Her maternal grandparents were clearly still in a state of shock.

What was that again?

Lu Siyan was their granddaughter’s son? How could that be? When you did the math, the ages didn’t even add up… wait, what was that about time travel? Travel through what? Through where?

Jiang Ruoqiao was not at all surprised by their reaction. Never mind her grandparents who were in their seventies — even her roommates, who were constantly up to date on all the latest trends, would probably react the same way if they ever found out.

After a long, drawn-out silence, her grandfather was the first to come around. He said hesitatingly, “Yesterday, the very first moment I laid eyes on that child, I kept thinking — why does he seem so familiar? Like I’d seen him somewhere before…”

Her grandmother was still studying the paternity test report Jiang Ruoqiao had given her. She took off her reading glasses in disbelief. “What was that again? Traveled here from the future?”

Jiang Ruoqiao had to be grateful for the time-travel dramas that had aired in recent years.

Her grandmother had followed quite a few of them and had genuinely, wholeheartedly shed tears alongside the heroines more times than could be counted.

Her grandfather, meanwhile, had also been dragged along to watch them.

Both elderly people knew perfectly well what time travel meant…

“It’s true,” Jiang Ruoqiao said helplessly. “I’ve never lied to you before. Grandmother, think about it — Siyan’s naturally curly hair, his dimples — those are all our family’s genes. I’m truly not joking, and I’m not trying to deceive you.”

Her grandparents still: “…”

Jiang Ruoqiao very much wanted them to believe her as quickly as possible, but she also knew that pushing wouldn’t help, so she changed her approach. “I’ll step out for a bit. You two take your time to process it. I’ll come pick you both up for lunch at noon, and then we’ll go to the hospital in the afternoon. Is that alright?”

Of course they agreed.

They truly did need to take a moment to digest it all. Otherwise, if they didn’t believe her and she stood there anxiously waiting, nothing good would come of it.

Jiang Ruoqiao headed out. She didn’t know where to go, so she wandered around the residential compound. She pulled up the hem of her skirt and looked at her iodine-treated knee, and couldn’t help but let out a bitter smile. Good thing she had worn a longer skirt today, otherwise her grandparents would have noticed. She sat down on the edge of a flower bed. The weather had been pleasant lately — not swelteringly hot, but not cold either. Her knee throbbed occasionally, and that kind of pain made it very easy to recall the scene of Lu Yicheng dressing her wound.

She thought she might have begun to understand why that other version of herself had come to fall for Lu Yicheng, had come to marry him.

Back at the guesthouse, her grandparents sat bolt upright.

Her grandmother suddenly spoke. “Didn’t you take photos of the child yesterday? Quick, get them out and let me have a look.”

She was afraid she might be misremembering what the child looked like.

Her grandfather remembered, and immediately fished his phone out of his trouser pocket. His fingers trembled as he tried to unlock it — inevitably, the more important the moment, the less cooperative the phone. Her grandmother snapped, “Qiaoqiao bought you a new phone and you stubbornly refuse to use it until the New Year so you can show it off! Get rid of this broken old thing!”

Her grandfather muttered, “…It’s not broken.”

After much effort he finally managed to unlock it, and he opened the photo album. There were about ten photos of Lu Siyan.

Her grandmother zoomed in and studied them carefully, then said with a skeptical expression, “It really does look like our Qiaoqiao was stamped out from the same mold when she was little.”

Her grandfather was also deep in thought. “The resemblance really is quite striking.”

Both of the elderly people had weathered their share of storms in life. The more they turned this over in their minds, the more convinced they became — good heavens, this might actually just be true.

Though the time travel part did seem a bit far-fetched.

“Old dear,” her grandmother said, “pinch me. I want to see if I’m dreaming.”

Her grandfather flexed his wrist. “Then I won’t hold back!”

That said, he didn’t dare use much force. Her grandmother still yelped and looked about ready to smack him. “Are you trying to pinch me to death?!”

“So this isn’t a dream,” her grandfather said. He counted on his fingers. “Traveled from twelve years in the future. That means Qiaoqiao is thirty-two then. The child is five, so Qiaoqiao gave birth at twenty-seven, which means she got pregnant at twenty-six? Wait!” Her grandfather suddenly spotted a blind spot. “Hasn’t Qiaoqiao said a word about who the child’s father is?!”

Her grandmother considered it. “Does that even need to be said? Think about who the child is living with right now.”

Her grandfather: “…That would be young Lu.”

It must be said, Jiang Ruoqiao’s plan was viable.

With this far more bewildering piece of news, neither her grandfather nor her grandmother seemed nearly as consumed by worry over the illness.

At their age, they were certainly afraid of hospitals, afraid of death — but there was a contradiction in that, too. They had also come to regard life and death with a kind of quiet acceptance.

Her grandparents in particular had devoted their entire lives to their children and granddaughter. At this moment, their own mortality felt less important. What mattered to them more was what their granddaughter, barely twenty years old, was going through.

For instance, right now — both of them had already accepted the situation. Her grandfather thought of the hospital visit that afternoon and hesitated. “But your health…”

Her grandmother slapped her chest decisively. “I know my own body. If I’m sick, I get treated! I’ll follow the doctors’ orders — whatever they say goes. I’m going to live a few more years yet. After all, I need to help Qiaoqiao look after the child. She’s so young, still a student, and she’ll have work to deal with later too — she won’t be able to manage on her own!”

Jiang Ruoqiao hadn’t expected this — that her grandparents would simply accept it, just like that.

Thinking back to when she herself had first found out, she had also reacted this way — accepting it remarkably quickly…

That sort of mental fortitude must absolutely have been inherited!

Only…

Over the phone, her grandmother’s voice rang out full of vigor. “For lunch, bring young Lu along too!”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “…”

Her grandmother said, “My child is in his care. I’m naturally going to want to ask him a few things.”

Jiang Ruoqiao said, “Let me first check if he’s available.”

After hanging up with her grandmother, Jiang Ruoqiao dialed Lu Yicheng’s number and explained the situation a little awkwardly. “They seem to have accepted things.”

Lu Yicheng was mildly surprised. “That quickly?”

He had assumed it would take at least two or three days to recover from the shock. It couldn’t have even been two or three hours yet, could it?

But then he thought back to how, that first day, Jiang Ruoqiao had also reacted with impressive calm and quickly accepted Siyan’s existence, going straight off to have a paternity test done.

He understood now. It was an inherited talent for quick recovery.

“My grandmother is asking whether you have time — if you’re free, she’d like to have a meal together,” Jiang Ruoqiao said. “If you can’t make it, I’ll explain things to them… I’m sorry. When I decided to tell them, I only thought about redirecting my grandmother’s attention. I didn’t think through how it would affect you.”

It was a great deal to ask of someone.

That was precisely why they had, by mutual unspoken understanding, decided not to disclose the matter to others — to avoid exactly this kind of situation. And yet now she had broken that agreement first.

Even though he had already expressed understanding, Jiang Ruoqiao still felt apologetic.

Lu Yicheng smiled. “I’m free.”

Seemingly sensing the weight of her feelings, he said, “I can understand. If my grandmother were still alive, I’d tell her too. I think, if the situation were reversed and it was me, you wouldn’t refuse either.”

Though their time together had not been long, he had always felt that she was an exceptional person.

She appeared to want to keep everything at arm’s length, and yet her heart was also very soft — otherwise she could have simply refused to take on the responsibility of looking after Siyan from the very start.

He thought that if today it had been him, wanting to leave no regrets, wanting to share something with a gravely ill grandmother, she would surely agree and understand.

Wasn’t that just how it was between people? Mutual respect, mutual understanding.

Jiang Ruoqiao also thought earnestly about the hypothetical scenario he had described, and gave a soft acknowledgment. “I probably wouldn’t refuse.”

Lu Yicheng let out a quiet laugh. “So I’m not going to refuse either.”

He wanted to call her by name — it sat right there on the tip of his tongue — yet he didn’t know quite how to address her.

Should he just call her by her name directly? Or…

No, that didn’t feel quite right.

He simply stopped troubling himself over it.

“Siyan isn’t just my child. You have every right to tell your family. So don’t overthink it — the most important thing right now is your grandmother’s health.”

Jiang Ruoqiao gripped her phone tightly. Listening to his voice, the corners of her lips curved up slightly. “Lu Yicheng, thank you.”

She paused, then let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I feel like the number of times I’ve said thank you in these past few days has nearly caught up to the total from the previous twenty years of my life.”

Lu Yicheng’s laughter traveled through the phone and reached her ears.

“Then I should feel honored,” he said.

The moment the words were out, he realized — why did that line feel so familiar?

He couldn’t quite place it.

After agreeing on a meeting place, Jiang Ruoqiao hung up. There were still about forty minutes until the appointed time. Lu Yicheng suddenly remembered that he had fried eggs and luncheon meat that morning — might his clothes smell of cooking oil? With that thought in mind, he went to take a shower. After washing up, he stood in front of his wardrobe in his pajamas, toweling his hair dry while struggling to decide what to wear.

Lu Yicheng owned very few clothes.

He had always felt that as long as he had enough to wear, it was fine. He probably only had three sets of clothing to rotate through each season.

A T-shirt with casual trousers wasn’t out of the question…

In the end, Lu Yicheng put on the white button-down shirt and black trousers he had worn the day he attended the kindergarten parent meeting.

When Jiang Ruoqiao saw Lu Yicheng, the first thing she noticed was his outfit. She found it oddly amusing — was this really necessary? Lu Yicheng, on the other hand, felt somewhat ill at ease, and avoided meeting her eyes directly. At this moment, her grandparents’ gazes were trained on him like X-rays, scanning him up and down, as though they wanted to read his innermost thoughts loud and clear.

Lu Yicheng endured two pairs of X-ray eyes scrutinizing him, and one could imagine just how much pressure he was under.

Led by a server, the four of them were shown into a private dining room.

No sooner had they sat down than her grandmother got straight to the point. “Young Lu, we didn’t get to properly chat yesterday, and I nearly forgot to ask — you…”

Lu Yicheng had mentally braced himself.

He had even looked up related forum threads online on the way over.

Elders were generally interested in things like how many people were in the family, whether one’s parents had retired or were still living, where one lived, and what one’s plans for the future looked like.

He held his breath and ran through it all in his mind, preparing himself and composing responses to these questions in his head.

He sat with his posture perfectly upright, eyes fixed straight ahead, as though the people before him were not Jiang Ruoqiao’s maternal grandparents, but rather examination officials.

Her grandmother paused for a moment, then asked with lively curiosity, “How tall are you? Are you one meter eighty?”

Lu Yicheng looked up in bewildered surprise.

Jiang Ruoqiao could not hold back — she burst out laughing.

Her grandfather looked rather put out. “What do you mean, one meter eighty or not one meter eighty? What are you asking that for? Does height matter?”

Her grandmother gave him a sharp glare.

Jiang Ruoqiao wasn’t quite sure how to explain to Lu Yicheng why her grandmother had this fixation with height.

Apparently, when her grandmother first met her grandfather back in the day, her grandfather had stuffed something into his shoes to make himself look like a man standing at one meter eighty.

Her grandfather’s actual height was only around one meter seventy-five.

Lu Yicheng froze for a moment, then answered honestly, “Based on my measurements last year, my height without shoes is one meter eighty-four.”

Her grandmother looked thoroughly pleased. “I knew it — I said you looked so tall!”

“I can rest easy now,” her grandmother said. “That means our Siyan is definitely going to be one meter eighty or above when he grows up!”

—