The grandparents, seasoned and perceptive as they were, could read the situation at a glance — a prospective son-in-law had come to call — so Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t need to explain a thing. Everything was silently understood between them. But Lu Siyan was still only a child of five or six. He couldn’t parse the meaningful looks that were woven through the air between the adults, so it wasn’t until just before dinner, when he caught Mama feeding something to Papa, that the full shock registered.

Jiang Ruoqiao glanced at Lu Yicheng with a very clear meaning: This one’s yours to handle. Go explain it to your son.

Lu Yicheng gave a nod and stepped forward, taking Lu Siyan by the hand. “Come on — time to wash hands before dinner.”

Lu Siyan’s face lit up with excitement. “I already washed them!”

Lu Yicheng had no choice but to use a tone that left no room for argument. “Wash them again.”

“……”

And so the father and son found themselves squeezed side by side in the small bathroom. Jiang Ruoqiao, a smile still playing at the corner of her mouth, scooped herself a spoonful of the glutinous rice — that was the flavor, all right. Sweet without being cloying!

Inside the bathroom, Lu Siyan’s little mouth was going a mile a minute. “Baba, what was that just now?! Why was Mama feeding you?!”

He might be young and fuzzy on many things, but that didn’t mean he was oblivious.

The young Mama had never fed the young Baba anything before.

As far as he’d seen, at least.

Something that had never happened before — happening now — meant something had changed.

Lu Yicheng thought for a moment. “What do you think is going on?”

This stumped Lu Siyan entirely.

If he’d walked in on the two of them hugging or kissing, he would have known exactly what it meant. But this was just… feeding someone a bite of food.

Lu Siyan tilted his head, apparently thinking hard. “I don’t know. Anyway, Mama usually only feeds me.”

He had a natural gift for language, and having only arrived in Xi Shi a little over half a month ago, he’d already been influenced by the local children and adults around him — he could understand the Xi Shi dialect and could even speak a bit of it himself.

Since this was a moment for honesty, Lu Yicheng saw no reason to keep him in the dark. He reached up and ruffled Lu Siyan’s hair, then lowered his voice. “Then maybe you’ll need to get used to something — she won’t only be feeding you anymore.”

Lu Siyan: “?”

Lu Yicheng’s eyes were full of quiet amusement. “We’re together now.”

Worried the child might misunderstand, he quickly clarified, “Just dating.”

Lu Siyan was overjoyed. “Really?!”

Lu Yicheng nodded. “It’s true. I was actually planning to tell you on this trip. But — you can pressure me all you like, just don’t put any pressure on her. Do you know what ‘dating’ means?”

“Of course I do!” Lu Siyan looked at Lu Yicheng with exaggerated indignation. “Baba, you know I also have people who like me, right? How could I not know what dating means?!”

Lu Yicheng: “……”

He’d vaguely heard something about Lu Siyan’s remarkable popularity at kindergarten.

“Then tell me what it means.”

Lu Siyan answered: “It means from now on you two will think I’m annoying and that I’m a third wheel.”

Lu Yicheng couldn’t help but laugh. “Sometimes, maybe. I hope you can understand when that happens.”

“Then you have to buy me toys. Then I’ll understand.”

“Deal. And what else do you know about it?” Lu Yicheng continued.

Lu Siyan looked at him. “There’s more??”

Was being considered annoying not enough? Was there something even more outrageous ahead of him?

Lu Yicheng smiled and shook his head. “Nothing that involves you. Dating doesn’t mean getting married. I think the best way to think about it is to see me as two separate people — one is your Baba, and one is Mama’s boyfriend. Those two relationships aren’t directly connected. Don’t mix them up.”

“What do you mean?”

“I might not necessarily become her husband,” Lu Yicheng said. “Of course I’ll do my best. But not everything that’s worked for has a guaranteed outcome. Let’s not put too much pressure on each other — and don’t worry. No matter how our relationship changes, one thing will never change: you will always be my child, and you will always be her child. We will always love you.”

This was clearly a bit too philosophical for Lu Siyan.

He shook his little curly-haired head. “I don’t really get it. Anyway — you’re Mama’s boyfriend now, right?”

Lu Yicheng: “……Right.”

Lu Siyan’s response came lightning fast: “Then you should start winning me over.”

The topic had shifted too quickly, and Lu Yicheng — rarely — found himself at a loss. “What?”

Lu Siyan planted his hands on his hips with great swagger. “That’s how it works!”

In this particular round, Lu Siyan might just be the biggest winner of all.

……

All the way through and then coming out of the bathroom, up to the moment they sat down at the dinner table, Lu Yicheng was still frowning to himself. He’d always known his son was slippery-tongued, but he hadn’t anticipated just how sharp and unconventional the angle of his reasoning would be. Raising a child was a long road, demanding and unending — and the smarter the child, the more a parent had to invest.

At the dinner table, Grandma kept piling food into Lu Yicheng’s bowl, teasing him good-naturedly: “Young Lu, your mouth is quite nimble. Last time we told you to stay and you gave us a ‘next time’ — and look, next time is right now, isn’t it? So you’d better actually stay the night this time!”

Lu Yicheng once again instinctively looked toward Jiang Ruoqiao.

Jiang Ruoqiao shot him an exasperated glare.

Grandpa waved a decisive hand. “Hotels are expensive during the New Year anyway. Do you two think raising a child is easy? Save your money and buy the kid some books. Tonight, Young Lu sleeps with me!”

Lu Yicheng looked up.

Grandpa raised an eyebrow. “What — you’d rather not?”

“No, no, not at all.” Lu Yicheng quickly said, “I was just worried about disturbing you.”

Grandma stepped in with a smile: “Young Lu, it’s not you who’d be disturbing him — it’s more likely he’d be disturbing you. His snoring is thunderous.”

Grandpa was offended. “I do not snore in my sleep!”

Lu Siyan raised his hand eagerly. “I can confirm — Great-Grandpa really does snore. It kept me up at first, but I’m used to it now!” Then he immediately turned around to win back Grandpa’s favor: “Now I can’t sleep without the sound of Grandpa’s snoring!”

Grandpa laughed and pinched Lu Siyan’s cheek. “Siyan is still the good one — Great-Grandpa will take you out to buy snap-and-pop fireworks later!”

Lu Siyan: Yay~

In the end, the grandparents discussed it between themselves and made a unilateral decision: Grandpa, Lu Yicheng, and Lu Siyan would share the master bedroom — the bed there was a full one-point-eight meters wide, plenty of room for all three. Grandma would sleep in Jiang Ruoqiao’s room. After dinner, Lu Yicheng still hesitated and asked, “Is this really alright?”

Jiang Ruoqiao gave him a look. “You already got on the rocket.”

Got on the rocket — that’s how fast things were moving. They’d only just gotten together and she’d already brought him home, was even letting him spend the night.

“I was worried…” Lu Yicheng didn’t finish the sentence, but his meaning was clear enough — he was worried about what the neighbors might think, and whether it might reflect badly on her.

Jiang Ruoqiao slipped on rubber gloves. “My grandparents are both in their seventies and they’re more open-minded than you. Relax — this is perfectly normal around here.” She paused and pointed upstairs. “The neighbor upstairs — a really cool older sister — brings a boyfriend home every New Year. A different one each year.”

All of them with great taste in fashion and strikingly handsome!

She’d never heard any gossip about it — only occasionally caught messages from other girls in the building saying how envious they were.

She was envious too, actually — envious of that older sister’s carefree, unbothered spirit.

Lu Yicheng fell quiet.

But he remained observant and considerate, made sure she didn’t have to do the dishes, and took the sponge from her himself.

Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t leave the kitchen either — she stood beside him and kept him company while he washed, chatting away. “That neighbor upstairs is ten years older than me. She’s always been really good to me. I like to think of myself as a loyal person too — back when I was in elementary school, a boy from her class tracked her all the way here and gave me a hundred yuan to call her out. I didn’t.”

“A hundred yuan was a fortune to a primary school kid back then.” Jiang Ruoqiao sighed at the memory. “Afterwards I told that older sister, and she said I was foolish — I should’ve taken the hundred yuan and split it fifty-fifty with her…”

Remembering this, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Noticing that Lu Yicheng hadn’t responded, still focused on scrubbing dishes, she asked curiously, “Why so quiet?”

Lu Yicheng said, helpless, “I don’t know what to say.”

The honest, slightly selfish truth — the one he couldn’t actually say aloud — was that he hoped the person coming back here with her next year would still be him.

He’d already accepted, with some candor, that he could be a somewhat petty person sometimes. But those were the kind of thoughts you kept to yourself.

Jiang Ruoqiao folded her arms and looked him over from head to toe.

He was wearing the slippers Grandma had made herself — naturally nothing like what you’d buy in a shop. Grandma’s homemade slippers tended toward a unisex style, and aside from the size, you couldn’t really tell if they were men’s or women’s.

Not stylish, but very warm.

Somehow, those slippers made Jiang Ruoqiao’s gaze soften considerably.

She was wearing the same pair.

“Lu Yicheng, do you know I have a special ability?” Jiang Ruoqiao said. “I can hear your innermost thoughts. You’re thinking right now: hmm, I want to come back and spend New Year’s with Jiang Ruoqiao again next year, aren’t you?”

Lu Yicheng: “……”

His hands were covered in soapy suds, and hearing her say that in her playful, childlike voice, he finally couldn’t hold it back — he laughed.

“Spot on.” Jiang Ruoqiao said, pleased with herself. “I’ll allow you to have that ambition. So — work hard!”

When you’re in love, who doesn’t think about the future?

She thought about it too — that if the person beside her next year for the New Year was still Lu Yicheng, that would be something genuinely wonderful.

Keep at it!

Whether it was him or her — a relationship ultimately had to be built by two people together.

Lu Yicheng said, with complete sincerity: “Thank you.”

The two of them dawdled in the kitchen.

That was just what being in love was like — you wanted to be close to each other every spare moment. Before, Lu Yicheng would finish the washing up in about ten minutes and have the stovetop and range hood wiped clean too. Now… Lu Siyan, sitting in the living room, glanced at the clock. It took this long just to do the dishes?!

He’d already watched several episodes of Paw Patrol!

Lu Siyan decisively hopped off the sofa and headed toward the kitchen.

Lu Yicheng had long since finished the dishes. Jiang Ruoqiao had made two cups of tea — one for him, one for her — and they were just standing in the kitchen drinking tea and talking.

Outside it was too cold for a proper date. The living room had Grandpa keeping Lu Siyan company in front of the TV, and the bedroom had Grandma tending to her phone game — tapping to water her virtual garden.

The two of them weren’t doing anything particularly intimate. At most, Lu Yicheng had reached out to brush her bangs back into place.

But even so, when Lu Siyan suddenly came charging in, both Lu Yicheng and Jiang Ruoqiao got the fright of their lives. Both were a little flustered — even though they hadn’t been doing anything overly affectionate…

Jiang Ruoqiao’s cheeks turned faintly pink — whether from the steam rising off her cup of tea or something else entirely.

Lu Yicheng stepped in front of her, shielding her with his back, and looked at Lu Siyan. Equally flustered, he asked, “What brought you in here?”

Lu Siyan blinked. “Was I not supposed to come?”

Then, with perfect innocence, he added: “Great-Grandma was saying just the other day that the kitchen light was too dim. I figured, since I’m a light bulb, I might as well come in and brighten things up.”