Perhaps in a lifetime, there must be at least one moment reckless enough, impulsive enough — otherwise, what was it all for?

That day, Yunque’s mind went completely blank the instant Lu Rangchen said the words. Everything she felt washed over her at once — at a loss, yes, but also struck with joy and disbelief, and beyond that, a longing so strong it had no bottom.

It was as if there were no reason on earth to refuse him, and nothing — nothing — that could stop the two of them from reaching this point. They were supposed to reach this point.

After all, they weren’t young anymore.

And they had waited for each other for eight years.

How many vibrant, golden eight-year stretches does a single life hold?

In that moment, Yunque’s mind all but ceased to function. Whether it was Lu Rangchen’s tone or his expression in that instant that had charmed her into it, she couldn’t say — but as if guided by some inexplicable force, her head heating up, she said yes.

And compared to her own bubbling, giddy joy, the feeling that Lu Rangchen had been holding back was clearly even stronger.

Without caring whether anyone outside was looking for him, without glancing at the phone going off on the coffee table, the moment he saw her nod, Lu Rangchen cupped her face in his hands and kissed her with a hunger that left no room for restraint.

He kissed her, and Yunque closed her eyes and gave herself over to it completely.

But it was somehow never quite enough.

Lu Rangchen simply took hold of her by the shoulders, then curved his hands around her waist — that soft, supple waist — and pulled her up to sit on his lap.

The office was hushed and fragrant.

The air conditioning was running full blast, yet even that couldn’t cool the burning, heady warmth tucked behind the potted plant in the corner. In the end, it was the people outside, unable to locate Lu Rangchen and growing frantic, who came up and knocked urgently at the door — only then did that long, drawn-out kiss finally come to an end.

His lips, her neck, her shoulders — all bore the marks of where he had been.

Afterward, Yunque waited until Lu Rangchen had stepped out to deal with things again, then took a taxi home in a pleasant daze.

The summer heat was sweltering. She came home and took a cold shower.

By the time she’d calmed down somewhat, Lu Rangchen had already finished settling everything at the club for the next ten days.

He messaged her.

Bluntly, as if worried she might change her mind and try to back out, he wrote: [I’ve already put in my leave on this end. When are you planning to put in yours?]

Yunque had just poured herself a glass of cold water.

She drank down a large gulp in one go, savoring the rush of cold all the way through her.

She swallowed, and then — with the air of someone who had made up her mind — her pale, slender fingertips flew across the screen: [I’ll put in for leave when I go to work tomorrow.]

Lu Rangchen: [Okay.]

Lu Rangchen: [I’ve still got things to take care of. There’s a dinner tonight, might be back very late. Don’t worry about me — go to bed early.]

“……”

Yunque’s cheeks went slightly warm.

She thought to herself — this tone of his, how is it so completely like a husband addressing his wife? But then she remembered, the two of them would be exactly that kind of relationship very soon.

……It really was fast.

They’d barely been reunited for a month, and already they had reconciled — and not just reconciled. They were going to go and get their marriage certificate.

When she let herself sit with that reality, Yunque’s mind grew restless and unsettled, the way it stirred with anticipation.

It felt like when she was little and waiting for Feng Yanlai to come back from a trip and take her to the amusement park. Like waiting for a teacher to read out exam scores in class. Like during her girlhood — always hoping that somewhere in the crowd on the way to morning exercises, she might steal just one glimpse of Lu Rangchen.

Back then, she had never dared dream that Lu Rangchen would one day be hers. In body and in soul.

Her chest brimmed with a fluttering, restless joy, her heart beating soundly. Yunque gently pinched her own earlobe.

Not a dream.

All of it was real.

Thinking that, the corner of her mouth finally curved, slowly, into a gentle smile.

Monday English classes were always the most packed. It wasn’t until that afternoon’s second class was fully finished that Yunque went to the vice principal to request leave, saying she needed to go to the capital for two days.

The vice principal had heard that Yunque was in a relationship lately, and smiled, saying, “What’s this — something good happening?”

Yunque wasn’t usually prone to blushing.

But for reasons she couldn’t explain, whenever anything involving Lu Rangchen came up, something of that girl she had once been — young and bashful and green — would surface in her expression without her meaning for it to.

She pressed her lips together and said no.

She didn’t want to say anything before it was done. So she told her, “He needs to pick up a few things from there. I’m going with him.”

The middle-aged woman was quite curious, and pushed her glasses up, asking, “I heard it was a parent of one of your students? The one who runs the supermarket?”

“……”

Yunque let out a quiet breath of exasperation. “No, it’s not.”

“Then who is it? What does he do?”

Yunque didn’t want to drag it out, and said, “A friend of a student’s parent. An old schoolmate.”

The vice principal was the sort of person who could hold you for the length of three to five sentences before she’d actually grant you anything — on top of the fact that Yunque needed classes covered. In the end, after much persuasion, she finally agreed to give the leave.

Not a long stretch, though. Just two days.

Lu Rangchen was decisive and efficient by nature. When she suggested waiting until the weekend, he wouldn’t hear of it.

There was nothing for it. She just had to follow his lead.

So the flight was booked for the following morning, and that evening, Yunque took Xu Linda along to the mall to pick a few things up.

This trip wasn’t as simple as Lu Rangchen just going back to retrieve his household registration booklet. He might very well introduce her to some of his friends there.

Yunque wasn’t particularly worried about that.

What she was quietly thinking was — she wanted to take this chance to go and see Cheng Liru.

When Xu Linda heard that, she was alarmed. She said, “You’re going to see his mother?! Are you out of your mind?! She made life miserable for you and your mother — how are you not afraid?”

Truly, she wasn’t not afraid.

But she couldn’t hide from this forever.

Yunque was not the kind of person who let things drag.

So as they stood at the register paying, she drew in a quiet breath and said, “Whatever happens — this meeting has to happen.”

That apology.

Feng Yanlai couldn’t be the one to say it. So she would say it in her place.

Only — she hadn’t told Lu Rangchen this plan yet, and she wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

She was also afraid he might disagree.

The following morning, Lu Rangchen came to take her to the airport. When he saw the several gift boxes she’d brought along, he looked mildly surprised.

He raised a brow and said, “It’s just meeting a few friends for dinner. No need to make it this formal — bringing gifts, all this trouble.”

“……”

Yunque started to say that these weren’t for them — but thought better of it and pulled the words back.

The flight was only two hours in total.

They’d gotten up early, and not long after takeoff, Yunque drifted off with her head on Lu Rangchen’s shoulder.

Afraid she wouldn’t sleep comfortably, Lu Rangchen drew her closer, holding her more securely.

The passenger sitting beside them happened to be an older woman, who smiled and said, “You’re such a caring young man — your girlfriend is lucky to have you.”

Lu Rangchen wasn’t the type to make small talk, but he heard the words and still smiled as he replied — she wasn’t just his girlfriend, but his future wife.

He looked down at Yunque’s sleeping face and let his mouth curve, almost to himself: “We’re going back this time to pick up the household registration booklet.”

The certainty in his voice was unlike anything it had held before.

Nothing — no one — could shake it.

Yunque half-heard it, somewhere in that shallow, drifting layer of sleep, and gradually came back to wakefulness. When she lifted her eyes, they met the quiet, steady warmth of Lu Rangchen’s gaze.

He looked at her misty, half-awake eyes and curved his lips into a smile. “Up already?”

Yunque rested her head against his shoulder, watching him with eyes as focused as a small cat’s, and said, “I was just dreaming.”

“About what?”

“……About the two of us going to the marriage registration office. The photographer took a terrible photo of me.”

The words had barely landed before Lu Rangchen let out a quiet laugh.

He said, “Yunque, could you have just a little faith in yourself?”

Yunque’s lips tilted softly upward, and she settled her head back against his shoulder. “It’s my first time. I have no experience.”

The rare sweetness of her tone — soft and wheedling.

It made Lu Rangchen’s throat tighten. If it hadn’t been an airplane — a public space — he’d have genuinely wanted to kiss her properly for a while.

It really was strange.

The club had been relentlessly busy these past few days.

Between investor dinners and tournament preparations, Lu Rangchen hadn’t had a free moment — naturally, no time for quiet moments with her either.

And on the rare occasion they managed to find time together, they were on an airplane.

All he could do was settle for the thought of the real thing.

So instead, he threaded his long fingers through hers, the pads of his fingers tracing lightly back and forth across the back of her hand. He rubbed his chin softly against the crown of her warm hair, gave a low sound of acknowledgment, and said, in an unhurried, lazily easy way — rare for him: “I’m a little nervous too.”

About anything else in his life, Lu Rangchen could move with perfect ease.

Only with Yunque did he always feel this inexplicable, uncontrollable anxiety.

If only his independent household registration booklet wasn’t still sitting back in the capital, he truly would have taken her to register the very same day.

It was as if once the certificate was filed and stamped, something unbreakable would be tied between them — and he would never have to lie awake at night again, afraid that Yunque might one day get up and disappear without a word.

Without quite noticing when it happened, Yunque grew drowsy again.

Like a soft, boneless little creature, she burrowed against Lu Rangchen’s side with all the ease in the world, breathing in the scent that clung to him — the best thing she’d ever found for settling her nerves — and fell back asleep very quickly.

The plane landed before long, and the person who came to pick Lu Rangchen up was Peng Yuan.

Yunque had only ever heard his name from Lu Rangchen; meeting him face to face was the first time.

Peng Yuan, however, had heard about the situation between the two of them long before now, from Lu Rangchen himself. And even in the years before, he’d seen Yunque’s photos on Lu Rangchen’s phone more than once — which gave him an odd, inexplicable sense of familiarity with her.

“Well, it’s because his phone wallpaper was you back then,” Peng Yuan said. “I used to live with him at the time — whenever I grabbed his phone, there you were.”

Lunch was at a spot Peng Yuan had arranged.

The three of them had barely sat down before he’d already struck up a conversation with Yunque.

She was well-rested by then, eyes widening slightly at him as she said, “When was that exactly?”

Peng Yuan was about to answer when Lu Rangchen cut him off with a quiet, dismissive scoff. “You’re just like Deng Zhe — blurting out every last thing.”

It wasn’t just “like” Deng Zhe — Peng Yuan had surpassed him by a stretch.

He grinned openly and said, “What’s wrong with that? It’s not like it’s embarrassing. Letting your lady hear this — won’t she love you even more for it?”

“……”

Lu Rangchen shot him a withering look, just about to say something when his phone rang.

Naturally, it was something work-related.

By now, Yunque was used to it.

Lu Rangchen frowned briefly at the screen — a call he clearly couldn’t ignore — and so he stood, tilted his chin toward Peng Yuan, and said, “Keep her company for a moment.”

Then he turned to Yunque, caught her chin gently between his fingers, and his voice shifted — something softer and steadier settling into it — as he said, “Eat properly. I’ll be back as soon as I’m off the phone.”

In front of others, they couldn’t exactly be too openly affectionate.

So Yunque pressed her lips together and said softly, “Okay.”

Once Lu Rangchen had gone, she turned back to Peng Yuan and asked when he’d seen her photo as the wallpaper on Lu Rangchen’s phone.

“Right after you left the country. He’d just started out as an athlete not that long before — on weekends, we’d stay together,” Peng Yuan said, patient and willing to tell the whole story now that she wanted to hear it. “I thought you two hadn’t broken up yet. I even teased him about it, and he turned completely cold on me. Then I figured out you’d left him and gone abroad.”

“……”

Yunque’s heart gave a small, quiet ache. She hadn’t imagined that even then, Lu Rangchen had still kept her photo.

She couldn’t hold back the question she’d always wanted to ask. “But I heard that during that time — he always had other girls around……”

This was something she’d long wanted to ask Lu Rangchen directly.

She knew that he hadn’t had other women throughout these years — but she still thought about it, still cared about what the rumors had said during the period right after they broke up.

Those people had said that Lu Rangchen had been living freely during that time, that there were always girls around him, that he could never keep still.

Saying she wasn’t jealous would have been a lie.

Even after so many years, Yunque still felt the sting of it acutely.

She would always be able to recall the time — not long after they’d split — when she ran into Lu Rangchen at a supermarket. One moment they had been so tangled up in each other they couldn’t bear to let go. And then suddenly he’d turned cold toward her, and there was already another girl at his side.

That sour, aching feeling from back then — Yunque could still feel it with perfect clarity.

And now, at last, she had a chance to say it out loud.

Of course, she had already formed a guess at the answer. Peng Yuan would very likely smooth things over with a few words on Lu Rangchen’s behalf — say something like, men are like that, he needed to take his mind off things after a breakup.

But her guess turned out to be wrong.

Peng Yuan, at that, let out a sound of surprise. “Those rumors? He staged all of that on purpose.”

“……”

Yunque blinked, a beat off. “Why on purpose?”

Peng Yuan chuckled. “Why else? To provoke you, of course.”

“……”

“The only reason he was talking to those girls at school — was specifically because you’d have to come back to deal with some paperwork. He was doing it in the hopes of running into you there.”

“The gossip about him fooling around? He put that out himself. He wanted to make you angry. He wanted you to care.”

“Turns out you really had no reaction at all. Not to mention the two of you barely crossed paths at school.”

“He realized he wasn’t getting a rise out of you, gave up and went abroad, and once he was gone he deleted all of them. Every last one.”

“Not that the girls who’d added him on their own were lacking in numbers — they were texting him constantly, checking in on him, asking if he was okay. He never replied to a single one. And then Lu Rangchen drank one night, was in a terrible mood, and not only did he not bother responding to any of them — even trying to delete them all took a while, so in the end he just handed the phone to me and told me to take care of it.”

“Just for that, he gave me two hundred yuan as payment the next day.”

“I used that two hundred to cover a few months of electricity bills. You think I’d ever forget a thing like that?”