Lin Xi was very quiet when she ate. She almost never glanced around but only keep her head lowered and eat what was in front of her.

She did, however, glance over at the plate of crab sitting in front of Gu Shao from time to time.

She did know when but a plate of crab suddenly appeared in front of her. Lin Xi was taken aback a little and looked up at Gu Shao.

“You like this?”

“Mmhmm.” Lin Xi nodded, “Thank… mmmm…”

Remembering what Gu Shao had told her just a little while ago, Lin Xi finally switch the “thank you” out to an appreciative smile.

She liked crab but she had no choice at the Lin family.

Lin Xi was taken aback by Gu Shao’s words. She looked at him, dumbfounded. There was surprised in her eyes.

Gu Shao looked down and into her eyes. He enunciated every word, “You don’t need to fawn over anyone here, not even me.”

Lin Xi, “……”

Fawning over?

She only felt that she should be conscientious of the fact that she was living under somebody else’s roof. She subconsciously wanted to make sure that Gu Shao would keep her there and that she didn’t want him to find her annoying…

“I didn’t…” Lin Xi lowered her head and denied in a low voice. Her eyes, however, darted around aimlessly.

Gu Shao did not comment on that. He looked at the top of Lin Xi’s head and said, “I’ve made the promise that I will raise you. Then, out of the responsibility of a father, I will raise you and do my best to provide you with the best.”

On the other side, over at NTN Technology Center, Gu Shao was far less happy.

He didn’t head to his office when he arrived at NTN Technology Center but went straight to Zuo Hua’s office.

“You got anything?” asked Gu Shao as soon as he walked inside.

“Yes. There is an audio file. Here you go.” Zuo Hua handed a USB drive to Gu Shao as he talked.

Out of respect for his good friend and professionalism, Zuo Hua did not listen to the audio file.

Out of curiosity, however, he did scan over the content through certain means. Somewhat similar to virus scan in documents.

Zuo Hua was surprised that he did not get any hits on any sensitive words.

“Thank you,” said Gu Shao. He then left with the USB drive.

“What is future technology?” asked Lin Xi.

The term was so broad that Lin Xi wasn’t able to find a good definition online.

Hearing Lin Xi’s question, Gu Shao paused and answered her with a question, “What do you think future technology represents?”

“Em… technologies that are not available currently but will appear in the future?” asked Lin Xi uncertainly. She understood the literal meaning of the words but she didn’t have a good grasp of the concept.

“Not exactly,” said Gu Shao. He then added, “Future technology represents a type of technology, but it is not limited to a specific area of science and technology. Simply put, any current technology that could affect the future development direction can be considered as future technology. Future technology can also include technologies that will arise in the future basing on current speculations or planning…”

The next morning.

Lin Xi was actually slightly surprised pleasantly when she saw that Gu Shao was still home.

“Good morning, Dad.” She greeted him in her standard way.

“Come have breakfast.”

“Okay.”

Lin Xi walked over to the dining table and, by then, Aunty Mei had already brough breakfast out for her.

Noticing that Gu Shao hasn’t been eating, Lin Xi was a bit surprised – was he waiting for her?

“Let’s eat, Dad,” said Lin Xi as she handed a pair of chopsticks over to Gu Shao.

Gu Shao took the chopsticks and seemingly grunted in acknowledgement.

The commotion from the others made Zhang Qiang realized that he had gone overboard with the bragging. The person was gone already. How was he going to show these people anything? Not to mention that he still remembered what Lin Xi had said about pressing charges against him.

Zhang Qiang was half way sobered up instantly. He was, however, still feeling a little dizzy.

“What is there to see? You want to get arrested?” Zhang Qiang shouted and grumbled, “I will be done for if she brings the recording to the cops…”

The crowd didn’t really understand the second part of what he said.

What he said was unclear. Throwing in the fact that Zhang Qiang was drunk, the others only assumed that he was just rambling and nobody paid it much attention.

Seeing that Lin Xi had logged off, [AAA] was a little bored. He switched to private chat and stated bragged to [Lin] on this amazing teammate that he had picked up.

[AAA]: What do you think, eh? He’s amazing, right?

[Lin], for once, gave a very definitive answer: Not bad at all.

[AAA]: Hahaha, of course. It was me who recruited him. I am very confident about this competition!

[AAA]: Speaking of, when are you returning anyway?

[Lin]: Day after tomorrow.

[AAA]: Oh shoot, for real? I thought it will be at least another two months before you return.

[Lin]: I have something important to attend to.

After dinner, Lin Xi returned to her room and buried herself under her blanket.

She had wanted some quiet time to herself.

But a notification chime interrupted her thought process.

It was from the chat group [Battle at the Summit of Tianchuang] that she thought was already “dead”.

It was still just the three of them and the one talking was the group owner.

[AAA]: Bros, what say we come up with a team name first?

[AAA]: What do you think about AXL?

[AAA]: Do think that is too plain? Or we can just call it Battle at the Summit of Tianchuang?

Lin Yize had his plan initially. He was not happy that Zhang Cui had revealed the fact that Lin Xi’s household register had been transferred to Gu Shao just like that. But it was too late to stop her now.

Watching the father and daughter taking off from his place, Lin Yize’s fist tightened and a hint of ruthlessness flashed past his eyes.

At the same time, while everyone was busy with taking are of Song Kexin, who had fainted, nobody noticed the Lin Anxin had returned home early and was hiding in a corner.

That very moment, the room was so quiet that one could almost hear a hair falling onto the floor.

Nothing else need to be said.

“I don’t believe that it is a good idea for Lin Xi to stay with the Lin’s,” said Gu Shao coldly.

“As the birth father of the child, I will take her with me. If Boss Lin and his family believe that I should compensate you, I can cover all expenses incurred by Lin Xi at the Lin’s in the past 14 years.”

Lin Yize’s face was long. He didn’t say anything. It was obvious that Gu Shao came well prepared. Now he had become the passive one.

Gu Shao started to talk in a low voice, “What Lin Xi uses, eats, and even wears were mostly leftovers from Lin Xi, that included her cellphone.”

After he had said that, Xu Jiaofeng was the first who felt embarrassed – her son didn’t care much about the b*stard child and Song Kexin, the mother, didn’t care much about her either. Xu Jiaofeng was the one who was irked by the Lin Xi’s existence and not wanted her to spend a penny of the Lin’s. As such, she was the only who instructed the servants that there was no need to supply Lin Xi with good things.

The few walked inside the Lin’s residence.

There were never a lot of signs that Lin Xi was a part of this family and now, there were even less.

All of the servants had been sent away from the living room.

Gu Nian and Lin Yize sat on both sides of the couch and neither one of them talked. The atmosphere was very tensed.

Lin Xi stealthily looked from one of them to the other and then back to the first one.

From an objective perspective, Lin Xi felt that Gu Shao’s aura was every bit as strong as Lin Yize’s.

And he was handsomer than Lin Yize to top.

Ever since she was a child, Lin Xi had been used to being yelled at by Xu Jiaofeng. She was already numbed from it. Lin Xi bit her lower lip and lowered her eyes. She ignored the irrelevant shouting coming from Xu Jiaofeng.

Gu Shao noticed all about Lin Xi’s submissive attitude and manner toward Xu Jiaofeng turned cold all of a sudden.

“I trust that my assistant had clearly conveyed to you the purpose of my visit. If Old Mrs. Lin believes that I am here to cause trouble, that is find as well.”

Gu Shao’s cold look and attitude made Xu Jiaofeng’s heart dropped. She took half a step back reflexively.

Then there was the last thing that came out of Gu Shao. That was a blatant threat.

The father and daughter duo took off.

Lin Xi sat quietly next to Gu Shao.

Had she not been glancing over at Gu Shao from time to time, she’d look like a statue paused in animation.

Gu Shao looked over at Lin Xi out of the corner of his eye. “You nervous?”

Lin Xi shook her head. “No.”

“It’s just that. I have a question…” Having said that, Lin Xi has some hesitation.

“What is it?”

“You and my mom, um, I am talking about Miss Song Kexin. How did it all happen?” Lin Xi asked in a low voice.

After Lin Xi had returned to her room, the pondering look on Gu Shao deepened.

Gu Shao dialed Wang Wu.

“Sir?”

“Lin Xi was sent to the village before?”

“That’s correct.” Wang Wu recalled. “But it didn’t seem she stay there for very long.”

“Go look into it. I want to find out what happened when she was there and when she was at the Lin’s. I want more details than we previously had.” Gu Shao did not miss the fear and panic that flashed past Lin Xi’s eyes when he mentioned going to the Lin’s.

There was no reason why she would have such a strong reaction if her days were “just difficult” back at the Lin’s.

Chen Zhiyang saw their professor sitting in front of his desk, in deep thought, staring at a stack of reports on one of their research and development projects when he walked inside Gu Shao’s office.

“Something wrong this project?” asked Chen Zhiyang.

“No, it is fine.” Gu Shao recollected himself and pushed the reports aside.

“Do you know what I will need to add someone onto my household register?” asked Gu Shao casually.

Chen Zhiyang was taken aback a little and immediately made the association: The professor was going to add Xiao Xi under his household register?

The next day, by the time Lin Xi had gotten up, Aunty Mei had already prepared breakfast for her and Gu Shao.

After dinner, Lin Xi stayed home as usual and Aunty Mei went out in the middle of the day.

When she returned that afternoon, Aunty Mei was carrying with her bags and bags of stuff. There were still two more delivery personnel behind her with two boxes of stuff.

Lin Xi had initially thought they were Aunty Mei’s luggage but she saw Aunty Mei pulled out a box and handed it over to her with a smile.

“Little Miss Xi, this is a new cellphone for you. Take a look and see if you like it.”

After shooing away the three other men, Gu Qinghua brought his cellphone in front of a photo of his late wife.

“Wife, look. Our second boy’s child. She looks just like you when you were young.”

He talked some more in front of his wife’s picture and was very happy with the photo in hand. “Our family has a little princess now.”

The Gu family only had sons for a few generations, never a daughter. His wife was finally pregnant with a daughter once but had lost the baby inadvertently right before delivery. That had become a permanent pain in the old grandpa’s heart.

Sighing, the old grandpa pulled out his cellphone again and looked at the photos. He was unable to his phone down.

Aunty Mei showed Lin Xi to the dining room.

Lin Xi thought the dinner that Aunty Mei was talking about was just a few regular dishes. Lo and behold, the second that she walked inside of the dining room, Lin Xi thought she was looking at the Manchu-Han Imperial Feast.

“… …” Just the two of them plus Grandma Mei. Were they overdoing it a bit with this much food?

Seeing the surprised look o Lin Xi, Aunty Mei quickly explained, “It was my first time cooking for Little Miss Xin and I didn’t know what you like. So I made a little of everything.”

Truth was, when she was preparing dinner, Aunty Mei wanted to make everything for Lin Xi and inadvertently made all the dishes that she was good at.

“Just pick the ones that you like.

Gu Shao was still there waiting for her when Lin Xi followed the teacher back into the office. Waiting with him was a woman in her fifties.

When they walked over to them, Teacher Chen said, “Director Zhou.”

Director Zhou looked over at Lin Xi. She looked surprised. Then she looked from Lin Xi and Gu Shao.

“This must be your daughter, Professor Gu. She’s very pretty,” said Director Zhou with a smile. “I didn’t know that you have a child her age.”

Gu Shao was a professor at A University and was an acquaintance with this Director Zhou right here. That being said, Professor Gu was a very busy man and never stuck around one place long enough. He also never talked about his personal life.