“You stand still first.” Fang Yongnian told Lu Yixin to get off him first. “I’ll get you a towel.”

Lu Yixin uh-uh ah-ah-ed as she climbed off him, not even sure if she understood what he said.

Fang Yongnian went into the bathroom and washed his face first.

It was normal for the little girl to cry. But he, a grown man fourteen years older than her, having that kind of temper just now—that was not normal.

He remembered he had promised that they would never quarrel. Back then, he thought with such a big age gap, if he could actually be provoked by her into losing his temper, then he truly would have lived in vain.

Turns out, he really had lived in vain.

Lu Yixin, sniffling and hiccupping, followed behind him. Without his permission, she didn’t dare to enter. He told her not to wipe her face with her sleeves, and she held back.

She was still afraid of him after all.

“Come in and wash your face.” He prepared a warm towel for her.

Lu Yixin sniffed and went in. When she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, she gasped.

At once she forgot about Fang Yongnian. She first washed her face, then combed her hair, fussed for a while, yet still couldn’t restore herself back to human form.

Feeling that it was utterly ridiculous for her to look like such a mess on the very day of her first kiss, Lu Yixin chose to shut down.

She pulled all her hair forward to cover her face, standing there stiffly.

She would… wait until the swelling subsided a bit, then let Fang Yongnian see her again.

Fang Yongnian simply watched as Lu Yixin went through that entire little performance in front of him, finally choosing to stand there like that.

Though she was afraid of him, judging by the way her mind worked, the fear he imagined and the fear she actually had were probably quite different.

“Your face doesn’t look good swollen?” He could guess how she was thinking. After all, the last time she got tanned, she reacted the same way.

Lu Yixin nodded stiffly.

Her hair was thick enough to cover her whole face. When she nodded, the hair swayed up and down, looking rather creepy.

Fang Yongnian sighed.

He had never done anything like combing a girl’s hair before, so when he picked up the comb, he hesitated where to start.

“If it hurts, tell me.” In the end, he chose to give up fighting with the tangled mess.

He roughly gathered all her hair to the back, then wrung the warm towel dry, bent down, and wiped her face clean.

“Even the fat cat is laughing at you.” After finishing all that, he had completely lost his temper.

“It dares…” Lu Yixin mumbled in a muffled voice.

Fang Yongnian’s expression softened.

Lu Yixin quietly reached out her hand and tugged at Fang Yongnian’s sleeve, shaking it a little.

Her face was red from crying, her eyes swollen almost to slits.

“When you speak next time, make your point clear.” Fang Yongnian’s tone had returned to his normal calm manner. “You went on and on about everything, it’s easy to cause misunderstandings.”

Lu Yixin hiccuped.

“When your parents come back from the movie and see you like this, how are you going to explain it?” He was both exasperated and amused.

Crying and shouting for him not to let them know on one hand, and on the other, constantly causing trouble.

Lu Yixin sniffled, and tears welled up again.

“You…” She didn’t even know if she was feeling wronged or angry. “Are you my boyfriend or my uncle…”

At a time like this, wasn’t a boyfriend supposed to comfort her? After all, it was him who misunderstood her, and he even got angry.

He really didn’t know how frightening he was when he lost his temper.

“You yelled at me…” She started to settle the score afterward.

When he told her to let go, he even looked so impatient!

“I actually still don’t understand.” Fang Yongnian took another clean towel, this time soaked in cold water. After wringing it dry, he placed it under her eyes. “You told me not to tell your parents, was it because you were afraid I wouldn’t want you?”

Judging by the way she had just been sobbing and wailing, that was probably it.

Lu Yixin nodded. After nodding once, she felt it wasn’t enough, so she nodded harder.

“You…” Fang Yongnian was at a loss for words.

He was a thirty-three-year-old disabled man, why was he standing in the bathroom explaining to his girlfriend that he wouldn’t stop wanting her?

Who else in this world, besides her, would treat him like a treasure?

Other people all hoped he could stand up again, make himself useful, and not stay entangled with the love and hate of the past.

Others saw him as a mentally twisted man who took pleasure in tormenting others—a monster.

Who else in this world, besides her, would tug at his sleeve and say something so absurd?

“You should know, I’ve always been rather out of place.” He pressed the cold towel against the skin under Lu Yixin’s eyes, his movements focused and gentle.

“Before the car accident, your mother had introduced me to a few blind dates.” He had never told anyone about this.

He had been twenty-eight back then. The people at the institute had also started helping him with his personal affairs. At that time, he did want to get married.

He thought it would be nice to find a gentle woman, share the housework, and build a family together.

Because he had made a name for himself young, many milestones in his life came early—marriage shouldn’t have come too late either.

“But after the accident, that ended.” He smiled at Lu Yixin. “Actually, there was one that was going pretty well. We’d met three or four times, and I had been planning to ask if we could start officially dating.”

But after hearing about his accident, that woman immediately blocked his contact information without even asking what had happened.

It was understandable. He couldn’t force her to be with a man who had become disabled and lost his job.

“Later, after I got the prosthetic limb, your mother still arranged a few more blind dates for me.” When Fang Yongnian said this, he suddenly felt a bit like laughing.

Thinking about it, the Lu family really had always been concerned about his private life, always worried he would grow old alone.

“But after the women learned I was disabled, they all quietly backed away.” His voice was calm when he said this.

“As for me being disabled, you’ve always known my attitude toward it.”

Unlucky, but I accepted it.

He had never once thought that being disabled made him inferior to others.

“I really hate settling for less. Whether it’s in work or in life, I hate compromising just because of something.”

“So before I started dating you, I was planning to stay single.”

He could live quite well on his own, so why force any woman to be with a disabled man like him?

While they didn’t want to accept him, he didn’t want to accept them either.

“You might be the only woman in this world who thinks that liking me isn’t a form of settling.”

She never cared whether he was disabled or not.

When she admired him as an idol, she never thought his disability made him any less worthy of admiration. When she liked him as a man, she even got angry at him for avoiding showing his prosthetic limb.

Her affection was too pure, untouched by even the smallest shadow.

Only she could, without reservation, preserve his pride—make him feel that even with his disability, he was still a man worth liking.

“That’s why I’ll only be with you.” After saying that, he turned around and rewet the towel in cold water that had already grown warm.

He did it with quiet focus, his movements slow and deliberate.

As though everything he had just said was nothing more than casual conversation.

Lu Yixin’s hand was still tugging at his sleeve.

She tilted her head, sniffling.

She had cried so hard that the back of her head was still buzzing.

“What’s that woman’s name?” she asked, grinding her teeth.

Fang Yongnian: “…”

“Didn’t you say you’d never dated a woman before!” she demanded. Because her nose was still congested, her voice didn’t sound intimidating enough, so she added, “You big liar.”

Which only made her sound even more like she was acting spoiled.

“All that I just said, and that’s what you focused on?” Fang Yongnian didn’t even know what expression he should wear.

“We only had a few meals together. I never even held her hand.” In the end, he still explained helplessly.

“You wanted to hold her hand?!” Lu Yixin’s voice rose even higher.

Fang Yongnian: “…”

“Why do my parents keep trying to set you up anyway?” Lu Yixin had found another key point. “You look like this, you have a good job, why are they always worried about your love life?”

“What’s so good about men getting married early anyway!” she said indignantly.

Just a little more, just a little bit more, and Fang Yongnian would have really become her Fang-uncle forever.

Her parents were always sabotaging their own child!

“And also…” she lowered her head and started rummaging for her phone.

Fang Yongnian had already turned off the faucet.

Having known Lu Yixin for so many years, Fang Yongnian could already tell that the rest of the night’s path was going to go crooked.

“Can you say that line again, the one where you said you’ll only be with me…” she said, holding up her phone, her voice still tearful but her tone already turning deranged. “I want to record it!”

Fang Yongnian: “…”

“Can’t you just grant me this one thing!” Lu Yixin raised her phone. “I just had my first kiss today, look what you’ve done!”

She began counting. “You misunderstood me, you yelled at me, and you even went and publicly disclosed your romantic history!”

Fang Yongnian: “…………”

“Then how about… you kiss me again!” she said, seeing his expression of absolute refusal, pouting as she chose the next best thing.

The tingling feeling on her lips from before had already faded after all that crying, she needed to relive it.

Expressionless, Fang Yongnian pushed her away and walked straight out of the bathroom.

“Do your homework.” His face changed in a second.

“You’ve gotten almost everything wrong on your linear algebra homework. Keep this up and you’re going to fail your finals.”

“That would be so embarrassing.” His girlfriend, failing linear algebra—he’d be laughed at for life.

“I don’t understand it…” Lu Yixin followed behind him, muttering, “I fell asleep during that part of the lecture. The linear algebra professor’s speaking frequency and decibel level totally clash with my fate, I fall asleep as soon as I hear him.”

Fang Yongnian: “…”

“What’s even the point of learning this stuff?” she kept grumbling. “I’ll never use it in the future. It’s just anti-human.”

Fang Yongnian: “…”

“You don’t even want to kiss me now, do you.” Lu Yixin had great self-awareness.

“I think our relationship’s kind of distorted.”

“One moment we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, the next we’re uncle and niece. It’s confusing me.”

“You really are a pervert!” she concluded, rubbing the spot on her forehead where Fang Yongnian had flicked her, then obediently started working on her problems.

Still, the atmosphere was different now.

At least, whenever she got bored while doing her homework, Fang Yongnian would be right beside her, and she could casually go over and hug him, acting spoiled like that fat cat.

They were finally in love.

Not one-sided anymore.

Because Fang Yongnian had said, he would only be with her.

Only her.