When the movie ended, Jiang Ruoqiao woke up — and naturally, she realized she had been resting her head on Lu Yicheng’s shoulder. After a brief moment of awkwardness, she asked with an air of composure: “Was I leaning on you asleep for a long time?”

Lu Yicheng shook his head without hesitation. “No. Just a few minutes.”

Jiang Ruoqiao took this answer with some skepticism.

The atmosphere — well, calling it awkward would be overstating it, but calling it completely at ease would also be a stretch.

Fortunately, there were too many people filing out of the screening room, and Jiang Ruoqiao was holding Lu Siyan’s hand and walking toward the exit, so the question was set aside for the time being. By the time it crossed her mind again, she had genuinely come to terms with it — if she’d been awake, of course she would have been embarrassed. But she’d been fast asleep… so it should be fine, right?

The movie had run just under ninety minutes.

Coming out of the screening room, it was only six o’clock. But given that during the National Holiday the crowds were everywhere, Jiang Ruoqiao made a shrewd call: forget wandering the shops. She led Lu Yicheng and Lu Siyan directly up to the fifth floor of the department store, which housed cosmetics and skincare counters, brand clothing shops, an arcade and the cinema, as well as plenty of restaurants. At six o’clock on the dot, right at the start of the dinner rush, nearly every restaurant already had people queuing at the door.

Jiang Ruoqiao had bought the movie tickets, so dinner fell to Lu Yicheng.

This was something Lu Yicheng had insisted upon.

He was genuinely gentle by nature — but when he dug in his heels about something, he was more stubborn than an ox. Jiang Ruoqiao clearly couldn’t budge him, so she conceded and let him pay by scanning the QR code.

Lu Yicheng, having sat perfectly still the whole time as her unwitting human pillow, had a shoulder that was aching with stiffness.

Whenever she lowered her head to look at her phone, he’d quickly roll his shoulder to ease the tension; whenever she looked back up, he’d snap back to perfect posture — all to keep her from noticing.

The restaurant was packed tonight.

The food was taking a while to come out, though at this hour none of the three of them were particularly hungry. Lu Siyan was still thoroughly immersed in the film, and wanting desperately to dissect the plot with his parents, he tugged at Jiang Ruoqiao’s sleeve and said excitedly: “Mom, do you like Kady or do you like Thunderblaze?”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “…”

Who was Kady? Who was Thunderblaze?

She had no choice but to come clean: “Sorry — Mom fell asleep. Wasn’t paying attention…”

Lu Siyan studied Jiang Ruoqiao’s face carefully. “You haven’t been sleeping well these past couple of days?”

Jiang Ruoqiao was just about to answer when she was seized by sudden alarm: “Do I have dark circles?!”

She pressed the screen of her phone on and opened the camera to check her current state.

Lu Siyan’s survival instincts kicked in immediately and he shook his head furiously — like a rattle drum — “No no! If I had dark circles, Mom still wouldn’t!”

Jiang Ruoqiao studied her own face carefully and couldn’t help sighing. “Feels like I’m going to get them very soon.”

Though there was nothing to be done about it.

A private room was out of the question — at a top-tier general hospital of this caliber, finding a bed at all was already something to be grateful for. Hadn’t the hallways had extra beds lined up too? Jiang Ruoqiao had heard other patients in the ward sharing their own experiences navigating the medical system, and by that standard, Grandmother had been quite lucky — her admission had just happened to come through. Some patients waited months before there was a slot available for them to be admitted and undergo surgery.

So many people, so much suffering. A good night’s sleep was a luxury no one here could afford.

Jiang Ruoqiao — who was ordinarily a known grouch in the mornings — had been meek and compliant throughout these past two days.

There were simply too many people there seeking treatment, too many people enduring pain.

Lu Yicheng knew how grueling overnight caregiving could be.

Many family members didn’t have the time to do it themselves and would hire professional caregivers. In the Jing Shi area, caregivers were plentiful, but the rates were never cheap.

After comforting Jiang Ruoqiao for a while, Lu Siyan’s thoughts drifted back to the movie, and between bites of chicken wings he asked Lu Yicheng, “Dad, I didn’t understand that last part — why did Thunderblaze say that line?”

It was clear that Lu Siyan was genuinely troubled by this question.

He was frowning deeply, thinking very hard.

Now it was Lu Yicheng’s turn to be in an awkward spot.

What exactly was he supposed to say? He hadn’t been watching what was on screen either.

What line Thunderblaze had said — he had no idea.

He only knew that there was indeed a character by that name in the film.

His mind had been somewhere else entirely the whole time.

Lu Yicheng was incapable of making up lies, so he fell into silence, attempting to cover his discomfort and embarrassment by taking a drink of water.

Lu Siyan looked at Lu Yicheng with wide, puzzled eyes, brow furrowing. “Mom fell asleep, okay — but Dad, weren’t you watching the whole time? You didn’t understand it either? But Dad is supposed to be a really smart honor student, right?”

For the first time in his life, Lu Yicheng begged in his heart: please stop talking, please stop talking.

He desperately wished he and Lu Siyan could have that father-son telepathic bond.

But Lu Siyan had completely missed the signal, and continued muttering, “Did Dad not watch either? What was Dad doing then? Mom was sleeping — what was Dad doing? Was Dad also sleeping?”

Lu Yicheng: …please stop talking.

At first, Jiang Ruoqiao hadn’t really been listening to what Lu Siyan was saying.

Not until she caught the expression on Lu Yicheng’s face across the table — the look of a man sitting on pins and needles, profoundly ill at ease no matter which way he turned — did she actually start paying attention to Lu Siyan’s words. And having listened, she too felt a wave of awkwardness.

They were both adults, both twenty years old. Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t need to think too hard before she understood exactly why Lu Yicheng was looking like that.

And then she felt out of sorts too.

She picked up the glass beside her and drank a couple of sips.

Lu Yicheng was also drinking water.

The two of them acted as though they were sampling some fine celestial nectar, both their expressions grave and solemn.

Jiang Ruoqiao very stiffly changed the subject: “Siyan, what flavor pizza do you want?”

Lu Siyan turned toward Jiang Ruoqiao with a slight tilt of his head. “Mom already ordered the thin crust beef pizza… do you want to order more?”

Jiang Ruoqiao: …please stop talking.

Lu Yicheng still had his cup in hand, head slightly bowed, trying to hide behind the glass. The faintest trace of a smile had found its way to the corner of his lips.

Which was precisely when Jiang Ruoqiao looked over and caught it. She shot him a glare. “Ask your dad — your dad might not be full!”

What was he smiling about.

Who did he think she was changing the subject for?

The smile on Lu Yicheng’s face froze: “…Ah, there’s more than enough.”

Lu Siyan shrugged. “Strange adults.”

He had no idea what they were going on about.

Jiang Ruoqiao gave a quiet huff. Lu Yicheng, turning discreetly, quietly added something extra to the order on his phone.

A serving of vanilla ice cream.

When the ice cream arrived, Lu Siyan was pleasantly surprised. “How did ice cream end up here — did Dad order it, or did Mom?”

Jiang Ruoqiao flicked a sideways glance at Lu Yicheng.

Lu Yicheng kept a perfectly straight face. “Must be complimentary.”

Lu Siyan let out a cheer and moved to grab the ice cream. Lu Yicheng stopped him. “It’s October now — the weather isn’t that warm anymore. You already had one ice cream cone today. That’s enough for now.”

An elderly lady from the same residential complex had taken one look at Lu Siyan eating a soft serve cone and earnestly told Lu Yicheng that now that the heat of summer had passed and the temperature was cooling, it was better not to give small children too many cold things to eat.

Lu Yicheng had taken the advice to heart.

Lu Siyan: “…”

And so the serving of vanilla ice cream was happily consumed by Jiang Ruoqiao.

To be fair, the other dishes at this restaurant were all perfectly decent — nothing offensive, but nothing to write home about either.

But this vanilla ice cream was genuinely extraordinary.

Even better than the one from that Italian artisan gelato shop.

Grandfather was on duty tonight, and knowing Jiang Ruoqiao hadn’t gotten enough rest, Lu Yicheng was ready to head home after dinner.

The three parted ways at the subway entrance — Lu Yicheng took Lu Siyan toward their residential complex, while Jiang Ruoqiao made her way back to the dormitory. During the Golden Week holiday, the dormitory building was almost entirely deserted. Yun Jia had gone on a trip with her parents; the other two roommates had both gone home. Only Jiang Ruoqiao remained — though being alone had its own kind of freedom. She washed her hair, took a long bath, went through her skincare routine, and then fell into a deep, heavy sleep, more soundly than she had in a long while. She was exhausted.

The more exhausted you are, the more likely you are to dream.

Jiang Ruoqiao began to dream again.

In the dream she was once again the observer — she could see others, but others could not see her.

This time, what she dreamed of was not herself, but… Lin Kexing.

Lin Kexing appeared a bit more mature than she did now. In the dream, her hair was loosely curled, and she wore a simple yet elegant dress. Though she was so beautifully put-together, she was huddled in a darkened room, her expression one of deep misery, pouring her heart out on the phone.

“I don’t understand why. Is there something about me that isn’t good enough? The moment he came overseas, I told my mom I wanted to study abroad too. All this time, I really thought he had forgotten about her. Just the other day, he and I went to a concert together — you have no idea, on the way back there was a stretch of road that had flooded, and he carried me across. I genuinely thought that meant he’d let go, that he was finally seeing me. I was so happy. You don’t know, that night I couldn’t sleep at all, I really thought he…”

“But then just now I went to his apartment, and I found out he’d been drinking again. I sneaked a look at his browsing history and found out he’s still quietly following her. He watches her video logs — almost every day. You have no idea — when I saw his browsing history I nearly fell apart.”

“I even have this feeling… this feeling that he is never, ever going to let go of her. Not in this lifetime.”

“Why? In what way am I not as good as her? She looked down on him for not having money and threw him away, and I’ve been by his side since he was ten years old. All these years, all this time — why can’t he see me? He’d rather go looking at that woman than acknowledge anything I’ve done…”

The Lin Kexing in the dream — loosely curled hair framing her face — sank down into a crouch, hugging her knees, her voice raw with pain: “I just hope — I just want him to stop following her. Stop looking at her. Is that really so much to ask?”

—