LOI Chapter 62 — Let’s not disturb each other.

It was late at night when Rong Ke returned home from work.

Without taking the time to put on slippers, he padded barefoot into the bedroom. Suddenly remembering his laptop was on the sofa, he hurriedly turned back, nearly colliding with the doorframe.

“Slow down, baby. There’s no rush,” Yan Zhi said, having already retrieved the laptop. He placed it on his lap and opened the studio’s email.

Rong Ke muttered, “I’m not rushing,” but hastily sat down next to Yan Zhi and pulled the laptop onto his own lap.

He had already browsed the email countless times on his phone on their way home, but now, opening it on the computer, Rong Ke read it again with meticulous care—

To whoever sees this email, please inform Rong Ke that I am his mother, Jin Qiulan.

My phone number is: xxx…

Attached was an old photograph taken with a phone. One corner was completely obscured by glare, but the background was still discernible as a hillside full of peach trees.

A young, beautiful woman stood beneath a peach tree, smiling radiantly at the camera, holding a peacefully sleeping infant in her arms.

After studying it for a while, Rong Ke minimized the window and opened his old QQ space, where he had uploaded his parents’ wedding photo during his angsty teenage years.

With the two photos displayed side by side, no matter how he looked at it, the woman in both photos was the same person.

Still fearing he might be mistaken, Rong Ke asked Yan Zhi, “Can you take a look? Is this the same person?”

“Yes,” Yan Zhi confirmed. “Is your mother’s name Jin Qiulan?”

Rong Ke’s mind was in turmoil. He nodded with a complex expression.

“The email includes her phone number,” Yan Zhi reminded him.

Rong Ke had already noticed the string of digits.

He took out his phone but didn’t make a call. Instead, he searched WeChat and found an account.

The profile picture showed a supermarket, and the username was “Jiujiu Supermarket,” confirming his suspicion.

A corner of the unknown had suddenly been torn open, and his long-extinguished curiosity now peaked.

Why a supermarket?

And where was this supermarket?

“I added her,” Rong Ke said.

He thought that it was late, and she might be asleep. Even if he sent a friend request, it wouldn’t reveal his identity. To his surprise, she immediately accepted his request and sent a message: [Is this Rong Ke?]

Rong Ke was stunned. If he wasn’t mistaken, these four words were from Jin Qiulan, his mother.

Realizing this, his heart rate suddenly quickened. Suppressing the trembling of his thumb, he slowly typed “Yes” and sent it.

The next second, a video call request popped up without warning. The phone in his hand suddenly felt unbearably hot. Rong Ke raised his hand and tossed it into Yan Zhi’s lap. “I can’t answer it.”

“Then I’ll decline it for you,” Yan Zhi said.

“No…” Rong Ke pressed Yan Zhi’s arm. “Answer it for me.”

The video call connected quickly, and a middle-aged woman appeared on the screen.

She had permed hair and wore thick loungewear. Her demeanor was completely different from the woman under the peach tree, but her features were still recognizable as the woman called Jin Qiulan.

“Who are you?” Jin Qiulan leaned closer to the screen, looking at Yan Zhi.

“I’m Rong Ke’s boyfriend,” Yan Zhi replied.

“Where’s Rong Ke?” Jin Qiulan asked.

Yan Zhi tilted his head, glancing at Rong Ke, and said, “He’s beside me.”

Right beside him, yet unwilling to appear on camera. His avoidance was obvious.

A flash of awkwardness crossed Jin Qiulan’s eyes. “He doesn’t want to see me?”

In fact, Rong Ke wasn’t unwilling to see her. He had been watching the screen from Yan Zhi’s side all along.

He observed Jin Qiulan’s clothing, guessing her living standard, and listened to her non-standard Mandarin, deducing which region she might be from.

He was like a covert observer, studying the person he had been curious about for over twenty years.

“He’s not ready yet,” Yan Zhi answered for him when Rong Ke remained silent.

“I see.” Jin Qiulan nodded and said, “I was also quite shocked when I saw him on TV.”

After listening to their brief exchange, Rong Ke’s nervousness dissipated somewhat. Still off-camera, he asked, “Where’s my father?”

“Well,” Jin Qiulan hesitated, “it’s a long story.”

Rong Ke could guess that without a “long story,” these two wouldn’t have vanished from his world.

He said to Yan Zhi, “Ask her if she’s willing to come and meet in person.”

He could have asked Jin Qiulan directly, but discussing this topic would involve arranging many details, and he wasn’t prepared to engage in back-and-forth conversation with her yet.

“I can come to you,” Jin Qiulan responded before Yan Zhi could relay the message. “Where are you?”

–

After washing up, Rong Ke lay flat on the bed, his emotions far from settled.

Yan Zhi knew he couldn’t sleep, so he left the bedside lamp on and chatted with him. “Have you never seen her before?”

“Not in my memory,” Rong Ke said, staring at the ceiling. “My grandmother said my parents went away for work and had no time to return. There was news for the first few years, but then we lost all contact. Strangely, they kept sending money to my grandmother until I turned eighteen.”

At this point, Rong Ke turned to look at Yan Zhi. “With transportation so convenient now, why didn’t they come back to see me? They didn’t even return for my grandmother’s funeral. I just can’t understand it.”

“She’s flying over tomorrow morning. You’ll be able to ask her in person soon,” Yan Zhi said.

“Have I told you why I became an actor?” Rong Ke asked.

“Yes,” Yan Zhi replied. “You said that as a child, you envied the people on TV who could fight monsters and be heroes.”

“That was my reason at first,” Rong Ke said, looking back at the ceiling and letting out a sigh. “Later, I hoped my parents would see me, but after being shelved for three years, I gave up on that.”

Unexpectedly, after he had completely given up, fate seemed to remember the wish he had made long ago.

“They’ve seen you now,” Yan Zhi said, raising his arm to pull Rong Ke into an embrace.

“But,” Rong Ke said, “my mother is very different from what I imagined. I always remembered her as beautiful, but she looks… quite ordinary.”

“She was beautiful in the photo, but she’s aged now,” Yan Zhi said.

Rong Ke hummed in agreement. “My impression of her is still from over twenty years ago.”

“You’ll see her in person tomorrow,” Yan Zhi said. “Should I get you a curtain for the door?”

“A curtain?”

“So you can hide.”

Hearing the teasing tone, Rong Ke elbowed Yan Zhi and turned over. “Just go to sleep.”

–

Unsurprisingly, Rong Ke couldn’t sleep that night.

Early the next morning, he kept refreshing the flight information, watching Jin Qiulan’s flight from takeoff to landing.

Jin Qiulan lived in a coastal city, and the flight took about three hours. Luo Fei picked her up at the airport and brought her to the restaurant Rong Ke had booked. When she entered the private room, Rong Ke was already waiting inside.

Rong Ke didn’t ask the restaurant for a curtain, and he didn’t even bring Yan Zhi along.

He wore a simple white sweater and black trousers. His hair was not styled, with his bangs falling softly on his forehead, just as he would on any ordinary day.

In contrast, Jin Qiulan had applied eyeliner and lipstick, wore a bright-colored headband, and had her curly hair tied back meticulously, showing that she had taken great care with her appearance.

The moment she saw Rong Ke, Jin Qiulan’s emotions surged. She blinked, trying to hold back her tears. “Rong Ke, you…”

Seemingly aware of the unfamiliarity between them, she choked up and managed only to say, “Hello.”

“Hello,” Rong Ke replied, his emotions churning beneath a well-maintained facade. “Did you come alone?”

“No,” Jin Qiulan sat down opposite Rong Ke, her gaze slightly evasive. “Someone came with me.”

While Jin Qiulan looked at the menu, Rong Ke studied her again.

Perhaps due to the video angle, Jin Qiulan looked somewhat plump last night, but in person, she looked better.

Although time had left its marks on her face, one could still see she had been quite beautiful in her youth.

She wore a gold ring on her left ring finger, resembling a wedding band but not quite, and a jade bracelet on her right wrist, which looked of average quality and not particularly valuable.

—Rong Ke wasn’t assessing Jin Qiulan’s financial status; he was genuinely curious about how his mother had lived all these years.

“I’ve decided,” Jin Qiulan looked up, meeting Rong Ke’s gaze.

She studied Rong Ke as well, saying somewhat awkwardly, “You’re even more handsome than on TV.”

Rong Ke called the waiter to order, then waited until they left before asking, “Did you see me on TV?”

“Actually, I heard about an actor named Rong Ke a while ago, but I thought it was just someone with the same name. It wasn’t until I watched the New Year’s Eve gala livestream last night that I recognized you immediately.”

“Then you found my studio’s email,” Rong Ke continued.

“It wasn’t me,” Jin Qiulan paused, speaking carefully, “It was my daughter, your sister.”

Rong Ke’s expression froze momentarily, but he quickly composed himself.

He asked again, “What about my father?”

“Your father, he…” Jin Qiulan sighed, taking a sip of tea. “Years ago, your father and I opened a restaurant on the coast. Business was good at first. But one day, there was a gas explosion at the neighboring restaurant. Your father didn’t make it.”

Rong Ke’s expression instantly froze. “What?”

Jin Qiulan shook her head. “I don’t even know how I got through that time.”

“Then what happened?” Rong Ke pressed on. “Did grandma know about this? Why did you never come back?”

Jin Qiulan’s gaze became evasive again, but at that moment, the waiter began serving the dishes, and the room fell silent temporarily.

Watching the waiters come and go, Rong Ke calmed down a bit.

He had considered that if Jin Qiulan still cared about him as her son, she couldn’t have stayed away completely.

Until last night, he still harbored a glimmer of hope that perhaps his parents hadn’t abandoned him but had met with some accident. However, seeing Jin Qiulan well and alive in the video, and now witnessing her evasiveness, Rong Ke had to face the fact. He had been abandoned.

“It’s been so many years, I might as well tell you the truth,” Jin Qiulan finally spoke after all the dishes were served. “At that time, the owner of the tobacco shop across the street helped me a lot. He said he didn’t mind that I had been married before. It was too hard on my own, and I didn’t want to go back to the mountains, so I got together with him.”

“He was single then. His family was already against us being together, so I didn’t dare mention that I had a son…”

“I thought about secretly coming back to see you later, but I couldn’t explain it to your grandmother…”

So that’s how it was.

Rong Ke responded flatly, “So you simply decided not to come back at all.”

“That’s right,” Jin Qiulan said, visibly embarrassed. “I know I’m not a good mother. I don’t expect you to accept me. Just being able to see you again is enough for me.”

The heavy stone in his heart was lifted and gently set down, sinking into water without causing a ripple.

Perhaps because he had been mentally prepared, when Rong Ke learned the truth, he was even calmer than he had imagined.

The photo he had looked at for years in his mind seemed to ignite, burning to ashes, yet it also resolved one of Rong Ke’s long-standing concerns.

Rong Ke asked, “Are you running a supermarket now?”

“Yes, life is manageable. Your sister is in college now.” Seeing that Rong Ke didn’t reproach her, Jin Qiulan relaxed and asked, “How is your grandmother?”

“She passed away,” Rong Ke said.

“Ah…” Jin Qiulan was momentarily stunned.

“So even if you had come back to find me, you wouldn’t have needed to explain to her,” Rong Ke said with a self-deprecating smile. Then he asked, “Does your husband know about your son now?”

“Yes, after your sister started college, I finally told him the truth,” Jin Qiulan said. “He’s the one who came with me today.”

Rong Ke was curious, “What does my sister look like?”

Jin Qiulan opened her phone’s photo album and began sharing her life with Rong Ke.

They chatted like strangers meeting for the first time, discussing trivial everyday matters, though it was mostly Jin Qiulan talking.

She was curious about Rong Ke’s life too, but he didn’t share much, so she didn’t press. As the meal ended, she looked at Rong Ke hopefully and asked, “Do you have plans after this?”

“Yes, I’m very busy,” Rong Ke said. “I’ve had my assistant book a hotel for you. You and uncle can stay for a couple of days.”

“Okay…” Jin Qiulan said. “Then in the future, can we…”

Rong Ke guessed she wanted to ask if they could stay in touch.

He replied politely but distantly, “In the future, let’s not disturb each other.”

Jin Qiulan was taken aback, then resigned. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have come to bother you in the first place.”

Actually, Rong Ke had no work scheduled for the New Year’s holiday. After seeing Jin Qiulan off, he returned to Tianxi Yunwan. As soon as he entered the foyer, Yan Zhi came to greet him, asking, “How did it go?”

“I found out why I was abandoned,” Rong Ke said, collapsing into Yan Zhi’s arms and hugging his waist. “For a ridiculous reason.”

He hugged Yan Zhi quietly and briefly recounted Jin Qiulan’s story. Although his tone was tired, he knew Yan Zhi could tell he was okay.

“Just because she was afraid to tell either side?” Yan Zhi was also somewhat surprised.

“Yes, it’s ridiculous,” Rong Ke sighed, leaning on Yan Zhi’s shoulder. “But it’s also good. They say ‘While parents are alive, one still has a place to return to.’ I always felt I had no place to return to. Now I can finally put this matter to rest.”

“Mm,” Yan Zhi stroked the back of Rong Ke’s head.

“But…” Rong Ke lifted his head, looking at Yan Zhi, “I want to have a home now.”

Originally, Rong Ke hadn’t been fixated on the idea of a home, but watching Jin Qiulan flip through photos of her husband and daughter, he felt an overwhelming desire to build a family with Yan Zhi.

Although Yan Fei was right that love doesn’t need marriage to stay fresh, after meeting Jin Qiulan, Rong Ke changed his mind. He longed to enter the next stage with Yan Zhi.

Yan Zhi looked at Rong Ke solemnly and nodded, “I understand.”

–

Rong Ke trusted thetacit understanding between him and Yan Zhi. So, three days later, when Yan Zhi told him he wanted to take him to a mysterious place, Rong Ke thought to himself: This is it, Yan Zhi is going to propose.

However, an hour later, Rong Ke stared at the Housing Administration Bureau in front of him, a big question mark appearing above his head.

“What do you think? Surprised?” Yan Zhi waved the property deed in his hand. “I bought the Tianxi Yunwan apartment. It has both our names on it.”

He smiled brilliantly, “We have a home now, baby.”

Rong Ke: “…”

Well, that works too.