Chapter 20

The first snow had just fallen. The snow was not heavy and melted as soon as it hit the window. There were still lingering water marks on the glass in the office.

Miao Zhan stood in front of the projection, his tone as concise as ever: "I've looked up Tang Junrui's situation, and the information is indeed rather fragmentary. His mother, Du Xin, moved out of the Tang family's household registration a year ago, and her whereabouts are currently unknown."

Tang Yuchuan tilted his head slightly, without interrupting, but motioned for him to continue.

"Du Xin and Tang Junrui's father is Tang Yongliang. They divorced four years ago. The written judgment was very brief. The main dispute was about property, and the child's custody was given to the father. I checked the street office files and found several early police reports. Du Xin had reported the case many times, saying that Tang Yongliang had violent tendencies."

Miao Zhan flipped a page. "The only recorded incident was when the child was about three years old. When the police arrived, they saw no obvious injuries, but a neighbor testified they heard arguing and sounds of vandalism. There's no clear evidence the child was harmed."

Tang Yuchuan frowned slightly and tapped the table twice with his fingertips.

Miao Zhan looked at him and spoke more slowly, "In cases like this, it's difficult to determine the full truth from the paper. It's unclear whether the child suffered direct harm. But what is certain is that he grew up in an unstable environment, was emotionally suppressed, and lacked stable care. There's no doubt about that."

Tang Yuchuan nodded slightly.

"We've also checked Du Xin's whereabouts." Miao Zhan paused, his tone becoming more cautious. "There's no death registration, and no record of her leaving the country. The last time she left a trace in the social security system was nine months ago, in northern Jiangsu. There's been no contact since then. We contacted the social work agency there, and they said they haven't had any contact with her."

Tang Yuchuan didn't say anything, just sat there with a calm expression.

Miao Zhan looked at him, as if considering whether to continue, and finally spoke: "Mr. Tang, if you want to intervene and help... there are actually several ways."

"First, we can set up special funding quotas through education funds or other channels to provide targeted assistance to children with backgrounds like Tang Junrui. This can be done anonymously so as not to disrupt his current life."

"Secondly, I personally suggest sending someone to talk to Tang Yongliang first. It could be called family support from the school, but in reality, it's just a preliminary investigation. It's hard to judge this person's private situation. Will the child be affected again?"

The office fell into a brief silence.

Tang Yuchuan didn't answer immediately. He simply lowered his eyes and looked at the photo of a child holding a stuffed rabbit at an art exhibition. His fingers rested lightly on the edge of the table, as if he was weighing something.

"Do both. Establish a special grant, but don't sign your name, so as not to alert the child. Apply for the grant under a different name, but with a generous quota, so he doesn't stand out too much. As for Tang Yongliang... have someone arrange to contact him as soon as possible."

Miao Zhan nodded and waited for Tang Yuchuan's further arrangements.

Tang Yuchuan rubbed his brows, lowered his head and stared at the photo on the table for a few seconds. Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, he lowered his voice and asked, "...Is the Shiguang student aid project that my father started back then still running?"

Miao Zhan was slightly stunned. "Yes, but it was transferred to a third-party organization two years ago. It's now a sub-project under the foundation, mainly covering boarding primary schools in remote areas. The operation model is completely different from the previous one. Mr. Tang didn't ask much about it after he donated the funds."

Tan Jing was also one of the beneficiaries of that project. Tang Yuchuan suddenly remembered that he had told himself that this was just an insignificant old story, but he unconsciously sat back a little, his eyes drifting away, as if he saw a scene from many years ago.

He remembered that when the project was launched, his father spoke eloquently in front of the media, calling it a model of private education assistance. Every time he appeared in front of the camera, he was dressed in a well-tailored suit and had a proper posture, like a model philanthropist.

But the same person, when he returns home, can watch coldly as his mother loses control at the dinner table because of his affairs with different women, crushing a person's dignity bit by bit with ridicule and indifference.

As a teenager, he couldn't understand countless times how one person could do two things at the same time: generously helping others while also being cruel and hurtful. Later, he realized that humans are just such divided creatures.

Mr. Tang has hurt many people, including himself, but that charity program is real and has made real changes to some children.

At a certain moment, he suddenly realized that good and evil are sometimes not black and white, but overlap, entangle and grow little by little.

"He sometimes makes me feel disgusted," Tang Yuchuan said softly, as if talking to himself, "but there are some things I think... he does very well."

It has never been a secret that Tang Yuchuan and his father have a difficult relationship. Whether it was Tang Yuchuan poaching Hongsheng's backbone a few years ago, or Mr. Tang's counterattack against Jingchuan this year, Miao Zhan saw it all.

"Okay, go ahead and get busy. You've worked hard lately. Starting next month, we'll have to go through a new contract." Tang Yuchuan casually mentioned the arrangement, saying, "For performance, we'll give you an A+ and then transfer 15% externally. The bonus will be tied to the Q2 project and will be paid directly at the beginning of the quarter without any separate installments."

After saying this, he looked up at Miao Zhan and said, "Don't make excuses."

Miao Zhan wanted to speak, but in the end he just nodded slightly.

There were no unnecessary greetings or thanks between the two. Just like every time a handover was completed tacitly, it was precise and quiet, with a trust that naturally formed after working together for a long time.

Before Miao Zhan left, he seemed to suddenly remember something and took a step back, reminding softly, "The cake has arrived, the one you chose. As for the restaurant, I directly booked Yuanweifang, the private room Guitang, for 7:30."

Tang Yuchuan nodded slightly, indicating that he understood.

The office finally quieted down.

When Miao Zhan left, the door closed with a slight sound.

Tang Yuchuan was still sitting in his original position, his eyes fixed on a document that needed to be processed urgently on the corner of the table, but his thoughts had already wandered.

Today is Gu Wanqing's birthday.

It’s not Zou Ping’s birthday.

Zou Ping's birthday, listed on her ID as an ordinary spring day, was a random number her adoptive parents had made up after she was adopted. Even they couldn't explain how they chose it. It was simply to facilitate registration, to facilitate household registration. It was to allow a lost child to continue living a clean life from now on.

But today is the day that truly belongs to her.

Tang Yuchuan turned the document over, his fingers resting on the cover, but he didn't open it. A heavy feeling that didn't belong to work gradually settled over him.

He had promised Gu Xing not to tell her the truth about her life and not to uncover the past that had been suppressed. He should have kept his promise and not touched on this secret node, but after a brief hesitation, he arranged dinner tonight.

He wanted to see if she would have even the slightest strange reaction to the date.

Tang Yuchuan always felt guilty. After Zou Ping lost her good family and childhood, she continued to lose because of his silence... She obviously did nothing, but all the consequences fell on her.

He wanted to do something for her.

Does she really remember nothing?

Are all the things that happened before the age of seven really disconnected?

If not, how should he deal with it?

If so, would she notice that his attitude was a little different today?

He suddenly felt that tonight's dinner was more difficult than any multi-million dollar project in the conference room.

There is no impenetrable wall in the world. Lies are lies. Can you really deceive people forever?

He thought again of Zou Ping's recent nightmares. The repeated appearance of the word "mother" might actually be a sign of memory recovery.

Compensation and temptation are intertwined, making this simple dinner no longer simple in meaning.

The sound of a cell phone vibrating interrupted the silence in the room.

Zou Ping put down the palette knife, walked over and picked up the phone.

The screen lit up, and the text message contained only a short sentence:

[At 7:30, we'll meet at Yuanweifang, Guitang.] - Tang Yuchuan

She looked at it for a few seconds and didn't reply immediately.

She has actually been avoiding Tang Yuchuan recently.

It wasn't a superficial avoidance, but a subconscious escape from her heart. They were clearly living under the same roof, getting along, and seeing each other, and even to others, their relationship seemed closer. But she knew in her heart that she had quietly taken a step back.

She didn't want this to happen.

She had tried to get close to him and even confessed her feelings to him. Even though he rejected her, she did not lose heart. She just felt that she could try harder and get closer.

Before getting close to Tang Yuchuan, Zou Ping didn't know what love was and didn't have an ideal type. After meeting Tang Yuchuan, she finally knew what kind of person she liked—calm, measured, restrained, occasionally gentle, but always hard to see through.

He remained calm, but she once believed that if she worked harder, she might be able to become the person who could make him fall in love.

But recently, he suddenly became too nice to her.

She said she was cold, and he handed her a coat.

She mentioned something casually, and he arranged it the next day.

He never asked about the heavy dreams in her paintings, but helped her avoid the thorns of reality.

That kind of care doesn't seem perfunctory, doesn't seem like charity, and doesn't even seem like friendship. Instead, it feels like... some kind of special care.

She was happy at first. Really. That little fantasy started to grow again, wondering if she had another chance.

But this was too strange, she suddenly remembered that when they first met, he once said that she looked like a person when she painted.

He never said who that person was, nor did he explain further.

When Zou Ping thought of this, her heart suddenly skipped a beat.

She is not stupid, her intuition is always accurate.

She began to recall his "good" things—everything was gentle and thoughtful, yet it seemed... not for her as a person, but through her, responding to some projection, some memory. Those eyes were so quiet, as if they were examining a past, not looking at her in the present.

She was suddenly frightened.

She was afraid that his kindness to her was not out of love, but out of some kind of substitution. She was just a shadow, an existence "like someone".

She doesn't want this.

Even though she liked him, even though she thought she could wait, persist, and slowly walk into his heart, she could not accept an unequal relationship, and she could not accept that she was vague, a borrowed position, and "almost" in this relationship.

She also wants to be truly seen, rather than just an echo of someone.

Thinking of this, she slowly exhaled and returned to the easel.

She wanted to try and see if she could draw an exit.

She could never find her mother in her dreams, but she didn’t want to be stuck there forever.

She glanced down at the unfinished painting in front of her, and her heartbeat inexplicably slowed down.

The colors on the canvas are very dark, and the background is a misty color that is close to the overlapping of dark green and cold blue, like a sunken lake.

In the center of the lake, a little girl, dressed in a white dress, her back blurred, trapped in a dream tangled like waterweed. She stood on a path with no end in sight, before her was an endless wall of fog. A vague outline emerged from the mist—a woman, her face too hazy to discern, yet her features eerily familiar.

This was the fifth time in a row she had dreamed of a similar scene.

She was always searching for her mother in her dreams. She desperately called out that word, but her voice was as damp as if soaked through, wet and muffled. She ran endlessly, but could never catch up to that figure. Every time she woke, her pillow was damp, and her head felt heavy and blank, as if it had been struck by a blunt object.

She didn't know why she kept dreaming about this scene, nor did she know who "Mom" was.

The painting is made up of those fragments. Every time she wakes up, she will write down the feeling in the dream, like twisting one end of a ball of thread, trying to pull something out.

She stared at the silhouette of the woman in the painting for a few seconds and suddenly felt a little dizzy.

She turned and walked to the sink, burying her face in cold water and rinsed it. The self in the mirror looked a little pale. She knew that her emotional state was not right recently, but she couldn't put her finger on why.

The phone vibrated again. It was the second text message from Tang Yuchuan:

[No need to prepare anything, just a meal.]

Suddenly I noticed the date on the phone screen: October 26th.

She didn't know what special meaning this day had for her, but she always felt that it was like a bubble under the water. The closer it got, the more pressure it felt, but it was difficult to break.

Maybe I'm thinking too much.

She put on her gloves again, but suddenly found that the deep red color she had just mixed on the palette had stained her left wrist at some point, a thin line, like the mark of an old wound.

She stared at the red line for a few seconds, as if something suddenly grabbed her heart.

"What did you lose in your dream?" she murmured in a low voice.

The figure of the woman on the canvas became increasingly blurred in her eyes.

She reached for her phone and finally replied with one word: "OK."