Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

Jiang Yanbai got up after He Xu fell asleep.

He gently pushed the chair back to its original position, pulled the blanket that He Xu had turned to one side back up to cover his shoulders, and replaced the glass of water that had gone cold with a new glass of warm water on the bedside table.

After doing all this, he stood quietly by the bed for two seconds, then turned and walked out of the ward.

The lights in the corridor were a shade brighter than those in the ward, almost blindingly white.

He leaned against the wall by the door, looking down at his phone, when he saw a message from Jen: "I'm in the coffee shop on the first floor. Want to come down and sit for a bit?"

Jiang Yanbai stared at the line of text for two seconds, then put away his phone and walked towards the elevator.

The coffee shop on the first floor is located in a corner of the lobby. It's not big, with a few dark wood tables and chairs.

Jen sat by the window, an empty Americano in front of her, looking down at some document on her tablet.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up, her gaze lingering on Jiang Yanbai's face for a moment: "How is he?"

"I'm going to sleep." Jiang Yanbai sat down opposite her and put his phone on the table.

Jen looked at him sharply: "You don't look good."

Jiang Yanbai leaned back in his chair, remained silent for a moment, and then hesitated before speaking: "Do you know, he cried today."

Jen paused slightly: "...Him?"

"Hmm." Jiang Yanbai's voice was a little lower than usual. "He always felt like he was a burden. His dad used to leave him alone in the hospital when he was only twelve years old."

Jen put down her tablet, leaned forward slightly, and listened quietly.

"He's never mentioned his father." Jiang Yanbai tapped his fingers lightly on the edge of the table. "In the six years I've known him, he's mentioned his family...maybe only twice in total?"

"Once, he was drunk and said, 'My parents don't care about me at all,' and then he slumped onto the table. Another time, also drunk, he said that his parents had both remarried and that his family didn't need him anymore."

He paused, his gaze falling on the completely dark night outside the window: "I thought he was talking nonsense at the time. Later... today he wrote it down on paper and showed it to me."

"What did he write?"

"Just a few words. He said he had gastroenteritis when he was twelve, and his dad didn't even care." Jiang Yanbai lowered his voice further. "He wrote 'I can manage on my own'—what kind of talk is that? What kind of talk is that?"

Jen did not respond immediately.

She turned the tablet in front of her around and pushed it towards Jiang Yanbai.

The screen's brightness was somewhat glaring under the warm yellow lights of the coffee shop; it displayed a list of folders with filenames arranged by time.

She reached out and opened one of the PDF files, then pushed it towards Jiang Yanbai.

"Before you went to pick him up, I checked his background."

On the screen, several names were clearly displayed: He Xu, He Junming, and Chen Jingru.

Jiang Yanbai stared at those lines of text, his expression slowly shifting from confusion to something that was hard to define—either anger or shock.

"...You investigated him?" His voice lowered, with a barely perceptible hoarseness.

Jen picked up the empty Americano, took a sip, and the empty glass fell to the table with a soft clinking sound.

"You canceled three days of work, flew to another city to pick him up, and didn't even tell your team." She looked up at him, her gaze frank and sharp. "Of course I need to know who he is."

"He is my friend."

"I know," Jen said, her tone unchanged, "but you're a public figure, River. You've been in this industry for eight years, you should know that anyone who appears next to you, even if it's just for a meal, will be scrutinized a hundredfold."

"I'm not interfering with your friendships, I just need to know if the people standing next to you will one day drag you into some pitfall you shouldn't be in."

Jiang Yanbai stared at her for a few seconds, then ground his back teeth: "...Do you even know what privacy is?"

"I know," Jen said. "And I know you won't blame me for this—because you're listening to me now."

Jiang Yanbai didn't reply to him. His gaze was fixed on the screen, and his fingertips unconsciously pressed against the edge of the table, leaving a faint white mark.

The screen displays a family relationship profile template. The name field contains the names He Xu, He Junming, and Chen Jingru, while the relationship field indicates father and son, or mother and son.

The guardian section only listed He Junming, with a smaller line below stating: "After the divorce, custody belongs to the father."

He turned to the next page, which was a photocopy of an old household registration record. The scan was not very clear, but he could make out that the names "He Xu" and "He Junming" were on the same page, while the name "Chen Jingru" appeared on another page, next to several other names he did not recognize.

He turned to another page, which contained an earlier student record—He Xu's information occupied one line, but was followed by a red note that read "withdrawal," and next to it was a handwritten note, the handwriting of which was blurry and difficult to read.

Jiang Yanbai looked at the Chinese text above and suddenly felt dizzy.

He closed his eyes, pressed his palm to his temples, took a deep breath, and opened them again, his voice even hoarser than before: "...He never told me that."

"I know he didn't say that," Jen said calmly, "that's why I showed it to you."

Jiang Yanbai remained silent.

Jen leaned back in her chair, her fingers interlaced on the table, and said calmly, "He Junming is a long-haul truck driver and is rarely home. Chen Jingru... remarried the year after her divorce and had a son who should be sixteen this year."

"However, there's one more thing I want to show you."

She turned another page and turned the screen toward him.

This page contains an earlier record with the following information: "He Xu, fifteen years old, went to South Korea under the former name 'Chen Xu'."

“Chen Xu uses his mother’s surname,” Jen said. “When he was fifteen, he was sent to South Korea to be a trainee. It wasn’t for very long, about a year and a half. According to the records, he returned to China at seventeen and then joined Banxing.”

Jiang Yanbai's fingers curled slightly: "His mother sent it?"

"Probably." Jen turned the computer back and looked into Jiang Yanbai's eyes. "According to the information I found, Chen Jingru's second husband was in the foreign trade business and his financial situation was pretty good. She probably felt that... it wasn't a good idea for He Xu to stay in China with He Junming, so she tried to send him abroad."

Jiang Yanbai lowered his head, his gaze fixed on the Americano on the table that was no longer steaming, and remained silent for a long time.

Then he said in a very low voice, "...And then what happened?"

"What happened next?"

"His mother... what happened after she sent him away?"

Jen paused for a moment, as if carefully choosing her words: "His mother... has a new family and new children. It's not that she doesn't care about He Xu, it's just that a person can only have one heart, and when it's divided between two people, there will always be priorities."

She spoke with restraint, drawing no conclusions, but simply stating a fact.

But when that fact reached Jiang Yanbai's ears, it was like a pebble thrown into deep water, leaving no echo.

Jiang Yanbai leaned back in his chair, looking up at the warm yellow chandelier on the ceiling of the coffee shop, remaining silent for a very long time.

Then he spoke, his voice even hoarser than before: "...He went to South Korea when he was fifteen, alone?"

"Probably. Trainees of that age, unless it's arranged by the company, rarely have their parents accompany them."

"...Then why did he come back?"