The place Fang Yongnian brought Lu Yixin to was quite unique.

A private restaurant on a small dirt hill in the outskirts of Huating. There were many domestic chickens and ducks raised in the yard, and quite a few freshwater fish in the backyard. The dining rooms were all separated into small wooden cabins, each equipped with a fireplace and decorated in the style of a European living room.

As soon as Lu Yixin entered the yard, she was captivated by the two Alaskan dogs there, hugging and cuddling them with great enthusiasm.

“Lu Yixin.” Fang Yongnian, halfway through ordering dishes, suddenly turned his head.

“Ah?” Lu Yixin’s yellow wool hat popped out from between the two Alaskans’ heads.

“The duck here is quite good.” He asked her, “Do you want ginger duck or beer duck?”

Lu Yixin looked conflicted.

Fang Yongnian smiled: “Cut the duck in half, we’ll try both.”

Behind him came Lu Yixin’s cheer, mixed with the Alaskans’ howls.

“Little wife, huh?” The lady boss, quite understanding, winked at Fang Yongnian. “You really dote on her!”

Fang Yongnian coughed lightly.

“That’s why you should find a man older than yourself,” the lady boss went on animatedly. “Like the one in my house—doesn’t work. I thought finding someone younger would mean he’s full of energy, but it’s like taking care of another child.”

Fang Yongnian didn’t reply.

The little wife Lu Yixin disentangled herself from the Alaskans and held onto Fang Yongnian’s arm: “I want to drink!”

Fang Yongnian frowned.

Lu Yixin followed suit and frowned too.

The lady boss fanned the flames on the side: “I have some homemade fruit wine here, very sweet, low in alcohol. Want to try a little?”

“Why do you want to drink?” Fang Yongnian asked only after they entered the small cabin, where the lady boss had lit the fireplace and closed the door for them.

Lu Yixin lay sprawled carelessly on the sofa: “The first time I drank alcohol in my life, you weren’t there. I was really sad that day, so the beer became very bitter.”

On the day the college entrance exam results were released, she finally realized Fang Yongnian intended to leave her completely. Every sip of beer she drank then was bitter.

“Beer is supposed to be bitter.” Fang Yongnian also sat down on the sofa, lowering his head as Lu Yixin wriggled into his arms. “Drink less. I have to drive, so only you can drink today.”

“Can’t we stay here?” Lu Yixin’s voice was sticky. “I saw there are lodgings in the backyard.”

Fang Yongnian said slowly: “So both of us drink, and then stay here for the night?”

Lu Yixin lifted her head from his arms and nodded hard twice.

Fang Yongnian reached out and kneaded her round little face into a ball, squishing it together before giving her a glare.

“Novels are all lies.” His tone was calm, but his hand didn’t stop.

The squished Lu Yixin mumbled, trying to voice her opinion.

“After men drink, they usually don’t lose control.” His tone was still calm, except for the tips of his ears that had started to redden.

Lu Yixin widened her eyes, struggled to free her face, and asked with fearless curiosity, “Why? Because they can’t get hard?”

Fang Yongnian: “…………”

Lu Yixin shrank back into his arms again, mumbling, “You can’t hit me. If you hit me, that’s domestic violence.”

Soft and coquettish, completely unrestrained.

“Not today.” Fang Yongnian didn’t hit her, he only held her and swayed her gently. “My self-control hasn’t been very good lately.”

Lu Yixin: “?”

“It’s not because I’m conservative.” Fang Yongnian read the question mark in her eyes and chuckled. “I just haven’t gotten ready yet. There are some things I mind more than you do.”

Lu Yixin froze.

“I’m not an old-fashioned person.” Fang Yongnian said this with a smile. “The first time I realized that my feelings for you were wrong was when I started not wanting to show you my amputated limb.”

“After the car accident, you came to the hospital often. You’ve seen me in every state. You were originally the one person I didn’t mind showing my injuries to.” Fang Yongnian looked at Lu Yixin. “But now, I mind it more and more.”

“There are many scars on my body.”

“I know that day when you were unbuttoning my shirt, it was because you saw the scar on my chest.”

“It’s not that if we stayed here tonight, something would definitely happen.”

“It’s just that lately, whenever the two of us are alone, things tend to get out of control.”

“For now, I’m not ready yet. For now, I don’t want to lose control.”

Lu Yixin stared at him in a daze.

At that moment, there was a timely knock from the landlady bringing in the dishes. Fang Yongnian got up to open the door. The waiter came in carrying the dishes one after another. Fang Yongnian had ordered quite a few, and also the fruit wine she had been clamoring for.

The room was warm from the fireplace. When all the dishes had been served and the waiter closed the door on his way out, Fang Yongnian turned around—only to find Lu Yixin sitting on the sofa, tears streaming down her face.

“What’s wrong?” He was half laughing, half exasperated.

Lu Yixin, still crying, ran barefoot off the sofa, threw herself into his arms, and hugged his neck. “Wuwuwuwu…”

Fang Yongnian helplessly held her. “It’s a pity you don’t act, you’d be perfect for it.”

Barely two minutes had passed, and yet her emotions were already this full.

“The people who hurt you…” Lu Yixin cried and gritted her teeth, “are all bastards!”

“May all their sons be born without assholes!” After cursing, she still didn’t feel satisfied, sniffling and trying to think of something harsher.

“Wu Yuande really doesn’t have a son anymore.” Fang Yongnian patted her head.

Lu Yixin responded with a muffled “uh uh oh oh.”

He sighed, standing there with Lu Yixin nestled in his arms.

Those people, all got what they deserved. He had personally sent them away. Including the list of falsified data Wu Yuande had given him, every single person on it had been punished.

But in his heart, none of those punishments felt as satisfying as Lu Yixin crying in his arms and cursing “bastard.”

Cursing right against his skin, right next to his ear.

So much that his own eyes inexplicably stung too.

“It’s really not such a big deal,” he said, not wanting to seem embarrassed, simply changing the subject. “I’m just a little self-conscious, like how you refuse to show me your face when you’re tanned and puffy from crying.”

Lu Yixin sniffled and reached out to stroke his hair. “I’ll let you see from now on.”

She promised in a comforting tone, “No matter how ugly I look, I’ll let you see! Even if I don’t wash my face in the morning, I’ll still let you see!”

Fang Yongnian couldn’t help laughing, but his eyes stung even more.

“I can even show you when I don’t draw my eyebrows and push my bangs up!” She was racking her brain to comfort him. “That’s really ugly, I look like an alien.”

Fang Yongnian didn’t speak, only held her tighter and tighter.

Lu Yixin looked up.

She saw Fang Yongnian’s eyes rimmed with red. Caught by surprise, he immediately reached out and covered her eyes.

Lu Yixin: “……”

“This… I can’t look at this either?” It was her first time seeing Fang Yongnian with red eyes. Before she could even savor the sight, it was blocked from view.

“Then I’ll look when you’re ready.” Lu Yixin quickly consoled herself again.

“Look my ass.” Fang Yongnian grumbled roughly, holding her shoulders and turning her around. “Eat. The food here has good reviews.”

“You’ve been here before?” Lu Yixin bit into a duck wing, speaking with her mouth full. “It’s good!”

“Yu Hanfeng recommended it.” Fang Yongnian took a sip of crucian carp soup. Remembering what Lu Yixin had said earlier, he asked, “You drew your eyebrows?”

Lu Yixin finished the duck wing, wiped her hands, and lifted her bangs. “I didn’t use to have many eyebrows, and later Li Xiao’an helped pluck them all. These eyebrows are drawn by her. Pretty, right?”

“They’re called willow-leaf brows. Very trendy.” She dragged her chair over until she was right in front of Fang Yongnian, thrusting her face close to his.

Fang Yongnian silently put down his spoon.

“You plucked them all?” That was what concerned him more.

“Mm! Used a razor, shaa shaa shaa!” Lu Yixin demonstrated excitedly.

She had put on light makeup today, and this big straight man hadn’t even noticed!

“So if you wipe off the eyebrow pencil, you don’t have eyebrows at all?” Fang Yongnian asked slowly.

“Yeah.” Lu Yixin grinned, pointing to the wide space on her forehead. “If I take off my makeup, there’s nothing here.”

Fang Yongnian: “…So you came over just to see if my eyes are still red, didn’t you?”

Her terrible acting was obvious, her eyes were practically bulging.

Exposed, Lu Yixin let her bangs fall and giggled.

“I’ve never seen you cry before.” Sitting in front of him, she refused to go back to her seat and simply dragged her bowl and chopsticks over to eat beside him.

Fang Yongnian ladled her a bowl of soup.

Men crying, it was shameful.

He then placed another duck wing into Lu Yixin’s bowl.

He had simply never been comforted like this before. Their family had two sons. His father had been half a soldier, half a factory director within the system—the atmosphere at home had always been strict.

Whether before the accident or after, the family motto had always been self-discipline above all. When he lost his leg, his old father smoked through an entire pack of cigarettes before saying to him: soldiers missing an arm or a leg on the battlefield are countless, as long as you’re still alive, that’s enough.

This was how his family comforted people, and it was the way he was used to.

Lu Yixin’s sticky, childish way of coaxing someone was completely foreign to him.

But that unfamiliarity, it was becoming addictive.

He put down his spoon again, lifted Lu Yixin’s bangs, and glanced at her eyebrows.

Lu Yixin, happily gnawing on a chicken wing, froze with the bone still between her teeth, eyes wide.

“You put on makeup?” Fang Yongnian lowered her bangs.

Two hours after they met, he finally noticed.

Lu Yixin, bone still in her mouth, nodded hard.

“It’s smudged from crying.” Fang Yongnian slowly took out his phone, turned on the front camera, and handed it to her.

Lu Yixin: “……”

“Why is this part red?” Fang Yongnian, sipping his soup, couldn’t hold back his curiosity as he watched Lu Yixin touch up her face again.

“That’s eyeshadow.” Lu Yixin’s expression didn’t change.

“Then this red and black part?” Fang Yongnian discovered another new color on her face.

“That’s eyeliner. It smudged together with the eyeshadow.” Lu Yixin’s expression remained blank.

“Oh.” The world-weary middle-aged man nodded, enlightened.

Lu Yixin dropped her compact and glared at him.

“What?” Fang Yongnian was already on his third bowl of soup.

“You keep drinking soup but don’t eat the fish, is it because you’re too lazy to pick out the bones?” Lu Yixin’s eyes rolled to the ceiling.

“And also, it’s my first time wearing makeup in front of you, can’t you say something nice?”

“It took me almost an hour to get it right.”

Fang Yongnian looked at her with great satisfaction as she complained while picking out a big chunk of fish and putting it into his bowl.

“Pretty good-looking,” he said truthfully.

If only she hadn’t told him that the price of that face was shaving off her eyebrows.

So, unable to resist, he reached over and lifted her bangs again—and before she could completely explode, he laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

Really quite good-looking.

Even now, with her eye makeup smudged into a panda.