With Li Wu’s weekend break having more free time, Cen Jin also lowered her tension and stayed up late.

The sun was high when she finally crawled out of bed, not changing out of her sleepwear, just throwing on a thick-knit sweater before coming out.

The guest room door was wide open, letting in bright light from the room.

She turned and went to the study to find the house’s young resident, and sure enough, he sat inside, completely focused on his lecture notes.

Cen Jin raised her hand to knock twice on the door frame, pulling his attention: “When did you get up?”

Li Wu strangely stuttered: “Se-seven o’clock.”

Cen Jin looked at him suspiciously, “Do you still have this much homework right after exams?”

Li Wu said: “If there isn’t any, I’ll find some to do.”

“If I were half as hardworking as you, I’d be living in the capital by now,” Cen Jin sighed as she raised her phone to order takeout: “Come out to eat in half an hour.”

“Okay.”

Cen Jin sat back on the sofa, casually twirling her hair. With nothing to do, she planned to browse Weibo to pass the time.

Unexpectedly, the opening screen showed a “Pure Crisp” advertisement, fresh and clean, with a popular young celebrity holding a yogurt cup, giving everyone watching the screen a sugar-laden smile.

Just the style alone revealed whose hand created this poster. She switched to the group chat and typed: I saw the opening screen, sales better explode to justify your painstaking effort. Then tagged a name.

The praised designer laughed and humbly replied: Mainly because the spokesperson looks good.

Cen Jin smiled, about to banter with him some more when suddenly a call came in.

Cen Jin’s face darkened slightly when she saw the name and pressed answer.

Wu Fu got straight to the point: “Are you free these two days?”

Cen Jin said: “Yes.”

“Let’s find time to sign the paper agreement,” Wu Fu arranged methodically: “I can take leave Monday morning, we’ll go handle the divorce procedures.”

“Fine.” Cen Jin responded lightly.

The other side was silent for a few seconds, then said: “The things your mother gave you are still here, I’ll bring them over this afternoon.”

Cen Jin curled her legs up on the sofa, numbly humming in agreement.

He continued: “After the property transfer is done next week, I’ll move out of the Qingping Roadhouse.”

Cen Jin lowered her eyes to look at her fingernails: “I thought you’d want the house.”

“Not everyone can afford a nine-million-plus house,” Wu Fu said neither humbly nor arrogantly: “Buying there back then was mainly to make you happy. Of the mortgage and down payment, I’m only taking back half of what I put in. You don’t need to use these things to indirectly attack me.”

Cen Jin said innocently: “Did I? You’re too sensitive.”

“We’re both the same.”

Cen Jin laughed once: “Do you still think even now that the miscarriage affected me, made me suffer setbacks, changed my personality, directly leading our marriage to this point?”

Wu Fu didn’t deny it: “Yes.”

Cen Jin shook her head slightly as if the other side could see: “No, it has nothing to do with the child. Do you remember when I was on postpartum rest? One day you came home, I was sitting in the living room drinking something, and you coldly said, ‘Go ahead and drink, want to not be able to have children again?’ – I had just bought a juice. I said, what if I really can’t have children? Do you remember what you replied? You said then what meaning would marriage have. I was so shocked then. I thought you would worry about my health, worry about my emotions, but you were more worried about whether I could still reproduce. My identity as your lover became worthless to you after one miscarriage, your emphasis on children far exceeded all those years of feelings we’d accumulated. And these words, you probably don’t even remember.”

“I…” Wu Fu started to speak but stopped, his tone becoming vague, “There’s no meaning in saying this now either.”

“I know.”

But it could never be turned over like a finished page. They were like scars deep in the bone marrow, fine if left untouched, but whenever exposed, still raw and bleeding, the wound vast and the pain deep.

“So stop talking about it.”

“Those words hurt me deeply, I still remember them, I must say this,” Cen Jin wouldn’t let it go: “Maybe from that day on, hatred entered my love for you. Can you understand that ‘Cen Jin Supremacist’?”

“If we’re digging up old accounts I could write a 300-page PPT too,” Wu Fu didn’t want to dwell on old matters: “I’ll contact you again this afternoon.”

―

The study door wasn’t closed, and the woman’s moderate voice traveled through the deep corridor to Li Wu’s ears. He put down his pen and rubbed his brow hard.

Her tone sounded extraordinarily calm, but this calmness didn’t seem like indifference, but rather like all hope was lost.

He pulled up his sleeve to look at his digital watch, discovering for the first time how hard it was to endure study time.

―

Breakfast and lunch were combined, so Cen Jin ordered quite a few home-style dishes, with meat, vegetables, and soup, fragrant and beautifully arranged across the whole table.

But she had little interest, eating less than half a bowl of rice before leaning back in her chair to play with her phone.

Li Wu ate his rice, looking up at her multiple times, but she remained completely oblivious.

When the young man got up to get a second bowl, Cen Jin finally spared him half a glance: “Did you weigh yourself this week?”

“Mm.”

She put her phone back on the table: “Gained weight?”

“Gained 0.35 kilograms.” He specifically calculated to two decimal places to show his attention to her requirements.

Cen Jin was stunned by his rigorous unit suffix, only reacting after converting it to kilos in her head: “What’s that amount? One trip to the bathroom and it’s gone.”

“…”

She suddenly leaned forward, examining him carefully.

Li Wu instantly felt like he was sitting on pins and needles, his swallowing motion slowing to 0.5x speed.

The woman’s gaze circled his face, finally stopping at his bowl: “I see you’re not eating little, is studying too hard maybe?”

“It’s fine.” He always had this answer, using constancy to deal with all changes.

Cen Jin changed her approach: “How much money have you used on your meal card, have you checked the machine?”

Li Wu clearly remembered every expense: “326 yuan and 90 cents.”

“Only three hundred? Do you only eat plain rice for three meals a day,” Cen Jin couldn’t believe it: “Or just drink soup?”

“…” His voice lowered: “Just eating normally.”

“Ah—” Cen Jin groaned lowly, covering her head with both hands: “I don’t need you to save this kind of money for me, don’t need it, and don’t need you to pay it back, can you please be better to yourself?”

Li Wu was shocked by her sudden outburst, freezing in place and holding his chopsticks.

Cen Jin lowered her hands, causing her hair to become somewhat messy, and looked at him coolly: “So you’re just putting on a show for me?”

Li Wu’s brows tightened: “What?”

She raised her chin: “Eating so much, so enthusiastically where I can see, then going back to school and suffering from hunger and cold.”

“…” Li Wu pressed his lips: “I’m not.”

“Then how was the three hundred used?”

Li Wu was almost breaking into a sweat, his voice muffled: “The account book is at school, didn’t bring it back.” Cen Jin was completely speechless.

Li Wu continued eating, his movements careful, barely daring to reach for dishes that were further away.

He could feel the woman’s gaze still wandering on his face, not leaving for a long time.

But he couldn’t meet her face directly, analyze her expression, only guess what kind of emotion she was regarding him with.

He hadn’t betrayed her goodwill. He had to clear his name.

Swallowing his last bite of rice, Li Wu put down his chopsticks, and took a breath, forcing himself to look at Cen Jin: “Can you judge whether someone is good to themselves just by how they eat?”

Cen Jin propped her chin: “Of course, if you don’t eat properly how can you grow, how can you stay healthy, how can you have energy to face study and life?”

Li Wu took a deep breath: “You also eat very little.”

Cen Jin paused, thinking she hadn’t heard clearly, tilting her ear slightly: “What?”

“You also eat very little.” He repeated almost word for word, his expression calm.

Was he lecturing her? Cen Jin couldn’t quite process this, blinking repeatedly, “My appetite has always been like this.”

Li Wu said: “I also eat until I’m full every meal.”

“You mean I don’t even eat enough myself? So I have no right to demand anything from you, right?” Her voice grew cold, showing signs of wanting to argue.

“That’s not what I meant.” Her train of thought wasn’t aligned with his, Li Wu just felt troubled.

Cen Jin stared at him for two seconds, suddenly reached out her hand, pulled back her previously unfinished bowl of rice, grabbed her chopsticks, slammed them against the table, and then began eating like she was proving a point.

In just a moment the bowl was clean. She raised her eyes to glare at him, her gaze pressuring.

Li Wu was seeing this side of her for the first time, somewhat dazed, and wanting to laugh.

The young man’s eyelids lowered halfway, not daring to look at her.

He didn’t dare meet her gaze, but he could think about her in his mind, after all, she couldn’t see that.

So he thought about it unrestrained.

How cute.

This sister.

“I’m so full I could throw up,” Cen Jin wanted to pick up more dishes but really couldn’t eat anymore. She smiled without humor: “Do I have the right to make demands now?”

“…”

“Change from three hundred in three weeks to three hundred per week, can you do that?”

“Don’t need that much.”

“Then work hard to use that much.”

“…Mm.”

…

―

In the afternoon, Cen Jin put on makeup, changed clothes, and went out.

Before leaving, she called a familiar auntie to come clean, telling Li Wu to watch for the door.

Li Wu felt somewhat restless. He vaguely guessed that Cen Jin was going to meet her husband, but the outcome was still unknown.

The conflict in the phone call wasn’t intense, the possibility of reconciliation wasn’t zero. He couldn’t stop these malicious hopes and speculations.

Especially since she had dressed up beautifully, wearing an off-shoulder red dress even in this autumn wind, with bare legs, her collarbones lying in her skin like two white daggers.

The matching lip color made her look imposing, not to be underestimated.

Her image wouldn’t leave his mind.

Li Wu anxiously and frustratedly turned his pen for a while, and leaned back in his chair, his chest rising and falling heavily.

This wasn’t right.

He knew.

But it was already like this.

Nothing to be done.

He couldn’t control his dreams, just like he couldn’t control himself from thinking about her, including imagining her.

He couldn’t fall back asleep after waking up, and when dawn broke, the first thing he did was get up to take a cold shower, begging the ice-cold water to wash away his filthy thoughts.

On his way to hang laundry, he stopped at her door for a while. In those few seconds, his heart was extraordinarily quiet, as quiet as if standing beneath a huge deity statue.

But this quietness ended the moment she appeared at the study door.

All his nerves burned like fire again, to the point he forgot how to speak.

Li Wu closed his eyes, his brows tightly knitted as if in a nightmare.

At this moment, the doorbell suddenly rang.

He hurriedly opened his eyes, and ran quickly to the entrance, just about to grab the handle when the fingerprint lock beeped and the door was opened from outside.

Their eyes met.

The young man’s pupils contracted, and his breath that was rapid from running gradually slowed, gradually steadied, because the visitor wasn’t the hourly cleaning auntie Cen Jin had mentioned.

But he wasn’t unfamiliar. He recognized him almost instantly.

The man’s shock was no less than his. He stared at him for a moment, his gaze turning to subtle scrutiny and probing.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Don’t you recognize me anymore,” the next moment, the youth met his gaze with a fearlessness and frankness that even he hadn’t foreseen: “I’m Li Wu.”