After finishing a warm shower, Muyao decided to head downstairs and ask one of the kitchen chefs to make her something simple to eat.
As she passed through the living room, she froze. Her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, father, mother, two older brothers, and her older sister were all sitting silently on the sofas and chairs. After a moment of staring, she realized—they were all waiting for her.
'Huh? Why are they waiting for me? Did I do something wrong? But… I don't remember causing any trouble these past few days… Or did I forget?' Muyao thought to herself, her mind racing through a hundred possible reasons.
The moment Muyao's inner voice spoke aloud in the quiet room, the entire family froze. Then they all turned to Xuexing, their expressions confused and curious.
It all began when Xuexing realized she could hear her daughter Yaoyao's inner thoughts. To see if she was the only one, she called her husband, Lin Anguo, in a panic. Then, one by one, she called the rest of the Lin family and even the Xia family. Anguo, a husband devoted more to his wife than his work, rushed home fifteen minutes after the call. The rest of the family arrived thirty minutes later.
Once everyone was seated in the villa's living room, waiting for Xuexing to reveal the "emergency" she had mentioned on the phone, she simply instructed them to wait for Muyao to come downstairs.
"Yaoyao, did you miss your grandpa? Grandpa missed you so much," Lin Fuyuan, Muyao's grandfather, said breaking the silence.
"I missed you too, Grandpa. But… what's going on? Why is everyone here?" Muyao asked, baffled.
Her eldest cousin, Lin Boyuan—the son of Lin Weiran and Tang Meilin and one of Hua Xia's secret researchers—was about to explain that everyone could hear Muyao's thoughts. But as soon as he opened his mouth, no sound came out, as if an invisible force had stopped him.
Muyao stared at him, puzzled, seeing his lips move without a single word escaping.
Xuexing noticed his reaction and, to fill the awkward silence, said, "We're just discussing which company you should join now that you've graduated from college."
Why do I need to work? Don't I have two older brothers and an older sister to handle the companies? Why do I have to go to a company myself? Can't I just stay home and be my lazy, gossipy little self?! I thought studying physics would save me from all this… but nooo, I have to work, Muyao complained silently.
To the family, however, she merely smiled politely. The relief they felt at finally hearing her inner voice was enormous—they could finally know what Muyao was truly thinking. But that relief would come with consequences, ones they would only understand later.
"Umm… I just graduated. Can't I take a couple of months off before starting work?" Muyao asked, her eyes wide and pitiful.
"You've already had half a year off after graduating," Xuexing replied, frowning. "That's longer than your siblings and cousins. It's time for you to face the world. Here's the deal: either you choose your career path now, or we'll assign you to a random company under the Lin Group." The rest of the family stayed silent.
It wasn't that they disagreed with Xuexing—they simply worried for Muyao. Being born premature had made her health weaker than normal, and though she could now hop, skip, jump, and run around freely, her childhood had been fragile. For years, the family had pampered her, and all her siblings and cousins felt a duty to care for the youngest, Lin Muyao.