After being reborn, my sister insisted on marrying me.

It was sometime in the early hours of the morning when Lin Siyan finally fell asleep on the sofa.

When she woke up, it was already broad daylight, and birds were chirping outside the window.

Aunt Zheng's voice came from the kitchen: the gas stove was lit, the spatula was turning, and the faucet was turning on and off.

Lin Siyan sat up from the sofa, her head feeling dizzy, as if she had been drinking glue all night.

Aunt Zheng poked her head out from the kitchen: "Miss Lin, I came over this morning and saw you were sleeping soundly, so I didn't wake you. Did I move around too much and wake you up? I'm so sorry."

"No, I woke up on my own."

Seeing Aunt Zheng preparing to fry preserved radish and eggs, Lin Siyan went over and said, "Let me do it."

She stood in front of the stove. Aunt Zheng glanced at her, said nothing, handed the stove over to her, and continued wiping the table in the living room.

The olive oil sizzled in the pan, and the edges of the egg whites solidified into a golden, crispy crust.

She stared at the egg in the pan for a long time. The egg white solidified. She flipped it over, then flipped it again, and plated it.

I still have no answer to the question I've been thinking about all night.

But when she found herself holding a spatula in Chen Xinyi's kitchen, the answer seemed unimportant.

She's still here; at least she hasn't left today.

It's past eight.

The master bedroom door opened.

Wei Yi walked out, his hair a little messy, his T-shirt collar crooked, and his bare feet on the floor.

A platinum band has been added to the ring finger of my left hand. It's a wide band with a design so simple that it has no patterns whatsoever.

The morning light shines on it, reflecting a soft glow.

"Good morning, Sister Siyan."

"morning."

She shoveled the fried egg into the plate without stopping.

Then I couldn't help but ask myself, "Did you order the cake?"

"……Um."

"Tom and Jerry?"

"Um."

"Who is the cat and who is the mouse?"

Wei Yi was silent for a moment: "It's hard to say. Sometimes I'm the cat, sometimes she is."

This answer is not perfunctory.

Lin Siyan scooped the fried egg into a plate and turned off the heat.

Wei Yi poured himself a glass of milk by the island counter, and the two remained silent for a few seconds across the counter.

He spoke up: "Thank you, Sister Siyan."

She didn't look up.

I want to say, "Why are you thanking me?", I want to say, "I didn't do this for you," and I want to say, "I stayed because I hadn't thought it through."

In the end, he said nothing and put the fried egg on a plate.

"The fried egg is ready, eat it while it's hot."

Chen Xinyi's voice came from the bedroom, her throat still hoarse from sleep: "Wei Yi!"

Wei Yi carried the milk inside.

Lin Siyan didn't go inside; she leaned against the central island counter and continued drinking her soy milk.

Aunt Zheng was washing pots in the kitchen, the water splashing loudly.

A few minutes later, Aunt Zheng, while wiping the stove, suddenly said, "Miss Lin, your eyes look a little swollen today."

"Didn't sleep well."

"Then drink some of the white fungus soup I cooked later, it will help reduce the swelling."

"Um."

The bedroom door suddenly opened again, and Wei Yi came out.

"Siyan!"

Chen Xinyi's voice was crisp and bright, like a marble bouncing on the floor.

Lin Siyan put down her soy milk cup, exchanged a glance with Wei Yi, and walked towards the master bedroom.

I paused at the door and pushed it open.

Chen Xinyi sat cross-legged on the bed, wrapped in an air conditioning blanket. Her hair was a mess, like a bird's nest, and her eyes were as bright as a fox that had stolen a chicken.

My left hand is outstretched, fingers spread, and the platinum ring on my ring finger glitters in the morning light.

"Is it pretty?"

"……nice."

"My brother secretly went to Chow Tai Fook and picked it out himself!"

She emphasized the three characters "Chow Tai Fook" with particular emphasis, her tone full of boasting, like a primary school student showing off a birthday present to her classmate, "He didn't even tell me! I didn't even know when he learned to pick out rings! Isn't it beautiful? Is it really beautiful? Come and look, there's an inscription on the inner ring, '97.7.18-14.7.18,' we've known each other for exactly seventeen years!"

Lin Siyan stood by the bed, looking at the ring.

The design is indeed simple, with a plain platinum bezel without any patterns.

But on Chen Xinyi's hand, it's probably the most valuable piece of jewelry in the world to her.

Her eyes were a little sore, but her face still wore that unchanging smile.

"It looks great, and it suits you perfectly."

He knelt down on one knee last night and put it on me!

Chen Xinyi became more and more excited as she spoke, struggling to get out of bed. "I cried back then, it was so embarrassing. And that cake, he ordered it, it had Tom and Jerry drawn on it. He said the cat was me and the mouse was him, and I said he'd always been the mouse I chased around with since we were kids..."

She hissed halfway through her sentence, clutched her waist, and shrank back.

She cursed, "Wei Yi, I'll settle the score with you later," then leaned against the headboard and grabbed Lin Siyan's hand.

"Siyan".

"Um?"

"Last night was the best night of my life. Thank you."

Lin Siyan smiled and said, "That's good."

She put Chen Xinyi's hand back on the blanket, stood up, and said, "I'll go check on the porridge."

Back in the kitchen, I stood in front of the stove and stirred the white porridge in the pot.

The wooden spoon swirled around and around in the rice water.

Aunt Zheng was chopping scallions beside her, the rhythm of the knife hitting the cutting board steady and regular.

"Miss Lin."

"Um."

"The snow fungus soup is ready. Shall I serve you a bowl?"

"……good."

Aunt Zheng ladled a bowl of white fungus soup and placed it beside her, added a spoonful of rock sugar, and then carried a plate of cut fruit toward the master bedroom.

Lin Siyan held the wooden spoon and bent down to stir the porridge.

The morning sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window, casting a soft glow on the rim of the bowl of white fungus soup on the island counter.

The sound of Chen Xinyi and Aunt Zheng chatting and laughing could be heard from the living room.

She ladled the porridge into a bowl and drank the white fungus soup.

It's sweet, with just the right amount of rock sugar.

I washed the dishes, dried my hands, and stood there for a while.

What I couldn't figure out all night last night is actually very clear.

It wasn't that she couldn't understand; it was that she couldn't bear to part with the girl in the white dress.

The girl has now become a woman, wearing a ring given to her by someone else. But she is still herself.

Lin Siyan knew she could go back to her hometown and be her only child, but once she returned, she would never see that white dress again.

She took off her apron and hung it on a hook.

Then I noticed that a new, empty hook had been nailed to the side of the old hook at some point.

Aunt Zheng probably thought it was inconvenient for her to move her apron around, so she nailed it to a fixed position.

She stared at the new hook, lost in thought.

In the afternoon, sunlight streamed in through the living room window, spreading out in a parallelogram pattern on the floor.

Aunt Zheng has already passed away.

Chen Xinyi slumped on the sofa with her laptop in her arms, browsing through property listings.

The cake box and empty ring box from last night had been removed from the coffee table and replaced with a pot of Tieguanyin tea that Wei Yi had just brewed, with three cups steaming.

Lin Siyan brought out a plate of sliced ​​fruit from the kitchen.

Chen Xinyi patted the sofa, gesturing for her to sit down.

The two people were shoulder to shoulder.

Chen Xinyi turned the computer screen around and pointed to one of the apartments: "Look at this one, four bedrooms and two living rooms, in Wanliu, with two parking spaces. Pretty spacious, right?"

"Isn't three bedrooms enough? Why do you need four?"

"I plan to keep this apartment for myself in the future. There are a lot of people in my family. I'll share a room with him, and when Sister Shilin comes over, there will be room for her too."

She laughed halfway through her sentence, slapped her mouth, and winked at Lin Siyan, "And what if the kids need to live here in the future... plan ahead, plan ahead."

Lin Siyan didn't reply, she just looked at the floor plan on the screen.

The room has four bedrooms and two living rooms. The master bedroom is located at the far end of the corridor, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing south.

She subconsciously looked at the map to see which room was closest to the master bedroom.

Then she noticed Chen Xinyi looking at her.

There was a seriousness in Tao Hua's eyes that she had never seen before.

"Siyan".

"Um?"

"From now on, we'll always be together. You, me, and him. No one will run away, okay?"

That's a very casual remark, as if it were just something said offhand.

But Lin Siyan had known Chen Xinyi for so long that she could discern the weight of every word she said.

She lowered her head, picked up the teacup, and took a sip. The Tieguanyin tea was a little too hot for her tongue.

"……Um."

Chen Xinyi nodded in satisfaction and continued browsing listings. After flipping through a few pages, she stopped and suddenly added:

"Oh, right, there's a room up here too. You can choose whichever room you want to stay in. Hehe, you can even stay in the master bedroom, as long as you don't mind squeezing in with me."

Lin Siyan did not answer.

She picked up her teacup and took another sip, noticing that the tea was swaying slightly in the cup.

She put the cup back on the coffee table, stood up and said, "I'll go collect the dishes," before turning and walking towards the kitchen.

As I walked to the kitchen door, I overheard Chen Xinyi and Wei Yi talking on the sofa.

"Sis, isn't a four-bedroom apartment a bit small if you live in it all by yourself?"

"Small? Four bedrooms is small? It's over 200 square meters!"

"What I mean is, since we're not short of money, we should buy a nice place for ourselves. A villa or a large apartment, anything with six, seven, or eight rooms or more."

"So one person stays in each room, right?"

"Forehead……"

"Weren't you quite talkative last night? Now you're speechless?"

Lin Siyan's lips twitched. She closed the kitchen sliding door and turned on the tap.

The sound of water drowned out the bickering of the two people on the sofa, but it couldn't drown out Chen Xinyi's giggles.

She leaned against the cupboard, ladled out another bowl of the white fungus soup that Aunt Zheng had left behind, and drank it sip by sip.

It's sweet, with just the right amount of rock sugar.

Last night, before going upstairs, I scrolled through my phone contacts again and again by the flower bed, and swiped my fingers across the ticket booking app, even checking high-speed rail schedules and plane tickets.

Those pages are still running in the background on your phone; you can open them to continue ordering.

But she knew she wouldn't open it.

Because the new hooks are waiting for the old aprons.

She washed the bowls clean and put them in the dish rack.

On the dish rack were her bowl and Chen Xinyi's bowl, with Wei Yi's bowl in between.

After thinking for a moment, she moved Wei Yi's bowl away and placed her own bowl next to Chen Xinyi's bowl.

Ok.

It looks much better now.