“You’re drunk. Go to your room.”

His harsh rejection made me immediately shake my head, opening my mouth to salvage whatever scrap of dignity I had left. But when he looked up, his eyes were so distant and cold that the words dissolved into a bitter lump in my throat.

I don’t even remember how I dragged myself back to my room. All I knew was that before the door clicked shut, the crude banter of his friends squeezed through the crack, piercing straight into my ears:

“Dinh, man, what was that all about? What’s going on between you two…”

“Ah, I get it! You’ve been raising her all these years just waiting for the day to harvest, right?”

“I mean, it makes sense. She was pretty as a kid, but now that she’s blossomed, she’s definitely built for… hehe…”

Before the crude sentence could even finish, Pho Dinh hurled the glass off the table, smashing it directly into the guy’s face.

A deafening crash echoed through the room, followed immediately by a blood-curdling scream.

While the living room descended into chaos, Dinh calmly lowered his head, pulled out a cigarette, and flicked his lighter.

The jerk sobered up instantly, his disgusting smirk wiped clean off his face. Scrambling to his feet, he bowed his head in a sniveling apology. “Dinh, I’m sorry… I took the joke too far. Please, calm down.”

Dinh slowly tapped his ash into the ashtray, dropping a line cold enough to freeze blood: “I don’t ever want to hear anyone make a joke out of her again. If there’s a next time, I’ll teach you how to stay quiet permanently.”

Sensing the deadly tension, the other guys quickly offered forced laughs to cut through the suffocating air. “Right, right! Dinh’s just protective of his girl! Totally understandable, totally makes sense!”

This time, Dinh didn’t bother contradicting them.

Standing behind the door, I pulled it shut completely, hid under the covers, and cried my eyes out. When the lingering alcohol finally wore off, I wiped my nose and whimpered to myself:

“Third time’s the charm. That’s it! As if I’d ever waste another second liking Pho Dinh!”

The next morning, I woke up bright and early. To prove my absolute commitment to “quitting my uncle,” I packed up my belongings and aggressively dragged my suitcase out toward the front door.

Who knew that the second I opened my bedroom door, I’d bump right into Pho Dinh.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I kept my head slightly bowed, adopting a polite, distant tone. “Uncle Dinh, junior year starts in a month. I just got a summer job near campus, so I’m moving into the dorms to make commuting easier.”

He stood dead in front of me, not moving a single inch. His eyes locked onto mine, his voice dropping into a low rumble that sounded like a suppressed volcano:

“About last night… we need to talk.”

I took a quick step back, forcing a textbook, customer-service smile. “Uncle Dinh, I was completely wasted last night and just spewing nonsense. It was all drunk ramblings—not a single word was true! Please be the bigger person and don’t take it to heart.”

“Shen Yu.”

My name leaving his mouth sounded like a veiled threat. His voice was deep, raspy, and dangerously quiet. “Not true?”

Did he… just let out a cold smirk?

Still blissfully ignorant, I gave him a solemn, serious nod. Instantly, a storm brewed in Dinh’s eyes. He glared down at me and took an intimidating step forward. Just as I felt my life flashing before my eyes, a savior arrived.

The doorbell rang, saving my life. The person standing outside turned out to be my high school homeroom teacher. She looked at me with a slightly embarrassed smile and asked, “Yu, sweetheart, I wanted to ask if you’re free for some tutoring right now? My son is entering his senior year of high school and needs a crash course. A few teachers and I have to go on an extended professional training trip soon, so I won’t be able to keep an eye on him.”

To me, my teacher was a deeply cherished benefactor. I still remembered a late night during my senior year when I got home from tutoring. The power went out in the vast, empty apartment with not a soul in sight. Terrified of the dark to my core, I curled into a tight ball in the corner of the sofa and tremblingly called Pho Dinh: “Uncle Dinh, where are you? The power went out… I’m scared.”

My hands gripped the hem of my shirt, my voice barely above a whisper. On the other end of the line, Dinh’s voice was hoarse, sounding intensely tense and rushed: “I’m so sorry, Yu, I’m currently in Vancouver.”

I had panicked for real back then, tears bursting forth uncontrollably. “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving the country?… It’s so dark, I’m scared…”

Static crackled through the speaker. He seemed up to his neck in an important meeting, yet he kept soothing me in a soft voice, apologizing over and over, promising he’d immediately send someone to rescue me.

I had imagined he’d dispatch a squad of burly, muscular bodyguards to stand guard outside my door, but to my surprise, the person who arrived was my gentle homeroom teacher. That night, she held my hand, comforted me, and took me to stay at her place for a few days.

That brief warmth in the dead of winter was something I held close to my heart forever. That was why, when she asked if her son—Lu Wangang—could stay over at our place for a few days to make tutoring easier, I agreed without a second thought.

The kid, Lu Wangang, seemed extremely well-behaved, sitting upright at the desk and listening attentively as I explained the lesson.

The only problem was that “old man” Pho Dinh had suddenly turned into an insufferable nuisance today. In less than half an hour, he had cooked up all sorts of ridiculous excuses to wander into my room for the third time.

Unable to take it any longer, I rounded on him with a glare. “If you have something to say, can you just spit it out all at once?”

Dinh crossed his arms over his chest, leaning lazily against the doorframe. His sharp eyes flicked over to Lu Wangang, who was sitting right next to me. “What kind of studying are you doing in here? Can’t you leave the door open to get some fresh air?”

Before I could shoot back, Wangang tugged timidly at my sleeve, looking aggrieved. “Sis, I wanted to close the door so I could focus. Leaving it open distracts me really easily.”

Hearing this, Dinh smirked, letting out a dripping-with-jealousy sneer: “Focus issues, huh? Or is it something else? Why don’t you come over to my room? I’ll lock the door tight and ‘teach’ you a lesson—you’ll focus real quick.”

Even though Wangang was a few inches taller than me, under the crushing aura of this mob-boss-like man, he was trembling like a leaf. I immediately took a step forward, blocking Dinh’s razor-sharp glare from impaling the poor boy. “Pho Dinh, that’s enough! Stop scaring my student.”

The atmosphere around him plummeted sub-zero in an instant. His dark, fathomless eyes locked onto me as if he wanted to devour me alive. “Now you’re stepping up to defend him?”

“Got tired of playing uncle and niece, so you’re throwing me out to the curb for a fresh taste?”

My stomach churned with pure fury! He was the one who rejected me first, and now he was acting like a betrayed victim getting cheated on.

A wave of bitterness and humiliation rushed over me. Infuriated, I stubbornly tilted my chin up and met his gaze head-on:

“Yeah, so what if I am?! I am completely done with you! Take a good look at yourself—you’re almost thirty, aging by the day! What’s so great about an expired old man that I should hang onto you?!”