Shi Yi’s eyes curved, a bright smile spreading at the corners of his mouth. Without waiting for Lu Huaiqian to react, he suddenly changed the subject, “Looks like our third anniversary is coming up soon. How about I give you a big gift this time?”
Lu Huaiqian’s hand on the steering wheel kept tightening. He tried to keep his voice steady and said in a low tone, “Okay.”
Then he glanced up at Shi Yi again and said gently, “What gift do you want? Didn’t you like the brooch from the auction last time? I don’t think I’ve seen you wear it. I heard the Lamborghini has a new model out, in a color you like. Would that work?”
Shi Yi smiled at him and said, “I don’t want any of that. I just want you to accept the gift I give you.”
Lu Huaiqian agreed without hesitation, “Okay.”
Their first wedding anniversary gift was him being forced to answer Shi Yi’s video call at the company and watch Shi Yi have a candlelit dinner with someone else.
Their second wedding anniversary gift was that, the month before, Shi Yi suddenly seemed like a different person, treating him with endless consideration and gentleness, clinging to him. He thought Shi Yi truly meant to accept him, and just as he was overjoyed and excited, Shi Yi suddenly gave him a big gift, and everything, everything, was shattered.
It turned out Shi Yi only wanted him to taste what it was like to gain something and then lose it.
But in truth, he had never gained anything at all.
He didn’t know what the gift would be this time, but he agreed to it all the same.
Whatever it was, he would never refuse Shi Yi.
“Fine, since that’s how it is, let’s go home.” Shi Yi took his feet down from the seat, adjusted into a more comfortable position, leaned against the seat back, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes to rest.
The Maybach started and slowly pulled out of the parking lot. Shi Yi suddenly spoke again, “Oh, right, next month don’t give the Shi family so much living expenses. Wouldn’t want certain people eating too well with nowhere to put all that energy.”
“Okay.” Lu Huaiqian turned his face and looked at him gently, “Is cutting it in half all right?”
“Mm.”
The next day, Saturday evening, after making dinner for Shi Yi, Lu Huaiqian went back to the old Lu family home as usual.
Ever since he married Shi Yi and moved out, he went back to the Lu family every week to have a meal with his birth parents and younger brother.
At first Shi Yi went along too, but Shi Yi would always end up in unpleasant scenes with his parents at the table, and eventually his parents stopped letting Shi Yi come.
When Lu Huaiqian arrived at the Lu family home, Auntie Zhang had just set the dishes on the table.
The moment Lu Yunyi saw him, he bounced straight up off the sofa and rushed over shouting, “Brother! I thought you weren’t coming today. I’ve been waiting for you all afternoon.”
“Something came up and held me back.” Lu Huaiqian pushed away Lu Yunyi, who was throwing himself at him, while changing his shoes. “Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They seem to have gone upstairs. Mom and Dad were just waiting for you downstairs, I’ll go call them.” With that, Lu Yunyi cupped his hands like a megaphone, stood at the top of the stairs, and shouted, “Mom! Dad! My brother’s here! Come down and eat!!!”
Zhou Yunshi, who had already been on her way downstairs, was startled by the shout and hurried down to scold him, “What are you yelling for? You’re a grown man, why can’t you learn a thing or two from your brother? Look how steady your brother is.”
After finishing her scolding, Zhou Yunshi’s gaze turned, softening into affection. “Xiao Zheng, you’re back? Are you hungry? Your dad just took a call, he has some work to deal with, he’ll be down soon.”
Lu Huaiqian’s old name, before he lost it, was Lu Yunzheng.
At the age of three he was kidnapped by human traffickers. Just as the traffickers were about to sell him, they suddenly got word from an inside contact, and while moving the kidnapped children, they accidentally left him behind in the mountains, where he happened to be picked up by a couple passing by in a delivery truck.
That truck-driving couple also had the surname Lu, and they named him Lu Huaiqian.
When he was fifteen, his adoptive parents, driving while exhausted, went off the road together with the car and over a cliff, dying on the spot, leaving only him and his elderly grandmother to depend on each other.
And his grandmother passed away the year before he married Shi Yi, leaving him with no one left.
“Come on, let’s eat first, never mind him.” Zhou Yunshi passed over Lu Yunyi and took Lu Huaiqian’s arm, walking toward the dining room.
“How’s work been lately? Tired? I haven’t seen you in a week, and I feel like you’ve gotten thinner again?” Zhou Yunshi pulled Lu Huaiqian into his seat, touching his face with concern.
Lu Huaiqian smiled, “It’s fine, not too tired. How are you and Dad doing?”
“The two of us are fine, nothing wrong. It’s just this brat Lu Yunyi who won’t listen. I told him to go study abroad and he refuses no matter what, it makes me so angry. He says since you didn’t go back then, he won’t either.”
Beside them, Lu Yunyi quickly hugged Lu Huaiqian’s other arm, speaking up for himself, “I just don’t want to go. My brother didn’t go and he’s still amazing, isn’t he? I’m my brother’s brother, how much worse could I be than him? Right, brother?”
Lu Yunyi said quietly, “Besides, if I go, won’t I only get to see my brother a few times a year? I’ve finally got my brother back, I don’t want to go to some godforsaken place.”
The subject shifted, and Lu Huaiqian turned to look at Lu Yunyi as well. “I’m different from you. I’m with Mom on this, I also think you should go study abroad.”
Back then, the reason he hadn’t gone to study abroad was that he wanted to take over the company quickly and start earning money quickly. He had his own reasons.
But Lu Yunyi was different.
Lu Yunyi said, “How is it different? I think we’re the same. Once I graduate I’ll go help you at the company.”
They talked about Lu Yunyi studying abroad for over ten minutes, and Lu Heng finally came down from upstairs and joined the conversation.
After talking for another twenty-some minutes, the whole family agreed that Lu Yunyi should still go study abroad.
Lu Huaiqian would help him handle the study-abroad procedures and choice of major.
Once the matter of Lu Yunyi was settled, the conversation turned back to Lu Huaiqian.
Lu Heng took a bite of food and said, “Xiao Zheng, how do you plan to spend your thirtieth birthday? At the old house or at a hotel?”
Lu Huaiqian’s birthday was only five days from his and Shi Yi’s wedding anniversary, and less than a month remained until then.
If it was to be a large event, preparations would need to start now.
Lu Huaiqian said, “Dad, I don’t plan to hold anything. Just having a meal with our own family is enough.”
Lu Huaiqian wasn’t the type who liked a big show. Aside from his wedding to Shi Yi, Lu Huaiqian hadn’t held any banquets.
He hadn’t held one the past few years, so turning thirty wasn’t anything special in Lu Huaiqian’s eyes either.
Zhou Yunshi nodded, “All right, that’s what I thought too. What’s the point of inviting so many people? It’s much more meaningful for us as a family to have a good meal together and enjoy ourselves. Son, you don’t need to worry about it, I’ll arrange it all for you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Oh, come on, no need to be so polite with me. Hurry and eat.”
After the meal, Lu Huaiqian sat for a while longer before getting up to leave.
And in the two hours at the Lu family home, no one brought up Shi Yi.
When Lu Huaiqian first proposed marrying Shi Yi, Lu Heng and Zhou Yunshi both objected. The only one who supported him was Lu Yunyi.
But they couldn’t stop Lu Huaiqian’s determination, and Lu Heng also felt that Lu Huaiqian had lived alone outside the family for many years and suffered a great deal, which left them feeling guilty and heartbroken over him.
In the end, persuaded by Lu Yunyi and out of their love for Lu Huaiqian, Zhou Yunshi and Lu Heng agreed to let the two of them marry.
They felt that as long as Lu Huaiqian could be happy, marrying a man wasn’t such a big deal, it wasn’t the old feudal times anymore, so what did it matter, man and man?
But who would have known that Shi Yi hadn’t married Lu Huaiqian willingly at all. After the wedding, everything he did got worse and worse, and even in front of them he couldn’t hold back his mockery of Lu Huaiqian.
The Lu couple, who only wanted their son to be happy, eventually found that by giving in and agreeing to their son’s marriage, they hadn’t made their son happy at all, instead, they’d made him even more miserable than before.
They regretted it.
They regretted agreeing to let Lu Huaiqian marry Shi Yi, and wanted Lu Huaiqian to divorce Shi Yi.
But Lu Huaiqian was unwilling.
After years of trying to mediate, Zhou Yunshi and Lu Heng finally chose to say nothing more about it, acting as if there were no such person as Shi Yi.
Lu Huaiqian left the old Lu family home, got in the car, and took out his phone to send a message to the person he’d been thinking about all evening.
【Lu Huaiqian: I’ve eaten, I’m heading home now, have you had dinner? Do you want milk tea? Or is there some snack you’d like, I’ll bring it back.】
The message got no reply, and Lu Huaiqian didn’t wait for one. He started the car right away and drove out of the old house.
He knew Shi Yi wouldn’t reply to his messages.
Lu Huaiqian pulled over on the way and bought Shi Yi a cup of old-brand Hong Kong-style milk tea, then went to a hotel to get a box of crawfish that Shi Yi loved, before setting off for home again.