Until the moment she met Su Ziyan, Xia Zhi felt she had done everything pretty well.
She had successfully added the WeChat of that university’s confession wall, thereby obtaining the contact information of the part-time job posting wall manager, and issued the request under the other person’s astonishment.
The reason for the surprise was simple: she hadn’t left a phone number but instead left her WeChat.
The reason was also simple: right now she could say, at most, two words in a row.
If something unexpected happened during a phone call, she might not be able to make a sound at all.
So she chose WeChat—a communication method that gave her more time to think.
But leaving WeChat as a contact method was truly weird, so she had prepared herself for the possibility that no one would contact her for a while.
Yet to her surprise, on the very next day after the posting, the first day the ad went up, someone added her WeChat—a user named “Yan Nan Du.”
The profile picture was a Q-version blue-haired ACG beauty.
This made Xia Zhi feel relatively more at ease.
After all, as the old saying goes, since they’re an ACG fan, they probably don’t have the guts to do anything bad.
Even though this kind of rumor was more or less made up, it didn’t stop Xia Zhi from using it to comfort herself.
So after a brief exchange, she arranged to meet the person offline, with the meeting spot set at her home.
After all, asking her to go out to a coffee shop or something was way too difficult.
After setting the time, she suddenly realized how dirty she looked right now.
There was no time to wash her hair, so she just quickly washed her face, changed clothes, and tried to comb her hair as best she could.
She originally wanted to put her long hair up in a bun, but she had never done that herself, even as a child.
After fumbling around, she decided to just tie it into a high ponytail.
But she had been out of the house for so long and mostly used hair clips at home, so she couldn’t even find a hair tie.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Flustered, she pressed the intercom to let the person in and then stood anxiously by her front door like a child who had done something wrong.
There was no time to tie her hair, so in a panic she just combed it a couple of times so it wouldn’t look too messy.
During that brief wait, she felt her heart might jump out of her chest.
As soon as she heard the elevator’s piercing door-open chime, she practically scrambled to push the door open.
And then she froze completely.
Because the person in front of her was a college student, but it turned out to be a guy!
First of all, she couldn’t even speak in front of a man.
Second, for her own safety, she couldn’t hire a man!
After all, the job would require him to take care of her long-term when he had no classes.
Alone together like that, what if he did something to her?
She wouldn’t be able to resist.
Since she lived alone, if something happened, there wouldn’t even be anyone to call the police for her…
But since she was the one who invited him over, she might as well let him in for a cup of tea and then turn him down politely.
She could also create the illusion that her family would be home soon, so even if he had bad intentions, he wouldn’t dare to act on them…
Okay, that’s the plan!
But just as she snapped back to reality, she noticed the guy was staring at her face, dazed.
Different people think different things in such moments.
Su Ziyan was staring at her because he had never seen such a world-weary beauty exuding such a sense of decadence.
But to Xia Zhi, it was an entirely different story.
When a person does something with a flaw, that flaw keeps nagging at them.
The same was true for Xia Zhi.
After all, she had just been struggling with her unruly hair, so her first thought was that he was looking at her messy hair.
‘Damn it, I shouldn’t have asked him to come over right away. I didn’t even leave myself time to take a shower. He’s probably thinking I’m a dirty, pathetic person…’
Imagining that he saw her as filthy and smelly, Xia Zhi felt utterly mortified.
“Hello, my name is Su Ziyan. I’m a freshman at XX University, here to apply for the job of caring for a child. Are you… the contact person who posted that job?”
The man’s self-introduction reached her ears.
She instinctively wanted to respond, but no matter how hard she tried—to the point where her brows furrowed in effort—she couldn’t make a sound.
‘I messed up. Totally messed up. He probably thinks I’m dirty, smelly, and rude.’
She turned around, took a few deep breaths to steady herself, and then realized she had already taken several steps back unconsciously.
‘Damn it! My body has gotten so bad that it instinctively moves away from strangers?’
Forget about inviting him in and then politely refusing him; he probably thought she was showing him the door already.
‘Does he think I’m messing with him? Even if he mocks me or curses at me, it would be understandable, right?’
This Su Ziyan looked like a clean, neat person.
He probably wasn’t some violent maniac.
‘He wouldn’t think I’m toying with him and just fly off the handle, would he?’
Xia Zhi’s mind was full of chaotic thoughts, but her eyes instinctively fell on the slippers she had already neatly placed by the door.
She knew it was probably a lost cause, but she still felt regret.
After all, even though it seemed rushed and sloppy, this was the best she could manage after all her preparations…
‘I still can’t do it. Why does it have to be like this?’
“Are these slippers for me?”
The boy’s voice interrupted her scattered thoughts.
As if seeking affirmation, she nodded instinctively.
And so, without saying a single word, she managed to invite him in.
They sat on opposite sides of the tea table.
Next, she needed to pour him a glass of water, ask a few questions, and then politely turn him down.
But then she realized there was no hot water or tea leaves at home—she had been drinking bottled water all along…
And as for speaking, she didn’t dare to.
So she froze again.
In the silence, the boy spoke first.
“What exactly does this job require me to do? I saw the posting didn’t specify work hours or details…”
“Could you let me meet the child I’ll be taking care of?”
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