Chapter 11

Jing Miao’s.
And mine.
“If possible, I hope you’ll sign a long-term contract with me in the future—to help take care of our child.”
Auntie Jiang agreed with joy.
Her cooking was good, she was gentle and kind, and she kept her mouth shut. After learning about Jing Miao’s condition, she didn’t think it was anything unbearable. Whenever Xi Siyan was too busy to manage, she would naturally stay with Jing Miao, speaking to him in the same coaxing tone she’d use on a child.
She was one of the few people Jing Miao was willing to be around.
He even behaved and called her “granny.”
The day Jing Miao first called her that, she happily told Xi Siyan that the young master had spoken to her, and she cooked a whole table of dishes.
Such a kind elder—who had also saved two lives—was someone Xi Siyan remembered with gratitude.
For those two weeks, Xi Siyan never left Jing Miao’s side.
Jing Miao couldn’t live without Xi Siyan in a pathological way.
And Xi Siyan, just as pathologically, tied Jing Miao’s every movement to himself.
They sat by the villa’s fireplace, Xi Siyan holding him while they watched cartoons on a tablet.
Snow fell outside. Another year-end had arrived—cold winter, fireworks cracking in the distance, the faint noise of crowds counting down to the new year.
Inside, it was a steady 20°C.
They leaned against a beanbag. The boy half-lay in Xi Siyan’s arms. When Xi Siyan lowered his head, he could kiss the side of Jing Miao’s neck.
They wore noise-canceling headphones. In the warm glow of the fire, they curled against each other.
“Gege,” Jing Miao called softly. “Happy New Year, gege.”
He pointed to the tablet’s corner where the time flipped to 00:00, then turned and smiled at Xi Siyan.
Xi Siyan looked up and met those clean eyes.
“Happy New Year, baby.”
Jing Miao smiled sweetly. “Can I make a wish, gege?”
“Making a wish without a cake?” Xi Siyan held him tighter. “Then make one.”
Jing Miao set the tablet down, clasped his hands like the little girls in cartoons, and said earnestly:
“I want to be with gege forever.”
Outside the window, the midnight fireworks bloomed.
Jing Miao sprang up excitedly, waving his arms. “Gege! Fireworks!”
He stood, favoring one leg, trying to go look.
Xi Siyan pulled him back, made him sit straddling his lap, and hugged him face-to-face.
“Fireworks or gege—pick one.”
Jing Miao didn’t hesitate. He looped his arms around Xi Siyan’s neck and rubbed his cheek all over Xi Siyan’s face.
“Gege!”
Xi Siyan thought: if life could be like this forever.
Property rights lasted only seventy years. Parents would grow old. If there were children, they would grow up and leave.
In this world, nothing could belong to him forever—
except Jing Miao.
Wang Song smiled bitterly, remembering how, after that incident, Xi Siyan had protected Jing Miao with a kind of madness.
Jing Miao had been slapped hard several times, but he was young, and Xi Siyan raised him carefully. Before long he looked whole again—delicate and beautiful like a porcelain doll.
Yet Xi Siyan still startled easily. The sound of clapping could make him whirl around, cup Jing Miao’s face, pull him into his arms, and coax over and over:
“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Miaomiao, don’t be afraid.”
Jing Miao’s trauma had eased.
Xi Siyan’s had sunk into the bone.
Wang Song had said: if Jing Miao was gone, Xi Siyan couldn’t live either.
Chen Tianruo’s hands and feet went cold.
She heard it clearly, understood it clearly, yet still refused to accept it and tried to play dumb.
“No, I’m not trying to separate them. How could Jing Miao be ‘gone’? Haha, what are you talking about? We can help take care of this little brother together…”
Wang Song cut her off.
“You understand what I mean, Xiaotian.”
“What? I’m being serious! I’m not trying to send Jing Miao away—”
“You’re trying to be the third party. You’re trying to bend a straight man. Do you really need me to spell it out?” Wang Song’s voice was rough. “Girls understand this a thousand times better than we do. Is that ‘little brother’? That’s Xi Siyan’s bones, his organs, his life.”
“We’ve known each other for over ten years, right? Have you ever seen Xi Siyan like this?”
“Have you ever seen him hold out his hand and let someone spit trash into his palm? Have you ever seen him want to break rice grains apart and feed them one by one?”
“He hasn’t gone home for a year. He hasn’t asked his family for a single cent. His mom nearly knelt and begged Jing Miao for forgiveness—so what? She still can’t even see him.”
Wang Song’s eyes shone with tears. “You… where do you get the confidence? It’s not that he can’t love. It’s that he loves too well.”
He punched the steering wheel.
“His parents almost lost their only son. I almost lost my brother. I used to hate Jing Miao. But later I figured it out.”
“Look—Jing Miao saved Xi Siyan’s life. Xi Siyan repays him with a lifetime. Isn’t that… kind of reasonable?”
He parked in front of Chen Tianruo’s home.
In a heavy tone, he said, “Listen to me. There are plenty of good men out there. Let this one go.”
Chen Tianruo nodded stiffly and got out of the car.
Before she went inside, she cried silently.
“Then what about me… the one who’s liked him for over ten years… what about me?”
Xi Siyan found a set of real graduate entrance math questions and had Jing Miao do them.
Jing Miao finished in under an hour and handed it to Xi Siyan with a proud grin—like a dog wagging its tail, waiting to be praised.
Xi Siyan patted his head. “Miaomiao is amazing. Wait a moment—gege will grade it.”
Jing Miao asked, “Grading means writing the score on it?”
Xi Siyan nodded. “Mm. To see if you scribbled nonsense.”
Jing Miao hurried to swear sincerity. “No, no. I was serious. I didn’t scribble.”
Ten minutes later, Xi Siyan sucked in a cold breath.
Almost a perfect score.
He studied Jing Miao carefully, wondering if he’d been so focused on Jing Miao’s daily care that he’d overlooked too much.
For example: Jing Miao could watch *The Avengers* in full English with no subtitles, and repeat lines back in a standard American accent.
For example: when he stayed up with Xi Siyan while Xi wrote his dissertation, he would translate rare vocabulary on Xi’s papers.
And last time, when Xi was doing calculations for materials synthesis—six-digit arithmetic—before Xi could even finish punching it into a calculator, Jing Miao had already told him the answer.
Xi Siyan thought: he had to take Jing Miao for an evaluation as soon as possible.
Back then, the attending doctor had said the small tumor pressing on Jing Miao’s nerves made full recovery extremely unlikely. The tiny clot sat tangled among complex nerve endings; the success rate of craniotomy was extremely, extremely low. No one at home or abroad dared to take the surgery lightly.