The temperature of Jiang Yan’s fingers and lips couldn’t quite be described with the word “warm.” It was more like — hot.

His soft finger pads held the fair, delicate skin at her neck. His lips sealed against hers, millimeter by millimeter, fitting together perfectly. The tip of his wet tongue swept across every inch of territory inside her lips, leaving a tingling, numbing sensation in its wake, like a current passing through.

Lin Tao’s entire body was gathered into his arms, unable to move a single inch. Their breath and everything else were all tangled together.

The angle of holding her head tilted back for so long made her neck ache. She raised a hand to push away the person in front of her.

Jiang Yan caught her hand with one hand and pinned it against her lower back. His warm palm pressed against her wrist. He bit down on her lower lip, lowering his voice. “Don’t move.”

If the timing had been better, Lin Tao might have landed a slap across his face.

Are you even human?

More like a beast!

She truly couldn’t take any more, and couldn’t stop herself from pulling back — only to be pressed even more firmly against him. She finally lost all patience and cursed, “…Are you even a human being?!”

Jiang Yan let out a very low laugh. His breath was warm, and his lips followed to brush and press against the thin layer of skin behind her ear — deliberately, it seemed — before he bit down on her pale earlobe. His voice came out muffled. “Not being one today.”

Lin Tao burned all over, the roots of her ears turning red. Her breath came in light, unsteady gasps. She kindly reminded him, “Jiang classmate, I’m still a minor……”

So please don’t make the atmosphere so suggestive, okay?!

Jiang Yan was entirely unmoved, but his smile deepened. With a perfectly natural and matter-of-fact air, he said, “I know. So I won’t do anything else.”

“?”

You little—

Lin Tao felt that in front of Jiang Yan she was like a naive little rabbit who had never seen the world — her bag of tricks was completely no match for his.

She could only suffer through being kissed every which way, with no power to resist whatsoever.

……

The two of them lingered together in the classroom, cheek to cheek, for over ten minutes. By the time they walked out of the teaching building, there weren’t many students left on campus.

The spring evening breeze was gentle and delicate. The tender green leaves along both sides of the tree-lined path swayed with the wind, and the bright moonlight spilled down through the gaps in the branches and leaves.

Lin Tao hadn’t said a word to Jiang Yan the whole way. This infuriating creature had — right at the end — bitten the corner of her lip.

That was absolutely not something a human being was capable of.

“Stay away from me.”

Lin Tao deliberately widened the distance between them, keeping herself within what felt like a safe range.

Jiang Yan was completely unaffected. He smiled, lowering his eyes, and in a few long-legged strides caught up, his arm reaching out to take hold of her. “I’ll walk you back.”

Lin Tao let out a cold, short laugh, and her gaze cut over to him like a blade. “No thank you. If you walk me back, I might not make it home safely tonight.”

Jiang Yan laughed again. The corners of his eyes curved up slightly, and his slender fingers circled her arm, his thumb pressing against her fingernail. He seemed genuinely surprised. “How are you so thin?”

Compliments like you look really nice today or your makeup is gorgeous today — any girl would bloom with joy hearing those. But how are you so thin worked on the very same principle.

It’s in a girl’s nature: if you compliment me on my looks, my personality, my figure — as long as you compliment me, we’re friends.

Lin Tao was very quickly steered off the original topic. She raised her eyes, her voice filled with the pride of a peacock at the zoo. “I’m just naturally thin.”

Jiang Yan pressed his advantage, continuing to flatter her subtly without a trace. “My girlfriend is so good-looking.”

“I’m so lucky.”

“Getting to date such a good-looking girl.”

Lin Tao: “……”

Ease up on it, man.

The two of them drifted lazily to the school gate. By this point there weren’t many people around, and Jiang Yan took her hand without a care in the world.

“Jiang classmate, I’m advising you to keep a lower profile.” Lin Tao shook off his hand. “Just because there aren’t many people doesn’t mean there’s no one. Do you believe we’d be on the forum’s front page again tomorrow?”

Jiang Yan heard this and curved his lips. “Alright, I won’t hold your hand.”

He withdrew his hand into his pocket. His school uniform zipper was left open, revealing a black T-shirt underneath. In the tint of the night, his eyes looked even deeper than usual.

A good-looking person is good-looking from every angle.

Lin Tao glanced at him and thought his forehead fringe was getting a bit long. She mentioned it: “Isn’t it about time you got your hair cut?”

“Hm?” Jiang Yan raised an eyebrow mildly. “I’ll go cut it this weekend.”

“Cut it shorter this time.” Lin Tao looked at him again, then suddenly recalled how the outline of his brows and eyes had looked when he’d raked his fringe back during basketball earlier. “Or, what if you just shave it down short? Like a buzz cut?”

“……” Jiang Yan turned to look at her, about to say something, when his gaze fell on something behind her. A black Maybach was parked in the shadows, and beside the car stood a man in a black suit, his posture upright and composed.

Unfamiliar — and yet not entirely a stranger.

His breathing grew heavy. He shifted her to one side with a light arm across her shoulders, then bent his head close to her ear. “Can you head back on your own?”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

Lin Tao’s question had barely left her lips when the man who had been standing by the car — somehow now right beside them — spoke. His voice carried the low resonance of an adult male. “Young master.”

Jiang Yan said nothing, but Lin Tao could clearly feel the arm resting across her shoulder tighten slightly. She pressed her lips together and said nothing either.

The man’s manner was deferential. “The master is waiting for you.”

Hearing this, Jiang Yan raised his eyes and looked at the man, then glanced sideways at the car parked not far away. The windows were closed, and he couldn’t make out the interior.

Knowing tonight was unavoidable, Jiang Yan let out a short breath, then pulled Lin Tao a few steps to the side. “I’ve got something to handle. Head back first. Message me when you get home.”

His expression was far from easy. Lin Tao was worried. “That person……”

Jiang Yan smiled, then reached over to straighten her collar for her. He said quietly, “It’s fine. No one dangerous.”

He pressed his lips together lightly. His expression became somewhat distant.

“It’s my biological father.”

Lin Tao was struck still. She didn’t know what kind of experiences a person had to go through to refer to their own father as “biological father” — a phrase so foreign and so detached, entirely stripped of any warmth.

Though countless questions rose up inside her, Lin Tao knew clearly that this was not the time to hear a story. She reached out and took hold of the young man’s slightly cold hand, and condensed everything into a single sentence: “I’ll wait for you at the internet café.”

Jiang Yan knew she was worried about him. He didn’t say anything more. “Go on.”

Lin Tao left quickly, turning to look back every few steps. She saw Jiang Yan follow the man to the car. The rear door was pulled open; at this distance she could see nothing clearly.

Once Jiang Yan was inside and the door closed again, the man remained standing outside the car. Noticing Lin Tao’s gaze, he gave her a polite nod.

Lin Tao paused for a moment. Once she gathered herself, she inclined her head toward him in return, then walked away quickly.

The atmosphere inside the car was anything but warm — it could even be called pointed and tense.

Jiang Yan lowered the window, resting his arm on the sill, knuckles pressed against his brow bone. His voice was somewhat cold. “I’ve said it many times. Don’t come looking for me again. I’m not going back.”

After Fang Hai passed away, he had considered listening to Fang Hai’s words — accepting this father, accepting this new family. But reality had given him a heavy blow.

What he had thought was a home turned out to be nothing at all.

“Your blood runs through me. You carry the Jiang family name. You are a Jiang. What right do you have to refuse to come back?”

Jiang Yan turned to look at Jiang Suiyuan.

In truth, he and Jiang Suiyuan looked very alike — both had upswept, elongated eyes, thin lips, and features that could have been cast from the same mold.

Only, Jiang Suiyuan’s features had been refined and deepened by the passage of time, shedding the softness of youth. They had grown sharper and more defined, carrying the particular magnetism of a mature man.

And while Jiang Yan was eighty percent Jiang Suiyuan, the remaining twenty percent was inherited from Yu Fengyan — his features were slightly softer than his father’s.

Sometimes when Jiang Suiyuan looked at Jiang Yan, it was as if he were looking at himself in his youth — that time when he was young and celebrated, full of ambition and vigor, walking forward under the envious gazes of so many, step by step, until he reached his current position.

Those years of youth were gone and would not come back, and the longing for them only deepened with time. On top of that, Jiang Yan was the child he and Yu Fengyan had come by with such difficulty — so Jiang Suiyuan had always held a feeling for this son of his that was unlike any other.

But in Jiang Yan’s eyes, all of that was nothing.

Jiang Yan looked at him and let out a scoffing laugh. “What identity would I be returning under, exactly? Illegitimate son? Child of the third party? Or — the product of your love with your first love?”

He paused for a beat. He was smiling, but his eyes held not a single trace of warmth — only cold indifference.

“You—” Jiang Suiyuan choked on his words.

Jiang Yan looked away. His gaze settled on the world outside the window. His eyes were like a pool of still water, carrying no emotion at all. “I am nothing to you. You gave me my life, and I thank you for that. But I will never acknowledge myself as a member of the Jiang family.”

Just as the people of the Jiang family would never acknowledge him as a Jiang.

Jiang Suiyuan sighed. Whether in consolation or as some form of compensation, he said, “You are the son of me, Jiang Suiyuan. You will return as my second son — as the second son of Jiang Suiyuan.”

“Your second son.” Jiang Yan laughed derisively. “Do you perhaps forget things easily? The woman from the Zhou Family whom you married through a formal ceremony over twenty years ago — before she passed, she had only given birth to one son. So just which second son of yours am I supposed to be?”

He was relentless, word after word, and Jiang Suiyuan fell into a brief, heavy silence.

The atmosphere in the car became more and more strained.

Jiang Yan had nothing left to say. His fingers rested on the door handle. He lowered his eyes, and his long lashes cast a shadow to one side at the outer corner of his eye. “Go back. I’m not going back.”

Jiang Suiyuan looked as though he still wanted to say something more. But Jiang Yan had already pushed open the door and stepped out.

The young man’s figure was still lean, but he already carried with him the bearing of someone capable of shouldering great things.

Jiang Suiyuan watched for a long time. As he finally withdrew his gaze, he let out a long, heavy sigh.

……

As for Jiang Suiyuan’s words, Jiang Yan had long since stopped feeling much of anything about them. Some things — when you can’t have them at the moment you want them most, and enough time passes — you stop wanting them altogether.

As for the home Jiang Suiyuan spoke of, Jiang Yan had given up on it a long time ago.

When Fang Hai was alive, he still had a home.

Now that Fang Hai was gone, his home was gone too.

Jiang Yan walked into the dark space of the alley. The streetlight nearby was broken; the surrounding area was pitch-black, not a sliver of light. He stood there, blending into the darkness around him, his mind drifting involuntarily back to the scene from many years ago — the first time he had ever stepped through the doors of the Jiang family’s old residence.

At that time, Jiang Yan had only just begun to emerge from the blow of Fang Hai’s passing. He had resolved to listen to Fang Hai’s words and learn to love the world again. He reined in all his sharp edges, and began to learn how to accept, how to comply.

But reality is always cruel.

He had been brought to the Jiang family’s old residence by Jiang Suiyuan. He had expected a scene of warmth and harmony waiting for him. What he had not expected was layers upon layers of humiliation and difficulty.

It turned out that Jiang Suiyuan had already married long ago, and had a family and children of his own.

He was an illegitimate child.

A child who would never be acknowledged.

……

Jiang Yan pulled himself out of that unbearable memory in time. He raised his eyes, saw the colorful glow of lights not far away, and slowly stepped out from the darkness.

What he had failed to get in the past — he would not want anymore.

Lin Tao had been waiting at the internet café for nearly an hour. She hadn’t gone up to Jiang Yan’s room, but stood right there in the lobby downstairs waiting for him.

When Jiang Yan pushed open the door and came in, he spotted Lin Tao standing there at a glance — saw all her worry and unease — and it was as if a corner of his heart had been soaked in something warm. It turned soft and tender.

Lin Tao heard the sound of the door and raised her eyes to see him. The anxiety in her gaze dissolved. She walked over quickly. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Jiang Yan ruffled her hair and glanced at the clock on the wall. He said softly, “Let me walk you home.”

He was too calm. Lin Tao was actually more worried because of it. She gripped his wrist. “I could actually stay here tonight.”

Jiang Yan looked at her. A smile curved his lips. “Is that a hint?”

“Hm?” She looked at him in puzzlement.

He pulled his hand back, and his finger pad pressed against the small wound at the corner of her lip. With a slight smile, he said, “You’re a minor. Even if you stayed, I couldn’t do anything.”

“……” Lin Tao brushed his hand away and looked at him with a blank expression. “I was very sincerely worried about you, and now you’ve ruined it.”

Jiang Yan ruffled her hair again. “I’m fine. I’ll tell you on the way.”

Lin Tao paused.

She seemed to understand what he was about to say.

She said calmly, “Alright, let’s go then.”

The bus stop wasn’t far — just a few minutes’ walk. And that amount of time wasn’t enough for him to finish telling what was, in the end, not much of a story.

It wasn’t until the two of them were on the bus.

At this hour, there were hardly any passengers. The back-row seats were all empty.

Lin Tao and Jiang Yan sat in the very last row.

Jiang Yan hadn’t spoken yet. Lin Tao wasn’t rushing him. Some things aren’t easy to say.

It was only when they were more than halfway through the route — the bus car down to just the two of them and the driver — that Lin Tao finally heard Jiang Yan’s voice, flat and nearly without emotion: “My biological father and my mother were college classmates. Same department. They were always close in rank on academic performance, often studying together and competing together, and over time, feelings developed.”

Back then, Yu Fengyan and Jiang Suiyuan were hailed as the golden pair of Qinghua University’s economics and management department — a well-matched couple in talent and beauty, leaving behind no shortage of legendary stories.

And at that time, Fang Hai, who was enrolled in Qinghua’s physics department, happened to be Jiang Suiyuan’s dormitory roommate. Knowing that Fang Hai was an orphan from a poor background, Jiang Suiyuan had quietly helped him quite a bit. The two had a close friendship, and Fang Hai also came to know Yu Fengyan. Three people together, they passed a carefree and unburdened stretch of university life.

Then came graduation season. Jiang Suiyuan, from a well-off family, took over the family business. Yu Fengyan and Fang Hai both stayed on at the university to continue their graduate studies.

One year after graduation.

Jiang Suiyuan had reached an age where marriage was expected. At the same time, the domestic economy was in turmoil, the Jiang family’s business was hit by a massive financial crisis, and bankruptcy loomed.

Jiang Suiyuan’s father proposed solving the problem through an arranged marriage. Jiang Suiyuan was of course unwilling, but the weaker party cannot overrule the stronger, and he had no choice but to break up with Yu Fengyan.

But no one could have anticipated that at that time, Yu Fengyan was already one month pregnant. In that era, an unmarried woman being with child was an extremely grave matter.

Yu Fengyan didn’t dare tell her parents or anyone close to her. With no options left, she could only turn to Fang Hai, who had been their mutual friend.

What neither of them knew was that Fang Hai had actually fallen for Yu Fengyan at first sight on the very first day of university. But feeling himself unworthy, he had always kept those feelings buried deep within. By the time he saw her again, she was already Jiang Suiyuan’s girlfriend.

Jiang Suiyuan had done Fang Hai many kindnesses, and Fang Hai could only push those feelings to an even deeper place. When he learned of Yu Fengyan’s situation, knowing full well that she did not love him, he was still willing to give up his studies and marry her.

Before Jiang Yan was born, Fang Hai and Yu Fengyan had lived through a beautiful stretch of family life, much like any ordinary married couple.

But later, Jiang Suiyuan — from where, no one knew — learned that Yu Fengyan had been carrying his child, and came back to find her. The two cleared up the misunderstanding between them, and Jiang Suiyuan told Yu Fengyan to wait for him.

All of this Fang Hai was aware of, and yet he said nothing.

Not until the year Jiang Yan turned seven, when Jiang Suiyuan’s company had fully broken free from the Zhou family’s control, did he finally bring Yu Fengyan and Jiang Yan back.

His first wife had passed away from illness two years prior, leaving behind one son who had been lavished with every privilege in the Jiang household.

Jiang Suiyuan brought Yu Fengyan back, but they were driven out by Jiang’s father and mother.

Later, Jiang Suiyuan arranged for Yu Fengyan and Jiang Yan to settle in the city where his new company was based.

“Not many years after we left, my father passed away from illness.” When Jiang Yan mentioned Fang Hai, his expression grew very gentle. “My father was a very good person. He never hated anyone.”

“After he passed, it took me a very long time to find my way through it. I tried to listen to his words, to slowly accept the new home my mother was building for me.”

The bus rushed forward. Outside the window, glittering lights mingled with the night and flashed past in an instant.

Jiang Yan had the window open, and wind was blowing in.

“But I never expected — what I had always believed was a home, in other people’s eyes, was worth nothing at all.” Jiang Yan looked out the window. His voice was scattered by the wind. “It was only then that I found out Jiang Suiyuan had already been married. In everyone else’s eyes, my mother was the third party, and I was an illegitimate child.”

His voice was flat, carrying no particular emotion. “What is a home? I don’t have one anymore.”

After listening to all of Jiang Yan’s account, Lin Tao was silent for a very long time. It wasn’t that she had nothing to say — it was that she had no idea how to say it.

She had always assumed his family situation would at worst be one of poor relations between his parents, or a complicated household — which was why he was so averse to it, so desperate to escape.

But Lin Tao had never imagined the truth would be this humiliating.

She opened her mouth several times, and each time no sound came out.

He had only been eleven or twelve years old at the time — an age when he should have been showered with love and affection. Instead, because of his parents’ choices, he had been made to carry so much that he never should have had to bear.

A fine, dense ache rose up inside her.

Jiang Yan had long since made his peace with these old memories. It was just that in speaking of the past, he could not help but think of the younger version of himself — aggrieved, and yet with no recourse whatsoever.

There was no sound in his ear. He turned and saw Lin Tao’s eyes, reddened and glistening. He let out a soft sigh. His finger pad brushed gently at the outer corner of her eye, and he said quietly, “It’s all in the past.”

Lin Tao reached forward and wrapped her arms around him. Her ear pressed against his warm chest, listening to the steady heartbeat beside her. Her voice came out slightly choked. “Jiang Yan.”

He gave a gentle hum.

Lin Tao lifted her head from his embrace, looking up to meet his gaze. “You still have me.”

Jiang Yan smiled. “I know.”

“I’ll stay by your side.” Lin Tao stretched up and kissed his chin. Her eyes were steady and clear. “We’ll have a home of our own someday.”

Author’s note: Resolving Yan’s family background — no angst intended.