Chapter 172: The Fox Who Didn’t Know Why He Called

Zhao Yàn stared at his phone.

The screen had gone dark. The call had ended. And he had absolutely no idea why he had said any of that.

Sweet dreams indeed, Miss Bai.

I know you had an interesting dream.

He set the phone down on his marble kitchen counter very carefully, like it might explode. Outside his penthouse windows, the city glittered, oblivious. Inside, his nine-year-old son was supposed to be asleep.

Instead, a small voice piped up from the doorway.

“Papa, why do you look like you swallowed a bug?”

Zhao Yàn turned.

You Lin stood there in his pajamas, orange fox pajamas with a tail attached, because of course they were. The boy’s fiery hair stuck up in seventeen directions, and he was holding a half-empty glass of water with the air of someone who had definitely been caught wandering when he should have been in bed.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Zhao Yàn said.

“You’re supposed to be answering my question.”

Zhao Yàn sighed. He ran a hand through his own hair, which was also red, also messy, and currently standing in directions that suggested he had been tugging at it.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I said something strange to someone, and I don’t know why I said it.”

You Lin padded into the kitchen, bare feet silent on the cold stone floor. He climbed onto one of the bar stools, set his water down, and fixed his father with those sharp amber eyes that missed absolutely nothing.

“Was it a lady?”

Zhao Yàn blinked. “What?”

“You’re acting weird. The last time you acted weird, it was because of a lady.” You Lin tilted his head. “Was it the cookie lady? The one from the merger building? The nanny who smells nice?”

Zhao Yàn’s jaw tightened. How did his son know about Bai Yue? He hadn’t mentioned her. He barely knew her himself. One glimpse in a lobby, a single conversation with Han Shān, and suddenly she was living in his head rent-free.

“I saw you look at her,” You Lin continued, apparently reading his mind. “On the security cameras. You were in the lobby and she was at her desk and you looked at her for like….a whole minute.”

“The security cameras are for security, not for spying on your father.”

“They’re for both. You taught me that.”

Zhao Yàn had no response to this. He had, in fact, taught You Lin that. The boy was too smart for his own good. It was exhausting.

“Go back to bed,” Zhao Yàn said.

“Not until you tell me what you said to the cookie lady.”

“I didn’t say anything to her. I called her. There’s a difference.”

You Lin’s eyes went wide. “You called her? At night? Papa, that’s what people do when they’re courting.”

“We are not courting.”

“You gave her your number.”

“I gave her my number for professional reasons.”

“What professional reasons?”

Zhao Yàn opened his mouth. Closed it. He didn’t have professional reasons. He had called Bai Yue because he had seen her name on a report, and because Han Shān had mentioned her with that flatness that meant he was trying very hard not to think about her, and because something in Zhao Yàn’s chest had twisted when he read the words part-time nanny in the notes his assistant had dug up.

He had called her because he wanted to hear her voice.

That was it. That was the whole embarrassing truth.

And then, once he had her on the line, he had said……what had he said?

Sweet dreams indeed, Miss Bai.

I know you had an interesting dream.

Why had he said that? He didn’t know she had a dream. He had no idea if she had dreamed at all. The words had just… come out.

“Papa.” You Lin’s voice was softer now. Concerned. “You’re doing the face.”

“What face?”

“A sad face.x

Zhao Yàn went very still.

“It’s nothing,” Zhao Yàn said. “Go to bed.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. I’m… tired. It’s late. We’ll talk in the morning.”

You Lin slid off the bar stool, picked up his water, and padded to the doorway. He paused there, looking back.

“Papa?”

“Yes.”

“The cookie lady. When you called her….did she sound scared? Or did she sound like she knew you?”

Zhao Yàn’s chest tightened. “What do you mean?”

You Lin shrugged, a small, oddly adult gesture. “Sometimes when people meet, they already know each other. Like they’ve been looking for each other and didn’t know it. That’s how you looked at her. Like you’d been looking.”

He disappeared down the hallway before Zhao Yàn could respond.

~

Zhao Yàn didn’t go to bed.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey he didn’t want and carried it to the terrace. The city sprawled beneath him, lights flickering like earthbound stars. He leaned against the railing and stared up at the real ones.

I know you had an interesting dream.

The words haunted him. Not because he had said them, but because they felt true. Somehow, they felt true. He didn’t know how he knew. He didn’t know what dream she had had.

That’s insane, he told himself. You’re projecting. You’re lonely. You saw a pretty woman who smiled at your rival’s children and you invented a connection that isn’t there.

But the feeling wouldn’t go away.

He thought about Han Shān. About the years they had spent as foster brothers, two boys with nothing but each other. About the fight that had torn them apart. About the way Han Shān still looked at him sometimes, like he was waiting for something Zhao Yàn couldn’t give.

He thought about Bai Yue. About the way she had crawled under a conference table for a toddler she didn’t know. About the way she had looked at Han Shān across the café, like she was seeing something no one else could see.

He offered her a nanny position, Zhao Yàn reminded himself. That’s all. Practical. Professional. Nothing more.

But Han Shān didn’t do practical. Han Shān did calculated. Every move had a purpose. Every word had weight. If he had offered Bai Yue a position in his home, near his children, it wasn’t because he needed a nanny.

It was because he wanted her there.

Zhao Yàn’s grip tightened on the railing.

Why do I care?

He didn’t have an answer. He just… cared. The way he cared about things he couldn’t explain. The stars. The dreams he couldn’t remember. The sense that he had lived another life somewhere else, with other people, other loves, other losses.

You’re being dramatic, he told himself. You’re a CEO. A father. A grown man. You don’t believe in past lives or fate or any of that nonsense.

But the feeling persisted.

He finished the whiskey he didn’t want and went back inside. The penthouse was quiet. You Lin’s door was closed. A sliver of light showed beneath it, which meant the boy was reading again, ignoring the bedtime Zhao Yàn had set hours ago.

He should knock. Should tell him to sleep. Should be the responsible parent he pretended to be.

Instead, he walked to his own room, sat on the edge of his bed, and picked up his phone again.

The call log showed Bai Yue’s number. Unknown. He had called from a burner, because of course he had, because he was a coward who couldn’t even use his real number to reach out to a woman who made his chest ache for reasons he couldn’t name.

He stared at the number.

He thought about calling again. About apologizing. About saying, I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I called. I don’t know why you feel familiar when I’ve never met you before.

He didn’t call.

Instead, he set the phone aside, lay back on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.

Sleep came slowly. And when it came, it brought dreams.

~

He was standing in a forest.

Not a city park. Not a nature preserve. A real forest, ancient and dense, with trees so tall they swallowed the sky. The air smelled of moss and river water and something else… something familiar.

He was not alone.

A woman stood at the edge of a clearing, her back to him. Dark hair. Slender shoulders. She was wearing something that looked like fur and woven cloth, primitive and strange, and it should have looked ridiculous but it didn’t. It looked right.

She turned.

Bai Yue.

Not the Bai Yue from the lobby, with her pencil skirt and her careful professional smile. This Bai Yue was wilder, fiercer, her eyes bright with a fire he had never seen.

“Zhāo Yàn,” she said, and her voice was different too. Like she had called him by that name a thousand times before.

“You’re late,” she continued. “The cubs are asking for you. And if you’ve been flirting with that dragon again, I swear—”

“Star-thief,” he heard himself say, and the word came out fond, teasing, like an old joke between old friends.

Her eyes softened.

“Come home,” she said.

And reached for his hand.

~

Zhao Yàn woke gasping.

His heart was pounding. His sheets were tangled around his legs. The room was dark, and the city was quiet, and he was alone.

But he could still feel her hand in his.

He sat up, pressing his palms against his eyes.

Star-thief, he had called her. Star-thief.

He had never used that phrase in his life. He didn’t know where it came from. He didn’t know why it felt so natural on his tongue.

And the cubs. She had mentioned cubs. Not children. Cubs.

It was just a dream, he told himself. A strange dream. Probably triggered by the whiskey. Or the stress. Or the fact that you’ve been thinking about her all evening.

But the dream lingered. The warmth of her hand. The sound of his own voice saying her name. The way she had looked at him, like he was someone she trusted. Someone she loved.

Zhao Yàn threw off the covers and walked to the window.

He thought about calling her again. About asking, Did you dream of me too?

He didn’t.

Instead, he stood at the window until dawn, watching the sky lighten, and tried to remember a life he had never lived.

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