Having a baby in the house threw Luke into a state of complete anxiety. After Shang Zhitao found out she was pregnant, Luke suddenly stopped jumping up to greet her. He turned gentle instead. Shang Zhitao would ask him, "Why don't you jump anymore?"
Luke let out a long, drawn-out whine. "Can't jump! Might hurt Mommy!"
The day little Nian Tao first came home, the moment the baby carrier was set down, Luke ran over and sniffed every inch of it, inside and out. He seemed puzzled, unable to understand why such a tiny thing had suddenly appeared in the house. In his mind, Nian Tao was also a puppy, just one that didn't look quite like him. He even started treating her as his own child.
Because Nian Tao was so small, and Luke shed so much, everyone agreed to keep him out of Shang Zhitao's bedroom for the time being. Luke behaved himself and simply guarded the doorway, watching over his baby. Whenever Nian Tao opened her eyes, moved a little hand, or made a small sound, Luke would jump to his feet in alarm and pace in circles on the floor. At first no one understood what he was doing, until they realized: Luke's precious little one had woken up.
Worried that Luke might feel left out, Luan Nian would slip into the kitchen at night once Nian Tao and Shang Zhitao were both asleep, and cook something for him. Luke would sit and wait, just like old times, tongue hanging out.
While making his food, Luan Nian would sometimes glance back at him. "You're getting up there in years now."
"Still got your teeth?"
Luke gave a soft bark. "Yep!"
Luan Nian patted his head. "Such a tough old man."
Luke would jump up and rest his paws on Luan Nian's hand, playing with him for a while. If he heard any sound from the bedroom, he'd trot straight to the door and poke his head in to see what was going on, his eyes wary, as if to say: you wouldn't dare hurt my baby, would you?
During her postpartum confinement, Shang Zhitao received a steady stream of friends.
Sun Yu showed up the very day she was discharged from the hospital. She'd taken five days of annual leave, and no matter how Shang Zhitao tried to shoo her away, she refused to budge.
Not only did she refuse to leave, she also fought Luan Nian for the right to take care of Shang Zhitao.
Naturally, Luan Nian wasn't having it. The two of them went at it in the kitchen. "You can't even take care of yourself," Luan Nian jabbed at her.
"When Taotao was in Beijing, I was the one taking care of her. You weren't good for much back then," Sun Yu shot back, refusing to concede.
"...Is your company about to go under? Is that why you're squatting here refusing to leave?"
"No, business is too good. So good it doesn't even need me anymore."
Neither of them was winning the argument, so Sun Yu finally said, "Sounds like little Nian Tao's awake. You go cook."
Luan Nian said nothing, turned, and left the kitchen to her, going to check on Nian Tao himself.
Little Nian Tao hadn't actually woken up.
She seemed to be having a good dream, the corner of her mouth twitching up, looking exactly like Luan Nian's smile. Shang Zhitao glanced at him and pursed her lips.
Luan Nian couldn't hide his pride at all. At first, out of consideration for Shang Zhitao's feelings, he'd limited himself to remarks like: her ears look like yours. But eventually he stopped bothering to hide it. If anyone said the baby didn't resemble him in some way, he'd ask them to look again.
"Look again? I don't think you're seeing it right."
Once, Dr. Liang caught him doing this and winked at Shang Zhitao, whispering to her, "Spitting image of her father. As if it's such a great thing for the child to look like him. Let's hope little Nian Tao's temper doesn't take after him, stubborn and foul-mouthed and can't even talk yet and already looking like he'll be getting into fights by age three or four. Nian Tao's temperament absolutely has to take after you."
"Can you even tell what her temper's like yet?"
"I knew Luan Nian had a bad temper before he was even a month old." She then told the story of how Luan Nian had once nearly cried himself breathless because he was fed too slowly. Shang Zhitao thought it over carefully. Little Nian Tao had never done anything like that. She was easygoing, ate, slept, and when she woke up she'd just lie there with her eyes open. If you talked to her, she'd listen quietly.
Sometimes she'd cry a little when she was hungry or needed changing, but the moment someone came to her, she'd stop right away.
Every time Sun Yu saw how well-behaved Nian Tao was, she'd say to Luan Nian, "What did you ever do to deserve a daughter like this?"
"Jealous? Go have your own," Luan Nian shot back, picking Nian Tao up to play with her.
Little Nian Tao wasn't shy around strangers at all. The day her many aunts and uncles came to visit, they packed the house full. Everyone crowded around to look at her as if she were some rare treasure, cooing, "She's got her mother's expression exactly." No one mentioned so much as a passing resemblance to Luan Nian.
Naturally, this didn't sit well with Luan Nian. He said to Chen Kuannian, "Look again. Or maybe get new glasses?"
"Let's see... her eyes look like her mother's too."
Everyone burst out laughing.
Lin Chun'er and Xiao Mei sat by Shang Zhitao's bed keeping her company, and finding the men underfoot, chased them all out and shut the door.
Luan Nian shrugged and led the others out to sit on the balcony.
The sunset outside was beautiful.
The men stood by the window in quiet for a while. Tan Mian took out his phone to check the calendar and said, "We haven't gone anywhere together in two years. At this rate we'll all be old men before the next trip."
"That won't do," said Song Qiuhan. "Once little Nian Tao's a bit bigger, we can all go together as families. That'll be its own kind of fun."
"And leave me on my own?"
Tan Mian glared at Song Qiuhan.
Everyone laughed.
In your twenties, you go out with friends and the world feels wide open, no ties, no burdens. In your early thirties, everyone's life is heading its own direction, each busy with their own affairs, meeting up now and then. Closer to forty, getting together at all becomes hard.
Life is full of change, none of it predictable.
Fortunately, these friends hadn't drifted apart. Whenever your life shifted, they were there the moment you called.
"Drink a little tonight?" Song Qiuhan suggested.
"Sure." Luan Nian hadn't had a drink in a long time, and today, surrounded by friends, it felt wrong not to have at least a little.
"What do you want to eat?"
"Let's just eat at home. Livelier that way. Whatever's easy, hot pot maybe? Convenient."
"Sounds good."
Luan Nian had secretly stashed away more than a dozen bottles of sauce-aroma baijiu. When Shang Zhitao asked why he'd hoarded so much, he told her it was for little Nian Tao's dowry someday. Today, in good spirits, he brought out a few bottles from her future dowry.
"What else do you two have stashed away at home?" Chen Kuannian asked, curious, already scheming about what he could flip for a profit.
"Does rice paper count?"
"...?"
"Shang Zhitao bought twenty bundles of top-grade rice paper years ago."
"That good an eye for it?"
"Mm-hm."
Hearing the commotion outside, Lin Chun'er came out to shut them down. "Little Nian Tao's sleeping, no shouting!" Seeing Song Qiuhan setting out the liquor, she asked, "Drinking tonight?"
"Yep. You in?" Song Qiuhan asked her.
"In!"
She liked a lively gathering too.
Shang Zhitao couldn't drink, but she loved the noise and company all the same. When it was time to eat, she grit her teeth and got out of bed anyway.
The whole group together made for a genuinely happy scene.
Shang Zhitao's face had gone round and full, and with her ready smile she looked especially adorable. Worried she'd be uncomfortable sitting, Luan Nian tucked a cushion under her, and poured her warm water whenever everyone raised a toast.
The elders had warned Luan Nian not to let Shang Zhitao eat anything raw, cold, or hard, so he sat there watching her eat the whole time.
Everyone looked at Luan Nian and kept thinking he seemed like a different person.
None of them had ever imagined, in this lifetime, they'd get to see Luan Nian become someone like this. Except for his mouth, which was still as sharp as ever.
Gatherings like this didn't come often, so everyone made the most of it.
Nobody drank much, but they lingered over it for a long time, all the way until late into the night before finally calling it a night.
Once the noise died down, the house was left with just the three of them and one dog.
After Luan Nian finished tidying up and got into bed, he saw Shang Zhitao still lying there with her eyes open and asked, "Why aren't you asleep?"
"Not tired."
"Then come here." Luan Nian pulled her into his arms and ran his fingers through her hair. Her hair had gotten noticeably thicker during pregnancy, and now, grabbing a handful, it felt full and heavy. It had good spring to it too, bouncing back when released, and it looked lovely. Luan Nian played with it idly.
"Feeling better today?" Luan Nian was asking about her episiotomy wound. The first time he'd seen her get out of bed and walk, it had torn at him.
"A little better." Shang Zhitao held his hand. "Aren't you supposed to go back for a meeting in a few days?"
"I'll go and come back the same day."
"Don't do that. Go ahead, but don't do a same-day round trip, it's too exhausting."
"It's not exhausting. I can't stop worrying about the three of you. The company doesn't care where I work from anyway, it's all work no matter where I am. Tracy and I already talked it over. Going forward I just need to be in the office one or two days a week."
"Such a fusspot." Shang Zhitao mimicked his tone, teasing him.
Luan Nian pretended not to hear.
He'd become an expert at playing deaf and dumb these days, otherwise he was afraid he'd say something sharp enough to make Shang Zhitao cry. The elders had repeatedly warned that she mustn't cry during her confinement, that it could leave lasting problems. Luan Nian didn't put much stock in that. The only reason he held his tongue was that his heart ached over what she'd been through, and he couldn't bear to add to it.
After a while, Luan Nian said to her, "I want to buy a bigger place in Ice City."
"Hm? How big?"
"Something like three hundred plus square meters, with a garden?"
"...?" Shang Zhitao sat up. "Are we really that rich?"
Luan Nian raised an eyebrow and said nothing. In truth, he'd pulled some money out of the stock market a while back and hadn't decided what to do with it. It was only today, hanging out with his friends, that the idea struck him to buy a bigger house in Ice City. He wanted to build Nian Tao a princess room of her own.
"You can't spoil a child like that," Shang Zhitao objected. "She'll end up with all sorts of bad habits. Is our current place too small?"
"If I don't spoil my own daughter, who am I going to spoil?"
"You shouldn't spoil anyone."
Luan Nian felt like snapping at her, but swallowed the words back. After a moment he said, "Don't listen to that nonsense."
"What nonsense?"
"The nonsense about never letting your kid know the family's well off."
"..."
"If the family's well off, it's well off. If it's not, it's not. If you hide it from her when she's little, isn't that just teaching her to lie?"
"And another thing, you keep insisting Luke is your dog. Don't you know your own dog by now? Your dog is a total snob who only loves money!"
"So there. I'm buying the house."
Luan Nian pinched Shang Zhitao's cheek. "You have no standing to stop me."
Luan Nian rattled off one point after another, and Shang Zhitao couldn't keep up. The next day she slept in, and when she finally opened her eyes, Luan Nian was gone. She asked Da Zhai, "Where's your beloved son-in-law?"
"Went out."
"Where to?"
"No idea."
Luan Nian didn't come back until the afternoon, holding a deposit slip. "The house is settled. You don't get a say in whether we buy it now, only in which one we go with. Otherwise the deposit's wasted."
Shang Zhitao swung a fist at his chest in frustration, and he caught her wrist. "Don't start." He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I just want the three of you living somewhere more comfortable. Besides, the new place is closer to the airport, it'll save me a lot of time going back and forth."
"You can't keep spoiling her like this going forward, I mean it."
Luan Nian just grunted and didn't take the bait, already set on his own plan. His daughter, his call. Everyone else in this family could mind their own business.
By the time little Nian Tao turned one month old, she'd already grown into a lovely, lovely baby girl.
Shang Zhitao had bought a whole stack of cute little outfits, sterilized them, and on the day of the one-month celebration carefully dressed and arranged Nian Tao for photos. Luan Nian held the camera himself, personally taking her one-month portraits. He'd never imagined that his considerable photography skills would end up being put to use on baby pictures.
Nian Tao was deeply sleepy that day. No matter how they posed her, she kept her eyes shut and slept through it all, radiating an air of total indifference to the chaos around her, as if the world could shake and she'd remain unmoved. The two of them fussed over her for two hours, and she still wouldn't wake, until they were both worn out and sank back onto the living room sofa, exchanging a look, and laughing.
Shang Zhitao's eyes narrowed like a cat's. After more than a month without leaving the house, her skin had turned even fairer, and the sunlight on her face gave it a translucent glow. With her smile still lingering, she looked all the more alluring.
Something stirred in Luan Nian. He leaned in over her, bracing his hands on either side of the sofa, looking down at her. Light danced in Shang Zhitao's eyes as she tilted her chin up slightly to brush against his lips, once, then again.
Luan Nian lowered himself further, chasing her mouth, pressing her down into the sofa.
How long had it been since they'd kissed like this? He couldn't remember. She'd teased him during her pregnancy, and once, when she'd pushed him too far, he'd stormed off, and after that she never dared try it again.
Luan Nian kissed her fiercely, roughly, just as he always had before.
Shang Zhitao breathed unevenly, offering her tongue and letting him do as he wished. Luan Nian felt himself losing control, and before reason abandoned him completely, he pulled back, leaning against the other end of the sofa to catch his breath, wiping the back of his hand across his lips, his dark eyes fixed on the front of Shang Zhitao's chest, an edge of something fierce in his expression.
"Luan Nian."
"Mm?"
"In a few days, will you take me for my postpartum checkup?"
"We'll see what the doctor says after the exam."
"Okay."
Shang Zhitao's toes traced slowly along his leg, and Luan Nian caught her ankle. "Behave."
"Oh."