I Have a Niece...

"Get the food out quickly! Don't keep our young friend Chen waiting!" Deng Tiejun called to the server, already addressing Chen Zhao as a friend.

Deng Zixin looked surprised. As far as she could remember, her father rarely acted like this.

Before long, the dishes started arriving one after another. Most were Chinese, but they were plated elegantly, like something from a Western restaurant.

After the cold dishes and four small appetizers came silver-threaded scallop soup, four-treasure shark fin, cheese-baked fish, Dongpo pork, and crispy pigeon. Halfway through the meal, they brought out braised turtle skirt, beef steak with black bean and chili sauce, walnut cream, chocolate cream pastries, and a small fruit plate. There were sliced pears, Fuji apples, mangoes, peeled lychees, and grapes.

Chen Zhao mostly kept his head down and ate. It was clear the old men had gone all out to treat him. Every dish was delicious, beautifully presented, and bursting with flavor. By comparison, the instant noodles he usually loved seemed fit only for pigs.

The three old men, on the other hand, showed little interest in the food. They kept their heads down, studying Chen Zhao's handwritten copy of Memorial to Yueyang Tower and praising it enthusiastically.

"This line is so vivid! 'The light glitters like gold, while the still shadows lie like jade'—you can picture it at once!"

"And the word choice is so elegant and precise. Look at the word 'lie'—nothing else would work as well."

"The ending is brilliant, too! 'Be the first to worry about the world's troubles, and the last to enjoy its pleasures'—what an admirable character and ideal!"

The three old men treated Chen Zhao's manuscript like a treasure, their eyes gleaming like misers gazing at gold ingots. They discussed it for over twenty minutes before finally stopping and looking up at Chen Zhao together.

"How old are you, young friend Chen?" Deng Tiejun asked.

"I'll turn eighteen just when the college entrance exams start in a few dozen days," Chen Zhao said, spitting out grape seeds as he spoke.

"So you're nineteen by East Asian reckoning. Zixin's twenty-three—that's not such a big difference," Deng Tiejun murmured.

Deng Zixin's face went green, then flushed bright red. She slapped her chopsticks down. "Dad, what are you thinking? Can you stop making things up? Just eat your food!"

Chen Zhao felt a little awkward, too. He could hear the implication in Deng Tiejun's words. The man was clearly trying to set him up with Deng Zixin.

"Hey, hey, you've got the wrong idea." Deng Tiejun blushed a little as he explained to Deng Zixin. "I was thinking about what your literary skills were like at his age, and how you compared with young friend Chen. The more I thought about it... the more I realized there's no comparison."

Ma Qingtian smiled slyly and spoke up. Honestly, when he'd looked serious, he'd seemed like an old scholar. With that sly smile, though, he looked more like a lecherous old man.

"Young friend Chen, I have a niece who just got into the Central Academy of Drama. She's a little over a year older than you, comes from a good family, and is pretty..."

Chen Zhao was dumbfounded. Was he... trying to set him up with someone?

Was that really necessary?

He'd only written an essay. Was it appropriate to introduce his niece to him?

Well, of course, if she was pretty, he'd be more than happy...

Deng Zixin leaned over and whispered in Chen Zhao's ear, "Don't believe that old creep. I've seen his niece. She has a birthmark the size of an egg on her face. There's no way even plastic surgery could fix it."

Chen Zhao looked at Ma Qingtian, maintaining a respectful smile on the surface while inwardly cursing him. You crafty old man! Trying to trick me! And you call a birthmark the size of an egg 'pretty'?

Mu Tianque glared at Ma Qingtian and reprimanded him indignantly. "Old Ma, is that any way to behave? We came here to appreciate literature together. How did we end up talking about something as vulgar as matchmaking?"

Then Mu Tianque turned to Chen Zhao with a smile. "I have a niece, too. She's a year younger than you..."

Chen Zhao was speechless. What was going on here?!

Chen Zhao quickly explained that he was too young and wasn't considering marriage for the time being. Deng Tiejun glanced at Deng Zixin with a worried expression, as if thinking, You might still be young, but my daughter isn't. Deng Zixin was practically stunned. She had no idea what had gotten into her father today, and she was so angry she nearly flipped the table.

The rest of the meal was spent chatting. The three old men were curious about Chen Zhao and questioned him about his life as if they were checking his household registration. When they learned that Chen Zhao had ranked first in his grade on the previous exam, they all clicked their tongues in admiration, remarking that a genius was a genius—not only was he talented at literature, he excelled at other subjects as well.

In the end, everyone left happy. Chen Zhao exchanged WeChat contacts with the three old men, and they all headed home.

As for Chen Zhao's handwritten copy of Memorial to Yueyang Tower, he gave it to Deng Tiejun. The other two old men were terribly jealous; they glared at Deng Tiejun as if their eyes could shoot fire. Clearly, they wanted the manuscript, too. The first draft of a fine piece of writing was highly collectible. But since Deng Zixin was Chen Zhao's landlord, he decided to give it to Deng Tiejun. Deng Tiejun promised to submit it to a magazine for him.

At the end of the banquet, Chen Zhao had a few sips of alcohol. He hadn't felt anything at the time, but as he rode home in the passenger seat of Deng Zixin's sports car with the wind blowing on him, the alcohol began to kick in and he felt a little tipsy.

The sports car's leather seat felt wonderfully soft against his cheek. When he lowered his head, he could see Deng Zixin's pale, shapely thighs beneath her leather skirt. When he looked up, the city lights reflected on her fair face, and a thousand lights seemed to sparkle in her eyes. For a moment, Chen Zhao suddenly thought that marrying someone like Deng Zixin would be great. She was beautiful and cool, and she had a whole building bringing in rent, plus a father-in-law who was an artist whose paintings were worth tens of thousands per square foot. But he quickly came to his senses and decided it wasn't realistic.

It was already very late when they got home, so Chen Zhao didn't livestream. He put up a notice in his stream room saying he was taking the night off, then fell straight into bed.

His fans waited for ages, only to get no display of Chen Zhao's marksmanship. Instead, they got a cold, heartless leave notice, and they howled in outrage.

Little Bamboo Shoot was miserable, too. Without Chen Zhao, the top player, carrying her, she was back to getting eliminated as soon as she landed every round. She got beaten so badly she didn't know which way was up, then logged off in disgrace, sobbing.

The next day, Chen Zhao struggled through his exam.

He'd gone to bed too late and had been drinking, so he felt awful. He could barely keep his eyes open during the test.

Chen Zhao rushed through the paper in less than half the allotted time, then put his head down on the desk and fell sound asleep.

Sleeping was one thing, but he even started snoring softly!

The other top students in the exam room were stunned.

Stunned and furious!

They were all racking their brains to gain even one or two points, giving the exam their full attention and working against the clock.

And Chen Zhao was sleeping at his desk?!

He clearly didn't take the other top students in the room seriously at all!

What an arrogant jerk!

After the exam, many of the top students gathered together to whisper—not to compare answers, but to discuss Chen Zhao's disgraceful behavior: sleeping and snoring during the test.

"That Chen Zhao really does have some ability, but after doing well on one exam, he gets cocky. I bet his score will drop this time."

"Exactly. We might not be as good as him, but the top few students in the whole school were checking their papers over and over. How could he still beat us?"

"When the results come out, he'll realize he shouldn't have slept through the exam. He should've used every spare minute to check his answers!"

"Pride comes before a fall. Let's see how far he drops."

"I bet he'll fall out of the top ten!"

Two days later, the results came in. Chen Zhao scored 694 points, once again placing first in the entire school.