Saturday evening, Cen Jin went to pick up Li Wu as usual.

She called ahead, and when she arrived, the boy was already waiting at the school gate, hands in his pockets, standing straight in the wind, his face’s contours distinctly outlined by light and shadow.

Cen Jin remembered Chun Chang’s message demanding more “school uniform photos” of Li Wu and couldn’t help but smile.

The boy seemed to notice her car, and the moment it stopped, he walked over without hesitation.

After getting in, Li Wu habitually sniffed but didn’t smell any food.

Cen Jin thought he had a stuffy nose: “Caught a cold?”

Li Wu said: “No.”

Cen Jin realized: “Oh, I didn’t buy any food.”

Li Wu nodded slightly, his expression unclear in the dim light.

Cen Jin drove onto the road while Li Wu glanced at her, wanting to speak but hesitating.

The woman kept her eyes forward, her whole demeanor subdued, speaking notably less than usual and seeming less approachable.

Li Wu’s mind began to race, his heart pounding. Not daring to ask more, he could only turn to look out the window, letting the neon lights stream past his eyes.

Cen Jin was somewhat annoyed with Li Wu because of his silence – a week had passed, and he hadn’t revealed anything about his grades to her.

She was waiting for him to speak up.

The youth maintained his usual style, performing as expected, and dealing with everything through his characteristic silence.

Back home, Cen Jin admitted defeat and called out to Li Wu as he changed into slippers and was about to head to the study.

She sat on the sofa and gestured with her chin toward the single chair nearby: “Sit.”

Li Wu’s recently settled heart began to flutter again. He had psychological trauma associated with this chair – last week at this time, this was where she had dismissed him.

But he still obediently sat down, putting his backpack on the floor.

Cen Jin crossed her arms, her expression somewhat dark: “Do you have anything to tell me?”

Li Wu’s internal alarm immediately went off. His confrontation with Wu Fu was still fresh in his mind, he wasn’t confident enough that the man wouldn’t expose him to Cen Jin.

He steadied his emotions and tentatively asked: “What things?”

Cen Jin tilted her head, staring at him, her gaze examining: “If I don’t ask, were you planning to keep hiding it from me forever?”

Li Wu frowned, his palms growing warm: “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

Cen Jin closed her eyes briefly, no longer beating around the bush: “Your midterm results came out on Monday. Why haven’t you told me yet?”

Li Wu felt relieved, his whole body lightening: “I didn’t do well, so I didn’t say anything.”

The words “didn’t do well” caught Cen Jin off guard: “So you were just never going to tell me?”

Li Wu replied: “I would have if you asked.”

“Tell me now.”

Li Wu immediately opened his backpack, took out a long, thin grade slip from his pencil case, and handed it to Cen Jin.

This wasn’t Cen Jin’s first time seeing this – after all, she’d already seen the photo version, but holding it in her hands was different, more substantial, and satisfying.

In a good mood, she put on an act of first-time surprise and approval: “Hmm? But these are really good scores, aren’t they?”

Li Wu said nothing, then after a moment: “Not in the top thirty.”

Cen Jin looked at him: “Did someone require you to reach the top thirty on your first exam?”

“…” He paused: “No one.”

Cen Jin curved her lips, looked at the grades again, and then raised her head to ask: “Can I have this grade slip?”

She explained: “I want to paste it in my life journal as a record, to commemorate your first successful exam. If it’s not convenient, I can make a copy.”

Li Wu was slightly startled: “Okay.”

The tension completely disappeared, and he lowered his head slightly, pressing his lips together in a smile.

“Li Wu, you’re amazing,” Cen Jin looked at his scores again and again, her tone suddenly becoming soft, as if extremely satisfied as she playfully rubbed his forehead: “Keep up the good work.”

Li Wu’s ears turned bright red. It turned out that happiness, like heartache, could also make one breathless.

The next moment, the woman returned to her normal tone: “Do you have a lot of homework this week?”

“Yes.”

“Go work on it then, I’ll stay here for a while.”

Li Wu made a sound of acknowledgment and quickly stood up, walking to the study. Finally able to turn his back to her, he could smile without restraint. He was exhausted from fighting back these smiles for so long.

Hearing the study door close, Cen Jin immediately took out her phone and messaged Chun Chang:

“I praised him like you taught me, but this kid seemed to not react.”

Chun Chang replied: How is that possible? Did you end up raising some cold-blooded monster?

Cold-blooded monster? Cen Jin thought for a moment, agreeing with her description: Kind of, he never initiates conversation with me.

Chun Chang said: Are you sure you praised him word for word like I taught you? ‘You’ve worked so hard studying lately, these grades show your efforts weren’t wasted, you’ve only been at Yi Middle School for such a short time and you’re already this outstanding, I’m really proud of you, you’re simply amazing.’

Cen Jin: No, too mushy, I just said ‘You’re amazing.’

Chun Chang: That’s the most nutritionally deficient phrase in parent-child relationships.

Cen Jin helplessly: I really don’t know how to praise kids, it’s too hard.

Chun Chang: Then give me his WeChat, and I’ll praise him for you, guaranteed to make his confidence soar with flowery words.

Cen Jin: Again? He’s still underage, leave the kid alone.

Chun Chang: What’s wrong with wanting to add a handsome guy to my friends list?

Cen Jin: Nothing wrong, but not happening. Please don’t disturb our family’s Tsinghua/Peking University candidate.

She leaned back on the sofa: Besides, he doesn’t have WeChat.

Chun Chang was shocked: What kind of cave person is he, what kind of controlling family was he born into that doesn’t even let him have WeChat?

Cen Jin had nothing to say.

—

During dinner, with Chun Chang’s accusations still lingering in her mind, Cen Jin asked: “Li Wu, do you use WeChat?”

The youth across the table looked up: “No.”

She asked again: “Do your roommates use it?”

Li Wu replied: “Yes.”

“…” Cen Jin found it strange: “Haven’t they asked for your WeChat?”

“They have.”

“And you just said you don’t use it?”

“Mm.”

Cen Jin fell silent: “Let’s register one for you.”

She propped her chin with one hand, the other moving between her rice bowl and mouth: “It’s convenient for communication, almost no one sends text messages anymore.”

“Mm, okay.” Li Wu continued eating.

“Do you know how to register?”

He paused: “Probably.”

Cen Jin glanced at him, then asked: “Do you have QQ?”

Li Wu stopped focusing on his food, looking at her somewhat puzzledly: “No.”

This time Cen Jin looked at him as if he were an elderly grandfather, her feelings quite complex: “Hurry up and eat, we’ll set everything up after dinner.”

After dinner, they returned to the living room.

Cen Jin directly took his phone and installed both of these incredibly common social apps.

She skillfully input the information, and when it came to choosing a username, she handed the phone back: “Here, enter your username.”

Li Wu lowered his eyes, frowned in thought for a while, and then looked at her: “What should I use?”

Cen Jin laughed, spreading her hands: “How would I know?”

She said: “Use whatever you want.”

Li Wu found it thorny: “I don’t know. What’s your username?”

“Mine?” Cen Jin pointed at herself: “My English name from work.” As she spoke, she took out her phone and showed him her WeChat profile.

Li Wu focused on the name field, seeing just three letters: Gin.

Without any ideas, he could only input his two-character real name, then handed it back to Cen Jin: “Done.”

Cen Jin took it to look, wearing an “I knew it” expression, then passed the phone back: “Still need a profile picture, and other miscellaneous things, you do all that yourself.”

The boy edited his personal information, not blinking, as seriously as if conducting scientific research.

Cen Jin wanted to laugh watching him, waited a while, and asked: “Done?”

Li Wu looked up: “Done.”

“Add me then, Gin0802.”

Li Wu asked instinctively: “Is your birthday August 2nd?”

“Yes,” Cen Jin accepted his friend request: “What about yours?”

“January 2nd.”

Cen Jin’s eyebrows raised slightly: “During New Year’s holiday?”

“Mm.”

“Let me make a note,” the woman lowered her eyelids, adding his contact information, reading each character aloud: “Li… Wu… zero… one… zero… two… OK, now I won’t forget your birthday.”

In those insignificant dozen seconds, while she was distracted, someone had already raised the corners of his mouth, a typhoon of secret joy sweeping through.

Exiting the notes page, Cen Jin glanced at the overly empty chat interface and sent an emoji as a greeting.

Li Wu heard the notification sound and hurried to look – it was a cat face saying “hi~”, round face, round eyes, adorably silly.

He looked at the screen for a while, then at Cen Jin. The woman happened to be looking at him too. Their eyes met, and she raised her hand not holding her phone, waving her five fingers back and forth slightly: “Hi.”

–Imitating the cat.

Li Wu couldn’t help but laugh, everything coming alive, bright and clean.

After laughing, he quickly turned his face away, lowering his eyes shyly. His thick, long eyelashes were like covering his ears while stealing a bell – the dimples at his mouth immediately gave him away.

“Wow, you finally smiled,” Cen Jin rested her head and sighed, as if achieving a major experimental breakthrough: “It’s not easy to make you smile.”

—

Before bed, Li Wu wrestled with himself for a while but couldn’t resist his curiosity and clicked on Cen Jin’s Moments.

It felt like opening an extremely precious private diary. This kind of peeking made him feel ashamed yet subtly excited.

The boy’s finger froze on the first status update.

It was a photo posted Monday afternoon – she had photographed her divorce certificate and openly displayed it to everyone:

“Starting today, I’m a free person! [Yeah]”

The words carried a lightness as if announcing good news.

Li Wu’s heart pounded, unable to stop the smile from spreading to his eyes and brows. He suddenly sat up in bed, so excited he even felt his mouth go dry.

After staring at this status for a while, he got out of bed and quietly walked out of his room to get water from the refrigerator.

After gulping down half a bottle of water, seemingly unable to calm this excitement, Li Wu decided to go to the study to read for a while to change his mood.

Passing by the coffee table, something reflective caught his peripheral vision, like a flickering star.

Li Wu stopped, glancing over to find it was a bag of ID-sized photos.

They had been casually tossed on the coffee table, with several having slid out of the paper bag, suddenly jumping into his field of vision.

Li Wu bent down to pick up the outermost one, his ears immediately growing hot.

The person in the photo was Cen Jin.

The woman wore a slight smile, her skin bright, stars in her eyes, gazing at him gently. Perhaps over-edited, not nearly as beautiful as she was in person.

But he still couldn’t bring himself to put it back.

Li Wu’s gaze returned to the coffee table, examining the remaining photos, his expression subtle and hard to read.

Gradually, his breathing became heavier, and faster. Without much internal struggle, Li Wu put down his water and leaned over to adjust the remaining photos, carefully moving them outward, and arranging them in their original state.

And the one in his hand was carefully curved into his palm.

Li Wu clasped his hands together and quickly fled the crime scene, too nervous to breathe.

As if he’d just finished a long run, he collapsed into his study chair, lifted his T-shirt collar to fan himself twice, and took quite a while to calm down before admiring his unexpected prize again.

After looking for who knows how long, he carefully tucked the photo into the inner side of his pencil case.

The youth was extremely excited, his brain becoming active and alert.

He flipped over his test paper with a whoosh and began doing math problems. The difficult questions that had given him trouble during the day now seemed easily conquered. He wrote rapidly, smoothly, and fluidly.

After writing down the calculation results, Li Wu realized he’d left his water in the living room and quickly traversed the hallway to retrieve it.

Seeing his carefully crafted deception again, he felt both ashamed and foolishly happy, hurriedly grabbing his evidence of presence.

Coming and going, the footsteps naturally caught Cen Jin’s attention.

She propped herself up against her soft blanket, switched to the main screen for a look, and then looked at the door – it was 12:30, what was this kid still doing?

Unable to figure it out and too lazy to get out of bed, she sent him a WeChat message: What are you doing, why aren’t you sleeping?

Li Wu didn’t reply immediately.

Outside the door, sudden silence.

After a while, a message finally came.

Li Wu: Couldn’t sleep, got up to do problems.

How could there be someone who loves studying this much? Cen Jin was amazed.

She didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm but had to regulate teenage rest habits: Do you know what time it is? Go to sleep!

Li Wu responded quickly: Okay.

The sounds of lights turning off and doors closing came in sequence, then silence.

Cen Jin leaned back against her headboard, about to finish reading the brief that had been interrupted, when a new message came in WeChat, still from the one with the default avatar.

Li Wu: Did I disturb you?

Cen Jin used four question marks: What do you think????

In the other room, in dim light, the youth lay with his arm as a pillow, his heart bright. He curved his lips, sorry yet chagrined, but still smiling.

He typed with one hand: Sorry. Won’t do it again.

Just this day, just this night, let it be a reward for his first victory, let him be unrestrained just once.