Today, something Bai Lili had once said suddenly came back to him.
Wasn’t it always like this before?
Li Yanchuan abruptly sat upright, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
He had always believed he was fair. But in everyone else’s eyes, had he really been favoring one person while wronging another all along?
How could he possibly face Jiaojiao?
In the darkness, Li Yanchuan buried his head in his hands, a low, suppressed groan of anguish escaping his throat.
Bai Lili hadn’t fallen asleep. Seeing his reaction, her heart skipped a beat.
This is bad.
Is he starting to wake up?
No!
Absolutely not!
If he regained his senses, admitted he was really Li Yanchuan, and returned to Su Jiuyue and her daughter…
Then what would happen to her and Tao Tao?
Would they be left all alone?
No. Never.
She would never let that happen.
After a moment’s thought, she turned over and quietly began to sob.
Hearing her muffled crying, Li Yanchuan spoke softly across the sleeping Tao Tao.
“Lili… what’s wrong?”
Her sobbing paused for a moment before turning into even more pitiful sniffles that drifted through the darkness.
“It’s nothing… I just… suddenly missed your brother.”
Her voice trembled, deliberately restrained.
“My period started… my stomach hurts so much. Every year at times like this, your brother would warm my belly with his hands. His palms were always so warm… and it would make me feel better.”
Li Yanchuan fell silent.
The guilt and self-doubt that had been churning inside him suddenly found a concrete, heavy place to settle.
After a hesitant pause, he asked almost absentmindedly,
“Lili… does… does every woman suffer like this?”
Bai Lili’s heart jumped.
She instantly understood who he was really thinking about.
She absolutely could not let his thoughts drift toward Su Jiuyue.
With a slightly reproachful sniffle, she steered the conversation back to herself.
“Of course not. Some women have strong constitutions and barely feel anything. Mine… mine is because I damaged my health when I was little.”
She deliberately paused, waiting for him to ask.
“What damaged your health?”
Just as she’d expected, he took the bait.
“What else? Washing clothes by the river every winter.”
Her voice was filled with nostalgia.
“The water was so cold it felt like it pierced your bones. Thick winter clothes were the hardest to wash—you had to scrub them forever. Ever since then, every period has been agony.
“Your mother wasn’t well, and you and Brother Haichuan never managed to wash your clothes properly. I… I couldn’t just watch you go out in dirty clothes and get laughed at.”
Those words were like a perfectly fitted key.
Click.
They unlocked the floodgates of Li Yanchuan’s memories—and his guilt.
She was right.
Lili had grown up alongside the two brothers. After her mother died young, she had practically been raised in the Li household.
Their own mother had always been frail, and before long, all the washing and household chores had quietly become Lili’s responsibility.
He, especially, had been mischievous.
His clothes were always the dirtiest—and the hardest to wash.
Those freezing rivers in winter…
The young girl’s hands, red, cracked, and swollen from the icy water…
So she’d suffered all of that because of him.
He vaguely remembered that when Tao Tao had been born prematurely, weak and sickly, Lili had cried, blaming her own poor health for affecting the child.
Back then, both he and his brother had felt nothing but heartache and guilt.
So this was where it all began.
He owed Lili.
He owed Tao Tao.
And yet, just moments ago, he’d actually questioned whether he had been “favoring” them?
If he didn’t treat this mother and son well, could he still call himself a decent human being?
All those vague thoughts about “fairness” were instantly crushed beneath the weight of this overwhelming debt of gratitude.
An immense sense of guilt seized him.
Mixed with a desperate desire to make amends, it drove him to gently move the sleeping Tao Tao aside and take the child’s place beside Bai Lili.
“I’m sorry, Lili…”
His voice was hoarse.
“You’ve suffered because of me.”
Driven by guilt, he cautiously inched closer, trying to warm her perpetually cold waist and abdomen with his own body heat.
The moment he moved close, the warmth radiating from his body, mixed with the faint scent of soap, enveloped her.
It was similar to her late husband Li Haichuan’s…
Yet subtly different.
Bai Lili’s body stiffened almost imperceptibly before relaxing completely.
She leaned backward into his embrace, pressing her icy back against his chest as a satisfied yet pitiful sigh escaped her lips.
Li Yanchuan, however, froze.
Aside from vague childhood memories of playing together, this was the first time they had been this close as adults.
Even though he had been living under Li Haichuan’s identity these past few days, they had always slept separately.
At worst, they slept like they had tonight—with Tao Tao between them.
Separated only by their thin clothing, she could clearly feel the warmth and breadth of his chest.
And he could distinctly feel the curves of her body and the slight trembling running through her.
This wasn’t an older brother warming his younger sister anymore.
This was a man and a woman.
The realization made his scalp tingle.
A strange heat, tinged with the thrill of crossing a forbidden line, quietly rose within him, mixing with his overwhelming guilt into an indescribably complicated emotion.
He wanted to pull away.
But the body in his arms was so cold…
Shivering so pitifully…
It felt as though she’d shatter if he let go.
This illness had been caused by him.
What right did he have to retreat?
“Brother Yanchuan…”
Bai Lili spoke softly, sounding both innocent and fully aware.
Half burying her face beneath the blanket, she murmured in a dependent voice,
“This feels… so much better.
“You’re so warm…”
Li Yanchuan swallowed hard.
In the end, he merely gave a muffled “Mm.”
His arm remained stiffly around her, not daring to move an inch.
Closing his eyes, he tried to banish the inappropriate thoughts swirling through his mind.
Then he thought of Su Jiuyue.
Jiuyue’s hands always seemed slightly cool as well.
When she was in pain…
What did she do?
The thought had barely surfaced before he forcefully crushed it.
He couldn’t think about her.
He shouldn’t think about her.
The only thing he should be thinking about now was how to repay the debt he owed the woman in his arms.
The next morning, Su Jiuyue had to report to work.
She began packing her things.
Kitchen duty started at four o’clock in the morning, so she needed to prepare some dry food in advance and lay out clothes for the two children.
Back then, children’s clothes all looked more or less the same—black, gray, or white.
There were no bright colors to speak of.
The newly arrived child, whom Jiaojiao called “big brother,” was thin and undersized, barely any taller than Jiaojiao herself.
After some thought, Su Jiuyue simply took out one of Jiaojiao’s outfits.
While searching through the clothes, her fingers suddenly brushed against several of Li Yanchuan’s old garments.
Instinctively, she wanted to throw them aside.
But she stopped.
This was still the era of rationing.
Fabric coupons were difficult to obtain.
The cloth might be old, but it was still sturdy.
Throwing it away would be such a waste.
Why not alter them and make new clothes for the children?
Quietly, she took one shirt out and held it against the boy to check the size.
Once she had a rough idea, she gently closed the door and headed toward the next room to start cutting the fabric.
But the moment she stepped outside, her nose suddenly began to itch.
“Achoo!”
She sneezed seven or eight times in rapid succession before bending over in a fit of violent coughing.
Startled, Su Jiuyue rubbed her itchy nose.
It’s so late…
Who’s talking about me?