I met my whole family through Baidu Tieba.

Guo Pinyan stood next to Shen Kang.

Unlike Zong Shijie, he didn't know Zhou Man. He only felt that this woman was very beautiful, had a strong aura, and that her relationship with Lao Shen seemed unusual.

Given the somewhat delicate atmosphere at the scene, he remained silent and simply watched.

Zhou Man then looked at Guo Pinyan.

Before she could speak, Shen Kang introduced them: "This is Lao Guo, Guo Pinyan, a classmate of ours from Yang University of Science and Technology."

Out of habit, he also introduced Zhou Man to Guo Pinyan, "This is President Zhou Man, she..."

He got stuck halfway through his sentence.

The main problem is that I don't know how to introduce it.

According to the agreement made by the family of four, they could not reveal their relationship to each other when they were in public.

Of course, there are exceptions:

When school started, Xiao Bonian played the role of his father in front of his classmates, and Zhou Man played the role of He Qiuzhu's mother in front of her classmates.

But that was a special case, and it happened in the school, in front of a limited number of classmates.

There were still a group of people from Jule Foods present, and Shen Kang didn't know what role Zhou Man wanted to play in the introduction, so he simply looked at Zhou Man.

Seeing this, Zhou Man finally noticed the problem.

……

Zhou Man learned last night that Shen Kang was coming to Jule Foods to pick out beans.

It was already past 10 p.m., almost 11 p.m., and Zhou Man and Xiao Bonian had finished their family game time for the evening and were watching TV in the living room.

The two sat on the sofa, side by side, with a body length between them.

The TV in front of them was showing "Another Dream," and Fei Yunfan was angrily scolding Lü Ping.

"...You only lost a leg, but what about Ziling? She lost half her life and her entire love!..."

Zhou Man hadn't removed her makeup yet. She was holding a bag of potato chips and leisurely picked one up and put it in her mouth, showing no interest in what was on the TV in front of her.

She doesn't like watching TV, especially TV dramas, which she finds boring and pointless.

However, they don't know when it started, but the two of them have gotten into the habit of sitting here together and watching TV for a while after family playtime every day.

With a rustling sound, Zhou Man finished chewing the potato chips in her mouth, then held the bag of chips to the side. "Cucumber flavor. Quite refreshing."

Xiao Bonian said "Oh," and casually picked up two potato chips from the bag, put them in his mouth and ate them, but his eyes were still fixed on the TV in front of him.

Zhou Man also glanced at his profile and saw the television image dancing on his glasses lenses.

She was actually quite nice, and she even asked, "You really like watching this show?"

During their nightly TV time together, they had already watched two dramas together. This was the third drama they had watched together.

In Zhou Man's imagination, a young and promising university professor like Xiao Bonian would not be interested in these TV dramas.

And that was indeed the case—from the first two TV series they watched together, she could tell that Xiao Bonian, like her, wasn't very interested in them, and they didn't watch them despite their setbacks.

However, Xiao Bonian clearly watched "Another Dream" very attentively.

Professor, you actually enjoy watching these melodramatic soap operas?

Zhou Man is very good.

Xiao Bonian smiled and temporarily looked away from the TV screen, turning to Zhou Man: "It's not that I like it, it's just that I feel something for it."

"Feelings?"

Zhou Man quickly put her mind to work and began to apply the various characters from "Another Dream" to Xiao Bonian.

Soon, she thought of someone.

"Your brother?"

During the National Day holiday, the four of them went to an amusement park with Xiao Bonian's niece. Therefore, Zhou Man knew a little about Xiao Bonian's family and knew that Xiao Bonian had a younger brother.

"Um."

Xiao Bonian nodded, "When I watched this drama, I felt like I was a bit like Lü Ping, and my younger brother was a bit like Zi Ling. Of course, that's excluding the romantic scenes..."

In "Another Dream", Lü Ping and Zi Ling are sisters, and their relationship can be summarized by two scenes.

scene one:

Lüping asked Ziling, "What did I do wrong?"

Zi Ling: "It's because you're perfect in every way that I'm always wrong!"

Scene two:

Zi Ling cried out, "All the glory in our family has been stolen by Lü Ping alone."

Lüping is the older sister. She was always the "perfect child" from a young age, excelling in her studies and also being an outstanding dancer, a swan.

Zi Ling is the younger sister, and she has lived in her older sister's shadow since childhood.

This kind of relationship between the characters really touched Xiao Bonian, and he felt quite empathetic towards it.

"...That's probably why I'm so engrossed in watching it."

After Xiao Bonian finished speaking, he gave a self-deprecating laugh, his tone revealing a rare sense of loss, seemingly out of guilt for causing his younger brother distress.

Zhou Man listened silently, then chuckled softly: "So, Professor, you've always been 'someone else's child' since you were little. How infuriating!"

Then, she sat up straighter and recalled: "Actually, when I was a child, there was also a 'child from someone else's family' around me, but it wasn't my brother, and we weren't related. It was just someone else's child."

"Although he's not related to our family, he always likes to come over and show off, so my dad often uses him to compare me to others and to teach me a lesson. I can understand how your brother feels."

"I really hated that person when I was a kid."

At this point, Zhou Man clenched her fists, gritting her teeth, and unusually revealed a girlish side, "Sometimes I even wish I could go with my brother, grab a sack and put it over his head on his way home from school, and beat him up!"

This was the first time Xiao Bonian had seen Zhou Man act so girlishly. His eyes, behind his glasses, stared intently, and a smile played on his lips: "So, did you hit her?"

Zhou Man loosened her fist and shook her head. "No. But we ran into each other once last year and talked about things from when we were little. He apologized to me, saying that he was naughty when he was little and always liked to come to our house to cause trouble, which made me get a lot of scolding from my dad. But actually, he didn't mean to cause me trouble. It was because he liked me when we were little."

"Actually, I still disliked him a bit back then, but after he talked it out, I let it go and was able to treat him as a normal friend."

Xiao Bonian realized that Zhou Man was trying to comfort and console him in her own way, and she offered a suggestion.

Let's talk things out...

Xiao Bonian thought for a while.

He then changed the subject, shifting the focus back to the person Zhou Man had mentioned: "So when you wanted to enter into a marriage of convenience, why didn't you approach that person? Was he married?"

Zhou Man glanced at him almost imperceptibly, then smiled sweetly: "He's not married yet."

Then he pondered, "As for why I didn't think of looking for him..."

As she was pondering this, her phone, which was on the coffee table in front of her, rang.

Both of them looked over and saw that the name on the caller ID was "Ding Ling".

Zhou Man then decided not to answer the question and picked up the phone.

Ding Ling gave a brief summary over the phone about Shen Kang setting up a coffee shop and wanting to get coffee beans from Jule Foods.

Without much thought, Zhou Man replied, "Okay, you can make the arrangements."

Ding Ling hadn't finished speaking yet.

"Mr. Zhou, I haven't finished yet. He proposed a plan: he'll handle the logistics himself. As for the price, he also wants them to raise it a bit..."

After listening to Ding Ling recount Shen Kang's plan, Zhou Man felt a subtle unease: Shen Kang's actions made her feel that he was deliberately distancing himself from her.

Unable to contain herself any longer, she said to Ding Ling, "What does he mean by this? He helped us out with the rice cooker back then, and now he doesn't even want to take advantage of this? Does he just want us to owe him a favor forever?"

His tone became somewhat displeased.

Ding Ling, on the other end of the phone, felt a little annoyed. She thought to herself, "You two are having a fight, what are you telling me?"

However, Zhou Man immediately realized that it was useless to say these things to Ding Ling, so she didn't say anything more: "Alright, I understand. Just do as he said for now."

Zhou Man was still a little angry after hanging up the phone.

Xiao Bonian didn't ask anything; he just watched TV.

Zhou Man, however, after being angry for a while, took the initiative to speak: "Ding Ling said Shen Kang called her..."

After Zhou Man recounted the incident, Xiao Bonian praised him, saying, "He did a good job. He's self-reliant and independent. One of our school's current teaching goals is to cultivate students' independence..."

Zhou Man had been looking at Xiao Bonian with hope, hoping that he would join her in the fight against Shen Kang.

Unexpectedly, Xiao Bonian said that.

This immediately made Zhou Man's expression change.

"...Of course, each situation needs to be analyzed individually. Demonstrating independence is good, but the specific circumstances must also be taken into account."

Xiao Bonian made a smooth turn without changing his expression, as if he had always intended to say that.

"You just told Ding Ling that he helped you with the rice cooker issue. It's only fair that you repay him this time."

Zhou Man couldn't help but chuckle, amused by his words, and her mood inexplicably brightened.

Xiao Bonian looked slightly embarrassed, watching the TV without saying a word.

The atmosphere in the room was somewhat subtle.

Finally, Zhou Man broke the delicate silence, "Let's watch TV."

As she spoke, she quietly put her legs down, which had been crossed on the sofa, and sat down in a very ladylike posture.

Then, early the next morning, after Zhou Man went to the company, she discovered that Jule Foods needed to be inspected while she was handling her work.

So they immediately had Ding Ling change her schedule and come to inspect Jule Foods.

……