Lu Siyan was huffing and puffing, his curls nearly straightened out from the exertion.

Lu Yicheng’s stamina was remarkable. Even after a full sprint, he had only quickened his breathing slightly. He instinctively raised his arm to check the time. Very good—not a second late. They were the first ones out.

Jiang Ruoqiao quickly pulled Lu Siyan under the sun umbrella, her expression full of fond exasperation as she pulled out a tissue and wiped his sweat. “Silly thing—why did you have to run so fast?”

She shot Lu Yicheng a glance. “Weren’t you worried about him overheating?”

Lu Yicheng: “……”

It was Lu Siyan who answered, “I’m not afraid of the heat. I’m much more afraid of making Mom angry!”

Mom being angry was definitely the worst possible outcome, right?

How could he let Mom wait—and at the kindergarten gate of all places, in this blazing sun?

Jiang Ruoqiao: “……”

What was this? Was she some kind of monster?

“I wouldn’t be.” She made a conscious effort to keep her tone gentle. “I would have been happy to wait.”

Lu Siyan clapped his hands over his ears. “La la la, not listening! Believe that and you’re done for!”

He then deliberately lowered his hands and said very seriously to Lu Yicheng, “Dad, don’t you believe it either. Got it?”

Lu Yicheng bit back a laugh.

He actually thought it was fine—it was true that no one should be kept waiting, and she was afraid of both heat and sun. So running a little faster was perfectly reasonable.

Jiang Ruoqiao couldn’t hold it together either. She had been keeping a straight face, but she burst out laughing, her expression softening from overcast to sunny. “Alright, alright. So in your hearts, I’m just this completely unreasonable person.”

“No.”

The one who spoke was Lu Yicheng.

Jiang Ruoqiao raised her eyes to look at him.

Perhaps because of the heat, he had undone the buttons of his shirt and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, revealing lean, toned forearms.

He looked at her with a calm, gentle gaze, still carrying the traces of a smile that hadn’t yet faded. “No, don’t misunderstand us. We simply didn’t want to make you wait.”

Lu Siyan nodded in agreement. “Exactly.”

Jiang Ruoqiao deliberately teased Lu Siyan. “I was afraid you’d think that of me and end up hating me.”

Lu Siyan paused, looked at her, and then launched himself into her arms, hugging her around the waist. He pressed himself close with a tenderness that spoke of deep feeling, and said earnestly, “That won’t happen. I will never hate Mom. I would hate anyone else. I would hate myself. But I would never hate Mom.”

His dad had told him that he’d been very restless when he was in Mom’s tummy, and Mom had suffered a lot because of it. She’d lost so much weight.

At the time, Mom couldn’t eat anything. Whatever she ate, she threw up.

During one of the prenatal checkups, one test result hadn’t come back well. Mom—such a calm and composed person—had hidden in a stairwell and cried for a very long time.

His dad had said that Mom was the strongest person in the world. The only reason she cried was because she was worried about the baby inside her not being healthy, and because pregnancy had made her much more vulnerable.

His dad had also said that when Mom gave birth to him, it was incredibly painful—painful to the point where she couldn’t speak.

His dad had said Mom was strong and brave, but she was also someone who needed to be protected.

Jiang Ruoqiao froze.

Lu Yicheng looked on with quiet warmth, watching Lu Siyan.

There had been many moments when Lu Siyan had reached something in Jiang Ruoqiao. In those moments, she found herself growing more and more attached to this child who had appeared in her life out of nowhere. When she thought of him, she couldn’t help but smile.

She reached out too, crouched down, and hugged Lu Siyan back, patting him gently on the back. “Then thank you—I’m truly grateful to have someone in this world who will never hate me.”

Lu Siyan turned his head to look at Lu Yicheng. “What about Dad? Dad won’t hate Mom either, right?”

Lu Yicheng smiled and replied as well, “Of course not.”

“See?” Lu Siyan said. “Mom, me and Dad will never hate you.”

Jiang Ruoqiao smiled and nodded.

The kindergarten behind them was gradually filling with parents and children coming out.

There was no reason to linger. Since it was about lunchtime anyway, Jiang Ruoqiao, on the grounds that her very first translation job had finally gotten off the ground, firmly insisted on treating Lu Yicheng and Lu Siyan to a proper meal.

Lu Yicheng looked like he wanted to say something.

Jiang Ruoqiao already had a sense of him by now. She raised her hand in a stopping gesture. “Lu Yicheng. Understood?”

Lu Yicheng gave a helpless smile. “Understood. But may I offer one small suggestion?”

“You may. But please don’t say anything I don’t want to hear.” Jiang Ruoqiao thought: I know you.

He was definitely going to bring up cost-effectiveness.

Cost-effectiveness, cost-effectiveness… was he reciting a mantra?

She’d practically been brainwashed by him this whole time! She never wanted to hear those words again!

Lu Yicheng said, “Don’t choose somewhere too expensive.”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked at the sky.

Lu Yicheng smiled. “You work hard for your money.”

Jiang Ruoqiao, coolly: “Mm.”

She still took his suggestion into account and didn’t bring them anywhere too lavish, settling instead on a hotpot restaurant as a middle ground. The service there was excellent, and Lu Siyan was sweet-tongued enough to call every staff member “big sis,” earning him not only an unusually good toy—against the usual rules—but also a complimentary fruit platter and free sour plum juice.

Lu Yicheng had already noticed.

Lu Siyan’s aversion to vegetables—he could tell exactly who that was inherited from.

Jiang Ruoqiao had the tablet for ordering and was selecting almost entirely meat dishes. Lu Yicheng gently reminded her, “There are only three of us. We don’t need to order that much.”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “Lu Yicheng.”

Do you know what the most beautiful quality in a human being is?

When someone else is excitedly ordering food, you should learn to stay appropriately quiet.

She wanted fatty lamb, she wanted fatty beef, she wanted shrimp, she wanted fish, she also wanted beef meatballs—was it too much to want all of them?

Lu Yicheng promptly closed his mouth.

After a pause, he spoke again. “I’d like to say one more thing.”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked up at him. “What?”

“Vegetables should be ordered.” He replied. “Siyan is very picky.”

And now it was Jiang Ruoqiao’s turn to feel awkward.

Well. She hadn’t ordered any vegetables, because she simply hadn’t thought of it.

She handed him the tablet, even managing a face-saving comeback, “I never said I wasn’t going to order them. I was letting you order them.”

Lu Yicheng took it and quickly scanned what she’d already ordered. Mentally calculating, he thought it was a bit much—but they should be able to finish it.

He only ordered two vegetable dishes.

Leafy greens. The exact kind both Jiang Ruoqiao and Lu Siyan despised above all others.

When it came to vegetables, Jiang Ruoqiao could tolerate cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, and the like.

But leafy greens? Absolutely not.

Jiang Ruoqiao: “……”

Lu Siyan said weakly, “Let’s not let Dad order next time.”

The mother and son’s tastes were so uncannily alike that even Lu Yicheng was astonished. Both loved meat, both shunned vegetables, both especially hated leafy greens, neither ate green onion or garlic, and even the faces they made when disgusted were identical. Lu Yicheng looked across the table at the matching expressions of two people on the verge of rolling their eyes at the mention of leafy greens, quickly looked away, and lowered his head—but a deeply contented smile settled at the corners of his mouth.

While waiting for the broth to come to a boil, Lu Yicheng remembered something and reached for his phone. “The kindergarten asked us to download an app. It deducts about a few yuan from your phone bill each month. I’ve downloaded it already. Do you want to get it too? Apparently you can check all sorts of information on it—daily menus, attendance records, campus news.”

“Absolutely!”

Jiang Ruoqiao immediately pulled out her phone. “I want to download it.”

Lu Yicheng told her the app’s name.

Life had basically found its footing now. Jiang Ruoqiao and Jiang Yan had broken up, so she and Lu Yicheng no longer had to keep things discreet. Siyan would be enrolling properly tomorrow, and Lu Yicheng had moved with Siyan into a new place conveniently close to both the campus and the kindergarten. Only the matter of a nanny remained.

As Jiang Ruoqiao tapped away on her phone, Lu Yicheng said, “You’re probably going to be quite busy these next few weeks. Do you want to leave finding the nanny to me?”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked up at him.

He quickly added, “Don’t worry. I’ll only do the initial screening. Whoever we end up choosing, we’ll decide together.”

Jiang Ruoqiao also had her reservations. “I’ll ask around and see if anyone can give a referral. Finding a nanny is even more important than finding the kindergarten or the apartment.” She suddenly furrowed her brows. “But what if the nanny takes a liking to how cute our child is and kidnaps him? What if she sells him?”

These kinds of things had happened before.

Lu Siyan, who had been diligently drinking his juice, raised his hand. “I know the answer to this one!”

Both Jiang Ruoqiao and Lu Yicheng turned to look at him.

“110 is the police number. If Mom and Dad aren’t there, I absolutely cannot go anywhere with anyone—not even the nanny. Even if she says she’ll buy me Lego or ice cream, I can’t agree!” Lu Siyan said. “I have to recite Mom and Dad’s phone numbers every night, and also my ID number. My dad’s name is Lu Yicheng, my mom’s name is Jiang Ruoqiao, and my name is Lu Siyan!”

Jiang Ruoqiao rested her chin in one hand. “Brilliant, sweetheart.”

Lu Siyan looked pleased, making a great effort to appear humble. “It’s alright, really.”

Lu Yicheng looked at Jiang Ruoqiao and also furrowed his brows slightly. “You raise a valid point. So finding a nanny really should be done through proper, professional channels.”

Think as hard as they might, it kept coming back to the same conclusion: the only people they truly trusted and could rely on were each other.

Both of them were meticulous by nature. While eating hotpot, they took turns raising their respective concerns, making sure nothing was overlooked.

After the hotpot, Lu Yicheng needed to take Lu Siyan home for his afternoon nap.

Jiang Ruoqiao also had to get back to the dorm—she had a student council meeting that afternoon.

Back in the dorm, she couldn’t fall asleep. She lay on her bed exploring the kindergarten app, and found herself growing increasingly absorbed.

It had a section for baby meal plans. She opened it and could see the following week’s morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack schedule.

For example, tomorrow morning, once Lu Siyan arrived at school, his morning snack would be a bottle of student milk and red date-flavored waffles.

Lunch was even more substantial: three-color shrimp, minced pork steamed egg custard, tofu fish ball soup, and soft glutinous black rice.

After the afternoon nap, there was also a snack: red bean paste buns and seedless red grapes.

Jiang Ruoqiao was satisfied.

Until she noticed the most prominently displayed section in the middle of the page: a column called “Baby Star.”

She studied it and realized it was essentially a little red flower ranking board. The page displayed the top three students in the class.

The more little red flowers accumulated in a given month, the higher the ranking.

That went without saying—her little one absolutely had to have his moment to shine!

There were several ways to earn little red flowers: inviting household members to join the app, or completing tasks. The tasks themselves varied widely—check-ins, posting photos or written updates, videos, leaving comments or replies… all sorts.

So, for the next hour or so, Jiang Ruoqiao threw herself into completing tasks to earn little red flowers for Lu Siyan.

But she was still just slightly short.

Without hesitation, she sent a message to Lu Yicheng: [Get on the app and do the tasks to earn Siyan little red flowers! Fast!]

Her little one absolutely had to be in the most prominent spot!

Siyan was the Baby Star!

Unfortunately, other parents clearly had the same competitive streak. The rankings kept being chased down tightly.

Lu Yicheng: [? That doesn’t really serve any purpose.]

He was telling the truth.

The little red flowers genuinely didn’t do anything.

Jiang Ruoqiao, lying on her bunk, sent back a reply: [.]

Lu Yicheng looked more carefully. Another period?

Sending a period on its own meant she was unhappy.

Lu Yicheng replied: [Alright, I’ll go do the tasks right now.]