Jiang Ruoqiao had previously bought Lu Siyan a trial session for inline skating lessons.

That evening, the original plan had been for Jiang Ruoqiao to take Lu Siyan to the class, but as it happened Lu Yicheng also had time free, so all three of them went together. These days, there were so many types of after-school enrichment classes springing up everywhere — it seemed as though any child without some talent or skill to their name was somehow lacking. Jiang Ruoqiao considered herself a mature and sensible person; she was fine with pushing herself to achieve things, but she drew the line at pushing children into competitive pressure… and yet she had still gone ahead and bought the trial session…

Jiang Ruoqiao said with a look of pure exasperation: “You have no idea — Zhang Yuchen’s mom has such a way with words. Before I even realized what was happening, my fingers had already placed the order on their own.”

Zhang Yuchen’s mom was one of the friends on her secondary WeChat account.

That woman was truly a singular talent.

In Jiang Ruoqiao’s estimation, Zhang Yuchen’s mom should go into sales — she would absolutely thrive in that field. Zhang Yuchen’s mom herself had been giving this some thought as well, and after several rounds of enthusiastic encouragement from Jiang Ruoqiao, she had made up her mind: after the Golden Week holiday, she was going to start job hunting, specifically in sales.

Lu Yicheng rarely saw Jiang Ruoqiao looking like this, and he let out a quiet laugh. When she glanced over at him, he quickly brought his expression back under control. “Is Zhang Yuchen’s mom the one with the short hair?”

Jiang Ruoqiao nodded.

“I’ve run into her a couple of times when I’ve gone to pick up Siyan,” Lu Yicheng said. “She really does have a knack for connecting with people.”

“Absolutely.” Jiang Ruoqiao said with feeling. “But she’s quite a good person, too — whenever I ask her anything, she answers with such patience. This inline skating class is a good example: after I bought the trial session, she gave me a whole rundown of what to expect and even called me specifically to go over the important things. She’s a very warm and enthusiastic person.”

If you wanted to know what it looked like to have no social anxiety whatsoever, Zhang Yuchen’s mom was the definition.

Jiang Ruoqiao was convinced — absolutely convinced — that Zhang Yuchen’s mom was destined to become a top-performing sales champion.

They arrived at the inline skating center. Jiang Ruoqiao had previously added the coach’s contact information and made a reservation, and the coach greeted them warmly. Several children were already warming up on the rink. Lu Siyan was clearly excited. The class was one hour long, and the coach took Lu Siyan to get fitted with his equipment — a helmet, inline skates, and protective pads at both his knees and elbows.

The parents simply needed to wait and watch from outside the rink.

Lu Siyan was very focused during the lesson. The coach started by having him practice lifting his feet and walking on the carpet.

By the time the lesson ended, Lu Siyan was still clearly wanting more.

It was obvious he had a genuine enthusiasm for inline skating. Jiang Ruoqiao reconsidered her earlier worries — what pressure, what competitiveness? This wasn’t academic tutoring. As long as Siyan enjoyed it, it wasn’t pressure at all.

The three of them left the inline skating center to find the sky had grown completely dark.

The Golden Week holiday was just around the corner, and national flags could be seen everywhere.

Lu Siyan had all the confidence of someone who was never shy around new people, and before long he had joined a group of other children playing on the plaza. Both Lu Yicheng and Jiang Ruoqiao, in their own hearts, hoped he would spend more time playing with children his own age, so neither of them was in any rush to head home. They found a spot to sit down and watched Lu Siyan engage in lively play with his newly made companions.

After sitting down, Lu Yicheng said: “I’ll go buy Siyan some water.”

They had left in a bit of a hurry. The water they had brought, Siyan had already finished.

Jiang Ruoqiao gave a nod.

But when Lu Yicheng came back, he had not only bought two bottles of mineral water — he was also holding a soft-serve ice cream cone.

This soft-serve cone looked just like the ones from the Italian artisan shop she had taken Siyan to before.

The ice cream had been swirled into the shape of a flower, and from the color alone one could tell it was probably vanilla-flavored.

Jiang Ruoqiao stared at it.

Lu Yicheng held it out to her.

Jiang Ruoqiao: “For me?”

Lu Yicheng gave an affirmative sound. “I was originally going to get it for Siyan, but he’s playing so happily, so never mind.”

The weather wasn’t really hot anymore, but ice cream would still melt if held for too long, so he had only bought one.

Jiang Ruoqiao took it. “Thank you.”

She was admittedly a bit surprised, though. In this part of the city, a place selling this sort of ice cream wasn’t likely to be any cheaper than the shop near the university.

At the very least, it would cost over thirty yuan.

Somehow, it felt less like eating ice cream and more like she was siphoning the hard-earned money right out of Lu Yicheng.

She hesitated and didn’t take a bite. Lu Yicheng sat down beside her and, noticing the uncertain look on her face, said: “Don’t worry — I didn’t pay full price.”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked at him. “What?”

Lu Yicheng pulled out his phone, opened his social media feed and showed her. “I saw there was a promotion — it’s a newly opened shop. If you shared their post and got thirty-eight people to like it, you could buy one soft-serve cone at half price.”

Jiang Ruoqiao glanced at the screen.

And happened to see the comments under that post—

*”? Lu bro, did you get hacked?”*

*”Well this is new — first time I’ve ever seen Young Master Lu post something like this, hahaha”*

*”Just a guess: Young Master Lu, who exactly are you buying this soft-serve for? And that shop name… how suggestive — it’s called ‘Sweeter Than First Love,’ hahahahaha”*

*”Who even needs to guess — it’s obviously for Jiang Ruoqiao (Lu bro, if you’re short on pocket money, just say so — with the bond between us, I’ll crowdfund to help you court your goddess!)”*

Jiang Ruoqiao: “…”

Only then did Lu Yicheng realize there were comments below the post. He yanked the phone back as though he’d received an electric shock, still visibly ill at ease. “It wasn’t that expensive. Under twenty yuan.”

That was actually quite a reasonable price.

To be honest, Lu Yicheng hadn’t really wanted to share a social media post and collect likes just to buy a soft-serve cone. But when he saw the price, he thought — she did seem to be conscious about this kind of thing. So if he just shared one post and got some likes, would that make it a little better?

Jiang Ruoqiao took a bite of the ice cream. “It’s really good.”

Lu Yicheng — you are genuinely something else.

She hadn’t felt especially awkward before, but now the embarrassment level was rising at a visibly steep rate.

Lu Yicheng said: “I won’t do the sharing-and-collecting-likes thing again.”

Jiang Ruoqiao found her threshold for finding things funny had apparently dropped considerably, because hearing him say that, she somehow managed to detect a note of wounded pride in it and broke into laughter. “No, it’s fine.”

“Just don’t make me like it for you,” Jiang Ruoqiao thought for a moment, “or ask me to help you slash the price. That’s all I ask.”

Was there anyone out there who understood exactly what that particular feeling was like?

Lu Yicheng clearly understood the reference. “I won’t. Don’t worry.”

Today was probably… the opposite of an example where he had thought too much and then handled things well.

The two of them talked idly, and this was the shape their relationship had taken these days — not exactly close, not by any measure, and yet they could now genuinely chat about ordinary things. Lu Yicheng thought back to something from that afternoon, and spoke in his usual measured, quiet tone: “Earlier I mentioned that my household registration only has my name on it, right?”

Jiang Ruoqiao had been enjoying her sweet ice cream and turned to look at him when she heard this.

He was wearing a grey t-shirt today, and the same black casual trousers as always.

His features were actually quite striking — only the gentle, understated quality that seemed to emanate from his whole person softened what might otherwise have been sharper lines.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, being too warm and gentle sometimes took away just a little from a certain kind of handsomeness.

But it was also, at the same time, an advantage — because whoever met him for the first time would invariably come away with a good first impression.

“My parents were gone when I was very young. All these years, it was my grandmother who raised me.” Lu Yicheng said. “She had a very hard life. She lost her husband when she was very young, and afterward never remarried, for the sake of her son and daughter. She worked herself to the bone. Her son got married, her daughter got married — just when it seemed like easier days were finally coming, her son and daughter-in-law were both gone too. Even now, I still feel that I was a burden to her. There was nothing I could do for her except study, and study harder, and keep studying, until I carved out a path for myself — only then could I give her a life of ease.”

“For someone like me — an ordinary, unremarkable person — studying was the best way forward. The harder I studied, the more I could ease the burden on her. First it was reduced tuition fees, then monthly subsidies, and if my grades were good enough, scholarships on top of that.” Lu Yicheng gave a self-deprecating smile. “I won’t hide it from you — I didn’t study hard because I loved learning. I studied because I needed to make money. And because I needed to be able to make money in the future.”

Jiang Ruoqiao listened quietly.

On this particular point, she and Lu Yicheng shared a deep understanding.

It was true — for people like them, the best path available right now was through education.

“Life is probably full of regrets. Take me, for instance. To this day, when I think back, I still hate myself for it — hate that I didn’t notice she was sick earlier. By the time I found out, it was already late stage. When all is said and done, I wasn’t attentive enough. For a period of time, I felt there was no point to any of it — no matter how much money I earned, no matter how much bigger a home I moved into, she would never be there to see it.” Lu Yicheng clasped his hands together, his gaze deep and still as he watched Lu Siyan running and playing on the plaza. “Sometimes I would think — if Siyan had come a little earlier, she would have been so happy. She would have been so glad. In her final days,” and here his voice shifted, becoming low and strained, “she was so worried about me. So very worried…”

Jiang Ruoqiao found herself inexplicably moved as well.

Her own circumstances were quite similar to Lu Yicheng’s. She had been raised by her maternal grandparents; he had been raised by his grandmother.

Though she was a little luckier — her grandparents were still alive.

“Birth, aging, illness, and death are the natural order of life. All one can do is try to leave as few regrets as possible, and give them as much joy as one can.” Lu Yicheng said. “We’re all ordinary people. In the face of birth, aging, illness, and death, there’s nothing we can do.”

Jiang Ruoqiao was quiet for a few seconds, then followed Lu Yicheng’s gaze toward Lu Siyan, who was running wild on the plaza.

Children were at the most energetic age imaginable.

Unbothered by heat, unbothered by cold.

Working up a full sweat while playing and not feeling a thing.

The child was also paying attention, though — every now and then he would poke his head in their direction, wave enthusiastically, and then turn back to run and play with his friends.

“In truth, in my original plans, I hadn’t intended to tell them about any of this within the next couple of years.” What Jiang Ruoqiao said was the honest truth. “My greatest wish was for only the two of us in the entire world to know. No one else — not my grandparents, not my closest friends. The reason I gave was that I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to accept it, but in saying that, I was also lying to myself. To put it plainly, I was afraid my own life would be disrupted. I just wanted to paper over the cracks for as long as possible.”

Lu Yicheng smiled quietly.

Right now, perhaps there were only two people in the entire world who could truly understand each other’s experience.

“Thinking about it now, perhaps my grandparents will be shocked at first — just as we were when it all started. But I believe they would come to love Siyan. Who wouldn’t love Siyan?” Jiang Ruoqiao’s expression became distant and wistful. “I’m just so frightened. I can’t bear to think about it — in the future that Siyan described… they may never have even met him. I can’t think about it, I can’t accept it, because for the ‘me’ of that other timeline, it must have been an enormous, enormous regret.”

Jiang Ruoqiao’s expression gradually took on a note of quiet resolve. “I’ve decided — once they’ve arrived, I’ll let them spend some time getting to know Siyan. After that, I’ll tell them the truth. I’ll let them know that Siyan is my child.”

“Thank you,” Jiang Ruoqiao said.

Lu Yicheng smiled faintly. “It’s only right.”

He simply didn’t want her to carry the same regret he did.

—