Jiang Yiheng, the eternal top student at Saint Slee, was the undisputed golden child that every parent envied.
For him, studying was just a habitual act, an ordinary task that he simply excelled at.
That was until Song Yi appeared and snatched away his top spot, finally making him take notice of this girl.
She wasn’t what he had imagined—not the typical obedient, studious type. Instead, she was often at the center of gossip and rumors.
Soone like her, achieving first place must have been a fluke, right?
That’s what Jiang Yiheng thought at the ti, and his attitude toward her was sowhat dismissive.
Or perhaps it was an unconscious fear, as her presence disrupted the balance he had always known, marking the beginning of an unforeseen change.
Within days of arriving at the school, Song Yi had already beco entangled with Quan Le, Shen Yujing, and Murong Huan to varying degrees.
The incident where she hit Quan Le with a basketball spread like wildfire, and Quan Le was notoriously averse to top students.
Perhaps out of so sense of sympathy, Jiang Yiheng took the initiative to approach Song Yi, offering what he thought was well-aning advice.
If she wanted to graduate peacefully, it would be best to keep a low profile.
But when faced with her sarcastic retort, Jiang Yiheng experienced self-doubt for the first ti in his life, even feeling a hint of sha.
What he had always taken for granted and adhered to seed inherently flawed.
He thought he wasn’t that kind of person, but it seed he had always acted that way.
Fortunately, things didn’t spiral out of control. After the second monthly exam, he reclaid his top spot, while Song Yi’s ranking slipped, and they were no longer desk mates.
At that point, he felt relieved. Her appearance was just a fleeting anomaly, and they would no longer have any interaction.
Whether in academics or life…
Well, except for the grade trip.
That day, she was incredibly noisy, saying all sorts of strange things that gave Jiang Yiheng a headache.
In the end, Song Yi even accused him of having slly feet. He looked up, annoyed, but when he t her sparkling, mischievous eyes, he found himself inexplicably unwilling to argue.
He could tell she was doing it on purpose, even gloating with Hang Feng about having provoked him.
He didn’t understand what she was trying to achieve, but if he got angry, it would only play into her hands.
When they arrived at their destination, the gas began.
In the first hiking competition, she unexpectedly ca in second, becoming his dance partner.
It was clearly an accident, as she was visibly disappointed when she found out she couldn’t switch partners—she didn’t want to dance with him.
It seed like fate kept forcing them together in ways neither of them wanted.
When it ca to team assignnts, Jiang Yiheng, having few friends, was prepared to be paired with her again.
So things just beca habits.
But this ti was different. In the student council group chat, soone posted a photo of Song Yi’s team—they already had five mbers. They hadn’t chosen him; instead, they went to Hang Feng.
At that mont, a student council mber approached Jiang Yiheng nervously, asking, “President, can we be on your team?”
Jiang Yiheng closed his phone and nodded calmly.
During that competition, Jiang Yiheng wanted to win.
Perhaps unconsciously, he wanted to prove to those people that not choosing him was a mistake.
But in the end, the outco was far from ideal—it was perhaps the most humiliating mont of Jiang Yiheng’s life.
He fainted.
When he woke up in the hospital, he regretted joining the grade trip.
At midnight, just as he thought the exhausting day was finally over, he was startled awake by what could only be described as a terrifying rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
Seeing a white bun with a red candle stuck in it, his only wish was—
Silence.
He wanted a quiet life, for these people to disappear from his sight.
But to say he felt no warmth at all would be a lie.
It was the first ti so many people had sung “Happy Birthday” to him. Though the scene wasn’t exactly picturesque, it was still special.
Jiang Yiheng thought maybe he didn’t dislike them as much as he thought.
During that ti, he watched as many things happened among them, but he no longer got involved.
That was until the school festival approached, and he had to rehearse a dance with Song Yi.
He kept stepping on her feet, and she winced in pain, her face pale.
Jiang Yiheng didn’t know why, but all his fears, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities were laid bare before Song Yi, yet he didn’t feel the need to hide them from her.
Perhaps it was a sense of resignation. With her, he didn’t want to pretend.
He noticed sothing strange—since her arrival, everything in the world seed the sa, yet also completely different.
Each of them had changed because of her, as if breaking free from a set of predetermined routines and becoming real, living individuals.
If he had to explain it scientifically… well, there was no explanation. So, he attributed it all to her. No one could dislike her.
That vibrant girl had shattered everyone’s rigid, monotonous lives.
Jiang Yiheng was too intelligent not to realize Song Yi’s uniqueness early on, and he knew very well that she and he were not on the sa path.
In Jiang Yiheng’s heart, nothing was more important than his mother. His life plan didn’t include a romantic partner, not even her.
So, very early on, he had made his decision—to let her go.
If asked if he regretted it, maybe he did, but it didn’t matter anymore.
If he couldn’t hold onto or protect what he gained, his rationality would always choose to never have it in the first place.
His youthful affection was restrained, too controlled.
This group of people had given him a sense of friendship he had never experienced before, and that was enough.
Perhaps everyone felt the sa, and the delicate balance remained unbroken.
The wish he wrote on the sky lantern that sumr might have been his true feelings, or perhaps just self-deception.
Years later, he beca the person he had always aspired to be—a doctor dedicated to saving lives, imrsed in research.
People tried to introduce him to suitable won, concerned about his personal life. Knowing their intentions were kind, he simply declined with a smile.
In this life, his true goal remained unfulfilled—he hadn’t yet developed a treatnt for his mother’s illness.
The year Shen Yujing and Song Yi got married, he genuinely wished them happiness.
But that night, he returned alone to his research lab.
Surrounded by cold instrunts and various specins, he spent the night in solitude.
Turns out, he still cared a little.
But that tiny bit of affection marked the end, just like his youth.
Later, Shen Yujing and Song Yi had a beautiful daughter.
She was an adorable child. At her first birthday celebration, she crawled around the table and eventually picked up the gift he had brought—an old-fashioned longevity lock.
Everyone joked that Chaochao must really like Jiang Yiheng, but—
That didn’t give Shen Yujing and Song Yi the right to dump their daughter on him.
Whether it was a minor cold or a sneeze, they’d call him for advice. Because of Song Chaochao, Jiang Yiheng made his first friend in years—a pediatrician at his hospital.
When Shen Yujing first showed up at his doorstep with a stroller, Jiang Yiheng felt like his life had beco absurdly surreal.
Gripping the doorfra, he refused to let them in and asked bluntly, “Why?”
Shen Yujing looked at him seriously and said, “We have to respect the child’s wishes.”
Jiang Yiheng: “So?”
“Song Yi and I are going on a trip. We were going to leave Chaochao with the nanny, but she kept crying…”
Jiang Yiheng cut him off: “Get to the point.”
“So we showed her photos of all our friends one by one. She only stopped crying when she saw you and heard your na.”
Jiang Yiheng: “…”
He couldn’t shake the feeling that Shen Yujing was ssing with him.
But the mont he looked down and saw the child in the stroller smiling at him, Jiang Yiheng let go of his grip.
He had never imagined in his life that he would end up taking care of a child, let alone the child of his romantic rival from his youth.
Jiang Yiheng, expressionless, searched for a nanny tutorial video because he had tried it before—if anyone other than him appeared in the house, the child would indeed start crying.
But as long as he was around, she would stay quiet and calm.
Even when he was working, leaving Song Chaochao in the crib beside him, she would obediently stay there, clutching her toy, only poking her head out to call him when she was hungry: "Un... Uncle, food."
For a child her age, her vocabulary was quite extensive, perhaps inherited from Shen Yujing's talkative nature, but she wasn't as noisy as her father.
Jiang Yiheng had always thought he was the type of person who disliked children—until he t Song Chaochao.
The little one was well-behaved and clingy to him. As long as he was within her line of sight, she wouldn’t cry or fuss.
Jiang Yiheng took care of her so well that even Shen Yujing grew accustod to it, often dropping the child off at Jiang Yiheng's place whenever sothing ca up.
Eventually, Jiang Yiheng got used to it too. Song Chaochao was like a half-daughter to him.
Because of this, Jiang Yiheng even began to experience the kind of worries only a father should have.
Seeing Quan Le's mischievous son and recalling how Quan Le always brought up the idea of an "arranged marriage" whenever they t, Jiang Yiheng turned to Shen Yujing during a dinner and asked, "Are you really going to pair Chaochao with that Quan Yi kid?"
Shen Yujing sneered and said, "In his dreams! If that Quan Yi kid dares to lay a finger on my daughter, I'll make sure his whole family learns how to write the character 'Shen'!"
Later, Shen Yujing indeed made good on his word.
When Song Chaochao turned seventeen, one of the Shen family's cats went missing, so Shen Yujing checked the ho surveillance footage.
As luck would have it, he happened to see the mont when Quan Yi, the kid from the Quan family, pinned his precious daughter on the sofa and kissed her. Shen Yujing completely lost his temper, grabbed a broom from behind him, and stord out.
"Wait."
Jiang Yiheng's voice, still relatively calm, rang out.
Shen Yujing, furious, shouted, "Don't try to stop , or I'll take you down with today!"
Jiang Yiheng, expressionless, picked up another mop and said, "What I ant was, wait for . I'm coming with you."
Well, after all the effort they had put into protecting their precious cabbage, only to have it trampled by soone else's pig, the two old fathers were indeed quite devastated.
Quan Yi, you're in danger.
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