses for over a decade.
This was also why Jiang Silu's hatred for their father wasn't as intense as Jiang Sifan's. All these years, Jiang Sifan had been the one to swallow all the insults and protect her.
'Forget it,' she thought. 'The way he is now, there's no way he'll accept these gifts. I'll just put them under my bed and give them to him when the time is right.' With that, Jiang Silu pushed the box under her bed.