Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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There was a private leisure estate on the outskirts of City M, covering a vast area. The estate was planned and designed to have a variety of scenic areas with pleasant scenery.
The manor had a membership system, with a high annual fee and extremely high membership requirements. This meant that guests were rarely seen in the manor, and it was very private.
Lan Jingqian took Tang Ran out for some fresh air on Saturday, and their actual destination was here.
Tang Ran couldn’t see, and she had been riding in a car before entering the garden, so she naturally had no idea what kind of place she was in.
She only knew that after the car stopped, the surroundings seemed very quiet.
Lan Jingqian waved away the manor attendant who was about to help him park the car and signaled the other party to be quiet before getting out of the driver’s seat.
Walking to the passenger seat of the black semi-convertible car, Lan Jingqian opened the door and unbuckled the seat belt for the girl inside.
“Xiao Ran, we’re here. You can get off now.”
Tang Ran hesitated for a while in the car. She didn’t move in a hurry. Instead, she turned her head a little uneasily and asked softly, “Uncle, where is this place?”
Lan Jingqian saw the girl’s defensiveness and smiled helplessly: “If I really want to kidnap you, then isn’t it a little late for you to be alert now?”
Tang Ran held her breath, lowered her head and said in a muffled voice: “I just want to come out, I don’t want to stay at home all the time… and I know you are not a bad person.”
As she spoke, the little girl slowly moved out of the passenger seat, holding her blind stick.
Lan Jingqian modestly supported the girl and protected her as she walked on the road paved with marble slabs.
The sunlight near noon sprinkled through the leaves of the trees beside the path. The shadows and fragments of light were like lake water, rippling on the stone road with the cool autumn wind.
Lan Jingqian chatted with the girl in a gentle voice: “How do you know I’m not a bad person? A bad person won’t tell you that he is.”
Tang Ran held the cane and walked carefully. After hearing this, she took some time to think and tilted her head to think: “If we sit together and talk for a long time, I will be able to tell the difference by listening to the voices.”
“People can lie, and voices can also deceive, so what should we do?” Lan Jingqian asked with a smile and lowered his eyes.
Tang Ran frowned in distress.
Lan Jingqian looked at the little girl who was much shorter than him, and the emotion in his eyes softened.
He raised his hand and gently touched the top of the little girl’s head: “It’s not difficult for you.”
Tang Ran stopped in her tracks when she was touched.
Lan Jingqian slowed down and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Tang Ran came back to her senses and touched her bangs shyly: “Uncle seems to like patting my head too.”
“…”
Lan Jingqian stopped where he was, and after two or three seconds he slowly narrowed his eyes: “Also?”
Tang Ran didn’t notice the subtle emotional changes implied in this word. She just blushed slightly because she thought of someone: “I know someone who treats me like a child and always likes to touch my head like this.”
Lan Jingqian suppressed the strong emotions in his heart and tried to make his voice sound gentle, natural, and casual: “The person you are talking about, is it the… wishing well you mentioned yesterday?”
Tang Ran was stunned.
After two seconds, she raised her head: “Ah, I mentioned it to you yesterday,” the little girl blushed and smiled with a shallow dimple, “I forgot.”
“…”
Very good. It had reached the point where the little girl brought it up unconsciously.
A chill storm blew up in Lan Jingqian’s eyes.
“What’s the name of Xiao Ran’s friend? Does he often come to the Tang family to play with you?”
“Not very often, he’s very busy.” The girl said seriously, “But he’s very good to me. In addition to helping me install a lot of equipment in the side house, he also installed positioning for me. He said I could turn on the positioning every time I go out, so he can know where I am.”
Lan Jingqian paused: “In addition to positioning, is there a function that allows me to ask him for help?”
Tang Ran was surprised: “How did uncle know?”
Lan Jingqian didn’t say anything——
He was becoming more and more curious about which top student in the control field had used all the knowledge and skills he had learned in the major to have evil intentions towards a little girl.
The more Lan Jingqian thought about it, the more dangerous his eyes became, but he finally managed to suppress them.
He lowered his head to look at Tang Ran and followed the girl’s words: “It sounds like he is indeed a very powerful person.”
“Right?” The little girl’s eyes bent with joy, and she raised her face proudly as if she was praised.
Lan Jingqian narrowed his eyes slightly, his voice still gentle: “Xiao Ran seems to like him very much?”
Tang Ran was stunned.
After two seconds, she turned back and lowered her voice: “Is it so obvious?”
Lan Jingqian was angry and helpless: “When you mention him, you always smile like a flower.”
“…”
The girl remained silent, which made Lan Jingqian feel uneasy. He frowned and asked, “Doesn’t he like you?”
At the end of the words, one could already hear a hint of anger – no matter how Lan Jingqian looked at his little girl, she was always cute, well-behaved, obedient and sensible, so beautiful when she smiled, and so lovable when she was sad… How could there be a rascal in this world who dared not like his little girl??
Tang Ran was silent for a long time before she spoke softly with a bit of frustration: “He seems to treat me as his daughter.”
Lan Jingqian: “——?”
Tang Ran didn’t notice Lan Jingqian’s shock, and still lowering her head, she said, “Maybe it’s because I’m young and short.”
When talking about this, the little girl’s face almost wrinkled with bitterness: “He must be more than 1.8 meters tall, and I am only 159. Standing next to him, I must look like a child.”
Lan Jingqian couldn’t bear to see the little girl’s aggrieved look, so he comforted her: “It’s okay, our Xiao Ran is only sixteen or seventeen years old, she will grow up in the future.”
Tang Ran sighed softly again, her expression serious and heavy: “And there are so many people who like him.”
Lan Jingqian was almost amused by the little girl and asked, “How do you know?”
“His friends told me.” Tang Ran said, “He is very good-looking, outstanding and smart. There are many girls in his school who like him, not to mention outside…”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“It seems, no.”
“He’s really as good as you said, but he doesn’t have a girlfriend…”
As Lan Jingqian spoke, an image of a young man standing lazily with his hands in his trouser pockets and a half-smile on his face emerged in his mind.
Lan Jingqian was stunned for a moment, then shook his head and laughed: “It’s a very rare species.”
Tang Ran fell silent again.
Lan Jingqian waited for a while, then looked down at the little girl: “Why aren’t you talking again?”
The little girl, who had been struggling for a long time, looked up with a serious expression: “Uncle, I will tell you a secret and then ask you a few questions, okay?”
“Secret?”
“Well, you have to promise me not to tell anyone else.”
“…Okay,” Lan Jingqian squatted down, “I will definitely not tell anyone.”
Tang Ran breathed a sigh of relief, but her face was still tense: “The secret is, although it is difficult to achieve, I want to pursue him.”
Lan Jingqian’s expression froze for a moment.
After a few seconds, the old father, who had alarm bells ringing in his heart, finally came out of the edge of that complicated and dangerous emotion and asked in a low voice, “So, what’s the problem?”
Tang Ran looked confused: “I don’t know what to do. The only boys I know are him and his friends, and I can’t ask his friends. Although I took a love teaching class yesterday, I still don’t quite understand what kind of place I should choose for the date…”
“Wait a minute,” Lan Jingqian recalled the girl’s words in his mind, and then he was sure that the words he heard were not an illusion, “What love teaching class? Who taught you?”
Tang Ran answered honestly: “My robot.”
“Robot?”
“Yes, it’s a home service type intelligent humanoid bionic robot.” The little girl smiled when she mentioned the robot. “It was a gift I received on my birthday this year.”
“Can it have intelligent conversations?”
Tang Ran nodded: “I heard that it has hundreds of thousands of language modules, artificial skin, and a heartbeat and body temperature like a human. It’s very powerful.”
“…”
Lan Jingqian frowned slightly——
Although these classification functions were indeed functions that could be realized with the current level of technology, there were still many problems in theory when integrating these functions into one and fully putting them into commercial sales and home use.
Lan Jingqian temporarily suppressed this suspicion and looked at Tang Ran: “So, how did the robot teach you?”
Tang Ran said distressedly: “It said that dating is an important step in cultivating feelings. Uncle, do you think it is right?”
“…”
Lan Jingqian, who had only had one serious relationship in his life and had no desire for love for many years, fell silent after hearing this.
After a few seconds of silence, Lan Jingqian said uncertainly: “It should be, right?”
Tang Ran heard the hesitation in his voice and asked hesitantly, “Uncle, have you ever chased a girl?”
Lan Jingqian: “…”
He hadn’t.
He had only been pursued very aggressively by the woman who was supposed to make the little girl in front of him call her mommy.
After a moment of silence, Tang Ran asked, “Uncle, how many times have you been in love?”
Lan Jingqian: “…”
Lan Jingqian: “Once.”
Tang Ran: “Ah.” She couldn’t tell whether that little expression showed emotion, surprise, or sympathy.
Tang Ran considered it carefully this time before asking, “Uncle, you must have had the experience of dating somewhere other than studying or working, right?”
Lan Jingqian: “…”
He was not naturally romantic in this regard, and at school he was aloof and devoted to reading the books of sages.
During their relationship, apart from the library, study room, playground and cafeteria of their two schools, it seemed that there was only…
The hotel.
The air was awkwardly silent.
The founder of Auto Technology, who was well-known in the industry for his calmness and ability to respond quickly, was now frozen in the autumn wind at the end of November, looking at the curious little girl waiting opposite him, unable to utter a word.
The silence lasted for dozens of seconds, and Tang Ran slowly understood something.
She hesitated and comforted him softly: “It’s okay, uncle, I will teach you when I have dating experience.”
Lan Jingqian: “…”
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