Lu Yicheng walked home in silence.

Lu Siyan was sitting on the sofa reading a picture book. The little boy had always loved reading — a habit that, in the future, he and Jiang Ruoqiao would have nurtured in him together. When he saw Lu Yicheng come in, Siyan set down his book and came running over, rubbing at his eyes with the vaguely aggrieved air of a child who wasn’t quite sure whether he should be complaining. “Did Dad and Mom sneak out to eat something good without me.”

“You always do this,” Siyan muttered. “Why else would you come home so late.”

Lu Yicheng felt like laughing — but he was genuinely tired, and his face couldn’t quite manage it. “No, I just got held up with something.”

“Oh.” Siyan said. “I’m really sleepy. Dad wasn’t home, so I didn’t dare go shower by myself.”

His parents had told him: when there are no adults at home, don’t go to the bathroom alone to shower. It’s not safe.

Lu Yicheng glanced down at him. “Alright, go brush your teeth and wash your face first.”

“Okay~” Siyan skipped off happily toward the bathroom. He loved his toothbrush, and he especially loved his grape-flavored toothpaste. Brushing his teeth was always a cheerful affair.

Watching Siyan disappear into the bathroom, Lu Yicheng remembered he should let Jiang Ruoqiao know he was home. He reached into his trouser pocket for his phone, considered for a moment, and sent her a text: 【I’m back.】

In the dormitory, Jiang Ruoqiao had just stepped out of the bathroom as well.

She sat at her desk toweling her hair dry, reading his message on her phone.

After a moment’s thought, she sent back a single “mm” and said nothing more.

She didn’t ask what he and Jiang Yan had talked about.

Not that she didn’t care — but she could figure it out with her eyes closed. Probably a complete falling-out.

*Hmm.*

Every time she felt like things were going smoothly, something or other would come along to slap her in the face. That feeling was really miserable.

This development wasn’t surprising — she had anticipated it long ago. She just hadn’t expected it to happen quite so soon.

She and Lu Yicheng had a child together. That child was very attached to her. By any reckoning, there was no way for the two of them, as Siyan’s parents, to avoid contact — no matter what, they would inevitably be in each other’s lives. The only unknown was: now that things had been set in motion ahead of schedule, which direction would public opinion swing?

She set down her phone and glanced over at her three roommates.

One was applying a face mask. Another was watching a food mukbang.

“Ahem.” Jiang Ruoqiao cleared her throat a couple of times deliberately, trying to get their attention. “Ladies, put down what you’re doing for a moment. I need your advice on something.”

Yun Jia lowered her phone and leaned out from her bunk. “What is it?”

Luo Wen and Gao Jingjing set down what they were holding as well.

Jiang Ruoqiao was a little awkward about it.

How to put it — asking a question like this felt slightly inappropriate, but she genuinely wanted to know how public opinion would develop. From these three, the campus’s most devoted consumers of gossip, she would probably get the most honest insight.

Who to use as a hypothetical, though?

Lu Yicheng was definitely out.

Du Yu? She glanced at Yun Jia. Best not — Yun Jia had a soft spot for Du Yu.

Three pairs of eyes were fixed on her expectantly. In the end, she decided to draft Wang Jiangfeng as her stand-in, a perfectly neutral party. “So — as you all know, I just broke up with Jiang Yan. If you started seeing me spending a lot of time with Wang Jiangfeng going forward, what would you think?”

Yun Jia: “Oh, wow!”

Luo Wen, equally stunned: “Are you serious??”

Gao Jingjing, comparatively composed: “What? Wang Jiangfeng??”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “……” *Why do I feel like I picked the wrong stand-in?*

Yun Jia had the look of someone whose suspicions had just been confirmed. “I knew it, I knew you two had something going on! Wang Jiangfeng —” she rubbed her chin thoughtfully — “I mean, he looks decent enough, and you’re both in student council, so it makes sense you’d spend time together. And honestly, Wang Jiangfeng has definitely had a thing for you. That day at the farmhouse, remember? He was cutting watermelon and gave you the sweetest piece. I clocked it right then that something was off with him.”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “?” *What??*

She shook her head. “No no no, I was just standing closest to him — he handed it over out of convenience. I didn’t even know it was the sweetest piece!”

Yun Jia: “Then why was he standing closest to you?”

Jiang Ruoqiao began to question reality. “That was just a coincidence??”

She was beginning to understand exactly how the expression “making something out of nothing” had come into existence.

“Stop, stop.” Jiang Ruoqiao said. “Don’t go off on a tangent. This is a hypothetical. I’m asking for your perspective as outside observers. What would you think?”

“Well.” Luo Wen thought about Wang Jiangfeng for a moment. “I think he’s average-looking — not ugly, but not handsome either. I’ve only heard that his grades are decent and he seems okay as a person. That day at the farmhouse, Jingjing’s charger broke, and he lent her his even though he was using it himself — he unplugged it and gave it to her. So, seems like a decent guy.”

Jiang Ruoqiao perked up. “Wait, that happened? Jingjing, you and Wang Jiangfeng??”

Gao Jingjing was at a loss for words. “That was just a casual thing. And I gave it back to him after two hours.”

Yun Jia finally snapped. “Who exactly is going off on tangents here?! Are we having this conversation or not??”

Jiang Ruoqiao immediately backed down. “Yes, yes we are.”

Gao Jingjing raised her hand. “In light of the deeply confusing series of events that just occurred, I would like to recuse myself from sharing my thoughts on Wang Jiangfeng. Does the group permit it?”

The other three: “……”

Yun Jia pressed on: “Honestly, Wang Jiangfeng’s fine, I just feel like — compared to Jiang Yan, he falls a bit short. And I want to be clear, I’m not taking Jiang Yan’s side here — I really can’t stand guys like that. But from a purely outside perspective, except maybe for his character, Wang Jiangfeng probably can’t really compete with Jiang Yan in most other areas.”

Jiang Ruoqiao mulled this over.

Fair enough — the wrong target was giving her inaccurate data.

Her roommates were all looks-first people. They couldn’t give her the most meaningful answer.

She gritted her teeth. Her friends were going to find out eventually anyway. Might as well come out with it. “What if — instead of Wang Jiangfeng — it was Lu Yicheng?”

“?”

“!!!!!”

All three of them — including the perpetually unflappable Gao Jingjing — could no longer maintain composure.

“WHAT did you just say?? LU YICHENG?!”

“Well I’m certainly not sleepy anymore, let me tell you!”

“Hold on — Lu Yicheng was always the real point of this question, wasn’t he. Jiang Ruoqiao, you had better come clean right now. Leniency for confessions, severity for resistance, understood?!”

Jiang Ruoqiao hadn’t expected such an explosion from her roommates.

She was genuinely caught off guard, truly stunned. “……Fine. I’ll be straight with you. Going forward, for reasons I can’t fully explain yet, I’m going to be spending a lot of time around Lu Yicheng — sometimes he’ll come find me, sometimes I’ll go find him. As outside observers, would you think that I’m…”

She trailed off without finishing.

Yun Jia ventured carefully, following the implication: “You’re asking if we’d think you were stringing two people along at once? Please — you clearly don’t know your own shameless gossip-obsessed roommates very well. We would only be thrilled, thinking the drama could use a little more intensity. Stringing people along? Not even on our radar. A beautiful woman being popular — is that not allowed? A beautiful woman wanting to take her time and keep her options open — is that not allowed??”

The last two questions she directed at Luo Wen and Gao Jingjing.

Both answered in unison: “Absolutely allowed!! One hundred percent!!”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “……”

Alright, she was genuinely moved. Whatever happened, at least these three sisters would always have her back.

“But…”

“No ‘buts’!” Yun Jia declared. “And besides, why would it be her stringing people along? Why can’t it be two men fighting over one woman, best friends turning against each other? I am absolutely obsessed with storylines like that, you understand me?? They just don’t write plotlines like this anymore, I’ve been starved for content! I cannot wait to watch this unfold in real life!”

Jiang Ruoqiao realized she had genuinely misjudged her audience.

Moral outrage? Not a thing.

They only cared about whether it was exciting, whether it was dramatic.

Even Luo Wen and Gao Jingjing had that unmistakable gleam of “more drama, please” in their eyes.

Jiang Ruoqiao: “……”

*Good grief — looking at this situation, I’m the only moral compass in this room! Lu Yicheng has rubbed off on me!*

“If it’s Lu Yicheng, then I have so much to say.” Luo Wen could barely contain her excitement. “I just said Wang Jiangfeng doesn’t measure up to Jiang Yan in terms of everything on paper — well, Lu Yicheng is the type who outclasses Jiang Yan across the board. Lu Yicheng, the campus heartthrob, the academic legend of their whole department, top of the year!”

But then Gao Jingjing suddenly asked a question: “Actually — Lu Yicheng doesn’t have some childhood sweetheart younger-sister type, does he??”

It was understandable that they were still wary.

The truth was… the word “sister” had practically given them all collective trauma at this point. Just thinking about it was enough to cause palpitations.

Jiang Ruoqiao answered without hesitation: “He doesn’t.”

Wait — she meant, he probably… didn’t, right??

Honestly, she had developed her own trauma around that word too.

—