Chapter 1

Holding Xu Haixin’s hand, I stood outside the big boss’s house, unable to bring myself to press the doorbell.

While I was still rehearsing my apology, Xu Haixin pounded on the door.

The electronic lock whirred a few times, and the door opened.

A tall, beautiful woman stood there with her arms folded. “So you’re the mistress?”

I opened my mouth to explain.

She stepped aside and called to the man kneeling on a keyboard in the living room, “Your new woman has brought her child here to usurp my place. What do you have to say for yourself?”

The boss lost it.

“I swear I don’t know her!”

I hurried to back him up. “It’s true. Mr. Zhuang really doesn’t know me.”

Mrs. Zhuang suddenly clutched her head and shrieked.

“If she doesn’t know you, how does she know you’re Mr. Zhuang?”

Mr. Zhuang clutched his head and shrieked too.

“How should I know?”

The two of them went back and forth like that for ages, arguing over who knew what.

Xu Haixin asked, “Mom, why don’t they ask you?”

I… I had no idea either.

“I’ve got it!” Mr. Zhuang cried. “My cousin put her up to this. He hired her to frame me. You know what he’s like. He’s been a schemer since he was little. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do.”

Xu Haixin sighed.

She stepped forward and bowed to Mrs. Zhuang. “I’m sorry, ma’am. What happened today was my fault.”

Then she took the magazine out of her little schoolbag and explained the whole misunderstanding.

Mrs. Zhuang covered her mouth. “Honey, come look. This little girl looks so much like that scheming cousin of yours.”

Mr. Zhuang actually seemed perplexed. “Can two people really look this alike if they’re not related?”

Xu Haixin pouted, visibly upset.

“Sir, ma’am, I know I did something wrong, but I didn’t mean to. How can you say I look devious?”

Mrs. Zhuang hastily explained, “That’s not what we meant.”

Xu Haixin pressed her lips together, then called Mr. Zhuang’s son over and apologized to him properly.

With a very solemn expression, she said, “I’m sorry. No matter what happened, I shouldn’t have hit you.”

Sniffling, Zhuang Nian said, “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have called you a bastard.”

The two children were just about to shake hands and make peace.

Then Mrs. Zhuang went ballistic.

She roared.

“Zhuang Nian! What did you call her?”

The boy was so frightened that a strand of snot flew from his nose.

After giving her son a thrashing, Mrs. Zhuang said to me, embarrassed, “I haven’t disciplined him properly.”

“Children this age tend to copy whatever they hear,” I said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean he was truly being malicious.”

She explained that she had chosen not to send him to an international school because she was afraid he would learn nothing but how to compare wealth and status.

She had guarded against one thing, only for another to slip through.

She had no idea where he had picked up language like that.

“I’ll have to speak to his teacher. This has to be corrected in the classroom.”

Mrs. Zhuang was an exceptionally principled person.

I took Xu Haixin’s hand and said goodbye, not noticing Mr. Zhuang secretly snap a photo of us.

Mrs. Zhuang walked us to the door. “You really don’t know Fengsheng? Zou Fengsheng?”

I paused, then shook my head. “No.”