It was time for Jiang Ruoqiao to return to school as well. She checked out, and made arrangements to go to campus together with Yun Jia and the others to register.

Not every dormitory was as cohesive as theirs.

Some students lived far from school and would come to register a few days late. Others had family matters to deal with and would also push back their return. By comparison, their dormitory was far livelier — all four of them had arrived, and they spent nearly the entire morning in a flurry of activity. One was washing bed sheets, one was organizing her desk, one was hanging up a mosquito net. Everyone was occupied with their own tasks. By midday, they had more or less finished, and the four of them arranged to head to the cafeteria together.

Third year, first semester didn’t have an overwhelming number of classes.

Over the course of a week, only one day was completely packed.

The previous night, Jiang Ruoqiao had received an email from the company’s HR department, notifying her that she could begin work. The company had been informed of her situation from the very start of the hiring process — it had been made clear she wouldn’t be working full-time, only part-time. Her compensation would be part-time commissions and wages, which was entirely fair. HR told her to connect directly with her supervisor, and the company would work around her course schedule when assigning her projects.

Things had gone more smoothly than she had imagined.

The base pay for part-time work wasn’t high, and the commission rate was lower than for full-time employees, but she had done her research online and consulted with a senior student who had experience in this area. A company of this scale would never run short of work. As long as she was reasonably diligent, the income would be more than satisfactory.

The start of the school year also happened to be Jiang Ruoqiao’s birthday.

She was born in late August.

The three roommates had been brainstorming how to celebrate. In truth, a birthday came around every year, and their dormitory’s tradition was simply for the other three to pool money and buy a birthday cake, while the birthday girl treated everyone to a meal. Jiang Ruoqiao remembered her promise to Lu Siyan and said, “I have plans in the evening, so let’s move our big celebratory lunch to noon instead.”

Yun Jia linked her arm through Jiang Ruoqiao’s, sensing something interesting. “Ooh, a date tonight??”

Luo Wen, true to her reputation as the group’s conversational dead end, blurted without thinking, “Don’t tell me it’s with Jiang Yan?”

Yun Jia reached over to flick Luo Wen on the head. “So embarrassing. Our Ruoqiao — who does she think she is? The one person on this earth who would never, under any circumstances, go back to an ex!”

Luo Wen looked aggrieved. “I was just asking. Why hit me?”

Jiang Ruoqiao leaned in. “Come here, let me rub it better~”

Luo Wen: “Ugh!”

“But honestly though.” Jiang Ruoqiao said, “Yun Jia’s right. Go back to an ex? Who in their right mind would? Don’t worry. I do have plans tonight, but it’s not with a man.”

She felt that statement was perfectly accurate.

Siyan the little cub was only a small boy at the moment — not yet a man.

Yun Jia looked a little disappointed. “Not a man, huh…”

Jiang Ruoqiao said, “Hey!”

—

On the other side of town, Lu Yicheng was moving with Lu Siyan.

Moving was physical labor — a complicated, tiresome affair — but with a full day’s effort, they successfully relocated to the small apartment near A University. Once they had settled in, Lu Siyan seized his opportunity and told Lu Yicheng he wanted to go out and buy a birthday gift for Mama.

Lu Yicheng glanced at him. “A birthday gift? Do you have money?”

Lu Siyan rubbed his hands together. A five-year-old making a sycophantic face was both adorably funny and slightly ridiculous.

“Papa, can you lend me some money?~ Pretty please, best Papa ever~” Lu Siyan improvised on the spot and, in a bid for funds, deployed what he considered his most powerful weapon: he began singing that old children’s song, *Good Papa, Bad Papa*. “I have a good Papa, cooking in the kitchen clang clang clang, washing the laundry swish swish swish~”

Lu Yicheng’s scalp prickled.

He made a gesture to cut it off. “Stop. Before the neighbors complain.”

When Lu Siyan smiled, little dimples appeared at the corners of his mouth.

Lu Yicheng looked at them and immediately thought of Jiang Ruoqiao.

“How much, and when will you pay me back,” Lu Yicheng said, deliberately teasing Lu Siyan.

Lu Siyan: “…I’m not entirely sure. One thousand.”

Lu Yicheng replied flatly, “Forget it. No.”

Lu Siyan tested the waters again. “Five hundred?”

“…” Lu Yicheng continued to smile serenely.

And so Lu Siyan was forced to keep negotiating. “Three hundred?”

Lu Yicheng said nothing, still smiling.

Lu Siyan was going absolutely frantic. “I can’t go any lower! Okay, Papa — you tell me, how much can you lend me?”

Lu Yicheng smiled. “One hundred.”

Lu Siyan looked up at the ceiling and wailed, “Papa, does Mama know how stingy you are?! How on earth did you ever win her over?!” He was beginning to seriously doubt it had ever happened.

To this question, Lu Yicheng offered no response. His reasoning was simple: from the way Jiang Ruoqiao dressed and presented herself day-to-day, it was clear she wasn’t short on material things. Even if she were, anything she could want was beyond his budget anyway. Spending several hundred or even a thousand yuan on something she already had — what would be the point of that? This was also, of course, a teaching moment for the child: the value of a gift lies not in its price but in the thought behind it.

“Do you want the money or not?” Lu Yicheng asked.

Lu Siyan lowered his previously raised chin and swallowed his pride. “…Yes.”

He didn’t even have a hundred yuan to his name.

Lu Yicheng said with exaggerated gravity, “You said it was a loan. Then write a promissory note.”

Lu Siyan: “?”

Was he serious? Did he actually have to pay it back?

He stared at his father with wide, incredulous eyes.

Lu Yicheng’s expression was entirely composed. “You said it was a loan. Does that mean you were only saying so, with no actual intention of repaying it?”

Lu Siyan instinctively protested, “I wasn’t, I didn’t mean that!”

He just hadn’t expected his father to be this particular about it. One hundred yuan and he still had to pay it back — was this man actually his father?

Lu Yicheng smiled pleasantly and said, “If you had asked me for one hundred yuan as pocket money, I would have given it to you and you wouldn’t need to repay it. But just now, it was *you* who said it was a loan. When you borrow money, you pay it back. It doesn’t matter who you borrow from. Understood?”

Lu Siyan slowly worked it out.

He deeply regretted it. So he could have just asked Papa for pocket money and that would have been fine!

Why on earth had he unnecessarily said the word *borrow*?

He opened his mouth, ready to take it back.

Lu Yicheng already knew what he was thinking and shook his head. “Once words leave your mouth, you can’t take them back. Don’t let your word lose its weight — if you do, what you say will never mean anything.”

Lu Siyan pursed his lips.

It was so unfair!

But under the pressure of his father’s expectant gaze, he picked up a pen and wrote out the promissory note on a piece of paper. Many of the characters he didn’t know how to write, but he was clever and had learned the basics of phonetic spelling. With Lu Yicheng’s guidance, he finally completed the first promissory note of his life.

Repayment date?

Thirteen years from now.

In thirteen years, he’d be eighteen. Eighteen meant adulthood. He could get a job and earn his own money.

Father and son headed out together. There was a small shopping center not far from where they now lived. With one hundred yuan to his name, Lu Siyan looked left and right but couldn’t find anything quite right. Eventually, they wandered into a boutique accessories shop, and he settled on a hair clip for Jiang Ruoqiao — a sweet, girlish little thing decorated with a cherry, so lifelike it almost looked real. What left Lu Yicheng faintly staggered was that this tiny little hair clip cost ninety-eight yuan.

But Lu Yicheng still let Lu Siyan pay for it, and spent a few extra yuan to have the shop assistant wrap it nicely.

Even so, Lu Siyan was glum as they left, saying, “This is probably Mama’s cheapest hair clip.” He clenched his small fist, giving himself a pep talk. “One day I’ll earn my own money and buy Mama the very best!”

Lu Yicheng thought: “?”

A ninety-eight yuan hair clip was the *cheapest*?

—

That evening, Jiang Ruoqiao arrived at Lu Yicheng’s rental apartment carrying the remaining half of a birthday cake.

Her three roommates had ordered an eight-inch cake, but the four of them — all more or less watching their sugar intake these days — had barely made a dent in it. More than half remained, and as Jiang Ruoqiao entered the residential compound, she looked up at the moon and reflected that she must have quietly absorbed some of Lu Yicheng’s sensibilities without realizing it. She actually felt it would be a waste to throw out this much leftover cake — when previously, an unfinished cake was simply something you tossed.

Jiang Ruoqiao had also been quite popular with the opposite sex.

Several male classmates from the same department had even bought her birthday cakes, which were all sitting untouched back in the dormitory.

She had briefly considered bringing one of those — but then she thought about showing up to see Lu Siyan and Lu Yicheng carrying a cake bought by some other man…

Yeah, no. That would not do.

On her way over, Jiang Ruoqiao had already placed a delivery order. She had barely stepped through the door when the delivery rider knocked — arriving with the twelve-inch pizza she had ordered, four pairs of grilled chicken wings, the Italian pasta Lu Siyan loved, and for good measure, a baked cheese rice for Lu Yicheng.

Lu Yicheng: “?”

This was too much.

There was no way they could eat all of this.

Jiang Ruoqiao, for her own part, had washed an apple to serve as her dinner. When Lu Yicheng was setting out the dishes, he casually asked, “You’re not eating?”

“Not eating.” Jiang Ruoqiao glanced down at her still-flat stomach. “I had a slice of cake today, and we had bubble tea in the dormitory, and then at noon I went out for a Western meal with the girls.”

Her calorie count was severely over budget.

Tonight, all she could do was gnaw on an apple.

If Lu Yicheng had any cucumber on hand, she’d have given up even the apple.

Lu Yicheng: “…”

He was realizing he truly did not understand how girls thought.

She was already this slender — did she still need to do this to herself?

Jiang Ruoqiao was in high spirits these past couple of days, and was happy to chat a little more with Lu Yicheng. “You know I model for the hanfu shop, right? Even though photos are generally edited, being a little slimmer does look better on camera. I think of it as a kind of professional responsibility, since models matter — otherwise, why would all those shop owners spend so much to hire them?”

She wasn’t that thin, really.

Being *too* thin wasn’t good either.

She preferred to stay at a healthy kind of slim — the kind that didn’t make anyone worry she was malnourished.

Lu Yicheng said, “Mm.”

He understood now.

“I go for my own health checkup every year.” Jiang Ruoqiao smiled. “Don’t worry. Nobody values their life more than I do.”

There was a warmth in Lu Yicheng’s eyes too.

Lu Siyan was beside himself with excitement. Today had been *so* good — cake and pizza and chicken wings and pasta! Mama should have a birthday every single day.

Before cutting the cake, Lu Siyan insisted Lu Yicheng light the candles. “Mama, make another wish~ It’s your birthday.”

Jiang Ruoqiao had no choice but to go along with it. Lu Yicheng pressed the candles into the cake and lit them with a matchbox, then, at Lu Siyan’s insistence, switched off the living room light. The whole room plunged into darkness, lit only by the soft glow of the little flames. Jiang Ruoqiao pressed her palms together and closed her eyes, her expression earnest — but the corners of her lips curved, dimples faintly appearing. Lu Yicheng instinctively looked over at her. The faint light fell against her fair face, soft and alive.

What was Jiang Ruoqiao wishing for?

A birthday was a day when a little greediness was allowed.

At noon with her roommates, she had wished for good health for everyone she loved — and for wealth, while she was at it.

This time, with Lu Siyan right beside her, she felt a particular kind of warmth.

She thought: *If wishes can really come true, then — let my little one grow up healthy and well.*

She made her wish, and they ate the cake. Jiang Ruoqiao sat to the side and watched Lu Siyan eat, one hand propped against her cheek, smiling sweetly.

Lu Yicheng went to the kitchen to retrieve some disposable gloves, and to pour a glass of water for Jiang Ruoqiao.

Just then, his phone in his pocket buzzed several times.

He took it out and found it was a message in the dormitory group chat.

Jiang Yan had tagged him in the group: 【@Lu, Director Lu, the three of us are at the street snack strip right now. Come join us — my treat.】

Lu Yicheng stepped out of the kitchen and leaned in the doorway. From there he could see into the living room — Jiang Ruoqiao had scooped a little bit of icing off the cake and dotted it onto Lu Siyan’s forehead, and then burst into bright, unrestrained laughter, the sound filling the whole apartment. Without meaning to, he found himself smiling too.

He looked down, his slender fingers composing his reply on the phone screen: 【Sorry, something came up tonight.】

Jiang Yan sat at a stall in the street snack strip.

Du Yu and Wang Jiangfeng were chatting away beside him, and the noise of the crowd surrounded everything. But when Jiang Yan saw Lu Yicheng’s message, all that sound seemed to vanish. Jiang Yan’s hand, resting under the table, curled into a fist. His expression was taut, his eyes dark and complicated.

—

It was getting late, and Jiang Ruoqiao couldn’t stay at Lu Yicheng’s place for too long.

After Lu Siyan had eaten his fill, she glanced at the time — it was nearly nine. She should get back to the dormitory. There was plenty to do tomorrow.

She got up. Lu Yicheng got up too.

Lu Siyan patted his full little belly and let out a satisfied burp.

The chicken wings had been *so* good.

He watched his mama getting ready to leave, and without thinking said to Lu Yicheng, “It’s this late — it’s not safe for Mama to walk home alone at night. Papa, walk Mama home!”

Jiang Ruoqiao was just about to decline, but then she remembered something a senior student had mentioned earlier today.

The heat was making people restless, and certain unsavory types had started showing up again. A couple of days ago, a first-year graduate student had been walking back to campus at night and actually encountered one of these men. He had deliberately dropped his trousers in front of her. The senior student had been so shocked she’d frozen on the spot, and by the time she came back to herself, the man had already run off.

It was obvious that Lu Yicheng had also heard about this incident.

The graduate student had mentioned it in the alumni group chat as well as on the campus forum, warning others to be careful and calling on people who had information to report it to the school.

Lu Yicheng and Jiang Ruoqiao exchanged a glance.

Lu Yicheng gave a small nod. “Let me walk you. It’s not far.”

Jiang Ruoqiao was not one for unnecessary fuss. She thought about it and agreed. “Thank you.”

Both Lu Yicheng and Jiang Ruoqiao left instructions for Lu Siyan.

Lu Siyan gave them a thumbs up. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. I won’t open the door for anyone. I won’t go near the gas stove in the kitchen. I won’t touch the electrical sockets. I won’t stick my head out the window. I’ll sit right here on the sofa until Papa comes back.”

Jiang Ruoqiao and Lu Yicheng both thought: “…”

The two of them headed out.

Neither of them was entirely comfortable leaving Siyan alone — even though he was a very sensible child.

In a kind of wordless agreement, they both quickened their pace. Anyone watching would have mistaken them for speed-walkers in a competition.

Once they entered the school grounds, they gradually slowed down. Walking together like this, it was impossible not to talk. Now that they had grown more comfortable with each other, conversation came easily. They talked about their respective plans for the future.

Lu Yicheng learned that Jiang Ruoqiao was planning to end her contract with the hanfu shop by the end of the year, and that she had secured the part-time translation job she had applied for.

Jiang Ruoqiao learned that Lu Yicheng had agreed to help out at a senior classmate’s company.

“If I’m being honest, I never realized how expensive raising a child was until now,” Jiang Ruoqiao said. “I had a senior student once tell me — she’d just had a baby — that because of health complications, her child had been on formula from birth. Her baby could eat an enormous amount, and at peak, was going through eight cans of formula a month. The brand she bought was four to five hundred yuan per can. Just the formula alone was four thousand yuan a month.”

She would never normally talk like this in front of others.

But Lu Yicheng was different.

What she was saying — he could actually understand.

Sure enough, Lu Yicheng listened and nodded. “It really is expensive, raising a child.”

Jiang Ruoqiao laughed. “So sometimes I wonder if I should count my blessings. At least now Siyan is past diapers and expensive infant formula. When you work it out, it feels like I’ve somehow saved an enormous amount already?”

She laughed more brightly still, turning her head toward him, eyes curved into crescents, vivid and full of life — like there were little stars in them. “Would you say that’s what you’d call a very particular kind of self-comforting optimism?”

Lu Yicheng was amused too. He walked with his back straight, one hand resting in his pocket. “You could put it that way.”

And as they talked, they arrived at the foot of her dormitory building.

The dormitory wasn’t as busy as usual — quite a few students hadn’t yet returned to campus. At this hour, there were barely any people to be seen around the entrance.

Just as they were preparing to say goodnight, a figure stepped out from the shadows nearby.

It was Jiang Yan.

He looked at the two of them — laughing easily, comfortable in each other’s company — his face expressionless.