The entire wall of the airport arrival hall was floor-to-ceiling glass, and the sunlight hitting the boy’s side profile accentuated his sharp, youthful contours.

He raised his hand to adjust his collar, and Xie Lan noticed that his hand had good bone structure, with distinct knuckles and a thin but strong wrist.

The owner of the hand spoke up, “WeChat transfer?”

Xie Lan hesitated for a moment and said, “I don’t use WeChat.”

“Then Alipay?”

“Haven’t set it up yet. My phone is broken. You can give me your bank account number.”

“No Alipay?” The boy looked up, suddenly understanding, “No wonder you talk a bit funny. Are you a foreigner?”

“Chinese,” Xie Lan answered immediately. “My Chinese isn’t good, but I have Chinese citizenship.”

He was annoyed, extremely annoyed.

The exact same camera, the exact same official camera bag, and they both liked hanging it on their backpacks.

The problem was, what exactly was the thing that snagged him just now?

His gaze swept to the backpack hanging at the boy’s side. On the zipper hung a small decoration of a plane tree leaf, and a thing that looked like an unclosed wire whisk, which was probably the culprit behind this unlucky incident.

The boy followed his gaze and looked down, frowned, removed the “whisk,” and muttered, “Che Ziming, that punchable jerk.”

“What is this?” Xie Lan couldn’t help but ask.

“A scalp massager. The kind used to clear the brain meridians of intellectually disabled children.”

?

The other party casually tossed it into the trash can. “I’m Dou Sheng. How should I address you?”

“Aron.” His English name sounded somewhat similar to his Chinese name.

“Oh. You have someone picking you up, right?”

Xie Lan pursed his lips slightly and gave a very soft “Mmh.”

Dou Sheng picked up his phone and said slowly, “I’m also here to pick someone up. My cousin just returned to the country. I’ll call her first to let her know, then go with you to find the person picking you up. Let him compensate me, and you two can settle it privately. How does that sound?”

Actually, it made no difference; the person picking Xie Lan up was also a stranger. But Xie Lan had no other choice, so he could only nod.

Dou Sheng turned his back to make the call, and Xie Lan stood not far away watching.

After a short while, he saw Dou Sheng hang up the phone, muttering while typing, “Could she have left…”

Xie Lan asked casually, “What time was the flight?”

“Landed at 4:50. It’s been twenty minutes and the phone is still off.”

Xie Lan subconsciously touched the flight ticket in his pocket. “Your cousin came from London?”

“Yes. Eh?” Dou Sheng looked up abruptly. “You too?”

Xie Lan nodded. “Probably waiting for luggage, or passing customs. Go wait at the exit channel.”

Dou Sheng tutted. “Forgot about that. Uncle Ma even made a sign so she could feel the warmth of the motherland as soon as she got off the plane.”

As he spoke, he took out a folded poster from his backpack, unfolded it, and exposed two lines of large characters clearly before Xie Lan’s eyes.

Lan Xie Xie Lan
Welcome Home! (Smiley Face)

The handsome boy’s expression underwent an earthquake.

“This is your cousin??”

“Yeah.” Dou Sheng held the banner across his chest and walked forward.

“Wait!”

Xie Lan raised his hand to grab his sleeve, physically blocking those two lines of text.

Dou Sheng raised his eyelids. “What for?”

Xie Lan asked, “Do you know what she looks like?”

“Don’t know what she looks like now. Have a photo from when she was six or seven. Rebellious young girl.” Dou Sheng tapped his phone twice and held it up in front of Xie Lan. “Here.”

A child with black eyes and red lips stood under a pine tree in a park, looking somewhat unhappily at the camera.

Little shirt, little scarf, little trench coat, little leather shoes—a very normal outfit for a British boy. The only thing slightly girly was a red hairpin clipped to his forehead. It was because he had scraped his forehead, and his mother forcibly pinned it on him for fear of his hair rubbing against the wound.

Xie Lan’s eyes went blank, suddenly wanting to return to the UK a little.

Xie Jingming was truly a ruthless man, actually sending out this kind of monster to drive him back in such a spectacular fashion.

He snatched the poster from Dou Sheng’s hand and folded it up in a few moves.

Dou Sheng frowned. “What are you doing now?”

Xie Lan’s eyes were full of resentment. “Are you sure it’s a female?”

“Isn’t it obvious it’s a female? What’s it to you?”

Xie Lan stared at him without answering. After a while, Dou Sheng suddenly frowned.

His Adam’s apple bobbed gently twice. Keeping his composure, he opened the photo again and held it up beside Xie Lan’s face.

A long time passed.

“Um—”

“May I ask the young hero’s Chinese name—”

“Xie Lan.”

“…”

After checking the ID information, the two faced each other in silence for a while.

Until Xie Lan spoke first, greeting, “First time meeting, hello.”

It sounded very much like “First time meeting, why don’t you die.”

The corner of Dou Sheng’s mouth twitched. It took a long while before he nodded slightly. “Mmh. Pretty good. You?”

Before Xie Lan could roll his eyes, he tutted again, leaned in close, and whispered, “Did you love wearing hairpins when you were little? Do you still have that kind of… unique hobby now?”

“…”

Xie Lan pressed all the knuckles of his other eight fingers with his thumbs just to keep his expression from collapsing. “Does your mother know I’m a boy?”

Dou Sheng pondered for a while. “Probably knows, just didn’t make it clear on the phone.”

“Who else knows about this?” Xie Lan asked again.

“What thing?”

Xie Lan’s eyes screamed irritability. “Cousin.”

“Oh… that…”

Dou Sheng reached into his pocket to touch his phone and whispered extremely low, “Just some fans. Um, about a million or so.”

Xie Lan didn’t hear clearly. “What?”

“Nothing.” Dou Sheng raised his head steadily. “Should be just me who misunderstood. Let’s go, the driver is waiting in the parking lot.”

The driver, Little Ma, was a chubby guy with single eyelids and a smiling face. His greeting upon meeting was also very warm.

The car quickly drove off the airport expressway and onto the H City overpass. Below the bridge was the river that divided the city in two. The setting sun sprinkled shimmering light on the water surface, and the city’s reflection shone brilliantly in that patch of gold.

Little Ma introduced as he drove, “Our community is called Wangjiang Liying (Riverview Beautiful Shadows), remember that. It used to be called Wangjiang Xiangwai (Outside Riverview Alley). Saying either works when taking a taxi.”

Xie Lan knew Wangjiang Xiangwai. This name appeared too many times in his mother’s journal. Outside Riverview Alley had towering plane trees. Leaving the house required running up thirty-two steps. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the plane tree leaves, leaving bright spots of light on one’s face.

He lowered his eyes, feeling very resistant to the idea of boarding with a stranger’s family. He planned to tactfully decline later at the dinner table.

Setting aside the unreliable son, Zhao Wenying had a very nice temperament. Wearing a light coffee-colored cashmere dress, she was bright and generous.

She was very familiar and friendly, without the slightest bit of reserve or polite pretense. As soon as Xie Lan called her “Auntie,” she dragged him to wash his hands and pressed him into a seat at the dining table.

Zhao Wenying smiled radiantly: “You must be tired from the flight, right? Let me tell you, coming to Auntie’s place is coming home. As the saying goes, dumplings when getting on the bus, noodles when getting off. I didn’t do anything else all afternoon, just stewed this bowl of noodles. Hurry up and taste it.”

In the white porcelain bowl, abalone and white clams were stewed in golden soup, bright and beautiful, covering the handmade noodles underneath. Zhao Wenying handed chopsticks to Xie Lan and thoughtfully placed a fork by his hand.

Xie Lan thanked her, and just as he picked up the chopsticks, he suddenly heard Zhao Wenying sigh with emotion.

“You look so much like Langjing,” she said softly. “Back in school, she said she wanted to give birth to a super handsome guy, raise him to be excellent and polite, the kind that gives her lots of face when she takes him out. Looks like her wish really came true. She married the person she liked, gave birth to such a wonderful son. Heaven didn’t treat her too badly.”

Xie Lan’s hand resting on his leg trembled slightly.

Xie Lan’s mother was named Xiao Langjing. After she passed away, four or five months later, Xie Lan discovered the journals she had been writing intermittently for over twenty years while organizing her belongings.

The words Zhao Wenying said, Xie Lan had also seen similar text on those yellowing pages.

Those fading ink words allowed him a glimpse into his mother’s youthful shyness that he never knew, but time had already taken her away from him forever.

Because of this trip down memory lane, Xie Lan swallowed back the refusal he had prepared.

“Lanlan,” Zhao Wenying asked gently, “Your dad said you want to take the college entrance exam in China and don’t want to get British citizenship?”

Xie Lan wasn’t sure how much of the father-son conflict Xie Jingming had told her temporarily, so he could only give a vague “Mmh.”

“Then Auntie will help you contact a school. Classes can’t be delayed, let’s get you in school first.”

Xie Lan was a bit surprised hearing this. He thought Xie Jingming had found a persuader to talk him out of it.

Zhao Wenying sent a few messages on her phone and asked Xie Lan, “What grade are you in?”

Xie Lan hesitated for a moment. “Probably roughly corresponds to the second year of high school in China.”

“Then same as Douzi. Which classes did you take?”

“It’s a course selection system. I chose Math, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics.”

“Which subject are you better at?”

“Math, I guess.”

Xie Lan immediately added, “In China, Chinese will definitely be my weakest subject.”

Zhao Wenying made an ‘OK’ sign. “Your dad said you never switched citizenship, and your household registration is still in this area. It just so happens that the second semester of high school sophomore year starts tomorrow. The principal agreed to let you crash Douzi’s class for a couple of days first. We’ll see where you fit after the placement test.”

Xie Lan knew about the education system in China, so he nodded and said thanks.

Zhao Wenying switched to the tone of the Dowager Empress and asked Dou Sheng, “How is the placement arranged this time?”

Dou Sheng slumped in his seat, scrolling through his phone, and said casually, “Science stream is divided into two ‘A’ classes. One traditional ‘A’, taking the top fifty by total score. One Mathematical-Physics ‘A’, sprinting for next year’s independent recruitment, taking the top thirty in both Math and Physics. If qualified for both, priority goes to Mathematical-Physics ‘A’. The rest are arranged into classes of fifty based on total score.”

He spoke very slowly, unsure if he was afraid Zhao Wenying wouldn’t understand or if he deliberately wanted to explain it clearly to Xie Lan as well.

Zhao Wenying nodded. “Most of your Class 4 will get into Mathematical-Physics ‘A’, right?”

Dou Sheng gave an “Mmh.” “Changing the class name. A few ranking lower will go out. Teachers won’t change.”

Xie Lan understood. Class 4 must be the current best class.

Couldn’t tell, huh? Someone who couldn’t even distinguish male from female was actually in the best class.

Zhao Wenying turned back to Xie Lan and said, “Strive to test into the top three hundred. I asked around before; actually, the teacher allocation for the top three hundred is pretty decent.”

Top three hundred.

Xie Lan felt a jolt in his heart and straightened his back.

“How many people in total?”

Zhao Wenying sighed, “This batch is full. Over six hundred in science.”

“…”

They seemed to have some misunderstandings about his grades.

Just as Xie Lan was contemplating how to correct this misunderstanding, Zhao Wenying suddenly looked at Dou Sheng, her benevolence abruptly retracting.

“By the way, where’s the cake I asked you to order?”

Xie Lan froze. After realizing what was happening, he subconsciously curled his fingers and also looked at Dou Sheng.

Dou Sheng ladled himself another bowl of noodles, slurping them down with his head lowered, and said vaguely and indifferently, “Oh, forgot.”

“Forgot??!” Zhao Wenying’s volume suddenly shot up. “Can you be reliable for once?! I only gave you two tasks in total. First, pick him up at the airport. Second, order a cake. You can’t even get these little things right!”

Zhao Wenying started scolding cracklingly. Dou Sheng rubbed his ears and ate his noodles with his head down, not making a sound.

Xie Lan actually felt relieved. Celebrating a birthday together upon first meeting was really too awkward. He felt that Dou Sheng’s perfunctoriness was, in a sense, a favor to him.

Just as he relaxed, the door lock beeped suddenly. Little Ma, who said he was driving off, came back, carrying a large white box in his hand.

“Douzi, I’m not criticizing you, but how could you leave the cake in the trunk? Good thing I remembered before driving far. Look at you.”

Dou Sheng: “…”

Xie Lan: “…”

Xie Lan never expected that today’s tribulations weren’t over yet.

After a day of emotional ups and downs, it finally reached a climax as Zhao Wenying lifted the lid.

On the pink creamy cake, written in dreamy Tiffany blue, were the words—

Xie Lan:
Happy Birthday, Youthful and Beautiful, Invincibly Cute!

On the bottom of the plastic crown at the corner of the cake was engraved a string of cursive English: Princess

“Bakery template,” Dou Sheng said immediately. “I couldn’t come up with such tacky words.”

Xie Lan sat blankly to the side, dying once again in spirit.