After Jiang Ruoqiao and her grandmother had both finished their soup, Lu Yicheng stepped out of the ward to wash the bowls.

Jiang Ruoqiao gathered the trash to throw out as well.

Her grandmother had a mild aversion to mess, and she hoped the hospital stay would be as comfortable as possible for her. Jiang Ruoqiao tossed out the rubbish and was turning to head back when she came face to face with Jiang Yan. He was leaning against the wall, apparently waiting for her.

Jiang Ruoqiao had been momentarily puzzled, but then she remembered running into Lin Kexing earlier that day, and everything clicked.

Lu Yicheng and Jiang Yan had completely cut ties. It wasn’t in Lu Yicheng’s character to tell anyone about her grandmother being in the hospital.

That left only Lin Kexing.

She was genuinely baffled — what exactly was Lin Kexing trying to accomplish?

Lin Kexing liked Jiang Yan, didn’t she? And Jiang Yan was already single. If she liked him, she should just go for it. Why did it now seem as though Lin Kexing was trying to get her and Jiang Yan back together? It was completely beyond her comprehension.

Jiang Yan had been leaning against the wall with an air of languid ease, but when she approached, he straightened up, his expression becoming guarded.

He came to stand in front of her, and said in a low voice, “I just searched around and spotted you. It’s your grandmother who’s been admitted, right?” He paused briefly, then added as though in explanation, “You had some photos up of yourself with your grandparents on your social media. I still remembered.”

Jiang Ruoqiao’s face held no particular expression.

Jiang Yan said, “I got a fruit basket. I’ve left it at the nurses’ station. They should bring it over shortly.”

Had they been anywhere else, had it been any other circumstance, had her grandmother not been just a short distance away in that ward, Jiang Ruoqiao would have told Jiang Yan bluntly to stay as far away from her as possible. She found it very difficult not to wonder — the things that had happened in her dream, had they any connection to him? They almost certainly did. After all, this was a fictional world. He and Lin Kexing were its hero and heroine.

She was exhausted. Her body and nerves had been strung taut without a moment’s rest.

Jiang Yan pressed his lips together. The stranger-like expression, the stranger-like eyes she was looking at him with — he found it difficult to accept.

Not so long ago, he had been the person she relied on most. When something like this happened, the one who should be by her side was him, not someone else.

Jiang Yan thought for a moment, then reached into his pocket and held out a bank card. “I’ve been saving this over the years. It’s not much, but take it first. I’ll figure out the rest, and the password is your birthday.”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked up and met his eyes.

She hadn’t even glanced at the card.

Seeing she wouldn’t take it, Jiang Yan’s expression tensed. He almost let slip the words “why won’t you take it”…

“This is just a small gesture from me,” Jiang Yan said. “Please take it. Your grandmother will definitely need surgery, and that’s bound to be a financial burden. I know this isn’t much, but I’ll figure out how to help with the rest…”

Jiang Ruoqiao could no longer stand to listen. “What kind of relationship do you and I have, that I should be taking your money?! Jiang Yan, we broke up long ago. Do you understand what breaking up means?”

It meant they were to have nothing more to do with each other for the rest of their lives. It meant that even if they happened to pass each other on the street someday, they were to treat each other as if the other didn’t exist.

Why did he keep coming to disturb her, again and again?

Jiang Yan froze. He didn’t know if he had said something wrong. But he had meant well — in situations like this, wasn’t money usually tight? Was accepting his help really so difficult for her? Jiang Ruoqiao’s understanding deepened. Even without Siyan, even without Jiang Yan’s mother having harbored those intentions, even without Lin Kexing — she and he were only ever destined to have a brief relationship that would ultimately end in breakup.

She was so acutely sensitive. Those sensitive, tender feelings were wrapped up inside her, packaged away. She had never craved someone who could understand her, someone who would hold her. But if such a person were ever to exist, she hoped it would be someone who truly understood her.

“Who told you my grandmother was here?” Jiang Ruoqiao raised her voice. “Was it Lin Kexing? Please, I’m asking both of you — stop paying attention to what I do. Your concern, your self-righteous assumptions about what I need — they are nothing but a nuisance. Jiang Yan, don’t make me feel that the worst thing to happen to me in this lifetime was crossing paths with you. Can you at least give me that much?”

She drew a deep breath and turned around — and there, not far away, stood Lu Yicheng, insulated thermos in hand, watching.

Their eyes met. Lu Yicheng walked toward her, came to stand at her side, and said in a gentle voice, “I’ll head back now.”

Jiang Ruoqiao gave a small nod. “Alright.”

She had wanted to mention her grandfather and Siyan, but with Jiang Yan standing right there, she held back.

Lu Yicheng understood without needing to be told. “Don’t worry, everything is fine at home.”

Jiang Ruoqiao turned and walked back toward the ward.

Lu Yicheng spared Jiang Yan only a brief, cool glance. They were no longer friends — one could say they were now on opposing sides. There was nothing to say to him. Lu Yicheng walked toward the elevators.

Jiang Yan ground his teeth and followed.

Hospital elevators were crowded at all hours. Once they were out of the elevator, Lu Yicheng headed toward the hospital exit. Jiang Yan couldn’t contain himself any longer and called out, “Lu Yicheng!”

Lu Yicheng’s pace slowed slightly, but he did not stop.

Not until Jiang Yan said from behind him, “Lu Yicheng. I haven’t lost yet.”

Lu Yicheng stopped walking. In a low, firm voice he said, “This isn’t a competition to begin with.”

There was no loser or winner to speak of.

Jiang Yan said without expression, “Say what you like. How about this — let’s make a bet. Five years from now, which of us ends up married to her, you or me.”

Lu Yicheng’s grip on the thermos handle tightened. His knuckles went faintly white. “I’m not going to make bets about something like that. You’ve got the wrong person.”

“Don’t think I didn’t see it,” Jiang Yan said, with very deliberate mockery and amusement in his voice. “You were scared just now. Or maybe jealous. You’re jealous that she and I were together, aren’t you?”

Lu Yicheng’s voice was level. “You’re looking to fight today?”

“Yes!” Jiang Yan raised his voice. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time!”

Nobody knew what kind of torment Jiang Yan had been living through this past month. First, the breakup with Ruoqiao. Then came the news that his good friend had feelings for her and had been pursuing her. Then came the revelation that his own mother had been scheming — scheming against the Lin family, scheming against him, and that his breakup with Ruoqiao had itself been engineered by his mother. He had nowhere to direct his misery. Coming to the hospital today in high spirits, what greeted him instead was the sight of Lu Yicheng attentively caring for her, the two of them so at ease with each other. That image had seared itself painfully into his eyes.

“Fine,” Lu Yicheng said. “Find somewhere.”

…

Two young men, combined age not yet forty, spent half an hour finding a quiet spot.

Yet those thirty minutes did nothing to cool their tempers.

Anger — that was the right word. Jiang Yan’s was out in the open. Lu Yicheng’s was the contained kind, fueled by what Jiang Yan had said.

It was something Lu Yicheng felt could go down in history. Though it was also best that no third person ever find out about it — too childish, too pointless. But it couldn’t be avoided. It was always going to come to this between them sooner or later; it was only a matter of when. Neither of them gave way to the other. Jiang Yan had trained in combat, while Lu Yicheng had no formal training but possessed exceptional strength — his arm strength alone had been personally certified by Jiang Ruoqiao. When it actually came down to it, Jiang Yan held no clear advantage. In the end, both came away with injuries. Jiang Yan’s looked more serious, but Lu Yicheng’s face was also marked.

Jiang Yan had simply needed to vent. He had also wanted to provoke Lu Yicheng. Sitting on the ground, he ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek and let out a scornful laugh. “You think you’re some kind of upright gentleman? In the end you still let it get to you. How are you any better than me? You can see that you care — have you ever held her hand? No, right. Have you ever held her? No, right…”

Lu Yicheng’s jaw went rigid. Upon hearing those words, he had already clenched his fist, and the usual calm, unthreatening face had — for the first time — taken on something formidable.

Jiang Yan hadn’t even finished speaking before Lu Yicheng drove a hard punch into him.

There was unmistakable anger on Lu Yicheng’s face.

In that moment he was no longer masking his true feelings.

“I just can’t stand you treating something like that as gossip to show off.” Lu Yicheng stared down at him coldly. “It’s extremely grating. You make me think that in the end, you’re not much at all.”

Jiang Yan stared back at him with equal ferocity.

The two of them were no longer friends. At this moment, they were like mortal enemies.

“What you call love for her — it doesn’t amount to much,” Lu Yicheng said.

If you truly loved someone, those memories would be like buried treasure — you would never speak of them in such language, with such a tone, to flaunt them before someone else. Not even to a rival.

Lu Yicheng stood up.

There was no longer any point to this. At first, he had genuinely wanted to have it out with Jiang Yan, to take a thorough beating from him if it came to that — after all, he had once harbored thoughts he was ashamed to speak aloud. But after Jiang Yan said those things, he had no desire to hold back, and no willingness to yield.

Lu Yicheng even had the sense that this person was nothing like the Jiang Yan he had once known.

The complicated emotions that had stirred in him when he ran into Jiang Yan and Jiang Ruoqiao talking outside the dormitory building that time, and the flash of jealousy that had risen in him that same moment in the hospital corridor — all of it now seemed laughably petty. If feelings truly were a kind of battle, if there truly was a loser and a winner — then the moment Jiang Yan spoke of his memories with Jiang Ruoqiao in that tone of voice, he had already become the undeniable loser.

Jiang Yan seemed to realize himself that what he’d said had been inappropriate.

Only after Lu Yicheng had walked far away did Jiang Yan say quietly, “That’s not what I meant.”

But there was no one left to hear it.

How much he cherished Ruoqiao, how much he cared for her…

He had just — he just couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t bear that the person at her side right now wasn’t him. Couldn’t bear that the person she was relying on was no longer him. He had been provoked.

Even with every intention of concealing it, Lu Yicheng’s facial injuries were all too real.

He thought about wearing a mask, but then — wouldn’t that just look even stranger? Wouldn’t it only draw more attention?

He came in with his head lowered, giving a muffled greeting.

But even so, Lu Siyan spotted it immediately — being small, he actually had a certain advantage in looking upward at things. Even with Lu Yicheng’s head down, Lu Siyan could see his face. He cried out in alarm, “Dad, what happened to your face?!”

Lu Yicheng had no choice but to improvise an excuse. “Someone accidentally bumped into me.”

And with that, he hurried off to the bathroom.

Afraid her grandfather would notice, afraid the elderly man would start asking questions.

Lu Siyan was worried and wanted to follow, but her grandfather called him back. “Siyan, come here.”

Lu Siyan said, “What happened to my dad?”

Her grandfather, looking entirely unruffled, said, “Isn’t it obvious? He got into a fight. Young men, hot-blooded, perfectly normal.”

“Great-grandpa, how did you know?!” Lu Siyan was astounded — how could he tell just by looking that it was a fight?

How could his dad have gotten into a fight with someone?!

And dad was always telling him not to get physical with others!

Her grandfather tapped his reading-glasses-framed eyes. “Didn’t you say so yourself? Great-grandpa has sharp eyes that can see through any disguise. So I can tell at a glance — he’s been in a fight. And more than that, he was fighting because of Qiaoqiao.”

This got Lu Siyan very worked up.

He crowded closer to his great-grandpa and started asking rapid-fire questions. “How? How can you tell all that from just looking?!”

Her grandfather calmly replied, “Back in the day, so many reckless young men were always getting into fights over your mother. I heard about it until I was sick of it.”

Lu Siyan: “Wow~”

He asked again, “Do we tell mum?”

Her grandfather replied with an air of deep deliberation, “Depends.”

“On what?” Lu Siyan said.

Her grandfather asked, “Well, what do you think?”

Lu Siyan grinned slyly. “If dad buys me a Lego set today, we don’t say anything. If dad doesn’t buy me a Lego set today, we say something.”

Her grandfather ruffled Lu Siyan’s curly hair. “You little rascal, you really are his son. But this plan is too childish.”

Lu Siyan: “?”

Her grandfather dropped his voice, and with an air of great mystery, said, “Watch to see whether your dad comes out of the bathroom with his left foot first or his right foot first. If he comes out right foot first, we tell.”

Lu Siyan: “??”

And that plan… wasn’t childish?