The soundproofing of their house door was quite good; even in the stillness of the night, it was difficult to clearly hear what was being said outside. Fang Yongnian’s voice was quiet, and even with her ear pressed to the door, Lu Yixin could only occasionally catch her father’s voice.

She actually had a stethoscope she used for eavesdropping. She and Zheng Ranran, at that mischievous age, had asked a classmate to help them buy it. At first, she had bought it to listen in on what her parents were doing in their room. Later, when her mother found out, she was fined a month’s allowance and forced to swear never to use it again.

Wiping away her tears, she hesitated for a moment but decided to keep her promise. Sniffling, she pressed her ear tightly against the door, sealing it as perfectly as she could.

Fang Yongnian’s voice was still too faint to make out, but she could finally hear the rough shape of her father’s words.

“These past four years, the research direction of Alzheimer’s pharmaceuticals has already shifted. If our project from back then had continued, the phase III clinical trial still wouldn’t have reached its primary endpoint. The study on the serotonin 6 (5-HT6) receptor antagonists has always had issues with efficacy.”

Lu Yixin rubbed her ear.

She couldn’t understand a word…

Every time her father talked about work, she would instantly feel the urge to go meet the Duke of Zhou in her dreams.

Outside, there was a long stretch of silence. Lu Yixin felt as though she were about to fuse with the door.

Fang Yongnian finally spoke. His voice was still low, and what he said was very short.

Lu Yixin listened with all her focus; her tears had already stopped. Because of her stuffy nose and her concentration, she was starting to feel a little short of breath.

Another silence followed.

Then came a loud slap against the table—so loud that it made Lu Yixin, who was leaning against the door, jump in fright, nearly toppling over.

“What the hell have you done right all these years?!” Lu Boyuan’s roar didn’t even need a door between them to be heard. “Are you worthy of the old professor? Everything he taught you, did you feed it all to the dogs?!”

Lu Boyuan—her father—had cursed.

Lu Yixin sat by the door, blank-faced.

In her memory, her father, Lu Boyuan, had always been a strict parent. Her mother was the one who pampered her; her father was responsible for pouring cold water on everything, though most of the time, his cold water had no effect on her.

But her father was a scholar—a serious, meticulous, well-mannered scholar.

Her parents had always gotten along well. For as long as she could remember, their family had never raised their voices in an argument, let alone heard him curse so directly.

She was even a little shocked. The fright had cleared her nasal congestion.

The living room was in chaos after Lu Boyuan’s outburst. Lu Yixin heard the sound of chairs scraping, her mother’s soft voice trying to calm him, and as for Fang Yongnian—the one she cared about—he remained silent the entire time.

The noise outside rose, then faded. From the entryway came the sound of the door opening and closing.

Fang Yongnian had left.

He didn’t say another word as he went. Tonight’s dinner ended with her father’s curse.

Lu Yixin quietly opened her door.

The food was still on the table, the two glasses of wine still there.

Her parents stood by the entryway. Her mother held her father’s arm, whispering something to him.

“Ungrateful!” Lu Boyuan was still furious; Lu Yixin felt that fire might burst from his nostrils as he spoke.

“He doesn’t even think about how much effort and how many resources the country has spent to nurture him to this point!”

“That year, the old professor’s child had a high fever. In order to help him with his thesis, he actually didn’t go home for an entire night. The professor’s wife cried so much her eyes were swollen.”

“What exactly did he do right?!” Lu Boyuan couldn’t help but ask again.

No one answered him.

“Just who does he think he’s being right for!” Lu Boyuan stamped his foot fiercely. Turning around, he happened to meet the eyes of his daughter, Lu Yixin.

Lu Yixin had just finished crying and was now frightened. Seeing Lu Boyuan’s face, she hiccuped, and her nose almost ran.

Lu Boyuan: “…”

Due to work reasons, he hadn’t spent much time with his daughter. He wasn’t good at talking to her. Most of the time, his daughter’s unpredictable way of thinking would leave him momentarily unable to react.

But, he couldn’t just let her off.

During dinner earlier, Fang Yongnian’s phone had rung several times. He had glanced at it; all the calls were from Lu Yixin.

She called Fang Yongnian right after evening self-study ended.

An eighteen-year-old girl, always thinking about messy things, her academic grades fluctuating up and down.

“Have you finished your homework?!” Lu Boyuan maintained his previous stance and tone of glowering and glaring, staring back at Lu Yixin.

Lu Yixin: “…”

Was her father going through menopause…

“Take it out for me to check!” Lu Boyuan walked back to the living room. “And last month’s practice exam papers, take them all out.”

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

Evening… ten o’clock.

Lu Yixin, her eyes red-rimmed, looked pitifully at Liu Miqing for help.

Liu Miqing shrugged at Lu Yixin.

It was rare for Lu Boyuan to take an interest in his daughter. It wasn’t convenient for her to intervene now. Besides, Lu Yixin’s grades really needed serious attention.

“I’ll make you some midnight snacks.” Liu Miqing chose to leave the battlefield.

“Make what midnight snacks!” Lu Boyuan’s anger wasn’t spent yet. “Isn’t all this food on the table enough for her to eat?”

Lu Yixin: “…”

That night ultimately passed with chickens flying and dogs jumping.

Lu Yixin’s grades fell far short of the expectations of Lu Boyuan, who had been a top student since elementary school. He also lacked Fang Yongnian’s patience; when he started explaining a problem or a key point for the second time, he couldn’t help but raise his voice.

Lu Yixin held in a bellyful of anger all evening.

Finally, after her father asked her for the eight hundredth time, “Were you even paying attention to what I just said?”, she erupted: “I don’t understand!”

She threw her pen.

“You don’t explain it as well as Uncle Fang!” She added fuel to the fire after throwing her pen.

Lu Boyuan was so angry by her that he nearly had only incoming breath and no outgoing breath.

“Say that again!” The middle-aged man, unaccustomed to communicating with his daughter, felt his blood pressure soaring and his neck thickening a full circle.

Lu Yixin was not someone who scared easily. “If Uncle Fang were the one explaining this question, I’d understand it in five minutes!”

Lu Boyuan took a deep breath.

He couldn’t hit the child. If he hit the child, Liu Miqing would poison his food…

“Listen.” He took another deep breath, forcing his voice down until each word was laced with threat. “You’re about to enter your third year of high school, soon it’ll be the college entrance exam.”

Lu Yixin stared blankly, not understanding why her father suddenly took on such a solemn tone.

“The college entrance exam is a turning point in a person’s life. It determines the path you’ll take in the future. These next two years are the most critical years of your life.”

He spoke sincerely, just like every other parent giving their child a motivational talk before the exam.

“You need to settle down and stay away from those messy people. Focus on your studies.”

Lu Yixin’s mouth fell open. Messy people? Who?

“Fang Yongnian…” After saying those three characters, Lu Boyuan paused, unable to hold back a sigh.

He had actually planned to have a proper talk with him tonight.

What happened in the past was already over. Fang Yongnian had lost a leg over that incident and even resigned from the research institute. In these past four years, his reputation had suffered greatly because of the leak.

In terms of punishment, it was enough.

All he wanted was for Fang Yongnian to bow his head, to stop being so arrogant and radical just because he was talented.

The project had required massive investment in its early stages. Before Fang Yongnian joined the team, what he needed was his attitude.

The world of pharmaceuticals didn’t need heroes. Without capital, without a team, one person alone could achieve nothing.

But his junior still held his head high, full of pride, completely convinced he had done nothing wrong.

When the past was brought up, Fang Yongnian had even sneered.

The anger that had been simmering beneath the surface flared up instantly—and along with it, their reunion, which they only had once every six months, was ruined.

He looked at his daughter’s face.

Every time he saw her, he thought she had grown even more beautiful.

His wife had raised her well—a pair of large eyes, black and white, bright and fearless.

He didn’t know how to explain such a complicated adult world to a gaze that clear.

“Fang Yongnian…” He got stuck again on the name, then sighed once more. “He is not a good example.”

He was rebellious and extreme. Having become famous young and skipped grades growing up, he had spent his adult years buried in the lab with almost no social interaction, which made him lack humanity and left his mindset negative.

Smart—he truly was smart. But a person like that was not suitable to be a young girl’s idol.

“He’s about to leave Hecheng. He’s still young and has many things to do.”

To hole himself up in this small city, guarding a broken, shabby little pharmacy, secretly pulling strings and seeking investors behind the scenes. This wasn’t what someone of his talent should be doing.

“From now on, you need to focus. If you don’t understand your homework, call me. And if that doesn’t work, isn’t your friend Zheng Ranran the top student in the whole school?”

“Your mother and I have never expected you to be first in the class, but getting into university is the bare minimum. Our family, after all, is a family of intellectuals. Our only daughter can’t go on being this lazy and undisciplined.”

He said a lot more.

With painstaking patience, from his own point of view, choosing what he believed to be the gentlest, most reasonable words.

It was rare for him to talk to his daughter this much, so he poured his heart out. Every word came from the hope that she would listen—that she would take his advice, stay away from Fang Yongnian, stay away from the so-called idol she had clung to since childhood.

But Lu Yixin stopped listening the moment her father said Fang Yongnian was leaving Hecheng.

He was leaving?

Hecheng was her mother’s hometown. When her mother was transferred back there for work years ago, Fang Yongnian had just gotten his prosthetic fitted and was still in the adjustment period.

At the time, she thought they were going to be separated for good. As a little girl, she cried herself to sleep every night.

But to her surprise, the year after she and her mother moved back to Hecheng, Fang Yongnian came too.

It was like a miracle.

He had spent nearly two years adjusting until there was almost no trace of difference when he walked.

Then he came to Hecheng—a city entirely unfamiliar to him—and opened a pharmacy with his friend Zheng Fei.

She was still young then, too young to understand what a waste it was for someone with Fang Yongnian’s talent to be running a small pharmacy. She only knew that Fang Yongnian was near her again.

For more than two years, he had always been there.

She could go to him anytime. When she called him, he almost always picked up.

Sometimes, he would get annoyed and say she was an attention-seeking, hyperactive nuisance; sometimes, he would call her stupid and say her head was full of water; and sometimes, like that night, when he was in a bad mood, he would give her the cold shoulder and ask if she was begging for trouble.

But—he was within reach.

Lu Yixin stared blankly, as if sleepwalking, at her father’s mouth opening and closing as he spoke.

He… was leaving?

Then what about her… what should she do?