The world really has become a much better place now.

Stunned, Fang Yongnian suddenly had such a thought pop into his head.

An eighteen-year-old girl, not even graduated from high school yet, could pat her chest and declare that she would protect him in the future—saying it with such confidence and certainty.

When he left, he still packed her a bowl of stir-fried shrimp and eel, regardless of whether she really planned to freeze it and throw it at him.

He felt that not leaving without saying goodbye that night, maybe that was the right thing to do.

Lu Yixin’s childish promise, and the smoky warmth of that long-renowned noodle shop, somehow filled the emptiness that had been sitting in his heart all this time.

Look forward.

Keep walking ahead.

He pushed open the door of his new home in Huating City, carrying only a small luggage bag in his hand.

That night, with a thirty-eight-yuan bowl of stir-fried shrimp and eel, he ended the entanglement of the past four years.

Except for Lu Boyuan, whose fate was destined to remain intertwined with his.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

Lu Boyuan really did go to Huating, it was through Yu Hanfeng’s connection.

No one could understand Fang Yongnian’s dream of opening a fruit shop. When Yu Hanfeng made venture investment plans for a pharmaceutical company, she would always draft five- to ten-year phased proposals.

The three generic drug projects Fang Yongnian submitted were approved one after another, and Lu Boyuan took over one of them.

At home, he would often mention Fang Yongnian.

The junior he remembered—who once only knew how to bury himself in research—had become a stranger, now “President Fang.”

Outwardly, he had become smooth and tactful; inwardly, swift and decisive, showing no mercy.

When he was at the company, those young employees were all as silent as cicadas in winter. Lu Boyuan knew they whispered about Fang Yongnian in private, thinking that his current indifference was because of his disability.

Only Lu Boyuan knew that Fang Yongnian just wanted to pay off his debts quickly and then disappear.

His dream really was to open a fruit shop.

In a city where no one knew him.

“Why does it have to be a city where no one knows him?” Lu Yixin couldn’t understand.

You can open a fruit shop anywhere in the world, even in Hecheng.

“His heart has died.” Lu Boyuan let out a long sigh.

Liu Miqing, who had just returned home after the disaster alert and lockdown ended, glanced at her husband.

Lu Yixin didn’t understand, but she did.

A man’s lifelong ideals, in the end, were defeated by human nature. The mentor who led him into the field caused him to lose a leg; the senior brother he had always relied on didn’t utter a single word for him after the incident.

Dragging a crippled leg, for four whole years, his reputation in the industry had been that of a young man who once leaked project data for money. No one helped him. Every step he took to reach where he was now depended entirely on himself.

In truth, he was already remarkable.

After seeing so many who trampled the weak and flattered the powerful, after seeing so much malice in people’s hearts, the way he chose to rebel—was simply to open a fruit shop.

Liu Miqing knew well how many temptations pharmaceutical researchers studying neurological diseases faced out there.

And Fang Yongnian had always walked along the edge of a cliff, yet even in the hardest of times, he had never once glanced toward those temptations.

He was worthy of admiration.

But though he was not yet old, his heart had already aged.

“Help him more, will you?” Liu Miqing could only comfort her husband this way. Whenever her husband returned home each week, she would cook extra dishes for him to take back to Huating.

During this time, she would sometimes go to Huating herself to bring her husband things, but each time she would refuse her daughter Lu Yixin’s request to tag along.

On one hand, Lu Yixin’s studies did not allow it. On the other, Liu Miqing had realized that Fang Yongnian was avoiding Lu Yixin.

Perhaps it was because he felt Lu Yixin had grown up and that there should now be a distinction between men and women; or perhaps he simply did not want her distracted while she was about to face the college entrance examination. Ever since Lu Boyuan had gone to Huating, every time Lu Yixin went there, Fang Yongnian was never around.

As a mother, Liu Miqing accepted this favor from Fang Yongnian.

She only felt it was a pity.

He truly was a very, very good person—only unfortunate that time had not favored him.

His values, subtly and imperceptibly, had also taught her daughter to become a very, very good girl.

For that reason alone, she felt she could make noodles for Fang Yongnian for the rest of her life—praying that he could walk out of the shadows of his past, and praying that he could be happy.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

After Fang Yongnian left, Lu Yixin was sad for a long time.

She could no longer go to the pharmacy after school to find him. He was no longer within reach. Even the messages she sent him on WeChat, he almost never replied to anymore.

She had also gone to Huating to look for him.

But just as he had said that night—when he told her not to come looking for him—he had meant it.

Because no matter when she went to look for him, he was never there.

In the end, she felt even Yu Hanfeng had noticed something—whenever she saw her, she would offer her candy.

There was still a bond between them. She would often hear her father or mother mention him on various occasions. She knew how his work was progressing, and she also knew that what he had said before about opening a fruit shop had not been a joke.

Her father said that Fang Yongnian’s heart had died.

But she felt that maybe Fang Yongnian only wanted to start living again, that he longed to abandon pharmaceuticals only because he did not want to recall the unhappy memories tied to it.

In the more than half a year since Fang Yongnian left, she had gradually and piecemeal learned everything about his past.

From the initial shock, to the ache in her heart, and finally to helplessness.

She didn’t know how to comfort him, because she knew very well that Fang Yongnian did not hold her in his heart. Her comfort meant nothing to him.

So she began to send him WeChat messages every day.

Like a diary, she told him what she did that day, how many points she scored on her exams, how Zheng Ranran bullied the class troublemaker next door with her cleverness.

She began saying good night to him every evening before bed.

One sticker a day, the only thing that never changed was that voice message saying “good night.”

She knew that within this endless, unreciprocated longing, she had slowly begun to change.

She became less impatient.

She began to sometimes enjoy silence—and in those quiet moments, she would think back to that night they parted ways, to the faint trace of a smile in Fang Yongnian’s eyes as he watched her wipe her face in the noodle shop.

She suddenly realized that when it came to liking someone, there was no question of whether it was worth it or not, nor did it require any kind of return.

She began to understand that when one’s feelings grew deep, some of that fluttering affection would slowly turn into pain.

She felt heartache for all that he had gone through alone, heartache for the bare apartment he once lived in, heartache for his gentleness—and also heartache for the helpless endurance in his eyes caused by her pestering.

“I might love him.” The girl sat beside her friend on the edge of the playground one evening, the emotions in her eyes shifting from fervent to resolute.

Zheng Ranran looked at her friend’s profile.

The glow of the sunset painted the girl’s face like a vivid oil painting.

The carefree Lu Yixin—the one so fearless that even the class troublemaker next door was afraid of her—on the day she turned nineteen, vaguely touched the shape of love.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

For more than a month recently, Fang Yongnian had been sleeping in the company most of the time. There were three concurrent projects. Although Lu Boyuan had taken on more than half of the project management work, the remaining trivial matters still left him endlessly irritated.

For a generic drug to reach the market, it had to have exactly the same active ingredients, dosage, and efficacy as the original drug. Many companies, for the sake of cost, would ignore certain secondary indicators or adopt low-cost manufacturing methods.

But Fang Yongnian—almost to the point of obsession—demanded that every generic drug leaving their company be identical in every respect, even repeating the tablet compression tests with additional tolerance studies and pharmacokinetic research on each batch.

He had zero tolerance for any falsification of pharmaceutical data.

Because of this, not only did the project team complain incessantly, but he himself had almost lost all his rest.

At ten-thirty in the evening, he took off his glasses and rubbed his aching temples.

The screen of his phone lit up, vibrating and sliding half a centimeter across the desk.

Unlocking it, as expected, he saw a message from Lu Yixin.

A cartoon pig, completely naked, with its private parts covered by red and green flowers, wriggled its butt cheekily on the screen.

After that came her voice message.

For nearly a year, she had been sending him a voice message at this exact time every day.

Just two words: Good night.

Lu Yixin’s voice was soft and a little syrupy, and though she sent it daily, her tone was never quite the same.

After listening to her good nights for an entire year, Fang Yongnian had gradually learned to tell whether the girl was in a good or bad mood that day.

Today, for instance, she sounded rather downhearted.

Fang Yongnian put down his phone.

She had been obedient—since that night, there truly had been nothing left between them.

When she came to Huating to look for him, he had deliberately avoided her a few times. Sensitive and perceptive as Liu Miqing was, she must have guessed something, and so afterward, Lu Yixin had almost never come to Huating again.

She no longer asked him chemistry questions either. She only sent him her report card after every monthly exam.

Her grades were steady.

Whenever Lu Boyuan boasted about his family, he would boast in full detail about everything concerning Lu Yixin.

So he knew that Lu Yixin had stabilized within the top fifteen of her grade. That mischievous girl was now becoming more and more sensible, even helping her mother make noodles.

Sometimes, he thought that was good.

The bond between them had gradually faded with each passing day and each good night. Lu Yixin was slowly growing up, and he was slowly growing old.

When the day came that she no longer sent him messages on WeChat, it would mean that Lu Yixin had completely moved on.

Perhaps, he might even have the chance to see her grow up and get married.

Perhaps by then, he could give her an enormous red envelope.

The little girl who once swore to throw a frozen bowl of shrimp and eel at him would finally wear her red bridal gown.

He would sometimes think about it during his breaks at work, and then laugh at himself.

All his past memories had been tainted and obscured because of Professor Wu. Only Lu Yixin, in his memory, still wore that bright red scarf—the sole color left in his recollections.

Everything about her was beautiful.

Including when, as a child, she cried and wiped her snot on him; including when, after growing up, she hid in the trunk of his car and screamed so loud it nearly gave him a nervous breakdown.

He rubbed his temples again.

The phone lit up once more, vibrating and rolling another half centimeter across the desk.

Fang Yongnian frowned.

There was another unread WeChat message—it was still from Lu Yixin.

This time, it wasn’t a voice message.

It was a very short sentence, but one that must have taken her a long time to send:

“Happy birthday, Uncle Fang.”

Author’s Note:

Little Lu Yixin has finally grown up. Volume One ends here.

This is actually the most heartbreaking chapter (in my opinion).

This is the only one where they truly part ways—after this, they’re basically together.