After the guests left.

Zhou Zhengchu noticed that his mother was ignoring him again, but perhaps because she was in a good mood, she didn't give him a hard time.

He obediently drank the medicine that was handed to him.

When she's quiet, she's often immersed in her own world. It's springtime now, and the nights are cold, so she can't go out. She's leaning against the window looking at the scenery in the yard.

A tree, a flower, a gust of wind passing by.

They would probably be much more interesting to her than the man sitting next to her.

Zhou Zhengchu looked at his mother's profile. Her eyes were pressed against the glass, and she blinked frequently, seemingly unbothered by the cold, as if that would help her see more clearly.

After a while, he breathed on it again and wiped it with a tissue.

The yard is planted with her favorite flowers. The seeds were obtained by Zhou Zhengchu from a professor at the agricultural college, and the cultivated varieties are more beautiful than those outside.

Inside the greenhouse, there was a bunch of delicate flower branches that could not be damaged by wind and rain.

Just like his mother.

It is delicate, but its roots and stems are covered with thorns.

After she had seen enough of the scenery outside the window, she turned her face away, as if she had finally remembered his existence.

Don't you have to go to school?

She forgot again.

Or perhaps she simply didn't listen carefully in the morning.

Zhou Zhengchu patiently repeated, "I'm graduating soon."

Jiang Yue nodded, as if she remembered something, and suddenly spoke up: "Your father and I were classmates."

My high school classmate.

She remembers it very clearly.

Hmm, that's great.

She and her husband are like a fairytale couple who walked down the aisle from campus to wedding.

Zhou Zhengchu knew that she would often talk to him about this, repeatedly trying to tell him, through every little detail, that her father loved her very much.

She was dressed lightly, and Zhou Zhengchu helped her wrap a shawl around her. After a while, he spoke: "My graduation ceremony is on the fifteenth of next month."

My mother is going abroad for medical treatment at the end of the month.

There are still free days on the 15th.

The woman pretended not to understand.

Zhou Zhengchu looked into her eyes, her eyes still innocent and naive, like a young girl who had never seen the world, without a trace of the passage of time.

He pursed his lips and asked in a low voice, "Can you come?"

She actually really wanted to go out; staying at home for too long would make her feel bored, especially when her husband was away on a business trip and couldn't come home.

Her emotions also become less stable.

They get angry easily and are particularly prone to throwing tantrums.

After a while, the handsome young man, who had not yet received a reply, made a decision for her without her consent: "I will take you to school that day."

He paused for a moment, then said, "There will be your favorite ice cream. Two."

She's easy to coax and deceive.

…

Soon it arrived that day of Zhou Zhengchu's university graduation. The graduation ceremony at Peking University was very grand. Only one in ten thousand students could be admitted to Peking University, and those who successfully graduated were even more remarkable.

Zhou Zhengchu woke his mother up early in the morning, and she slept in the car the whole way.

When I got to school, I was still half asleep.

She looks like Sleeping Beauty.

But Zhou Zhengchu didn't want his mother to be Sleeping Beauty. There were many people at the school. After getting off the bus, he helped her put on her hat.

She impatiently shook off his hand, like a bird released back into the mountains.

She was so beautiful and exquisite that she would attract attention wherever she went, drawing admiring glances and expressions of envy.

Even though Zhou Zhengchu was met with her coldness, he still took her to the auditorium.

The auditorium was filled with graduating students, with school leaders and professors in the first two rows.

Zhou Zhengchu's maternal uncle was also among them.

He was the youngest professor at Kyoto University back then, and he is now the most popular teacher among students at Kyoto University.

However, his uncle and mother have not been in contact over the years.

They're not close, and they'll argue even when they meet.

Each time, my uncle would get so angry that he would leave with a cold expression.

Zhou Zhengchu was to give a speech on behalf of the graduates today. He was worried about his mother, so he glanced at his roommate sitting next to him and repeatedly asked, "Please take care of my mother for me."

The group looked at each other, then raised their fingers to assure him that they would definitely keep an eye on the person.

They were also staring wide-eyed; Zhou Zhengchu's mother looked even younger than in the photo, but she seemed rather unhappy.

She kept a cold expression and didn't say a word.

After Zhou Zhengchu left, she suddenly looked in their direction, her exquisite little face magnified, so beautiful that they gasped.

She looked serious and said something hurtful: "He doesn't like me."

“He abuses me at home.”

"Because I abused him."

None of the roommates dared to utter a sound.

The woman still had the hot milk tea her son had just bought for her in her hand. She bit the straw and continued, "Hmm, I remember when he was little he would look at me with teary eyes and cry, but now he doesn't cry at all. It's so boring."

As she was speaking, her phone rang in her bag.

She put down her milk tea, answered the phone, and spoke in a sweet and charming voice.

The person opposite her appears to be her husband.

"I don't know the way or the people at school, so I'm a little scared."

"You're coming to pick me up."

"Hurry up."

The group didn't know what the person on the other end of the phone said. After a while, they saw her hang up the phone and slowly drink her milk tea.

The speaker has already begun giving a speech on stage.

The first student to go on stage was a female student from the law school who received an offer from an Ivy League university in the United States, along with a full scholarship.

She left the stage shortly after finishing her speech.

Thunderous applause followed immediately. A handsome young man in a suit walked onto the stage, and even the most reserved female students couldn't help but crane their necks and stare intently at the person on stage.

She has stunning good looks and comes from an excellent family.

He is tall and has long legs.

The young man wore a custom-made black suit, his hair was casually combed up, revealing a smooth forehead, a straight nose, and glasses.

He glanced down at the crowd with a nonchalant air, and it was as if he could hear the gasps of shock coming from everyone.

Zhou Zhengchu's gaze was fixed on his mother, who was enjoying her milk tea, occasionally glancing at the stage.

Not very serious.

They probably won't listen to what he said on stage.

Zhou Zhengchu's speech was brief, but he still received thunderous applause when he stepped off the stage. He walked step by step to his mother's side, sat back in his seat, and turned his face to his roommate on the other side to thank her in a low voice.

My roommate scratched his head and said, "You're welcome, you're welcome."

She had finished her milk tea and a cup of strawberry mochi, but she still seemed unsatisfied. She licked her lips, turned her face, and naturally ordered her son, "Go buy me another cup."

The young man frowned: "The doctor said you can't drink too much."

He seemed easy to talk to and appeared to dote on her, but she wasn't stupid; she knew her son wasn't easily fooled and wouldn't listen to anything she said.

She then looked at her son's roommates, feigning pitifulness and readily making accusations: "See, I told you he would abuse me."

My roommates: "..."

He could only give an awkward laugh and remain silent.

She has no psychological burden when she does bad things, and she doesn't know what is bad or what is good. It's all up to her whether she wants to do it or not.

She had no intention of begging her son for mercy anymore; she'd rather ask someone else for help.

So she looked at the boys on her right and said, "Could you lend me some money? I can use my necklace as collateral."

All she remembered was that the necklace was a gift from someone else.

But she forgot that this was a birthday gift from her son this year, bought with his scholarship money.

My roommates and I looked at each other, so embarrassed we were practically balding.

After the ceremony, Zhou Zhengchu left the hall with his mother; the sun outside was already quite dazzling.

She was wearing a hat and was well protected from the sun.

She didn't get a second cup of milk tea and didn't look too happy; you could hear the whispers around her.

"Zhou Zhengchu's mother is so beautiful."

"Like his sister."

"He was very handsome on stage just now, and his speech was also very impressive. No wonder he is a top student."

"I heard that he even turned down a full scholarship to study at the world's top university."

"His family isn't short of money. It's good that he didn't go abroad. If he had stayed in China, we might have bumped into each other after graduation."

She could tell they were praising Zhou Zhengchu.

Well, she's willing to admit that her son did have some flair on stage just now.

"I'm going back."

"don't want."

Would you like to go anywhere else?

"Ice cream." She blurted out those three words, remembering his promise: "Two."

Zhou Zhengchu kept his word and went to the store to buy two very small scoops of ice cream.

It would take about two of them together to be about the size of a baby's fist.

His mother was so angry that she turned her face away and left.

As she walked, she kicked her reflection on the ground, and then angrily called her husband, asking him when he would come to pick her up.

She had a lot more bad things to say, but she held back and didn't say anything.

After hanging up the phone, she still ate a fist-sized piece of ice cream, one spoonful at a time, which melted in her mouth.

The raspberry-flavored ice cream is sweet and sour, and very delicious.

This was, after all, on campus. There were many people in school who openly or secretly admired Zhou Zhengchu. After his senior year, he rarely returned to school, and even his fellow students rarely ran into him.

It was a rare sight to run into him today, and all eyes were fixed on him, then following his gaze to the woman walking in front of him.

She looks very young and has very beautiful features.

It's obvious that it's been well taken care of.

I heard it was Zhou Zhengchu's mother. She was eating ice cream, the paper cup was empty, and she still seemed to want more.

Zhou Zhengchu seemed more approachable than usual today, unlike before when you could feel his icy aura even from a distance.

One of the bolder female students mustered up her courage and rushed forward, her face already flushed before she could even say a word.

"Senior...Senior." He started to speak, but still stammered.

Zhou Zhengchu glanced at the girl blocking his way, then at his mother sitting on the bench poking at her paper cup. Suppressing his displeasure, he asked in a low voice, "Junior, is something the matter?"

The girl's face turned as red as a ripe shrimp. She took a deep breath and went all out, "I've admired you for a long time, senior. Would it be convenient to add you on WeChat?"

The junior high school girl was also quite pretty; she was voted the most beautiful girl in her department by other students on the forum as soon as she entered university.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have had the courage to rush out and ask for his WeChat.

Zhou Zhengchu frowned and coldly rejected her: "Sorry, it's not convenient."

These words, without hesitation.

This effectively deterred other onlookers who were itching to join in.

Even the most beautiful girl in the department got rejected!

The others have even less hope.

Zhou Zhengchu walked to his mother's side. The incident was just a minor episode for him. He looked at his mother, reached out and took the paper cup that she had almost poked to pieces, and threw it into the trash can.

He asked, "Did your father say when he would come to pick you up?"

She didn't answer him, but looked at him as if she found it very interesting, saying, "You're quite popular at school."

Zhou Zhengchu remained silent.

Fortunately, his mother only mentioned it on a whim and had no interest in knowing more.

It's windy right now.

The sun is shining brightly.

The wind blew her hat off, and Zhou Zhengchu picked it up for her and put it back on.

Every time she goes out, she acts like a child who needs to be taken care of.

With his father not around, he became the one to take care of him.

Suddenly a shadow fell in front of me, blocking the sunlight and my view.

Zhou Zhengchu looked up and pursed his lips. "Uncle."

Jiang Zhi teaches at Peking University. In the eyes of his students, he is a cold and aloof professor with few friends and no family.

Those I'm close to are very few and far between.

His class had an extremely high failure rate, making attending it both a joyful and painful experience.

She still recognized Jiang Zhi and remembered that he was her younger brother.

However, after Jiang Zhi said a few harsh truths last time, she no longer wanted to pay attention to him.

She turned her head to look at her son and ordered him, "You are not allowed to call him uncle. Get rid of him. I don't want to see him."

Jiang Zhi lowered his eyes, his pursed lips looking icy cold. He asked, "Are you still angry about last time?"

She ignored him.

Even though she's not very clear-headed now, she still holds grudges. If someone says something she doesn't like, she can remember it for years.

Jiang Zhi found it difficult to maintain his composure in front of her.

After a long silence, he asked again, "Have you had lunch?"

Zhou Zhengchu answered for his mother: "No. Father will be here soon."

Jiang Zhi said calmly, "Let's go to the cafeteria and get something to eat first. We can talk about the rest when your father arrives."

Zhou Zhengchu, worried that his mother might be hungry, thought for a moment and nodded, "Okay."

We arrived at the cafeteria.

She didn't want to eat anything else; she was still thinking about the ice cream she hadn't had enough of earlier.

Jiang Zhi stuffed a box of strawberries into her hand, and she stopped whining about wanting ice cream.

She was so engrossed in eating strawberries that she didn't hear a word her son and brother were saying.

I ate most of the box of strawberries.

I don't want to leave them a single one, not even the strawberry bottoms.

The rest were for her husband.

Jiang Zhi watched her carefully counting the remaining strawberries in the box, and felt a pang of sadness in his heart. He didn't know if she would ever recover.

Even though he was already a medical professor.

However, there are still many insurmountable problems in this world.

Her phone suddenly rang in her small bag. She answered it and laughed again, giving her address: "I'm in the cafeteria, it's so boring in there."

Upon hearing this...

Jiang Zhi already knew who it was.

He looked at her, and couldn't understand why she loved Zhou Ji so much, to the point that she had willingly done so many things to hurt others in the past.

Jiang Zhi lowered his head, lost in thought.

Many times he was unwilling to give up, just like last time when he knew she wouldn't be happy to hear those words, but he still shattered her illusions.

Tell her that Zhou Ji only feels responsibility towards her, not love.

Actually, Jiang Zhi simply couldn't accept it.

She only loves Zhou Ji.

Before she met Zhou Ji, she also loved her younger brother.