Lu Sihan looked at him.
The child’s expression was serious—no accusation, no anger, just a pair of clear eyes quietly waiting for an answer.
“Yes,” Lu Sihan said.
“Was it a big deal?”
“Very big.”
“So big that Mom kept crying?”
“…Yes.”
Xiao Niangao fell silent for a moment.
The wind blew over, making the whale pattern on his pajamas puff up and down, as if it were really swimming in the sea.
“Did you apologize?”
“Yes. Last night.”
“Did she forgive you?”
Lu Sihan looked at the Winnie the Pooh band-aid in his hand.
“No.”
Xiao Niangao thought again.
“Then keep apologizing.”
“Will that work?”
“I don’t know.”
Xiao Niangao shrugged—a gesture he must have picked up from somewhere, carrying a maturity that seemed to say, “Do your best and leave the rest to fate.” “But if you don’t keep apologizing, it definitely won’t work.”
Lu Sihan looked at him and suddenly smiled.
This five-year-old child, with his five-year-old logic, was teaching a thirty-year-old man a lesson.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll keep apologizing.”
Xiao Niangao nodded in satisfaction and turned to leave.
“Wait.”
Lu Sihan called him back.
Xiao Niangao turned around.
Lu Sihan took out his phone from his pocket, opened the notes app, and handed it to him.
On the screen was written: “Day one: She said she wouldn’t treat me anymore, but she didn’t leave.”
Xiao Niangao looked down at the words, then raised his head, his eyes sparkling.
“Are you writing a diary?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“For my mom?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Xiao Niangao thought for a moment and said, “Then add a line: ‘Her child gave me a Winnie the Pooh band-aid.’”
Lu Sihan was taken aback for a second, then lowered his head to type.
After finishing, he showed the screen to him.
Xiao Niangao looked at it and wrinkled his nose. “Uncle, you type so slowly. My mom types faster than you.”
Lu Sihan: “…”
He suddenly realized that he might spend the rest of his life living under the “disdain” of this mother and daughter.
And he seemed to be quite happy about it.
Xiao Niangao left.
After taking two steps, he turned back, leaned against the car window, and lowered his voice. “Uncle, I’ll tell you a secret.”
Lu Sihan leaned closer.
“Mom was going to take me away today. She even booked the tickets, but she canceled them later.”
Xiao Niangao’s voice was as soft as the sound of the wind blowing. “I don’t know why she didn’t leave.”
Lu Sihan’s breath stopped for a second.
“Maybe it’s because you knelt for too long last night.”
After analyzing it with a serious expression, Xiao Niangao patted the car window. “Uncle, does your knee still hurt?”
“No,” he said.
“Liar.” After saying these two words, Xiao Niangao turned and ran.
His slippers slapped against the cement ground, the small plastic bag swaying in his hand, the whale on his pajamas puffing up and deflating in the wind.
He ran to the entrance of the stairwell, stopped, and glanced back at Lu Sihan.
That glance wasn’t just looking at him.
It was recognizing him.
A child’s instinctive, genetically ingrained recognition of a father.
No introductions needed, no DNA report, no old photographs.
Just one glance.
Xiao Niangao waved at him, then disappeared into the stairwell.
Lu Sihan sat in the car, staring at the empty stairwell entrance, unmoving for a long, long time.
Then he lowered his head, looked at the Winnie the Pooh band-aid in his hand, tore one open, and clumsily stuck it on the wound on the side of his neck while facing the rearview mirror.
Yellow, printed with a bear smiling brightly, it clashed starkly with his demeanor.
But after he put it on, he suddenly felt that spot really didn’t hurt anymore.
On the sixth floor, Shen Luning stood in the kitchen. The oil in the pan was already hot, and she held an egg, hesitating to crack it.
The sound of slippers slapping against the floor echoed from the hallway, growing closer and louder.
“Mom! I’m back!”
Xiao Niangao rushed into the kitchen, panting, his face flushed.
“Did you deliver it?”
“I delivered it.”
Xiao Niangao ran to the sink, pulled over a small stool to stand on, turned on the faucet to wash his hands, and said as he washed, “Uncle is downstairs, sitting in the car, holding my rabbit, and his neck is still bleeding.”
Shen Luning cracked the egg into the pan. The egg white quickly solidified in the hot oil, its edges curling up and turning a golden brown.
“Did he put on the band-aid?”
Xiao Niangao jumped down from the stool, ran to her side, and stood on tiptoe to look at the egg in the pan.
“He did! The Winnie the Pooh one! After he put it on, his neck stopped bleeding.”
“How do you know it stopped bleeding?”
“Because he smiled.”
Xiao Niangao said very seriously, “People who are bleeding don’t smile.”
Shen Luning flipped the egg over and said nothing.
Xiao Niangao tugged at the hem of her clothes, looking up at her.
“Mom, Uncle’s knee seems to hurt too. When he got out of the car, he walked a little crookedly.”
Shen Luning’s hand holding the spatula paused.
“Mom, can you give Uncle a band-aid too? The kind for knees?”
“No,” Shen Luning said.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not part of our family.”
Xiao Niangao thought for a moment and said, “But he’s my dad.”
The kitchen fell silent.
The egg sizzled in the pan, the range hood hummed, and the faucet wasn’t fully closed, droplets of water falling one by one into the sink. Then, Shen Luning turned off the stove.
She turned around, crouched down, and met Xiao Niangao’s eyes at his level.
“How did you know?”
“I told you, I guessed.”
“It wasn’t a guess,” Shen Luning looked into his eyes. “When did you confirm it?”
Xiao Niangao lowered his head and looked at the slippers on his feet.
Non-slip slippers, blue, with astronaut patterns on them.
She had bought them last month at a street stall next to the market, fifteen yuan a pair. He loved them so much that he would put them on every night after his bath and slide around on the floor, saying he was an astronaut walking in space.
“Last night.”
Xiao Niangao said, his voice growing softer. “After you fell asleep, I searched his name on your tablet.”
Shen Luning took a deep breath.
“You can read now?”
“Not much, but I know the three characters for ‘Lu Sihan.’”
Xiao Niangao raised his head, his eyes sparkling. “I also looked at his photos. When he was young, he really looked a lot like me.”
When he was young.
His father is only thirty now, but in the eyes of a five-year-old, thirty is already “when he was young.”
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao reached out and hooked his finger around hers. “Please don’t be angry, okay? I didn’t mean to look it up on purpose. I just… wanted to know.”
Shen Luning looked at him.
She suddenly remembered something.
When Xiao Niangao was three years old, her kindergarten held a “My Family” themed activity, asking each child to bring a family photo to school.
All the other children brought photos of their parents together, but Xiao Niangao brought a solo picture of herself and told the teacher, “My mom is my whole family.”
The teacher called to ask what was going on, and she said she didn’t have a family photo.
The teacher suggested, “Why don’t you three take one together then?”
She replied, “There are only two people in our family.”