Both Jiang Ruoqiao and Lu Yicheng successfully secured spots in the graduate school recommendation program.
Their goals aligned, their temperaments matched, and their looks and bearing were perfectly suited to each other. Yet this pair — the dream couple of every underclassman’s imagination — did of course have their share of disagreements. Two independent personalities colliding inevitably created sparks, but in a romantic relationship, that also meant a period of friction and adjustment, and that phase… was not quite the picture-perfect scene depicted in romance films.
Lu Yicheng was still doing part-time work at He Li’s company.
He Li had even offered him equity shares to keep Lu Yicheng working for him long-term, but Lu Yicheng had declined. He planned to go to a major tech company after finishing his master’s degree.
He Li whined pitifully: “You just look down on my little company!”
Lu Yicheng tried to explain patiently: “That’s not it. I want to keep pushing myself. Staying in one place forever — I feel like a person stagnates that way. I want to try more things.”
He Li’s company was actually not small at all — it had the backing of his family’s business empire — but someone like Lu Yicheng always had a very clear direction. He had discussed it with both his mentor and Jiang Ruoqiao, and both supported his desire to go see a bigger world.
In the end, Lu Yicheng walked the same path that the other version of him had walked.
Ordinary, unremarkable. Just like that.
He Li was a boss with ideals and a romantic streak, but he was also a businessman. Having already made up his mind, he decided that during the three years Lu Yicheng spent in graduate school, he was going to “exploit” him to the fullest! And so Lu Yicheng occasionally got taken along on business trips by He Li… and on one such trip, without giving Jiang Ruoqiao advance notice, Lu Yicheng bought her something at the duty-free shop. A… bag.
Jiang Ruoqiao looked at the bag Lu Yicheng had brought back and fell into deep contemplation.
Should this boyfriend be thrown out?
Lu Yicheng was still enthusiastically explaining his reasoning: “Yu-ge bought his wife a bag, so I got one too. I heard this style is very practical — it has a lot of capacity, you can use it for class, it can hold books. And I think this color is quite nice. Won’t show dirt easily.”
Jiang Ruoqiao: “?”
Had she lost the ability to fight back, or had he grown too bold?
“Lu Yicheng.” Jiang Ruoqiao sat on the sofa and called his name.
Lu Yicheng, who had been happily chatting away a second ago, turned around — and immediately sensed something was wrong. He quickly wiped the cheerfulness off his face.
“How much did this bag cost?” Jiang Ruoqiao asked.
Lu Yicheng answered honestly: “A little over ten thousand.”
Jiang Ruoqiao: “How much over. Ten thousand one hundred is ‘a little over ten thousand.’ Ten thousand nine hundred is also ‘a little over ten thousand.'”
Lu Yicheng said quietly: “Sixteen thousand.”
Jiang Ruoqiao took a deep breath. “Lu Yicheng!”
Lu Yicheng quickly sat down beside her. “Don’t be angry. This is a one-time thing. It’s not that expensive. The bonus when the project wraps up will be even more. I saw that you liked—”
Jiang Ruoqiao: “But we still have so much ahead of us. There are so many things we need to spend money on.”
The words left her mouth — and she stopped, startled. Lu Yicheng went still too.
Lu Siyan had been in their lives for eight months.
Eight months had shaped so many of their habits, and even now, Jiang Ruoqiao set aside five thousand yuan each month specifically. Lu Yicheng did the same.
They kept feeling as though… Siyan was still with them, and they still needed to support that little money-draining creature.
But Siyan had already gone back to his own world.
Jiang Ruoqiao bowed her head and went quiet.
They felt a pang of sadness sometimes, even after all this time — because what parent ever truly forgets their child?
Lu Yicheng put his arms around her. She leaned naturally into his chest, breathing in the scent that was uniquely and wholly his.
“I’m sorry,” Jiang Ruoqiao said, apologizing first, her voice carrying a trace of weariness. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Thank you for the gift — I actually really like it.”
Lu Yicheng laughed softly. “Even if Siyan were still here, I’d still buy things like this. Whether he’s here or not, I’m buying. He’s not here, I buy. He is here, I still buy.”
What Jiang Ruoqiao didn’t know was that in that other world, that version of Lu Yicheng was an absolutely devoted bag-buying fanatic.
In this world… Lu Yicheng was already showing early signs of that same tendency.
In the days without Siyan, Jiang Ruoqiao lived and studied with great determination. So did Lu Yicheng.
Jiang Ruoqiao’s income was growing increasingly stable. Lu Yicheng’s was too. Their respective roommates had jokingly nicknamed them both the “money-earning couple.”
Missing Siyan as she did, Jiang Ruoqiao would sometimes talk to Lu Yicheng about it, and sometimes process the emotion on her own. Without Lu Yicheng knowing, Jiang Ruoqiao — notorious Level-One Kitchen Destroyer — had actually taught herself to cook cola chicken wings and sweet-and-sour pork ribs for her son. It was genuinely moving. Jiang Ruoqiao even said smugly, “I do have a natural talent for cooking — look at this, it tastes perfectly fine, I didn’t cut myself, didn’t get splattered with hot oil. I’m simply a kitchen genius!”
Lu Yicheng: “…”
“Your son isn’t here, so you’re the lucky one,” Jiang Ruoqiao said. “You get to taste-test on his behalf!”
Lu Yicheng: “?”
“I heard a rumor,” Lu Yicheng said, his expression perfectly composed.
Jiang Ruoqiao was still holding her phone, photographing her culinary creation from every angle without looking up, answering distractedly: “What rumor?”
Lu Yicheng said: “That you told people I’m a case of the father riding on the son’s coattails.”
Jiang Ruoqiao: “Ah, well…”
Lu Yicheng: “Explain.”
It had honestly just been something she blurted out on a whim.
She was going to strangle Yun Jia and her big mouth!!
When their dorm had a farewell dinner, everyone had a little to drink, and Yun Jia had asked her why she ended up getting together with Lu Yicheng.
Lu Yicheng was indeed attentive to Jiang Ruoqiao — but it wasn’t like no one else had been attentive before him.
So why… was it Lu Yicheng specifically?
The three of them in the dorm had always given Jiang Ruoqiao their unconditional support in all her decisions, but privately they weren’t without their own bewilderment. They had known her for so long and understood her personality pretty well — surely Jiang Ruoqiao knew that being with Lu Yicheng would come with complications? Everyone knew about Lu Yicheng and Jiang Yan’s history. By all logic, whoever Jiang Ruoqiao chose, it wouldn’t be Lu Yicheng. So where exactly had things gone sideways?
It just didn’t add up!!
“Why?” Yun Jia had said. “I can’t figure it out. He’s handsome, sure. Good grades, sure. Good character, sure. But he has one massive flaw.”
That being: he was Jiang Ruoqiao’s ex-boyfriend’s close friend. Or had been.
A massive flaw?
Jiang Ruoqiao had laughed, her face flushed pink from the wine, eyes unusually bright and soft, as though recalling something tender: “But he has one very big advantage — one that completely offsets that flaw.”
“What?”
“The father rides on the son’s coattails.”
Yun Jia: “??”
Luo Wen: “HAHAHAHAHA what the heck, the father rides on the son’s coattails!!”
Gao Jingjing pushed up her glasses. “The son… you don’t mean those little goldfish, do you?”
Jiang Ruoqiao and Lu Yicheng had something a little different about them.
They didn’t have a cat or a dog — they kept a few small goldfish.
Jiang Ruoqiao: “Hahahahaha!”
…
Clearly, the memory was coming back to Jiang Ruoqiao now. “Was it Du Yu who told you?”
Yun Jia, you disloyal traitor!!
Lu Yicheng neither confirmed nor denied it, not wanting to sell out his roommate — though the answer was already obvious.
Jiang Ruoqiao reached out and launched herself into his arms, acting coy, hugging his lean waist and nuzzling against his shoulder blade. “Are you angry? I was just joking around.”
Lu Yicheng kept his face straight: “I think it’s the truth. You only got together with me because of Siyan.”
Jiang Ruoqiao was being utterly shameless — at this critical moment, she said something that landed like a grenade: “If that’s what you want to think, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than she couldn’t keep her own face straight and burst out laughing.
Lu Yicheng couldn’t hold back his own laugh either.
“I’ll take it,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “Out of all the reasons in the world, this is the one I’ll accept.”
Jiang Ruoqiao later left Lu Yicheng a note:
*It’s true that it was through “the son” that I noticed “the father.” But I am a 96-point mother.*
*A 96-point mother does not do things she doesn’t want to do just because of “the son.”*
*A 100-point Jiang Ruoqiao chose “the father” simply because she wanted to.*
…
Another year passed, and Lu Yicheng’s paper roses were approaching nine hundred and ninety-nine.
He was now faced with a dilemma.
When he first started folding these roses, the plan was to confess once he reached nine hundred and ninety-nine.
But when the confession actually happened, he hadn’t even reached ninety-nine, so of course he never presented them.
Yet after officially becoming Jiang Ruoqiao’s boyfriend, Lu Yicheng didn’t let the habit slip. He kept it up, folding one rose every day without fail. Before he knew it, he was closing in on nine hundred.
And Siyan had been gone from their lives for nearly eight hundred days.
Two years.
Jiang Ruoqiao had turned twenty-two. Lu Yicheng had too.
What would happen after folding nine hundred and ninety-nine?
Lu Yicheng didn’t dare think about a marriage proposal.
He knew she wouldn’t say yes.
It wasn’t uncommon at university to graduate with a diploma in one hand and a marriage certificate in the other. Lu Yicheng and Jiang Ruoqiao’s relationship was also very stable — so stable, in fact, that one day Yun Jia and the others changed the name of the dorm group chat to “Did Lu Yicheng propose to Xiaoqiao today?”
Jiang Ruoqiao: “…”
Excuse me, I’m only twenty-two! I have no interest in early marriage! She still had the stars and seas to conquer!
Of course, most importantly, she had made a promise to someone — that if she were ever going to marry, she would have to get his opinion first.
He wasn’t even here. How could she just casually accept a boyfriend’s proposal?
If he found out, he’d definitely be upset about it.
After all, he was just a little petty at times — she had once casually complimented a little boy for being cute and he had gotten slightly displeased about it.
Two years. Jiang Ruoqiao had grown into a better adult. Lu Yicheng had too.
More than once, Jiang Ruoqiao had thought — if Lu Siyan were to arrive now, she would have the means to give him a better life.
But that was all it was: a thought.
Longing day after day, two years — eight hundred days.
That summer, under the blazing heat, a small child was walking alone along a road, and finally found a newsstand — the kind that had almost completely disappeared from cities.
The child had a head of curly hair and delicate features — handsome and adorable.
The newsstand owner was dozing off.
The child called out, “Uncle, can I borrow your landline to make a phone call?”
The newsstand owner smiled. “Little one, do you have money?”
The child shook his head and patted his pockets — emptier than his face was clean. He had no idea — he’d woken up and found himself right in the middle of a busy road!
He was still wearing his pajamas, pajamas that had nothing in them. No smartwatch either. He started to cry.
The newsstand owner was a kind, good-natured middle-aged man. “Alright, go ahead. Do you remember your family’s number?”
“Yes!”
He absolutely could not afford to forget Papa and Mama’s numbers.
He recited them every single day.
Lu Siyan picked up the landline receiver and dialed his mama’s number first — no answer. Was Mama busy?
No choice. He dialed his papa’s number.
At that very moment, Lu Yicheng was in the middle of busy work at the office when his phone rang. He glanced at it — an unfamiliar landline number. He answered, eyes still fixed on his computer screen, without even a polite “hello” — when a clear, bright child’s voice rang out from the other end:
“Papa!!”
—