Mr Liu simply didn’t believe that after seeing how outstanding her beloved student was, anyone could still bear to shut such an excellent kid out.

Mr Liu had no proof that it was Lv Xiaocha who screwed Qian over with that email, but she was convinced something had gone wrong somewhere in the process; otherwise how could her prized student Chen Xiaoqian possibly have failed to get connected with Qi?

Thinking of Qian’s evasive attitude on the phone, Mr Liu found it both funny and infuriating.

"What did Chen Xiaoqian do this time to make you this happy?" Mr Liu came home and saw his wife’s expression and knew right away: only that precious apprentice of hers could get her like this.

Mr Liu had just retired from his unit and now spent his days at home with Mr Liu; when he wasn’t busy, he’d stroll over to Yu Minglang’s workplace to "give some guidance," since it wasn’t far.

"That girl is ruthless. Li secretly took on some private work, pulled together a bunch of kids to hand out flyers and fill in market survey forms, and got blocked by that little firecracker. She and our Xiao Li teamed up and hauled the whole truckload of students off to the Urban Management Bureau to eat watermelon. When Xiao Li called to report to me, he said Li’s face was twisted, guessing it was the little firecracker’s doing but there was nothing he could do to that girl."

Qian had guessed right. After the big boss found out, he silently thought, "Nice job," but outwardly he maintained his dignity and just lightly criticized Qian a couple of times.

"Hahaha, that move’s good—cutting off the fuel from the bottom of the cauldron. This style is a bit like Yu Minglang’s. No wonder they’re a couple. Mm, all thanks to my teaching."

Mr Liu was quite pleased with himself. Mr Liu rolled her eyes. "You can say the little steel egg takes after you, I’ve got no objection—he’s your man. But the little firecracker takes after me! She’s the kid I taught, with proper values!"

"Alright, alright, they all take after you."

"But this child has her bad side too. It’s fine when she uses that crafty streak on other people, but lately she’s set her sights on me!"

"...How is that possible?" Mr Liu knew Qian had a special respect for his wife. Whoever she might scheme against, it wouldn’t be his wife.

"That little brat doesn’t want to go study out of town. She won’t tell me directly and instead pulled a slick one and found herself a scapegoat..."

Mr Liu told him her reasoning about how Qian had set up Lv Xiaocha, and Mr Liu was puzzled.

"How can you be so sure Qian orchestrated it herself? It’s perfectly normal for excellent people to be envied."

"I’ll believe it if you say someone else got played. But if you’re telling me our little firecracker is so dumb she got fooled into losing a chance? I wouldn’t believe that if you beat me to death. That girl oozes cleverness from every pore. Lv Xiaocha, outsmart her? What a joke. Too bad the kid is too sly and didn’t leave any evidence. I asked her and she wouldn’t admit it."

No wonder she’d been Qian’s teacher for years—she saw the situation from all angles.

"This girl is interesting..." Mr Liu was amused as well.

Thinking it through carefully, Qian’s move of killing with a borrowed knife was very similar in spirit to how she’d tricked the boss into letting them all get taken to the Urban Management Bureau. Mr Liu could more or less guess that Qian didn’t want to go and had deliberately handed Lv Xiaocha an opportunity, but there was no proof. Qian was skimming along that bottom line like a little mudfish—everyone knew it was her, but there was nothing they could do.

"If that girl thinks she can get rid of me like this, then she’s way too naive! A little house thief wants to spar with an old master thief like me? Watch me build her a bridge and pave her a road! Qi goes back to Kao Shan County every year to pay respect to his ancestors. The two of them are bound to run into each other. I just won’t tell her now that she’s going there, so she doesn’t investigate in advance and run off. Hahaha!"

"A little house thief can’t beat an old master thief" is a northern saying, meaning old ginger is spicier.

"Where did Qian go? Kao Shan County?" Mr Liu caught the key word.

"Yeah, why?"

"...Yu Minglang took his team up the mountain to survey a mine. Are those two fated or not? They’re so close yet can’t see each other."

"That mushy boy-girl stuff, they’ve got a whole lifetime for it. Right now, her studies are more important. Anyway, he’s her husband—sooner or later she’ll see him. It’s no big deal if it isn’t this time."

Mr Liu pushed her glasses up. This time she was determined to sell her student off successfully!

Qian still hadn’t realized her teacher had already set her up. She was busy thinking about Hua.

Her teacher’s cold-outside, warm-inside personality made Qian’s heart ache.

When pure kindness and calculating self-interest collide, the one who gets hurt will always be the kind one. You only feel the pain of betrayal when you’ve truly put someone in your heart.

What ordinary PhD advisor cares like her teacher does? She’d be perfectly within her rights even if she didn’t bother with her students. Isn’t that how most big bosses are nowadays?

Her teacher genuinely kept her students in mind and sincerely thought about their wellbeing, so being betrayed hurt this much. That made Qian even more disgusted with what Liu Xiaohua had done.

She went back to her computer and searched for Liu Xiaohua’s posts. A long list popped up quickly. They were posted on the most Zhiming gossip forum in the country, and they were indeed very popular. Tons of people were leaving comments waiting for updates, and many smaller forums had re-posted them to ride the traffic. Qian skimmed through them quickly and found that it was exactly as her teacher had said—way too inflated.

Hua used a huge amount of inspirational chicken-soup content to grab the attention of the rubberneckers and wrote a lot of sentimental self-praising prose, but as a professional, Qian spotted the problem immediately.

The information in the posts showed that Hua had already damaged the relationship with her client; this kind of closeness was not appropriate for therapy.

For borderline personality disorder, the biggest challenge for a therapist is non-compliance with treatment. They are extremely afraid of abandonment, crave caring yet fear it, lack a sense of security toward the world, and their emotions are very polarized. If the therapist gets too close to them, something going wrong is all too easy.

Qian was carefully analyzing the posts when a chat window suddenly popped up from Penguin.

Spicy Pepper Fried Rose: Qian, are you there!!!

Qian glanced at it. It was a temporary chat window from her group. The person initiating the chat was a senior sister from her team.

Normally they barely interacted because this senior sister was quite close to Hua. Everyone knew Hua and Qian didn’t get along, and this senior didn’t have Qian’s phone number, so she could only reach her this way.

Meiwei: What’s up?

Spicy Pepper Fried Rose: Hua’s in trouble. Can you help her if it’s convenient? Please don’t tell the big boss! I’m begging you!

Qian’s fingers flew across the keyboard.

Meiwei: Did something happen with her borderline personality disorder client?

Spicy Pepper Fried Rose: Ah! So you knew! Yeah, something happened! Her patient slit her wrists, and Hua’s about to fall apart...

Qian had just discussed this with the big boss. She’d already figured Hua wouldn’t be able to handle this case, but she hadn’t expected trouble to erupt so quickly.

The senior sister quickly typed out a line for Qian, laying out the whole sequence of events.

When Qian finished reading, her brows knit tightly. Wrist-cutting suicide—this had clearly blown up. The worst-case scenario the big boss feared had arrived even faster than she’d imagined.

Whatever you fear will come—Murphy’s Law, and it hit hard.