Ms. Ke kept piling food into Chen Yuan’s bowl. He could barely keep up with eating, let alone get a chance to serve himself.

Pork ribs, chicken legs, sweet and sour pork, sea fish… it was all stacked high in his bowl. His mouth was stuffed full, and on top of that, Ms. Ke was an excellent cook.

He scarfed it all down.

Before his mouth could even get a break, Ms. Ke went back to the kitchen and brought out a pot of stewed sea cucumber soup, a small bowl of which was steaming gently.

Before the words “Thank you, Ms. Ke” could even leave his mouth, she’d already picked up some crispy fried pork and was adding it to his heaping bowl.

“Have some more crispy pork. I blanched it in broth last night, so it’s crispy on the outside and tender on the inside!”

“Okay…” Chen Yuan mumbled, giving her a thumbs-up. “Ms. Ke, you’re an amazing cook. I’ve always loved your food.”

“Yuan, you’re such a sweet-talker. If you get any cravings while you’re on vacation here, just come over anytime!”

“I will, Ms. Ke.”

Chen Yuan took a sip of the sea cucumber soup, limbering up his jaw, which had gotten a bit stiff from all the chewing. He let out a breath.

Meanwhile, Mengmeng, who had been sitting quietly for a short while, looked at the fish ball in her bowl and stabbed it with her fork.

The springy fish ball was held firmly on the tines.

Then she lifted the fork and shook it hard a couple of times. She seemed to find it fun that it wouldn’t come off no matter what she did.

Opening her little mouth, she took a small bite, smacked her lips, and started shaking it again.

The next second, she shook it with too much force, and the fish ball flew right off the fork. THUMP! It hit Chen Yuan right on the forehead!

“What are you doing? Stop playing with your food!” Ke Bing’s face hardened as she immediately grabbed Mengmeng’s hand to take the fork away.

“Hehe…”

Mengmeng didn’t seem scared at all, grinning and letting out a “GIGGLE GIGGLE GIGGLE.”

“Alright, she’s full, so just let her go play. Go back to your room,” Ms. Ke instructed.

Mr. Ke ignored all of this, pulling over some tissues and handing them to Chen Yuan. He then gravely started a new topic. “Yuan, the environment at Landa University must be pretty good, right? What are the students like?”

“It’s great. It’s a good city and a good school. Overall, the students are pretty ambitious,” Chen Yuan said, wiping his cheek. “The library and study rooms are full of people studying on their own every day.”

Ms. Ke picked up Mengmeng and carried her to the bedroom, murmuring, “Be a good girl and play by yourself for a while, okay?” When she returned, she overheard what Chen Yuan was saying.

“Good universities really are different. At the university Rourou goes to, the students are not that great. I’ve been there a few times, and the female students all dress like they’re already out in the working world. They act so mature.”

“There’s nothing to be done about it. Once they’re in college, their parents can’t control them anymore, and the teachers don’t care. It’s not like our high school teachers who watched over us like we were calves, even having to go to the dorms to wake us up.”

Mr. Ke lit a cigarette. Amidst the swirling smoke, he started reminiscing about the past.

In the boarding schools of the north, once students were sent off, the homeroom teachers really did have to watch over them in every aspect, just like parents.

Especially for the senior class.

For every year they taught, a homeroom teacher seemed to age a decade.

Besides, Qishui County used to be a poor place, and the county high school was pretty run-down. Fortunately, the school spirit was wholesome, and it managed to produce a few promising students for top universities every year.

As they chatted freely about this and that, it felt less like Chen Yuan was a guest and more like he was there to keep Mr. and Ms. Ke company.

「In the blink of an eye.」

The meal was more or less over, and the chopsticks were already laid down on the table.

Except for Ke Bing, who, like a virtuous and gentle young wife, would occasionally peel a shrimp and place it in Chen Yuan’s bowl.

The other three were just chatting.

They talked about the past and the present, from education to international affairs, and then from current events to Chen Yuan’s plans for the future.

During this time, Ke Bing, who was usually quite lively outside, was surprisingly well-behaved. She barely spoke, just listening quietly.

Sometimes she would offer a smile or a nod of agreement.

She seemed to be really enjoying this family atmosphere. Chen Yuan’s arrival had undoubtedly added a refreshing change to their usual family of four.

As Mr. Ke was holding forth, Ke Bing, a helpless smile on her lips, proactively went to the kitchen to get another spoon and placed it in Chen Yuan’s bowl.

Busy chatting with the elders, Chen Yuan gave a casual nod, not paying it much mind.

However, Mrs. Ke noticed this detail. Her eyes flickered, darting between her daughter and Chen Yuan a few times.

“By the way, Yuan, did you come here with a classmate this time?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you invite your classmate to come eat with us?”

“Ah… she’s a bit shy, so I didn’t bring it up.”

“Oh, I see.”

Faced with the question, Chen Yuan felt a little awkward and glanced at Ke Bing.

He didn’t know if Rourou had told them about his girlfriend.

‘She probably hasn’t. Otherwise, Ms. Ke would have just said ‘girlfriend’ instead of ‘classmate.’ She’s always been a direct person and wouldn’t deliberately cover for me.’

And so, the sun hanging in the sky gradually shifted west, no longer blazing so intensely overhead.

The after-dinner conversation continued until three in the afternoon.

「Finally.」

Ms. Ke laughingly chided Mr. Ke, telling him not to keep Chen Yuan talking endlessly.

Only then did the family meal come to an end.

As he was leaving, Mr. Ke mysteriously went to his study and insisted on giving Chen Yuan a book, with a red envelope tucked inside.

He said he hadn’t given him anything for getting into university and wanted to make up for it now.

Chen Yuan was so moved he was speechless. He wanted to refuse, but then he saw the affection in Mr. and Ms. Ke’s eyes…

“Walk Yuan out, Rourou.”

“Okay, Mom!”

“Then I’ll go too. Let me grab a jacket.” Mr. Ke reached for his coat.

“What are you going for? Go do the dishes!”

She glared at Mr. Ke and waved goodbye to her daughter and Chen Yuan.

SLAM—

The door was shut.

“Why didn’t you let me see him off? The dishes can wait, can’t they?”

Mr. Ke was completely baffled. He had no idea why his wife was suddenly acting so strange.

“What do you know?! You have to give the young people some space to be alone. You have no perceptiveness at all!”

Mrs. Ke rolled her eyes and started clearing the table herself.

“What? I don’t really get what you’re saying.”

…

Outside, pure white clouds drifted across the vast sky, and a gentle breeze blew.

It brushed past the tips of the girl’s hair.

Dressed in a white dress, Ke Bing walked with a light, flowing gait. She seemed to be enjoying the moment, walking side-by-side with Chen Yuan. She tilted her head up, feeling the strands of hair at her temples lift in the wind.

Her delicate face was full of ease, and her smile made the beauty mark under the corner of her eye seem to come alive.

The wind stirred the fine beads of sweat on her forehead, enhancing that ethereal, dreamlike aura she had.

“The air is so nice. After moving to Sanya, the most obvious thing I noticed is that the air here is so much better than in Qishui County.”

“I noticed that too. The air was the worst back in high school; there was smog too.”

“Right, it’s a heavy industrial area.”

They chatted idly as they walked out of the residential complex.

“Wait here for me, I’m going to buy something,” Ke Bing said before turning and heading into a nearby supermarket.

「A moment later.」

She came out holding two lollipops—one yogurt-flavored and one apple-flavored.

With almost no hesitation, she handed the apple-flavored one to Chen Yuan.

“Ta-da!”

“It’s been so many years, and you still haven’t kicked the habit of eating a lollipop after a meal?”

“You said it yourself, it’s a habit…” Ke Bing mumbled, tearing off the wrapper and popping the lollipop into her mouth. “This is so nice. Every time I have a lollipop, I feel like I’m a kid again… I still remember the little shop at the entrance of Qishui First Middle School. The owner always used to save the yogurt-flavored ones for me.”

“Yeah, you even threw a fit once because the owner sold the last one to someone else. You were crying on the steps, and ever since then, he’s remembered it clearly.”

“Don’t bring that up…”

Ke Bing glared at him, her cheeks slightly flushed.

“That was so long ago. You were ten then?”

“Yeah, I was ten, and you were six. We went to buy snacks in the middle of a badminton game. I was in a bad mood.”

“Now I’m eighteen, about to turn nineteen. Time really flies.”

Chen Yuan sighed with emotion.

It really felt like the blink of an eye.

Sometimes he would find himself reminiscing about those struggling years in high school, only to suddenly realize he had already passed that stage of his life.

It would never be repeated.

He had now entered a new phase, one that was worlds apart from his life back then.

“Yuan, I didn’t tell my parents about your girlfriend. I just said you came here with a classmate.”

After a moment of silence, Ke Bing suddenly spoke.

“Mmm… if you’d told Ms. Ke, my family would have probably known in less than half a day.”

“Haha, that’s just how they are. They have to share every little private detail.”

“They really do.”

“Um… well, actually… how should I put this!” Ke Bing fidgeted with the lollipop stick, her teeth nibbling little marks into it as she hesitated. “I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead. Let’s talk in the car. I’m dead tired from standing.”

CLICK.

The car door closed, and Chen Yuan let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t feel like moving much after being so full.

Beside him, Ke Bing seemed to have gathered her courage. She parted her lips and finally said the words she had been holding back for so long.

“I know it’s not very polite to ask, but I have to say it, or I’ll feel awful keeping it in… That day when I nudged you under the table, I wanted to talk to you privately. Yuan… is your girlfriend a lot older?”

“Huh?” Chen Yuan was slightly taken aback.

“I’m sorry… I know I’m being intrusive.”

“It’s okay. She is a bit older than me.”

“How much older?”

“Um… about eight years.”

“How many!??”

Ke Bing’s eyes went wide, and she whipped around so suddenly her elbow hit the car door.

But she paid no attention to the pain in her arm.

She stared at Chen Yuan in utter shock.

“Don’t get so worked up. It’s like this… Jiangg is a professor at my university. She finished her master’s two years ago. She looks twenty-three or twenty-four, but she’s actually twenty-six.”

“A student-teacher romance, too?! Oh my God…”

Ke Bing looked up at the sky, suddenly starting to question her reality.

An eight-year age gap, a student-teacher relationship, and a difference in family background.

It checked all the boxes!

‘This is not a normal relationship by any means!’

‘Analyzed from any angle, this isn’t a relationship that can last. It’s just too unconventional.’

‘Why shouldn’t people have a big age gap when choosing a partner? Because their life experiences and perspectives can be too different. They might not even have anything in common, let alone factoring in family and other real-world issues.’

So, a relationship that seems completely doomed to fail…

‘Are you… are you just playing around?’

Ke Bing really wanted to blurt that out, but she suddenly felt she was being nosy. She didn’t really have the right.

“I know what you’re thinking. My relationship with Jiangg isn’t what you imagine. We’re very happy together… She doesn’t act all profound, and I’m not that childish. We get along well in every way. We even play games and go shopping together.”

“But… but by the time you graduate from college, she’ll be thirty!” Ke Bing said urgently.

“Thirty is a great age.”

“What’s so great about it! There are plenty of girls your own age you could choose from, plenty of girls at your own school you could pick, but you had to go for someone in that age group.”

“No, I think your view is too narrow, Rourou. Feelings have nothing to do with age.”

Chen Yuan stated calmly. He clearly remembered his feelings when he was in an online relationship with Jiangg, the thrill of their first real-life meeting, the sound of his heart beating during their first hug.

“Maybe I am being a bit narrow-minded, but I really have to ask you, are you being serious about this? Or are you just…”

“Just what?” Chen Yuan suddenly found this a little amusing. He said flatly, “When it comes to one’s own relationship, is there even such a thing as ‘not being serious’?”

“I…”

Ke Bing met his gaze.

Abruptly, she found she didn’t know how to respond.

‘She felt that Yuan had really changed a lot.’

‘The Chen Yuan of today really couldn’t be reconciled with the little kid from before… How could a boy change so much in just a few years?’

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep