Bai Chen parked his bike and took Li Lin inside the house.
The Chinese steamed buns and dim sum were already sold out for the day, so his parents were cleaning up the shop. Their eyes widened in surprise when they saw their son walking in with a girl.
And it was a petite girl with a pretty doll-like face.
“Little Chen, this is...” His father walked up to him and could not help but pose a question. His mother did not approach, but she was listening.
“Her name’s Li Lin, dad. She’s my classmate,” Bai Chen said. He decided to tell the truth.
He did not feel much about this situation. Taking her home was like inviting friends to visit.
“Hello, uncle, auntie,” Li Lin said with a soft voice. She looked down awkwardly, feeling uneasy for disturbing Bai Chen’s parents like this.
“Welcome, Li Lin. Please, feel at home” Bai Chang smiled at Li Lin and looked at his own son with a strange gaze.
He clearly did not believe that they were just friends.
“Welcome.” Bai Yu, who was a little bit further away, smiled in greeting to Li Lin. She had the same thoughts as her husband.
“You’re cleaning up, right? Need my help?” Bai Chen did not notice his dad’s strange gaze.
“Don’t worry about it. Just take Li Lin to do whatever you wanted to do.” Bai Chang waved his hand at Bai Chen.
The boy quickly took Li Lin up to his room after hearing what his dad said.
“My love, what do you think? Is that Little Chen’s girlfriend?”
After Bai Chen took Li Lin upstairs, Bai Yu walked over and softly questioned her husband.
Bai Chang looked around and replied with a smile at the corners of his mouth. “That must be it. I never thought that this boy would find himself a girlfriend this pretty.”
Hearing that made Bai Yu smile faintly. “I want it to be true. That Li Lin girl is really lovely.”
“All right, let’s clean up. You go prepare dinner. You have to show Young Miss Li Lin your cooking skills.”
“I know.” Bai Yu nodded. She hummed happily and walked back to finish cleaning up.
Bai Chen had brought his girlfriend home for the first time. How could they not be happy?
In Bai Chen’s bedroom, Li Lin sat on Bai Chen’s bed. Her face was visibly red as this was the first time she had entered a boy’s bedroom.
Li Lin looked at Bai Chen, who was sitting on a chair in front of her. She did not know what to say.
“Li Lin, can you tell me what’s wrong? If I can help, I will,” Bai Chen said, breaking the silence.
His heart could not help but beat fast when he realised that it was just the two of them inside the room. Moreover, it was his own bedroom.
Li Lin felt hesitant when he heard Bai Chen’s words. But when she thought about how her parents wanted her to get engaged to a total stranger, tears uncontrollably streamed down her face.
Bai Chen did not know what to do as Li Lin started to cry. He blurted out, “If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t force you. But please don’t cry.”
When he finished, Bai Chen walked over to grab a handkerchief from inside his closet and handed it to her.
Li Lin took the handkerchief from him. She wiped her tears with it and looked up to lock eyes with Bai Chen.
“Bai Chen, what should I do? My parents want me to get engaged.”
“What?!?” Bai Chen screamed in shock. “Y… you’re getting engaged!”
“No!” Li Lin refuted his words. “I don’t want to, but my parents are forcing me to, which is why I’ve run away from home!”
Bai Chen calmed himself down. When he’d heard earlier that Li Lin was going to get engaged, his heart had nearly stopped beating. The boy’s face turned solemn.
Of course, how could he want Li Lin to be betrothed to someone else when he had started to like her? There was no way Bai Chen was giving her up to some other guy.
“What should I do?” Li Lin asked. The rims of her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
Bai Chen went quiet. The gears in his head were turning quickly to solve the problem. He knew that Li Lin’s family was really rich. Trying to get her parents to stop thinking of this engagement would likely be extremely difficult.
Bai Chen thought for a while, but could not think of a solution. His face turned gloomy.
This was indeed a big problem for him.
Suddenly, he realised that he had just gotten the thousand-face skill.
If he changed his appearance into that of Li Lin’s fiancé and caused problems for Li Lin’s parents… then it might be possible that they would change their minds about the engagement.
No! They would definitely reconsider!
Realising this, Bai Chen felt relaxed in an instant.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” he said.
“Really?” Li Lin looked at him with apparent incredulity on her face.
“Yes.” Bai Chen nodded. “Do you have a photo of who your parents are matchmaking you with?”
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“Trust me. Do you have it? I can definitely help you this time,” Bai Chen said.
Li Lin hesitated for a moment before deciding to pick up her phone from a small pocket on the side of her dress.
Though she had never seen Xi Dong before, she had heard from her parents that he was famous in Beijing. Baidu, the search engine, would definitely have results on him.
She logged onto the Internet through her phone and opened up Baidu to search for images. Li Lin typed “Xi Dong” and pressed “search”.
Then, photos of Xi Dong in a variety of poses showed up on her phone screen.
End of Chapter 43