Jiang Ruoqiao thought it through. In the future that Lu Siyan had described, she had ended up marrying Lu Yicheng. If Lu Yicheng had some intolerable childhood sweetheart situation that stuck in everyone’s throats, her future self would absolutely never have chosen to marry someone like that. She might not always trust other people, but she would always trust herself — any version of herself.

And besides, she had spent a decent amount of time around Lu Yicheng by now.

He wasn’t much of a talker, a little oblivious, a little quiet — but his character seemed sound enough.

He had also mentioned before that he had almost no family left; just himself and a single household register. If he had a “sister” he was in any way close to, there would have been some trace of that by now. And as young as Lu Siyan was — only five — the child was nearly impossible to fool, even for an adult. If there was anything going on with Lu Yicheng, Siyan would probably be the first one to sense it. Knowing Siyan’s personality, would he really have kept that from her?

This kid reported to her every time Lu Yicheng went out for a haircut.

If there really was a younger or older sister somewhere in the picture, Siyan would have already turned the whole household upside down.

As she thought through it all, Jiang Ruoqiao’s expression shifted from serious to gradually more relaxed.

Her three roommates, who knew her well, exchanged glances — they could all tell something was different.

No, wait.

Ruoqiao wasn’t someone who thought this way. If she didn’t have even the tiniest bit of feelings for Lu Yicheng, would she actually be going through all this?

And so Jiang Ruoqiao herself arrived at the same realization — *what on earth was happening to her?!*

Lu Yicheng wasn’t anything to her. He wasn’t a vague romantic prospect, wasn’t her boyfriend — whether or not he had some childhood sweetheart sister, what did that have to do with her?

Had she really needed to think through this question so carefully and thoroughly?

Jiang Ruoqiao shook her head, muttering: “Whatever, whether there’s a sister or an older sister, that’s not important!”

Yun Jia gave her a skeptical look: *Really? Not important?*

Then why, when you said the words “sister” and “older sister,” were you visibly making the face of someone who’d just swallowed something repulsive?

Jiang Ruoqiao’s rational mind snapped back into place. She looked at her three roommates. In the spirit of “let others bear the cost, not me” — Jiang Yan, the ex-boyfriend she’d already broken up with, was now firmly on the “outsider” side of things. Lu Yicheng, by virtue of being Siyan’s father, had been grudgingly promoted to “quasi-insider.” No matter how she looked at it, the Lu Yicheng situation mattered more — so she wasn’t going to apologize for her priorities. Throughout history, had there ever really been a good reason to put strangers before your own people?

“Ladies, my beloved friends,” Jiang Ruoqiao said, looking at them expectantly, “I have a very important task to entrust to you.”

Yun Jia muttered to herself: “Why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to be anything good. Can I decline?”

Jiang Ruoqiao put on her most serious face. “Absolutely not. We swore our sisterhood!”

“You can also sever a sworn sisterhood.”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “……”

Of course she was only joking. Gao Jingjing said: “Go on, what’s this important task? As long as it’s not asking us to take Jiang Yan off your hands, we’re fine — it’s not that, right?”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “What kind of person do you think I am, that you’d even get that impression??”

Gao Jingjing: “Hahaha~”

“Alright, back to the point. First…” Jiang Ruoqiao gathered herself.

Luo Wen burst out laughing. “I have a feeling there’s more than one important task.”

“Hey!”

“Okay okay, go ahead, I’m listening.”

“First — let everyone who can know that Jiang Yan and I have broken up. I want to completely draw a line between myself and this person.” Jiang Ruoqiao said.

This was a necessary step.

A breakup absolutely needed to be publicly announced. Otherwise she’d keep running into people who still thought of her and Jiang Yan as a couple — which would be bad for her and even worse for whoever came next.

All three roommates spoke at once: “That’s it? That’s it?? Easy!”

Why wait to sever that connection, especially if it meant eventually having to sit at Jiang Yan and Lin Kexing’s wedding and force a smile?

Better to never have anything to do with it again — for eight generations if possible.

Jiang Ruoqiao was thoroughly satisfied.

This was the power of sisterhood, the heart of sisterhood. Men? A passing cloud. When it really counted, you had to rely on your sisters.

Jiang Ruoqiao went on, considering: “If anyone asks about the reason for the breakup…”

Yun Jia: “Honestly, a man with no boundaries deserves to be kicked out — why would we keep him around, what, to set off like a firecracker at New Year’s?”

Luo Wen: “We’re supposed to cover for him? Did he give me a hundred million? For a hundred million, I might consider lying for him.”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “……You don’t need a hundred million, ten million and you’d lie. We’ll split it fifty-fifty.”

Luo Wen gave her a look of withering scorn: “Do you have any dignity at all?”

Gao Jingjing: “This is actually a great cautionary case study for women everywhere — and a reminder to men to take a good long look at themselves and figure out whether what they’re missing is a family member or a girlfriend.”

Jiang Ruoqiao shook her head. “You can, but you don’t need to. If anyone asks, just say we split over differing visions for the future. Give the official version — you know how celebrity couples phrase their breakups? Use that template.”

She did want the moral high ground, that was true. But that didn’t mean she needed to nail Jiang Yan to a pillar of shame, beat him until he couldn’t fight back, reduce him to social ruin. There was no point in that. A relationship was just a relationship — it was a lesson learned for both of them, a chance to stop the losses before they got worse.

What she wanted was for people to forget, as quickly as possible, that she and Jiang Yan had ever been together. And what good would it do to bring up the Lin Kexing situation right now? Public opinion was a double-edged sword, and she had no confidence she could wield it cleanly. Dragging Lin Kexing into this would only make everything more complicated and more melodramatic. After all, Lin Kexing was the daughter of Lin’s Jewelry.

Years of consuming gossip had taught her: never be too ruthless, and never completely back someone into a corner. Besides, did she need to cast herself as the heartbroken, wronged heroine? Did she want everyone who saw her from now on to immediately think of her and Jiang Yan’s relationship — which was already approaching the level of a year’s most dramatic spectacle? Just the thought of it made her skin crawl.

She wasn’t some devoted, lovesick soul.

She genuinely wanted a clean, undramatic split from Jiang Yan — no drawn-out bickering, no public mudslinging, no throwing dirt at each other. That was beneath them both. That kind of thing had no place in her personal history.

Her three roommates listened to Jiang Ruoqiao carefully, and in the end, respected her decision.

As she listened to them work out the details together, Jiang Ruoqiao was genuinely moved. She really did want to tell them about Siyan — but she knew the timing wasn’t right. At least she needed to let the Jiang Yan fallout fully settle before finding the right moment to come clean.

“Ladies,” Jiang Ruoqiao announced, “I’ve decided. I’m covering your bubble teas for the next week — whatever you want~”

Yun Jia was first to raise her hand. “Per person, per day — what’s the limit?”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “The limit?? How much do you plan to drink??”

Never mind keeping the little money-sink Lu Siyan fed. Now her roommates were turning into money-sinks too.

—

While Jiang Ruoqiao was discussing important matters with her roommates, Lu Yicheng was giving Siyan a bath. Afterward, he grabbed his pajamas and headed into the bathroom himself.

The apartment near A’Da wasn’t cheap — space came at a premium — and the unit he rented was small, the bathroom more so. At over 180 centimeters tall, he felt distinctly cramped in there. He stood under the showerhead and let the water wash away the day’s exhaustion. Lu Yicheng wiped the droplets from his face — the few quiet, peaceful minutes of the day belonged to moments like this, and he’d grown used to using this time to think.

He and Jiang Yan had completely broken with each other. There was a lot to think through carefully now.

He and Jiang Ruoqiao were inevitably going to be in contact — and a lot of it, especially once Siyan started kindergarten. Jiang Ruoqiao and Jiang Yan had also just broken up. And in everyone else’s eyes, he and Jiang Yan had been close friends… so how would people interpret the three of them, and all the drama that had unfolded?

There were roughly three ways to handle it.

The first: do and say nothing. The likely outcome was that Jiang Ruoqiao would be misunderstood as stringing two people along, or worse — misread as having cheated while she was still in a relationship.

The second: let their connection to Siyan become known, and publicly acknowledge what tied them together. This was the least viable option — the absolute last resort. It would completely override the decision he and Jiang Ruoqiao had both firmly opposed from the beginning, the decision not to report to the authorities. And as his attachment to Siyan deepened, he found himself increasingly unable to tolerate the thought of anything bad happening to his child. Siyan was about to start kindergarten — he would have a normal childhood like every other little boy here, make plenty of friends. He didn’t want Siyan’s life to be disrupted. He didn’t want people looking at Siyan like he was some kind of curiosity.

The third: let people form the impression that he had fallen for his close friend’s girlfriend, and after she and Jiang Yan broke up, began pursuing her. This would, of course, lead people to misread him.

Weighing all three options, it came down to this: either Siyan gets affected, or Jiang Ruoqiao gets questioned — or it’s him.

Even setting aside any complicated feelings he might have developed toward Jiang Ruoqiao, Lu Yicheng would not want her misunderstood. And that was before factoring in what he actually felt now.

There was no need to weigh further.

Perhaps this was also the most honest expression of what he felt, deep down.

Lu Yicheng had made his decision. This choice might lead to him being misread — but that was fine. At least it gave an explanation, to the outside world, for why he and Jiang Ruoqiao were growing closer in the wake of her breakup with Jiang Yan. The falling-out with Jiang Yan was done regardless. Sooner or later, someone would see him walking Jiang Ruoqiao back to her dormitory, see them eating together.

The very next morning, Lu Yicheng was up early.

Kindergarten hadn’t reopened yet. Lu Siyan was still fast asleep. By now, Lu Yicheng had learned the child’s rhythms, and he made use of Siyan’s sleeping hours to wash up as quickly as possible and slip out.

The semester hadn’t officially begun, and many students hadn’t returned to campus yet. The early morning campus was nearly empty.

Lu Yicheng walked out with both hands full.

He made his way quickly to the girls’ dormitory building.

Until yesterday, he had rarely come to this part of campus. The boys’ and girls’ buildings were set apart by some distance, and even on the few occasions he’d been this way before, he’d always passed through quickly, never lingering, never looking toward it — because the girls’ dormitory had nothing to do with him. His heart was unsettled now, though. The early morning air was cool, yet his palms were warm and damp.

He arrived at the foot of the dormitory building.

And stood there, still as a statue.

Taking this step had not been easy.

Lu Yicheng generally had a good reputation among people, and a female classmate from his department, spotting him standing there as rigidly as a carved figure, assumed he needed something and came over. “Lu-tongxue, is there anything I can help you with?”

Lu Yicheng was quiet for a long moment.

She waited patiently. They were in the same department, different classes, but Lu Yicheng had an excellent reputation among the women in their department.

He never hesitated when anyone needed a hand.

And now it was clearly his turn to need one — so she couldn’t very well look the other way.

Besides, she was intensely curious. What kind of situation could have put that look of hesitation and conflict on the face of their department’s most prized, dependable campus heartthrob? He was the academic equivalent of a genius — nothing was ever supposed to trip him up.

What was it?

Lu Yicheng realized he had been silent for too long. He looked up at her and finally managed, with some difficulty: “Excuse me — could you go up and get Jiang Ruoqiao for me? She’s in the foreign languages department.”

As she stared at him with wide eyes, he added: “I brought her breakfast.”

The girl: “????”

A passing student who overheard: “!!!!!” *Wait — what?? Lu Yicheng is here to bring breakfast — to Jiang Ruoqiao?? What’s going on?! They were all away for a summer break and things they knew absolutely nothing about apparently happened — how?!*

—