The train trundled along at a leisurely pace for two days and two nights, finally arriving in the capital on the morning of the third day.
Overall, the journey back had gone quite smoothly, with no unexpected incidents along the way.
The capital of the 1980s was very different from the capital Zhou Yu knew from the modern era. Looking out at the endless sea of people filling the train station, she felt a momentary sense of confusion.
She did not know whether she would ever be able to find her parents from the real world in this world inside a novel.
But she did not have time to dwell on it.
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when she heard Lu Cheng suddenly shout, “Grandpa!” before taking off in a certain direction on his short little legs.
Following the direction Lu Cheng was running, Zhou Yu looked up and immediately spotted Ji Jing’s father, Ji Haoyuan, standing beside a black sedan. Even from a distance, he was hard to miss.
“That old fool is always showing off,” Madam Chu muttered under her breath, though the smile tugging at the corners of her lips was impossible to hide.
Although she complained with her words, she was genuinely happy that her husband had come to the train station so early in the morning to pick them up.
“My, Cheng’er has grown taller,” Ji Haoyuan said with a smile as he walked forward. He scooped Lu Cheng up with one arm while naturally taking the luggage from Madam Chu’s hand with the other.
“Xueyao, you’re finally back.”
Because there had still been a great deal of business waiting for him in the capital, Ji Haoyuan had returned ahead of everyone else. By now, it had been several months since he had last seen his wife.
The relationship between Ji Haoyuan and Chu Xueyao had always been exceptionally good. They had hardly ever spent such a long time apart before. Now that Madam Chu had finally returned to the capital, there was no way Ji Haoyuan could be anything but delighted.
Watching his parents reunite and immediately become as lovey-dovey as a young couple, Ji Jing felt slightly exasperated.
He was already used to being force-fed displays of affection, but this was a train station.
There were people everywhere, and Zhou Yu and Lu Cheng were standing right beside them. Could his parents not show a little restraint?
Ji Jing cleared his throat pointedly, reminding his parents to pay attention to their image.
“Grandpa! Grandpa!” Lu Cheng called out again at that moment.
Hearing his grandson call for him, Ji Haoyuan finally remembered there were other people present. Though he felt a little embarrassed, he quickly covered it up with a smile.
“What’s wrong? Why is Cheng’er calling Grandpa?”
“Cheng’er missed Grandpa. Did Grandpa miss Cheng’er?” Lu Cheng asked sweetly.
“Of course Grandpa missed his precious grandson!” Ji Haoyuan replied with a broad grin.
“Dad, let’s head home first. There are too many people here,” Ji Jing reminded him. Seeing the crowd around them growing larger and larger, he knew the train station was hardly the place for a proper conversation.
Ji Haoyuan nodded and did not say anything further. Smiling, he helped load Madam Chu’s and Zhou Yu’s luggage into the trunk before driving everyone back to the villa where the family usually lived in the capital.
The train station was still some distance from Ji Jing’s villa, but since they were traveling by car, they reached their destination in just over half an hour.
The moment she got out of the car, Madam Chu turned to Zhou Yu and Lu Cheng.
“There are plenty of spare rooms in the villa. Yu’er, Cheng’er, you can pick whichever room you like.”
Before Zhou Yu could respond, Lu Cheng spoke up first.
“Which room does Dad stay in? Dad and Mom aren’t still going to sleep in separate rooms now that we’re in the capital, are they?”
Zhou Yu immediately felt a headache coming on.
For some reason, this child seemed unusually obsessed with getting her and Ji Jing to share a room.
She was just about to reuse the same excuse she had relied on before they came to the capital when Lu Cheng continued speaking.
“Oh, right! Mom has already gotten into university and come to the capital…” He looked at the two of them eagerly. “Dad, Mom, when are you going to get your marriage certificate? You promised I’d get to witness it myself.”
Each question Lu Cheng asked was more troublesome than the last.
Even Ji Haoyuan and Chu Xueyao were shocked by this mention of a “marriage certificate.”
“But aren’t they…” Ji Haoyuan started to say that Ji Jing and Zhou Yu were not actually husband and wife, so how could they possibly go get a marriage certificate?
Before he could finish, however, Chu Xueyao jabbed him hard in the side with her elbow.
“I think Cheng’er makes a very good point,” Madam Chu said with a smile. “But in the end, it depends on what the two of you want. You should make your own arrangements.”
Although she very much wanted her eldest son and Zhou Yu to share a room and get a marriage certificate, she knew these things had to be taken step by step. There was no point rushing them.
“But…” Lu Cheng wanted to say more, only to be stopped midway when Madam Chu shot him a meaningful look and pulled him to her side.
She knew this was a moment when Ji Jing and Zhou Yu needed a little private space.
Turning to Lu Cheng, she said, “Cheng’er, why don’t I take you to choose your room first? You should give your parents some time to think about it too.”
Lu Cheng felt that his grandmother’s words made perfect sense. He really could not push too hard, or Mom would get angry.
So he immediately followed her lead.
“Okay! Grandma, take me to pick a room. I want one that’s closer to where all of you are staying.”
After Madam Chu led Lu Cheng away, dragging along the somewhat dazed Ji Haoyuan as well, only Ji Jing and Zhou Yu remained in the villa courtyard.
“I really don’t know how things ended up developing like this.” After a moment of silence, Ji Jing proposed, “If it comes down to it, we could just tell the child the truth.”
Hearing this, Zhou Yu raised her head and studied him for several moments.
According to the original novel, hadn’t Ji Jing hidden the truth from Lu Cheng for his entire life? He never revealed it even in the end. So why had he suddenly changed his mind now? Why did he no longer want to keep it a secret?
Zhou Yu did not answer immediately.
Instead, she thought about it carefully.
From her own perspective, not getting a marriage certificate would certainly be the better option.
But then she remembered how devastated Lu Cheng had been during the period when he learned of his father’s death. The memory made her heart soften.
Lu Cheng had only just become lively and cheerful again. If they told him the truth now, Zhou Yu felt there was a very high chance he would revert to that lifeless, withdrawn state he had once been in.
That was not something she wanted to see happen.
“If you don’t have a fiancée or a girlfriend,” Zhou Yu finally said, “then we could get the marriage certificate.”
She rarely spoke at such length.
“We could sign a prenuptial agreement and set a specific time. When Lu Cheng becomes an adult, we could get divorced then…”
Zhou Yu went on to explain her concerns regarding Lu Cheng’s upbringing, why she was considering getting the marriage certificate, and the various factors that had led her to this conclusion.
Ji Jing had never expected Zhou Yu to agree.
Deep down, he had actually hoped that Zhou Yu would not leave.
Originally, Ji Jing had thought that the reason he worried about Zhou Yu leaving was because it would hurt Lu Cheng’s young heart.
But now he realized that, setting everything else aside, he personally did not want Zhou Yu to leave either.
When Zhou Yu finished speaking and paused, Ji Jing remained silent for quite a while.
A trace of confusion appeared on her face.
But when she looked up, she noticed the smile lingering at the corners of his lips and immediately concluded that he had been daydreaming.
Frowning slightly, she reminded him, “Were you even listening to what I was saying?”
“Huh?” Ji Jing instantly snapped back to reality. Embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his head and stammered, “I was listening. I don’t have a fiancée or anything like that. And… I agree to getting the marriage certificate.”
Zhou Yu glanced at him but did not pursue the matter of him zoning out.
“Alright then. In the next couple of days, find a chance to explain things to your parents. The next time Cheng’er brings it up, we’ll agree to it and then pick a day to take him with us to the Civil Affairs Bureau.”
In Zhou Yu’s memory, the original host’s household registration had already been moved out when she had planned to marry Lu Bin.
Originally, the original host had intended to transfer her registration into Lu Bin’s household register. However, Lu Bin had suddenly left because of an urgent matter before the process could be completed.
After that, Lu Bin met with his accident.
Now, however, that situation worked to Zhou Yu’s advantage.
She could register her marriage with Ji Jing without needing to notify the original host’s family.
Deep down, Zhou Yu did not want much contact with them anyway. The entire family was rather troublesome, and she had no desire to waste her time getting entangled with them.
“As for the sleeping arrangements…” Zhou Yu recalled the issue Lu Cheng had raised countless times and came up with a compromise. “If necessary, you can buy a good mattress and sleep on the floor every night.”
Although Ji Jing was not particularly enthusiastic about sleeping on the floor, he decided to accept the proposal to avoid being endlessly questioned by Lu Cheng every day.
Sleeping on a floor mattress was still better than sleeping in Lu Cheng’s tiny children’s bed.
That was the only way he could comfort himself.
“Alright.” Ji Jing nodded in agreement.
He then led Zhou Yu upstairs to his room on the second floor.
“My room is pretty simple,” he said as he introduced it to her. “If you decide to stay in this room, you can rearrange or change anything you want. And if there’s another room you like better, I can move there instead…”
“This room will do. It’s quite nice.”
Zhou Yu looked around Ji Jing’s room a few times and found that it had excellent lighting and plenty of space. It was indeed a very good room.
After a brief pause, she continued, “Just replace the bedding and curtains with new ones, then have a desk and bookshelf custom-made.”
“Alright. I’ll ask the housekeeper to arrange the room according to your requirements later,” Ji Jing replied. He had no objections to any of Zhou Yu’s requests.
By lunchtime, Ji Jing, Zhou Yu, Ji Haoyuan, Madam Chu, and Lu Cheng had all gathered in the villa’s dining room.
Earlier that morning, Madam Chu had already found an opportunity to tell Ji Haoyuan that she intended to bring Zhou Yu and their eldest son together.
Ji Haoyuan rarely disagreed with his wife’s decisions.
Besides, Zhou Yu had saved his life. Naturally, he had no objections to her being with his eldest son.
The only concern was that, in Ji Haoyuan’s opinion, Doctor Zhou might not necessarily take a liking to his rather foolish son.
“Dad, Mom, which room is yours?” Lu Cheng asked while eating.
The question was deliberately ambiguous. It could refer to their shared room, or it could mean where each of them was staying individually.
His grandmother had taught him to ask it that way.
“It’s the second room from the left upstairs,” Zhou Yu answered.
“That’s Ji Jing’s old room,” Madam Chu added with a smile.
Zhou Yu nodded.
The moment he heard that, Lu Cheng’s eyes lit up with delight.
It seemed his dad and mom really were staying in the same room.
At this rate, getting a marriage certificate seemed highly promising.
“Um… Dad, Mom…” After hesitating for several minutes, Lu Cheng finally could not hold back anymore. “When are you planning to get your marriage certificate…?”
Originally, he had intended to wait a few more days before asking, but he simply could not resist.
“We’ll pick an auspicious day in the next few days and take you with us to the Civil Affairs Bureau so you can witness it in person. That should satisfy you, right?” Zhou Yu had already thought everything through, so she answered without any hesitation.
Ji Jing, on the other hand, looked noticeably uncomfortable after hearing her words.
Even the tips of his ears had turned slightly red.
The moment Ji Haoyuan and Chu Xueyao noticed their son’s reaction, they immediately understood what was going on.
As for the sight of their son sitting there like a shy new bride, unable to get a single word out, the couple could only think:
It was truly painful to watch.