This was Jiang Jue’s own possession.
He had worn this thumb ring since his youth, leaving a faint ring-shaped mark on his finger.
Later, he gave it to Jing Nian as a token of their love, never expecting that the other would still keep it.
Jiang Jue stared at the thumb ring, lost in thought for a long time, his emotions churning and refusing to settle. It wasn’t until Tuan Tuan grew impatient and barked that his thoughts were finally pulled back.
“This was a reward the Divine Lord gave me for winning a battle for him. It’s been with me for thousands of years. Later, when A’Nian grew up and took a liking to it, I gave it to him.”
Taking advantage of Tuan Tuan’s lack of spiritual awareness, he freely shared these past stories with the dog.
Tuan Tuan truly didn’t understand, only caring about why Jiang Jue still hadn’t thrown the box out for him to play with.
Jiang Jue reached out and pressed down Tuan Tuan’s eager little paw, then took the shattered wooden box along with the thumb ring and went to hand them over to Jing Nian.
The box was broken, but no matter what, this now belonged to Jing Nian, so he had to inform him.
The moment Jing Nian saw the thumb ring, his reaction was almost identical to Jiang Jue’s—he stood frozen for a long time before finding his voice again.
“…Where did you find this?”
Jiang Jue replied softly, “Tuan Tuan dug it out from under the bed.”
Jing Nian rubbed the thumb ring, a trace of barely noticeable melancholy lingering between his brows. “Gu Yehan gave it to me…”
“I thought I’d lost it when I moved. I searched for a long time but couldn’t find it, so I eventually stopped thinking about it.”
Jiang Jue tried to keep his voice steady as he responded, “It looks very valuable.”
“Yeah…”
Jing Nian felt a sudden tightness in his chest and let out a heavy sigh. “That old man never had anything cheap on him.”
In the years just after leaving Gu Yehan, he felt as if he had plummeted from the clouds in an instant. It was only then that he finally understood how important money truly was—hard to earn but spent in the blink of an eye.
The little pocket money he had left quickly ran out. From that time on, Qiu Huai began to show his capitalist side, not only refusing to contribute a single cent but even threatening to charge him protection fees.
Jing Nian had no choice. The underworld could only guarantee him a life where he wouldn’t starve, but this little master, accustomed to luxury, found it difficult to shed his extravagant habits in a short time.
Reluctantly, he began selling off his valuable possessions to exchange for the things he wanted.
One thing led to another, and in the end, he was left with nothing but this thumb ring.
Why didn’t he sell it? Because back then, he stubbornly believed that keeping this thumb ring was like having Gu Yehan by his side. He truly believed that his foster father would return, and if he lost the token of their love, it would be hard to explain when the man came back.
So he naively waited, year after year, until all the youthful hope in his heart had completely worn away.
Angry and heartbroken, Jing Nian lifted his hand and threw the thumb ring back into Jiang Jue’s palm, turning his eyes away and deliberately putting on an indifferent attitude.
“Throw it away. It’s useless for me to keep it.”
Jiang Jue felt as if a thorn had been driven straight into his heart, the pain rendering him speechless.
Slowly, he clenched the thumb ring in his palm, gripping it so tightly that red marks appeared. After a long while, he finally spoke with difficulty, “He wasn’t he your foster father?”
He hadn’t anticipated that Jing Nian’s hatred for him would run even deeper than he had imagined.
Jing Nian sat on the sofa, clutching a cushion in his arms, his fingers unconsciously tightening around one corner. “He’s my adoptive father and my ex-husband, but I’ve already cut ties with him.”
“Anyway, we… I don’t know why things turned out like this…”
“A’Nian…” Jiang Jue’s voice was hoarse, but just as he was about to speak, a sweet, childish voice from the bedroom interrupted him.
Jing Nian immediately became alert.
It was that stupid rabbit again! Probably forgot there was someone else in the house while talking on the phone.
“The computer was left on earlier. Maybe Little Rabbit accidentally pressed something and started a video call,” Jing Nian lied, quickly heading toward the bedroom.
He habitually ordered Jiang Jue around. “I’ll go check. Once you’re done cleaning up, take the trash out for me.”
“Okay.”
Jiang Jue maintained his usual gentle smile on the surface, but the pain churning inside him was something he had to endure alone.
Jing Nian slipped into the bedroom, closing the door behind him, and immediately saw Little Rabbit with its butt in the air, leaning over the phone screen, wiggling around and speaking in a high-pitched voice, calling out “Mommy” over and over.
Jing Nian pressed his ear against the door, listening until Jiang Jue’s footsteps faded away, then unleashed his anger without restraint. “Little Rabbit! Do you have any idea you almost got caught just now?”
“Huh?” Hearing the sudden outburst, Little Rabbit finally noticed Jing Nian had entered the room. It took off its headphones, looking confused.
Jing Nian grew even more annoyed. Not only was it talking loudly, but it was also wearing headphones!
Little Rabbit, however, didn’t think it had done anything wrong. Instead, it turned the blame around, accusing Jing Nian righteously. “It’s all your fault for bringing that wild man home all the time! Now Little Rabbit can’t even talk! And he’s an old man too!”
“You…!”
It may be small, but it sure knows how to spread rumors!
The conversation on this end was clearly transmitted to the other side of the call. Not only Rabbit Mom, but Little Rabbit’s three older siblings had heard everything too.
Jing Nian lunged at Little Rabbit, and the two got into a fight. “Stupid rabbit! Dumb rabbit! Silly rabbit!!”
“Bad Nian Nian! Bad Nian Nian! Bad Nian Nian!!”
Exhausted, the human and the rabbit sprawled out on the bed, panting heavily.
Little Rabbit recovered first. “He already said he likes you. Why would he chase after you so hard if he didn’t? Nian Nian, either just agree or just reject him. What’s the point of being so ambiguous like this?”
Jing Nian sat cross-legged on the bed, resting his head in his hands, mumbling incoherently. “Stop bothering me, I’m thinking…”
“But we’ve only known each other for a few days! Isn’t this moving too fast?!”
“Hmph…”
Ever since Jiang Jue had invaded this little home, barely over half a month had passed, and Jing Nian had already been spoiled into a little prince again.
He no longer washed his own clothes, meals were brought to his hands, water was fed to his lips, and fruit was even cut and arranged on a plate right in front of him.
And Jing Nian didn’t show the slightest hint of embarrassment, as if this was exactly how things should be between him and Jiang Jue.
Little Rabbit got up and unplugged the wired headphones, switching the video call to speakerphone. “Nian Nian, Little Rabbit thinks you don’t need a husband—you need a dad to take care of you.”
Jing Nian hurled a pillow at it. “Otherwise, how did my dad become my husband?!”
…Ex-husband!
Little Rabbit hugged the pillow and rolled around twice. Jing Nian, seeing Rabbit Mom on the screen, suddenly remembered the job posting he saw at the pet store last time.
He leaned closer to the screen. “Yuan Jing! Are you really short-staffed at your store? Can I come work there?”
Men are all unreliable, and Jiang Jue is an even bigger wild card. Once his vacation after quitting his job ends, he’ll have to find work to support himself.
On the other end of the screen, a woman with fashionable, voluminous curls and bright red lipstick was lazily filing her nails, eyelids drooping.
When she looked up and saw Jing Nian’s face magnified on the screen, she jumped in surprise.
“Nian Nian?” Yuan Jing glanced left and right. “Where’s the little one? Did you finally beat him?”
Upon hearing this, Little Rabbit kicked Jing Nian in the face with his foot. “Slander! Little Rabbit never admits defeat!”
The two instantly tumbled into a tussle again, rabbit fur and strands of hair flying everywhere.
The instigator, Yuan Jing, leisurely raised her hand to inspect her freshly manicured nails. “The shop is still short-staffed, but all the pets here are ordinary ones without awakened intelligence. If you don’t mind the trouble, you can come by another day to give it a try.”
So, Jing Nian picked a day off and took Little Rabbit to the pet shop to work as a pet store assistant for a day.
He made a point of waking up early for this. The pet shop had just opened, and there weren’t many customers yet. On the first floor, only two young women were cleaning.
Normally, when there were staff members on duty, Yuan Jing wouldn’t be around. Jing Nian glanced around and said, “I’m here for the job.”
The staff member who came forward to greet him was taken aback. “Oh… oh, right! The boss did mention something about it last night.”
She quickly checked her phone. “You’re Jing Nian, right? The boss said the pay is daily, with a trial period of 300 yuan per day. If you manage to sell any pets or products, there’s an additional commission.”
While the shop was still quiet, the staff member gave Jing Nian a brief tour to familiarize him with the place.
The pet shop was indeed quite large. The first floor mainly sold desserts and milk tea, and also offered companionship services with adult cats and dogs. The floors above housed various young pets, which required much stricter disinfection procedures to enter.
Jing Nian immediately declined the job of caring for young animals because he couldn’t resist touching them and had trouble controlling his strength.
He’d learned this lesson once before with a young nine-tailed fox. He’d accidentally been a bit too rough and rubbed a patch of fur off its tail. Later, when the fox grew up, it counted each strand of fur as a favor owed, and Jing Nian was still working hard to repay the debt.
Especially since that fox had found a particularly troublesome and difficult-to-deal-with little wife.
In the end, Jing Nian stayed on the first floor as a trial receptionist.
In the changing room, he put on the employee uniform and tied on a very pink, cute apron with lace trim.
He puffed out his cheeks secretly. Jiang Jue hadn’t even worn an apron yet, and here he was, wearing one first!
Jing Nian tied the apron into a bow at the back and secretly plotted how to trick Jiang Jue into working here too.
Though the idea wasn’t very realistic.
As the morning progressed, the pet shop gradually grew busier. Most of the customers were young women who would order a cup of hot milk tea in the lounge area, cuddle a cat they could freely pet, and stay there all day.
Jing Nian didn’t have to handle tasks like serving tea or water. He just sat behind the counter, propping his chin in his hand, bored out of his mind, like a lucky cat mascot.
Right next to the counter was a transparent glass display window, allowing passersby to easily spot the strikingly handsome boy sitting inside. Many customers came in just to strike up a conversation with Jing Nian.
The little rabbit returned home, and here was his kingdom. He scampered off to bully the cat. The shop assistant saw but dared not intervene, because the boss had not only instructed them to treat Jing Nian well but also to fulfill all the needs of his pet rabbit.
This youngest son was the most spoiled, unable to transform, and the one who worried Yuan Jing the most.
Jing Nian watched as this little tyrant rabbit cornered a silver tabby with a wicked look in its eyes, standing triumphantly with his paws on his hips.
When curious customers came over to look, he would put on a weak and pitiful act, snuggling shamelessly into the fragrant embrace of the young ladies.
A green tea rabbit!
Even more detestable than those who scammed him by selling tea leaves!
Speak of the devil, his phone chimed with a message.
Jiang Jue: 【Are you free today? Want to go to the amusement park to relax?】
Jing Nian looked down at his pink, delicate outfit and drew circles on his phone screen in frustration.
The amusement park? The last time he went was to lure a poor soul who had fallen to his death from a Ferris wheel.
The so-called safest amusement rides were actually not safe at all.
He sent Jiang Jue his location and added a bit of coquettishness.
【Working right now. I want to eat an orange you peeled for me.】