Neutering a male cat was very quick. Counting the time for the anesthesia to wear off, it was just a small operation of a little over ten minutes.

Lu Yixin was still sulking. When she saw that fat cat lying there after being anesthetized, tongue sticking out and eyes open, she found it funny but didn’t want to share it with Fang Yongnian. So she could only pull out her phone, take two photos, and send them to Zheng Ranran.

Zheng Ranran didn’t reply.

She bit the stick of her lollipop, lips pouting, stretching her legs in boredom while sitting inside the pet hospital.

After she confessed to Fang Yongnian, he spoke even less. He was still keeping his distance. Whenever the two were in an enclosed space, he would always keep the door open. He no longer ate anything she had eaten, and even the occasional physical contact was deliberately avoided by him.

He had always been a man who meant what he said. No matter how she pretended to be foolish or shameless, if he said no, then it really was no.

Lu Yixin lowered her head and looked at her pair of white sneakers. The shoelaces were tied askew.

She knew his mood hadn’t been good lately. The things he and her father had been investigating seemed to finally have some leads, but they didn’t seem to be good ones.

His smoking had gotten worse. Just like her father, the space between his brows was so tightly furrowed it could kill a fly.

She had been trying to cheer him up, but somehow she ended up catching his unhappiness instead.

Lu Yixin leaned back against the chair, stretched out her legs again, and let out a sigh like a little adult. The golden retriever across from her, which was getting an IV drip, glanced at her, blinked its long eyelashes, and also sighed.

When Fang Yongnian finished his call and entered the room, this was the scene he saw: the girl and the dog both looking depressed, turning their heads toward him with identical expressions, their eyes dark and shiny.

He didn’t even know whether to feel sorry for the dog or for her.

“Your dad won’t be coming home tonight,” he said, choosing to ignore it.

The more he cared about Lu Yixin, the more she would push her luck. And right now, he wasn’t in the mood to let her.

“I called Aunt Li from your house. She’ll come keep you company tonight,” he instructed. “I have to make a trip to Huating later.”

Lu Yixin pulled the lollipop from her mouth and glanced at the clock. “Going to Huating that late?”

“I’ll go after dinner,” Fang Yongnian said, not planning to explain further. He found a hard bench a bit away from her, sat down, and habitually tapped his left leg.

The lollipop in Lu Yixin’s hand was accidentally licked by the golden retriever opposite her. The depressed retriever grinned and wagged its tail, about to go in for another lick, but Lu Yixin pushed its head away.

“You can’t eat that!” she warned softly, scolding this mammal whose mood was as bad as hers. Then she threw the lollipop into the trash can and looked at Fang Yongnian worriedly.

“Are you… driving there?” she asked cautiously.

He still had limited mobility, and it was late. He would have to take the highway, and the highway was so dark…

Fang Yongnian was looking down at his phone. When he heard her question, he just responded with a low “Mm.”

“Can’t you take the high-speed train?” she asked even more carefully.

Fang Yongnian looked up and raised a brow. “Afraid I’ll get into an accident because I’m missing a leg?”

Lu Yixin: “…”

She could tell that his mood had worsened after that phone call. Now, whether she nodded or shook her head, neither seemed right.

After raising his brow, Fang Yongnian lowered his head again and continued looking at his phone. “It’s fine. I’m going with Zheng Fei.”

Lu Yixin let out a long, long sigh of relief.

“You scared me,” she patted her chest, exaggerating a little with a raised brow. “With those dark circles under your eyes, I was worried you’d fall asleep while driving.”

She was changing the subject.

Fang Yongnian smiled, not exposing her clumsy act, and didn’t bring up his leg again.

Some things, once you mind them, you mind them for a lifetime.

Some wounds are eternal, you can neither get used to them nor ignore them.

He knew that ever since he became disabled, his temperament had turned irritable and unpredictable, moody and vindictive, unpleasant to be around.

But why should a disabled man try to be pleasant to others?

Good-hearted concern, like Lu Yixin’s, was actually what he least knew how to deal with.

He didn’t feel he needed anyone’s worry.

Yet the way the girl was secretly glancing at him now, guilt written all over her face, only made him more annoyed.

“Stop looking,” he said, raising his head with a frown.

Lu Yixin bit her lip, gazing at him pitifully.

“Looking won’t make another leg grow,” he said coldly, then stood up and pushed open the door of the pet hospital.

He needed a cigarette. He was losing control.

Taking it out on others was such a despicable thing, and he would have to coax her later.

That call from Lu Boyuan had finally ignited the spark of resentment in his heart, the fire that had been smoldering there for more than four years, now blazing out of control.

Lu Boyuan had been transferred away. He hadn’t even begun to officially investigate the people’s financial dealings; he had only retrieved the project’s original approval data, and was immediately reassigned.

The call wasn’t from the old professor, but from Lu Boyuan’s superior at the research institute. The man said there was a project at its critical third phase that needed Lu Boyuan as an advisor. The call came that afternoon, demanding he arrive that same night.

On the other end of the line, Lu Boyuan’s voice was filled with indescribable complexity.

“I left everything with Yu Hanfeng. Come by.”

“Keep investigating. No matter what you find in the end, keep investigating.”

“Four lives, Yongnian…”

Lu Boyuan lowered his head, his fingers trembling as he brushed over the project’s approval documents from back then. Every name in it represented a living, breathing life.

“I wronged you…” he said at last, his voice quivering before he hung up.

“I wronged you… and I wronged that project…” His voice nearly broke into sobs.

Before going to Huating, Fang Yongnian had still clung to a sliver of hope, thinking maybe he and Lu Boyuan were just being paranoid. But that urgent transfer order shattered the last trace of it.

Just like when the old professor had conveniently pulled him into the project some time ago — too coincidental.

Someone didn’t want them to keep digging. The project’s failure back then, the car accident back then — all man-made.

Fang Yongnian’s fingers trembled as he lit a cigarette.

When everyone stood against him, he hadn’t felt wronged.

He had lost a leg, lost his job, lost his reputation; he felt as if everyone had ground him into the mud and rolled him through it until he reeked of filth.

Back then, all he wanted was to drag the truly rotten people out into the open, to show the world that he had been made the scapegoat. In his rage, he wished he could fling all that stench clinging to him everywhere.

The world was filthy, why should he alone remain awake and clear-headed?

He had never felt wronged. Perhaps this was fate, and so he accepted it.

But now, with Lu Boyuan’s voice trembling with tears on the other end of the line, apologizing to him, begging him to keep investigating no matter what might happen next.

He suddenly felt wronged.

So wronged that his eyes stung.

Why him?

He had once just been a young man who looked forward to tofu buns every week, who spent rare holidays riding his bicycle around looking for food, with little social life.

He had once firmly believed that he was a genius, that his talent and ability would surely contribute something meaningful to the history of human medicine.

Why did it have to be him?

Leaning against the slightly worn wall outside the pet hospital, his right leg numb and unfeeling, his left leg aching and swollen, he couldn’t even squat down like a normal person.

He exhaled a harsh puff of smoke, but the resentment clogging his chest refused to fade with the smoke.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

“Uncle Fang…”

Lu Yixin stood at the entrance of the pet hospital, clutching her backpack timidly — even forcing herself to call him “Uncle Fang” again.

Fang Yongnian turned his head, cigarette between his lips, unable to hide the violence and resentment in his eyes. Standing by the corner of the wall, he looked as though he were standing at the far end of the world.

Lonely. Uneasy.

“I… still have candy.”

She truly didn’t know how to apologize, and could only offer food by instinct.

She had always avoided mentioning Fang Yongnian’s leg. After the car accident, she had seen the amputation wound with her own eyes in the hospital, and had also seen him leaning on crutches in the corridor — his right pant leg empty. His entire figure had seemed hollow.

She had felt pain, a kind of pain far beyond what her age could bear. So all she could do was run from it.

But she also knew that her avoidance made Fang Yongnian uncomfortable, just like those middle-aged women in the pharmacy who gossiped about his leg in local dialects.

Like a child who had done something terribly wrong, her nose and eyes were red, but she held back her tears. The candy in her palm glistened as she shuffled toward him, quiet and furtive.

Fang Yongnian took another drag of his cigarette. This time, he didn’t avoid her.

“This trip to Huating might take a while.” He didn’t take her candy, nor did he mention what happened earlier in the pet hospital. “Your father won’t be coming back for now either.”

“I’ve already spoken with Aunt Li. Your mom has transferred her the meal expenses for the month.”

“I’ll have dinner with you tonight. After I leave, make sure you lock the doors and windows. Before Aunt Li arrives, don’t open the door for anyone.”

Lu Yixin lowered her head, still holding up the candy in her hand.

She had grown a lot taller, almost to his shoulder now. Around the time he had his accident in her second year of middle school, it was as if someone had pulled her upward by the head; she had shot up in height.

His feelings toward her were undoubtedly complicated. Watching her grow from a carrot-headed little girl into a slender young lady, he would occasionally feel a quiet sense of emotion and fulfillment. Like a father seeing his daughter come of age.

She had always stood by his side, no matter what her father said, no matter how unpredictable his temper was.

She clung to him closely, in the most intimate way, never holding back.

She said she liked him. Liked him so much that she wanted to wait until she grew up to pursue him.

When he was maimed and destitute, she had liked him — sincerely, fervently.

“Study hard,” Fang Yongnian said, looking at the little girl he had raised bit by bit with food, pressing back a sigh with the tip of his tongue.

Grow up well. Study well.

May she have children and grandchildren.

May she, when she is old and wrinkled, look back on this foolish confession of her youth and laugh until her face crinkles.

Be happy.