The Real Daughter Needs Saving by This Vicious Female Cannon Fodder? - Chapter 28

The table was laden with dishes, practically a royal feast.

Gu Xia, holding a small porcelain bowl, couldn’t wait to take a sip of the soup. She blinked eagerly and reached out for the ladle.

But Ning Anran was quicker. Her fingers grasped the white porcelain spoon, scooping two servings of soup to fill Gu Xia’s bowl.

“It’s hot. Drink it slowly.”

“The pot just came off the stove. Be careful not to burn your hands.”

If Gu Xia hadn’t been absolutely certain she was already a full-grown adult, she would’ve seriously suspected Ning Anran was about to pull out a child’s bib from her apron pocket and tie it around her neck.

“Got it.”

“Ning Anran, are you my mom?”

Gu Xia sipped the soup from her bowl, warmth spreading through her stomach. To be honest, even her own mother had never been this attentive.

Ning Anran did everything her mother would—and everything her mother wouldn’t.

What? What were the things her mother wouldn’t do? Well, obviously, like sharing the same bed and holding each other close.

“Do you want me to be?”

“The title of ‘Mom’ sounds much better than ‘nanny.'”

Ning Anran had a small appetite. Her bowl held only a modest portion of rice, and she picked at a few greens, the plain white rice paired with the vibrant vegetables looking rather lacking in nutrition.

“Actually, no.”

“It’s better for Ning Anran to just be Ning Anran.”

If she became her mother, she wouldn’t be the female lead anymore!

Gu Xia scooped up a spoonful of soup and, stretching her arm across the table, held it to Ning Anran’s lips.

“Don’t just eat vegetables. A balanced diet means you need more meat.”

There was no reason for Ning Anran to refuse soup personally fed to her by the Second Miss Gu. She parted her lips, accepting the spoonful and swallowing.

The taste was just right—exactly how Gu Xia liked it.

“Mm, that’s more like it.”

Looking at Ning Anran’s slender, almost fragile frame, Gu Xia felt the weight of her mission to properly nurture the female lead. It was no small task.

“Ning Anran, which department do you want to work in?”

“I messaged my sister. She said she’ll arrange it if you’re interested.”

Propping her cheek on her hand, the Second Miss Gu’s posture—as if she were planning out the rest of Ning Anran’s life—was no different from before.

Gu Xia was the youngest daughter in the family, doted on by both her parents and her sister.

When Ning Anran looked at her, she sometimes felt a pang of inadequacy—not in ability, but in the fact that Gu Xia had grown up surrounded by love.

Because of that, Gu Xia’s occasional “mischief” was simply a result of being sheltered too well, to the point where she couldn’t always distinguish between good and bad.

She acted purely on her own whims.

If she liked something, she liked it. If she disliked something, she disliked it.

There was no deeper judgment of right or wrong.

How bad could someone like her really be? The worst she could think of was slapping herself a few times, then running to her parents in tears to tattle.

Ning Anran even felt that, compared to her own parents, the Second Miss Gu was practically a safe harbor where she could take shelter from the storm.

With Gu Xia by her side, her mother wouldn’t disturb her, and her father wouldn’t either.

The relentless pace of her life—always rushing for survival, always striving in her studies—could finally slow down.

And stop right beside this willful, pampered second young miss.

“I’ll go wherever President Gu needs me.”

“I’m just an intern with no work experience yet, I don’t deserve to cut in line ahead of you.”

……

In the CEO’s office.

Gu Lindong received a message from her younger sister, feeling somewhat puzzled.

But remembering how her sister had clung to Ning Anran like a sloth that night, she realized this matter deserved her attention.

“A-Lin, is our company’s HR still recruiting recently?”

Putting down her phone, Gu Lindong looked at the screen full of yellow kiss emojis and almost laughed, but managed to restrain herself.

Hearing the CEO call her, A-Lin quickly responded.

“President Gu, we’re still hiring!”

“But the deadline is in two days, and we still have a few positions left to fill.”

A-Lin placed the freshly brewed coffee on Gu Lindong’s desk with a smile.

She didn’t know why the CEO suddenly asked about this minor matter, but as the secretary, she naturally answered truthfully.

“Then save one position for me.”

Gu Lindong casually gave the instruction. When it came to Gu Xia’s requests, she had always been accommodating.

“Understood, President Gu.”

As A-Lin turned to leave, Gu Lindong called her back halfway.

“Wait, A-Lin.”

“Do you know—if someone who used to really dislike another person suddenly changes their attitude, what might be the reason?”

Gu Lindong twirled a pen in her hand, still unable to figure this out. Her gaze at A-Lin was filled with intense curiosity.

A-Lin felt slightly uncomfortable under her boss’s stare, but as a seasoned workplace veteran and secretary, she understood the underlying implications.

The boss was hinting at something!

If she didn’t answer carefully, she might step right into a trap!

Clearing her throat and carefully choosing her words, A-Lin answered truthfully.

“Boss, if two people who never got along suddenly become close, there’s an 80% chance something earth-shattering happened between them!”

“We’ve seen plenty of such cases in our company. Employees who used to argue over differences of opinion aren’t uncommon.”

“Last time, Xiao Liu and Xiao Zhang were red-faced arguing at the dinner table, but this week they’ve officially announced their relationship!”

Gu Lindong: “…”

How come she didn’t know about this?

After speaking, A-Lin cautiously glanced at her boss’s expression and immediately felt she might have said the wrong thing.

“Boss, do you not allow office romances?”

“If that’s the case, I’ll issue a notice today banning all workplace relationships!”

Being the CEO’s secretary had this drawback—when the boss got angry, she never showed it!

A-Lin could only rely on her years of experience to guess her boss’s current mood.

“No ban.”

“Romantic relationships are personal freedoms. Our company doesn’t interfere with such matters.”

“I asked… because I want to understand what’s been on my sister’s mind lately.”

Gu Lindong leaned back in her chair, looking somewhat defeated. Being five or six years older than Gu Xia, she fully agreed with the saying that three years make a generation gap.

When their parents were young, they were busy starting businesses and working hard. With no one to care for Gu Xia, it could be said that Gu Lindong raised her younger sister—calling her a mother-like elder sister wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

As time passed and Gu Xia reached her late teens, Gu Lindong suddenly realized she might have accidentally raised her little sister into something quite unexpected.

She’d grown into a bewitching “man-eating flower.”

At school, Gu Xia constantly tangled with the campus bullies, though her petite frame was no match for them.

After taking too many beatings,
Gu Xia’s fights grew increasingly vicious. If someone slapped her once, she’d return two.

Sometimes she’d even pick fights first when someone rubbed her the wrong way. Gu Lindong, after working overtime late into the night, would still have to dress neatly the next morning to attend parent-teacher meetings for Gu Xia—

Listening to homeroom teachers criticize her sister’s “violations of school rules” and rebellious transgressions.

Gu Lindong wanted to properly educate her sister back into being a proper flower of the motherland, but Gu Xia had mastered the art of playing cute in front of her.

A few words of reprimand would send tears streaming down her face as she whimpered, “I know I was wrong, sis.”

This was the little sister she’d raised with her own hands.

How could she bear to scold her?

So what if she was a bit willful?

The harsh words Gu Lindong had mustered would dissolve back into her throat as she wiped her sister’s tears with tissues,

then pulled the girl into her arms, murmuring softly,

“There there, Xiaxia, don’t cry.”

“Does sister forgive you? Okay?”

The teacher watching this scene: “…?”