After the award ceremony ended, the solemn atmosphere in the banquet hall lightened, and the formal yet relaxed evening banquet officially began.

Li Wei had just received an award, and now a steady stream of people came over to chat with him. Seeing that he wouldn’t return anytime soon, Zhang Man decided to enjoy her dinner on her own.

Both the award ceremony and the banquet were held in Stockholm City Hall. The dining tables were the original long communal ones from the hall, covered in crisp white tablecloths adorned with a variety of elegant tableware. The exquisite, gold-plated cutlery was engraved with the word “Nobel.” Each year, the menu at the banquet changes. This year, it was a grand and refined French cuisine, which suited her palate.

Zhang Man ate a white wine-infused mussel and picked up her wine glass, clinking it with an elderly French lady with silver hair sitting beside her.

The elderly lady’s English wasn’t very fluent, her thick French accent making her words slightly unclear: “There are wet wipes on the table.”

As she spoke, she smiled kindly and pointed at Zhang Man’s face.

Following the direction of the lady’s finger, Zhang Man touched her face and suddenly realized—during Li Wei’s speech earlier, she had cried her heart out. Now, her face was likely streaked with tears, mixed with smudged makeup, making her look quite scary.

She smiled and thanked the lady before picking up a wet wipe to clean her face.

Even though she had lived in these expressive and open Western countries for many years, deep down, she was still a reserved and modest Chinese woman. Situations like this still made her feel a bit shy.

The elderly lady seemed to notice her embarrassment and joked with her: “Don’t feel shy. When my husband won his award, I wasn’t much better than you. That was twenty years ago. He’s now part of the Nobel Foundation, and I come here whenever I can this time of year.”

Zhang Man smiled and chatted with her briefly, understanding that the lady was trying to comfort her.

Truthfully, the moment earlier had been a bit awkward. He shone brilliantly on the stage, while she sat below, covering her mouth and crying. Likely, everyone watching the live broadcast of the ceremony could see her disheveled state.

There were quite a few Nobel laureates today, and many family members, like her, were seated below to witness the ceremony. In such a solemn atmosphere, it was hard not to feel emotional, and most had shed some tears.

But in a setting like this, even shedding tears tended to be restrained and dignified. Her messy, tearful display was indeed an outlier.

After drinking a little wine, drowsiness began to hit her. Zhang Man didn’t have a particularly low alcohol tolerance, but she had stayed up late the night before, and now exhaustion was catching up.

She forced herself to eat a little more and went to the restroom to wash her face in an effort to stay awake. When she returned, she noticed that Li Wei had already returned to his seat.

Standing at the entrance, she looked over at him as he conversed with a scientist seated beside him.

The man wore a well-fitted black suit, his sharp profile appearing refined and striking under the bright lights. His facial features were so well-proportioned that they even outshone the deep-set eyes and prominent nose of the Danish scientist next to him. He hadn’t changed much from over a decade ago—aside from growing taller and having more chiseled features.

For a brief moment, it felt like he was still the boy from over ten years ago, turning back at the street corner to look at her, holding her hand.

They had really been together for so many years now.

Most feelings in life gradually settle with time, but with him, even after all these years, her heart still raced whenever she looked at him.

Zhang Man pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm the fluttering in her heart, and returned to her seat. Leaning her head on his shoulder, she nuzzled against him.

“Manman, what’s wrong? Are you tired? We can leave early if you want.”

She rubbed her head against his shoulder again. “Honey, I’m fine. Let me rest on your shoulder for a bit. You should eat something. You’ve been busy since this morning and haven’t eaten much.”

She said this and then let out a yawn.

The man smiled and shook his head, sliding his arm around her waist.

“So, why didn’t you sleep last night?”

Yesterday had been the day before the award ceremony, and there were numerous things to discuss and procedures to handle with the foundation and the university research team. Normally, she wouldn’t involve herself when he was working, but yesterday was truly strange.

From the moment she opened her eyes in the morning, she started keeping a close watch on him, following him everywhere, never leaving his side. She even came up with a series of peculiar rules—he couldn’t be out of her sight for more than three minutes, he couldn’t lock the bathroom door, he couldn’t use the bathtub for showers, and he wasn’t allowed to touch anything sharp.

He couldn’t figure out her reasoning this time and, unable to argue against her, just went along with it.

By nighttime, things got even stranger. Just as they finally got over the jet lag and it was time to sleep, she refused to go to bed. She insisted on sitting by the bedside, watching him intently. It wasn’t until after midnight that she seemed to suddenly relax, as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, the relief and joy clearly written all over her face.

She had several glasses of wine and, in her excitement, started singing and dancing around the hotel suite. One moment she was crying, the next she was laughing. When she cried, she angrily berated him—though he couldn’t quite make out what she was scolding him for. When she laughed, she clung to him, kissing him repeatedly while mumbling incoherent words of gratitude, though he had no idea what she was thanking him for.

He even started to wonder if she was pregnant again. When she was expecting Chenchen, her emotions had been similarly unpredictable, and she’d frequently lost her temper at him.

When he tried to carry her to bed, she wouldn’t let him. Instead, she insisted on dragging him into the living room to dance the waltz with her. Naturally, the dancing eventually led to them tumbling onto the bed.

And so, on the night before the award ceremony, they didn’t get to sleep until well past two in the morning.

Zhang Man pouted but didn’t respond.

Of course, he had no idea why she had been so anxious yesterday.

In her previous life, on the day before the award ceremony, he had taken his own life by slitting his wrists—that was yesterday.

How could she not be anxious? In fact, she’d been in a state of anxiety for the entire year. Even as a psychiatrist herself, she couldn’t completely regulate her emotions.

She knew rationally that his mental health had recovered, and that all the events of their past life had been altered. There was no way he would repeat that tragic mistake. But every time she thought of their previous life, of him lying in that blood-filled bathtub, her anxiety would resurface, making her wish she could tie him up and keep him by her side all day.

Zhang Man took the man’s arm and spoke softly: “Before you went on stage, I video-called Chenchen. She’s with my mom and Uncle Xu watching the livestream. I think they’ll probably call soon, so be sure to answer, okay? She hasn’t spoken to her dad in days.”

As she spoke, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Perhaps leaning on his shoulder was just too comfortable, and before long, she drifted off to sleep.

When she woke up, they were already back at the hotel.

The bedroom was dimly lit, with only the sheer curtains drawn. Zhang Man glanced at her phone—it was three in the morning. She turned over and rolled into the familiar warmth of his embrace.

The man was a light sleeper and woke up immediately, pulling her into his arms. His voice was low and husky with lingering sleepiness.

“Awake?”

The faint scent of his body wash was comforting, and she couldn’t help but nuzzle closer.

“Mm, hubby, I can’t sleep. Let’s talk for a bit…”

The man rubbed his eyes. He was clearly tired, but he indulged her anyway.

“Today, I sat next to an elderly French lady. She told me her husband was a French physicist, in the same field as you—also theoretical physics. He won the Nobel Prize more than 20 years ago. His name is Armand. Do you know him?”

The man was more awake now, though his hands started wandering, touching and caressing her. Only after hearing her question did he settle down.

“Yeah, I know him. Manman, Armand was my mom’s mentor back then.”

Zhang Man’s mouth fell open in surprise as she looked up at him. The room was too dark to see clearly, but his bright, sparkling eyes were unmistakable.

It was only much later that they learned the truth—Li Wei’s mother, Lin Hui, wasn’t the musician he had once imagined her to be. Before her untimely death, she had been a physicist. That explained why the family study had been filled with physics books and collections of handwritten notes—his father had bought them for her.

“Before I was born, she was doing postdoctoral research at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, working in Armand’s group. I was just talking to him earlier, and he said she was the most talented Asian female scientist he’d ever collaborated with. Apparently, my father met her while he was on a business trip to France.”

Zhang Man let out a soft sigh.

If Li Wei’s mother hadn’t died in childbirth, perhaps his father wouldn’t have lost his mind, and Li Wei wouldn’t have gone through so much suffering.

“At least we’ve never been apart,” she said softly.

To her surprise, the man was dissatisfied with this statement.

“Who said we’ve never been apart? During my first year at Stanford, we were apart for almost an entire year. And when I came back to see you, you were still…” He trailed off, huffing in frustration.

Clearly, he didn’t want to finish the thought, but even after so many years, it was obvious he was still holding a grudge about it.

Feeling guilty, Zhang Man stuck out her tongue and curled further into his embrace.

“My fault, my fault. My darling hubby, don’t be mad, okay? My heart and soul are all yours. I’ve only ever loved you. I didn’t even glance at anyone else.”

She kissed his chin and expertly recited the lines she always used to placate him whenever this topic came up. Sure enough, she could feel the tension in his back begin to ease.

Still, in her heart, she couldn’t help but think that if not for what happened back then, they wouldn’t have ended up marrying so early. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.