The more Lin Congzhi slept, the more he felt himself sinking downward.

He had many dreams—or rather, he couldn’t tell which parts were dreams and which were reality.

He dreamed that he had never actually stepped off the cruise ship, that he was still in his cabin, with draft sketches and a few pencils scattered across the floor. There had been a period when he painted at night and slept during the day. The cruise ship’s restaurant offered 24-hour dining, but late at night, it served mostly alcohol; he would get himself tipsy, grab his sketchbook, and go paint from life.

There was plenty to draw on the ship: the grand piano in the banquet hall, the waiters holding trays with their heads held high, the rows of lifebuoys and life jackets. He had one drawing of a crew member smoking on the deck at sunset. That piece had been bought by a tourist on board who loved the sunset in the picture, saying it looked as if God had pulled an orange-red handkerchief straight out of the ocean.

Lin Congzhi dreamed of that sunset again—even the birds over the sea were dyed red, scattering all at once, like a crushed handful of flowers scattered into the wind, or like a volcanic eruption trying to burn the whole ocean to ash.

He just couldn’t wake up. His eyes opened, but his consciousness was still asleep.

Lin Lingyu was sitting on the edge of the bed, applying a cooling patch to his wrist. Just then, Zhang Miao came in with a bowl of porridge. Lin Congzhi rasped, “Zhang Miao, I dreamed about my mom.”

Zhang Miao looked at him, then at Lin Lingyu, unsure of what to say for a moment.

Lin Lingyu had landed in Yuchen earlier that morning. Having been abroad for so long, she had taken a taxi straight from the airport to get dim sum for morning tea. When she tried calling Lin Congzhi while eating, his phone was off; she only found out he had a fever after reaching Zhang Miao. So, she had a bowl of plain porridge packed at the restaurant and brought it over. Zhang Miao had just reheated it and brought it upstairs.

“It really is your mom,” Lin Lingyu said. “Come on, look closely—are you dreaming?”

Lin Congzhi squinted at her for a moment and said, “It really seems to be my mom.”

Lin Lingyu was at a loss for words. She looked up at Zhang Miao: “How long has he had these symptoms?”

Zhang Miao: “…I, I don’t know…”

When a kid sees their mother, the sheer sense of grievance spills over. The moment he realized this wasn’t a dream and that Lin Lingyu was actually standing there, Lin Congzhi instantly collapsed like a deflated chiffon cake: “Mom… I want water…”

Lin Lingyu couldn’t help but smile, sweeping a hand over his forehead: “Sweating so much, no wonder you’re thirsty.”

She then turned her head toward the bedroom door: “Bring the water in! Why are you still standing at the door dazed, child?”

The person carrying the glass of water as he entered was Xiao Jingwen. He wasn’t wearing a suit, just a plain black T-shirt and ordinary jeans.

It was already past four-thirty in the afternoon; saying he had slept the day away was no exaggeration at all. Xiao Jingwen looked much less distant without his suit—even in a black T-shirt, he looked gentler.

Lin Lingyu took the water, looping her arm behind Lin Congzhi’s shoulders. She tried to pull him up into a sitting position, but she couldn’t quite lift him. Xiao Jingwen softly said, “Let me,” and then a wave of dark shadow swept into Lin Congzhi’s already dizzy field of vision. The glass was pressed to his lips; Xiao Jingwen’s hand was as steady as a mechanical arm, feeding him a few sips of water.

“The medicine,” Lin Lingyu reminded him. “Here, pass it down while he’s still dazed.”

Xiao Jingwen was shocked, but he did as he was told.

Lin Congzhi looked at him in disbelief. A sick person lacked any aura of intimidation; even when his eyes bulged, they held zero threat, and though he wanted to speak, he lacked the strength.

Lin Congzhi hated taking medicine. Capsules were fine—they could be swallowed in one gulp—but pills were the absolute worst, leaving a bitter taste lingering in the throat and mouth. Xiao Jingwen placed a pillow behind his back. Not daring to meet his eyes, he held the pill in one hand, while the other…

“Open your mouth.”

The last time Xiao Jingwen had said those three words to him was in bed.

Swallowing pills was all about speed—just as in martial arts, speed was the ultimate decider. The faster you swallowed, the less you felt it. Lin Congzhi understood the principle, but he only understood it in theory.

He adamantly refused to open his mouth, clenching his jaw tightly. Left with no choice, Xiao Jingwen looked at Lin Lingyu, then at Lin Congzhi, and squeezed his lower jaw. A single hand was large enough to span his entire jawline; finding the right angle, he applied a clever bit of leverage to force his mouth open.

Throughout the process, the shift in Lin Congzhi’s eyes went roughly like this: I don’t believe you dare—wait, you’re serious?—Mom, it’s so bitter.

Lin Lingyu nodded in satisfaction, stepping forward to pat Lin Congzhi’s head: “So good. You’ll be better after taking the medicine.”

Xiao Jingwen felt equally desperate. In his imagination, feeding him medicine might have involved sweet, gentle coaxing; in reality, it turned into pinching his jaw and stuffing it in. But there was no helping it—Lin Lingyu was watching right beside them.

This fever was the result of getting soaked after his umbrella collapsed and then sitting in Gleam’s atrociously cold air conditioning for too long. No wonder Zhang Miao had talked about making amends.

After closing the bedroom door, the group went downstairs. Lin Lingyu’s trip back to the country wasn’t just to visit her son—especially after seeing that he was living inside an art gallery, which couldn’t even be called a proper home. She hoped Lin Congzhi would leave with her and continue living in Europe.

“Of course, it still depends on what he wants,” Lin Lingyu said, setting down her coffee cup and nodding to Zhang Miao with a quick thank you before turning her gaze back to Xiao Jingwen.

Xiao Jingwen didn’t make a sound. He sat on the sofa in the gallery’s exhibition hall, opposite Lin Lingyu.

To Lin Lingyu, compared to five years ago, he had matured a bit too fast. Five years ago, when they had first gotten together, Lin Lingyu had waited until Lin Congzhi graduated before leaving to work at an art museum in Spain. Holding dual degrees in oil painting and sculpture, she enjoyed a rather high status there.

She had met Xiao Jingwen once back then. Although he was six years older than her son, in her eyes at the time, both of them had been nothing more than kids.

“You’ve changed a lot, though,” Lin Lingyu added. “Even more… than I imagined.”

Xiao Jingwen had zero interest in how he had changed. He licked his lips, weighing his words carefully: “Did you… talk to him about this beforehand?”

“No.” Lin Lingyu shook her head, then leaned back somewhat tiredly—a posture that suited holding a glass of red wine. “I originally planned to return next week, but I came back early without telling him because I wanted to see his actual living state. Now I’ve seen it. Although he’s a 27-year-old adult, what mother wants to see her child…”

She gestured toward the gallery around them: “There’s no boundary between work and rest here at all. What kind of life is this?”

On top of that, he was sick, which made Lin Lingyu feel even more strongly about the state of his life. She simply had to take him with her—sure enough, no matter how old he got, he was still just a kid who couldn’t take care of himself.

Xiao Jingwen nodded: “Yes, his… his living conditions are indeed…”

“Mom, I just can’t be bothered to rent an apartment and commute back and forth.” Lin Congzhi coughed twice, still feeling a bit weak as he leaned against the wall around the corner.

Xiao Jingwen froze for a second, then walked over to support him: “Why did you get out of bed? You still have a fever.”

“I really shouldn’t have come down,” Lin Congzhi nodded weakly. “I almost tumbled down the stairs.”

“…” Please stop talking, Xiao Jingwen thought to himself, or your mom will be even less at ease.

Lin Congzhi had gotten up to use the bathroom and wash his face. He had vaguely overheard Lin Lingyu and Xiao Jingwen chatting downstairs, so he had come down to listen in.

Since he had heard it all, Lin Lingyu put it plainly: “Ah-Zhi, pack up this gallery, terminate the lease, and come with mom. The mountains of Cantabria facing the sea are beautiful, and the trees on the street where mom lives are all pruned into neat square shapes.”

Like coaxing a child, she tried to entice him away with interesting things.

Xiao Jingwen felt a little nervous, picking up the water glass in front of him and taking a sip.

“I rented it for a year. The penalty for breaking the lease early is very expensive,” Lin Congzhi said.

Unsurprisingly, Lin Lingyu offered generously: “Mom will pay it for you.”

“The landlord is him.” Lin Congzhi pointed his finger to the side. Xiao Jingwen almost choked to death, quickly swallowing, setting down the glass, and not quite daring to meet Lin Lingyu’s eyes.

“…” Lin Lingyu didn’t understand. “Is this… some kind of game you two are playing…?”

“No!” Lin Congzhi gasped in shock, his throat aching sharply from speaking too loudly, so he turned his head to look at Xiao Jingwen.

“It was my doing,” Xiao Jingwen caught on, following up with an explanation. “After I found out he returned to Yuchen, I arranged for someone to rent it to him. It’s not any kind of… game.”

Lin Lingyu gave an “Oh.”

“But I’ll give it serious thought, Mom,” Lin Congzhi looked at her with a smile. “I miss you a lot, too.”

Lin Lingyu’s heart melted instantly. In fact, earlier when he was lying in bed, half-awake, and that aggrieved call of ‘Mom’ had slipped out, she had basically made up her mind to take her son away. It was too pitiful; she felt her son wasn’t working away from home, but rather wandering the streets.

“Alright,” Lin Lingyu said. “Wait until you recover from your illness. No rush, we have plenty of time.”

Xiao Jingwen was quick on the uptake. He stood up and said, “I’ll help you upstairs.”

And so, the scene looked a bit like ‘a fragile beauty supported by a servant’—especially when Lin Congzhi stood up, his legs went soft, and he stumbled. Xiao Jingwen protectively wrapped an arm around his waist. Over on the side, Lin Lingyu turned her head away; she really seemed to need a glass of red wine now.

Back in the second-floor bedroom, after closing the door, Xiao Jingwen—blessed with impressive arm strength—gently set him down on the bed. There was a water dispenser in the bedroom, so he poured a glass of warm water for Lin Congzhi and placed it on the nightstand.

Only then did he take a proper look around the bedroom. Actually, nothing was lacking, and the space was quite large: a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a coffee table, and a balcony.

However, Lin Lingyu’s perspective was understandable too. The area right downstairs was his workspace, which really felt far too un-homelike.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Congzhi saw him staring blankly toward the balcony. The blackout curtains were closed, so nothing could actually be seen. It had rained a bit earlier this morning, but it had stopped by now.

Xiao Jingwen shook his head: “Your mom cares about you a lot. She feels living like this isn’t comfortable enough, that it doesn’t feel like a home.”

“Yeah.” Lin Congzhi leaned half-against the pillow. “People of our parents’ generation always feel that one should live in a proper house.”

Xiao Jingwen suddenly blurted out, “Let me buy a house for you.”

“…” Lin Congzhi fell silent.

“I’m sorry.” Xiao Jingwen pursed his lips. “I got a bit ahead of myself.”

“What are you rushing for?” Lin Congzhi was caught between laughter and tears.

“I’m afraid your mom will whisk you away.”

“Listen to yourself,” Lin Congzhi said, laughing and coughing at the same time. “Pass me the water.”

“Right away.” CEO Xiao immediately walked over.