“Mm, can’t damage the letter’s content.” Lan Yan pointed to the blank areas at the top and bottom of the paper. “The top and bottom margins are enough.”
“So that’s what they call top and bottom margins.”
“It’s a habit in our field; not sure if it applies everywhere…”
Liang Xiaoxia nodded with a smile, looking enlightened, then turned to leave. “I’ll put the mango on the coffee table. Remember to eat it when you’re done.”
“Okay. Thanks, Auntie.”
Lan Yan pulled another ziplock from her bag and put the trimmed patching material from the two letters inside. She refolded the letters and returned them to their envelopes.
She looked at the suitcase on the floor, pondering how to store them.
Finally, she found a cardboard box, put them all inside, planning to take them to the studio first for some anti-mold and sterilization treatment.
The old suitcase couldn’t be kept. She zipped it up and pushed it to the study doorway.
She went to the living room to get the vacuum cleaner, about to return to clean the study, when Liang Xiaoxia hurried over. “Let me, let me. Yanyan, you go eat the fruit.”
Before Lan Yan could politely refuse, the vacuum changed hands.
She paused, then picked up the old suitcase. “I’ll go throw this out.”
“Wait for your dad to take out the trash later; he can bring it down.”
“The aged glue will off-gas toxins; not good to keep at home.” As she spoke, Lan Yan looked at Liang Xiaoxia. “Does the kitchen need anything, Auntie? I can bring it up.”
“Um… Yanyan, pick up some drinks and snacks you like. You two don’t come home often, and we can’t finish the stock; it always expires.”
Lan Yan nodded.
In the evening apartment building, someone was making twice-cooked pork, its rich, savory aroma wafting through the entire hallway.
She pushed open the iron gate downstairs and walked to the recycling point, dumping the suitcase there.
She didn’t particularly crave any snacks but headed to the supermarket outside the complex anyway. Otherwise, coming back empty-handed, Liang Xiaoxia would surely go buy some for her later.
Not liking to come home was precisely because she hated overthinking these subtle interpersonal nuances.
Home should have been a place where such considerations weren’t necessary.
The supermarket had been open for over a decade; it was there when Lan Yan was in elementary school. Over the years, it had expanded, the owner lady had divorced, and her daughter had grown from a baby in her arms to a poised young woman.
The owner wasn’t there at the moment; her daughter was minding the store, lounging at the register watching a drama on her propped-up phone. When a customer asked if they sold steamer trays, she knew the layout by heart and glanced up: “All the way to the back, the rack next to the steamers.”
Her gaze paused briefly upon spotting Lan Yan. She gave a smile and a nod—a treatment reserved for familiar, favored regulars.
Lan Yan returned a faint smile and headed to the cold drink cooler.
Lan Yan liked a certain brand of sugar-free tea, but it didn’t sell well and rarely got prime cooler space.
It didn’t today either.
She closed the cooler door and grabbed a bottle from the room-temperature drink rack, then went to the register.
The girl watching the drama paused the video and reached for the tea bottle: “Just this? We’re running a promo…” She pointed to a handwritten sign nearby.
【To celebrate the boss’s daughter getting into the district key high school, during summer vacation, purchases over 10 yuan get 9.85% off (alcohol and tobacco excluded)】
Lan Yan smiled faintly: “Sure. I’ll grab a bit more. Congrats on aiming for a 985.”
The girl smiled bashfully. “I’ll hold this bottle for you here then…” She set her tea aside, leaving plenty of space.
Lan Yan turned and went to the snack aisle.
The small supermarket’s shelves were crammed full, carrying all brands without favoritism—equal opportunity stocking.
She glanced over, but nothing caught her eye. Just as she prepared to leave, she spotted a row at the very bottom of the shelf—gold coin chocolate, the kind she had loved back in elementary school.
It was only later, after tasting real chocolate, that she realized it was actually made with cocoa butter substitute.
She crouched down, picked up a bar from the shelf, flipped it over, and saw the words “cocoa butter substitute” on the ingredients list. She couldn’t help but curl her lips upward.
In this day and age, sticking to unhealthy ingredients still gave her a strange sense of rebellious defiance against the trends.
Lan Yan held it in her hand and was about to stand when she heard footsteps—not light, not heavy—stop right beside her.
The daylight tube light on the ceiling was blocked, casting a patch of pale gray shadow over her.
Lan Yan looked up abruptly.
She met a pair of indifferent eyes.
Liang Xiaoxia had a cute personality, which was an objective fact; her beauty was even more objective. She had a pair of perfectly shaped phoenix eyes, an advantage that offset any minor flaws in her other features.
Those eyes had been perfectly inherited by her son, Liang Jingchuan, though his were narrower and longer, carrying a bit more cold sharpness and solitude.
And when he stood in a position looking down at her, it made people read a certain cold arrogance from his slightly drooped eyes.
Extremely annoying.
Lan Yan had always maintained a polite civility toward Liang Xiaoxia out of necessity, but she didn’t need to extend that to Liang Jingchuan.
She withdrew her gaze, chocolate in hand, and stood up.
The aisle was narrow, so they had to sidestep each other to pass, which irritated Lan Yan greatly—because only real people required yielding space, and this violated her principle of treating Liang Jingchuan like air unless absolutely necessary.
She had forgotten to check the price of the gold coin chocolate and worried it wouldn’t be enough for the promotional deal, so as she passed the beverage rack, she grabbed a large bottle of orange juice as well.
She returned to the counter and handed her items to the girl at the register.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that her tea on the counter had inexplicably gone from one bottle to three.
The girl scanned the orange juice and chocolate one by one, then picked up one from those three bottles.
“Together,” came Liang Jingchuan’s voice from behind her.
The girl let out an “oh” and scanned the same barcode three times in a row, so quickly that Lan Yan’s “separate checks” didn’t even make it out of her mouth.
Liang Jingchuan stopped beside her, hands empty except for his phone with the payment code already open.
The girl asked, “Do you want a bag?”
Liang Jingchuan replied, “Mm.”
The girl tore off a bag and swiftly packed everything inside. Liang Jingchuan raised his phone to the scanner. The bag was placed on the counter and pushed toward him. He picked it up.
This smooth transaction from payment to goods left no gap for Lan Yan to interject and stop it.
Liang Jingchuan turned and took two steps toward the exit, then paused and looked back.
Lan Yan was still standing there, looking at him somewhat speechlessly.
“Oh.” He feigned sudden realization, took her gold coin chocolate out of the bag. “Want to eat it now?”
“…”
Lan Yan took two quick steps forward and snatched the chocolate back from his hand.
She reached for the shopping bag next, but Liang Jingchuan seemed to anticipate her move. He switched the bag to his other hand and deftly dodged.
Her irritation built to the point where she had to speak. Lan Yan frowned and snapped irritably, “Can you not buy the same drinks as me?”
“Oh.” Liang Jingchuan nodded once.
Lan Yan wasn’t naive enough to think this meant “Got it, I’ll do that next time.”
Sure enough, the next second, he turned to look at her and asked earnestly, “Did you buy out the stock?”
As if he were sincerely asking for advice.
It was even more infuriating than direct mockery.
Back in her high school first year, on a Friday, Lan Junwen drove to school to pick her up for dinner at some fancy restaurant. She arrived only to find two strangers there as well: Liang Xiaoxia, and the deadweight kid from her previous marriage.
That deadweight kid was Liang Jingchuan.
Two years older than her, excellent grades, outstanding looks—a heaven-blessed prodigy in the eyes of outsiders.
But that didn’t stop Lan Yan from disliking him from the very first meeting.
And clearly, Liang Jingchuan felt the same about her.
The more courtesy and politeness they showed to each other’s parents on the surface, the more incompatible and at odds they were in private.
Lan Yan was a rather cold personality. Emotions like love, hate, jealousy, anger… those high-energy feelings probably met the same fate with her as plants trying to take root in barren saline-alkali soil.
Only toward Liang Jingchuan did she dislike him so intensely that even drinking the same brand of tea as him made her think inwardly: What a jinx today.
Lan Yan quickened her pace, just wanting to get far away from this walking jinx, but no matter how fast she went, she couldn’t shake him off. The footsteps stayed not too close, not too far behind her.
When she reached downstairs, she fished the access card from her jeans pocket and swiped the door open.
She pushed the door and walked in, then glanced back to see Liang Jingchuan speeding up, apparently planning to enter with her.
Her hand reacted faster than her brain.
She let go, and the door swung back automatically with a thud.
Through the gaps in the grating door, Lan Yan peered out, hoping to catch a glimpse of Liang Jingchuan’s frustrated rage at being shut out.
But he merely paused his steps briefly.
His gaze looked back through the grating, lingering on her face for a moment—not too long, not too short—then he raised his brow with utter indifference.