Keeping overnight vigil at a hospital was not conducive to good sleep.

The ward was packed — her grandmother’s room alone had six other patients, and each patient had one person staying overnight with them. Twelve people in one room, each with their own sleep schedule… Fortunately Jiang Ruoqiao was young and could still bear it. Her grandmother got along splendidly with the other patients. They had even exchanged contact information and created a group chat for the ward.

Jiang Ruoqiao picked up the hot water thermos and headed out to fill it.

She walked out of the ward and into the long corridor, where patient beds lined the walls.

A hospital was the busiest, most frenetic of places. The last person Jiang Ruoqiao expected to run into in the inpatient ward was Lin Kexing.

She had thought the two of them would never cross paths again in this lifetime.

Lin Kexing was clearly just as surprised.

The two had met before and exchanged words, but neither had any intention of going over to greet the other. There had once been some kind of connection between them, and that connection had been through Jiang Yan. Now that Jiang Ruoqiao and Jiang Yan had broken up, running into each other again like this gave them absolutely no reason to say hello. Jiang Ruoqiao coolly shifted her gaze away, not looking at Lin Kexing again, and walked straight past her in the direction of the hot water room.

Lin Kexing stood frozen.

It was only when a classmate called out to her that she came back to herself, and she absently asked the classmate, “What kind of patients are admitted to this ward?”

The classmate sighed. “Oncology, I’d think. That’s what Teacher Xie is here for, isn’t it.”

Lin Kexing had come today with her classmates to visit their teacher. They had only been enrolled a short while, but when word spread that the teacher had been taken ill and admitted to hospital, a group of caring classmates had organized a visit.

Lin Kexing was struck still for a moment.

Oncology. So that meant… Jiang Ruoqiao’s family member was the one who was ill?

Did Jiang Yan know about this?

Jiang Ruoqiao put on her mask and filled the thermos with hot water. There was a queue for that too. A few students who didn’t look much older than her were chatting by the window, and ordinarily she wouldn’t have paid attention — until a particular name drifted into her ears.

“Don’t you think Lin Kexing is such a show-off,” one student muttered. “Like yesterday — we said we were going to visit Teacher Xie, and she asked if we wanted her driver to come pick us all up. What was that about? Showing off that her family has a driver? That she’s some kind of little princess?”

“That part I can actually let go,” another student said. “What really made things awkward today was — we’d already agreed that everyone would chip in and buy Teacher Xie some fruit and milk, and then she shows up with bird’s nest soup and cordyceps fungus, making the rest of us feel like we brought nothing. If you want to give something like that, fine, but at least give us a heads-up. Now everyone just feels weird.”

“…Maybe it’s nothing to her,” yet another student — a girl wearing glasses — offered. “I hear her family is really wealthy. She probably just grabbed whatever was on hand. You can’t really blame her. Her asking if the driver could pick us up was well-meaning. She can give Teacher Xie whatever she wants. It’s not really our place to say anything.”

“That’s exactly what’s so infuriating!” the first student groaned. “It makes her the one who’s always right, and the rest of us feel bad about our own thoughts. No wonder she barely moved in before switching rooms. I heard the original roommates basically stopped associating with her. And they were all getting along fine at first when everyone first moved in…”

Jiang Ruoqiao listened with detached calm.

It seemed to have been the same in the original story, too. In the first half of the source material, the female lead had a difficult time — on one hand suffering the pain of unrequited love, watching helplessly as the person she liked was with someone else. On the other, she faced ostracism within her dormitory. In the original story, the female lead’s roommates had serious issues with their characters. From the reader’s perspective, they were clearly jealous of Lin Kexing, and the roommates who caused the most trouble and expressed the most bitterness later got their comeuppance.

Jiang Ruoqiao collected her hot water and left.

The original story wasn’t something to be taken as gospel. That was just how novels worked — whoever was the viewpoint character, anyone standing in opposition to them would be deemed as “deserving what they got.” She had no control over other people’s endings. All she could do was change herself as best she could.

Lin Kexing, for her part, was not oblivious to the contradictory feelings her classmates had about her — wanting to get close to her on one hand, wanting to distance themselves on the other.

She was not a slow person. She knew they didn’t truly like her. But what did that matter? They were inconsequential people anyway.

She only cared about the people she cared about.

After leaving the hospital, she hesitated for a long time before finally dialing the number she had been wanting to call all along.

She waited for a long time — long enough that Lin Kexing had almost given up on the call being answered — before a low male voice came through the line. “Hello.”

Just one word, and Lin Kexing’s eyes went red.

It had been so long. It felt as though she hadn’t seen him or heard his voice in ages.

She didn’t know what had happened. The housekeeper had suddenly left, her phone had gone unanswered, and when Lin Kexing asked her mother, her mother said the housekeeper had had something come up at home and left of her own accord.

With the housekeeper gone and no way to reach her, these past weeks had been unbearably painful.

And he refused to come back either…

“Jiang Yan, big brother,” Lin Kexing said, her voice catching with emotion. “I have something to tell you. It’s about Jiang Ruoqiao.”

Only then did Jiang Yan refrain from hanging up.

The reason he had answered this call in the first place was to offer an apology. Whatever her feelings toward him had been at the time, he should not have acted the way he did.

After the apology, he would make it clear — they were not to be in contact anymore.

But when Jiang Yan heard those words, his heart dropped, and yet his curiosity got the better of him. “What is it.”

Lin Kexing didn’t answer directly, but instead asked, “Where did the housekeeper go? She left so suddenly. I can’t get through to her at all.”

Jiang Yan could make a reasonable guess — his mother must have found out. He had no face to offer Lin Kexing’s mother any explanation. Since his mother apparently didn’t want Lin Kexing to know, he thought it best not to say anything either, so he replied, “She went back to her hometown. Something came up.”

It was obvious he didn’t want to elaborate.

Lin Kexing felt unsettled. She didn’t understand why the housekeeper had left so abruptly. She even found herself wondering whether the housekeeper had somehow found out about her feelings, whether she now knew that Jiang Yan’s breakup with Jiang Ruoqiao was partly because of her, and had therefore left without a word.

In that case, perhaps if Jiang Yan and Jiang Ruoqiao made up, everything would go back to normal.

Her mind was in chaos. The housekeeper was no longer by her side, and she didn’t even know who to talk to anymore. She felt like a headless fly, spinning in circles.

Jiang Yan asked, “What was it you wanted to say about Ruoqiao?”

Lin Kexing came back to herself. After a moment of quiet dejection, she said, “I saw her in the inpatient ward. She must have been there looking after a patient. I hear the whole floor is oncology patients.”

Jiang Yan was startled. “Which hospital?”

He patiently asked for the details, then moved to hang up.

Lin Kexing still wanted to keep talking a little longer, but he had already ended the call. She listened to the dull beeping on the line, lowered her eyes, and felt utterly wretched.

Jiang Ruoqiao was keeping vigil at the hospital, and Lu Yicheng wanted to take some of the weight off her shoulders.

The second of the month happened to fall on a day he was free. He was up at the crack of dawn and headed to the market, buying ingredients to stock up for the next several days. When he got home, he made breakfast for her grandfather and Lu Siyan. He had been honest when he said that having the elderly gentleman around to watch Siyan had made things considerably easier. While preparing the two of them their breakfast, he also got a soup started. The weather was no longer sweltering, so he felt a slow-cooked soup would be just the thing — gentle on the stomach, warming for the elderly. He made a corn and spare rib soup with carrots.

Very sweet and savory.

It simmered for nearly two full hours. Lu Yicheng transferred the soup into an insulated thermos, and just before heading out, made sure to remind her grandfather, “Grandfather, there’s also soup in the electric slow cooker. If you and Siyan get hungry, you can have some while you wait. I’ll be back after I deliver the soup.”

Her grandfather smiled and waved him off. “Go on, go on.”

Once Lu Yicheng had gone out the door, the old man reached into his bag and took out a notebook. He put on his reading glasses, fished out a fountain pen from his pocket, and carefully wrote, word by word: *[October 2nd, clear weather. Today, Lu Yicheng left at six in the morning to go to the market to buy ingredients for cooking. Made a corn and spare rib soup with carrots. Before leaving, brought along oranges (likely knowing Qiaoqiao likes them).]*

Lu Siyan shuffled over. He couldn’t read many characters yet, but he could spot his father’s name among them. He propped his chin in both hands and asked curiously, “Great-grandpa, what are you writing? It seems to be about my dad.”

Her grandfather closed the notebook with a dignified expression. “Reference notes for your mother.”

Lu Siyan’s eyes swiveled with thought. “Reference notes? My mum is very capable on her own. Does she really need those?”

“Of course. Are you saying you don’t have confidence in your great-grandpa?” he said. “Hasn’t your mother told you? Your great-grandpa was a high school graduate back in his day.”

“Not university?” Lu Siyan said.

Her grandfather said earnestly, “I’m seventy-two years old this year. High school graduates from our era were something remarkable.”

“How remarkable?” Lu Siyan asked. “As remarkable as my dad and mum?”

Her grandfather decided to defend his dignity as a great-grandparent and said with a straight face, “More remarkable than both of them, certainly.”

Lu Siyan let out an awed “wow.” “Great-grandpa, you’re incredible!”

Her grandfather’s vanity was thoroughly satisfied.

Lu Siyan was a natural at lavishing people with compliments, and he had the elderly man beaming with delight.

After all that flattery, Lu Siyan clutched his belly with a pitiful expression. “Great-grandpa, I’m hungry. And I really want Kendeji chicken wings…”

Her grandfather was already in high spirits. He gave a sweeping, magnanimous wave. “Come on then, great-grandpa will take you out. Whatever you want, I’ll buy it for you!”

Lu Siyan blinked. “But dad and mum don’t like me eating those things.”

Her grandfather wavered for a moment, but still said, “It’s not every day, is it. Come on, come on — listen, the two of us, right, we don’t say a word about it. They won’t know.”

Lu Siyan immediately said, “Then we need to do a pinky promise! Neither of us says anything!”

He wasn’t going to say a word anyway.

“Deal!”

By the time Lu Yicheng set off from the residential compound to the hospital with the insulated thermos, it was just eleven-thirty.

The ward was lively at this hour. Some people were ordering food; others had come to visit patients.

Once Lu Yicheng arrived, he didn’t stop moving — refilling the water cup, tidying the things on the bedside table, keeping an eye on the drip to see if the bag was nearly empty. He had brought two bowls with him. He carefully ladled out a bowl for her grandmother, then one for Jiang Ruoqiao. Knowing Jiang Ruoqiao was fond of the carrots from the soup, he made sure to scoop in extra for her.

He told Jiang Ruoqiao to sit and have her soup, while he helped her grandmother sit up, placing a pillow behind her back for support. He also checked whether the needle in the back of her hand had shifted. He was extraordinarily attentive.

The elderly woman in the next bed teased, “Is this your grandson, or your granddaughter’s husband?”

Her grandmother laughed heartily. “What does it look like to you, old friend?”

“My guess? This is practically a son-in-law by blood!”

The other elderly patients in the ward all burst out laughing. “A grandson could never be this devoted!”

Jiang Ruoqiao kept her composure, gazing straight ahead — though in truth, from yesterday evening onward, she had already been quizzed one by one by all these elderly grandmothers and grandfathers about whether she had a boyfriend. She was well past the point of being flustered. She had grown calm. Serene, even.

The most inquisitive people in the world were right here!

Lu Yicheng, however, was not as composed as Jiang Ruoqiao.

The teasing had his ears faintly turning red. From the corner of his eye, though, he caught a glimpse of Jiang Ruoqiao drinking her soup — a slight furrow in her brow. He didn’t think too much of it, and simply pulled a few sheets of tissue from the table and handed them to her.

…

Outside the ward, Jiang Yan stood in the doorway with a fruit basket, and this was the scene he walked in on.

—