It took her five years to go from “Shen Luning, Chief Designer of the Lu Group” to “Mom Shen Luning.”
Lu Sihan took just one night to change her back.
No, this time it was worse—this time, she had gained another identity.
“The mother of Lu Sihan’s son.”
Shen Luning leaned against the balcony railing and looked up.
There were no stars tonight, only a vast expanse of gray clouds that completely covered the moon.
She suddenly remembered that rainy night five years ago, when she dragged her suitcase out of the Lu family villa. The rain was so heavy she couldn’t see the road ahead. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she couldn’t turn back.
Back then, she had looked up just like this, and there were no stars either.
The difference was, five years ago, she was alone.
Now, there was a child sleeping on the small bed behind her.
She could endure all the malice alone, but she couldn’t let him bear it.
Shen Luning turned and walked back inside, gently closing the balcony door.
She stood by Xiao Niangao’s bedside, looking down at her son’s sleeping face.
His small face, long eyelashes, slightly pouted lips, light and even breathing, and the rabbit plushie he held tightly in his arms.
She had sewn it herself when she was pregnant—the stitches were crooked, one ear was sewn askew, and the eyes were uneven in size. But Xiao Niangao had held it since birth. When it tore, he learned to sew it himself, mending it over and over, never letting go.
She reached out and gently brushed the stray hairs from her son’s forehead.
“Xiao Niangao,” she whispered, “Mom might have to take you somewhere far away.”
The child didn’t wake.
He only wrinkled his nose in his sleep and nuzzled his face into her palm.
Shen Luning’s eyes finally reddened.
She lowered her head, biting her lip hard.
Then she took out her phone and began searching for the earliest flight out of City A.
2:43 a.m.
At the entrance of the alley downstairs, a car pulled to a stop.
Lu Sihan rushed out of the car and ran all the way up to the sixth floor.
He stopped outside apartment 601, panting heavily, and knocked on the door.
“Lu Ning! Shen Luning! Listen to me! The livestream was an accident—I never expected someone to screenshot the door number. I’ve already had people deleting it…”
No sound came from inside.
“Lu Ning!! Just open the door for a moment, just a moment. I’ll say a few words and leave, I promise…”
Still no sound.
“Shen Luning!! I’m begging you…”
Bang!
The door was pulled open from inside.
It wasn’t Shen Luning.
It was Xiao Niangao, sleepy-eyed, his hair a messy bird’s nest, still clutching the rabbit plushie in his arms.
He looked up at this disheveled man with eyes exactly like his own, his lips moving as if making a difficult decision.
Then, the child spoke.
His voice was soft, carrying the nasal tone of someone just awakened, still a little slurred, but every word was clear: “Uncle.”
Lu Sihan held his breath.
“You’re disturbing my mom.”
After saying this, Xiao Niangao looked at him for two seconds, then held out the ugly rabbit plushie in his arms.
“For you.”
Lu Sihan froze.
“This is my favorite little bunny. Mom sewed it.”
The child said, “Aren’t you bleeding? Hold it, and it won’t hurt anymore.”
Lu Sihan lowered his head and looked at the rabbit—one ear sewn askew, eyes uneven in size, covered in mending marks.
He reached out and took it.
The rabbit carried the scent of laundry detergent and a hint of milky sweetness.
It was the smell of his child.
He clutched the rabbit tightly in his hand, as if holding the whole world.
Seeing that he had taken it, Xiao Niangao nodded, turned around, and started walking back.
After a few steps, he stopped again. Without turning around, he spoke slowly with his back to him, in a tone that didn’t belong to a five-year-old: “Uncle, Mom is taking me far away tomorrow.”
Lu Sihan’s heart sank heavily.
“I don’t know where that place is, but I know that when Mom cries, she never wants me to see.”
Xiao Niangao turned around and looked at Lu Sihan.
“So, Uncle, can you not make her cry anymore?”
The night wind blew through the corridor, causing the motion-sensor light in the hallway to flicker on and off.
Lu Sihan stood outside the door, clutching a rabbit that had been mended over and over. The wound on the side of his neck had already scabbed into a dark red mark.
He watched the small figure walk step by step back into the room.
The door wasn’t closed.
It was left slightly ajar.
As if someone was still waiting for an answer.
Lu Sihan stood before the crack, raised the rabbit to his chest, pressed his lips against its crookedly sewn ear, and closed his eyes.
“Okay,” he said.
The motion-sensor light went out.
In the darkness, only his breathing could be heard.
And the flashing notifications on his phone screen:
【Top Trending: Lu Sihan Kneels Live on Stream# 1.27 Billion Views】
【Second Trending: Shen Luning’s Son# 930 Million Views】
【Third Trending: Replacement or True Love# 780 Million Views】
Three in the morning.
At a 24-hour convenience store in City A, Lu Sihan sat by the floor-to-ceiling window with a cup of cold Americano in front of him.
The dust on his knees hadn’t been brushed off, and the blood on his shirt collar had dried into a dark red, hardened stain.
He held the rabbit plushie in one hand while typing on his phone’s memo app with the other, deleting and rewriting word by word.
Finally, he wrote a line:
“Day one, she said she doesn’t want to know anymore, she said she doesn’t want to fix me anymore, but her child gave me a rabbit. Her child said, holding it won’t hurt anymore.”
“Her child is named Lu Xingye.”
“He shares my surname.”
He put down his phone, lowered his head to look at the rabbit’s crookedly sewn ear, and suddenly smiled.
There were tears in that smile, but for some reason, he had become very prone to crying lately. Tears always flowed uncontrollably, and he must look utterly disheveled now.
The fluorescent lights of the convenience store shone on him, leaving no shadow on his entire figure.
Outside the window, dawn was approaching.
The light on the sixth floor also turned on.
Shen Luning stood on the balcony, not avoiding the window for the first time.
She looked down at the convenience store below, at the disheveled man sitting by the floor-to-ceiling window, and watched for a long time.
Then, she picked up her phone and deleted the plane ticket she had just booked.
Turning around, she walked back into the room, lifted the blanket, and lay down beside Xiao Niangao.
The child immediately turned over, wrapping his small arms around her waist and burying his face in the crook of her neck, mumbling sleepily, “Mom…”
Shen Luning kissed his forehead.
“We’re not leaving,” she said.
The next day, Shen Luning was awakened by the vibration of her phone.
She fumbled around with her eyes closed, pulled the phone out from under her pillow, and squinted at the screen.
Three thousand two hundred WeChat messages.
From former colleagues, university classmates, friends who grew up together in the orphanage, customers of the Taobao shop, parents in the kindergarten group chat, the owner of the convenience store downstairs, and countless accounts she didn’t even recognize.