You're my wife, don't doubt it!

Xiao Yao took Shen Jie home on his bicycle. She got off the bike 500 meters from the alley entrance and put her hat and mask back on.

Xiao Yao waited for her at the door for a while. As soon as she entered, the girl changed into slippers, picked up her sneakers with one hand, and went into the wardrobe.

Xiao Yao followed without any hesitation.

"Is there anything else?" Shen Jie feigned confusion, then waved her hand outwards with her finger bent: "If there's nothing else, go home."

Xiao Yao coughed twice.

This wasn't an act; Xiao Yao's cough had gotten worse and worse since then.

If I don't cough, I can't help it; if I cough, my chest and stomach hurt too, it's so painful.

"Touch me again," Xiao Yao walked to Shen Tianyun's bedside, sat down with his hand on his chest, and said, "I feel like I'm seriously ill."

Shen Jie stared at Xiao Yao expressionlessly for a while, then turned around and took out a thermometer.

Is this the one I got from my uncle last time...? Xiao Yao wondered.

"Tuck it under your armpit." Shen Jie tossed the thermometer to Xiao Yao.

Three minutes later, Xiao Yao took out the thermometer and examined it under the light in front of him.

Before he could even see it clearly, Shen Jie had already snatched the thermometer away in a hurry.

"37.3, is that considered a fever?" the girl muttered to herself.

"Is it alright, a low-grade fever?" Xiao Yao wasn't quite sure either.

"Should I take you to the hospital?" Shen Jie said.

"Let's see, look, the fever isn't too high." His current chaotic situation and the ingrained mindset of the poor made Xiao Yao instinctively resist going to the hospital: "What if it gets worse later..."

Shen Jie hesitated, but ultimately said nothing.

She pouted, helped Xiao Yao lie down on her daughter's bed, and covered him with a small blanket covered in cat heads.

Then, turning around, she put her large mask back on and went out of the closet.

Xiao Yao tossed and turned for a long time, unable to fall asleep.

So, where did Tianyun go this time?

Just then, Shen Jie returned—it turned out she had gone to the pharmacy.

The girl poured hot water for the boy, sat on the edge of the bed and helped him take compound acetaminophen and amantadine tablets. Then she turned around, bent down, and picked up a paper bag: "I bought you congee with preserved egg and lean pork, and some pork floss. How about this for lunch?"

Xiao Yao was so moved he almost cried, because he had never eaten preserved eggs since he was a child.

You still don't understand me, Xiao Yao thought.

However, to avoid spoiling the mood, Xiao Yao didn't say anything, but simply put his arms around the girl's waist and pulled her towards him.

"What are you doing... in broad daylight?" Shen Jie exclaimed in surprise, "The porridge is going to spill!"

The PE students should be back by evening.

"Let me go, Xiao Xiao—I'm calling for help!" Shen Jie's breathing was heavier than usual, and her face was flushed.

Xiao Yao pinched her small foot, which was encased in a black cotton sock, and felt the warmth and moisture emanating from the sole of her foot.

"Xiao Yao, have you no shame? Are you really going to use force?"

Xiao Yao's head was facing the ceiling, face to face with Shen Jie: "Hello, yes."

"I don't think you're sick at all!"

Two pigeons flapped their wings and flew past the window in the thick fog outside.

……

"Alright, stop it." Shen Jie finally regained her composure: "You want that person to laugh at us again, don't you?"

“It’s nothing,” Xiao Yao mumbled, not stopping his attack: “The empathy is quite weak now—by the way, will I still have empathy in 2034? Different timelines don’t even have cell phone signals…”

"You didn't restrain yourself when you were feeling so strongly the day before yesterday!" Shen Jie shouted angrily, rolling off the bed.

Why are you getting angry all of a sudden? The day before yesterday? You were the one who started it all...

Xiao Yao thought this to himself, but didn't dare to say it out loud.

Shen Jie stood up, zipped up her clothes, straightened herself up, then took off her two cotton socks, crumpled them into a ball, held them in her hand, and pulled off her red handkerchief, throwing them all onto the sofa.

Xiao Yao awkwardly wrapped himself tighter in his small blanket.

"Damn it, I get so angry just thinking about this, just thinking about this makes me so angry..." Shen Jie walked barefoot to the sofa and plopped down on it: "You made me lose all face in front of Yu Luying."

"what……"

"You only care about your own pleasure and don't care about anything else," Shen Jie said indignantly. "The night before last, it was basically me and her... Did you even think about it?"

“I have thought about it,” Xiao Yao pointed out weakly, “That’s why I’ve been desperately trying to hide…”

"You mean, I forced you to do all this? You mean I, Shen, was the one who was eagerly chasing after you?" Shen Jie's eyes widened.

"I didn't mean that." Xiao Yao raised his hands in surrender, giving up on trying to reason with her: "It's all my fault, no matter what."

"It's all your fault!" Shen Jie said angrily, crossing her arms and crossing her right leg over her left. "Do you really think I wouldn't have guessed about your symbiotic relationship? With so many clues before, do you think I'm stupid?"

"..." Xiao Yao remained silent.

“I haven’t called you out on this because I wanted to see how long you were going to keep it from me,” Shen Jie said, but not all of it was true: “The night before last… during this and that, I thought I was wrong, that I was just being paranoid, otherwise you wouldn’t be so open about it.”

"Hmm?" Xiao Yao cautiously confirmed, "So that night at the boat house, your sudden...proactive behavior was just to test me?"

There are a million ways to test symbiosis, so why choose this way that throws yourself into it? Isn't that foolish? Xiao Yao thought.

"Bullshit!" Shen Jie roared, "Wasn't it all for your... your... your birthday present? And you made me look like this!"

Xiao Yao lifted his small blanket, pulled up his pants, got out of bed, and walked towards Shen Jie, intending to hug her and comfort her a little longer.

"Don't come any closer! Don't touch me! Keep a two-meter social distance!" Shen Jie pushed forward a hand, and Xiao Yao obediently stopped in his tracks.

“So,” Xiao Yao asked her, “you got so angry with me about this, and this is the crux of the matter?”

The phrase "so angry" was originally followed by "so long it took to break up," but Xiao Yao thought it best not to include those two words, so he didn't say them.

"Hmph." Shen Jie sneered and turned her face away noncommittally.

"Wife, I was wrong, I'll change."

"Get back to your bed!" the girl shouted.

"Yes, yes, okay." Xiao Yao obeyed.

Shen Jie seemed to have adjusted her emotions, switched her left and right legs, and looked at Xiao Yao again: "Sigh."

“I’m not called ‘Hey’,” Xiao Yao said.

"Hey, let's get down to business. Think about it carefully," Shen Jie said. "Is this the first time your connection has weakened since you and Yu Luying started living together?"

"I think...yes?" Xiao Yao twitched his nostrils.

“What do you mean by ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’?” Shen Jie told him, “Think about it carefully, recall it thoroughly, and don’t overlook any details.”

"I understand," Xiao Yao nodded.

"I'm really fed up with you," Shen Jie muttered, "We've come to this point, with things on the line, and you still have the mind to mess with me!"

Actually, Xiao Yao wasn't acting out of lust; he mainly wanted to erase the word "breakup" from Shen Jie's lips through intimate gestures that were already a fait accompli.

In fact, it seems that, temporarily and effectively, the expected results have been achieved.

"Alright, you should go to sleep," Shen Jie said. "You're sick, you probably won't remember the answers even if I show them to you."

"You're not going to—act on behalf of Heaven?"

"If there were any other way, do you think I would want to? What am I in your eyes? A female demon?" Shen Jie walked to Xiao Yao's bedside, took another pillow and another blanket, and walked back to the sofa: "Let's go to the mirror tomorrow and explore the way. If there really is no other way, we will still have some time."

"Okay, fine!"

"Go to sleep!" Shen Jie curled up on Tianyun's sofa and buried her face in the pillow.

"Good night," Xiao Yao said.

The young man initially wanted to invite Shen Jie to sleep in his bed, but then he thought that he should be sensible—besides, what if he infected her?

He then suggested that Shen Jie sleep in the bed while he slept on the sofa, but after calling her several times without getting a response, he had to give up.

After taking the fever reducer, Xiao Yao was finally able to fall asleep.

I don't know how long I slept, but I was woken up by the urge to urinate.

Shen Jie was still snoring, and her sleeping posture was still unsightly.

Xiao Yao helped her cover herself with the blanket again, then bent down and pulled out the spittoon from under her daughter's bed.

On second thought, I pushed it in again.

He walked past the mirror, back to the side of 2004, into the soap room, and urinated directly into the drain below the sink.

Then, turn on the tap and let the tap water flow through the sink into the drain to achieve the purpose of flushing.

The fever had subsided, which made Xiao Yao feel much better.

He looked around the small room where he had lived for a whole year.

A warm breeze lifted the curtains, and the afternoon sun streamed in through the windowpanes, illuminating the slowly drifting dust motes in the air, which fell onto the tidy desk—well, actually the dining table—creating a flavor that Xiao Yao hadn't tasted in so long that he couldn't even remember what to call it.