Chapter 136: The Power of the Trump Card

That day of the confession meeting.

Pei Du didn't just use his daughter's phone to send Shu Shu a message; he also looked up Shu Shu and Shu Lingchen's profiles, glanced at them, and memorized their account names.

But afterward, he didn't add any of them.

Shu Lingchen simply said, "The other party doesn't support adding friends by searching for account names."

And Shu Shu

Pei Du sent Shu Shu two friend requests in total.

First attempt: "Yinyin."

Second attempt: "I'm Pei Du."

Only then did Shu Shu get a real sense of having been exposed; belatedly, she realized that Pei Du had already woven a big net for her without her knowledge.

She was like a fish in a net, but crucially, she had walked in of her own accord.

This feeling of being manipulated was somewhat unpleasant.

So.

Who's Yinyin? She didn't know; must have added the wrong person.

And who's Pei Du? She didn't know him at all.

Pei Du didn't send a third request—not because he gave up, but because he seemed to sense Shu Shu's emotions.

At times like this, stopping is the wise move.

…

In the brightly lit kitchen, all was quiet except for the faint gurgling of the simmering soup.

When he said that, his eyes were dark, his gaze fixed on Shu Shu's face; he didn't wait for her reply and added, "It's fine if you can't add me through a request."

Shu Shu was about to sigh in relief.

"I can call Yinyin to tell her."

"..."

He paused, then said, "Pei Muyin should have Yinyin's number."

"..."

Then.

Pei Du successfully became Shu Shu's friend.

The phone screen on the counter lit up with a notification.

The Power of the Trump Card.

…

When it was time to eat.

Shu Shu called the two kids to wash their hands first; after they finished, she handed each a towel to dry their hands.

Her daughter's hand was soft and squishy, and Shu Shu couldn't help rubbing it.

Pei Du, finishing up in the kitchen, turned around and just happened to see this scene; the cool‑looking man lowered his head, stared at his dry hands for a few moments in thought, then walked to the sink, turned on the tap, rinsed his hands, and walked out.

"All right, job done."

Pei Muyin's eyes curved as she smiled: "Thank you, sis."

Having said that, she naturally followed Shu Lingchen to the dining area to set out the bowls and chopsticks.

Shu Shu was about to hang the towel back when a shadow loomed and a pair of distinct‑knuckled hands reached toward her face.

The fingers were long, the joints strong, dotted with clear beads of water; even the faint blue veins beneath the pale skin could be seen.

Pei Du said in a low, calm voice: "Trouble, Yinyin."

Shu Shu glanced toward the dining room, confirmed it was a blind spot, then wrapped the towel around Pei Du's wrist, tied a tight knot, and walked off without looking back.

"..."

Pei Du, his hands bound, turned his head to look at the girl's puffed‑out‑cheek back, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Then he untied the towel, lowered his eyelids, slowly and deliberately dried his hands, and hung the towel back up.

Afterward, he slipped on his slippers and headed toward the dining room.

…

After dinner.

Shu Lingchen helped Pei Du clear the table; regarding the earlier incident of him carrying the schoolbag, he seemed to have realized something.

Did Pei Du know the bag was heavy, so he took it for him and then let him carry only two especially light bottles of seasoning?

This person.

What exactly is he after?

While Shu Lingchen was loading dishes into the dishwasher, he also sneakily glanced at Pei Du handling the kitchen waste.

Each time he was about to meet Pei Du's gaze, he immediately turned his head away in an obvious attempt to hide it.

Pei Du kept a bland side‑profile expression, also pretending not to notice the boy's gaze.

After this meal.

Pei Du continued his usual busy routine, while Shu Shu kept taking her son and daughter to and from school as usual.

Having been added as Shu Shu's friend, Pei Du never randomly messaged her, staying quiet like a gentleman lying in the contact list.

But during that time, he again invited them out in his daughter's name, personally cooked, and the four of them shared many meals together; consequently, whenever Pei Du finished work and returned to An Shi, everyone felt it was understood they'd go to 1702 to eat.

Days went by, and the final exam drew ever closer.

Shu Lingchen kicked into high‑gear review mode; aside from eating and sleeping, he basically spent all his time buried in textbooks and exercises.

Finally.

The final exams came, and the three long months passed in the blink of an eye.

School officially started summer vacation.

The weather in July and August is the hottest; the sun scorches the earth, layers of heat waves rise in the air, making people not want to go out.

But staying home with the air conditioner on also gets boring.

Shu Lingchen invited Bo Luo Zai and them to come over as guests; eight or nine people sat in the living room playing games.

Game modes switched variously.

When switching to civil war mode, 5v5 needs ten people, one missing, Shu Lingchen asked Shu Shu if she could come over to make up the numbers.

Shu Shu nodded in agreement.

Everyone eagerly said: "Little aunt, join our side! Hide behind us, we'll definitely protect you and crush the opposing team!"

Shu Shu waved her hand: "No need, you guys play normally, I should be fine."

"Huh? Little aunt, have you played this game before?"

"First time, I've played this type on PC."

"... Then little aunt, don't be too careless; this game is quite complex, the mobile and PC versions differ a lot."

"Oh? Looking down on me." Shu Shu raised an eyebrow: "Want to bet? 1v1 duel."

One word directly triggered Shu Lingchen's keyword; the boy's pair of pitch-black eyes rolled about, squinting, he shouted: "If we bet, we bet; not betting isn't manly!"

The remaining people immediately followed suit: "Bet!"

Then, the 1v1 began.

Ten people, if Shu Shu wins five duels she counts as winning.

First up was Shu Lingchen; actually he wasn't sure whether Mom would or wouldn't, but every time Mom asked "Want to bet?" the result was without exception: she always won.

But this time, it seemed an accident occurred.

After the first round ended, Shu Lingchen won, Shu Shu's screen went dark.

Shu Lingchen stared blankly at Mom, wondering what was happening; he thought Mom was pretending to be weak to eat the strong, but turns out she really didn't know; if he had known earlier, he would have held back.

But Shu Shu calmly started the next round; compared to the first round where she was obviously unfamiliar, this time she could already smoothly control all skills, although she still lost.

The turning point came in the third round.

Having won the first two matches, the rest were full of confidence; yet they ended up losing four in a row, all to Shu Shu.

Pei Muyin sitting beside looked at Shu Shu with eyes full of admiration.

Afterwards, at the match point, Shu Shu swiftly ended the battle in four minutes.

Everyone was dumbfounded.

Shu Lingchen and the person who won realized: it turns out Shu Shu was using the first two matches to practice on them.

They lost the bet, but suddenly remembered that at the start they hadn't seemed to set a stake; a group asked Shu Shu what she wanted them to do.

"Never mind, it's fine, just playing games, no need to be too serious."

What's the difference between that and lighting a firecracker.

"Little aunt, now it's our turn to ask you: are you looking down on us?"

"Real men, willing to bet and accept loss; as long as you say it, we'll definitely follow through."

Shu Shu asked: "Sure?"

"A ten-thousand percent confirmation!"

Then Shu Shu took this bunch of kids to the barber shop—

No matter what champagne gold brown, deep green, pencil gray, wine red hair they had before entering the barber shop, after coming out they all turned black.

Shu Lingchen laughed loudly to the sky: "Hahahahaha..."

Finally someone can accompany him with black hair!!!

No one knows, since changing his hairstyle, Shu Lingchen often feels out of place among friends because he isn't "shamate" enough.

…

After Bo Luo Zai and them returned home, the boring days began again.

Shu Lingchen continued to stay home playing games; in a week he maxed out his account level, found it boring, then opened a new alt to start over.

The consequence of opening a new alt is that he often encounters AI teammates.

But Shu Lingchen doesn't care; he carried the whole way, midway he even captured an elementary schooler, who turned on mic, using an ultra-spicy snack voice, shouted "great god" Shu Lingchen for the whole match, variously begging Shu Lingchen to carry him.

Shu Lingchen's ears were about to develop calluses from his shouting; thinking it's no big deal, he decided to increase his game difficulty a bit and agreed.

Two hours later, preparing to go offline.

That little boy again humbly requested to add Shu Lingchen's social account; Shu Lingchen thought kids nowadays all use QQ, but unexpectedly the other threw over a WeChat ID.

A huge string of raw gibberish.

Unfortunately the game doesn't allow copying; Shu Lingchen found it troublesome, so he tossed his account over, and also turned on friend permissions.

The other said they added it; Shu Lingchen's phone popped up an application notification, so he directly exited the game and turned off permissions.

Coincidentally the phone was out of power; he charged it, then Shu Lingchen got up and went to take a shower first.

…

About ten or so minutes later.

Opening the bathroom door, Shu Lingchen wiped his hair while grabbing his phone, and approved that kid's friend request.

The phone instantly popped up a new chat box.

A pure black avatar.

Shu Lingchen snorted: "In the game he uses Ultraman, but on WeChat he uses such a high-class avatar?"

…

At that time, Pei Du was abroad.

Here it was daytime; he had merely, during a meeting break, with a "let's try" attitude, gone to add Shu Lingchen as a friend again.

He hadn't expected that, by the time the meeting ended, he would see the request approved.

""

After a slight pause, Pei Du opened Shu Lingchen's homepage and checked the account three times, confirming it was correct.

He noticed that the request had been approved forty minutes earlier, and after approval Shu Lingchen had not sent any message.

Pei Du's finger hovered over the keyboard; after a moment, he pondered and typed, then sent:

"Hello."

He regretted it as soon as he sent it.

Was it too formal?

Pei Du did not want to establish a stern father image in front of the child; he preferred to be the child's friend, and of course could also be a listener when the child needed one, or a problem-solver when the child faced difficulties.

Just as Pei Du wanted to recall the message, two reply bubbles popped up in the chat window.

"Little brat, hurry up and sleep."

"Watch out, your mom will spank you."

Pei Du: "……"

"Little brat?"

Pei Du recalled that when he added the friend he seemed not to have left a note, meaning Shu Lingchen did not know that the person on this side was him; it was likely that Shu Lingchen wanted to add someone else as a friend.

Could this be, he got the wrong person?

After a little thought, Pei Du chose not to reply further and just watched developments.

The next day, he received another message from Shu Lingchen, a link to a team invitation.

"Little brat, hurry up and log in."

Pei Du clicked it; it said "xx game", he had not downloaded this app on his phone, after a moment of silence, following the prompt, he clicked download.

During that time Shu Lingchen urged: "Where are you, what are you doing, do you still want to rank up, little brat?"

Pei Du: "You play first, I have something to do, I'll find you later."

Shu Lingchen replied with an OK gesture.

It took over ten minutes for the game to finish downloading.

Pei Du had never registered; logging in gave him a new account, and after completing a bunch of novice tasks he reached the actual game interface.

After studying it for a while, he tried sending Shu Lingchen a team invitation.

Shu Lingchen: "This match isn't over yet, three minutes."

Pei Du just waited on the team interface.

Three minutes later, a notification indicated Shu Lingchen had entered the team, followed by the boy's voice after opening his mic, sounding puzzled: "Why did your level suddenly drop so much, and you even changed your name?"

Pei Du frowned, typed: "New account."

Shu Lingchen guessed: "Could it be that yesterday was the account registered on your mom's phone, and today you switched to registering on your dad's phone?"

Pei Du: "En."

Shu Lingchen: "Oh, then let's just start."

Pei Du was playing this game for the first time, and the game was unfamiliar to him; he had originally worried that his inexperience would be noticed by Shu Lingchen, unaware that the elementary school student Shu Lingchen intended to add was also not very good at playing.

Shu Lingchen had no suspicion at all.

"Little brat, just take that healing character."

"... Which one?"

While he was still looking, Shu Lingchen spoke: "Tsk, you've played before, it's the second in the third row, the red one."

Pei Du selected it as instructed.

"You don't need to worry about anything, just follow me."

Throughout the match, Pei Du controlled his character to always follow behind Shu Lingchen's character; whenever Shu Lingchen's health bar emptied, he immediately pressed the skill.

At that moment, three teammates were knocked down by the opposing side, and they immediately directed their fire at the support:

"That support, we three living people, can't you see us?"

"Being scolded?"

"It's just a kid; Pei Du didn't bother with it, but then he suddenly heard the boy blast the mic: 'Just lie there and enjoy yourselves, it's obvious you three? Look at your miserable record—after seeing it I'd need to replace two retinas—do you have the nerve to ask the support for skills? Is your face made of mille-feuille cake, or does it taste like dog shit?'"

Shu Lingchen, boasting his impressive record, spoke, and those three immediately shut their mics in embarrassment.

Afterwards, Shu Lingchen opened the team mic again, seeing Pei Du silent, he assumed the child was scared because of his young age, and comforted: "Little brat, don't be afraid, I've got you."

Pei Du: "Okay."

Outside the screen, the cold‑looking man's eyes flickered with a hint of emotion.

Could this be considered protection from his son?

It feels pretty good.

Shu Lingchen suddenly asked: "Hey, little brat, why aren't you opening your mic today?"

"Yesterday I listened to two hours of incredibly spicy snack sounds; today I haven't heard them, I'm a bit unaccustomed, and I don't know why, but I feel like today's little brat is a bit silent?"

"Forget it, you'd better not open it; I'm wearing headphones, you're so noisy, just type instead."

"Okay."

"…"

And so, two matches ended.

Pei Du raised his hand to glance at his wristwatch; there was a meeting.

"I'm not playing anymore."

Shu Lingchen: "Not playing anymore? What, did your mom take your phone?"

Pei Du paused: "Hmm."

Shu Lingchen: "Alright."

…

When Zhou Zhi knocked and entered, Pei Du happened to switch out of the game interface.

Zhou Zhi, holding a document, doubted his ears for a few seconds—had he just heard the game's sound from Director Pei's phone?

He must have been so busy that he misheard.

How could Director Pei possibly be playing games?

————

Dear ones, happy New Year~

Wishing you all a joyful new year, smooth sailing, and abundant wealth~