CA | Chapter 1

◎Uncle Daddy.◎

May, Beishi.

Ning Jia sat inside the coffee shop, hiding herself in the shadows.

She did not like the sun. But since Ning Yu had chosen this place for their meeting, she could only sit there obediently.

With one hand, Ning Jia wound her fingers through her long hair, still hot from the curling iron. Now and then, she rested her chin in her palm and stirred the iced coffee in front of her. Every so often, she checked her phone for the time.

A few messages popped up. Ning Jia opened them and saw they were from her friend Zhou Yuyuan.

“Yuyuan: Is your brother really going to take all your money away? Then wouldn’t you be bankrupt?”

“Yuyuan: Or come stay at my place. I’ll rescue you.”

“Yuyuan: Reply when you’ve worked it out. If you want to come, I’ll talk to my mom. I’ve still got another room, perfect for keeping a beauty hidden away.”

Then came another sticker of a puppy patting another puppy.

Ning Jia sighed.

She had just turned eighteen and had not even finished high school yet, and suddenly she had become a full-grown orphan, stuck in that awkward stage of not quite being an adult, not quite still a child.

Used to being a pampered young lady, she had never really learned anything about money management. After all, in her “young” eyes, her very wealthy father, the chairman of the group, had been an endless, inexhaustible source of money.

Then everything changed all of a sudden. Her older brother Ning Yu, whom she had not seen in years, appeared at the funeral and took away Ning Guoqiang’s will. According to his lawyer, most of Ning Guoqiang’s assets would be inherited by Ning Yu, including the company, the house, the cars, the shares, and so on. What was left for Ning Jia was pitifully little.

She sat there like a lamb waiting for judgment, uneasy from head to toe.

Ning Yu arrived.

He was already twenty-seven, wearing a dark blue striped suit without a tie. His collar was slightly open, and he looked as if he had come in a hurry. As for the person he had come to see, he probably did not feel the need to treat them seriously. For example, Ning Jia, another daughter of his father.

He put the documents on the table, though from Ning Jia’s angle, it looked more like he had thrown them there.

Her older brother was nearly six foot three. Ning Jia was not built imposing at all, so she could only look down like a pitiful little cat at the documents he had flung over.

She forced out a smile. Ning Yu frowned slightly, and his gaze on her grew a little more complicated.

Ning Jia was a very pretty girl. She had been smiling from a young age, and because her mother was a Jiangnan beauty, she had a soft, delicate look, with a hint of flirtatious charm in her eyes and brows, a face that was naturally likable. She was always smiling, but Ning Yu only said flatly, “Stop fake smiling.”

That left Ning Jia awkward for a moment.

She pressed her lips together and had no choice but to stop smiling.

“You’ve already seen the will,” Ning Yu said. “He only left you one house.”

“Mm, I saw it.” Ning Jia had read through it carefully from beginning to end. There really was only one house. She had even checked the market price herself. It could sell for more than ten million, and the location was decent too. It was in a school district, so she did not have to worry about it failing to sell.

“Anything else you want to say?”

Ning Jia sounded stiff, like a prisoner being judged by a court. “No.”

Ning Yu pushed a contract toward her. “Then sign it. You’re an adult now, and I have no obligation to support you.”

Although she had braced herself, Ning Jia still looked at her older half-brother in surprise.

Did that mean he was completely kicking her out of the Ning family?

Well, that made sense. The Ning family was now under Ning Yu’s control alone, and Ning Guoqiang had no brothers. Naturally, Ning Jia’s life and death were now in the hands of her older brother Ning Yu.

Fine. Ning Jia had not expected much anyway.

“Any objections?”

“No.” She spoke calmly.

Ning Jia read the agreement carefully, word by word. After confirming everything, she signed her name. Her strokes were graceful, showing some calligraphy skill, and if it had not been on her own bankruptcy agreement, the signature would have looked rather beautiful.

Ning Yu probably had not expected things to go so smoothly. He had postponed his afternoon meeting, but it looked like he could still make it back in time for lunch.

He confirmed the agreement, one copy for each party, and then left.

Ning Jia walked out of the coffee shop. Zhou Yuyuan called her, and she answered while walking.

“What did your brother say?”

“He left me a house.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Ning Jia sighed.

“Fuck, he’s so ruthless. You just turned eighteen. Then you can only sell the house, but where are you going to live?”

“I tidied up that house a few days ago.” Ning Jia smiled. “Besides being a little far, it’s pretty big.”

“That’s not just a little far, it’s beyond the second ring from the school.” Zhou Yuyuan was so anxious she could only stamp her feet in place.

“Thank you.” Ning Jia’s tone was sincere. “See you at school in a couple of days.”

The other end fell silent for a long time, then asked carefully, “Jiajia, are you okay? Are you really okay?”

“I’m fine.” Ning Jia sounded relaxed. “What’s done is done. I’ll just take it one step at a time.”

“I’m sorry, Jiajia. I can’t help you with much.” Zhou Yuyuan said, “Just spend the money I lent you first. I’ll send you some every month. Make sure you eat properly.”

“You’re a blessing from heaven. You’ve already helped me a lot.”

After hanging up, Ning Jia also understood that Zhou Yuyuan’s mother had not agreed to let Ning Jia stay over, which was why Zhou Yuyuan had not brought it up. The entire Beishi social circle avoided her like the plague, and only little Zhou still treated her the same way, like some naive sweet girl who had never changed.

She had only twenty thousand yuan left that her friend had sponsored her, and Ning Jia had recently learned to live frugally. She had also started taking buses and the subway.

Ning Jia did not even have two sets of clothes she could wear. This time, she gathered her courage and returned to the Ning residence.

There were still torn seal strips on the door. The family maid saw her return but did not say anything. Ning Jia went upstairs and found Ning Yu in front of her parents’ bedroom. He had both hands in his pockets, staring at Ning Guoqiang’s photo on the table, and he was actually spacing out.

Ning Jia walked past him as if nothing were wrong, only to hear Ning Yu’s cold voice. “What are you doing?”

Ning Jia had no choice but to say, “I want to take some clothes.”

She had already been wearing the same set for a long time, washing it, then wearing it again, wearing it, then washing it again.

Ning Yu let her go. Probably because he still had some humanity left.

Ning Jia immediately went to her dressing room. She had come prepared this time. First, she took out two suitcases, and with a rough yank she opened the absurdly expensive cases, quickly stuffing them full of clothes. They were all casual clothes.

The two suitcases were soon packed with her summer clothes. Sweat gathered on her forehead, and she took out packing sacks to bundle up as much of the clothes for other seasons as possible. Then came her jewelry. She poured it into the suitcase lining as if sifting rice. When the dressing room had been stripped nearly bare, she returned to the bedroom.

Without hesitation, Ning Jia rushed to the vanity and swept all the bottles and jars on the table into the suitcase. She left the bedroom without looking sideways even once, as if breathing inside it again would be self-inflicted torture.

Ning Jia dragged the suitcases to the elevator, put them inside, and then pulled them back out one by one.

No one helped her.

With her thin little arms, Ning Jia dragged those massive things along until she was drenched in sweat.

At last she managed to get them out. Ning Jia immediately called a same-city courier to send her clothes back to the new place, while the box holding her valuable items she dragged home herself.

After all that, she returned to her new home.

This was a fully furnished apartment, so Ning Jia could just move in with her bags. That gave her quite a bit of convenience. She took stock of her possessions, sold her valuable jewelry first, and could still live comfortably for a while longer.

As for after that… Ning Jia had not figured it out yet.

She took a hot shower and fell asleep with her head buried in the pillow.

Zhou Yuyuan really was a naive sweet girl. After her mother repeatedly reminded little Zhou not to contact Ning Jia anymore, Zhou Yuyuan obeyed on the surface and defied her in private, giving Ning Jia a huge hug when she arrived at school.

Ning Jia looked left and right, then told her to stand farther away. “All right.”

Ning Jia’s tone always had a sticky, sweet softness to it. She had always been good at smoothing things over with everyone and never making enemies. There was even a recruitment poster of her hanging by the school gate, where she had once been featured as the “most beautiful middle school student,” though of course it had already been taken down now.

Zhou Yuyuan liked Ning Jia because she had been her close friend for years and had always treated her well, so she did not care about the big things that had happened in the Ning family.

“The third round of review is almost over. Can you still catch up?”

Ning Jia nodded. “Probably. It’s been a long time since I’ve studied anyway.”

Ning Jia had already passed the art exam for Beishi Academy of Fine Arts. She was only one final step away from the college entrance exam’s cultural subjects before she could become a student there and study the jewelry design major she had always loved.

Unfortunately, fate was a cruel thing.

Zhou Yuyuan wanted to link arms with her like before, but Ning Jia avoided it. Smiling, she said, “You go in first. Anyway, we’ll just act for a month. After that, we can stick together properly.”

Ning Jia told Zhou Yuyuan to act cold toward her at school.

The school gate was right in front of them.

Zhou Yuyuan looked at her hesitantly, and Ning Jia nodded, watching her friend leave.

She went around the cars parked at the gate. Although only a minority of people really drove all the way to the school entrance, in this private school anything was possible.

A first-year boy got out of a car and came rushing out so fast he nearly knocked Ning Jia’s backpack sideways.

A large hand covered the back of the boy’s neck.

Ning Jia was unusually sensitive to hands. It was a pale hand, with long fingers but a very strong grip. Veins and sinews were faintly visible at the wrist. When he tightened it slightly, the boy was pinned so he could not move.

“Uncle, you’re going to strangle me to death,” the boy complained.

The other man gave a light laugh, then smacked his back hard once.

Ning Jia thought they looked oddly familiar, so she turned her head to look at that person’s face.

He was wearing a black shirt, his long legs braced against his all-black Aston Martin. Because of the distinctly British style of the car, he gave off a low-key but luxurious air of nobility.

He wore gold-rimmed glasses over his nose, and his light brown eyes seemed to shimmer strangely in the sunlight. His broad shoulders leaned back, and his beautiful hand followed the line of his movement, hidden in his pocket. Ning Jia could only see a section of the back of that hand, along with his silver wristwatch, where a transparent diamond rotated with the movement of the hands.

After seeing his nephew go in, he turned his gaze toward Ning Jia.

Ning Jia saw him smile at her.

Suddenly, her nose stung a little.

“Uncle Shen.”

“Mm.”

As if nothing had ever happened, Shen Yicheng nodded politely at her, then got in his car and left.

For some reason, Ning Jia suddenly felt a little braver.

She raised her head and walked into the school.

Meanwhile, Shen Yicheng only parked the car under the willow tree across the street, rested one hand on the steering wheel, and looked at her back.

It was probably when Ning Jia was ten that Shen Yicheng returned from overseas. He saw Ning Guoqiang visiting the Shen family ancestral home with his wife and daughter, and Ning Jia called him brightly, “Uncle!” The young Shen Yicheng, in the prime of youth, frowned deeply and looked at that smiling little girl.

In the blink of an eye, eight years had passed.

He took out a cigarette, then, with the willow branches swaying above him, put it back where it had been.

Author’s Note:

The story begins!

Once again, it’s a male lead I personally love, ps: the male lead is a slightly bad good guy, the heroine is probably not a good person, and she has an illness, and is also a bit perverted, but clingy and full of sweet talk :D.

Neither of their childhoods was especially beautiful, but if we’re comparing who had it worse, the heroine still had it worse. If that bothers you, please don’t enter.