Strange. Incredibly strange. She, Jiang Ruoqiao, was not even the main character in this novel?

The author must have been blind.

In truth, Jiang Ruoqiao had dreamed all manner of absurd things. As a child she had dreamed of becoming a fairy, and dreamed of possessing a touch that turned everything to gold, and even dreamed that she owned the seven-coloured flower from the old story. Dreaming that she had just finished reading a novel was practically nothing by comparison. The one thing that sat ill with her was the fact that she had been cast as a throwaway supporting villain — and that bothered her so much that the matter of her boyfriend and another woman being the hero and heroine of the story hardly seemed important at all.

Jiang Ruoqiao lay in bed for a while before getting up to wash.

While brushing her teeth, she thought of the dream again, and found it unsettling.

Because the dream was doing something odd. Normally, as wakefulness returned, the contents of a dream would grow hazier and more fragmented. And her dreams in the past had always been disjointed, jumping about with no logic, never once following a clear line from beginning to end the way tonight’s had. This one was growing clearer with each passing moment… clear enough to feel real, as though it were something that had actually happened in waking life.

Something was very wrong here.

Jiang Ruoqiao finished washing up and sat down on the sofa, her appetite for breakfast entirely gone.

Perhaps she ought to do something.

She went and fetched paper and a pen from her bag and, little by little, began calling back what she could remember of the novel’s plot and writing it all down. The more she recalled, the more uneasy she grew at the pit of her stomach.

The details were far too real.

Take, for example, the explanation the novel gave for Jiang Yan’s family background.

Or the history between the female lead and the male lead.

Right — the female lead was named Lin Kexing, who had harboured a secret love for the male lead for years. Jiang Ruoqiao’s first thought was of that “she’s like a star” account — every detail lined up, which was absolutely chilling the more she thought about it.

In the novel, a tremendous upheaval had struck Jiang Yan’s family during his childhood, and his mother had come to work at the Lin household. Jiang Yan’s mother and Mrs. Lin were old acquaintances, and the kind-hearted Mrs. Lin had chosen to extend a hand to that mother and son in their time of need. And so, for the decade or more that followed, the male lead and the female lead had lived under the same roof — though in very different positions within it. One was the young mistress of the Lin family; the other was the son of Mrs. Lin’s personal assistant.

The female lead had secretly loved the male lead since childhood, but the male lead had felt no such feelings toward her. On the contrary, raised by a gentle and virtuous mother, he had always thought of the female lead as a younger sister. He looked after her — but only in that way.

The male lead was a little over two years older than the female lead. Their circumstances were different, and there was the age gap to consider as well. Once the male lead went off to university and began living in the dormitory, their time together grew increasingly scarce, until at last the male lead found someone he liked. The female lead entered years of quiet suffering. On one hand, she knew perfectly well that the male lead held no romantic feelings for her, and she tried to bring herself to bless him, to smile and watch him find happiness with someone else. On the other hand, this feeling had lived inside her for too long. He had taken root in her heart too deeply. She could not let go of him.

The male and female leads were destined to end up together, and so the author had arranged for the male lead’s first love to be a vain, mercenary, shallow woman.

Countless novels had confirmed one thing: supporting villains almost never came to a good end. 🙂

Especially the ones the male lead had genuinely loved.

If the male lead hadn’t loved the villain, the villain might at least have stood a chance. Under the author’s pen, she might even have managed a ending of reform and redemption, complete with a fulfilling life…

But the crux of the matter was this: in the novel “Cherishing You Into Marriage,” the male lead Jiang Yan had genuinely, deeply loved the second female lead.

The novel wasn’t particularly long. Jiang Ruoqiao recorded every plot point she could remember in a shorthand only she could decipher. Whether or not any of this was real, writing it down cost her nothing. With novels she had read before, she might remember them vividly for a day or two, but after a week, being able to recall the names of the hero and heroine was already impressive.

What really alarmed Jiang Ruoqiao was that the novel contained a scene from a dream she had had before.

In that dream, she had watched from the sidelines as Jiang Yan stood surrounded by admirers beside another woman.

After the banquet, she had walked away alone and dishevelled. Jiang Yan, sitting in a car, had said to her in a glacially cold voice: *Beg me. Beg me and I’ll let you off.*

What the—!!

In the novel, the scene where the second female lead encountered the male lead again and was publicly humiliated took place at precisely this banquet.

Yet something about it was strange. The novel didn’t contain any scene of Jiang Yan sitting in a car and saying those things to her…

Had the author deliberately chosen to gloss over the moments between the male lead and the second female lead?

Come to think of it, that would make sense — it would be rather damaging to the story. By the time of that reunion, the author had already made clear that the hero and heroine’s feelings were mutual. Yet the Jiang Yan in her dream had seemed very much like a man still nursing a grudge against her, still unable to move past what had passed between them.

If the male lead was still brooding over his history with the second female lead, he was no qualified hero at all.

Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t dwell on this for long.

Whether it was true or not remained to be determined.

In any case, whether Jiang Yan actually had money or not, whether he was or wasn’t a rich heir — none of that mattered much to her anymore. They were going to break up regardless. Who spent time caring whether a soon-to-be ex-boyfriend was wealthy? It wasn’t as though she was going to go after him for emotional damages just because he turned out to have money.

Still, she had to find some way to confirm whether the novel she had dreamed of was real.

—

At noon, Lu Yicheng brought Lu Siyan over. He noticed that Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t look well, and hesitated for a moment before asking: “Are you feeling unwell?”

If she was unwell, he would take the child with him. Siyan was well-behaved and sensible and didn’t cause much fuss, but a person who was sick would want to rest properly.

Jiang Ruoqiao shook her head. “No.”

Just unwell on the inside.

But there was no way to say that to Lu Yicheng.

There was no way to say it to anyone. Other people probably wouldn’t believe her about the dream anyway — as far as everyone who knew anything about it was concerned, Jiang Yan was a textbook perfect boyfriend right now.

“Alright.”

Lu Yicheng ruffled Lu Siyan’s hair. Father and son exchanged a look, and the unspoken message passed between them completely without words —

*Don’t bother your mom.*

*You didn’t have to say it.*

Lu Yicheng left. Jiang Ruoqiao led Lu Siyan inside. He followed behind her, and once he had taken off his own shoes, he reached into his backpack and produced a pair of plastic slippers. Jiang Ruoqiao turned around, and this was the scene that greeted her — the little boy sitting neatly on the floor mat, putting on his slippers. A faint smile finally found its way onto her face. She walked over and looked down at his slippers, sighing: “Your dad bought those, didn’t he?”

Lu Yicheng’s taste in these matters really did leave something to be desired.

She wouldn’t have been caught dead in slippers like that, even as a child.

Lu Siyan echoed her sigh in the same tone: “These were the cheapest pair.”

The day before, when Lu Yicheng brought him home, they had passed through the farmers’ market. After Lu Yicheng had bought his vegetables, he noticed an elderly woman pushing a cart piled high with slippers. It occurred to him that Jiang Ruoqiao’s place had no slippers for Lu Siyan to wear, so he stopped and looked through them, selecting the cheapest pair.

Cheap they may have been, but Lu Yicheng’s priority was value for money.

Lu Siyan’s slippers weren’t the most attractive things in the world, but they were comfortable enough on his feet.

Though neither of them had said it outright, Jiang Ruoqiao understood that Lu Yicheng had essentially taken over the majority of everything. It was true that he had been dropping Lu Siyan off for her to look after these past two days, but Lu Siyan generally napped at noon, so she didn’t actually need to exert herself much. It was Lu Yicheng who prepared Lu Siyan’s three meals, Lu Yicheng who bathed him and put him to bed… She just didn’t know what things would look like after today. She had already asked the intermediary, who told her that the testing centre would have the results ready once their office opened that afternoon — first, an electronic copy would be sent to her, and then a physical report would follow by post.

These past two days whenever Lu Siyan arrived, Jiang Ruoqiao would switch on the television and let him watch cartoons for about ten minutes or so.

“Siyan,” Jiang Ruoqiao said suddenly.

Lu Siyan turned his head to look at her.

Every time she looked at that face, Jiang Ruoqiao felt something strange and inexplicable stir inside her.

He looked so much like she had as a child. She had never been pregnant, never given birth, and could not establish the natural bond between mother and child with Lu Siyan the way one normally would. Even now, in this very moment, she was capable of holding herself at a remove from all of it — and yet, strangely, every time that urge to pull away arose in her, one look at this face would soften it considerably.

She wondered if Lu Yicheng thought about it the same way.

They were still students, after all.

Jiang Ruoqiao paused. “Nothing — I just wanted to ask if you’d like to have ice cream after you wake up from your nap.”

Lu Siyan’s eyes lit up instantly. “Obviously yes!!”

Life was so good right now!

Mom was letting him watch cartoons, and now she was proactively asking whether he wanted ice cream — back home, he’d had to wait until his mom wasn’t looking before sneaking open the fridge for any.

Jiang Ruoqiao smiled.

When Lu Siyan fell asleep, she didn’t go upstairs to catch up on sleep right away. Instead she sat on the living room carpet and gazed at his sleeping face.

At that moment, her phone vibrated.

She didn’t even need to open it to know who it was from.

Sure enough, she lit up the screen and found several messages from the intermediary — a warm, efficient woman:

【Miss Wang①, the test results are in. I’m sending them to you now — please receive the file.】

【If you have any questions afterwards, feel free to reach out to me directly.】

【Go ahead and send me your address when you get a chance, and I’ll mail the report to you. Don’t worry — this is all completely confidential. I’ve kept an eye on the testing centre and made sure they’ve deleted all of your files and information. No one will be able to find any trace of it.】

Jiang Ruoqiao glanced at the sleeping Lu Siyan, drew a slow breath, and opened the report.

She still couldn’t say whether she wanted it to come back one way or the other.

And yet — of course.

She and Lu Siyan were, without any doubt… confirmed to be mother and son.

—

Lu Yicheng arrived a little earlier today than the day before.

Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t conceal it from him — before he even arrived, she had already texted him the result.

It wasn’t a particularly surprising outcome.

If she and Lu Siyan had turned out *not* to be mother and son — now that would have been astonishing.

In this moment, they looked at each other, and both felt something quietly complicated. Knowing was one thing; having a sense of it was one thing — but when the result was written out plainly in black and white, it was an entirely different matter. It was as though at last, finally, they had stepped onto the same boat together. Finally, they were grasshoppers tied to the same rope.

The bond between them, from this day forward, could never be severed.

A bond, in fact, more unbreakable than the one between Jiang Ruoqiao and Jiang Yan.

Yes. They had a child.

They had never dated, never held hands, nothing had ever happened between them — and yet they had a child.

Lu Yicheng knew Jiang Ruoqiao’s mood was not exactly pleasant, and he worried that the scale of the difficulties ahead might frighten her off. He took the initiative to break the silence: “Let’s start from here and work through things one at a time. First — Siyan’s household registration.”

When Jiang Ruoqiao heard him say that, her head immediately began to ache.

Household registration. Household registration…

Of all the maddening problems!

Lu Yicheng unzipped his bag and retrieved two sheets of paper, which he passed to her. “Registration has to happen — that much isn’t up for debate. Neither of us should be thinking about fraudulent registration; never mind the legal consequences, but if something actually went wrong someday, it wouldn’t be a joke. And for Siyan’s education — primary school, middle school, high school, university — all of that requires a verified registered residence. I won’t pretend otherwise: I did consider putting him under someone else’s registration back home. I even have a suitable person in mind. But I thought it over and decided against it. The trouble it would cause aside, Siyan would feel it too. He wouldn’t want to become someone else’s child on paper. So this is something only we can handle ourselves.”

Jiang Ruoqiao lowered her head. “Yeah, I know… but…”

But how were they supposed to do it?

Lu Yicheng’s eyes rested on the top of her head, and the faintest trace of a smile crossed his lips before disappearing. He cleared his throat. “My idea is to register him as a child born outside of marriage. I’ve already enquired with the relevant authorities. Siyan can be registered under my household. I just need to take him to an official testing centre and have an additional paternity test done — once his blood relation to me is confirmed, the registration can proceed.”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked up at him in surprise. “You mean — under *your* household?”

That sounded easy to say. But the social consequences would not be small.

He would have to explain to people how he, at twenty, had a five-year-old child.

The true facts of the matter could never be disclosed to anyone, which meant he would have to own it entirely.

That alone was enough to make people look at him differently.

Registering the child wasn’t the difficult part. The difficulty was in being willing to take that step.

And yet here was Lu Yicheng, proposing exactly this — and in doing so, he had effectively removed Jiang Ruoqiao from the picture entirely. Without exaggerating in the slightest, in this moment, from where Jiang Ruoqiao was standing, he seemed to be surrounded by a golden light.

She couldn’t help but think of a word.

*A bodhisattva.*

—