Yu Nian and Qi Wang only stayed in Jiangyang County for three days in total. Yu Nian had some matters to attend to in his company, and Qi Wang also had to attend a conference. They both had their own things to do.

On the last day, the missing landlady finally sneaked back.

She just came back to retrieve her iPad, which contained a bunch of miscellaneous manga games, considered as her spiritual sustenance. Forgetting to take it with her earlier was indeed a mistake.

She had endured for two days, and this time she couldn’t bear it anymore.

Unexpectedly, Yu Nian, who was about to leave with Qi Wang, caught her red-handed in the act.

Yu Nian stood by the bar, tapping the edge of the table, his knuckles striking the wood, making two crisp sounds.

The landlady, who was buried in the cupboard searching for something, froze for a moment, then deluded herself and buried herself even deeper, resisting stubbornly.

“I’ve already seen you,” Yu Nian chuckled as he looked at the bun-haired landlady. “Qi Wang and I are leaving today. You didn’t answer your phone. At least we’ve met, won’t you come and see us off?”

Only then did the landlady silently crawl out from under the cupboard. She was actually a little younger than Song Yunchun. Even after all these years, she was only thirty-four years old, usually wearing her hair in a bun, with a cheerful disposition. Sometimes, she even looked like a recent college graduate.

Especially when she was hesitating.

Yu Nian raised the corners of his mouth, calmly assessing the landlady’s embarrassment.

He actually knew why the landlady looked like this.

Because when he called the landlady to ask her to clear out Room 307, she didn’t, and instead procrastinated for several days.

Not only that, when Qi Wang came here, she not only didn’t hide the situation of Room 307 but also deliberately led Qi Wang to that room.

It was clearly going against the employer’s wishes.

As the VVVIP of this inn, Yu Nian had invested over a million in this seemingly small inn, not including the wages he paid to the landlady.

In terms of reason and emotion, she shouldn’t have acted on her own, it was really against professional ethics, which made her ashamed to face people.

But Yu Nian smiled as he looked at her, “Why so nervous? Afraid I’ll scold you?”

He said, “Don’t worry, I didn’t call you here to scold you. I just want to say goodbye to you properly. You didn’t answer the phone, and I was worried I wouldn’t find you. Fortunately, we ran into each other again.”

He placed the key to Room 307 back on the table with a click, marking the end of a long journey.

He whispered, “Thank you for taking care of me all these years.”

The landlady was stunned.

She blinked, then quickly regained her composure. “No, no, no, how can you say you were taken care of by me? It’s clearly me who was taken care of by you. My struggling little inn is entirely reliant on your employment. I’ve been idle for so many years and haven’t achieved anything… “

But as she said this, she felt a little uncomfortable, and her voice gradually softened.

She looked at Yu Nian, her voice fading away in her throat, but her nose seemed to turn a little red for some reason.

She still remembered when Yu Nian first came, he was only nineteen years old, so young and handsome, but thin like a fragile bamboo, about to snap in half in the wind and rain.

She looked past Yu Nian to Qi Wang behind him. Qi Wang was holding two large suitcases, wearing a black coat and a gray scarf around his neck. His profile was cold and thin, not one to joke around, but his eyes softened only when they fell on Yu Nian.

She sniffed and suddenly asked Yu Nian, “Boss Yu, are you not coming back in the future?” She thought for a moment and immediately added, “I don’t mean anything else, I’m just happy for you. After so many years, besides taking care of this inn for you, I haven’t done anything for you, but you’ve always helped me. Today, finally seeing you standing here with Mr. Qi, I, I feel like, I’ve finally witnessed a conclusion…”

As she spoke, her eyes became even redder, and she awkwardly wiped her eyes with her hand.

But she still smiled at Yu Nian, “I don’t know what to say, I just wish you and Mr. Qi, peace, health, and a happy life together.”

She wanted to hug Yu Nian, but hesitated and looked at Qi Wang, not sure if he would mind.

Yu Nian silently looked at her. He wasn’t as emotionally expressive as he used to be, at least not as passionate and unrestrained as when he was young.

He looked at the landlady’s reddened eyes, having known her for many years, he understood her.

He sighed, reached over the counter, and extended his hand to the landlady, with a hint of a smile in the corners of his eyes and brows, “Do you want a hug as a farewell?”

The landlady burst into tears.

She walked out from behind the counter, threw herself at Yu Nian, and hugged him. She held onto Yu Nian’s slender shoulders, as if hugging a younger brother about to leave.

She sniffled, “I’m sorry, I didn’t listen to you and clear out Room 307.”

“It’s okay.”

“You take care of yourself. I might not run the inn anymore in the future, but I’m still from Jiangyang County. If you want to visit, you can call me.”

“… Okay.”

Finally, when Yu Nian and Qi Wang left, the landlady gathered her courage and handed Qi Wang a small square gift box.

She said to Qi Wang, “This, this, Mr. Qi, you’re also a distinguished guest of our inn. I’ve prepared a gift for staying at our inn. You should like it. Please accept it.”

Qi Wang was a little surprised, then nodded earnestly, “Thank you.”

The landlady saw Yu Nian and Qi Wang off at the door until Yu Nian and Qi Wang drove away. She was still waving goodbye in place.

Yu Nian also waved to her, “Don’t send us off, we’ll come back when we have time. See you then.”

After saying this, Qi Wang stepped on the gas pedal, and as the car drove farther and farther away, Jiangyang County, Shanxing Inn, and the landlady at the door gradually turned into a faint shadow.

Yu Nian withdrew his gaze, slowly closed the window, and the cold air from outside along with the wilderness wind were shut out together.

He had just received a gift from the landlady, a bottle of handmade origami cranes and stars, each containing a message.

Now, with nothing else to do in the car, he opened a few of them and found that several contained the same sentence, “Hope Boss Yu’s wishes come true.”

Clumsy, sincere, full of blessings for him.

The landlady had been making these stars and origami cranes intermittently for several years, and this time she gave them all to Yu Nian to take away.

Yu Nian smiled faintly and said to Qi Wang, “Have you noticed that she’s actually a bit like Song Yunchun, I mean in terms of personality.”

“I noticed.”

Just now, when he saw the landlady hugging Yu Nian and crying bitterly, he thought in his heart that this landlady was really like an elder sister from another mother compared to the original owner of Morning Ten.

Yu Nian shook the large bottle of stars and smiled again. “Even her name has a similar tone. Her name is Chu Yunshan.”

The clouds are green, the springs are cold.

The laid-back landlady has a very elegant name.

Yu Nian continued, “But she is also quite careless in her work. Fortunately, she has started a side business over the years, making handmade hairpins and such. If she had just run the inn, I would have been afraid she’d starve to death. Although Boss Song used to be a bit scatterbrained, she was better than her.”

Qi Wang couldn’t help but smile.

He gently defended Song Yunchun, “Song Yunchun is much more stable now, after all, she’s a mother.”

“What did you say??”

The stars in Yu Nian’s hand fell to the ground with a clatter. He turned around incredulously and looked at Qi Wang, “Say that again!”

Qi Wang was also somewhat surprised and asked back, “You didn’t know?”

“How could I know,” Yu Nian was bewildered, patting the seat next to him on the passenger side, “I remember a few years ago she settled abroad permanently, changed her number, and I lost contact with her.”

But he thought about it and sat back in his seat. He felt that he couldn’t entirely blame Song Yunchun for moving. “Of course, I didn’t specifically try to find her.”

He was troubled at that time, avoiding everything related to Qi Wang, not to mention Song Yunchun, he didn’t even contact Xiao Gu and Chu Hejun.

But he was still shocked by this news and asked again, “My God, when did she get married? What’s her husband like? Is he handsome? Is she pregnant or has she had a child? How old is she now? Is it a boy or a girl? Is the child cute? Does it resemble her?”

His words were numerous and dense, rare for him to be so agitated.

Qi Wang didn’t find him noisy, only found it cute, with a subtle upward tilt of his lips.

He answered one by one, “She got married two years ago. Her husband is French-Chinese, looks okay, he’s an engineer. They have a little daughter who just turned one, very cute, looks a bit like her, but I can’t tell for sure.”

He thought for a moment and gestured for Yu Nian to unlock his phone. “There are pictures of them in my phone.”

Yu Nian hesitated for a moment but ultimately couldn’t resist his curiosity.

He unlocked Qi Wang’s phone, murmuring to himself that Qi Wang didn’t have much privacy anyway.

He didn’t know Qi Wang well enough. Besides focusing on his matters, he was as ascetic as a monk at other times. Apart from work, his phone was just a life memo, very mundane.

He knew Qi Wang’s password, entered it with a series of clicks, opened the photo album, and following Qi Wang’s instructions, found the last album.

As soon as he opened it, he saw Song Yunchun’s smiling face.

He froze.

After so many years, Boss Song still looked radiant and full of life, almost no change could be seen. Standing beside her was a steady and tall man, holding a little girl in a pink dress in his arms, with big eyes.

Yu Nian couldn’t say a word for a long time, feeling inexplicably sour and soft in a corner of his heart.

He heard Qi Wang say, “Song Yunchun is now running a Chinese restaurant in France. She says she’s really good at cooking now. If you ever go to Paris, she’d like to invite you for dinner. Or, if you say you want to meet her, she’ll throw her husband and daughter away and come to see you.”

Yu Nian smiled again, somewhat melancholy.

He gazed at the happy family of three in the photo, then looked at Qi Wang, who was focused on driving next to him. He whispered softly, “Okay.”

It’s time to meet.

Old friends reunite, and it’s not just about him and Qi Wang.

There’s also the Morning Ten Restaurant, forever left in memory.