Fu Zhi already had Ye Jiu, and she could not take him in like she had when she was a child.

'It's fine,' Ye Qi told himself. He wasn't really upset after all.

*

The street was filled with pedestrians by the time they came out of the coffee shop at 8:00 p.m.

The wind was freezing, and Ye Qi wrapped his scarf around Fu Zhi's neck.

The waitress in the coffee shop looked on longingly as Ye Qi slowly disappeared from her line of vision.

Ye Qi was walking slowly ahead. Fu Zhi seemed to feel something, but she could not tell what kind of feeling that was.

She took a few quick steps to catch up to Ye Qi and asked, "When are you going back to Country M?"

"Maybe tonight? Maybe tomorrow? I'm not sure either."

"Then when are you coming back?"

Ye Qi came to an abrupt stop when he heard this question. He pressed his lips firmly and replied, "I'm not coming back again."

Fu Zhi was disappointed, and she did not know what to say.

Ye Qi rubbed her head and said, "Don't give me that face. You should be comforting me. Repeat after me: I will miss you. Come on, say it."

"I will come to see you," Fu Zhi said, her voice stern and her face serious, "If I miss you badly, I will come to see you. Just like I used to do when we were kids."

The street lamp above them flickered, and snow finally fell in Yu City.

She stood under the snow and said she would run to see him. So yeah, he could finally stop thinking about wanting to stay with her forever.

He bent forward and pulled her into his embrace, stunning Fu Zhi.

"Don't spoil Ye Jiu too much," Ye Qi said as he rested his chin on her shoulder, his voice thick with emotion. "If he bullies you, you need to tell me. Also, I'll miss you."

He was their brother, and he did not want to make things difficult for either Fu Zhi or Ye Jiu.

A snowflake fell on Fu Zhi's eyelashes, and she nodded. "If he bullies me, I will beat him."

Ye Qi rubbed her head and said softly, "Okay."

Then, he let go of her and pointed in the distance. "It's getting late. You should go home."

As he was talking, he pushed Fu Zhi forward.

The streetlights on both sides of the street were bright, and she looked back at Ye Qi, who was standing under a streetlight.

He looked lonely, and she had no idea why, but a strong sense of guilt was rising from her stomach pit.

"Are you not going home?"

Ye Qi chuckled. He waved his hand and said, "I'll go back when you get home."

Fu Zhi took two more steps forward.

The snowfall became heavier.

Lu Yumo had run away from the house today.

This was because Xu Wei had only focused on making dumplings for Ye Jiu and had not made him his favorite Cola chicken wings.

He had earned quite a sum from his Taobao shop, so he had enough money to run away from home.

However, Xu Wei had not called him to ask him to come home yet.

Lu Yumo called Fu Zhi and complained. "She doesn't love me at all. Can't she see that I'm just playing hard to get? Besides, does she not know why I ran away from home? Is it really because I am childish?"

Fu Zhi did not know what she should say. She wanted to say yes, but Lu Yumo did not give her the chance before he continued. "Of course not! How can I keep staying in such a sad place when a stranger suddenly crashed into my house and took my sister and parents away from me? It goes without saying that I don't want to see him at all!

"When a man says no, does he really mean it? When a man says he wants a quiet life, does he really mean he wants a quiet life? Wrong! It's all a lie! The whole world is fake! It's because we're jealous! The unreachable always unsettles you. We men have a lot of troubles on our minds that we can't tell anyone about, and dense girls like you will never be able to understand us!"

Fu Zhi's heart trembled.

The snowfall grew even heavier.

Couples hugging each other and families taking pictures together could be seen everywhere on the street.

Fu Zhi's figure was getting smaller and smaller in his line of vision.

The snow that fell on Ye Qi's shoulder melted and seeped into his clothes.

A little boy was standing next to him, pouting unhappily because his mother was forcing him to take a picture.

When the mother saw Ye Qi, she asked, "Can you help us take a photo?"

Ye Qi took the phone and took two photos very seriously. Then, he gave the phone back to the mother.

The mother-and-son pair expressed their gratitude, and the mother said, "Is she your girlfriend? She looks very pretty, and you two make a good couple."

"Ah." Ye Qi smiled, "She's my sister."

The boy licked his lollipop and chimed in, "Liar. If you're her brother, then why don't you go home with her?"

'That's because that's her home.'

The street was filled with roars of laughter. The woman covered her son's mouth and offered Ye Qi an embarrassing smile.

Ye Qi could still feel the heat of Fu Zhi's skin lingering on his fingers. He walked along the street, looking numbly at the men and women on the side of the road and feeling somewhat bewildered.

Well, people always said that life was unpredictable, and one could never know what would happen next. In Ye Qi's case, he was still oblivious to the things that were going to happen in the next few seconds.

After a short while, the boy ran up to him and clutched his sleeve.

"Mister! Mister!

"Mister, stop. I was wrong about you!

"Your sister has returned to take you home!"

He turned around and saw a young lady running toward him amidst the snow.

Ye Qi opened his arms, and she threw herself into his embrace. She raised her head, looked into his eyes, and said in a nasal voice, "I will teach Ye Jiu to be a useful person to society. I will not let him become a bad person. He will get better little by little, so wait for us, brother. Wait for us to pick you up. Then, we will come home together."

*

Ye Qi returned to Country M that night.

After Fu Zhi returned to the Lu Mansion, she went back to her room. She flipped through Ouyang Feng's notebook, but there were some parts that she could not fathom, which annoyed her a lot.

Just like Ouyang Feng had said, he would not jot down everything in his notebook, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that his notebook was even messier than Ouyang Zhui's notes, even though Ouyang Zhui's notes were the messiest thing she had seen in this world.

There were a lot of concepts and mechanisms that Fu Zhi could not make heads or tails of.

She was upset. She could not sleep, and it was only then that she realized why Ouyang Feng would willingly give her his notebook.

He had given her the notebook but he had not given her any guidance. If Fu Zhi did not understand something, she would go ask him.

When she went to ask him, he would ask her to be his disciple. Otherwise, he would not teach her.

'How evil!'

On the other side of the city, Ouyang Feng did not know why but he suddenly felt a shiver down his spine.

Ouyang Ya, who was standing beside him, hastily said, "Are you alright, master?"

Ouyang Feng shook his head. He was confident that someone must be cursing him behind his back right now.

He turned around and sat on the chair. Rubbing the center of his forehead, he asked through clenched teeth, "Why did you come to Yu City?"

"There's an exchange meeting between Hang Yuan and No.1 High School, and I'm one of Hang Yuan's shareholders," Ouyang Ya said. "Master, you told me that if you couldn't find a successor within five years, you would consider me. Does the offer still stand?"

When Ouyang Ya had first joined the Ouyang Family, she had heard a lot about Ouyang Feng and she'd admired him a lot. She had vowed to herself that she had to become Ouyang Feng's disciple one day, and even after she had been adopted by the Ouyang Family, she had not forgotten the promise she had made to herself.