Shocking! The Broke Campus Heartthrob Is My Child’s Father - Chapter 1

“The Big Bad Wolf stood at the door of the third little pig’s house, huffing and puffing against the brick walls. But the house remained unshaken. Furious, the wolf climbed onto the roof, intending to slip in through the chimney. The third little pig saw this and quickly lit a fire. Just as the wolf dropped down, it landed straight into the flames, scorching its entire tail. Yelping in pain, the wolf fled in disgrace, never daring to bully the three little pigs again.”

The 20-year-old Lu Yicheng finished reading “The Three Little Pigs” with a clear, soothing voice, deliberately lowering his tone at the end to lull his listener to sleep.

Unfortunately, five-year-olds possessed boundless energy.

The storybook contained twenty stories, with “The Three Little Pigs” as the final one. By now, Lu Yicheng’s throat was parched, and drowsiness was creeping in.

Yet, the child lying beside him remained wide-eyed, showing no sign of sleepiness.

Lu Yicheng: “…”

Glancing at the wall clock, he saw it was nearly eleven. This kid’s energy was truly astonishing.

“When do you usually sleep?” Lu Yicheng closed the book, pinched the bridge of his nose, and asked.

The child raised his chubby hand, adorned with five cute dimples on its back, and showed eight fingers. “I sleep at eight-thirty.”

Lu Yicheng hadn’t felt such anxiety or frustration in a very long time.

“Then why aren’t you asleep yet?” he asked.

The child pouted. “Because I didn’t drink my milk, and because Mommy didn’t tell me the bedtime story!”

Lu Yicheng felt a headache coming on.

How had things come to this? His usually sharp mind was now growing hazy with confusion.”

Every winter and summer break, he packed his schedule full. This summer, after finishing his sophomore year, was no exception. Thanks to his mentor’s recommendation, he was now tutoring two students—one in middle school, the other in high school. Each day, he tutored for an hour. By the end of summer, he’d have saved up a decent sum.

A week ago, outside the Binjiang Garden residential complex, he had found this child.

The child had immediately called him “Daddy” in a bright, crisp voice.

At first, Lu Yicheng thought it was just a child’s prank—until the boy pulled out a pocket watch.

This watch was his grandmother’s keepsake. Lu Yicheng distinctly remembered storing it deep inside a box. But after bringing the child home and searching the entire apartment, the watch was nowhere to be found. That was when Lu Yicheng realized something was seriously wrong.

The pocket watch in the child’s possession was undeniably his grandmother’s.

But unlike his memory of it, this one had a photograph inside.

A family of three.

The man had refined features, wore thin-rimmed glasses, and exuded a mature, steady presence.

The woman had slightly curled long hair and was strikingly beautiful, like a blooming red rose full of charm. She smiled with bright, crescent-shaped eyes and slightly curved lips – she was breathtakingly beautiful.

Between them stood a child around three years old, chubby-cheeked, dressed in a tailored miniature suit with a bow tie. His bright eyes sparkled, his face both handsome and adorable.

A picture of a perfect, happy family.

But there was a problem…

Lu Yicheng knew the man very well—because he looked exactly like him, only more mature, without his current youthful features.

And the woman? Not exactly a stranger either.

This five-year-old was unusually sharp and articulate. From his words, Lu Yicheng gathered considerable information. The child flawlessly recited his parents’ names, phone numbers, workplaces—even their ID numbers.

When asked how he got here, the boy grumbled, “If Daddy doesn’t know, how would I? I was playing hide-and-seek with Ah Min and I hid in my closet. Ah Min never found me, and when I came out, I saw you, Daddy!”

“No, I saw Daddy without glasses~”

“Daddy, when are we going home?”

“Did Mommy kick you out again?”

A vague theory formed in Lu Yicheng’s mind.

But he needed one final step to confirm it.

And, for some reason he couldn’t explain, he actually believed this chubby little kid. Against all logic, he withdrew some money and arranged for a paternity test.

The results confirmed it—he and this child were, without a doubt, father and son.

…?

Could someone explain how, at twenty years old, he already had a five-year-old son?

In high school, his English teacher had shown them “The Butterfly Effect” in the multimedia room. His classmates, especially the girls sitting nearby, often discussed popular romance novels—stories about time travel, reincarnation, and the trending “novel transmigration.” Based on this, Lu Yicheng made a rough guess that his five-year-old son must have somehow triggered some unknown mechanism and traveled back from the future.

Why? He had no idea.

But what he did know was that for the past week, whenever he thought it was all some surreal, sci-fi dream, he would wake up to find the boy lying right next to him.

It was nearly eleven now.

After a long day of play, the child finally yawned, looking drowsy. But before falling asleep, he repeated the question he asked every hour.

“When is Mommy coming to pick us up? I want Mommy.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t drag me into your fights. You got kicked out, not me~”

Lu Yicheng’s headache intensified.

When the boy finally drifted off, he studied the sleeping face. Those long, curled eyelashes, thick eyebrows, and round, soft cheeks. His arms were plump and pale, like segments of lotus root.

No matter how bizarre this situation was, it had truly happened.

There was no choice but to deal with it.

Lu Yicheng sighed and picked up his phone from the bedside table.

Even now, he struggled to believe that in the future, he would marry Jiang Ruoqiao.

And even have a child with her.

Who was Jiang Ruoqiao?

In the latter half of his sophomore year, her name had been brought up most frequently in their dorm.

Their university dorms housed four students per room. Since freshman military training, the atmosphere in their dorm had always been harmonious. The four of them got along well, especially Jiang Yan, who was loyal and always willing to help. So when Jiang Yan confessed to liking a girl, his roommates enthusiastically brainstormed ways to help him—more invested than if they were dating themselves.

That girl was Jiang Ruoqiao.

Lu Yicheng still remembered the night Jiang Yan got a response from her. He had been so ecstatic that he smuggled a whole case of beer into the dorm right under the supervisor’s nose.

Precisely because he knew how much Jiang Yan liked her, when Lu Yicheng saw the photo in the pocket watch, his first thought had been: Maybe Jiang Ruoqiao has a twin sister?

If not for the fact that the child could flawlessly recite her ID number, Lu Yicheng would never have believed that his future self could have enough water in his brain to end up with Jiang Ruoqiao.

After all, she was Jiang Yan’s girlfriend.

Since enrollment, Lu Yicheng had stood out as the science valedictorian of their year. He had the lean, clean-cut look of youth back then, wearing a faded gray T-shirt with a stretched neckline that revealed his sharp collarbones when he bent down. At 1.83 meters, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, he stood tall like a poplar tree. For two years, the nickname “herbivore boy”—given by some senior girls—had stuck.

Humble and reserved, he treated others with the gentleness of a herbivore, showing almost no aggression.

So, he truly couldn’t understand.

Did he secretly have some hidden villainous streak?

His phone contacts contained only four women: his professor, two students’ mothers, and an aunt who had married far away.

Reaching Jiang Ruoqiao should have been difficult—except the child knew her number. Lu Yicheng’s long fingers, with their distinct knuckles, hovered over the phone screen for a long while before he carefully typed out a message:

「Hello, is this Jiang Ruoqiao? I’m Lu Yicheng. I need to talk to you.」

Meanwhile, in Xi City, a summer rain had just cooled the stifling heat.

Lying in bed, Jiang Ruoqiao idly flipped through a novel her cousin had bought. For her, novels worked better than melatonin—just two or three pages would make her drowsy. The small bedside lamp was still on, and the old air conditioner hummed steadily as she fell into deep sleep.

Back in her hometown, sleeping in this small bed made her feel at peace.

However, she who usually slept dreamlessly had an unprecedented dream today.

And it wasn’t a pleasant one.

It was at a cocktail party, where she watched a couple from afar. The man wore a well-tailored suit, emanating an unapproachable aura, surrounded by fawning people. His brows showed traces of impatience, that stern face only softening when he looked at the woman on his arm—melting like ice to show tender affection—a scene straight out of a romance novel. The petite woman beside him clung to his arm lovingly. For some reason, she stood on tiptoes and whispered something in his ear, and the man soothingly kissed her forehead.

In the dream, Jiang Ruoqiao just watched.

The man shot her a sharp glance.

The scene changed to a light drizzle, with Jiang Ruoqiao walking pathetically along a path, arms crossed over her chest. Her dress was dirty, her hair wet.

She shivered from the cold, hunched over, seeming to walk painfully as if treading on knives.

Suddenly, a black Bentley slowly pulled up beside her.

The window rolled down slowly, and the man looked at her with cold eyes, sneering: “Beg me. Beg me and I’ll let you go.”

*

Jiang Ruoqiao was woken up by noise.

Her grandparents were getting old and their hearing wasn’t what it used to be. Though they tried to keep their voices down, the old house’s poor soundproofing didn’t help. After waking up, she stretched and habitually picked up her phone from the bedside table, lighting up the screen.

Besides notifications from Weibo and webpage ads, there was one SMS and several WeChat messages.

The SMS was from an unknown number.

The WeChat messages were from her boyfriend.

Jiang Ruoqiao hummed and opened the SMS.

She frowned.

..Lu Yicheng?

And he said he had something to discuss with her?

Were they even that close?