I Have Decided to Go Look for My Father

In the backseats of the car.

Neither one of the father and daughter said a word.

A document pouch next to Gu Shao’s hand suddenly caught Gu Xi’s attention as she lowered her head.

It looked somewhat familiar.

Gu Xi thought about it some and she recalled: This looked a lot like the document pouch that was given to Gu Shao by the principal of Liming yesterday that contained all of her past academic work!

Gu Xi glanced up and Gu Shao, who was on the phone, did not appear to be paying attention to her at the moment.

As she was too curious, Gu Xi reached her hand over stealthily while Gu Shao was distracted, opened up a corner of the document pouch, and carefully peeked at the content inside of it.

It was the copies of some of her awards and award certificates from when she was with that school and some documents from when she had participated in some competitions. And then there were some… essays that she had written in the past and some major homework assignments.

Some of them were her award-winning essays and some were used as sample essays by the school.

Gu Xi couldn’t really recall exactly which of her essays or major homework assignments were retained by the school.

Right when Gu Xi was about to flip through the corner and look, Gu Shao had already gotten off his call.

Seeing that Gu Shao was looking over, Gu Xi quickly retrieved her hand and gave Gu Shao a I-don’t-know-anything-nothing-is-going-ondry smile.

“How’s your new school?” asked Gu Shao.

“Mmm.” Gu Xi thought about it some and said with the corners of her lips raised. “Not bad.”

Gu Shao didn’t ask any further and Gu Xi, on the other hand, started frantically trying to recall what she had written in her essays back at Liming.

– Most of them were topics assigned by the school – scenes of their home villages, time, if you are so-and-so… …

Oh, right! Then there was one called “My Dream”. She had written how her dream was to get in NTN Technology Center and then… became someone like Gu Shao.

Having thought of that, Gu Xi’s look froze on her face.

There was nothing wrong with the content of her essay but, now that Gu Shao had become her father, thinking about that essay again made Gu Xi felt inexplicable shy and embarrassed.

Gu Xi peeked carefully at Gu Shao. He probably still hadn’t seen the content inside the pouch yet.

Should she steal them from him?

That idea flashed through Gu Xi’s mind.

Gu Shao, “Something’s the matter?”

Gu Xi, “No, nothing.”

***

Back at home.

That night, Gu Xi still had that document pouch on her mind. She started plotting about how she could “steal” it from Gu Shao.

Inside the dining room, seeing how Gu Xi had retreated back into her bedroom and locked herself in there immediately after dinner, Aunty Mei was a little worried.

“Sir, did little Miss Xi run into some unpleasantness at school today?” asked Aunty Mei nervously.

“I don’t think so,” said Gu Shao.

From what he had learned from the school, Gu Xi seemed to have done alright on her first day at school.

“Maybe she is just tired,” said Gu Shao.

On the other side, inside of her bedroom, Gu Xi had her ear against her door, spying on what was going on outside.

She waited until there were no more noises from the outside and the noise of a door closing. She figured that Gu Shao must have returned to his bedroom before she carefully opened up her room door.

Through the crack of the door, Gu Xi peeked outside and quietly scooted outside when she was sure that she did not see Gu Shao around.

She dashed toward his study as though she was doing a 100-meter sprint.

She saw that Gu Shao had placed everything inside his study after he came home.

Sure enough, the familiar document pouch was the first thing that Gu Xi saw lying on top of Gu Shao’s desk.

Gu Shao walked over quietly and even looked behind her from time to time.

The document pouch in hand, Gu Xi was about to sneak back into her room.

Then, suddenly, Gu Shao’s voice rang from behind her.

“What’s the matter?”

Hearing Gu Shao’s voice, Gu Xi, startled, her hand shuddered and she quickly put the document pouch where she found it and turned around with her hands behind her back.

“Oh?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Gu Shao again.

“Nothing,” said Gu Shao while shaking her head.

She perfectly demonstrated what “guilty conscience” looked like.

“Em, that, I need you to sign something for me,” said Gu Xi.

“Sure, give them to me.” Gu Shao nodded.

“Em, I’ve forgotten them in my room,” said Gu Xi as she pointed in the direction of her room with guilty conscience. “Let me go get them.”

Seeing that Gu Shao had nodded again, Gu Xi dashed out, back into her room, grabbed her homework assignments and returned to the study while feeling relieved the entire time: Lucky she was able to come up with a plausible reason quickly.

“You need to sign these.” Gu Xi handed her homework assignments over to Gu Shao while still staring intensely at the document pouch lying on the corner of his desk.

Gu Shao, after taking the homework assignments from Gu Xi, flipped it open.

Her handwriting was very pretty and her entire homework notebook looked very neat. Each stroke of hers clearly demonstrated her seriousness.

Her mannerism and attitude made her a good fit for performing scientific research was the idea that crossed Gu Shao’s mind.