Three o’clock in the morning.

Lu Yixin was woken up by the urge to pee. In her dream, she had searched through half tHecheng for a toilet. When she finally found one and rushed in, just as she was about to pull down her pants, a huge photo of Fang Yongnian suddenly appeared at the entrance—he was holding a lighter in his hand, a cigarette in his mouth, with the golden-red backdrop of a hotel behind him.

Then Lu Yixin jolted awake. She stared at the hospital ward’s ceiling for a second, then quickly flipped over and dashed into the bathroom.

The inpatient corridor was especially quiet in the middle of the night. Their room was at the very end of the hallway—mostly people spending money to hide out in the hospital, so nurses and doctors rarely came by on patrol.

After taking care of her physical need, Lu Yixin stood in her ward for a moment, suddenly feeling an itch of restlessness.

She wanted to go see Fang Yongnian, and maybe check on her dad too.

During dinner earlier, both of them had been in a bad mood. Even Zheng Fei, who was usually as shameless as she was, hadn’t said a word through the whole meal.

She had always known where to draw the line between adults and children. So she understood that after she had “leaked” something, the matter her dad and Fang Yongnian were investigating was no longer something she should ask about. Whether it was that car accident or that project from years ago—those were adult affairs, not things she should meddle in.

However, her rationality and emotions had always been two separate things…

Lu Yixin pressed her lips together and quietly pulled open the ward door.

Three o’clock in the morning. The door to Fang Yongnian’s ward was open, and the lights were on inside.

Lu Yixin, who had planned to sneak in and secretly peek at Fang Yongnian’s sleeping face, froze for a moment before tiptoeing out into the hallway.

At the end of the corridor, faint flickers of cigarette light came from the stairwell. Lu Yixin leaned forward and saw a tall, thin figure standing against the wall.

He was still wearing the same shirt and trousers from earlier that day, leaning in the corner of the stairwell wall.

This time, he was completely hidden in the dark. Lu Yixin couldn’t see his expression at all.

“Fang… Yongnian?” Lu Yixin lowered her voice.

Once again, she didn’t call him “uncle,” her tone carrying a hint of guilt and rebellion.

Fang Yongnian looked up.

The lighting in the hospital corridor was dim. Standing in the darkness, Fang Yongnian’s face showed no expression. He stood a few meters away from her, with half a flight of stairs between them.

For a long time, he said nothing, simply maintaining that expression, looking at her in the dark.

She stood on the stairs in her pajamas. The night wind blew through, the thin fabric bringing waves of chill. Her toes curled slightly as she shivered.

“Fang… Uncle,” she gave in quickly.

Finally, Fang Yongnian moved in the darkness. He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch. “It’s past three.”

His tone was calm, as if that silent, wordless standoff in the dark had never happened. As if that distant, cold expression he’d worn in the shadows had never existed.

“I… got up to go to the bathroom.” Lu Yixin suddenly started stammering. “No, I mean—the water in the bathroom in my room got cold, so I came to see if the water in your room was cold too.”

Lu Yixin swallowed in self-disgust. She could almost imagine Zheng Ranran’s look of disdain.

She really wasn’t good at thinking on her feet. Next time she lied, she needed to prepare a draft first…

“Go check for yourself.” Fang Yongnian didn’t expose her lie, calmly sending her away.

Lu Yixin stood there on the stairs for a while, feeling rather embarrassed.

It had to be said, Fang Yongnian’s appearance in the darkness just now had really frightened her. She had seen him in the shadows countless times before; her phone was full of such photos. But never once had it felt like this—like now… filled with a kind of danger she couldn’t even describe.

In that moment, it was as if Fang Yongnian had torn apart his usual calm and composed exterior. His gaze was raw and unguarded—filled with impatience at her calling him “Fang Yongnian,” with annoyance at her disturbing his peace in the middle of the night, and with something else unfamiliar. Something called aggression.

She could clearly feel that during his silence just now, Fang Yongnian had looked her over from head to toe.

He had never done that before. Even if her face were painted like a monkey’s backside, he wouldn’t have bothered to look twice.

In that moment, Fang Yongnian became a man. A man that Lu Yixin had always claimed she liked, claimed she wanted to marry, yet had never truly thought about. A man with an air of dominance.

An eighteen-year-old girl already possessed enough of a sixth sense toward the opposite sex. Standing on the stairs, Lu Yixin curled her toes again.

Her heartbeat quickened, and she suddenly lost her usual shamelessness and ability to act playful.

“Still not going in?” Fang Yongnian frowned.

He had already gone through more than half a pack of cigarettes here. His sense of taste and smell were numb, his nerves pathologically tense.

He hadn’t eaten much that evening, and by midnight his low blood sugar symptoms were obvious.

He couldn’t guarantee that, in this state, he could still be her “Uncle Fang.”

The moment she appeared, his mind hadn’t even registered her as an eighteen-year-old girl.

The world felt absurd and surreal. He was denying and questioning everything.

Because of a single document—because of his anger—he had carelessly thrown away the rest of his life.

That document had been just over four hundred pages long. Later, through other projects, it was proven that the target direction they’d chosen back then had no real research value.

And for that single document, four and a half human lives had been buried with it.

He drew a harsh drag from his cigarette, bowed his head, and retreated back into the shadows, choosing to ignore Lu Yixin, who had suddenly gone mute on the stairs.

He had never been able to outlast this girl’s stubborn pestering, today was no different. He had neither the patience nor the strength.

Lu Yixin’s toes curled tight; her fingers were chilled by the night wind.

She shivered, then squatted down on the stairs, wrapping her arms around her knees.

She didn’t want to leave, but she didn’t know what to say either—so she simply stayed there.

Fang Yongnian was acting strangely tonight, and instinctively, she didn’t want to go.

The smoke was suffocating. The adult men around her were all long-time smokers, but most of the time they would avoid smoking near her. She had rarely been so completely enveloped in secondhand smoke before. After squatting for a while, she couldn’t help coughing softly.

Fang Yongnian didn’t react.

Lu Yixin shifted on the stairs and coughed again.

In the darkness, Fang Yongnian stubbed out his cigarette and pushed open the stairwell window.

Fresh air rushed in with the cool wind. Lu Yixin sniffed, tried to hold it in—then sneezed loudly enough to shake the whole place.

Fang Yongnian: “……”

Lu Yixin rubbed her nose and grinned foolishly.

Her expression was still timid; she was still in shock from being frightened by that unfamiliar version of Fang Yongnian.

Fang Yongnian straightened up, letting the blood return to his almost-numb left leg. After a moment, he took an unsteady step. “Go inside.”

He couldn’t chase this girl away, but he could chase himself away.

“Let’s stay here a little longer.” Lu Yixin tilted her head back, sitting still on the stairs.

Her familiar Fang Yongnian had returned. After just a couple of coughs and a sneeze, that frightening version of him had disappeared.

She didn’t like that unfamiliar Fang Yongnian, so she found the courage to cling to him again.

Fang Yongnian’s leg was badly numb—so numb he probably couldn’t climb the stairs normally.

He had never minded showing his prosthetic leg in front of Lu Yixin. Sometimes he would even sit in his wheelchair with one empty pant leg and talk to her. But for some reason, tonight, he hesitated.

Maybe… he had really started to see Lu Yixin as an adult.

He leaned lightly against the stair rail, quietly letting his left leg recover while waiting for Lu Yixin to speak.

Lu Yixin tilted her head, her medium-length hair resting neatly against her neck.

“I was thinking about what I’ll be like when I grow up.” Her usual abrupt opening.

“You sure think deep in the middle of the night.” Fang Yongnian rubbed his temples.

Lu Yixin grinned.

“Do you like strong women?” she asked softly, her voice husky with sleep. “Like Yu Hanfeng.”

Fang Yongnian frowned and didn’t answer.

“I can’t become someone like that.” Lu Yixin didn’t expect him to answer such a personal question. With clear self-awareness, she went on talking to herself. “I think when I grow up, I’ll probably just become a bigger Lu Yixin.”

Fang Yongnian: “…”

Her choice of words was unrefined, but it made his thoughts drift for a second.

A bigger Lu Yixin—still simple, pure, and passionate.

That was… actually pretty good.

“I still want to study meteorology.” She stayed in the same position—head tilted, arms wrapped around her knees, chin resting on her wrist.

“I don’t really have any other goals. This is the only one that gives me motivation lately, so I want to try.” This time, she didn’t say it was because of him.

“You’ll get in.” Fang Yongnian spoke honestly.

With her current grades, once she stabilized, she would definitely be admitted.

Lu Yixin smiled wide; her round eyes curved into slits of joy.

She was a girl whose smile was incredibly contagious. Fang Yongnian rubbed his left leg, which was slowly regaining feeling, then straightened up again. “Go inside.”

In the middle of the night, he didn’t even know why he was standing there, talking to her about college applications.

Or why, little by little, his mood no longer felt so bitter and cynical.

In this world, there are always people growing up—children like Lu Yixin, still budding like flower buds, holding onto their dreams, striving to grow.

Just as he once did.

He was simply the unlucky one.

Most people, perhaps, could grow up like Lu Yixin and become a slightly older version of Lu Yixin.

He walked up the stairs. This time, without stumbling.

“Fang Yongnian.”

Sitting where she was, Lu Yixin spoke again—calling him by name once more, without formality or restraint.

She had never known what it meant to give up; like a burdock seed, even when she clung to someone, she carried tiny barbs all over her body.

Fang Yongnian stopped, wondering whether it was really worth discussing proper forms of address with her in the middle of the night.

“I have candy.”

She sat there, looking at him from a few steps above, her smile sweet and enticing.

“Do you have low blood sugar?” she asked, the corners of her eyes curved from her smile.

“Remember to brush your teeth after eating.” She stretched out her hand, offering him a handful of chocolates, her tone casually bossy.

“You’ll feel better after eating them.”

As she said it, she hesitated slightly, as if afraid of accidentally touching upon something that would sadden him again.

She was coaxing him.

An eighteen-year-old girl, trying her best to coax a thirty-two-year-old man—putting her whole heart into it.

The night was deep.

The stairwell on this floor of the hospital ward was so quiet that they could hear each other’s breathing.

At last, Fang Yongnian reached out, took one, unwrapped it, and put it into his mouth right in front of her.

“Go inside.” He wanted to pat her on the head, but his hand restrained itself and stayed where it was supposed to.

“It’s late.” He tried his best to sound as calm and composed as usual.

Tonight, emotions were too hard to control, and too easily stirred.

A single piece of chocolate from a young girl pulled him back to reality. Kept him from replaying that chilling recording, kept him from dwelling on how absurd the reason for his own mutilation had been.

The chocolate was very sweet.

She always managed to buy the kind of chocolate that was cloyingly sweet.

“Go to sleep.” He walked into the ward, not looking back at Lu Yixin.

But he could clearly hear the sound of her slippers as she hopped lightly down the corridor, could even sense her secretly glancing back at him before closing the door.

The words thank you hovered at the edge of his lips—then were swallowed down.

He closed the ward door, shutting out everything beyond it, including Lu Yixin’s face.

Remember to brush your teeth.

He frowned as he swallowed that piece of chocolate.

Too sweet…

Author’s Note:

This part of the story marks the beginning of Fang Yongnian’s climb from rock bottom—he will achieve success, have children and grandchildren, and spend his life most afraid of his father-in-law, mother-in-law, and wife…

Some readers said they didn’t understand yesterday’s plot, so here’s the connection with Liu Yufang’s part earlier:

There was a group of experts who falsified data for profit. Ge Wenyao was one of them. The project document leak four years ago would have affected the project’s later investments. Someone suspected Ge Wenyao was responsible and wanted to kill him out of spite. The expert who paid tribute to Ge Wenyao that night knew about this and had even told Ge Wenyao beforehand—which was why Ge Wenyao called Liu Yufang to confirm whether the driver had taken cold medicine before driving. In the car, aside from Ge Wenyao, everyone else was buried with him.

The person behind the scenes has appeared twice before in the story, always in connection with the same kind of incident.