Chapter 52

Before leaving Xiaoshan Hospital, Lin Si made a trip to Lu Shaoming’s ward. Deng Tian, whom he had seen last time, was not there. Instead, a middle-aged Beta was taking care of him.

“How is he now?” Lin Si asked.

“Not very well,” the Beta replied. “He had surgery on New Year’s Eve and has barely woken up since. In the past few months, he has only regained consciousness a few times.”

Lin Si looked at Lu Shaoming through the glass window, feeling a cool breeze blowing from behind. He pressed his thumb against the window. If one followed his line of sight, the spot where his thumb landed would be right over Lu Shaoming’s face.

“Will he make it through this year?” Lin Si didn’t seem to be asking anyone in particular. After a long pause, he answered himself, “Troublemakers live a thousand years. He should be fine.”

“Mr. Lin, it’s getting windy. Be careful not to catch a cold,” the Beta reminded him from behind.

Lin Si turned back, his eyes lifting slightly at the corners.

The Beta nodded. “I work for Mr. Lu. You don’t have to worry.”

That morning, Lin Si had received a bouquet of flowers—no note, just white gardenias placed by his bedside.

It was probably from Lu Wei.

His fingertips still carried the faint fragrance of the gardenia petals, like a lingering attachment he couldn’t let go of.

“The boy from before… Deng Tian,” Lin Si couldn’t help but ask, “why isn’t he here anymore?”

The Beta, unaware of the details, just shook his head. Lin Si curled his lips slightly but didn’t press further. He turned and went downstairs.

Liao Ji had already completed the discharge procedures, packed up Lin Si’s belongings, and asked, “Coming to stay at my place?”

Lin Si kept his head down and got into the nanny van.

“What’s wrong with you?” Liao Ji asked. “You’ve barely spoken these past two days.”

Lin Si held a script in his hands, flipping it open, but he wasn’t reading a single word. Liao Ji sighed. “At least tell me where we’re going. Your old place hasn’t been cleaned in a while. So, are we going to my house or heading back to Xijiang?”

“I thought of so many ways before meeting him,” Lin Si suddenly said. “If he minded my identity, if he minded that I deceived him, how could I stick to him and explain things…” He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the script. “At the time, the most shameless method I could think of was to fake cry a little. He has a good temper—he probably would’ve softened.”

Liao Ji looked at Lin Si as if he were his own younger brother. Hearing these self-deprecating words made his heart ache.

His lips pressed into a thin line. “You never should have gone to meet him in secret in the first place. It’s a good thing it was Lu Wei—do you realize that? If it had been some stranger, I swear I’d have died of shock on the spot!” He continued his tirade, “And what do you mean by ‘deceiving’ him? You couldn’t exactly tell everyone on the internet who you really were! You’re not just an ordinary person—you have an entire team, a dozen people who’ve poured their hard work into you. You can’t just throw everything away like that!”

Lin Si didn’t respond. He propped his arm against the window, looking outside. The weather was beautiful; sunlight reflected off the office building windows, scattering into countless glimmers of light.

A programmer, using money from his mother to start a business, a company still growing—Lu Yan hadn’t lied about anything.

“Speaking of which, I’m getting mad all over again.” Liao Ji huffed. “I really can’t praise you. One moment I think you’ve grown up, being cautious about online friendships and not revealing your real identity. But then, the next second, you turn around and sneak off to meet someone while I’m on vacation! Lin Si, do you even have a heart or a brain? What if your so-called boyfriend wasn’t Lu Wei but some scumbag with bad intentions? If this got out, your entire team would suffer because of you! I’ve warned you again and again—”

Lin Si’s fingers traced down the script’s page, pressing the corner. “Should I not be mad at Lu Wei?”

Liao Ji, who had been ranting nonstop, suddenly fell silent. Stunned, he asked, “What?”

Lin Si drifted through the past two days in a daze, as if walking on unsteady clouds, each step teetering and unbalanced.

“I lied to him, so he lied to me. I guess I shouldn’t be mad at him,” Lin Si said. “If he had known from the start that I was Lin Si, maybe he wouldn’t have talked to me at all.”

“…” Liao Ji turned away in frustration. “Then if you had known he was Lu Wei, would you have talked to him?”

Before, Lin Si could have answered with a firm “Absolutely not.” But now, he really wanted Y.

Not Lu Wei—Y.

He couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge that Y and Lu Wei were the same person, yet he couldn’t stop missing Y.

The Y he liked would always respond simply to his unreasonable demands, would laugh often, would pat his head and call him “baby” and “dummy,” and would hold him while saying, “I missed you.”

He wouldn’t act high and mighty toward strangers, wouldn’t show them disdain or rudeness, wouldn’t casually judge someone as a “commodity,” and certainly wouldn’t blame him for failing to keep a secret.

“I don’t really support you being with Lu Wei,” Liao Ji said. “Even without all your past grievances, just having Lu Shaoming caught in the middle is enough to make things unbearable.”

The corner of the script in Lin Si’s hands became frayed as he absentmindedly rubbed it. Even as they drove onto the elevated road, he didn’t turn the page.

“Where to?” Liao Ji asked. “We need to choose a direction once we’re off the bridge.”

Lin Si closed the script and said, “West River.”

Liao Ji shook his head almost imperceptibly, then rolled down the soundproof partition and told the driver to head for West River.

The Bubble app had gone through several updates, but its little ball logo had remained unchanged. Lin Si curled his fingers, hesitating for a long time before switching to his social app.

He had slept for nearly ten days, and messages had piled up on his phone, waiting to be answered.

“Xu Xiangyang called you,” Liao Ji said. “So did Lu Nan, Lin Zisong, Director Ye, and Pingzi…”

Lin Si asked, “What time is the train tomorrow morning?”

“Four o’clock,” Liao Ji replied. “You missed a few scenes. Director Ye adjusted the schedule just for you. Go early tomorrow and bring some morning tea for the crew to make up for it.” He emphasized again, “No matter what’s happening in your love life, you have to take your work seriously. Get yourself back in shape.”

Lin Si hummed in acknowledgment.

As they entered the West River neighborhood, Lin Si glanced outside and noticed that the security booth now had a robot guard, and the familiar property management staff had been replaced with new faces.

After parking, Lin Si waited half a minute before getting out of the car. He took his suitcase from Liao Ji’s hand.

“…Want me to go up with you?”

Lin Si shook his head. “Lu Wei should be at work by now.”

“Hmm,” Liao Ji put one foot back into the car, then hesitated and looked at him again. “I used to disapprove of online dating, but now that everything’s out in the open—if you still want to be with Lu Wei, I’ll support you.”

Lin Si remained silent for a moment before saying, “I don’t know.”

“No matter who it is, if you like someone, then just go ahead and like them without worry,” Liao Ji said. “Before, we didn’t let you date or learn about these things because we were afraid your glands couldn’t handle an early heat cycle. But now you’ve gone through a normal cycle. Li Jicheng says it’s a good sign, so my job is done.”

There was no need for thanks between them, so Lin Si simply nodded and turned to go upstairs.

As he stepped out of the elevator, it felt as though he had only left yesterday—filled with excitement, holding his heart in his hands as he rushed to meet Lu Wei.

He didn’t know exactly when Lu Wei’s attitude toward him had changed, but he could guess it was around the time Lu Wei discovered his true identity.

The door lock beeped as it unlocked. Lin Si turned back to grab his suitcase and bent down to take off his shoes. By the entrance, neatly placed in his usual spot, were his ugly cat-face slippers—waiting as if he had never left.

He had barely taken a step inside when Lu Wei emerged from the doorway. He was dressed impeccably, his tie fastened neatly.

Lin Si’s hand, reaching for his suitcase handle, paused midair.

They stood apart, staring at each other across the distance—like old friends reunited after years, hesitant and at a loss for words.

“You’re back,” Lu Wei said.

Hearing his voice settle in his ears, Lin Si finally felt his heart land. Keeping his previous movement, he rested his hand on the suitcase and replied, “Mm.”

“Is your health okay now?” Lu Wei asked again, but he didn’t step forward to meet him.

Lin Si also remained still. “Dr. Li said there’s no major issue. If my heat cycle stabilizes and I can stay conscious during it, then I’ll be mostly fine.”

A small shadow darted out of Lu Wei’s room—it was Guangguang, who sprinted forward before skidding to a sudden stop at Lu Wei’s feet. Then, as if trying to please him, the cat rubbed against his suit pants.

“Bubble,” Lu Wei said. “I think Bubble is still a better name.”

The memory of Lin Si’s favorite night flashed through his mind. His nose burned instantly, his throat tightening. He forced himself to lower his gaze, keeping his expression neutral as he said, “Call it whatever you want. I don’t have time to take care of it anymore. If you won’t be home either, you should return it to Duan Yang.”

“The cat is mine,” Lu Wei said. “Duan Yang was just an excuse.”

When Guangguang—or rather, Bubble—first arrived, Lu Wei had said he didn’t know how to raise a cat. That was why he had made Lin Si, who had just packed up and left, come back. Lin Si hadn’t found it strange at the time because he never imagined that Lu Wei would lie about something like this—just to trick him into coming home.

“Then let the housekeeper come back. I can’t take it to the set,” Lin Si said.

Lu Wei bent down, stroked Bubble’s head, and patted its leg. Bubble ran off, wandered around for a bit, and then finally noticed that its former owner, Lin Si, had returned home. It trotted over on soft paws, looking up at Lin Si with wide, innocent eyes.

“During my… heat period, who took care of it?”

“I called the housekeeper before I was hospitalized,” Lu Wei said. “It didn’t go hungry.”

Lin Si crouched down and picked Bubble up, noticing that it had gained some weight and become much more energetic. The way it had darted out of Lu Wei’s room just now was nothing like the shy, timid cat it used to be.

Maybe the new name brought better luck.

“Put your luggage down first,” Lu Wei said. “Change out of the clothes you wore at the hospital.”

“Mm,” Lin Si responded. He let Bubble go play and dragged his suitcase inside. As he passed Lu Wei, he tilted his body slightly, lowered his head, and brushed past him.

“I changed your bedding,” Lu Wei said. “It’s a brand-new set, exactly like the one you used before. The old one was left sitting in the room for too long and smelled musty. The housekeeper washed it and dried it on the rooftop a few times. It should be better now, but I still put it at the foot of the bed.”

The bed was neatly made, the blanket folded into a perfect square—typical of Lu Wei’s meticulous habits. Lin Si set his suitcase against the wall, then turned around and blocked Lu Wei at the door. Like Bubble earlier, he stared at Lu Wei with his beautiful eyes.

“Are you Y?” Lin Si asked softly.

“I am,” Lu Wei admitted. He explained, “Leyou is my company. When I was in university, I used my first prize money from the Turing competition along with some of my mother’s trust fund to start it. At the time, I didn’t want Lu Shaoming to find out, so the company was registered under a classmate’s name. Most people only know that Shangpin is mine—they don’t know that Leyou is, too.”

“The day I met you at the plaza, the development team had just sent me a test account. Coincidentally, the tester was a fan of yours and answered all the preference questions based on what you liked. That’s why our match was so high,” Lu Wei continued. “After that, I was the one using the account. I didn’t tell you the truth because I didn’t think it was necessary. I never expected to form an emotional connection with someone online.”

“Lin Si, you were my accident,” he said. “The best accident.”

---

Author’s note: These past few chapters were tough to write, so I’m a bit late—bows to everyone. But don’t worry, this isn’t turning into a dramatic ‘chasing-wife-to-the-crematorium’ scenario. Two newbies in love are bound to stumble a bit. Keep reading and see where they go! No spoilers!

T/n: Well the last line was cheesy nd corny but equally romantic 😆 If you want to support me you can buy me a Ko-Fi or go to my paypal page. Happy Reading 🎉😀