CHAPTER 82: ARRIVAL

"Huaijin, that’s... that’s enough," he mumbled, trying to pull away gently, feeling the same embarrassed helplessness he always did.

His daughter, however, was on a mission.

She stepped up onto her toes and planted a soft, damp kiss right on the centre of his chin.

"No, it’s not enough!" she insisted. "Director Tang kept looking at you! I heard the makeup artist whisper about your perfect facial symmetry! You are a walking, talking, beautifully distressed national treasure!"

The ’distressed’ part was a reference to his slightly tired look, which she, in her reborn wisdom, interpreted as ’effortlessly rugged.’

"My treasure status is limited to being your chauffeur and chief hot chocolate provider," Yuanfeng countered, trying to deflect the praise with a laugh.

He finally managed to pull the rest of his shirt off, feeling vulnerable and exposed under her intense gaze.

"And the most handsome chauffeur in the known universe!" she reaffirmed, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist and squeezing. "I missed you so much! When I was on set, I kept thinking, ’My Daddy is so handsome, why are all these other men just... regular?’"

The sheer, dramatic force of her flattery was overwhelming. Yuanfeng loved her devotion, but the elaborate, often theatrical nature of her praise always left him blushing and slightly embarrassed.

It was as if she were a Renaissance artist trying to convince a stoic, humble monk of his divine beauty.

He finally gave up trying to reason with the little bundle of adoration.

He scooped her up in a powerful, encompassing hug, burying his face in her hair, which smelled faintly of studio-provided, over-scented shampoo.

"Alright, alright, you win. I am utterly, hopelessly, undeniably handsome," he conceded, his voice thick with amused affection. "Now, how about that hot chocolate and a discussion on why you didn’t cry when the other children were sad?"

"Because I’m a professional, Daddy," Huaijin said primly, settling her head on his shoulder. "And also because they were crying about a dropped ice cream cone, which, in the grand scheme of the $3.2$ trillion USD global economy, is simply not worth the tears."

"You really..." Yuanfeng chuckled, carrying her into the small, combined living room and kitchen.

He deposited her carefully on the sofa and began the familiar routine of boiling water and digging out the emergency stash of powdered mix.

The rest of the evening was a gentle, loving decompression. Huaijin, in her private moments with her father, allowed her guard to drop entirely.

She wasn’t the savvy, reborn executive or the professional child star; she was simply Chi Huaijin, a six-year-old who craved her father’s attention.

They didn’t talk about his actual work, the cutting-edge, internationally sensitive physics.

They stuck to the façade: his ’poor scholar’ persona, his ’struggle’ for funding, and his latest, slightly abstract mathematical theories that only she pretended to follow.

Yuanfeng, for his part, happily absorbed the shower of affection.

He let her hold his hand while he prepared a simple dinner, read to her for almost an hour, and then, true to his promise, put on a documentary about astrophysics, describing the concept of a singularity with dramatic flair and accompanying ’whoosh’ and ’implode’ sound effects.

"The singularity, my little dragon," he explained later, tucked into the sofa with her curled against his side, "is the point where all our current rules break down.

Infinite density, zero volume. Like when you hug me so tightly that I might cease to exist as a separate entity and just become... a part of you."

"Then I’ll hug you harder," Huaijin murmured sleepily, cementing his point.

Yuanfeng didn’t mind at all. The constant contact, the little purring sounds she made when she was content, he secretly found it immensely reassuring.

The world outside their apartment was full of complex variables, professional deceit, and the ever-present need for secrecy.

But here, with Huaijin clinging to him, everything was simple, pure, and grounded in fierce, mutual devotion.

He knew he was spoiling her, pouring all the gathered love he possessed into her life. But when he saw the deep, serious wisdom, and sometimes, the deep sorrow in her eyes that felt like they carried the burden of a soul that had seen too much, he couldn’t help it.

He wanted to give her an overdose of childhood joy, to make up for the life she had lost and the complexities of the life they now shared.

The serenity lasted until 10:30 AM the next morning.

Yuanfeng, having slept poorly thinking about a flaw in his "Omega" function calculation, was nursing a strong black coffee while Huaijin was diligently completing her ’homework’, a series of advanced logic puzzles he set for her every week.

Then, the doorbell rang. It wasn’t the regular, polite chime.

It was a rapid, insistent BEEP-BEEP-BEEP, followed by a second, slightly more annoyed burst.

Yuanfeng frowned. "I didn’t tell anyone I was home. And no one usually visits here."

Huaijin froze, her pencil hovering over a complex geometric sequence problem. The name that sprang to her reborn mind was immediate and chilling: Chi Yuanying.

In her past life, Chi Yuanying had been the seemingly sweet, slightly put-upon cousin who was secretly the manipulative core of the disaster that had destroyed Huaijin’s family and, eventually, Huaijin herself.

Yuanying was the fake daughter of the powerful Chi family, the one who had successfully usurped the real daughter Liang Lingzhi’s place while maintaining a veneer of innocent victimhood.

In this life, Yuanying was still just a child, but Huaijin knew the seeds of the future villainess were already planted.

Chi Yuanying was also filming the Children’s Wonders show and was known for her highly competitive nature.

However, in this life, the manipulative and scheming Chi Yuanying hasn’t been born yet, because now she was just a hopeless and innocent child.

"It’s Yuanying, Daddy," Huaijin stated flatly, getting up from the table. "She’s here to ’rehearse’ for next week’s filming."

"Yuanying? Oh, Chi Yuanying, your cousin? How nice,"