Three years later.

“The road to happiness is strewn with setbacks. Professor Wei’s art exhibition has been successfully held after being postponed for so long. On behalf of my newspaper, I would like to express my congratulations to you, and I would also like to ask, are the rumors that you plan to settle in Russia true? Will you still teach at Beihua University in the future?”

“Teacher, it is said that you intend to adopt a child as a single person. Does this mean you don’t plan to remarry? And do you plan to give your child the surname Wei or Wen in the future?”

“Have you moved on from the car accident four years ago?”

On the day of the exhibition, some reporters from the cultural and art circles come and gather around me when I exit the car.

They ask all kinds of questions, and I choose a few to answer.

“I have no intention of settling in Russia. It’s too cold there, and there are bears. I intend to remain with my family in Yuhua.”

They can’t help but laugh when they hear my words, and they ask me to answer other questions.

I think seriously and say: “I do plan to adopt a child, but because I want to adopt a girl, according to law, I must wait another ten years until I’m forty years old.”

“As for what happened four years ago……” I gained the attention of reporters after the car accident four years ago. They have wanted to interview me one after another in the past few years, and this is the first time I’ve answered this question head-on.

Today is the auspicious day I’ve chosen for my painting exhibition, and everything is going well. Although it is late in the wintery twelfth month, the weather is very good, and the warm winter sun is also bright.

I answer them with a smile: “Yes, I have moved on from it. I moved on from it three years ago.”

. . . . . . . 

Opening an art exhibit requires a lot of work. In order to allow Pi Gao to take charge of his own work as soon as possible, I lead him step by step throughout this exhibition.

Over the years, I have accepted several more students. There are two girls who are very talented and willing to endure hardships. I have high hopes for them, and sent them abroad for a study exchange several years ago.

Pi Gao has mediocre talent, but is willing to strive hard in his studies. He got married to his girlfriend last year, and plans to stay with me in China in the future. I plan to have him study at Beihua.

All in all, my work has gone relatively smoothly these past few years. After being busy with the art exhibit for half a month, it is almost the New Year.

I give my students a vacation and go home alone.

The Wen family business is also prospering with Mingyi’s help. She has become increasingly busy in the past few years, traveling around the country and abroad. She exchanges New Year’s gifts with us every year, but never has time to come back and celebrate it.

The year before last, her parents suddenly divorced. Father Wen suffered a stroke as a result, and has been recuperating abroad.

And it was by chance that I learned that Mingcheng’s mother actually knew Master Mei Yin. She even knew that Mingcheng was by my side.

She was also shocked to learn that Mingcheng was not an evil ghost, and still had memories of his past. I wanted them to meet, but she was hesitant, and refused. She has been worshiping Buddha on the mountain these years.

So I celebrate New Year’s at my own home.

Because I now live in the Wei family house, and my mother is getting older and is particular about going back to her hometown to celebrate the New Year, my eldest brother and the others come home to see me during the holidays, which saves me a trip.

As soon as I walk in, my little nephew rushes toward me in his brand new children’s toy car.

“Little Uncle!”

As he rampages toward me, my sister-in-law takes him out of the car and smacks him on the butt: “How impolite. Let your uncle watch you draw multiplication tables, and don’t pester him to draw Ultraman, do you hear me?”

He is just five years old, with a plump face and a furry bunny hat, like a big, energetic rabbit. Every time he sees me, he pesters me to draw him Ultraman and pretty anime girls.

My mom and elder brother are rushing around the kitchen. My elder brother hears this and corrects his wife: “He doesn’t like Ultraman now, he likes big sisters like Kinimoto Sakura.”

I can’t help but laugh. I have no idea how he can comprehend girls’ cartoons at such a young age.

After being teased and laughed at by the family, he sits on the sofa with a long face and fumes for half an hour, then nuzzles next to me like a dog.

“Little Uncle, I want Sakura.”

Taking a covert look at his parents working in the kitchen, he picks up his small school bag and pulls me into my studio. Then he takes out a bunch of colored paper and anime cards, handing them to me: “You draw her for me.”

He digs out too many things at once, and it is a bit difficult to hold them in his little arms. A decorative anime character item falls to the ground.

The small item rolls twice on the floor, and when he lowers his head to search for it, an unobservable force sends it to my hand.

I calmly look at what has appeared in my hand, glance surreptitiously to my side, and bend down to hand it back to the child. “Next time, don’t take so much. What will you do if they fall?”

He looks at the small item that had appeared in my hand and touches his head in confusion: “Ai? Little Uncle, when did you pick it up? I didn’t see you bend down.”

I smile: “I have magic.”

He gives me an admiring thumbs up and says, “You’re so awesome.”

Then he tells me that he has been very good, having personally wiped his grandfather’s portrait clean, and only came to celebrate the New Year after offering tribute.

“I also put all my tasty snacks in Uncle’s room, the same room where you put his portrait.” When I burn incense for him, he asks to say some good words to Mingcheng. “Asking Uncle to please bless me to be as handsome as him when I grow up.”

I can’t help but laugh: “Okay, he agrees.”

“Really?” He is very surprised. “You can hear him?”

I say: “He also says that if you don’t memorize your multiplication tables, you will be blessed to look like Grandpa.”

He cries out when he hears this and says that he will never like Uncle again.

After coaxing the child away, I glance at the person gradually appearing out of thin air: “Do you like children that much?”

He closes the door and walks to me with long strides, smiling at me with squinted eyes. The upward curve of his lips is gentle and sweet, his features handsome, refined, and incredibly profound. “He looks a lot like you when you were a child.”

I retort at once: “How could I be so fat when I was a child?”

He smiles even brighter. Hugging me from behind, he pinches the flesh on my waist and abdomen with one hand: “You could eat better than me when you were a child, have you forgotten?”

We fool around quietly for a while.

He suppresses his smile as he speaks, and lowers his head from behind me. Pressing his lips to the corner of mine, he says in a low and apologetic voice: “In the period where I had no memory, I was like an evil ghost, haunting you and going crazy. Were you frightened?”

“It’s good that you know. Drinking your own vinegar, you really are something.”

I raise my eyes to look into his, letting him nip my lips.

I had thought a ghost was impersonating him, never expecting it to actually be him. He only remembered our names, and really did seem like an imposter.

In a stroke of luck, I had actually found Master Mei Yin. It was probably the will of the heavens that Mingcheng destroyed the Black Nanjia himself, but resurrected during my spiritual summoning ceremony.

Now that we are reunited, I feel that providence is extremely kind to us, and now I have nothing to be dissatisfied with.

As our lips and tongues intersect, our breathing becomes heavier. His palms move from my waist to my collar, and his fingers touch my buttons……

“Little Uncle, it’s time to eat!” At this moment, the door is pushed open by the young boy.

“Cough, cough…..got it.” I choke myself a bit in my startlement.

While puffing out his cheeks as he chews on something, he looks at me doubtfully. “Little Uncle, why is your face so red? Why is your mouth red too?”

Humiliated into anger, I glare at him: “Why are there so many little children in the house?”

He harrumphs, staring at me: “Huh? Why is it even redder?”

When we eat, my older brother wants to take a family photo first. My mother sits on the couch with the child, and my older brother and sister-in-law stand next to me.

After my little nephew sets up the camera, I take a step to the side. My older brother looks deeply at me, as if aware of something, then embraces his wife and leans to the side to give me space.

And so beside me, a person nobody else can see comes into the shot.

He holds my waist. He’s actually sprayed a bit of cologne on his body.

I whisper: “My older brother seems to have discovered something.”

He kisses the side of my face as if no one else is watching: “It doesn’t matter, Brother-in-law has a good personality.”

As the camera counts down, my older brother claps and gives a congratulatory speech: “Alright, then wishing our elders long lives, our children good health, and for our young people, the end of bitterness and the beginning of sweetness. Love and happiness for all. Say eggplant~”

“Eggplant~”

Kacha! The photo is taken.

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T/N: Thank you to everyone who gave this story a chance! It was such a gem to stumble upon.

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Chapter 36 << Table of Contents