The door began to close, but Lu Sihan suddenly reached out and pressed his hand against it.
Not to hold it back—he lunged forward.
He practically threw himself toward the ground, his hands gripping the lower edge of the door tightly.
The old, rusted security door slammed shut with a deafening clang, shaking the entire building.
Then, everyone heard the voices.
From the fourth floor came an angry shout in a thick local accent: “Can’t you let people sleep in the middle of the night?!”
The third floor followed immediately: “Call the police!! I’ve already dialed 110!!”
The fifth floor: “Can you keep it down?! I have an early shift tomorrow!!”
A dog on the second floor started barking furiously.
The entire building came alive.
Shen Luning closed her eyes.
She took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, her gaze held a certainty that said, “I’m not the naive girl you could fool five years ago.”
“You see,” she said, her voice soft but every word firm and resolute, “this is an old neighborhood. The walls are thin. If you keep making a scene, the whole building will come to laugh at me. I don’t need that.”
Lu Sihan immediately let go.
“I won’t make a scene, I won’t,” he whispered, lowering his voice as much as possible. “Lu Ning, I won’t cause trouble. I just want to ask you one question. Once I’m done, I’ll leave.”
Shen Luning didn’t speak, but she didn’t close the door either.
Lu Sihan’s gaze slowly, almost reverently, shifted to the boy holding the water gun, who was leaning against the doorframe and watching the scene unfold.
“What’s his name?”
Shen Luning remained silent for three seconds.
“Xiao Niangao.”
Lu Sihan was taken aback.
“His full name.”
Shen Luning looked at him.
Her gaze was different from five years ago.
Back then, when she looked at him, her eyes sparkled with admiration and a desperate conviction that said, “As long as I have you, I have the whole world.”
Now, those eyes held nothing—empty, like a mirror wiped clean.
“Lu Xingye,” she said.
Lu Sihan’s pupils contracted sharply.
Lu? The same surname as his?
Five years ago, he had driven her away with his own hands. She had disappeared into the crowd, pregnant and alone, in a city he didn’t know, at a hospital he didn’t know. She had signed the surgery consent form alone, been wheeled out of the delivery room alone, heard their child’s first cry alone, and registered their child’s name alone…
She had named their child Lu Xingye.
With his surname.
Lu Sihan’s eyes reddened as if they were bleeding.
His lips trembled violently. He wanted to speak, to say thank you, to say he was sorry, to ask if she still wanted their child to bear his surname, if she hadn’t completely given up on him, if she…
“Don’t misunderstand,” Shen Luning’s cold voice cut in. “It’s only natural for a child to take their father’s surname. It has nothing to do with you.”
She bent down and scooped Xiao Niangao into her arms.
The child naturally wrapped his arms around her neck, resting his head on her shoulder. He switched the water gun to his left hand and patted her back gently with his right.
It was an incredibly familiar gesture.
One that had been repeated countless times over the past five years, etched into muscle memory.
Lu Sihan watched the scene, feeling as though something in his chest was being slowly, methodically sawed apart by a dull blade.
“Alright.” Shen Luning held the child, looking down at him, her tone as flat as if she were reporting the weather forecast. “The questions are done. You can leave now. Take this row of toy cars with you—they’re blocking the fire exit.”
She turned away.
“Shen Luning!!”
Shen Luning paused for a moment but did not look back.
“Five years ago…” he said, his voice cracking again. “Five years ago, what you thought—”
“Lu Sihan.”
Shen Luning didn’t let him finish.
She didn’t turn around, her back to him, spine straight and rigid.
The fabric of her T-shirt clung to her body in the night breeze.
“About five years ago,” she said, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“It wasn’t what you think.”
“Whether it was what I think or not.”
Shen Luning’s voice remained even. “I don’t want to know anymore.”
Holding the child, she walked into the house.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao’s muffled voice came from the crook of her neck, “that uncle is still crying.”
“Hmm.”
“Isn’t he leaving?”
“He will.”
“The blood on his neck…”
“I saw it.”
“But you—”
“Go to sleep.” Shen Luning’s voice finally betrayed a crack, the tail end of her words rising slightly before being quickly suppressed. “You have kindergarten tomorrow.”
The door closed.
The lock clicked into place with a soft thud.
Lu Sihan knelt outside the door, forehead pressed against the cold surface, eyes shut.
Tears fell drop by drop onto the ground, stirring up tiny clouds of dust.
The head bodyguard finally couldn’t hold back any longer. He jogged up from the alley entrance, stopping at the stairwell, hesitating three times before whispering, “President Lu, your neck… Should I take you to the hospital?”
Lu Sihan didn’t move.
The head bodyguard added, “President Lu, downstairs… three police cars have arrived.”
At the alley entrance, red and blue lights flashed.
A neighbor had called the police.
Lu Sihan slowly stood up.
He had knelt for too long; his knees were numb, and he staggered, steadying himself against the wall.
The head bodyguard moved to help him but was frozen in place by a single glance.
He stood before the door, looking down at the security gate.
The Peppa Pig sticker on the door, the handwritten sign on the frame that read “Leave packages here,” the chipped paint on the threshold, the red nylon rope tied to the doorknob.
It was used to pull the door shut from the outside because the lock was old and sometimes wouldn’t close properly without the rope.
On this door, he saw the traces of a woman and a child living earnestly in the cheapest corner of the city.
He reached out, his fingertips lightly brushing the red rope.
Then he withdrew his hand, turned, and walked step by step down the stairs.
When he reached the fourth floor, a woman in bright red pajamas was holding up her phone, filming him. Her excited, cracking voice echoed in her livestream: “Girls, look, look, he’s coming down, he’s really coming down! Did I get his autograph? Ahhh…”
Lu Sihan walked past her.
“Ma’am.”
“Ah, ah, ah… He’s talking to me, ah?”
“Just now,” his voice was low, so low only the two of them could hear, “did the boy inside have dinner?”
The woman was taken aback, instinctively replying, “Ah? Xiao Niangao? Yes, yes, I heard Shen Luning calling him back to eat in the hallway tonight. It sounded like she made ribs…”
Lu Sihan nodded.
He continued walking down, his footsteps echoing dully in the empty hallway.
On the second floor, a fat dog barked furiously at him. He glanced at it, and the dog suddenly fell silent, tucking its tail and retreating into its kennel.
On the first floor, he pushed open the iron door of the hallway, and the night wind rushed to meet him.
The headlights of twelve cars illuminated the alley brightly.