Jiang Wenzhe thought for a moment that he was hearing things. He furrowed his thick brows and asked her, “What are you talking about?”
Lin Sangyu’s eyes darted about, her voice as crisp as a silver bell: “I’m going to take care of you.”
“Were you listening to me just now?” Jiang Wenzhe quickly caught on.
“How can you call that eavesdropping?” Lin Sangyu kindly corrected him. “That’s called an accident—a total accident!”
Jiang Wenzhe couldn’t be bothered to respond and replied flatly, “Oh.”
“Oh?”
Lin Sangyu took a step forward, leaning her upper body slightly toward Jiang Wenzhe. She stuck out her chin and looked him straight in the eye as she pressed on:
“What do you mean by that? I’m supporting you—aren’t you happy? Aren’t you touched?”
Lin Sangyu was a good head shorter than Jiang Wenzhe; the top of her head barely reached his chin. From Jiang Wenzhe’s vantage point, it looked as if he were looking through a 0.8x wide-angle lens, making Lin Sangyu’s head and eyes appear disproportionately large while her arms and body seemed tiny—a rather comical sight.
Jiang Wenzhe gave her a couple more amused glances before saying, “So how do you plan to support me? My standard of living is a bit high.”
“How high?”
“First, tell me how much you can earn in a day.”
Lin Sangyu ran her fingers through her hair, mentally crunching the fundamental building blocks of elementary mathematics in China and even worldwide—the multiplication table—and after a series of logical deductions, she finally arrived at a rather extravagant conclusion: “I can earn at least fifty a day to support you.”
She was utterly ridiculous.
Jiang Wenze’s mouth twitched slightly. Too lazy to deal with her, he lifted his long leg and, without even sparing Lin Sangyu a glance, walked right past her and headed upstairs.
“Hey, hey, hey, where are you going?” Seeing him about to leave, Lin Sangyu, in a panic, grabbed the corner of his jacket sleeve.
Jiang Wenzhe replied succinctly, “Shower, sleep.”
Lin Sangyu looked at his icy expression and felt she had glimpsed the tender core hidden beneath his tough exterior. In her mind, she automatically imagined a scene of Jiang Wenzhe crying alone under the shower, hiding his tears behind the stream of water.
Waaah, how pitiful.
Maybe that’s just how he appears—strong.
So she repeated, “Jiang Wenzhe, I’ll take care of you.”
Just like you take care of me.
“Sure.”
Uncharacteristically, Jiang Wenzhe agreed readily this time. Lin Sangyu felt a sense of validation, but before a smile could even touch her lips, she was doused with a bucket of cold water.
“Look,” Jiang Wenzhe tilted his chin, gesturing with his eyes for Lin Sangyu to look at his wrist. “Do you know how much this cufflink you’re holding costs?”
The cufflink wasn’t a simple circle but a triangular shape with rounded corners, encircled by white bricks and set with a sienna-red cinder stone at its center, exuding an air of luxury.
Lin Sangyu asked innocently, “How much?”
Jiang Wenzhe leaned down and whispered playfully into her ear, “120,000.”
“What?” It took Lin Sangyu just 0.01 seconds to pull her hand away from Jiang Wenzhe’s sleeve. She stared unblinkingly at the unassuming cufflink pinned to his cuff.
That’s… that’s so expensive.
Once she’d regained her composure, she said earnestly, “Jiang Wenzhe, since you’re bankrupt, why not start by selling off your assets? It might also be a good time to scale back your lifestyle a bit.”
“Why sell off my assets? I’ve still got you, don’t I?” He patted Lin Sangyu on the shoulder and said to her in the tone of a boss speaking to a subordinate, “Keep it up—I’ve got high hopes for you.”
Great, she felt encouraged. Lin Sangyu also felt a sense of responsibility: “So what do you think I can do?”
“Good question. Tell me—what grand plans do you have?”
Lin Sangyu was now living as a human in this unpredictable and ever-changing human world; facing society head-on was a challenge she would inevitably have to confront in her life.
Since she was going to be human, she should integrate into society and learn to be independent. Whether a child or a senior citizen, whether a man or a woman, everyone should have their own sense of independence and not completely rely on another person.
So, Jiang Wenze passively went along with this lie.
Lin Sangyu was “gently coaxed” into speaking, and without hesitation, she voiced the grand ambition that had long been hidden in her heart: “I want to wash dishes—to be a dishwasher! You know, the dishes I used to wash were the cleanest in the entire orphanage!”
“I really didn’t know that. That’s a very ambitious career plan—I support you,” Jiang Wenzhe said, offering half-hearted encouragement as he let go of Lin Sangyu’s hand. “But now I’m going to take a shower.”
Staring at her hand, which had been ruthlessly pushed away, Lin Sangyu was momentarily dazed. She raised her voice to the back of Jiang Wenzhe, who was already at the corner of the staircase, and asked, “Aren’t you going to help me take a shower?”
Jiang Wenzhe’s eyelid twitched as he asked her, “I’m supposed to help you take a shower?”
“Yeah, isn’t that how it used to be?”
Jiang Wenzhe laughed in exasperation. “I used to bathe you because you were a sugar glider. Now that you’re human, you should wash yourself. Got it? Besides, you’re a girl. I’ll say it again: men and women shouldn’t touch each other.”
Lin Sangyu trotted over and pleaded with a shamelessly sweet voice, “I don’t get it. I’m so tired today—I don’t feel like moving. You’ve been bathing me for over three months now—what’s the big deal if you do it one more time?”
Jiang Wenzhe’s temples throbbed: “I’ve just spoiled you way too much.”
“But I haven’t bathed or washed my hair by myself in a long time—I don’t know how,” Lin Sangyu said, her voice growing softer and softer as she spoke, looking truly pitiful.
The moonlight carried the sound of Lin Sangyu’s light, somewhat rapid breathing.
Jiang Wenzhe watched her silently. Fine, he thought. Legally speaking, there’s no rule against doting on someone.
“I can wash your hair, but you’ll have to bathe yourself,” Jiang Wenzhe said, his expression shifting slightly. “The principle of ‘men and women should not touch each other’ means that men and women who aren’t in a romantic relationship shouldn’t get too close—let alone engage in excessive intimacy, such as kissing—and certainly shouldn’t undress in front of the opposite sex. So I can’t help you bathe.”
Lin Sangyu rolled her eyes upward, as if deep in thought. After a moment, she nodded blankly: “I… I think I get it.”
Jiang Wenzhe moved with decisive efficiency, retrieving a small, foldable cot—one Lu Ye had used before—from the storage room. Within minutes, he had set it up neatly in the bathroom.
“Lie down on it.”
“Okay.”
Confused, Lin Sangyu lay down on her side on the small bed, just as she would when sleeping in a regular bed.
“………” Jiang Wenzhe took a deep breath. “Lie on your side. Let your head hang off the edge a bit. You’re so stupid. I’ll hold your arm up for you.”
Lin Sangyu’s brain automatically filtered out the insult and obediently shifted her head off the edge as instructed.
A moment later, warm water ran through her hair, soaking her scalp.
A large, well-defined hand ran through her soft hair, and the lather grew increasingly thick under the rubbing of his fingertips. Steam gradually filled the bathroom, blurring the glass door and the shadows of the two of them.
Lin Sangyu felt so blissful she was floating on air. She sighed, “Jiang Wenzhe, this feels so good.”
“Shut up.” Jiang Wenzhe kept his head down, his face silhouetted against the light above.
“Okay.” Lin Sangyu was quiet for a moment, then said, “This feels so good, Jiang Wenzhe.”
Jiang Wenze said nothing, merely silently increasing the pressure of his hands.
Lin Sangyu winced in pain, her face scrunching up in a grimace. “Jiang Wenze, I don’t feel good right now.”
Jiang Wenze gave a snort of laughter before finally easing up on the pressure.
After washing her hair, it was naturally Jiang Wenze who dried it for her.
Her damp strands gradually dried amid the hum of the hair dryer.
“Wrap your hair up and go take a shower,” Jiang Wenzhe said as he lay down on the bed. “After you’re done, go sleep in the movie room next door.”
Earlier that day, while Lin Sangyu was still fast asleep, Jiang Wenzhe had remodeled the movie room next door. He’d removed the original theater seats and had a small bed installed—just big enough for Lin Sangyu to sleep on.
Lin Sangyu wasn’t sure if she’d understood, but she gave a casual reply and moved toward the bathroom at a snail’s pace.
Jiang Wenzhe shot her a sidelong glance, and once she’d entered the bathroom, he turned off the light without a second thought and went to sleep.
The strange occurrence—the sugar glider he’d been raising for several months suddenly turning into a human—was something Jiang Wenzhe still needed time to process.
The sound of trickling water gradually faded into the distance, and the man’s mind slowly drifted into a blank state.
Just as Jiang Wenzhe was about to fall asleep, he suddenly felt the edge of the bed dip downward, and a source of warmth was quietly creeping toward him.
Needless to say, he knew exactly who it was.
Jiang Wenzhe opened his eyes with a sigh, turned his head, and silently locked eyes with those bright, almond-shaped eyes in the darkness.
Caught red-handed, Lin Sangyu let out an awkward chuckle and said, “What a coincidence.”
“Get out of here.”
Lin Sangyu asked politely, “Can I ?”
“Get out.”
“No, I won’t, I won’t,” Lin Sangyu said, diving headfirst under the covers a split second before Jiang Wenzhe could snap, wrapping herself around his waist like an octopus. “Please, I’m begging you.”
“Why do you have to sleep right next to me?”
“I like it.”
Jiang Wenzhe was at a loss for words; he simply turned his body halfway, turning his back to Lin Sangyu.
Lin Sangyu thought to herself, “I got what I wanted—I can sleep in the big bed again.” Content, she rubbed her cheek against the back of Jiang Wenzhe’s neck, then quickly closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
All sounds faded into silence; the night enveloped the bedroom, leaving only the clock ticking away the hours.
Unexpectedly, just as her breathing had steadied and she’d drifted off to sleep,
Jiang Wenzhe—like a scumbag who pulls up his pants the moment he’s finished—mercilessly wrapped her in the blanket, carried her out of the room, and walked into the adjacent home theater.
He hadn’t turned on the lights when he entered. Moonlight, sliced into irregular geometric shapes by the branches outside the window, streamed chaotically into the room, projecting onto Lin Sangyu’s sleeping face like a screen. A thin sheen of sweat caused a few strands of hair to cling stickily to her delicate profile.
She was mumbling, “Earn… money… wash… dishes…”
Jiang Wenzhe looked down at her from above, his expression blank.
After a few seconds of silence, he turned and left.
As he closed the door, Jiang Wenzhe glanced at his watch to check the time.
Lin Sangyu had only been “human” for a mere seven years, so she was nothing more than a child who knew nothing of the world—forced into a cutthroat society before she’d even had a chance to gain any real experience.
So, starting now—at 1:12 a.m. on May 27, 2026—
he was willing to let Lin Sangyu remain a child in his care for another eleven years.