Although it was an idea so childish that even five-year-old Lu Siyan would scoff at it, both Grandfather and Lu Siyan couldn’t help but hold their breath when they heard the bathroom door handle turn, staring fixedly at the bathroom doorway without daring to blink. Lu Yicheng had simply wanted to wash his hands and check whether the injury on his face looked frightening… He had been hiding in the bathroom for a while before realizing this was something he couldn’t avoid, and was only now coming out.

Lu Siyan was still muttering under his breath: “Right foot, right foot, please let it be the right foot first!”

Grandfather glanced sideways at him. “Stop chanting.”

Who knows — maybe father and son really did share some kind of telepathic connection.

Lu Yicheng opened the bathroom door and had barely taken one step out when he heard Lu Siyan cheering loudly. The child was beside himself with joy, jumping up and down on the sofa. “I won, I won — it was the right foot, it was the right foot!!”

Actually, for Lu Siyan, whether or not to tell Mom about it didn’t really seem all that important.

What mattered was that he’d guessed correctly! It really was the right foot that came out first!

Grandfather’s eyes were clearly dancing with amusement, but his voice was full of theatrical regret: “Oh dear, what’s going on here!”

Lu Yicheng: “?”

He looked at them in bewilderment. “What’s wrong?”

Lu Siyan immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, not wanting to admit this was a bet between him and Great-Grandfather.

Dad had said before that children shouldn’t be making bets all the time.

Grandfather shrugged. “We were bored. We just made a little bet — whether you’d come out left foot first or right foot first.”

Lu Yicheng: “…”

When Lu Yicheng and Jiang Yan had fought, neither had gone easy on the other. After a full night, the injuries on Lu Yicheng’s face actually looked worse than yesterday. He hesitated, unsure whether he should go to the hospital to deliver meals or not — but Grandfather calmly made his way into the kitchen and said, “I’ll go deliver the food today. It’ll give me a chance to ask Qiao Qiao how her grandmother is doing.”

That resolved Lu Yicheng’s most pressing problem.

Yesterday’s delivery had been a corn, spare rib, and carrot soup.

Today it was a sweet soup — one Grandfather had stewed himself, which he said was Grandmother’s favorite: snow fungus and snow pear soup.

Lu Yicheng prepared a few simple, light dishes, packed everything up, and walked Grandfather all the way to the ride-hailing car, watching it drive away before heading back to the residential complex. He had called the car himself. As he walked back home, Lu Yicheng kept pulling out his phone every so often to check where the car was — a complete violation of his previous ironclad rule of “absolutely no phone use while walking.”

After Grandfather arrived at the hospital, he strode into the inpatient ward with brisk energy.

Jiang Ruoqiao was a little surprised to see Grandfather delivering the food today, and casually asked, “Where’s Lu Yicheng?”

Grandfather smiled warmly, pulling the food containers out of the thermal bag as he spoke. “He and I are not related by blood — it wouldn’t do to impose on a young man and have him serve as chef and errand boy every single day.”

Jiang Ruoqiao had the distinct feeling there was more to those words than their surface meaning. She fell silent.

Grandfather continued: “The young man is so young — barely twenty years old. It’s a rare long holiday, and instead of making dinner plans with a girl or going to see a movie, he’s been serving as our personal chef. Every day at the crack of dawn he goes to the market to buy groceries, cooks for young and old alike, and then comes to the hospital to deliver meals.” Grandfather drew out his words. “Even a real son or real grandson couldn’t do this much.”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “…”

Well. Grandfather’s roundabout needling had successfully jolted her awake.

He was right.

From queuing to register at the clinic all the way until now, Lu Yicheng had contributed no small amount of effort…

At first she had genuinely felt embarrassed, always thinking it was a bother to trouble him. And yet, in just these few short days, she had already grown accustomed to it — to the point where, on not seeing him, she’d even asked why he wasn’t the one bringing the food today.

Did he owe her anything?

Of course he didn’t.

Jiang Ruoqiao sat in silence.

But Grandfather believed she understood perfectly well. After all, this was his granddaughter who had grown up at his side — if he didn’t know her, who did? If she had no feelings in that direction, Qiao Qiao would absolutely never allow a man to come this close to her daily life — even if that man happened to be Siyan’s father.

Saying enough to plant the seed was sufficient. Grandfather shifted topics smoothly: “It’s not that I’m saying it’s inappropriate — our thick-skinned reputation is well-established among the neighbors — it’s just that the young man isn’t doing so well.”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked over in surprise. “What’s wrong with him?”

Grandfather said with a troubled air, “How to put this… he’s been injured and can’t really go out.”

Jiang Ruoqiao’s face went pale. “What happened?!”

Grandfather shook his head. “Who knows — I asked him and he wouldn’t say. All I know is things don’t look good. This morning he was still lying on the sofa. I could see he wasn’t in any shape to go out, so I came myself.”

Yesterday at the hospital, Lu Yicheng had run into Jiang Yan.

Could it have something to do with Jiang Yan?

Jiang Ruoqiao was deep in thought, ladling out the sweet soup, and because she was so lost in her own mind, she scooped out too much — it nearly overflowed.

Grandfather and Grandmother exchanged a sidelong glance, both of them quietly suppressing smiles.

After the meal, Grandfather pulled Jiang Ruoqiao aside. “No need for you to stay here today — go spend some time with Siyan. I’ll take the night shift.”

Jiang Ruoqiao started to object, but Grandmother joined in immediately: “Exactly. Let your grandfather take one night — after all these years, it’s finally time for me to boss him around a little!”

Grandfather shot her a look. “When have you ever not bossed me around?”

He turned back to Jiang Ruoqiao. “That’s settled. Just one night — there are so many people here, doctors and nurses alike. Your grandmother looks ready to take on tigers right now, you don’t need to worry. You’ve been given seven days off, you should take Siyan out for a walk. The child misses you.”

Jiang Ruoqiao couldn’t argue with both of them, and had no choice but to leave the hospital.

At this hour, the hospital entrance was packed with cars, the queue stretching all the way back to the nearby bus stop.

Calling a ride-hailing car was out of the question. She had no choice but to walk in the blazing sun for about ten minutes to reach the subway station.

Inside the subway car, she held the overhead strap with a serious expression on her face.

What had happened to Lu Yicheng?

Had he gotten into a fight with Jiang Yan? Had Jiang Yan really gone that far — was that why Grandfather said he couldn’t go out, why he’d been lying on the sofa that morning? Had he injured his leg?

This man.

If the injury was that serious, why hadn’t he gone to the hospital? Why hadn’t he said a word?

She hurried all the way back to the rental apartment and knocked on the door.

Lu Yicheng had assumed it was Grandfather returning and didn’t even check the peephole — probably a habit formed from his old home, which hadn’t had one. He opened the door directly, and when he saw that the person standing there was Jiang Ruoqiao, he froze. As it registered, his first instinct was to turn his head away and try to hide the injury at the corner of his mouth.

But Jiang Ruoqiao had already seen everything.

She furrowed her brows, the word “what a mess” rising to her lips.

Though of course, that particular sentiment was directed at Jiang Yan.

Given that Lu Yicheng now more or less counted as one of her own, while Jiang Yan was the most thoroughly an outsider of outsiders, Jiang Ruoqiao had always been the type to take sides over taking the moral high ground. At this moment, without even having sorted out the full sequence of events, she had already unilaterally convicted Jiang Yan. Because Lu Yicheng was simply too gentle a person — if Jiang Yan hadn’t made the first move, if Jiang Yan hadn’t pushed things too far, Lu Yicheng would never in a million years have gotten into a fight with Jiang Yan.

Lu Siyan heard the commotion and came running out from his room. Spotting Jiang Ruoqiao at the door, he let out a cry of delight and charged toward her like a little penguin.

Jiang Ruoqiao had no choice but to brace herself for this particular weight of life.

Mother and son hadn’t seen each other for several days.

The elderly tended to be superstitious about such things, which was why on the day of the hospital admission they hadn’t let anyone bring Lu Siyan along, feeling it was bad for a small child to go to such a place.

Jiang Ruoqiao had missed Lu Siyan too, and the two held each other close.

Lu Yicheng stepped aside to make way. Jiang Ruoqiao glanced around as she entered the apartment and, naturally, changed into that pair of water-pink slippers.

Lu Yicheng suddenly felt nervous.

She was so perceptive — she must have guessed that he’d gotten into a fight with Jiang Yan. Did that make her feel troubled? After all, Jiang Yan was her ex-boyfriend, and she had resolved to cut ties with him completely — and now he had gone and fought with Jiang Yan.

Was she… angry at him?

For once, Lu Yicheng was gripped by an unusual anxiety. He wanted to explain himself but didn’t know how to begin.

The things Jiang Yan had said — after hearing them himself, even he wanted to forget them. There was no way he could repeat them to someone else, and no way he’d want her to hear them either.

Lu Siyan clung to Jiang Ruoqiao. “Mom, why are you back?”

Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t look at Lu Yicheng, just gently pinched Lu Siyan’s cheek. “Didn’t I say before that I’d take you to see a movie?”

That had been something mentioned half a month ago.

An animated film had been scheduled for the National Holiday period. She’d taken Siyan to the shopping mall at the time, and he’d spotted the promotional poster. He’d said he really wanted to see it, so she had promised to take him to the cinema during the holiday — but then Grandmother’s illness had caught her completely off guard.

If it hadn’t been for Grandfather and Grandmother telling her to take Siyan out, she truly would have… completely forgotten the promise she’d made to the child.

Lu Siyan was clearly overjoyed, yet still asked, “But… what about Great-Grandmother?”

Jiang Ruoqiao smiled. “Great-Grandfather is looking after Great-Grandmother today, so we can go see the movie.”

She paused, then offered a sincere apology: “I’m sorry — Mom almost forgot, almost broke her promise.”

It was a feeling she understood all too well.

When she was small, she had despised how her mother was always breaking promises — she would agree to things and then, without fail, go back on her word, always letting her down.

Growing up, she had stopped expecting anything of anyone’s promises, because they always fell through.

And now she was a mother herself… and she didn’t seem to be a particularly good one. She didn’t seem to be doing much better than her own mother had.

Lu Siyan bumped the top of his head gently against her palm, trying to make her smile. “No you didn’t!”

He said, “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve set up a special broken-promise allowance just for Mom!”

Jiang Ruoqiao was startled. “What? How many times?”

Lu Siyan held up one finger. “Ten thousand times. As far as I’m concerned, Mom can break her promise ten thousand times. As long as Mom remembers eventually, as long as it doesn’t go over ten thousand, I won’t get mad!”

Jiang Ruoqiao couldn’t help but be moved.

She asked, in a daze: “So how many times have I broken my promise so far?”

Lu Siyan was clearly in deep distress, racking his brain thinking and thinking without arriving at any answer, and finally shook his head: “I can’t remember anymore. Let’s just reset it to zero!”

Jiang Ruoqiao turned her face away, her throat dry. She’d been feeling fragile lately — always too easily swayed by her emotions. Sometimes her nose would ache, sometimes she’d feel sad, sometimes deeply moved.

Her emotions and feelings were overflowing in a way they never had in the previous twenty years.

“Oh, is that so.” It was all she could manage to say.

She didn’t want to say another word, for fear she might not be able to hold back a tremor in her voice — that would be embarrassing.

Lu Siyan gave a small nod, blinked, and flashed a shy smile that revealed faint dimples. “This is something I learned from Dad.”

Suddenly name-dropped, Lu Yicheng: “I didn’t!”

He… wasn’t this eloquent.

He sometimes marveled at it himself — this child had such a sweet way with words, delivering these lines with such ease, who on earth had he learned it all from?

And now the child was saying he’d learned it from him?

Impossible!

Lu Siyan widened his eyes. “I really did learn it from Dad!”

And with that, he launched into an uncannily accurate re-enactment of a conversation.

“Honey, I’m not upset. Work is more important — go take care of what you need to. I’ll look after Siyan. The trip, we can always go another time. We have plenty of time ahead.”

“Really, I’m not upset. Breaking a promise? No no, that’s not what this is — but if you must put it that way, as far as I’m concerned, you can break your promise ten thousand times.”

“How many times so far? I don’t remember. Let’s reset it to zero.”

Lu Siyan’s memory was truly remarkable.

But when he finished reciting those words — words that Lu Yicheng had apparently spoken in that future — both Lu Yicheng and Jiang Ruoqiao instinctively looked at each other.

Upon hearing that word “honey,” Lu Yicheng felt a curious heat rise to the tips of his ears.

His palms had grown inexplicably damp.

Jiang Ruoqiao, for her part, thought of that dream.

From the fragments Siyan occasionally described, it was clear that in that future, “she” and “he” had been very happy — at least through a child’s eyes, his parents had been deeply in love.

In the past, whenever Siyan talked about these things, she hadn’t wanted to hear it, had even felt a vague unease.

But now, hearing those fragments, she felt a quiet comfort rising from somewhere deep inside her — comfort for that other version of herself who had cried in the rain, lost and at a loss, who had eventually found her way to something good.

She even found herself thinking of a line that felt almost too clichéd to say out loud: after the wind and rain, the sky will clear.

—

Jiang Ruoqiao was taking Lu Siyan out to see a movie and get dinner — but that was an afternoon affair.

Lu Siyan had a habit of taking an afternoon nap, and only after he’d fallen asleep did Jiang Ruoqiao finally have a moment to deal with Lu Yicheng.

When she looked over at him, Lu Yicheng felt as though he were facing some stern disciplinary authority. He sat up very straight, eyes looking dead ahead, waiting for her “verdict.”

Jiang Ruoqiao said: “Have you put medicine on it?”

Lu Yicheng was briefly taken aback, then nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes I did. It’s really… nothing serious.”

“You call this nothing serious?” Jiang Ruoqiao’s words came with a hint of exasperation. “How long has this been going on — and he’s still pulling this? What kind of person is he!”

From her perspective, the breakup between her and Jiang Yan had its surface reasons, its private reasons, and also her own personal motives — but none of those reasons had anything to do with Lu Yicheng.

Lu Yicheng watched her, brows furrowed, voice carrying a thread of frustration as she complained about Jiang Yan. He stood quietly for a moment, and a feeling he couldn’t quite name spread through him.

If his language teacher had demanded he write an essay describing the sensation, after straining every metaphor and figure of speech he’d ever been taught, he probably would have written something like this: it was as though his whole self was wrapped inside a particular warmth — like freshly baked egg sponge cakes just out of the oven, or like standing in front of a malt candy street stall.

Lu Yicheng discovered that he, too, had a hypocritical side — because in this very moment, though something quietly joyful was tucked away inside him, what came out of his mouth was: “He’s angry and taking it out on me. That’s understandable.”

The moment those words left his lips, something deeply ingrained in him from years of upbringing made him feel ashamed.

Because a phrase had come to mind: pious-looking but morally hollow.

Jiang Ruoqiao let out a sigh.

What a tangled mess.

If you could actually sort out who was right and who was wrong, calculate whose fault it was down to the percentage point, that would be one thing — but the truth is, feelings don’t operate on a calculator.

From an outsider’s perspective, most people would probably find it understandable — even expected — that Jiang Yan would fight Lu Yicheng. Anyone faced with a situation like that would find it hard to accept.

In the end, she had nothing left to say.

—

After Lu Siyan woke up from his nap, it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon.

Children on holiday will always throw off their sleep schedules — his nap began somewhere around one or two in the afternoon, and he slept all the way until three or four before getting up.

Lu Yicheng ended up going out with them to eat and see the movie. This was Lu Siyan’s demand, and Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t refuse — she was simply too tired to manage Lu Siyan alone. Lu Siyan was already more well-behaved than most children his age, but he was still a child, and a high-energy one at that. Sometimes just taking him out for a meal left Jiang Ruoqiao feeling like she’d pulled an all-night shift at work… even though she hadn’t actually done anything — just gone out to wander and eat — yet she was exhausted, so deeply exhausted…

Raising a child was truly physical labor.

Lu Siyan was ecstatic.

The animated film didn’t have many showtimes, and the nearby cinema had no evening screenings, so Jiang Ruoqiao had no choice but to buy tickets for the 4:30 showing.

Once inside the screening room, Lu Siyan refused to sit in the middle. His reasoning was entirely airtight: “I don’t want to be the filling in a sandwich cookie!”

Jiang Ruoqiao: “…”

Fine. It didn’t really matter where they sat.

And so Lu Yicheng and Jiang Ruoqiao ended up sitting together, with Lu Siyan sitting beside Jiang Ruoqiao.

The one in the middle — the filling — turned out to be Jiang Ruoqiao.

Jiang Ruoqiao had overestimated herself. For the past two nights she had barely slept.

In the six-person ward, counting patients and family caregivers, there were twelve people in total — and among them, some snored, some ground their teeth.

By the time she finally managed to fall asleep, she’d barely gotten any rest before being woken again by someone getting up early to use the bathroom.

Now that she’d sat down, and with an animated film she had absolutely no interest in playing on screen, she managed to stay attentive for about ten minutes before her defenses completely gave out. She was too exhausted. Her head drooped to one side, and she fell asleep.

Jiang Ruoqiao sank deeper and deeper into sleep.

Today was, by some miracle, a truly blessed day — because there were no particularly noisy children in the screening room, and no children crying and demanding to leave.

The animated film kept breaking into musical segments at regular intervals, which proved to be the most effective lullaby.

Lu Yicheng hadn’t noticed anything at first — not until a weight settled onto his shoulder. He turned his head and discovered that Jiang Ruoqiao had, at some point, fallen soundly asleep and was leaning against him, completely unaware.

Beyond the glow of the large screen, everything else was in darkness.

This somehow made his senses of smell and hearing more acute.

A clean, faintly sweet fragrance drifted around him, and he could even make out the shallow, even rhythm of her breathing.

He found himself holding his breath without meaning to, afraid to move a single inch, terrified of waking her. He could imagine how tired she’d been these past two days — otherwise she wouldn’t have fallen asleep this quickly, or this deeply. He had worked as a caregiver at a hospital before, and he knew what sleeping conditions in a ward were like.

Sleep, then.

Sleep well.

Everything will pass.

He appeared to be watching the screen intently. In reality, nothing was registering at all.

He found himself lowering his gaze without thinking. At this proximity, even the light filtering from the screen was enough for him to see her curling lashes and her clear, fair complexion.

Her nose was delicate and slightly upturned. A strand of dark hair fell against the side of her cheek. So still, and yet so vividly present.

He could even imagine, clearly, what expression she would wear when she opened her eyes.

He didn’t dare look any longer.

In this moment, even one extra second of looking felt like an intrusion.

He sat perfectly still, staring straight ahead at the screen.

No one else in the screening room would ever know — that for him, these might just be the seventy most unforgettable minutes of his entire life.

—