The young Fang Yongnian heard the sound of the door opening, and behind the lenses of his glasses, his narrow eyes flickered with a trace of confusion.

It was seven in the morning. Nearing the end of the semester, everyone else in the project group was living a nocturnal life—at this hour, the lab was usually empty.

He got up early today because it was Thursday—on Thursdays, the cafeteria served tofu buns.

He sluggishly rubbed his messy hair that hadn’t been cut in nearly four months, pushed the paper box with tofu buns behind the computer monitor, and then slowly turned around.

At the door stood his senior and supervisor, the project leader, Lu Boyuan.

Lu Boyuan let out a breath of relief when he saw him, placed a pink backpack printed with a cartoon girl on his own desk, and then pulled out from behind him a little girl wearing a red cotton-padded jacket.

A little girl whose eyes were red and nose runny, obviously she had just been crying.

“Good thing you’re here.” Lu Boyuan was busy—busy wiping the girl’s tears, busy cleaning her nose, busy taking out the pile of things stuffed inside the backpack one by one.

Fang Yongnian rubbed his hair again and stood up slowly.

“My mother-in-law had an episode early this morning. She doesn’t recognize anyone and insists on going back to her hometown.” Lu Boyuan was drenched in sweat. “I don’t even know where she got a few hundred yuan, she shook off the nurse at dawn and took a taxi to the long-distance bus station. By the time the nurse checked the surveillance and chased after her, the bus had already left.”

Lu Boyuan’s mother-in-law had mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease, everyone in the project group knew that.

This time Fang Yongnian didn’t rub his hair. He frowned and glanced at the red-eyed little girl who was still sniffing.

The girl was shy of strangers and shrank behind Lu Boyuan, showing only half her head.

“I borrowed a car from the institute to go back home. I’ll probably have to stay there overnight.” Lu Boyuan pulled the girl out again. “Yixin’s mother is away on a business trip, and this girl’s on winter break with no one at home to watch her. If you’re staying in the lab all day today, help me look after her. Tonight, just arrange for her to sleep in the lab’s rest room.”

Fang Yongnian hadn’t expected such a heavy responsibility to be handed to him, and his frown deepened.

“She’s an easy kid, you just need to take care of her three meals.” Lu Boyuan spoke quickly, already half out the door. “Keep the meal receipts and I’ll reimburse you later.”

He had worried no one would be in the lab at this hour and had been fretting over whom to rope in for help.

Although Fang Yongnian was the youngest in the group, he spoke little, cared only about research and food, but was clever. Much better than those simple-minded bookworms.

And Fang Yongnian never missed a meal.

In a room full of people who couldn’t even take care of themselves, that trait made him truly precious.

Practically the perfect babysitter.

So although Lu Boyuan left in a rush, he was at ease. In a flurry, he laid out his daughter Lu Yixin’s pillow, mattress, and blanket for the night, double-checked her toiletries, and then left without looking back.

He even forgot to make introductions.

The young man and the little girl in the red jacket stared at each other amid the chaos, each seeing awkwardness in the other’s eyes.

That year—

Fang Yongnian was twenty-four.

Lu Yixin was ten.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

Ten was an awkward age—too far from the innocent, carefree stage of childhood to be treated entirely as a child, yet obviously too young to be regarded as an adult.

Lu Boyuan was a family-oriented man. In his spare time, he liked to show off his family to the group of bachelors in the lab, so Fang Yongnian wasn’t completely unfamiliar with Lu Yixin.

Ten years old, fourth grade in elementary school. She had just entered her rebellious phase and had a very close relationship with her grandmother.

Fang Yongnian quickly went over in his mind all the things Lu Boyuan had bragged about before, suppressed the urge to mess up his already messy hair again, and crouched down to meet Lu Yixin’s eyes.

He was tall and his hair was unkempt; when he crouched down, the sight was a bit intimidating.

Lu Yixin hugged her pink backpack tightly and took a step back.

Fang Yongnian: “……”

It seemed that the method he had read somewhere—to communicate with children, try to look at them at eye level—was not very practical in real life.

“…Do you have winter homework?” Since the theoretical approach didn’t work, he could only go with the simple and straightforward one.

Little Lu Yixin sniffled and nodded.

Fang Yongnian let out a breath of relief.

“This is your father’s desk.” He pointed to Lu Boyuan’s workstation. “You can do your homework here.”

After a pause, he added, “If there’s anything you don’t understand, you can ask me.”

Lu Yixin clutched her backpack, looked at the uncle with messy hair almost covering his entire face, and when he straightened up, she turned around without a word and went back to his seat.

He didn’t look at her again.

Lu Yixin also let out a sigh of relief.

Her grandma was missing.

Since the year before last, her grandma had become different from before. Sometimes she forgot who Lu Yixin was; sometimes, while talking, she would suddenly wet herself.

Her grandma was sick. When she had episodes, she would cry and fuss like a child, and even when she was fine, she still had to take a lot of medicine.

So Lu Yixin didn’t have the mood to greet strangers, nor did she want to answer their questions.

She took out her homework books one by one from her backpack, neatly arranged them, then secretly glanced at Fang Yongnian.

That uncle was typing rapidly on his computer, completely forgetting about her existence.

How nice.

Lu Yixin bit on her pen and started spacing out, her small face held a serious expression.

Grandma must be missing Grandpa.

She sighed like a little adult.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

Fang Yongnian was very satisfied with the little girl. Just as Lu Boyuan had said, Lu Yixin was easy to take care of, sitting quietly in her father’s chair without causing any trouble.

The lab had returned to its usual silence. Fang Yongnian quickly sorted out the weekly report that needed compiling, then took off his glasses and rubbed the space between his brows. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the paper box he had stuffed behind the monitor earlier.

His breakfast.

The tofu buns from the cafeteria—inside was grainy salted egg yolk, stir-fried beforehand in vegetable oil, so even when cold, they didn’t taste fishy.

He reached out, pulled the paper box toward him, and picked up one bun to take a bite.

It was still warm—the salted egg yolk wrapped around the soft tofu, melting in his mouth.

He was in a good mood, checking data while eating, his mouth full of fresh, tender tofu. He stood up, preparing to make himself a cup of coffee—

Then stopped.

The little girl he had completely forgotten about was now meeting his gaze. He had his mouth stuffed with the tofu bun that required queuing early every Thursday morning to buy, while in her mouth, there was only a pen. An empty pen with no cap.

In his twenty-four years of life, Fang Yongnian had never experienced such an awkward moment.

He chewed twice with the smallest possible movement, quickly swallowed the delicious tofu bun in his mouth.

“You…” He cleared his throat, picked up the paper box on the table. “Do you want some?”

Lu Yixin subconsciously chewed on the pen in her mouth.

Everything had been chaotic this morning. Her father had bought breakfast for her, but it seemed he’d forgotten to take it when they got off the subway.

She was an only child, ten years old this year.

An only child in an age of material abundance, she had grown up knowing what it meant to be picky, but not what it meant to be hungry.

And she had never experienced being hungry herself while the adults enjoyed food.

So she was a little dazed. When she saw that there was only one small bun left in the paper box he handed her, she became even more confused.

One little bun was really too little.

Especially when Fang Yongnian clearly heard the sound of Lu Yixin swallowing her saliva.

“I’ll go buy you breakfast.” He finally felt a sense of responsibility as an uncle. As he put on his coat, he glanced around the empty lab—there were still a bunch of lab animals upstairs—so he changed his words, “Come with me downstairs. I’ll take you to eat breakfast.”

Lu Yixin was still staring at that little bun.

Its snow-white skin, with the folds soaked in savory juice.

While Fang Yongnian was looking down buttoning his coat, she quickly grabbed the bun and stuffed the whole thing into her mouth.

When she looked up again, she met the messy-haired uncle’s eyes once more.

“Let’s go.” Fang Yongnian smiled.

After eating that bun, the little girl’s expression finally became lively. Her red, tear-swollen eyes were bright and glistening, no longer carrying the serious, defensive look from earlier.

A child who could be soothed by food was always a good child.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

The tofu buns in the cafeteria were already sold out. Fang Yongnian bought Lu Yixin a bowl of soy milk and two deep-fried dough sticks.

Lu Yixin first added two big spoonfuls of sugar into the soy milk, then dipped the dough stick in it. She waited until the dough stick was soaked through with soy milk before taking a bite.

It was exactly the same way Fang Yongnian ate it.

Fang Yongnian smiled again. For the first time in his life, he felt the satisfaction of feeding a pet.

The freshly fried dough sticks were golden and crispy, and the steaming soy milk warmed Lu Yixin’s messy, exhausted heart from the chaotic early morning. She squinted her eyes slightly and finally felt that the unfamiliar uncle sitting across from her might be someone she could try to get close to. Because everything he gave her was delicious: tofu buns, and now soy milk with dough sticks.

“My grandma went home because she misses my grandpa.” She swallowed her mouthful of soy milk and spoke suddenly, her words disjointed.

Fang Yongnian had been trying to recall whether there was anything missing from the data reports he organized earlier. When he heard Lu Yixin suddenly speak, he reacted slowly, and responded with a sluggish, “Mm.”

“She’s not senile. She just misses my grandpa.”

Once she opened her mouth, the rest of her words came more easily.

Fang Yongnian froze.

The little girl was arguing back.

A ten-year-old child already knew clearly that senile was a derogatory word. She was explaining to a stranger the reason her grandmother had run away before dawn.

The sweet soy milk steamed faintly between them. After saying those two sentences, the little girl pressed her lips tightly together, her black-and-white eyes fixed intently on him.

What she wanted—perhaps—was nothing more than another absentminded ‘mm’ from him.

“That’s not senility,” he suddenly felt the need to explain. “It’s an illness. An irreversible, degenerative brain disease caused by the loss of nerve cells.”

Lu Yixin stared blankly at him.

Fang Yongnian motioned toward her soy milk with his chin, signaling her to keep eating.

Obediently, Lu Yixin took a sip of soy milk. After swallowing, she asked another question: “Then… can it get better with medicine?”

From that short explanation, she had only understood the word illness. It felt gentler than senility, and somehow, more hopeful.

Fang Yongnian was silent for a moment.

“At present, there’s no medicine that can cure this illness.” Ten years old was an age where one could already tell the truth. A child of ten should begin to learn the distance between hope and reality.

Lu Yixin lowered her eyes and stirred her dough stick in the soy milk for a long time. Then she looked up, her voice holding a bit of defiance and indignation. “My dad researches medicine. He’ll definitely save my grandma!”

Fang Yongnian removed his glasses and rubbed the frame between his fingers.

“A medicine to treat this illness will definitely be developed one day.”

He didn’t answer her question directly, because there was no way to explain to a ten-year-old the long, complex process of pharmaceutical research.

But Lu Yixin smiled.

She sniffled, rubbed her still slightly swollen eyes, and with the logic of a ten-year-old, reached a quick conclusion: “Then my grandma will also get better one day.”

Fang Yongnian said nothing more.

Yet for Lu Yixin, it was as if she had received a precious promise from an adult. Her heavy heart suddenly found a new place to rest.

“You and my dad are both medicine researchers, right?”

“Can I call you Uncle?”

“What’s your name?”

“Can I come play with you again next time?”

“Can I have another dough stick?”

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

That year was the first time Fang Yongnian and Lu Yixin met.

That year marked the beginning of many, many things.

That year was the beginning of a turning point in the life of the young man named Fang Yongnian.