The morning light filtered weakly through a grey Shanghai haze.
After walking Xiao Mei to the kindergarten gates—Mei had skipped in, too excited about story time to wave goodbye—Yinlin lingered at the edge of the crosswalk, clutching her coat tighter around her. The city pulsed to life around her, horns echoing in the distance, coffee carts steaming against cold air.
She was still lost in thought.
Last night's discovery refused to leave her. That photo. That name. Xu Tao. Her cousin's voice on the phone: He was gentle. He gave you soup.
She couldn't reconcile the boy in her yearbook with the man who now haunted the corridors of her life. It was undeniably the same person—just older, sharper, with less kindness in his eyes.
She didn't notice the car until it glided up beside her. A sleek black Maybach. Tinted windows. Tires whisper-quiet over the pavement.
She paused, cautious. The back passenger window slid down with a quiet hum.
He was there.
Xu Tao.
Dressed in a grey coat over a charcoal suit, one hand resting casually on the leather seat, the other on the steering console beside the driver. His expression was neutral—pleasant, even—but his eyes glinted.
"Get in," he said.
She blinked, unsure. "What?"
"I'll take you to the hotel."
She took a step back. "That's not necessary."
"I know it's not," he said smoothly. "It's an offer. It's cold today."
Her eyes narrowed. "Aren't you busy? Why are you picking people up like a chauffeur?"
A faint smile curved his mouth. "You think I'm a CEO?"
"You're dressed like one. You arrived like one. You're currently blocking traffic like one."
"I'm an investor," he corrected. "Not the owner. Which means I have plenty of free time to waste responsibly."
That caught her off guard.
She'd imagined him as a permanent fixture behind glass walls—looming, watchful, always working. Not… this. Not someone who had time to appear uninvited, to be seen stepping out of elevators with drunk women clinging to his arm, or idling on a street corner like he had nowhere better to be. He had said he played more than he worked. She just hadn't believed him.
"I'm fine walking," she said.
"Of course you can." He leaned back in the seat slightly. "But it's cold. And there's traffic. And you're thinking too hard. If you ride with me, you'll be at the hotel in seven minutes."
She stared at him.
He looked entirely at ease. No urgency. No insistence. Just waiting, like he already knew the ending.
"You think this is charming?" she asked, dry.
"No," he said. "But I think it's efficient."
She exhaled slowly. "If I say yes, will you stop showing up like this?"
He considered it. "Probably not."
That—annoyingly—made her lips twitch. Almost a smile. Almost.
Without another word, she opened the door and slid into the back seat, the faint scent of her perfume lingering in the air between them.
The door shut.
The Maybach eased into traffic, smooth and inevitable as the morning itself.
**********************
The Maybach's interior hummed with quiet luxury — smooth leather, the faint scent of black tea and cedarwood cologne, and classical music playing just low enough to disguise silence.
Yinlin sat with her hands on her lap, rigid and alert, like a passenger in someone else's dream.
Xu Tao sat beside her, scrolling through his phone with the kind of unbothered ease that only powerful men wore like skin. But he wasn't truly absorbed. She could feel it — the tension curled beneath the surface, coiled like a cat preparing to strike.
"I looked through my yearbook," she said abruptly, just to break it.
His mouth curved slightly. "Did you find me?"
She glanced at him. "Barely. You didn't smile back then either."
"I did," he said. "Just not for the camera."
Yinlin frowned. "You were different."
"So were you."
That silenced her.
After a moment, he added, "You had a mole behind your left ear. Still do, I assume."
Her head whipped toward him.
"What?"
He didn't look at her. "Tiny. Faint. Right at the hairline. You used to cover it with your hair because you hated it."
Her spine straightened. "How would you know that?"
Tao's gaze slid toward her now — slow, heavy, deliberate. "Because I've kissed it."
Yinlin felt heat crawl up her neck. She turned sharply toward the window, biting the inside of her cheek.
This is harassment. This is crossing a line.
"You can't say things like that," she said, voice low and tight. "Not at work. Not ever."
"I didn't say it at work," he replied, unbothered. "We're in my car. Off the clock."
"You're still my boss."
"I was something else before that."
Her stomach twisted. "I don't remember."
"I do."
A beat of silence.
Then he leaned back again, one leg crossed over the other, hands loose on his lap. "You also had a scar on your hip," he said mildly. "From falling off the monkey bars in primary school. You cried for an hour, you told me when we—"
She jerked her head toward him, wide-eyed. "Stop."
His expression was unreadable — half-gentle, half-unsettling. "You asked how I know you. I'm just answering."
"No, you're not," she said sharply. "You're trying to get into my head."
"I don't need to," he said softly. "I already live there."
She flushed — not from desire, but from indignation. Disgust. Shame. And yet, confusion threaded beneath it like fog.
How did he know so much? Was it all true?
She wanted to ask more. Press him. Demand facts, dates, proof. But instead, she bit the inside of her cheek again and faced the window.
The hotel was coming into view.
She wanted to jump out of the car.
"I don't want to play this game," she said quietly.
"Then don't," Tao replied. "Just remember you started asking questions first."
The car slowed into the private driveway.
She opened the door before the driver could even come around.
He didn't stop her.
But his voice followed her as she stepped out, soft as smoke.
"By the way… you also used to hum when you were nervous. I wonder when that habit will come back."
She turned to glare at him.
But she'd already caught herself—humming, under her breath, just before she closed the door.
And that terrified her more than anything else.