Jiang Ruoqiao couldn’t help but admire her roommates’ perceptiveness.

She truly had been keeping a man from them behind their backs — no, wait, that wasn’t quite right. More accurately, she had been keeping a little boy.

Listening to their words, she couldn’t help but fall into deep thought. Could this be the subtle, imperceptible change that came with becoming a mother? On the surface she seemed no different from before, yet when she thought carefully about it, the implications were rather unsettling. Take booking the hotel, for instance — she swore that when she’d been selecting hotels on the app, not a single thought along the lines of “I can’t be frivolous, I need to pick something affordable” had crossed her mind. Yet her fingers had bypassed the star-rated hotels on their own, ultimately tapping open this highly cost-effective chain budget hotel and placing the order.

The same went for ordering takeout.

She hadn’t had the slightest intention of being frugal either, but could someone please tell her why she hadn’t ordered her usual light meal and had instead ordered a budget chicken cutlet rice set?

This defied all logic!!

Why on earth had she become like this?!

Jiang Ruoqiao sat quietly on the edge of the bed, inwardly hemorrhaging with remorse and utter self-contempt.

After Yun Jia and the others had finished touring the twenty-square-meter room, they found comfortable spots to sit. Yun Jia had only said it casually in passing, and aside from Jiang Ruoqiao, none of them had taken it to heart — mainly because all three of them knew Jiang Ruoqiao exceptionally well.

Jiang Ruoqiao had “never supporting a poor man” etched into her very DNA, which was perfectly evident from her approach to relationships.

So if she were ever to support someone, it could only be her maternal grandparents, or her future children.

A man? Not a chance 🙂

If a man needed her to support him, she would immediately turn on him and kick him out, telling him to get lost at the earliest opportunity.

In the end, Jiang Ruoqiao still didn’t mention anything about Lu Siyan — not because she didn’t trust her three friends.

On the contrary, the bond between the four girls in their dormitory was very strong.

It was simply that this matter was too enormous, too beyond belief. She wouldn’t conceal it from the people close to her, and she would certainly find an opportunity to speak of it — just not now. What was the current situation? The kindergarten had only just been confirmed, Lu Siyan hadn’t enrolled yet, no apartment had been found, no nanny had been arranged, her messy entanglement with Jiang Yan hadn’t strictly been sorted out, and they’d been broken up for less than twenty-four hours.

Before Yun Jia and the others had arrived, Jiang Ruoqiao had already ordered milk tea according to each of their preferences.

Jiang Ruoqiao herself didn’t like sweet drinks.

The other three clutched their milk teas and drank furiously, while Jiang Ruoqiao curled up on the bed sipping mineral water.

All three dormitory mates had more than a few grievances against Jiang Yan. But now that they’d broken up, there was no real need to criticize Jiang Yan and his sister — that girl who claimed purple had a certain poetic charm — any further…

Yun Jia, chewing on her straw, said, “I think Jiang Yan’s mother is really off-putting. Don’t you all think so? Thank goodness Ruoqiao got out quickly. If she’d actually married Jiang Yan, a mother-in-law like that would have been the death of her.”

Jiang Ruoqiao smiled without comment.

You see — as long as you stood in her position and considered things from her perspective, it was quite easy to see that Jiang Yan’s mother was problematic.

“That’s true.” Gao Jingjing, who seldom weighed in on such matters, spoke up in a rare display of opinion. “Setting everything else aside, just look at how anxious she is about Lin Kexing — that alone is troubling. A setup like this means either she regards Lin Kexing as a daughter, in which case whoever ends up with that kind of sister-in-law is unlucky — they have no blood relation whatsoever, yet this so-called little sister still harbors feelings for Jiang Yan. God, just imagining it makes me sick. If you were to feel jealous about it, his family would probably turn around and accuse you of being petty, asking why you’re making trouble for his sister…”

Luo Wen frowned. “That kind of situation is genuinely thorny. A biological sister, a cousin — that’s one thing. But a sister with no blood relation? She can advance or retreat as she pleases.”

“Exactly.” Gao Jingjing was undoubtedly the most attentive person in their dormitory. Her voice was soft as she continued, “But none of that is the worst outcome. The worst would be…”

She stopped herself there.

Jiang Ruoqiao and Gao Jingjing exchanged a glance. Jiang Ruoqiao gave a slight nod, signaling that she understood what Gao Jingjing meant.

Luo Wen: “?? What are you two playing at with that silent exchange?”

Gao Jingjing smiled and said, “The worst would be if Jiang Yan’s mother regards Lin Kexing as her future daughter-in-law.”

That was the real point.

Jiang Ruoqiao smiled faintly. “Regardless of what she sees Lin Kexing as, it has nothing to do with me anymore. As long as she doesn’t come looking for trouble, I will absolutely be the kind of perfect ex that everyone sings praises of.”

Yun Jia: “Jiang Yan can just get out of the country already.”

“A man who gets played simultaneously by some sister figure and his own mother — I genuinely question whether he got into university through legitimate means.”

“That’s not necessarily fair,” Gao Jingjing said. “It’s because we’re close to Ruoqiao and we’re on her side, so we can see things clearly. If you looked at it from a different angle, you might not pick up on it at all.”

Jiang Ruoqiao nodded with a smile. “Exactly.”

As for what people called a doting romance — it was nothing more than this.

To the uninformed, looking at things from Lin Kexing’s perspective, one could indeed feel that Jiang Yan’s mother was a rare and wonderful mother-in-law.

After all, in the original novel, Jiang Yan’s mother had come to treat Lin Kexing with even more care and importance than her own son.

But if you surveyed all the details of the full story — would you still call it a sweet and indulgent romance?

None of this had been mentioned in the original work. She herself had discerned it standing as an outsider. Who knew how many other details the author had never written.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Jiang Yan had been standing vigil at the foot of the apartment building, refusing to leave.

From noon he’d kept watch through the afternoon, and into the evening.

He didn’t bother eating. Even hunger had lost all sensation. This was the second time in his life he’d experienced something resembling this kind of panic. The first had been when he heard the news of his father’s accidental death. This was the second. He very much wanted to comfort himself — given the depth of his relationship with Ruoqiao, she would give him the chance to explain, and if he tried hard enough, they could reconcile. But deep in his heart, a voice told him: you are about to lose her.

Jiang Yan hadn’t returned, and his mother had him on her mind. So did Lin Kexing.

On the surface, Lin Kexing had returned home looking no different from usual. Lin Tai-tai had indeed been very busy lately, too occupied to pay much attention to her daughter, and so Lin Kexing passed through that hurdle unquestioned. Before she’d even had the chance to exhale with relief, she heard that Jiang Yan hadn’t come back. She had always been in the habit of drifting over to the auxiliary building for no particular reason, but today the moment she’d returned home she’d hidden herself in her room in the main building, dreading running into Jiang Yan. Yet at this point… she couldn’t concern herself with all that. She half-ran to the auxiliary building to find Jiang Yan’s mother, unable to conceal her worry: “Hasn’t Jiang Yan come back yet?”

Jiang Yan’s mother shook her head. “No. Calling his phone, he doesn’t pick up either.”

In truth, Jiang Yan’s mother wasn’t surprised.

As a mother, she knew her son better than anyone. She knew the depth of his feelings for Jiang Ruoqiao, and at the time she had genuinely felt a twinge of regret — because Ah Yan and Kexing had known each other for over ten years, had lived together under one roof for ten of those years, and yet throughout all those years, Ah Yan had never developed the slightest romantic feeling for Kexing. The moment Ah Yan had laid eyes on Jiang Ruoqiao for the first time, he had taken a liking to her.

Ah Yan was very, very much like her — like her late husband.

All three of them were the same: whoever they took a liking to at first sight was someone they would keep liking.

Whoever they did not like at first sight — no matter how many more years they spent together afterward, it was perhaps impossible to cultivate love from nothing.

Yet what did love even amount to in a person’s life? Especially for a man — in the context of career, it was merely embellishment to something already fine. Having it was certainly best, but not having it posed no real obstacle either.

Wasn’t that what marriage was? Mostly responsibility.

She knew her son. The more the Lin family gave, the more Lin Kexing’s feelings and sacrifices mounted — until they accumulated to a debt he could not repay on his own. When that day came, he would take responsibility.

Lin Kexing, unable to conceal her worry, said, “Then… should we perhaps send someone out to look for him?”

It was so late. Why hadn’t he returned?

Could something have happened?

Jiang Yan’s mother sighed. “No need. He’ll figure it out eventually. If he can’t even get through this, then it seems he and his girlfriend were truly incompatible. If two people can’t even maintain this much trust, how are they supposed to spend a lifetime together? Let him think it through on his own.”

Lin Kexing was startled but said nothing, only gazing out at the darkening night through the window, her face etched with anxious worry.

Jiang Yan kept his vigil through an entire night, not daring to close his eyes, yet Jiang Ruoqiao never appeared.

By now, he should have understood — she was avoiding him. Phone and WeChat both blocked, a full day’s vigil with no sign of her… she truly wanted to break up.

Yet Jiang Ruoqiao passed the night at the hotel without a single dream, sleeping soundly.

She had advanced the plot of the original novel, initiating the breakup herself, and moreover, the reason for the breakup was not his lack of money — it was because of his behavior, which amounted to something close to betrayal. If he were to later try to shift the blame onto her, she would be the first to refuse it. Just as with the previous two breakups, ending things left her feeling light. This time, even more so — because she had made a change. As long as Jiang Yan gradually disappeared from her life, she believed her future would certainly be bright.

When all was said and done, men had always been her downfall.

The first thing Jiang Ruoqiao did upon waking was to check her inbox, to see whether the company had replied.

…Still no response.

She consoled herself — results from large companies shouldn’t come back this quickly.

Besides, for a single position, HR would surely schedule several candidates to interview at once.

For the entire day, Jiang Ruoqiao stayed in the hotel room — not idly, but matching up next semester’s class schedule with her employer to arrange shoots. Beyond that, she turned to managing her social media account. In that area, Jiang Ruoqiao had visibly grown lax, and on reflection, it had been the influence of the original novel… She roused herself. Her account brought in some income every month, and it really shouldn’t go to waste.

She had previously gathered old photos and videos of herself from friends.

After some deliberation, she decided to make a few videos centered on the theme of “nostalgia” and see how the response was.

She edited meticulously, crafting her content with care. Just deciding on the background music took nearly an hour. It was precisely this kind of dedication that kept her fanbase remarkably stable despite her infrequent posting schedule — updates came only every several days — and each video’s views, comments, and shares were consistently respectable.

Once the editing was done, she uploaded it to her account. The final length was four minutes.

Just as she finished, she received two text messages from Lu Yicheng — intriguing in their careful phrasing.

[Yesterday it was Jiang Yan who borrowed my phone to call you. I’m sorry.]

[Today I’ve arranged with an agent to go look at apartments. Do you have time? If not, I can take Siyan on my own and send you a video, and we can discuss afterward. How does that sound?]

Jiang Ruoqiao rested her chin in one hand, tilting her head as she read the messages.

She couldn’t help but smile with a touch of amusement. Why was he being so cautious?

Did she look frightening? Did she seem particularly intimidating?

—