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“We might have taught Yixin too well.”
At four in the morning, the couple, Lu Boyuan and Liu Miqing, were still sitting in the living room, sleepless.
Lu Yixin came back from Fang Yongnian’s place very quickly, in less than half an hour. She was clearly soothed—her eyes were bright when she returned.
She accepted all the reproach humbly, half her face swollen, blinking her big eyes pitifully.
She had gone through the most terrifying moment of her life tonight. Every wound on her body reminded Liu Miqing that her daughter was the kind of foolish child who would rush into a crowd of men with a stone in her hand in the middle of the night for the sake of her conscience.
They had taught her too well, so well that they couldn’t bring themselves to scold or hit her.
So, before Lu Boyuan came back, the speechless Liu Miqing had already told Lu Yixin to go to sleep first.
When Lu Boyuan came home like a sleepwalker, the couple just sat in the living room in silence, faces blank.
Liu Miqing had already told him everything that happened tonight—including Fang Yongnian’s attitude, and their daughter’s tearful confession.
Lu Boyuan went from being furious to being dumbfounded.
He sat on the sofa, dazed for a long, long time, before hoarsely asking his first question:
“You really don’t mind that Yongnian is disabled?”
Liu Miqing sighed. “That’s not the main issue.”
“But I kind of do.” Lu Boyuan probably realized how embarrassing that sounded, and rubbed his nose. “If it were someone else’s daughter, I could stay objective. But when it’s my own daughter…”
But now it was too late to say anything.
He’d said before, he’d felt that something was strange between the two of them lately!
“Yongnian went to see Yu Hanfeng this morning. He plans to convince her to hand over the company director position to another expert, so that he and I can both enter the Kang Mo project as researchers.”
Fang Yongnian had discussed this with him before going to Yu Hanfeng. At the time, Lu Boyuan had even been secretly pleased that Fang Yongnian actually came to consult him first.
Now that he thought about it, what on earth had he been so pleased about!
“So he’s not exactly lifeless. I think he’s changed quite a lot recently.”
“At least, he probably wants to return to his old state even more than we do. It’s not fair to use that point to criticize him,” Lu Boyuan muttered, his tone low and fragmented.
Liu Miqing grew irritated. “So what? You agree to it?”
“Of course I don’t agree.” Lu Boyuan raked his hair. “Aren’t I also in a mess here!”
Who would have thought they’d actually end up together…
When Fang Yongnian admitted it at the police station, Lu Boyuan’s first reaction wasn’t shock—it was absurdity.
If those words had come from Lu Yixin’s mouth, he probably wouldn’t have believed them.
At the police station, he kept thinking that when he got home, he must break open Fang Yongnian’s door, grab him by the collar, and demand to know how he could do such a thing to them.
But when he actually got home and stared at Fang Yongnian’s door, he couldn’t bring himself to knock.
He didn’t even have the courage to confirm it.
It was too absurd, they weren’t even of the same generation!
If he really was with his daughter, then what should he call him?!
“What kind of ridiculous situation is this!” Lu Boyuan felt like he was going to go bald.
“Old Lu.” Liu Miqing held her husband’s hand. “Have you ever imagined what kind of boyfriend our Yixin would have in the future?”
“No, never.” Lu Boyuan shook his head hard.
The thought made him extremely uncomfortable.
Before today, he had always thought of his daughter as still underage! What boyfriend, what marriage!
“I have,” Liu Miqing said, amused by her husband’s look of strong resistance. Her expression softened a little.
“Yixin is actually very sensitive. She knows clearly in her heart who treats her well and who doesn’t.”
“So I thought, her future boyfriend must be someone single-minded and devoted. Otherwise, with her stubborn temper, if her boyfriend ever did something foolish, she’d probably make a mess out of it.”
“Later, I started feeling sorry that Yixin would have to become someone else’s daughter-in-law in the future, so I thought, it would be best if the man’s family background were simple, with parents who aren’t domineering.”
“I imagined all sorts of things. But when I thought about it again, how could there be such a good man in this world?” Liu Miqing finished, then chuckled to herself.
“In today’s restless society, most people only care about living well for themselves. For a girl like Yixin, as long as she can find someone who truly treats her well, that’s enough. I wouldn’t ask for more.”
Liu Miqing sighed.
“But when it really happens, I find that I am still picky.”
“I dislike that Fang Yongnian is too old. I dislike that he’s too deep and calculating. When he was sitting there tonight, I even disliked his posture.”
He sat too straight, too guarded.
“I’m quite surprised at myself. I’m not usually such an unreasonable person.”
“Fang Yongnian and Yixin really handled things very well tonight, but it was too well done. So I started thinking again—how much suffering must Yixin have gone through for Fang Yongnian, to have grown into someone like this now?”
“Old Lu, my heart aches for our Yixin.” Liu Miqing leaned on Lu Boyuan’s shoulder and let out a long, long sigh.
“You didn’t see Yixin’s expression when she said those things.”
“I never thought our daughter would view things with such maturity. Even in that kind of situation, she didn’t lose her composure. When she pulled Fang Yongnian away, she even turned back specially to tell me that the reason she could act so recklessly was only because she knew we loved her.”
“Her composure today was more like an adult than mine.”
“Tell me, if in her growth she had only us, without Fang Yongnian—”
“—would she still be as outstanding as she is now?”
Lu Boyuan was silent.
Liu Miqing gave a bitter smile. “You don’t know either, do you…”
“I’ve been sitting here alone, turning it over and over in my mind, imagining countless possibilities.”
“If the person Yixin fell in love with today weren’t Fang Yongnian, but another disabled man, fourteen years older than her. Would you agree?” she asked her husband.
Lu Boyuan frowned. “I wouldn’t agree to Fang Yongnian either, let alone someone else.”
“You see, you already placed Fang Yongnian as the premise.” Liu Miqing’s voice was very soft.
“When I was thinking through all these possibilities, I kept realizing—if it weren’t Fang Yongnian, we definitely wouldn’t find it this hard to refuse.”
That was Fang Yongnian, the one who had raised Lu Yixin.
The one they knew inside and out, the one they were sure would never treat their daughter unfairly.
Even after something like this happened, the first word that came to their minds when they thought of Fang Yongnian was still “upright.”
Even Lu Boyuan, who couldn’t help but speak in his defense.
“I thought of all kinds of ways to stop the two of them from being together—moving away, you quitting your job, or us being more forceful, making a scene, letting both families know, letting it get so big that Fang Yongnian’s reputation would be completely ruined.”
“This matter isn’t in Fang Yongnian’s favor. If it really blows up, he can forget about continuing with the Kang Mo project. Once gossip spreads that he seduced his senior brother’s daughter, his already fragile reputation will probably be destroyed for good.”
“And I thought, if Yixin knew this—if she knew that being with him would come at such a cost—she’d probably back off too.”
“I just sat here alone, thinking—if we did that, maybe they really could be separated.”
Liu Miqing looked at Lu Boyuan.
“But then what?”
Lu Yixin would hate them for the rest of her life.
They would destroy a pharmaceutical genius’s hard-won second chance.
If they forcibly tore away from Lu Yixin’s life the man who had raised her since childhood, then would Lu Yixin still be the same daughter they were so proud of whenever they thought of her?
“We can’t do that.”
The words from his wife jolted Lu Boyuan—who had, all night long, wanted to throw Fang Yongnian out the window—into sudden clarity. “This… it doesn’t have to go that far.”
Doing that would destroy too many people—ruin Fang Yongnian, ruin their family, and ruin those who might one day benefit from their Kang Mo project.
Over a romance.
It couldn’t go that far.
It shouldn’t go that far.
“Yes. It shouldn’t go that far.” Liu Miqing’s eyes were red. “Then what if… we accept it?”
Lu Boyuan instinctively shook his head again. “Accept… this? That’s too absurd.”
Fang Yongnian!
He was his superior!
Liu Miqing stopped speaking, only looking at him with reddened eyes.
Lu Boyuan: “…”
He shifted uneasily on the sofa, fidgeting.
“Isn’t there any less extreme way?” he asked, eyes wide, unwilling.
“Let Yixin leave Fang Yongnian?” Liu Miqing even gave a bitter smile. “I can’t think of one.”
That was truly the man their daughter had liked and admired for nearly ten years. Without breaking bones and tearing flesh, there was no way to separate them.
Lu Boyuan: “…”
“Then how could that brat even agree to it!” he burst out angrily. “Yixin’s unreliable enough, but how could he go along with her nonsense!”
Liu Miqing wiped her tears.
“Don’t cry.” Lu Boyuan could only force a wry smile as he wiped Liu Miqing’s tears.
They lived apart, rarely seeing each other more than a few times a month. Watching the lines at his wife’s eyes deepen made his chest ache.
So he began to comfort her.
“Actually, it’s not entirely without benefits.”
“At least we know where he comes from, and—more importantly—he really treats Yixin well.”
“You know about his family situation too. Doesn’t she call them every holiday? So I don’t think the worry about her becoming someone else’s daughter-in-law will happen.”
“Thinking like that, actually, it all checks out…”
The more he comforted, the more his words twisted into something else.
The more he spoke, the more he felt that the son-in-law his wife wanted was exactly this kind of man.
“Am I really thinking that far ahead?” Liu Miqing’s tears fell harder. Marriage, daughter-in-law!
“Honey…” In the dead of night, Lu Boyuan’s pet name for her sounded a little more tender, “honestly, if their relationship isn’t headed toward marriage, I’ll go out with a knife and—”
Liu Miqing: “…”
“…Your daughter’s only a college freshman!” she said, dizzy with anger.
“I didn’t say it’s that soon!” Lu Boyuan didn’t even know why he’d said those words. He’d been opposed—so why had it turned into this. “But who falls in love without thinking about marriage!”
Liu Miqing: “…”
“Also, why is my phone ringing now.” Lu Boyuan’s face darkened as he took out his phone.
WeChat.
He frowned. It was almost five. Who would be messaging him?
Fang Yongnian: I’m outside the door, please open.
Liu Miqing: …
Lu Boyuan: …
“Wait a second.” Lu Boyuan jumped up and hurried to the door to open it.
Sure enough, Fang Yongnian stood outside. He was half a head taller; the way he looked down at him made Lu Boyuan very unpleasant.
So Lu Boyuan, without thinking much, shut the door again and stood nose-to-nose with Fang Yongnian.
Liu Miqing: …
Fang Yongnian: …
Lu Boyuan’s phone vibrated again.
Fang Yongnian’s WeChat contained only one punctuation mark: ？
Lu Boyuan was furious, but in the end he opened the door.
“What do you want?” he lowered his voice. “Aren’t you afraid of waking others?”
This building only houses our two families, who would he wake?
“I waited until Lu Yixin fell asleep before coming over.” Fang Yongnian spoke slowly, “I have something to give you.”
He had worried Yixin wouldn’t dare sleep, so he kept her on a call and chatted with her until he heard her snore, then came to knock.
For now, he didn’t want Lu Yixin to know about this matter.
“This black one is my payroll card, the other green one is the dividend from Hecheng Pharmacy.” He handed the two bank cards to Lu Boyuan, “The PINs are stuck on the back with sticky notes.”
“I originally planned to give them to you after dinner on the weekend, but it’s fine to give them now.”
“I know your family always hands over all wages. I applied for a supplementary card for the payroll card, and the transaction SMS will be sent to Sister Miqing’s phone.”
“From now on, the salary will be deposited into this card every month. If I use this card for expenses, you’ll be able to see it.”
“Lu Yixin is still too young; I don’t trust her with financial management yet, so I’ll give it to you for the time being.”
“It’s late, sleep.” After he finished speaking, he closed the door behind him.
While Lu Boyuan was dazedly holding the bank cards, the neighbor’s keypad lock clicked and fell silent again.
Lu Boyuan tossed the hot potato of the two cards to Liu Miqing, and shook his shoulders.
Although he didn’t want Fang Yongnian and his daughter’s relationship to be just a fling.
