Chinese New Year’s Eve, eight in the morning.

The sound of firecrackers crackled outside, occasionally interspersed with the giggling of playing children.

Gu Kaiyang pulled off her eye mask, yawned, and slowly sat up in bed, raising both hands to stretch.

Her work was demanding, and throughout the year, these few days of New Year’s holiday were the only time she could get a proper, satisfying sleep.

Because New Year’s greeting messages kept coming in, the phone placed on her bedside table kept automatically lighting up.

She didn’t look at it. These days, she no longer needed to be constantly on edge, clutching her phone for fear of missing an important call from her boss.

Gu Kaiyang was thirty-five this year, the editor-in-chief of “Zero Degrees,” a TOP-tier men’s magazine in China. A few years ago, she had entered the public eye by participating in a reality dating show for ordinary people, and gradually developed into a well-known fashion blogger with thirty million Weibo followers.

The loft apartment she had once emptied her savings to buy had long since been exchanged for a large, panoramic flat with a view of the river, and her Beetle had been upgraded from a Mercedes-Benz to a Ferrari.

The life she had dreamed of at fifteen, she had completely achieved by thirty-five.

The only slight imperfection was that at thirty-five, she was still alone.

All these years, Gu Kaiyang had not been in a relationship. She didn’t have time, nor had she met someone she found appealing enough to be worth investing her time in.

Tracing back to her last crush, she would have to go back to Zhou Jiaheng, whom she met during that reality show for ordinary people.

Zhou Jiaheng was now the actual head of the Junyi Group. A few years ago, he married a gentle and beautiful high school English teacher.

When they got married, Gu Kaiyang was on a business trip in Milan and couldn’t attend the wedding, so she generously sent a wedding gift via WeChat.

For nearly half a month afterward, Ji Mingshu and Jiang Chun spoke to her very cautiously, afraid of stepping on a landmine and making her angry.

Gu Kaiyang felt a bit helpless and somewhat amused.

She didn’t feel there was anything to avoid. During the show, she indeed had some feelings for Zhou Jiaheng. With his excellent conditions and his appropriate manners in dealing with people, plus the contrast with other male guests, it was natural to have feelings for him—a fact she had never denied.

However, Gu Kaiyang wasn’t someone who couldn’t let go of something once she had picked it up. The two had never even started anything, and Zhou Jiaheng had no thoughts about her whatsoever. She had been depressed for a few days at the time, but then she had moved on.

She had explained to Ji Mingshu and Jiang Chun more than once that this was already in the past, but those two had watched too many dramas and kept forcing a storyline onto her, which left her quite helpless.

Although she was awake, Gu Kaiyang didn’t want to get up to wash or even go out for breakfast. For no other reason than that, as soon as she encountered her parents and the aunts and uncles who had come to the house for the reunion dinner, they would inevitably bring up the subject of finding a partner.

In a big city like Pingcheng, being unmarried and not dating at thirty-five wasn’t unusual. But back in her hometown, no matter how capable or how much money she earned, she couldn’t avoid being labeled an “old maid.”

Sometimes she had the impulse not to go home for the New Year at all.

In her hometown, most families favored boys over girls. In the past, with her being the only child, her parents had never shown such inclinations and had even supported her to study design abroad.

She had always thought her parents were different, but the year she graduated from university, they had given birth to a little brother without telling her, and they would frequently remind her about how they had financed her education abroad, implying that she should help her brother with all her might in the future.

Gradually, her relationship with her family inexplicably became distant. After starting work, she sent more and more money home, but phone calls became less and less frequent. Coupled with the unchanging theme of marriage pressure over these seven or eight years, their relationship wore thinner and thinner, and they could hardly talk about anything in common anymore.

After lying flat for another half hour, the noise outside grew louder. The aunts and uncles had probably all arrived, and it seemed a bit unreasonable for her to keep hiding.

She got up, washed, and put on makeup, casually picking up her phone to take a look.

Zhan Xingyi: Editor Gu, Happy New Year’s Eve. /grin

Seeing the latest WeChat message was from Zhan Xingyi, Gu Kaiyang was slightly surprised.

Zhan Xingyi was a male celebrity, officially twenty-seven years old, though according to her estimation, his actual age might be a year or two older. Fortunately, he had a youthful aura about him. After struggling for a few years without much progress, he had quickly risen to fame in the past two years with two hit dramas, soon squeezing into the ranks of popular young idols.

She occasionally crossed paths with Zhan Xingyi due to work. Before the New Year, when she returned from a business trip in Paris, she happened to run into Zhan Xingyi, who had been forced to change outfits with his assistant because of obsessive fans. But then he was recognized by passerby fans and couldn’t get away for quite a while. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about it and had casually helped provide a distraction, then given him a ride back to his hotel.

Zhan Xingyi had thanked her profusely, and she hadn’t been polite either, asking him on the spot for a stack of signed photos, thinking they would be perfect to distribute to the star-chasing young girls in her relatives’ families when she went back home for the New Year.

Seeing the WeChat message from Zhan Xingyi, Gu Kaiyang was stunned for a couple of seconds. For the sake of the signed photos, she casually replied: Happy New Year’s Eve.

After receiving her reply, Zhan Xingyi began carefully considering how to continue the conversation, but she didn’t think much of it. After replying, she tossed her phone aside and went out to socialize with her relatives.

During the reunion dinner, the round tables in the living room were fully occupied with two tables of people. As the most successful yet still unmarried “old maid” in the Gu family at thirty-four, Gu Kaiyang was naturally the focus of everyone’s attention. The topics surrounding her as the focal point were mainly about dating and marriage.

Knowing this would happen, Gu Kaiyang had prepared herself mentally. After all, she only faced them once a year, so she thought she could just listen and respond politely to whatever they said—it wouldn’t cost her anything.

Her mental preparation was quite sufficient, but it couldn’t withstand some relatives who, after winding conversations, truly thought of themselves as important figures and became increasingly inappropriate, using the name of caring elders to seek a sense of superiority.

Gu Kaiyang endured again and again, until finally, when a distantly related aunt said she wanted to introduce her to a near-forty-year-old minor official who was on his second marriage, she couldn’t help but retort with the same sarcastic tone, “Aunt, do you have some misunderstanding about good conditions? His annual salary isn’t even as high as the monthly interest on my bank account. How would we make a living?”

The aunt’s face turned red, then white, “He’s an honest man!”

Gu Kaiyang snorted lightly, “At the technical university across from our house, I could find a male college student to keep for tens of millions a month, and I bet he’d be honest too. Plus, he’s young, and I wouldn’t have to help raise someone else’s children.”

“Gu Kaiyang!”

“A person in her thirties, how can you speak like this?”

Her mother put down her chopsticks and scolded her with a stern face.

Gu Kaiyang: “If I can’t speak well but can earn money well, isn’t that good enough?”

The atmosphere at the table was awkward. Other relatives changed the subject to smooth things over. Having vented her frustration completely, she had no desire to stay longer and found an excuse to leave the table.

She was just about to report her glorious battle results to her girlfriends when she opened WeChat and found that Zhan Xingyi had sent several new messages.

Zhan Xingyi: Thanks again for the cover last time.

Zhan Xingyi: By the way, Editor Gu, what are your plans for the New Year?

Zhan Xingyi: Are you in Pingcheng?

Gu Kaiyang wasn’t some naive young girl. She stared at these messages for quite a while and detected something unusual.

She carefully recalled her previous interactions with Zhan Xingyi.

He was quite sunny.

Had a bit of a puppy-like quality.

Had a good reputation in the industry.

But he wasn’t even thirty yet.

Gu Kaiyang didn’t know what she was thinking. After a long time, she finally asked: What about you?

Zhan Xingyi replied instantly: I’m in Pingcheng.

Zhan Xingyi: Spending New Year alone this year.

Zhan Xingyi: If you’re in Pingcheng, would you like to have a drink tonight and watch the Spring Festival Gala?

Gu Kaiyang stared at the four words “watch the Spring Festival Gala” for quite a while and couldn’t help but curl her lips upward.

Gu Kaiyang: Okay.

After replying, she opened a ticket booking app and booked a flight back to Pingcheng.

Chinese New Year’s Eve, two in the afternoon.

The snow had stopped in Pingcheng, leaving a thick layer of fresh snow on the ground. Jiang Chun and Tang Zhizhou were making dumplings in the yard with their children.

In the third year of their marriage, Jiang Chun and Tang Zhizhou had given birth to twin baby boys. Their grandmother had named them, one called Tang Jingxing and the other Tang Xingzhi.

Jiang Chun had specifically looked up the origin of these names: “Looking up to the lofty mountain, following the righteous path.”

After seeing the interpretation, she had whispered to Tang Zhizhou, “Jingxing corresponds to the lofty mountain. Did his grandmother think Tang Gaoshan (High Mountain) didn’t sound as good as Tang Xingzhi, so she didn’t make their names symmetrical? But this ‘hang’ and ‘xing’ pronunciation is so tongue-twisting. It would be much more straightforward to just call them Tang Dalu (Big Road) and Tang Gaoshan.”

So whenever Jiang Chun got angry, she would shout:

“Tang Gaoshan! If you don’t eat now, you’ll never eat again!”

“Tang Dalu! Turn off the TV right now, immediately! Otherwise, you’ll never watch Ultraman again in your life!”

Due to the daily brainwashing by this demon mother, Jiang Chun, little Tang Jingxing once wrote his name as Tang Dalu in a first-grade exam. Afterward, the test paper was mixed up with that of a child from another class who was named Tang Dalu, causing quite a mix-up.

But Jiang Chun didn’t change her ways because of this. Even when making dumplings during the New Year, she didn’t forget to urge the two little ones by their nicknames:

“Tang Gaoshan, where are the pleats on your dumpling? Zhuo Bao definitely won’t eat something so ugly.”

“Tang Dalu, put less meat! How could Zhuo Bao, being so small, eat such a big piece?”

Yes, Jiang Chun had far-reaching plans. Since the birth of Ji Mingshu’s daughter Zhuo Bao, she had forcibly reserved Zhuo Bao as her future daughter-in-law in her heart. She frequently took her two little ones to gain familiarity with little sister Zhuo Bao and encouraged her two sons to compete fairly.

But no matter how Jiang Chun urged them, the final dumplings made by the two little ones were still a pitiful sight.

When they went to the Ji mansion to deliver the dumplings, Jiang Chun sighed worriedly, “With these two, I might never be able to become in-laws with my little Shushu in this lifetime.”

Tang Zhizhou parked the car in the garage, leaned over to help her unbuckle her seatbelt, and then patted her little belly, his voice containing a smile, “You can still rely on her.”

Hmm… the little one in her belly had already been confirmed to be a girl. If she were to be a wife for Cen Yan, it seemed perfectly fine, too.

Thinking of this, Jiang Chun happily smiled, her eyes curving.

Chinese New Year’s Eve, seven in the evening.

Following their custom, Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen visited the Ji mansion in the afternoon and returned to Nanqiao West Lane in the evening. The difference from before was that now they took little Cen Yan and little Cen Zhuo with them when they went out.

In the evening, after eating two dumplings brought by her auntie, little Cen Zhuo was opening her little mouth in drowsiness. Little Cen Yan and the other Cen family children took out several cardboard boxes from the trunk, eagerly preparing to set off fireworks.

Ji Mingshu felt a bit full from eating and wheedled Cen Sen to take a walk outside with her to aid digestion.

Nanqiao West Lane hadn’t changed over the years and was listed in the plan for ancient street restoration, so it would probably maintain its original appearance in the future.

The snow was thick, and Ji Mingshu walked forward in her small lambskin boots, one foot deep and one foot shallow, looking at the familiar street scene, unconsciously recalling some old memories.

“Do you remember that one year on New Year’s Eve when you confessed to me, right in this place?” She suddenly reflected, stopping at the utility pole at the entrance of the lane.

Cen Sen gently embraced her from behind, “I remember.”

Ji Mingshu thought of something and couldn’t help but secretly curl her lips upward.

“Hmm? What are you smiling about?”

Ji Mingshu quickly straightened her smile and cleared her throat seriously, “Nothing… just, I think this is what they call ‘whoever likes the other person first loses.’ See, you confessed to me first, and now I’ve got you wrapped around my finger, right? So I think our Zhuo Bao should be raised to be a bit aloof in the future, so she won’t be so easily tricked away, don’t you think?”

Cen Sen unconsciously recalled Ji Mingshu’s secret confession to him when he was asleep, his lips tugging upward, but he only followed her train of thought and agreed, “Mm, right.”

Chinese New Year’s Eve, midnight.

New Year’s fireworks rose in clusters, instantly illuminating the quiet night of Pingcheng as bright as day.

Fully disguised with only a pair of eyes showing, Gu Kaiyang and Zhan Xingyi clinked glasses in a small pub, smiling and wishing each other a Happy New Year.

Jiang Chun and Tang Zhizhou sat at the dining table with their two little ones, eating steaming hot dumplings, while also counting down with the hosts on TV.

Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen had built four abstract little snowmen in the yard. Zhuo Bao was still sleeping, and the sensible little Cen Yan covered her little ears.

The old year’s contract expired at this moment, and the new year’s contract was renewed.

May year after year, we have days like today.