A Rose on Thin Ice - Chapter 2

Only Shen Mo and I ate dinner together. I had no idea where Fu Sinian had gone.

Awkwardly, Shen Mo put food into my bowl. I gave her my sweetest smile and began telling her about everything I had seen that day.

Guilt appeared on her face. “Yaoyao, do you blame Mommy?”

I shook my head. “I love you, Mommy.”

Under her stunned gaze, I took her hand.

“We’re a family.”

That night, Shen Mo bathed me for the first time.

After coaxing her to sleep, I took out the tablet the housekeeper had bought me. I couldn’t help it. My bedtime ritual was scrolling through short videos.

One DIY clip gave me an idea. I dug out my old gold pacifier and gathered my tools, then hid in Fu Sinian’s study.

I had barely laid everything out when the pacifier rolled under the desk.

The corner beneath it was pitch-black.

I gritted my teeth and crawled in. The pacifier’s base was twenty grams of solid gold, after all.

Before I entered this novel, my aunt had paid me only fifteen hundred yuan for an entire month’s work.

That pacifier was worth a year of me.

I was grunting and stretching for it when footsteps entered the study.

“What do you know?”

I paused. It was Fu Sinian.

He was on the phone with one of his childhood friends.

A man’s lazy laugh came from the other end. “Sinian, women just love throwing little tantrums. Especially that caged bird of yours. Force her a couple more times and she’ll learn to behave.”

Fu Sinian said nothing. He rubbed his brow.

“I thought getting married would fix everything.

“But…

“My marriage has been through so many twists and turns.”

Pacifier between my teeth, I slowly crawled out from under the desk. “Sounds like you got a bargain.”

Fu Sinian: “…”

He immediately ended the call.

“Fu Yao, what are you doing in here?”

I picked up my tools and headed straight for the door.

Fu Sinian stood to one side, utterly ignored, an unreadable look in his eyes.

Before leaving, I glanced back.

“Daddy, you’re angry because Mommy chose someone else instead of you.

“But you never stop to ask what you did wrong. All you do is lose your temper at her.

“Keep this up, and you won’t have a wife anymore.”

The next morning, Fu Sinian decided to drive me to school.

I nearly spilled my milk.

“Grandpa Butler,” I asked cautiously, “is the Fu family bankrupt? Or did the sun rise in the west?”

The housekeeper laughed and put me in the car.

Fu Sinian sat expressionless behind a financial newspaper. I carefully scooted a little farther away from him.

Without warning, he said, “I understand now.”

I blinked. “Oh.”

It seemed he had done his homework last night.

When Fu Sinian first pursued Shen Mo, he had wanted to leave her isolated and helpless. So he had destroyed her best friend’s entire business.

If that friend saw him now, he would be lucky to escape with only two slaps.

Since Fu Sinian was showing a decent attitude, I lectured him with the gravity of an old sage. “They say a best friend is half a woman’s family. Auntie is a reasonable person.”

Fu Sinian dissolved into a coughing fit.

He had probably never imagined he would one day take romantic advice from me.

As we neared the kindergarten, he handed me a heavy box.

I opened it without thinking.

Golden light blazed before my eyes.

I stared. “I-Is this for me?”

An enormous pacifier rested in the middle of the box. The solid-gold base was marked as a full fifty grams.

“I asked a doctor,” Fu Sinian said. “You’re too old for a pacifier. But…”

He paused.

“You’re my daughter. If you want to play with something, then play to your heart’s content.”

Fu Sinian seemed to have misunderstood something.

But who would say no to fifty grams of gold?

Especially someone who had been poor all her life.

I climbed onto him and planted a loud kiss on his cheek.

“Daddyyy! Daddy!

“You’re so bossy. I love it!”