Liu Miqing did not let Fang Yongnian come in.

She half-opened the door, blocking the entrance, her face expressionless.

“There’s no first-aid kit in your room.” Fang Yongnian handed over the first-aid box in his hand.

Liu Miqing took the box without intending to say thank you, and directly tried to close the door.

Fang Yongnian pressed his hand against the door panel.

“When I was at the research institute, I called you sister-in-law.” Fang Yongnian looked at Liu Miqing. “Later, after falling out with Lu Boyuan, I changed and called you Sister Miqing.”

“These past few years since my accident, you’ve always taken great care of me, so I understand your anger very well.” Fang Yongnian paused. “I’m sorry for hiding it from you, but I don’t want this anger to affect your judgment.”

Liu Miqing glared at him.

At this point, he was talking to her about judgment?

“Are you more upset that I hid the fact I was dating Lu Yixin, or are you more upset about me dating Lu Yixin in the first place?” His words were especially awkward, slow, yet very deliberate.

Liu Miqing frowned.

She instinctively rejected everything Fang Yongnian said, but that previous sentence was so awkwardly phrased that she couldn’t help thinking about it for a moment.

Then, her brows furrowed even tighter.

She hadn’t planned to talk to Fang Yongnian at all. When she was most furious, she had intended to have Lu Boyuan resign immediately, and for them to move away the next day, cutting off all contact with Fang Yongnian forever.

After coming back, the anger in her chest had been poked open just a little by Lu Yixin’s soft and gentle words, and now, with Fang Yongnian’s awkward sentence, the anger had nowhere left to go.

Indeed, her anger had clouded her judgment.

If Fang Yongnian were a stranger she didn’t know, right now she should have been more shocked than angry. She might have spent more time trying to understand why her daughter would fall for a man fourteen years older than her, one whose body was imperfect.

It was precisely because this person was Fang Yongnian. The Fang Yongnian they trusted so much, always treated as family—that in the instant she found out, her first feeling was betrayal.

A sense of betrayal like being struck on the back of the head by someone closest to her.

She finally stepped back and turned her body aside, letting Fang Yongnian into the house.

When Fang Yongnian entered, he glanced toward Lu Yixin’s room. The door was tightly shut.

“I told her not to come out.” Liu Miqing blocked his line of sight. “I think the things we need to talk about aren’t suitable for a child to hear.”

Fang Yongnian gave a bitter smile. Liu Miqing was a gentle person. He had known her for so long and had never seen her lose her temper. No matter how mischievous Lu Yixin was or how unreliable Lu Boyuan could be, she always just smiled.

Such a good-tempered person, tonight—for the sake of her only daughter—had finally put on armor.

“Lu Yixin didn’t tell you tonight because she didn’t want you to worry.” Fang Yongnian’s first words after sitting down were exactly the same as Lu Yixin’s when she had entered the room earlier.

That feeling of helplessness surged up once again.

Liu Miqing felt somewhat dispirited.

When she saw Lu Yixin lying on Fang Yongnian’s back earlier, she had already felt it—though she only now realized what that feeling was.

Fang Yongnian had taught Lu Yixin too many things, including her values.

The reason she thought her daughter was so sensible tonight, so very sensible, was because on the road of her daughter’s growth, Fang Yongnian had always been there.

They were already that close.

What did she have to refuse Fang Yongnian with?

“Yixin has always been very resistant toward the idea of you dating someone, so I did worry—if one day her feelings for you changed from admiration into something else, what should I do.” Liu Miqing looked at Fang Yongnian. “But that worry didn’t last long, because I thought, no matter how Yixin acts out, there’s still you.”

She had been at ease, because she knew that someone as smart and proud as Fang Yongnian could never possibly be moved by such feelings.

He should have understood very clearly that Lu Yixin’s feelings were likely nothing more than youthful hormones misdirected.

He had experienced so many things, seen so many aspects of human nature—he couldn’t possibly be unaware of what he would have to face if the two of them were together.

Then why, tonight, was he half-holding, half-carrying her daughter in his arms, telling her that they were in love?

“I did refuse her.” What Liu Miqing was thinking had once been his own inner path. “But now that I look back, my refusals always left her with a way out.”

He actually could have just told Lu Boyuan and Liu Miqing about it, and back then, when Lu Yixin was still in her second year of high school, she wouldn’t have been able to cause any further trouble.

He could have simply blocked her and had a serious talk with Lu Boyuan and Liu Miqing, cutting off contact completely with their family. Back then, Lu Yixin, only a second-year student, had no means to find him again.

He had many practical and effective ways to deal with it, but he hadn’t used any of them. He only kept telling Lu Yixin, again and again, that being together would be difficult, that their relationship would not be blessed.

“So I guess I never truly refused her. I only told her how hard it would be for us to be together, and left the rest for her to decide.”

Even if that hadn’t been his conscious intention at the time, that was indeed what he had done instinctively.

He had betrayed the trust the Liu-Mi couple placed in him, and he had overestimated his own self-control.

Because of Fang Yongnian’s shameless frankness, Liu Miqing was rendered speechless.

Just like outside the police station earlier, he once again told her—bluntly and forcefully—that he was indeed in a relationship with her daughter.

He hadn’t even tried to defend himself; he even admitted that the reason Lu Yixin ended up with him was because he had never seriously rejected her.

“If Boyuan were here right now, you’d probably already be beaten to death by him.” Liu Miqing’s mouth twitched, her tone helpless.

Seeing Fang Yongnian like this, she no longer even knew what to say.

“I know.” Fang Yongnian gave a bitter smile. He had indeed prepared himself mentally for that possibility.

“I’m very angry, but it’s precisely because that person happened to be you that I’m even angrier.” Liu Miqing, after all, wasn’t someone with a fiery temper. Having been struck point after point, her anger could no longer gather back up.

“You’re Yixin’s uncle…” She stopped halfway through the sentence.

What was the point of saying that now—he had already carried her on his back, and judging from his attitude now, hand-holding and embracing had probably been plenty too.

“When did it start?” Liu Miqing felt that by asking that question, her heart had already turned to ashes.

“After the college entrance exams.” Fang Yongnian answered everything she asked.

Liu Miqing: “……”

Lu Yixin’s first semester of university was already almost over. They had been in love for nearly half a year.

“You were planning to tell us once it was stable?” She had known Fang Yongnian for many years and understood his personality well.

Though she didn’t want to admit it—

Since he was already with her daughter, he must be serious about it.

When Fang Yongnian took something seriously, he had always been careful and steady.

“Mm.” Fang Yongnian admitted. “I was actually planning to invite you both to dinner this weekend.”

Liu Miqing: “……”

So, in Fang Yongnian’s view, their relationship was already stable.

“After your car accident, I introduced you to a few blind dates.” Liu Miqing spoke very slowly. “The girls I found all had pretty good qualities. Although none of them worked out, Boyuan and I never thought that after your car accident, you became any less than others.”

Fang Yongnian’s character, knowledge, even appearance—all were outstanding.

His future was also stable.

She had never once thought that just because Fang Yongnian had lost a leg, he was no longer capable of being the head of a household.

“Now that I think from another perspective, I still don’t think your physical condition would have been our main concern.” Liu Miqing smiled. “In terms of appearance, my view has always been that as long as Yixin thinks it’s fine, then it should be fine.”

She had placed his imperfection under the category of appearance.

Fang Yongnian was surprised, yet also relieved.

No wonder—only a family like this could have raised a child like Lu Yixin.

“What I mind are your experiences and your age.” Past one in the morning, Liu Miqing finally found her balance after a night of chaos, sorting out what exactly had been the unease in her heart ever since she heard the news.

“Yixin is still in her first year of university. Her life hasn’t even begun yet.”

“But you are different.”

“If you were still the same person you were before the car accident, and the two of you really ended up together today, my reaction might not have been this strong.”

Age and seniority—when all was said and done—were external conditions.

They weren’t related by blood. If Lu Yixin found a steady and dependable man like Fang Yongnian to be her boyfriend, she probably wouldn’t have objected.

“Yongnian.” Liu Miqing looked at him, speaking sincerely. “I can’t entrust Yixin, who is still a blank sheet of paper, to you.”

“Yixin can’t be with someone who has already despaired of humanity, who feels that every day of living is merely for the sake of being alive. Her life hasn’t even started yet. I can’t stand by and watch her grow lifeless alongside you.”

This was the harshest thing Liu Miqing had said all night.

Fang Yongnian didn’t speak.

And Liu Miqing didn’t continue.

By this point, both of them already understood what the other meant.

Liu Miqing couldn’t refute Lu Yixin being with Fang Yongnian.

But Fang Yongnian also couldn’t refute that he had lost faith in humanity, that he no longer had any vision for the future.

Even though he had gone to see Yu Hanfeng.

Even though he had begun the preliminary preparations for the Kang Mo project.

He still couldn’t, in good conscience, claim that he was doing this out of a sense of mission, or because he wanted to cure those suffering from illness.

Just like his almost obsessive demands toward the data on generic drugs—he did all this only for one breath of defiance.

Even though five years had been wasted, Fang Yongnian could still achieve accomplishments that others could only look up to.

Even though he had lost a leg, he could still be happy.

Before doing anything, he could never escape these two “even thoughs.”

He had thought of a hundred reasons why Liu Miqing and Lu Boyuan might reject him, but he never expected that the thing Liu Miqing minded the most would strike right at his fatal weakness.

He was indeed weary of the world.

Before the car accident, he hadn’t truly entered the world, so he had felt nothing.

After the accident, the whole world was full of malice toward him. He walked alone, and all he saw and experienced were the ugliest sides of humanity—so he couldn’t find a single reason not to be weary of the world.

Perhaps what he needed was a companion—an animal like the fat cat, one that wouldn’t interfere with each other. Or someone like Yu Hanfeng, where they each lived their own lives.

So it was no wonder Liu Miqing didn’t want to entrust the bright and beautiful Lu Yixin to him. Knowing clearly that his future life would still be one of isolation from the world—how could she possibly be willing to hand her over to him?

Fang Yongnian lowered his head.

What should he do…

Even when his fatal weakness was grasped in someone else’s hand, he still didn’t want to give up—what should he do then…

He really should have found a Taoist to capture this little demon. Now that he had seen the little demon’s heart, how could he possibly say he would give her up?