The secrets the man concealed from her seemed far more numerous and weighty than she had imagined.

Sheng Sui didn’t understand what exactly the “tricks” the man spoke of entailed.

If she had to name her harvest from this trip, it would probably be learning another layer of meaning for the word “Daddy.”

After her soul suffered repeated trauma and fled in all directions, her thoughts also scattered in disarray, yet Zhou Shiyu insisted on speaking in Sheng Sui’s ear voice after voice.

“Good baby, what did you call me just now,” the man’s hoarse low voice was bewitching, his back embracing her, thin lips kissing her smooth hair, “call me again.”

Sheng Sui was completely unaware of the power of language, only feeling that Zhou Shiyu at this moment was particularly fierce; it reminded her of the delicate-textured salmon from dinner, which had been placed on the pan, turned over and over and roasted with fire, the seeping moisture making sizzling sounds under the high temperature.

In the end her head was dizzy, cold sweat climbed up her back, even her fingertips in her peripheral vision were trembling lightly, and a sense of powerlessness swept over her from head to toe. [This is not an intimate description, it’s a hypoglycemic episode]

This feeling wasn’t unfamiliar. Sheng Sui raised her hand to push Zhou Shiyu’s shoulder, asking him to wait: “Zhou Shiyu, I think I’m having low blood sugar.”

“……”

For Type 1 diabetes patients whose bodies cannot supply enough insulin and can only maintain blood sugar balance through injections, hypoglycemic episodes are sometimes a more serious problem than blood sugar spikes.

Not every carbohydrate calculation is completely accurate. In the past, Sheng Sui occasionally made mistakes, or under other unknown reasons, sudden hypoglycemia would strike. At its most severe, within less than ten minutes her vision would turn white and she couldn’t even stand steady.

That’s why she developed the habit of carrying sugar with her at all times.

She hadn’t experienced hypoglycemia for some time. Tonight it might have been because she only ate half the fruit in the evening, went out to exercise and came back, plus the just-past hour or so, causing her blood sugar to plummet suddenly.

Troubling Zhou Shiyu to rummage through her bag for a palm-sized black pouch, Sheng Sui’s fingertips still trembling, skillfully took out the testing pen and pricked the side of her little finger where there were fewer nerves.

In a sharp pang of pain, she pinched her little finger to squeeze out a drop of blood, then touched the blood glucose meter with the prepared test strip to the blood droplet, waiting quietly for five seconds.

Only hearing a beep, numbers appeared on the inch-sized black and white screen, already below the warning line—it was indeed hypoglycemia.

The feeling of lightheadedness continued. Sheng Sui was accustomed to this, raising her head to look at Zhou Shiyu who had been silent by the bedside for a long time:

“Can you help me get the sugar from my bag?”

After eating the sugar, her strength slowly recovered bit by bit. Seeing the man sitting across from her still not saying a word, Sheng Sui took the initiative to lean over and hug him, her face gently nuzzling his shoulder.

She knew the man must be blaming himself, regretting being too rough just now: “It’ll be fine in a moment. Normal people can have hypoglycemia too.”

“……”

Zhou Shiyu pulled up the slipping blanket, covered Sheng Sui’s shoulders and back, and raised his hand to rub the top of her head: “Did this happen before too?”

“Occasionally,” Sheng Sui looked down at her suspended hand, fingertips still trembling, “I don’t know what causes it. I’ve had hypoglycemia before even after taking long-acting insulin. It’ll be fine in a while.”

Later Zhou Shiyu couldn’t bear to trouble her anymore, quietly holding her in his arms, until much later when he asked:

“Sui Sui, do you want to try a continuous glucose monitor?”

Continuous glucose monitors had been on the market abroad for more than a decade, but hadn’t been introduced to China for very long.

Simply put, it involves installing a thumb-sized Bluetooth detector on both sides of the abdomen that can monitor blood sugar values at any time, to prevent situations of blood sugar being too high or too low.

During her last physical exam, the doctor had recommended that Sheng Sui use one. First, the imported monitor cost several thousand yuan per month, and second, having the detector constantly attached to her belly gave her a strong sense of being different from others, so she had been putting it off until now.

Sheng Sui still felt resistant in her heart. Knowing Zhou Shiyu meant well for her, she replied vaguely: “Let me ask the doctor about it next time.”

As long as sugar is replenished in time, hypoglycemic symptoms disappear almost completely within twenty minutes.

Later, when Sheng Sui saw the man’s work phone at the bedside lighting up repeatedly, she softly urged him to attend to business first, while she also got up to change clothes.

When Zhou Shiyu went to the study to make a video call, Sheng Sui curled up in the bedroom lounge chair, finally having time to look at the email content Z had sent to her phone.

Reading it again, she still marveled at the length of the email and the sheer number of words. Z first expressed apologies for not replying promptly in the past, then offered blessings for Sheng Sui’s current happy circumstances, and only at the very end informed her of his own wedding news.

Z’s writing style remained consistently gentle and peaceful after ten years, just as he wrote at the end of the email:

“No need to worry. Life has far exceeded all the beautiful scenes I had expected in the past. May we both be able to accompany our beloved for life, happy and secure.”

Sheng Sui stared at the last sentence of the new email for a long time. For some reason, she remembered Z mentioning his going abroad for medical treatment before, and suddenly felt her eyes welling up with tears, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief after hardship.

As her heart swelled with emotions, her phone vibrated in her palm. Sheng Sui exited the email and clicked on the message Xiao Ming had sent.

[Xiao Ming: The person you used to chat with, was their name really just ‘Z’? No other nickname?]

“Yes, the capital letter Z,” Sheng Sui typed back, “Why are you suddenly asking about this?”

[Xiao Ming: Weren’t you curious whether that person was male or female? It so happens that tonight Old Wang and I were chatting with our student council president from back then about market conditions, so I casually asked him about it]

[Xiao Ming: He knows about the mutual aid group activities you mentioned, because they were organized in response to an official call and the school took it seriously, so they had him personally oversee it. He still has the complete roster spreadsheet from that year in his email, but he couldn’t find the “Z” you mentioned—are you sure he used that name from the beginning?]

Z wasn’t found?

Sheng Sui hadn’t expected the story to unfold this way. She directly called, hoping for another confirmation: “Can you see the group assignments in the roster? Maybe Z changed names.”

“Wait a moment, Old Wang says he’ll help you look.”

Soon, the sound of typing came through the receiver. Xiao Ming then explained: “Oh, there’s something I need to tell you. Old Wang says to protect student privacy, the roster only recorded students’ ages, colleges, genders, and contact information, but not their real names.”

“Okay.”

After Sheng Sui told her the ID she had registered with that year, the other side quickly searched and found the remaining four members besides her, and their names all matched her memories.

In other words, at least from the roster’s perspective, there had never been a Z in the group she participated in that year.

“……Wait a moment.”

Sheng Sui suddenly felt something was wrong. She interrupted and asked a different question: “Can you help me ask what the average number of people in other groups was?”

“Let me ask. It seems all groups had five people, but the last two groups apparently only had four each because there weren’t enough people to divide—”

Xiao Ming finally realized, cursing under her breath: “If there weren’t even enough people to divide, there’s no way your group should have had six—so where did this Z come from?!”

This was exactly what Sheng Sui most wanted to ask at this moment.

Perhaps it was a coincidental name match, or perhaps it was Xiao Ming’s casual remark about “love letters from your husband,” but Sheng Sui almost instinctively raised her head and looked outside.

The bedroom door was completely open, and from her angle she could just see the study opposite, its door tightly closed.

From the first day Sheng Sui moved in, Zhou Shiyu had clearly stated that the study was used for work and was inconvenient to enter.

But aside from that time she delivered the belt, Sheng Sui had never seen the man step into that study. Most of his home office work was done in another study, or in the dining room and on the sofa. Even when he had video conferences, he never asked her to avoid them.

She still remembered that after Zhou Shiyu spent an entire night in that room, the next day his complexion could only be described as pale, fine sweat seeping from his neck, looking like someone who had just been pulled from water.

The same strange scene occurred not long after, on the day Sheng Sui arrived in Jingbei; when she pushed open the hotel door, it was pitch black where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and the man on the bed was obviously mentally exhausted.

The two originally unrelated Zs were like two parallel lines that never intersected. But when Sheng Sui placed both in the infinitely distant, vast river of time, she suddenly discovered that they could surprisingly overlap in many places.

During their first meeting, Sheng Sui had marveled that Zhou Shiyu’s words were exactly the same as Z’s from years ago, not a single character different.

Both had gone abroad. Zhou Shiyu had dropped out for unknown reasons and been forcibly sent away by his family, while Z had been forced to go abroad for medical treatment before losing contact.

Moreover, though she didn’t know the specific timing, both were newly married, with loving couples and happy lives.

Most importantly, the reason Sheng Sui could muster the courage to email Z, who had been silent for years, was only because of Zhou Shiyu’s words: “Tell him you never forgot him.”

The words she had heard and then forgotten at the time only now revealed their speaker’s deeper meaning.

Footsteps sounded outside the bedroom. Sheng Sui came back to herself and looked up to see Zhou Shiyu striding toward her with his long legs, carrying a cup of sleep-inducing warm milk.

For the first time since their marriage, looking at her gentle-mannered husband before her, she suddenly realized that the secrets the man concealed from her seemed far more numerous and weighty than she had imagined.

The next day after work, Sheng Sui directly took a taxi to Liang Xubai’s flower shop.

The reason for associating him with the man was quite absurd—simply because Liang Xubai’s appearance in Jingbei was too coincidental in timing.

Sheng Sui still remembered his ridiculous excuse of “avoiding patients” for traveling, and always had a lingering feeling that the man’s appearance might have other reasons.

In the sunset’s afterglow generously streaming through the windows, the fragrant flower shop was bustling with customers, mainly women. Many young girls were secretly taking photos while waiting in line.

The man wrapping bouquets at the cashier counter was indeed eye-catching, with shoulder-length hair casually tied in a small ponytail.

The most simple and plain white shirt couldn’t hide his good physique. The collar was carelessly left unbuttoned by two buttons, revealing half of his straight collarbone. Black clothes and black pants displayed the florist’s identity to perfection.

Having told Zhou Shiyu in advance that she would come, Sheng Sui wasn’t in a hurry. She waited quietly by the window for Liang Xubai to finish his busy work, idly watching the pedestrians coming and going outside.

“……Sheng Sui is quite the rare visitor. Is there something you need from me?”

A familiar, casual male voice sounded behind her. Sheng Sui turned around to see that the previously bustling flower shop now held only two people. Liang Xubai was closing the glass door and hanging up the “Closed” wooden sign, turning back to smile at her.

“The snapdragons Mr. Liang sent haven’t been growing well lately. Several leaves have yellowed and seem to be growing crooked.”

Sheng Sui handed over photos she had casually taken before leaving home. Facing the psychologist, she felt somewhat nervous:

“I couldn’t get any advice from Zhou Shiyu, so I came to consult Mr. Liang.”

There was always a casual indifference in Liang Xubai’s upturned peach blossom eyes. He sat down at the round table by the window on his own, gesturing for Sheng Sui to “please” sit.

Methodically pouring rose tea for both of them, the man pushed the tea cup toward Sheng Sui, his voice lazy with drawn-out tones:

“So, what exactly does Miss Sheng want to ask me about Zhou Shiyu?”

Sheng Sui hadn’t expected him to lay his cards on the table immediately, and couldn’t help but choke: “……Mr. Liang is more straightforward than I imagined.”

“My psychological consultations are generally charged by the minute.”

Liang Xubai leaned back lazily against the wooden chair, his gaze looking toward the high-rise buildings across the street, not knowing which unit he was looking at. He suddenly curved his lips in a smile: “Not everyone is as wealthy as Zhou Shiyu. Being considerate as I am, I prefer to speak directly to the point when talking.”

“Oh right, Miss Sheng can rest assured that our conversation won’t be known by a third person.”

Grabbing the back of his neck, Liang Xubai snapped his fingers and crossed his legs carelessly: “Psychologists all have tight lips. After all, saying things we shouldn’t would violate confidentiality agreements and cost a lot of money.”

Sheng Sui didn’t understand how confidentiality agreements were involved, but figured that being tight-lipped was always a good thing.

She had thought Liang Xubai would at least be curious about her intentions. The man’s overly frank cooperation instead left her prepared small talk with nowhere to go.

“Last time in Jingbei, you said at the hotel room door that you were worried Zhou Shiyu might die suddenly inside.”

“This doesn’t seem like the usual attitude toward workaholics,” Sheng Sui had an instinctive wariness toward psychologists. She thanked him for the tea and brought it to her lips for a light sip,

“May I ask why Mr. Liang would have such concerns?”

“There’s only one way to live, but a thousand different ways to die,” Liang Xubai shrugged, saying indifferently,

“I’m a psychiatrist. I’ve seen all kinds of bizarre suicide methods, so naturally I’m cautious.”

Sheng Sui keenly noticed that the man used the word “suicide,” and couldn’t help frowning: “When you showed me photos last time, you asked me to think again about Zhou Shiyu’s reasons for sudden marriage, as if you were hinting at something.”

She looked down at the ring finger of her right hand and continued asking: “So did you know very early on about Zhou Shiyu paying attention to me?”

“First, Zhou Shiyu and I only met after he graduated from university, so there’s no ‘very early’ as Miss Sheng mentioned.”

“Second, Zhou Shiyu never personally told me verbally about his feelings for you.”

“Third, as Miss Sheng has probably noticed, I’m playing word games with you.”

“But I haven’t lied.”

Liang Xubai sat up slightly, his smiling peach blossom eyes fixed on Sheng Sui, their depths pitch black:

“So I suggest Miss Sheng, after you go home, use your brain more and think carefully and thoroughly about what I’ve said.”