Chapter 45: Don't push me! Don't push me!!!

"Why is this kid here? Could she really be dating him? I never would've guessed. Oh no, if Song Qian sees this, whether it's a misunderstanding or not, she'll take it completely seriously. If this blows up..."

The moment Qiao Weidong caught sight of He Chen, his brain began spinning at top speed, and his whole body went into a tailspin. He was not only worried about his daughter falling in love early, but even more terrified that his ex-wife would lose her mind. He couldn't help regretting that he hadn't exchanged phone numbers earlier with this kid he'd found quite easy to talk to; now, he couldn't even dispatch He Chen ahead of time if he wanted to.

He couldn't even spare a moment to appreciate his daughter's speech. He kept his eyes locked on his ex-wife's expression and gaze, silently twisting his body as much as possible to block her line of sight so she wouldn't see He Chen.

Yet he didn't dare make any abrupt movements that might draw her attention.

Twisting his body sideways like that, he thought to himself that life was just too hard!

Just to get his daughter to show up for her speech as promised, he had waited outside the self-service ticket booth. Spotting his ex-wife approaching, he immediately grabbed a chain and locked the door, hoping to trap her inside until his daughter's speech was over.

Unfortunately, he had failed to account for a second door, and his ex-wife managed to get out. He had hurriedly dropped the chain, run over to intercept her, snatched the ticket from her hands, and ripped it up, desperately trying to persuade her not to go inside and cause a scene that would hurt their daughter's pride and heart.

Yet his ex-wife was dead set on going in. After a round of pulling and tugging, all his efforts were completely defeated the moment his ex-wife publicly screamed "Assailant!" He was instantly KO'd and could only buy another ticket to chase after her. Fortunately, at the very last second, the wife of the deputy district mayor had intercepted and soothed her; otherwise, he truly couldn't imagine what kind of blow his daughter would have suffered.

Speak of the devil.

His bizarrely twisted, overly dramatic posture, combined with his constant glances at his ex-wife, still ended up drawing her attention. When she finally looked over, despite his frantic attempts to shield the view, He Chen—who sat out from the crowd just as conspicuously—instantly caught her eye.

After a brief moment of shock, Song Qian's face turned livid, and her entire body began to tremble.

"Don't get excited, things aren't as bad as you think, it's probably just a misunderstanding..." Qiao Weidong hastily tried to placate her.

However, he would have been better off saying nothing. Hearing those words, Song Qian shot Qiao Weidong a look of extreme disgust, a gaze that seemed to overlap completely with the memory of when she used to watch him desperately try to explain himself back when she suspected him of having an affair.

She completely snapped. Standing up abruptly, she yelled at He Chen, "You little bastard, stay away from my daughter!!!"

That roar was earth-shattering, leaving everyone present utterly stunned.

Qiao Qiao Yingzi, standing on the podium, felt her mind go completely blank with a loud buzz. She couldn't say a single word as she watched her mother curse at He Chen, shove away the father trying to coax her, and march up the aisle with tearful shouts, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her away.

"Come home with me! You are never allowed to come here again!"

"I'm not leaving! I'm not leaving!" Yingzi's head was still ringing. Subconsciously, she grabbed onto the podium, refusing to budge. Seeing the crowd around them casting astonished glances, she couldn't help squatting down to make herself as small as possible.

"You're still not moving? What on earth do you think you're doing?" Seeing that she couldn't drag her daughter away, Song Qian's fury blazed even higher. "Is this the speech event you lied to your mother about, making your father lock me up just so you could attend? You clearly came here to go on a date with this little bastard! You really know how to repay your mother!"

"I didn't! I didn't!" Yingzi cried out, defending herself with a mixture of grievance and anxiety.

However, Song Qian refused to listen to a single word.

She was speaking from bitter personal experience. In his youth, Qiao Weidong had been devastatingly handsome, and she herself had been exceptionally gorgeous; she knew all too well just how powerful the attraction between an attractive young man and woman could be.

Even though Yingzi and everyone else knew that she hadn't inherited the striking looks of either parent, having inherited only their intelligence, Song Qian as a mother lacked any such self-awareness.

In her eyes, her daughter was the most beautiful girl in the world!

For He Chen to appear here at this exact moment, and for her daughter to make such a fuss just to attend, could only mean one thing: the two of them were dating.

This was entirely unacceptable!

Not only was Yingzi in her final year of high school, and thus forbidden from letting romance interfere with her studies, but more importantly, she was involved with He Chen—a boy whose excessively striking looks meant he was destined to become a heartbreaker who would cheat in the future, and who was currently nothing more than a disrespectful, rebellious hoodlum of a student.

At this thought, she blew her top completely, utterly deaf to any defense her daughter offered.

"Mom, stop pushing me!!!" Yingzi saw that her mother refused to listen to any explanations, repeating accusations like "I'm not pushing you, you're pushing your mother." When her father stepped in to mediate, he was violently shoved aside, and when he tried again, her mother lashed out with her free hand, scratching at his face. The pristine venue was thrown into absolute chaos. Yingzi shrieked in warning, her mind suffocating under the relentless pressure forced upon her by her mother.

Every day she had to drink foul-tasting medicinal broths, eat sea cucumbers that smelled terribly fishy, and was denied even a speck of junk food. Her daily schedule was packed to the brim, mapped out meticulously for an entire year in advance.

When her mother finally took her to a movie as a rare treat, it turned out to be one she had already watched in secret. Yet, just to keep her mother happy and prevent her from getting angry, she had pretended she hadn't seen it and accompanied her anyway. When a slip of the tongue during a mid-movie discussion gave her away, her mother instantly flew into a rage, stormed out of the theater, and threw a tearful tantrum in public, driving Yingzi to tears as she shrieked, "I just wanted to make you happy!"

The response she received was her mother's even louder scream: "I don't need it!!!"

Such suffocating daily life repeated endlessly, and it was scheduled to last for another year—and in all probability, far longer than just one year. In the future, she wanted to apply to universities in other provinces, anywhere at all, just to escape her mother. Yet knowing her mother as she did, Song Qian would never allow her to leave Beijing.

She was truly on the verge of a breakdown.

Now, just as she had finally found a hobby to relax her nerves, her mother had chased her all the way here to pull off such a public spectacle. No matter how she tried to reason with her, her mother had once again suffered a complete emotional meltdown and refused to listen.

She felt she could no longer bear it.

"Stop pushing me! Stop pushing me!!!"

Yingzi shrieked, her voice growing louder and louder. Seeing that her mother still remained utterly unmoved, she suddenly shoved away the mother who was tightly clutching her and bolted toward He Chen.

Under Song Qian's wide-eyed, murderous gaze, Yingzi lunged at He Chen, wrapping her legs unladylike around his waist, throwing her arms around his neck, and desperately thrusting her lips toward his.

"Yingzi, don't!"

"Let go of Yingzi!"

Amidst the frantic screams of Yingzi's parents, He Chen looked at Yingzi—whose eyes were already blurred with tears, wearing an expression of absolute, desperate defiance that seemed to say "You forced me into this"—and thought inwardly, "She truly is Lao Bai's daughter!"

Hearing Yingzi scream "Don't press me, don't press me!" he had almost blurted out in response: "Sunflower, Sunflower, Sunflower Acupoint Hand!"

Indeed, he could easily have used a technique similar to the Sunflower Acupoint Hand to promptly stop Yingzi from taking advantage of him—especially when it was this kind of clumsy advantage-taking from a girl who wasn't considered conventionally stunning, looked utterly distressed, and lacked any sense of aesthetic grace whatsoever.

Yet, looking at Yingzi's heartbroken and resolute expression, looking at the surrounding crowd of onlookers, and fearing that stepping back would shatter her pride and perhaps drive her to do something foolish in her fragile state—coupled with the fact that he was once again being irrationally berated by Song Qian, adding new grievances to old debts—he hesitated for a long time and ultimately refrained from stopping Yingzi's act of retaliation against her mother.

And facts proved that Yingzi had no intention of actually taking advantage of him anyway. After clumsily biting down blindly without an ounce of experience, she immediately pulled back, turned her head away, and with a mixture of heartbreak and the reckless thrill of revenge, roared at her mother, who was already frozen in shock: "Are you satisfied now?!!!"