Chapter 381 - 226: This Night, Lu Fan and Yixia Slept Together, Wish Fulfilled

Chapter 381: Chapter 226: This Night, Lu Fan and Yixia Slept Together, Wish Fulfilled

She hadn’t noticed, but Lu Fan felt it.

He tilted his head slightly, a sliver of a fair curve catching his peripheral vision.

It was peeking out from her collar, swaying gently with her rubbing motions.

Just as Lu Fan was enjoying the beautiful scenery, Jiang Yixia’s hand paused. She pulled back a little unnaturally and said with a frown, "What are you looking at?"

Lu Fan quickly turned his head back, a smile in his voice. "Nothing."

Jiang Yixia ignored him and continued rubbing.

Her fingers pressed down along his waistline, and his muscles tensed again. This time, it wasn’t from pain, but something else.

She pretended not to notice, rubbed a few more times, and then pulled her hands away.

"All done." She twisted the cap back on the medicinal wine bottle, her voice returning to its usual coldness.

Lu Fan rolled over onto his back, looking up at her with a smile. "Much better, thanks."

His torso was still bare. His chest muscles rose and fell in the morning light, the lines of his abs extending downward.

Jiang Yixia averted her gaze, the tips of her ears turning red again.

Lu Fan didn’t mind. He stretched, his bones making a few cracking sounds, and said lazily, "I’m going to go back to sleep for a bit. Want to join me?"

Jiang Yixia glared at him. "No."

She turned and left the bedroom to wash up in the bathroom.

When she came out of the bathroom, she had changed her clothes and tied up her hair.

Returning to the bedroom to get something, she saw Lu Fan was still lying on his stomach, his upper body bare. His face was buried in the pillow, and his breathing was even, as if he were really asleep.

The blanket only covered him to his waist, revealing a section of his strong lower back. The lines of his muscles seemed to soften in the light.

Jiang Yixia stood in the doorway, watching for a couple of seconds.

She hadn’t intended to bother with him and turned to leave.

But after two steps, she stopped.

She thought about how she had kicked him out of bed that morning, and all the fuss afterward.

’Even though it’s daytime, he might catch a cold sleeping like this.’

She sighed, turned back, and pulled the blanket up from the foot of the bed, gently covering him with it.

Starting from his shoulders, she slowly drew it down until his entire back was covered.

When Jiang Yixia’s fingers brushed his shoulder, he stirred. Startled, she quickly pulled her hand back.

But Lu Fan didn’t wake up.

Jiang Yixia let out a breath of relief, turned, left the bedroom, and gently closed the door behind her.

The moment the door clicked shut, Lu Fan opened his eyes.

He turned his head to the side, looking at the closed door as the corners of his mouth slowly curved upward.

’When she was covering me with the blanket just now, I almost laughed out loud when her fingers touched my shoulder.’

Lu Fan rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

A thin sliver of sunlight slipped through a gap in the curtains, landing on the bedsheets.

He suddenly remembered something and reached for his phone on the nightstand.

After a few failed attempts, his elbow accidentally knocked something over.

CLATTER. It was Jiang Yixia’s lipstick, which had fallen to the floor and rolled a couple of times.

He bent down to pick it up, and his hand brushed against the nightstand drawer.

The drawer wasn’t fully closed, and his touch made it slide open a crack.

He hadn’t meant to look, but his peripheral vision caught something inside—something hard, like a picture frame.

He hesitated for a moment before pulling the drawer open.

It was a small wooden picture frame, very old, with worn-out corners.

Inside the frame was a photograph. It had yellowed with age and the colors had faded, but the image was still clear.

In the photo, two people were leaning against each other, their heads touching, smiling so widely their eyes crinkled into crescents.

It was him and Jiang Yixia, eighteen years ago.

Back then, he was wearing a white shirt, his smile bold and unrestrained, his eyes shining as if he owned the world.

She was wearing a pale yellow dress, her hair down, leaning on his shoulder. Her face was slightly flushed, her lips pressed together as if she was trying to hold back a laugh but couldn’t, her eyes curving into crescent moons.

They had only been dating for a month at the time. He had dragged her to take photo booth pictures.

She had refused, saying it was a waste of money.

But Lu Fan had insisted on taking her, saying it was to make a memory.

When they were taking the picture, he had secretly turned his head and pressed his lips to her hair. She felt it, her face turning red as a tomato, but she didn’t pull away.

The moment the shutter clicked, she smiled—a truly beautiful smile.

That was them at their best.

Lu Fan held the frame, gazing at it for a long time.

He remembered how after they took the photos that day, she kept looking at it, complaining that it wasn’t a good picture, that her face looked too round.

He had snatched it away, saying, "If you don’t like it, give it to me." But she refused and tucked it away in her wallet.

Later, after Jiang Yixia left him, he had assumed she would have thrown the photo away.

He never expected that she hadn’t.

He caressed her face in the photo. His fingers were cold against the glass.

The girl in the picture was smiling so sweetly, so genuinely, her eyes sparkling.

Back then, she had no idea how much she would suffer, no idea she would have to support a family all by herself, no idea she would end up waiting eighteen years for him.

Lu Fan felt a wave of emotion. He placed the frame back in the drawer and gently pushed it shut.

His fingers lingered on the drawer for a moment before he pulled his hand away.

He took a deep breath, sat up, and slowly got dressed.

As he washed up, he looked at his reflection in the mirror.

He was forty now. There were a few gray hairs at his temples and lines around his eyes.

But the twenty-year-old version of him in that photo was still in her drawer, kept safe and sound.

He smiled at his reflection, turned off the faucet, and opened the door to leave.

Jiang Yixia was busy in the kitchen. The aroma of congee filled the entire house.

She ladled the congee into bowls, brought them to the table, and set out two simple side dishes: one of pickled mustard greens, and another of fermented bean curd.

She heard footsteps and looked up to see him walking out slowly, one hand on his lower back. The expression on his face was a little unnatural—she couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or something else.