CHAPTER 79: REUNION

Huaijin sat backstage, legs swinging from her chair as she ate fruit slices. Director Tang hovered protectively, ranting about how the lighting crew needed to improve their dimming timing "for her performance quality."

She smiled helplessly.

Her bracelet buzzed; her father sent a message.

Did you have fun?

She typed back:

Yes. A lot, Daddy! Did you eat lunch?

A pause.

Then:

Not yet.

She sighed.

Dad... you have to eat on time.

Another pause.

Then, unexpectedly:

Okay. I’ll listen to you.

Her heart warmed.

She typed quickly:

When will you be home?

A longer pause.

Then:

Soon.

I’ll pick you up today.

Her eyes widened.

"...Dad is coming," she whispered.

Director Tang blinked. "Huaijin, what did you say?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, smiling.

Outside, the other children were being picked up one by one.

Mothers hugging them. Fathers patting them on the head. Warm laughter filled the hallway.

And for once... She didn’t feel lonely.

Because her father—

Her very overprotective, secretive, and awkward father—

Was coming.

.

.

.

Yuanfeng closed the live feed, stood up, and put on his coat. His secretary rushed in with urgent documents.

"President Yuan, the quarterly—"

"Later."

"The Chi Corporation called for a follow-up—"

"Reject them."

"But sir, the shareholders—"

"Tell them I’m picking up my daughter."

The secretary froze like someone had hit him with a tranquilizer dart.

"Y-Your daughter?"

"Yes."

The entire floor fell silent as their president walked to the elevator with a calm expression and a completely melted heart.

The staff whispered.

"The legendary President is leaving work for... his kid?"

"No way."

But Yuanfeng didn’t care.

He pressed the elevator button.

His reflection looked back at him, cold, sharp, intimidating.

But his voice was soft when he whispered to himself:

"I’ll be there soon, Huaijin."

And somewhere across the city...

A little girl waited with sparkling eyes.

***

The air on the set of felt thick, not with the usual chaotic energy of a film crew, but with a palpable sense of exhaustion.

Three days. Three continuous, grueling days of filming, punctuated only by rushed meals and the briefest of naps in uncomfortable folding chairs.

The bright, relentless artificial lights had finally been switched off, plunging the massive, makeshift historical courtyard into a comforting, dusky gloom.

Cables, previously taut and energized, now lay limp like sleeping snakes.

But these past three days had been a delightful, dizzying blur of bright lights, cheerful chaos, and the relentless, demanding rhythm of reality television production, too.

For six-year-old Chi Huaijin, or rather, the weary, thirty-something soul trapped within her tiny frame, the Children’s Wonders variety show had been an exercise in patience and performative innocence.

Playing the part of the cute, slightly precocious, and surprisingly professional child star was exhausting, especially when her inner monologue consisted mostly of corporate strategy and investment banking woes.

But all that sophisticated world-weariness evaporated the moment the production crew vehicles began to pack up, signifying the end of the segment and the blessed, imminent return home.

Huaijin was perched on a stack of prop boxes near the exit, her small backpack clutched tightly, trying to project a calm, collected demeanor befitting her past life’s executive status.

Inside, however, a little girl, the genuine, simple little girl whose emotions she often had to suppress for the sake of the ’act’—was doing a frantic, happy dance.

She was going home. And she was going home to him.

The set was a flurry of activity: grips coiling thick cables, camera operators wiping down lenses, and Director Tang, a man whose passion for television could rival the heat of a supernova, giving rapid-fire instructions while wiping sweat from his perpetually worried brow.

Then, Huaijin saw it.

It trundled into the temporary parking area, an unholy symphony of squeaks, rattles, and the kind of deep, wheezing cough that suggested it was running purely on spite and a prayer. It was Yuanfeng’s car.

The car was a legend, an icon, and a source of gentle pity among the production crew.

It was a second-hand, possibly fourth-hand, sedan of indeterminate vintage, painted a color that might have once been a dignified metallic blue but had long since faded into a patchy, sun-bleached grey.

One of the tail lights was perpetually cracked, held together by a strip of what looked suspiciously like silver duct tape. The engine sounded like a bag of loose wrenches tumbling down a flight of stairs.

It screamed "POOR SCHOLAR!" in capital, bold, underlined letters, a perfect mobile symbol of Yuanfeng, the brilliant but desperately impoverished researcher who was constantly chasing grants and side-gigs to fund his esoteric projects and, most importantly, feed his darling daughter.

But to Huaijin, it was the most beautiful vehicle in the world. It meant Daddy.

A collective, sympathetic sigh wafted through the nearby staff members. "Ah, there’s Professor Yuan," murmured the assistant director, shaking his head slightly.

"Bless his heart. You’d think with how popular his little Huaijin is, he’d at least manage to upgrade to something with functioning shock absorbers."

"He’s a true academic, though," Director Tang said, his voice surprisingly soft. "Completely oblivious to practical things. All his money goes into those complex theorems of his. A shame."

Huaijin barely heard them. She was already moving.

The moment the battered driver’s door opened with a groan that seemed to echo the car’s existential agony, and Yuanfeng emerged, she was a blur of pink and denim.

Yuanfeng was tall, habitually wore slightly rumpled but clean clothes, and had a gentle, distracted air about him, the kind that suggested his mind was usually solving complex integrals or designing theoretical fusion reactors, rather than worrying about the price of groceries.

He looked tired, but his eyes, intelligent and brimming with an easy, unconditional warmth, immediately found her.

Huaijin launched herself across the intervening space, her feet pounding a frantic rhythm on the asphalt.

"Daddy!" The cry was pure, unadulterated six-year-old joy, piercing the professional bustle of the set.

Yuanfeng, who was bending down to pull her luggage from the back seat, straightened up with a start.