Qin Tian's eyes welled up with tears, and he quickly waved his hand, forcing a smile that looked more like a grimace: "Alright, alright, stop with the formalities. Come on, let's go inside! We have to eat farewell food and drink farewell wine! We won't leave until we're drunk!"

He turned around quickly, as if he was in a hurry to cover something up.

That night, Qin Tian seemed to pour all his passion into the kitchen. He cooked a table full of dishes, each one a favorite of Su Wantang and Lu Linchuan. Sweet and sour pork ribs, braised lion's head meatballs, steamed fish, stir-fried potatoes, eggplant, and green peppers... The rich aroma filled the entire courtyard, carrying a grand and passionate feel, almost like a desperate gamble.

At the dinner table, Qin Tian was unusually talkative. He would reminisce about Su Wantang's embarrassing childhood moments, and then pull Lu Linchuan aside, like an old father, and nag him on how to take good care of a pregnant woman.

"Linchuan, Wantang seems sensible, but she's actually very strong. Sometimes she suffers injustice but keeps it all to herself. She's pregnant now, so her emotions are prone to fluctuation. You need to be more understanding and comfort her more."

"Also, the island is very humid, so make her plenty of ginger soup to help remove the dampness. She likes sour foods, so remember to prepare some hawthorn and sour apricots for her, but don't let her eat too much, it can upset her stomach..."

He was talking about trivial matters, going on and on, his words incoherent, but Lu Linchuan listened intently. For every sentence Qin Tian spoke, he nodded solemnly and replied in a deep voice, "Uncle, I've remembered it."

Tears welled up in Su Wantang's eyes as she frantically shoveled rice into her mouth, trying to suppress the sobs rising in her throat with the scalding heat of the food. She knew that her uncle was desperately trying to hold onto this brief moment of reunion, as if he wanted to say everything he had wanted to say for the next few years in this one night.

The next morning, before dawn, Qin Tian got up. He didn't wake the two of them, but instead busied himself in the kitchen. When Su Wantang and Lu Linchuan came out with their luggage, they were greeted by a table full of "dry food".

Golden and crispy fried dough sticks were carefully wrapped in oil paper; plump, white meat buns were still steaming; tea eggs were peeled, glistening with an enticing dark brown color; and a large bag of leftover spiced beef jerky from yesterday was tightly packed in a brown paper bag. Besides these, two enormous burlap sacks were piled up in the corner of the yard, bulging and full, their contents unknown.

"Uncle, what's going on..." Su Wantang looked at the scene and wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

"Eat on the road! The food on the train is expensive and terrible." Qin Tian stuffed a cloth bag containing steamed buns and eggs into Su Wantang's hand, then pointed to the two burlap sacks and said to Lu Linchuan, "Linchuan, you carry these two. They're full of local specialties: vermicelli, dried mushrooms, and free-range eggs that I asked someone to get from the countryside. When we get to the island, we'll give Wantang a good boost."