Shen Luning stood by the window, watching that car.
The engine was off, the windows tightly shut, making it impossible to tell if anyone was inside.
But she knew he was there.
She didn’t know how long he had been parked there.
Maybe he never left since last night.
Maybe he went home, showered, changed clothes, and came back.
Maybe his driver slept in the car all night, and he slept in the backseat all night too.
She and that car faced off for about ten seconds.
Then she drew the curtains.
“Mom!” Xiao Niangao poked his head out of the bathroom, toothpaste foam still around his mouth. “My toothpaste is all gone! The new toothpaste has been sitting in your Taobao shopping cart for three days. When are you going to place the order?”
Shen Luning took a deep breath and turned toward the bathroom.
“Today, today.”
“You always say tomorrow.”
“This time it’s today.”
“You said today last time too.”
“Lu Xingye.”
“Okay, okay, I believe you.”
She turned on the hot water, helping Xiao Niangao wash his face. She warmed the towel and pressed it against his face, and he squinted comfortably.
After washing up, Xiao Niangao stood on tiptoe to look at himself in the mirror, using his small hands to smooth his hair back, revealing his full face.
Shen Luning looked at him and herself in the mirror.
His eyebrows and eyes resembled hers, and so did his mouth.
But those eyes, that nose, the shape of his chin, even the curve of his smile…
All resembled him.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao suddenly asked, “do you think I look more like you or like Dad?”
Shen Luning’s hand paused.
“Who said you have a dad?”
“All the kids at kindergarten have one.”
Xiao Niangao looked completely unfazed. “Sometimes they ask me who my dad is, and I tell them my mom hasn’t told me.”
“How did you answer?”
“I said I have a really amazing mom, so I don’t need a dad.”
Shen Luning’s eyes stung again.
She crouched down, meeting Xiao Niangao’s gaze at eye level, and said earnestly, word by word, “Xiao Niangao, you do have a dad. Everyone has a dad. Mom just… hasn’t figured out how to tell you yet.”
“It’s okay.” Xiao Niangao reached out and patted the top of her head, like an adult comforting a child. “Take your time. I’m not in a hurry.”
Shen Luning couldn’t help but laugh.
“Why do you act like such a little grown-up?”
“Because I’m smart,” Xiao Niangao said matter-of-factly.
Then he added, “Mom, is that uncle’s car still downstairs?”
Shen Luning’s smile froze.
“How do you know there’s a car?”
“I heard it from the bathroom just now. Someone downstairs was clicking a lighter several times in a row, and then someone coughed. That cough sounded just like the uncle’s voice from last night.”
Shen Luning fell silent.
Looking at this five-year-old child in front of her, she felt she might need to reassess his observational skills.
Not just “a little smart,” but the kind of smart that was “terrifyingly perceptive.”
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao tilted his head, “if he’s still downstairs, hasn’t he had breakfast yet?”
“Can you stop worrying about him?”
“But his neck was bleeding.”
“That was yesterday. It probably stopped by now.”
“What if it’s still bleeding?”
“Lu Xingye.”
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao took her hand, looked up at her with an expression that was impossible to refuse, “can I give him a band-aid?”
Shen Luning looked down at her son.
Small, soft, with long eyelashes and bright eyes.
She suddenly felt that this child wasn’t just “like Lu Sihan”—he resembled someone even more, someone she had desperately tried to become but never succeeded in becoming.
Kind, gentle, and forgiving.
What she couldn’t do, he was doing.
“Fine,” Shen Luning said, “but don’t let him inside.”
Xiao Niangao’s eyes lit up, and he turned and ran.
“Wait!”
Xiao Niangao stopped in his tracks.
“The band-aids are in the drawer of my bedside table.”
Shen Luning paused, then added, “Get the cartoon one, the Winnie the Pooh one.”
Xiao Niangao looked at her and smiled.
That smile was exactly like Lu Sihan’s—the corners of his mouth lifting slightly first, then his whole face gradually lighting up, like light slowly rising from beneath the ice.
“Okay, Mom.”
He ran off to get the band-aid.
Shen Luning stood at the bathroom door, watching his small figure dart around the room. He opened the drawer, pulled out the Winnie the Pooh band-aid, then found a small plastic bag, put the band-aid inside, thought for a moment, and took a carton of milk from the refrigerator.
She opened her mouth to say, “Don’t give him the milk,” then closed it again.
Let him do it.
After all, that carton of milk would expire soon if not drunk.
Downstairs, in the back seat of the black SUV.
Lu Sihan sat there, clutching the rabbit plushie, staring at the sixth-floor window.
The curtains had been drawn open earlier, then closed again.
He had seen her.
Wearing a wrinkled T-shirt, her hair messy, with pillow marks still on her face.
She was nothing like the Shen Luning in his memory—the one who was always impeccably made up, wearing the latest seasonal dresses, strutting down the runway in ten-centimeter heels to showcase her jewelry designs.
But she looked even better now.
Not “better” in that way, but “better” in the way of being alive.
She had gained a little weight—no, not weight, but fullness.
Her figure after childbirth was softer than in her youth, like a sketch gently smudged by a finger. The outline remained, but the edges were less sharp.
She looked like a mother now.
Lu Sihan looked down at the rabbit in his hand.
The crookedly sewn ears, the mismatched eyes, the uneven stitches. Only now did he notice two tiny letters embroidered on the inside of the rabbit’s left ear: L&S.
Lu and Sihan.
His fingertips traced the letters over and over.
Five years.
She had hidden them in the rabbit’s ear for five years.
“President Lu,” the driver cautiously spoke from the front seat, “should I go buy some breakfast?”
“No need.”
“But you haven’t eaten since last night…”
“I said no need.”
The driver fell silent.
Having worked for Lu Sihan for eight years, he knew better than to say anything more at a time like this.
Lu Sihan’s voice sounded calm, but what lay beneath that calm was ten thousand times more terrifying than a roar.
Lu Sihan leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
He hadn’t slept all night.
After leaving the convenience store, he had the driver bring the car downstairs, and he had been sitting here ever since.
He didn’t know why he didn’t get out of the car, nor why he didn’t leave.
He just felt that sitting here, closer to her, made the hole in his heart feel a little less empty.
He had gone to see a psychologist.
A little after four in the morning, after he called, Dr. Zhang had actually waited for him at the clinic.
Two hours of psychological counseling, for the first time, he opened up to someone about things he had never spoken of before—being abandoned, being forsaken, the fear that “no one will ever want me,” and the twisted logic of “as long as I’m crazy enough, you won’t leave.”