In the year Jiang Ruoqiao and Lu Yicheng turned twenty-six, the Shuxiang Garden development officially went on sale.

In truth, with the combined abilities of the two of them, they could have bought a nicer development than Shuxiang Garden — but after discussing it, they chose Shuxiang Garden in the end. What was remarkable was that they hadn’t been particularly deliberate about which specific unit to pick, and when the lottery result came out, it turned out to be precisely the one Lu Siyan had once said: Building 12, Unit 1302.

The apartment wasn’t small — the interior floor space was about one hundred square meters.

The developer had also included a large balcony as a bonus.

It was easy to imagine that for a very long time to come, they would have no reason to move — the surrounding area was already in development, with a subway station being built nearby, along with a park and a school as part of the complex. The handover date was set for early the following year, so for now they were still in the old rental, but after buying the apartment, both Jiang Ruoqiao and Lu Yicheng quietly exhaled with relief. They were so ordinary, so unremarkable — having a home that was truly theirs, truly theirs alone, was a genuinely joyful thing.

Jiang Ruoqiao kept her promise. That year, she gave Lu Yicheng the self-reflection letter she had written in the dormitory all those years ago, and offered a sincere apology.

Lu Yicheng waved a magnanimous hand, and after the line that read “Five years from now, Lu Yicheng, will you still be by my side?” he wrote:

【Still here. I hope that ten years from now, fifty years from now, I will still be by your side.】