“Why is it a fruit shop?” Lu Yixin couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard she thought.

Fang Yongnian was busy trying to pry Lu Boyuan off him, but as soon as he shook off his hand, the man’s leg came back up again.

Why did a disabled person like him have to do such physical labor?

“Just let my dad sleep like this,” Lu Yixin advised him with the tone of someone experienced. “He’s even more annoying when he wakes up.”

Sleep?

On such a busy roadside, at a barbecue stall?

Fang Yongnian no longer wanted to speak with this unreliable family. He lowered his head and focused on shaking Lu Boyuan off.

Damn it, so heavy.

“Why not a cake shop?” Lu Yixin was still hung up on that question.

After much effort, Fang Yongnian finally managed to dump Lu Boyuan onto a stool. He moved a little to the side to prevent the man from hugging him again, then picked up a cup and gulped down some water.

Why a fruit shop?

Because a fruit shop suited a middle-aged man.

A cake shop sounded too sweet, it didn’t match his state of mind.

But right now, he didn’t feel like talking.

“I called Uncle Zheng. He’ll come later to take your dad home.” He instructed Lu Yixin, handing her a hundred yuan. “The barbecue bill is already settled. If you’re still hungry, order something yourself.”

“You’re leaving?” Lu Yixin stared at him in disbelief.

It was already past midnight. Lu Boyuan was dead drunk after four bottles of beer. The barbecue stall was almost empty, and only a few cars passed by the entrance of the residential area.

Leaving her and Lu Boyuan like this—indeed, it wasn’t right.

But he didn’t have the strength to carry Lu Boyuan, and he had no desire to chat with Lu Yixin here.

“I’m going across the street for a smoke.” He came up with a genius decision that only someone with his kind of intelligence could think of.

Lu Yixin was utterly stunned.

In the middle of the night, she stood there holding the hundred yuan Fang Yongnian had given her, hair and thoughts in disarray, watching as he actually jogged across the street, leaned against a tree, and lit a cigarette.

“Dad.” Lu Yixin nudged her unconscious father. “We really pushed him too far.”

The always serious and composed Fang Yongnian, driven to this point of near delirium…

Lu Yixin pulled out her phone, opened WeChat, and typed in Fang Yongnian’s chat box: “Do you want some chives?”

The road wasn’t wide, and it was quiet at night. The country’s internet speed was excellent; she had just hit send when Fang Yongnian’s phone chimed on the other side.

Resting her chin in her hand, Lu Yixin watched as he took out his phone.

He stayed silent.

“Eggplant then?” Lu Yixin tried again.

“You didn’t eat much tonight. Want a couple grilled buns? Dip them in condensed milk?” Lu Yixin’s typing speed matched perfectly with her age.

“Actually, the barbecue here isn’t good. Why didn’t you take my dad to the one behind the residential area?”

“So, why did you open a fruit shop?”

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ 

Fang Yongnian’s phone wasn’t on silent.

So he stood there across the street, holding his phone, his expression completely blank, listening to the relentless ding ding dong dong of message alerts. The lock screen kept lighting up like fireworks.

He put his phone back into his pocket and looked across the street at Lu Yixin.

She was still happily typing away on her phone, her brows practically lifting with excitement.

He lowered his head, took a fierce drag of his cigarette, then stubbed out the rest and pulled out his phone again.

“Come here.” He ignored the flood of messages and countless animated stickers above.

He squinted, watching as Lu Yixin, phone in hand, paused for a moment. She timidly looked up at him, then hesitated before standing. She adjusted her father, laying him down more comfortably on the stool so he could sleep better, then took small, hurried steps as she ran across the street.

Even though she should’ve been nervous or scared at that moment, when she ran, she still radiated youth and liveliness.

A blinding, painfully bright kind of youth and liveliness.

In a blink, she was standing before him. He lowered his head, realizing he was already used to the height difference between them.

Too familiar, too close—so he had always gone soft-hearted.

But now everything had settled. He no longer had any reason to stay in Hecheng.

Instead, he had many reasons he had to leave—and Lu Yixin was the most important one.

She didn’t understand people’s hearts.

She didn’t know that her unrestrained confessions, her unrestrained pouting, would actually leave a mark on someone else’s heart.

At the very least, he knew that something inside him had changed toward her.

Even though he still maintained the posture of an “uncle,” he knew… it was different.

A pitiful kind of different.

He had begun to notice what she wore, to pay attention to her subtle expressions, to feel upset when the stir-fried pork she’d specially brought him was eaten by Zheng Fei instead.

Tiny, insignificant details—so small that no one but him would notice.

He needed to leave before this difference spread like wildfire.

The girl should have her own life, instead of revolving around him—staying in the hospital for three weeks because of his matters, even doing homework lying across his hospital bed.

“I’m going to Huating tomorrow.” He looked at Lu Yixin, at that face still rosy and filled with innocence.

Lu Yixin opened her mouth and gave a small “oh.”

She was cautious.

From the moment he told her to come over, she’d already had that sixth sense—that things were about to go wrong.

Her sixth sense when it came to Fang Yongnian had never been wrong.

“The lease on the house still has a month left. I called the landlord this afternoon. The deposit will cover this month’s utilities. The rest, I’ve already told him to give directly to your mom. You don’t need to pay me back.”

Lu Yixin: “?”

“There’s nothing much to take. Those little things you bought on Taobao—if you can’t bear to part with them, just find time to pick them up. I’ll leave you all three sets of keys.” He took the keys out of his pocket.

He had originally planned to give them to Zheng Fei.

He had originally planned to leave without saying goodbye.

Now that he had realized something was wrong, he wouldn’t give himself any more chances to make a bigger mistake.

But in the end, he still lost to her.

Lu Yixin stared at that ring of keys.

A bare metal keyring, with six keys hanging from it—she recognized them. Three for the front door, and three for the bedroom inside.

Two years ago, when her mother finished preparing the house and told her to give the keys to Fang Yongnian, it had been these same six keys.

He had already prepared to leave long ago, even the keys were ready.

“You… you’re leaving?” She didn’t take the keys, only stared.

“Mm.” Fang Yongnian wasn’t in a hurry, keeping his hand outstretched with the keys.

“You’re not coming back?” She was still staring at them.

“Occasionally.” He didn’t intend to lie. After all, the pharmacy was half his. If the fruit shop couldn’t make ends meet, he’d still need the pharmacy to rely on in old age.

“Oh.” Lu Yixin made a soft sound.

She stood there like a wooden doll, not reaching for the keys.

Fang Yongnian waited patiently.

He looked at the eighteen-year-old girl before him—delicate brows and eyes, thick hair, gaze lowered. A small car drove by, and its headlights swept across her face.

She was crying.

Silently. Tears slipped down her cheeks like strings of broken pearls.

Fang Yongnian still didn’t move.

Lu Yixin sniffled lightly. When she lifted her head again, her eyes, washed clear by tears, shone with a startling brightness.

“I thought about what I should do if you ever said you were leaving.” Her voice still carried the sound of crying, but she clearly didn’t intend to cry again. She looked both sorrowful and composed.

“I thought, you definitely wouldn’t talk to me when it’s just the two of us, because ever since I caused trouble, you’ve been avoiding suspicion.”

Avoiding it ruthlessly.

“So I thought, if you said you were leaving, I’d just burst into tears—loudly, wherever we were, I’d grab your hand and cry my heart out.”

An eighteen-year-old girl—crying still worked, crying could still get her candy.

“But…” Lu Yixin lifted her head and looked at Fang Yongnian, the man she had been thinking of for so, so long. “If I did that, you would hate me.”

She would embarrass him, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

“You promised me that if you stayed single, when I grew up, you’d let me chase you.”

She spoke to herself, then refuted herself just as quickly.

“No, that’s not right. You didn’t actually agree, it was me who forced you to accept it by default.”

“But that still counts as defaulting.” She looked at Fang Yongnian, and to his surprise, she even smiled.

That same little triumphant smile she always had whenever she got her way through sheer stubbornness.

“So, Uncle Fang,” this time she behaved properly, not calling his name, “when I grow up—when I’m independent and can make you all believe I’m serious—if you’re still single, can I pursue you?”

Fang Yongnian’s throat tightened.

If before, he had still thought that Lu Yixin was just being playful—if before, he still believed her feelings were nothing more than youthful hormones looking for an outlet—then this time, he took her seriously.

This reckless Lu Yixin wasn’t acting willful at all right now.

It seemed she truly understood the gulf between them, and had genuinely thought about what she should do.

So she stood there, unable to stop her tears, yet holding her head high.

No longer loving and feeling guilty at the same time as before.

There’s no possibility between us—those were words Fang Yongnian couldn’t say.

To solemnly say something like that to an eighteen-year-old girl, he found the very thought absurd.

There was, in truth, no “between us” to speak of at all.

“Will you be staying in Huating City?” Lu Yixin asked when she didn’t get an answer, her eyes dimming slightly.

“Not necessarily.” As long as it wasn’t about feelings, he always answered her questions.

“Huating isn’t far…” Lu Yixin murmured softly. “Can I go visit you?”

“…No.” He felt like he was turning into stone, the hardest kind.

“Then… can I message you on WeChat?” Lu Yixin’s eyes darkened further, but she still trembled as she forced the words out. “If it bothers you, you don’t even have to reply. Just… let me send messages.”

Don’t block me.

So humble, it didn’t seem like her anymore.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ 

“What are you two doing out here?”

Dragged out in the middle of the night to do hard labor, Zheng Fei shouted from across the street, his voice loud enough to make the drunken Lu Boyuan mumble and roll over on the stool.

Fang Yongnian turned and started to walk away.

In that instant, Lu Yixin felt her whole heart collapse. Instinctively, she reached out and grabbed his sleeve.

She didn’t dare speak, she only dared to hold on tightly.

Fang Yongnian’s step suddenly froze midair.

He could feel the girl trembling behind him. He knew that if he truly wanted to cut things off, if he shook her hand away tonight, then there would never again be anything “between” them.

Once he went to Huating, changed his phone number—he could completely sever all contact with her and with Lu Boyuan.

He took a deep breath and looked at Zheng Fei across the street.

“Do me a favor,” he said to Zheng Fei. “Help me send Lu Boyuan home.”

“I’ll take Lu Yixin to get a bowl of noodles.” His voice was calm, and he didn’t make her let go of his sleeve. With his body, he shielded her completely behind him.