A piece of laver floated in the wonton soup. Lin Congzhi scooped it up with a spoon and took a sip along with the broth. He didn’t express an opinion.

Xiao Jingwen’s sickly possessiveness always came under such reasonable pretexts. Lin Congzhi was a fairly lazy person, so he didn’t mind having someone keep his life perfectly organized. The two of them had never argued over this kind of matter.

With nothing left to say, Xiao Jingwen had no reason to linger. He stood up from the sofa, preparing to leave. Lin Congzhi set down his spoon, pulled off the ring, and handed it back to him.

Xiao Jingwen didn’t take it at first. “Keep it as a gift.”

“Don’t,” Lin Congzhi looked up. “Just because this thing was in my possession, I haven’t slept well for three days. Whenever a gust of wind blew outside, I thought someone was breaking in to steal it.”

Xiao Jingwen let out a low chuckle. “Alright.” He picked up the ring from Lin Congzhi’s palm, pinching the band and looking at it as if it were an ordinary flower.

“At least hold it properly,” Lin Congzhi couldn’t stand watching him handle it so casually.

“Private collection, not company inventory,” Xiao Jingwen said, nonchalantly stuffing it into his trousers pocket. “I won’t disturb you any longer. I’m off to work.”

“Okay.” Lin Congzhi set his spoon down to see him off, but Xiao Jingwen stopped him, telling him to finish eating peacefully before walking out on his own.

After Xiao Jingwen left, Lin Congzhi shifted forward and sat directly on the floor so the coffee table sat at a comfortable height. He ate his wontons slowly—a habit rooted in his childhood. Lin Lingyu also ate slowly, and the two of them often dragged a single meal out for an hour at home.

A tablet was usually propped up on their dining table to play documentaries or film reviews. Later, when he shared a table with Xiao Jingwen, the man was utterly astonished by this routine. Hearing that it was a habit shared with his mother, Xiao Jingwen reacted as if he were listening to a fairy tale.

Lin Congzhi cleaned up after finishing his breakfast. Out of practice with morning meals for so long, the single bowl left him feeling quite full.

The sketch in his studio was practically complete; missing the physical reference object wouldn’t affect the finishing touches. He squatted before the trash can to sharpen his pencil first, mulling things over as he shaved the graphite.

Xiao Jingwen played with people much like he handled building blocks. Likely influenced by his family background, he was raised on an extreme survival mindset—everyone was either an ally or an enemy. When this predatory survival instinct translated into the business world, it had to comply with law and ethics while still granting the hunter a sense of accomplishment. That was how Xiao Jingwen’s current state of being came to be.

The HB pencil lead was naturally thin and hard, which Lin Congzhi sharpened until it resembled a needle’s tip. He stood up, dusted off the graphite powder from his clothes, and stepped back to the easel. Observing the ring drawn on paper, he recalled a moment from five years ago. Xiao Jingwen had returned to Yuchen after a business trip, rushing straight to the studio covered in dust, carrying a single rose for him.

Thinking back to that moment, Lin Congzhi let out a quiet smile. Five years ago, the sentence he said most often to Xiao Jingwen was: Mr. Xiao, you’re so foolish—how do you even run a business?

That rose was a new variety bred at a rose manor in the city he had visited. The flower head was massive, colored like red wine, and its rich fragrance indicated it had been plucked less than ten hours ago—still fresh and full of life.

Calling him foolish was because Xiao Jingwen had clutched the rose in his hand through the entire high-speed train ride. The thorns on the stem had long pierced his skin to plug the wounds; only after the flower was handed over to Lin Congzhi did tiny, thread-like trails of blood trickle down his hand.

In front of Lin Congzhi, he really could be quite clumsy. He would pull his clenched fist behind his back, only to obediently stretch it out again under Lin Congzhi’s watchful gaze. Back then, the studio where Lin Congzhi worked took commercial oil painting commissions, and a colleague there had even tried to warn him.

That colleague said: Xiao Jingwen looks terrifying. He’s manipulating you! This is emotional hostage-taking—you won’t ever be able to break up with him!

The fresh rose withered in a vase after a few days, and the cuts on Xiao Jingwen’s hand healed. Lin Congzhi had teased him, asking if he was a bit of a pervert. Hearing that made Xiao Jingwen visibly uneasy, but Lin Congzhi followed up: It’s fine. I’m an art student—I have a high tolerance for perverts.

Now, the tip of the HB pencil landed on the drawing paper. The pencil moved with surgical precision in his grip, laying down sharp, decisive strokes along the edge of the faceted surfaces.

In truth, breaking up with Xiao Jingwen was nowhere near as terrifying as his colleague had warned. Xiao Jingwen was indeed a man of intense possessiveness, but he was also someone forever restrained by cold rationality. That was why, five years ago, when Lin Congzhi said, “We really aren’t suitable for each other; let’s break up,” Xiao Jingwen simply nodded in silence. He had even helped him pack his clothes and luggage.

The breakup was remarkably smooth. Over the past five years, Xiao Jingwen maintained zero presence in his life. Occasionally, during long thirteen-to-fourteen-day cruises across international waters—where passenger ships were crowded and chaotic—Xiao Jingwen would assign two or three employees to go on business trips along the same route, keeping a respectful distance without disturbing him. Given how unpredictable the world could be, this fell well within what Lin Congzhi was willing to accept.

No matter what, he was grateful to Xiao Jingwen. After all, during the time he spent with him, he never even had to worry about what to eat for dinner.

He removed the drawing board, carried it to the gallery entrance, and sprayed it with workable fixative. A passing neighbor lady let out an exaggerated gasp: “My, look at that giant diamond!”

He had a class to teach at the downtown studio this evening. Once the fixative dried, he rolled up the drawing and slid it into a poster tube. The evening class consisted of high school freshmen and sophomores who hadn’t dropped their academic studies yet, coming over to paint after finishing their regular school day.

Lin Congzhi decided to get some sleep before evening arrived. Zhang Miao and Xiao Chen were taking the day off today. Having eaten a hearty breakfast, he ambled into the bedroom, drew the curtains tight, turned on the air conditioner, and crawled into bed.

Lin Congzhi did everything at a leisurely pace—a habit nurtured from years of painting alongside Lin Lingyu since childhood. Painting required absolute patience: sketching, outlining, laying colors; no single step could be rushed.

At 5:15 PM, the alarm rang. He stretched an arm out from under the blanket to turn it off.

At 5:20 PM, the alarm rang again. Someone turned it off for him and casually shut down the 21°C air conditioning he had left running for hours.

Groggy from his nap, Lin Congzhi shrank back into his quilt, muttering a few indistinct words as if complaining.

Immediately after, an uncompromising hand nudged his shoulder: “Get up already! What time is it? You still have class to teach. Lazing around in bed during the day—how are you going to sleep tonight?”

“Mom?” Lin Congzhi squinted. “It’s you, Mom…”

“Well, who else would it be?”

“…” Lin Congzhi pulled his head back into the blanket. “Nobody.”

Lin Lingyu glanced at him. Ever since he turned fourteen, she stopped pulling off his covers. “Hurry up and change. It’s time to head to the studio.”

“Okay…”

“Your mouth is moving, so move your body too!” Lin Lingyu added. “What’s-his-name, Xiao Jingwen, is waiting downstairs by the curb. He said he’d drive you.”

That got Lin Congzhi moving. He squirmed twice under the blanket and sat right up.

Oh no. His first thought was: Xiao Jingwen is waiting for me, so what should I wear? Then he startled himself awake—he must have slept his brain to mush. He grabbed his phone and initiated a voice call to Shao Heng, asking him to brew two cold brews so he could grab them on his way down.

Fortunately, one of Lin Lingyu’s hobbies was picking out clothes for him. Turning on the light, she rummaged through the wardrobe and put together a tie-dye ink-wash short-sleeved shirt paired with linen casual trousers.

“Don’t set the AC temperature so low when sleeping,” Lin Lingyu remarked, pulling open a closet drawer. Mother and son shared the exact same organizational habits; this drawer was reserved for accessories. She selected a silver bamboo-joint cuff and handed it to him.

Lin Congzhi hesitated. “Maybe not. I’m just going to teach a class.”

“You can take it off once you get to the studio.” Lin Lingyu looked at him with a sly glint in her eyes, joking, “It’s an ex’s car after all—make him regret his life choices.”

“Mom…” Lin Congzhi was caught between laughter and tears. “Me and him… him…” He tried to laugh it off, but the smile faded from his lips.

Lin Lingyu sat down at the edge of the bed. She reached out to gently stroke his hair. “Not long ago, I happened to read about a perspective from a French writer. He believed that the essence of all ‘allophilia’—loving another—is fundamentally ‘narcissism.’ The person you fall for inevitably carries your own underlying color, or represents the person you wish to become.”

She continued softly: “For pure arts workers like us, our professional barriers are incredibly high. Once you make the choice, it’s very hard… almost impossible to switch tracks. Studying art is like studying medicine: giving up or changing course requires breaking bones to reshape them. It hurts immensely.”

Silence settled over the bedroom.

“Xiao Jingwen is the same,” Lin Congzhi said.

With just five short words, Lin Lingyu understood completely—they shared the exact same core foundation. If Lin Congzhi had received a pure, uncompromising arts education since childhood, then Xiao Jingwen was shaped by an equally rigid, business-driven upbringing.

Looking back now, Lin Congzhi knew Xiao Jingwen was a smart man, even five years ago. Yet back when he was dating him, he rarely knew how to compromise or de-escalate conflicts smoothly. None of his “intelligence” was ever applied toward managing Lin Congzhi.

How to handle emotional issues was something no one had taught Xiao Jingwen growing up, and he had nowhere to learn it. Lin Congzhi, on the other hand, was raised amidst an overabundance of emotional warmth.

His mother, his mother’s girlfriend back then, his grandmother, his aunt—three generations of art students in the family. His grandparents were traditional Chinese painting masters, his aunt was a calligrapher, and his mother went without saying. Everyone had showered him with more than enough love.

The collision of two such individuals was bound to result in heavy casualties.

That was why Lin Lingyu understood the moment she heard “Xiao Jingwen is the same.” She let out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I became a mother so suddenly—without ten months of pregnancy or any preparation for raising a child. As a result… rather than being ‘mom’s child,’ you turned out more like ‘mom’s artwork.'”

Lin Congzhi snapped his eyes up. “No, Mom. You did great, truly.”

Without rain, the summer temperature shot straight up past thirty degrees Celsius. The sun wouldn’t set until past seven.

The Maybach parked by the curb had been waiting for quite a while. Having asked Shao Heng to make cold brews in advance, Lin Congzhi picked up the two cups and brought them along to the car. Shao Heng, the absent-minded shop owner, had been staring at the luxury vehicle from inside his cafe for as long as it had been parked there.

So much so that when Lin Congzhi took the coffees, Shao Heng grinned and asked if he could take a quick peek at the interior. Lin Congzhi said… I guess so.

What followed was a bizarre scene: Xiao Jingwen originally intended to invite him into the vehicle, but Shao Heng insisted he just wanted a glance. Xiao Jingwen lowered both the front and rear windows. Looking at the screen mounted on the back of the rear seats, Shao Heng muttered dryly, “Word has it you can play PS5 on the Maybach’s rear screen.”

“You can…” Xiao Jingwen replied, “…but it causes motion sickness easily.”

Lin Congzhi subtly turned his head away. The person who had gotten motion sick while playing PS5 in the back of that Maybach was none other than himself.

Xiao Jingwen turned to look at him as well, a faint, tender smile playing on his lips. Lin Congzhi could only scowl in annoyance, non-verbally warning him not to talk nonsense.

Shao Heng clicked his tongue a few times. “Damn, I need to make big money and buy a sweet ride too!”

Xiao Jingwen played along graciously, saying seriously, “Best of luck.”

Xiao Jingwen rarely drove this car himself in the past. A Maybach was the kind of vehicle that made whoever was behind the wheel look like a hired chauffeur, regardless of their appearance. Five minutes into the drive, while waiting at a red light, Xiao Jingwen suddenly asked, “Should I put on a pair of white gloves?”

“…” Lin Congzhi stared at him. “You don’t even wear gloves when handling auction pieces.”

“A driver should have a driver’s attitude,” Xiao Jingwen joked half-heartedly. “Want to connect to Bluetooth?”

Xiao Jingwen was someone who drove without listening to music—a fact that had shocked Lin Congzhi five years ago. He had even questioned whether Xiao Jingwen was a semi-awakened android failing to emulate human behavior properly.

With over twenty minutes left of the drive, Lin Congzhi connected his phone to the central console. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier filled the cabin. Often revered as the ‘Old Testament’ of piano literature, it was balanced, harmonious, and deeply rational—fitting for someone like Xiao Jingwen who shared those exact traits.

Lin Congzhi stole a few side-glances at him to see if he was actually listening.

Whenever Xiao Jingwen checked the side mirror on his end, their eyes would occasionally meet, prompting Lin Congzhi to blink and pretend he was just looking around aimlessly.

“Bach?” Xiao Jingwen asked.

“Huh?” Lin Congzhi was taken aback. “You know it?”

“I auctioned his manuscript once.”

“Oh…”

Realizing something was off after saying ‘oh,’ Lin Congzhi checked the central screen—it showed the navigation route, not the track title. He asked, “A manuscript doesn’t play music; you recognized it by ear?”

“I’ve heard it before,” Xiao Jingwen said. “The seller played it once back then.”

Lin Congzhi cleared his throat, briefly wanting to ask what he thought of it. But they had never discussed such topics; the domain gap was too wide, and it would only lead to awkwardness.

Yet Xiao Jingwen took the initiative to speak up: “It’s very peaceful.”

“Right,” Lin Congzhi smiled, repeating quietly, “Very peaceful.”

Lin Congzhi’s outfit looked great on him today. He suited lightweight fabrics, and paired with the ink-wash pattern, his entire aura possessed an ethereal, unworldly charm.

As the car pulled up beneath the studio building, Lin Congzhi offered a quiet thank-you. Taking his coffee from the cup holder, he added, “This cup… is for you.”

“Thank you,” Xiao Jingwen looked into his eyes as he accepted it. “I’ll pick you up tonight.”

“It’s really not that necessary, is it?” Lin Congzhi unbuckled his seatbelt. “We live in a rule-of-law society. Besides, even if those people really came after me…” He paused mid-sentence, turning back to stare at him.

He had just realized it—that scenario was practically impossible.

At first glance, the story made sense: Lubife’s people had suffered another setback at Xiao Jingwen’s hands, so unable to touch him directly, they turned around to harass or retaliate against Lin Congzhi instead. It sounded completely plausible.

Except…

Lin Congzhi looked at him. Xiao Jingwen’s hands on the steering wheel tightened slightly, his throat working stiffly. As an art graduate, Lin Congzhi knew human musculoskeletal anatomy inside out. He stared at Xiao Jingwen’s throat, tilting his head slightly, a stray curl of hair swaying with the motion.

Lin Congzhi’s gaze traveled upward from his Adam’s apple to his tightly pressed, uneasy lips, and finally met his eyes.

Xiao Jingwen swallowed hard. Ever since he formally took over Gleam, he had rarely found himself in such an awkward position. He was not one to be read easily because he left no flaws exposed.

Yet right at this moment, Lin Congzhi smiled warmly and said, “They were laundering money with President Yang; they can barely save themselves right now. Would they really have the time to come after me?”

The moment Xiao Jingwen’s subtle scheme was laid bare, it was like luminol exposing a room filled with bloodstains—cataloging every single one of his offenses.

“I’m heading up.” Lin Congzhi casually inserted the straw into the ice coffee for him, lazily lifting his eyelids as he said, “Class ends at 10:30. Thanks for your trouble, Mr. Xiao.”

Before Xiao Jingwen could react, a sharp thud echoed as the car door closed, and the near-perfect soundproofing of the Maybach instantly shut out the bustling street noise outside.

Although night fell late in the summer, the sky darkened inch by inch: lake blue, cobalt blue, deep blue… until a traffic officer knocked on his window did Xiao Jingwen finally snap out of it.

“No parking here. Move along quickly.”

“My apologies,” Xiao Jingwen nodded.

With the auction concluded, most of the company staff had started their vacation. Xiao Jingwen was indeed a capitalist, but not a heartless one. Overtime was overtime, but high-intensity pushes were always rewarded with a generous short break. The corporate building sat dark, with only the emergency exit signs casting a faint glow. On the ground floor, only a single bank of spotlights remained lit behind the reception desk wall.

He had no official business today. The summer auction had gone smoothly, achieving a total turnover of nearly three billion RMB. A few collectors had even reached out through intermediaries to inquire about their pieces, hoping to schedule a time to bring over some of their prized possessions for authentication.

Xiao Jingwen walked over to the sofa set Lin Congzhi had sat on earlier and sat down. Unbuttoning the top of his dress shirt, he pulled his tie loose and leaned back, exhausted. These past few years had not been easy for him; outward-facing glory meant little when his heart always felt hollow.

His family background was overly suffocating, but fortunately, with his current capabilities and influence, he was no longer bound by his parents. He had finally fulfilled their wishes, becoming a fully qualified managing director and CEO.

He was meticulous enough to sense industry shifts and ruthless enough to execute bold moves. Because of this, when it came to matchmaking, not only his parents and relatives hesitated, but even close business partners didn’t dare bring up the topic during dinner engagements.

That was what happened when a person became powerful enough.

Most people in the industry were far more curious to see what kind of person could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Mr. Xiao, rather than trying to set him up with someone.

Meanwhile, that very person was currently holding back his annoyance.

Lin Congzhi tapped a student’s head with an unamiable tone. “Stand up.”

The student pinched her pencil and stood up, handing it over to Lin Congzhi.

Lin Congzhi sat down to correct her drawing—a basic geometric plaster setup of a cylinder thrust through a triangular pyramid, a classic exercise nearly every art student had painted. It featured the most pronounced light-and-shadow relationships alongside the simplest foundational structure.

Lin Congzhi had long outgrown the need to draw the internal construction lines of the cylinder inside the pyramid, but when correcting a student’s work, he needed to make her understand the structural relationships beneath the surface.

“Don’t view copying as just ‘drawing what you see,'” Lin Congzhi instructed. “The internal structure doesn’t affect the final rendering, and it will eventually be erased, but it’s something you must comprehend. Think of it like showing your work in a math problem.”

The student nodded guiltily.

Beginners were always like this—aiming to complete a drawing in a single breath, wishing they could render the final form with a single stroke.

Lin Congzhi patiently explained perspective—another area where beginners frequently stumbled. He felt a bit tired today, having talked far too much. He actually felt like giving up his teaching duties at Xin Jue’s studio; being an instructor required speaking constantly every day, and teaching beginners was exhausting.

The student had trouble keeping up with his pencil strokes. Lin Congzhi erased her lines and demonstrated: “Perspective tapers from large here to small over there, so the cross-section of the cylinder is widest right here, and as it goes to… are you listening?”

“I am!” The student stiffened up abruptly. “It’s just… why can you draw it so effortlessly? I can’t figure it out at all—I can’t even draw a circle properly…”

Her voice grew quieter as she spoke. Lin Congzhi sighed, bringing his hand to a halt. “Focus on understanding the concept first. Foundational skills take time to polish.”

He corrected several students’ drawings in a row, addressing a wide variety of issues. During the break, Xin Jue came out into the hallway from another classroom, massaging his lower back and shoulders while groaning about aches everywhere.

Lin Congzhi bit down on a cigarette, looking pale. “My head hurts.”

“Huh?” Xin Jue looked over at him. “Did you catch a cold?”

“Not that kind of headache,” Lin Congzhi sighed.

Xin Jue caught his drift. “Ah, it’s unavoidable. High school freshmen transitioning to sophomores—the ones who come to study art right now are usually…”

Though he didn’t finish his sentence, Lin Congzhi understood completely. They were students whose academic grades fell short after their freshman year, forcing them to enroll in art prep classes to get into college through the arts track—what outsiders mockingly referred to as ‘scoring 211 points to enter a 211-tier university.’

“I understand,” Lin Congzhi snuffed out his half-smoked cigarette and tossed it into the trash can. The corridor windows in this building could be opened slightly, allowing rhythmic gusts of night air to blow inside.

Sometimes, choosing this path was an act of helplessness. No one could dictate another person’s future—not even Yu Shijing’s. Thinking of him, Lin Congzhi asked, “Has Little Yu come by recently?”

“Oh, no,” Xin Jue replied. “I actually asked him on WeChat yesterday how he was doing. He mentioned he went back to his grandmother’s hometown. It seemed like something happened with his family, so I didn’t pry further.”

“I see…” Lin Congzhi nodded.

Yu Shijing was a talented student in his eyes, a promising candidate, which made it all the more tragic. After chatting with Xin Jue in the hallway for a bit, he headed back to continue correcting drawings.

A minor incident occurred during the second break at 9:50 PM. When Lin Congzhi stepped into the hallway for a smoke, he caught sight of a young girl hiding in the stairwell corner, quietly crying.

It startled him, and his immediate thought was that she was being bullied by her peers.

He couldn’t remember everyone in the studio, nor did he recall her name. Lin Congzhi spoke up immediately: “What’s wrong? Were you bullied?”

The girl was sobbing so hard that her tears froze in shock. Wiping her face, she stammered, “Teacher… Teacher Lin… No, I wasn’t bullied.”

“Tell me the truth, speak up boldly,” Lin Congzhi knew that many kids experiencing school bullying would say ‘I wasn’t bullied’ as their first response, so he knit his brows: “What was your name again?”

“Lu Jue…”

“…So it turns out she was brought to tears by my criticisms,” Lin Congzhi said, buckling his seatbelt with a thoroughly drained expression after getting into the car.

Xiao Jingwen wanted to laugh but didn’t dare to. The corners of his mouth twitched as he tried his best to maintain a calm, solemn demeanor.

“Fine, laugh if you want,” Lin Congzhi grumbled, looking out the car window. “I really struggle with remembering people, and she’s already repeating her year! Her drawings are really… sigh. Her sketches are too messy, her color palettes are overly muddy, and her quick-sketches lack fluidity.”

“Completely lacking in any redeeming qualities?” Xiao Jingwen summarized succinctly.

Lin Congzhi shot him a glance, unable to refute the claim, and could only offer: “At least she has ambition and wants to work hard.”

Xiao Jingwen chuckled, signaling before merging into the traffic flow.

Even at 10:30 PM, the city roads remained busy. Lin Congzhi was prone to motion sickness, so Xiao Jingwen drove very smoothly.

Xiao Jingwen picked him up and dropped him off like this for three consecutive days. On the third day, rain began to pour again—Yuchen had seen an unusually heavy amount of rainfall this year.

As usual, Lin Congzhi bought him a cup of coffee when getting into the car. As soon as he sat down, the Bluetooth speakers began playing his playlist, filling the cabin—which was usually so quiet you could hear a heart beat—with sound.

Lin Congzhi set down the coffee and fastened his seatbelt.

With Gleam on break these past few days, Xiao Jingwen had no pressing matters and spent his days idling there. When Lin Congzhi didn’t have classes to teach, he painted in the gallery while Xiao Jingwen flipped through his art albums in the exhibition space.

Describing their dynamic as ‘bizarre’ was hardly an understatement. Because of the rain today, Xiao Jingwen drove directly into the underground garage so Lin Congzhi could head straight up to the studio from Basement Level 2.

Neither spoke during the ride. It wasn’t until the car came to a stop in the garage and the engine cut out that Lin Congzhi broke the silence: “You don’t need to pick me up tomorrow.”

Xiao Jingwen pressed his lips together. “Why?”

“I’m heading to Spain with my mother. Tomorrow’s flight.”

In an instant, Xiao Jingwen tried to hold back his emotions, yet he couldn’t form a single sentence to ask him to stay.

He could only stumble over his words: “Tomorrow… it’s going to rain heavily tomorrow.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Xiao,” Lin Congzhi unbuckled his seatbelt, turning his head with a polite, gentle smile. “I’m leaving tonight.”

Unable to restrain himself any longer, Xiao Jingwen reached out and grabbed Lin Congzhi’s wrist. Losing his composure for a brief moment, his grip was overly tight, causing Lin Congzhi to frown.

When Xiao Jingwen lost control, he resembled a taut, fragile instrument string that could snap with a screeching pop at any moment.

His pupils trembled slightly, a dark, unsettling haze surfacing in his eyes. Yet Lin Congzhi remained completely unfazed, looking at him as if watching a child throw a helpless fit of rage. He said softly, “Restrain yourself. I can practically read the criminal code off your eyes.”

“…” Xiao Jingwen composed himself, slowly slackening his grip. “Are you coming back?”

“Of course,” Lin Congzhi’s lips curved into a smile. “So many of my paintings are still at your place.”

“Other than that reason,” Xiao Jingwen didn’t feel any better hearing that response. “I can package the paintings and ship them to you. Will you still come back?”

A sudden wave of heartache washed over Lin Congzhi. The man sitting before him in the driver’s seat—who was an unreachable, noble, and distant corporate chief to the outside world—appeared as vulnerable as a pet terrified of being abandoned once again.

Lin Congzhi reached into the back seat to retrieve his bag—a modest tote bag holding a few tubes of paint and a water bottle.

He pulled an invitation card from the bag and placed it on the cup holder, saying, “I’m going to Spain because my mother is getting married to Hannah, her girlfriend. I’m attending their wedding. They prepared an invitation for you too.”

Lin Congzhi continued, “New life, marriage, and death always prompt people to develop… some new, special understandings of life. The wedding is next week, Mr. Xiao. If you have time, we would love to have you there.”

With that, he let out a light smile and stepped out of the car.