Having spent the entire night composing himself, Xu Huaisong was jolted awake by an alarm in the early morning, when the sky was still a dim grey.

Immediately after, a hand groped blindly toward his chest.

With his eyes still shut and brow furrowed, he caught the hand. “Your phone isn’t here…”

Ruan Yu stirred in a daze, lifting her head with half-lidded eyes. “Then where is it?”

Perhaps because she had lived alone for so long, she had developed a habit of tucking her phone inside the blanket within easy reach while she slept — a source of comfort and security. She hadn’t yet broken herself of it.

Xu Huaisong had been poked awake by it in the middle of the night, so he had casually moved her phone to the nightstand.

He lay in pained silence for a moment, then, driven to alertness by the incessant blaring of the alarm, he opened his eyes, reached over and fumbled around until he silenced it. He turned back and tucked her against his chest again. “What did you set an alarm for?”

“I can’t just lounge around shamelessly and eat breakfast at your place for free,” Ruan Yu said, clutching his shirt with a pained expression. “You didn’t cancel my snooze function, did you? If it goes off one more time, I’ll…”

She never finished saying the words “get up.” She had already fallen back asleep.

Xu Huaisong promptly lost consciousness as well.

When they woke again, the fragrant aroma of congee had already drifted throughout the apartment.

Ruan Yu opened her eyes, momentarily disoriented, then shot upright and shook Xu Huaisong. “What time is it?”

Xu Huaisong stirred and reached for his watch. “Seven forty-five.”

She leapt out of bed and ran into the bathroom to wash up.

“Don’t rush.” Xu Huaisong followed, tossing back the covers, stepping out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where he exchanged a few words with whoever was there, then came back to squeeze into the bathroom behind her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind. “I went and confessed — told them I accidentally turned off the alarm. You can take your time.”

Ruan Yu had just finished applying face wash and was about to rinse it off. She nudged him with her elbow. “Then don’t just stand here getting in the way.”

He hadn’t slept well on the plane, and he was still drowsy now. Eyes half-closed, he rested his chin on her collarbone and let half his body weight slump onto her.

Ruan Yu washed her face under the added burden, and after bending over to rinse off with some difficulty, she turned her head and pressed her water-soaked face against his cheek. “Wake up already.”

Xu Huaisong, now with a face full of cold water, opened his eyes and came to his senses. He reached up, grabbed a dry towel, wiped his own face, then flipped it over to dry hers — but the moment it touched her skin, she stopped him.

“Wait, wrong direction! Rubbing like that will make the skin sag!”

Xu Huaisong froze. “Then how am I supposed to do it?”

She demonstrated with an upward motion. “You have to gently pat upward.”

Xu Huaisong had no choice but to follow her instructions. After drying her face, he let out a soft sigh. “You’ve changed.”

Ruan Yu puffed out her cheeks and looked at him. “What’s wrong with me?”

He gave her a cool, measured glance. “Before, in moments like this, you’d only ever say — Xu Huaisong, you’re so wonderful.”

Ruan Yu let out a snort of laughter. She had just risen onto her tiptoes to kiss him when she suddenly heard his grandmother’s voice from outside the door. “Little fish! What are you eavesdropping on!”

The two of them froze — and then they heard Xu Huaishi say in dismay, “Grandma, why are you grabbing my bag? I’m just checking if my brother’s up yet!”

“…” Xu Huaisong gritted his teeth, yanked the bathroom door open, and stepped out. “Do you not have enough homework to do?”

Xu Huaishi clutched her head and fled the scene of the crime. “Mom! Mom! I’m here to help ladle the congee!”

After breakfast, the two of them headed back to Hang Shi. Along the way, Ruan Yu remarked to Xu Huaisong, “Honestly, I think Auntie hasn’t completely stopped caring about Uncle. You focus on the bar exam for now, and afterward, find a chance to have a proper talk with her, okay?”

Xu Huaisong said nothing.

Ruan Yu glanced at him sideways, just about to question whether he was ignoring her, when she saw him smile and say, “Understood.” Then he reached over to take her hand.

She deflected it. “Keep your eyes on the road.”

Having a girlfriend stricter than a traffic officer, Xu Huaisong had no choice but to return his hand to the steering wheel and drive attentively all the way back to Hang Shi.

But the stricter days were still ahead.

Back in Hang Shi, emergency exam preparation mode was activated. Ruan Yu treated him like a child she was raising — every day watching him work through practice questions with a look that said Mama believes in you, stewing this and braising that to nourish his brain. Then, once she had him fully fired up, she began managing his indulgences, strictly forbidding him from overexerting himself.

On the day of the bar exam, she even deliberately wore a wine-red dress to herald good fortune and personally accompanied him to the examination venue.

Xu Huaisong was genuinely impressed, yet he also sensed the real reason behind her recent dramatic fussiness.

Her film project had been put on hold. Although she didn’t outwardly seem to care much, inwardly there was a hollow ache, and so she channeled it all into managing him this intensely — so she wouldn’t have the mental space to think about those abandoned scripts.

Once, during a break from his revision, he noticed her seemingly working on the outline for a new book, but it wasn’t going smoothly. She crossed things out and rewrote them, then ultimately crumpled the manuscript paper and threw it away.

He thought — this feeling must be like stretching one’s arms in a long yawn, only to be interrupted halfway through. When you try to start again, the momentum is simply gone.

Having sat through six hours of examinations, Xu Huaisong emerged from the venue as evening descended. He spotted Ruan Yu waiting in the distance and was about to walk over when two girls came jogging up and blocked his path. “Excuse me!”

Both looked quite young — they appeared to be fellow examinees from that day.

Xu Huaisong stopped in his tracks, said nothing, and gave them a questioning look.

One of the girls drew a breath, lowered her head, and held out a pen toward him. “Hello, I was sitting next to you during the exam today. You left your pen in the examination hall…”

Xu Huaisong glanced down. An unfamiliar fountain pen.

“That’s not my pen.”

“Oh…” The girl raised her head, visibly flustered, and shot a desperate look at her companion beside her.

Xu Huaisong gave them a brief nod and stepped around them.

The other girl, summoning her courage, chased after him. “Excuse me — she actually just wanted to ask for your WeChat!”

Xu Huaisong stopped and replied coolly, “I’m sorry. I don’t have that.”

Both girls were struck speechless. Just as their faces began to fall, they suddenly spotted a woman in a wine-red dress walking toward them — she came to a stop right in front of him.

She glanced at the two of them, then smiled sweetly up at him. “Excuse me, if you don’t have WeChat, do you happen to have a license plate number?”

Then, to the girls’ bewilderment, the man who had coldly rebuffed them only three seconds ago lowered his head with a smile, the corner of his lips curving. “I do. Shall I give you a ride?”

Watching the pair walk away together, the two girls stood in the cool breeze of an early autumn evening, dazedly leaning on each other for support. “So people don’t ask for WeChat when flirting anymore? They ask for license plate numbers now?”

“Right, got to remember that — so we don’t miss out next time we meet someone like him!”

Ruan Yu climbed into the car, puffing with indignation. “A few hours out of my sight and you’re already attracting admirers!”

“I…” He laughed — helpless and wronged at the same time — and was just about to coax her when his phone, having just been switched back on, chimed with several incoming text notifications in a row.

Xu Huaishi had called multiple times while he had his phone off during the exam.

Ruan Yu glanced at his screen. “Call her back quickly. She wouldn’t call that many times unless something significant happened.”

He made an affirmative sound and called Xu Huaishi back. The moment it connected, he heard her voice, deliberately lowered. “Brother, Mom and I saw the news.”

Xu Huaisong’s brow furrowed. He was just about to ask which news, but the words died on his lips as understanding seemed to dawn on him.

Beside him, Ruan Yu hurriedly opened Weibo and began searching.

A news item appeared near the top of trending — it was a report about the Su Shi court deciding to retry the Jiang Yi case. Attached was a video clip: the footage of Jiang Yi sitting outside the police station, weeping uncontrollably, and the scene of Xu Huaisong stepping forward to comfort him.

It had likely been filmed by a bystander at the time and passed along to a journalist.

The comment section beneath it had erupted with sighs and expressions of sympathy.

Though the faces of both men had been blurred and were unrecognizable to strangers, Xu Huaishi and Tao Rong would certainly have recognized Xu Huaisong at a glance.

On the other end, Xu Huaishi continued, “Mom hasn’t said a single word. She’s been cleaning the apartment all afternoon. When I try to talk to her, she’s completely distracted.”

He let out a quiet sigh. “I’ll come back when I have time. Keep her company these next couple of days, all right?”

“Okay.” Xu Huaishi went quiet for a moment, then, right before hanging up, spoke in a choked voice. “Brother…”

“There’s no need for apologies.” Xu Huaisong cut her off. “Other than the criminal and his accomplices, no one in this matter was truly at fault.”

After hanging up, Xu Huaisong sat in the car in silence for a long while.

Ruan Yu let go of the matter of his admirers and patted the back of his hand. “What’s already done cannot have its course reversed, but that course doesn’t end here. Jiang Yi must go on living, and we must keep on fighting.”

Xu Huaisong turned his head toward her, saw her smile, and then spoke. “The Jiang Yi case has finally come to light — but the Zhou Jun case hasn’t. If everyone only trusts what they see with their own eyes, then we’ll never know who might become the next Jiang Yi, or where another Wei Jin might be sitting back in smug self-satisfaction, looking down at everything with a grin. So you must do as your father did — fight with everything you have for your clients, and keep fighting.”

Xu Huaisong made a quiet sound of acknowledgment, then looked at her and asked, “Are you afraid?” Like his mother had been, back then.

Ruan Yu shook her head and met his gaze steadily. “I’m not afraid of gossip and slander. I’ll be right beside you, always.”

Xu Huaisong smiled — and then the phone rang again.

This time it was Zhang Jie calling.

He answered, and heard Zhang Ling on the other end, her voice bright with barely contained excitement. “Attorney Xu! I just received notice from the court — in the Zhou Jun case, two of the victim’s friends have agreed to appear in court and testify!”

His brow creased. “What happened?”

“Did you see the news? A ten-year-old case in Su Shi is being retried, and the whole city is buzzing with it. The victim’s family was apparently moved by events, and they’ve changed their minds. I’ll head to the court tomorrow to get the full details.”

Xu Huaisong closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled slowly. “Good. Thank you for your hard work.”

After hanging up, the car fell into another stretch of quiet.

After a moment, Ruan Yu let out a soft, musing laugh. “Huaisong, do you believe in cause and effect?”

“Hmm?” Xu Huaisong turned his head.

“I’ve always felt that cause and effect exist in this world. Think about it — because you were investigating the Zhou Jun case, you uncovered the lead on the Jiang Yi case. And then the Zhou Jun case gained a breakthrough because the truth of the Jiang Yi case came to light. No matter how many twists and turns, wherever people plant a seed, they eventually harvest the corresponding fruit somewhere else.”

Xu Huaisong curved his lips into a smile. “Want to hear about your own cause and effect?”

She blinked. “What?”

“The Cen Group reached out to me a couple of days ago.”

“Oh?”

He smiled and gently touched her face. “After Wei Jin was caught, your film ran into funding problems. When Mr. Cen heard about this, he decided to acquire a portion of Huan Shi’s shares and invest in your film — as compensation for the plagiarism incident you got dragged into.”

Ruan Yu was stunned into silence for a long moment, mouth agape. “Really?”

Xu Huaisong nodded. “I was planning to tell you after going to Huan Shi tomorrow to finalize the details.”

“But,” she frowned, “that’s far too generous a form of compensation. I couldn’t possibly accept something like that…”

He lightly tapped her forehead. “He’s investing in a film. He’ll make money from it too — far more than you will.”

Ruan Yu made a sound of understanding, thinking that was a fair point, then suddenly remembered something and asked, “Since this relationship exists now, does that mean I have more creative control over this film?”

“If that’s what you want, I can go and negotiate a supplementary contract on your behalf.”

She nodded. “There’s nothing else particularly important, except… I want to share this turn of fortune with one person.”

“Oh?”

“All of this chain of unexpected events happened partly thanks to Sun Miaohan. If I do have a say in casting, I’d like to ask her — would she be willing to come back and audition again? So we can make a clean, genuine film together.”

Author’s Note: A leave of absence notice — dear readers, after 60 consecutive days of updates, your author is taking a day off tomorrow for a team-building event and won’t be able to post. Come back over the weekend!