After a while, the tempo came to a stop. Qin Lian's eyebrows rose in surprise. She looked at the hospital in front of her, then turned to Xu Yinchen, who was already lifting the children out from the back.
"Why are we here? Are you feeling unwell?" she asked, still holding Xu Hao's finger, confused about why they'd suddenly stopped at a hospital.
Xu Yinchen looked at her, then at the bandage on her head, and felt oddly helpless. She was the one who was injured, and yet she was asking about him.
He studied the old, poorly wrapped bandage. "You're injured. You should get it checked and bandaged properly, or it'll get infected."
Only then did it click for her; he'd brought her here. She felt a flicker of embarrassment and touched her head. It didn't hurt as much as before, but it still stung now and then, enough to make her a little dizzy.
"Oh! Thank you, I completely forgot about it."
"Let's go in." Xu Yinchen scooped Xu Hao into his arms, and they headed inside together.
In the doctor's office, the old physician unwound Qin Lian's bandage, checked the wound, and his frown deepened with every second.
"Who did this?" he said, not looking up. "This isn't even the right ointment for this kind of injury. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone wrapped a dish rag around your head and called it a day."
Qin Lian cleared her throat, embarrassed. "It wasn't a doctor. My mother did it."
The doctor's hands stilled. He looked up at her over his glasses. "Your mother."
He said with a frown. "It's been nearly three days since the injury, and you're only coming in now? Do you understand how deep this cut was? A wound like this, left untreated this long, in the worst cases, could've cost you your life."
He shook his head and muttered, almost to himself, "Some mother. I've seen stray dogs get better care than this."
Standing behind her, Xu Yinchen's jaw went tight enough to ache.
He said nothing, but his hand, resting on Xu Hao's back, curled slightly, and when he spoke, his voice came out low and clipped. "It won't happen again."
The doctor glanced at him and gave a short nod, saying nothing more on the matter.
Qin Lian, caught between embarrassment and something warmer she didn't have a name for, stayed quiet.
"I'm surprised you managed with the pain," the doctor went on, returning to the wound. "Did you run a fever at all?"
Qin Lian pressed her lips together. In truth, her old body hadn't survived it at all; that was exactly how she'd ended up in this one.
She nodded instead. "It came once, but after I took the medicine, I felt better. It doesn't hurt much now, just a sharp pain sometimes. And some dizziness."
The doctor sighed and didn't press further. "Thankfully it didn't get infected, and it's healing well."
"I'll have the nurse rebandage it properly. Change the dressing every two days, keep it dry, take the medicine I prescribe. It should heal within a week." He paused, setting down his tools.
"The scar likely won't fade completely. But that's a small price. Nothing worse happened. You're lucky."
Qin Lian nodded and followed the nurse to have her wound redressed.
….
Once they left the hospital, before Qin Lian could say anything, Xu Yinchen spoke first. "Let's eat something before we go to the Qin house for your registration book. You've been running around since morning."
Qin Lian noticed the tightness still sitting in his jaw and wondered if it was about her, but she only nodded. They found a small restaurant near the Qin residence and settled in.
While they ate, Qin Lian didn't hold back; she ordered enough dishes for the whole table and even got dessert for the children. They didn't get outings like this often. It was good to let them enjoy it.
Xu Yinchen didn't mind the spending at all. If anything, he felt something loosen in his chest watching her order without hesitation. At least she wasn't holding herself back from this life anymore.
What man wouldn't be glad, watching his wife and children eat well together?
She was too busy helping children to get the dishes and feeding Xu Hao to notice anything beyond their table at all.
…..
Across the restaurant, a man sat frozen mid-sip, his expression turning rigid the moment he spotted her.
"Isn't that your fiancée over there?" his colleague asked, following his gaze. "What's she doing here with another man? And who are those kids?"
Lin Chengyan's grip tightened around his teacup. This woman really wouldn't stop showing up.
His family had broken the engagement already. He'd heard she'd left the city to marry the old man from the village. So what was she doing back here, in a restaurant two streets from where he lived?
Did she think he was a fool?
"She's not my fiancée," he said flatly, draining his tea in one gulp. "The engagement was broken off. She and I have nothing to do with each other."
"Oh." His colleague's expression turned awkward. He remembered how Qin Lian used to trail after Lin Chengyan everywhere.
She used to come to their office with a lunchbox for him. She even once caused a scene over some woman she'd caught talking to him too long.
Guess it had been the right call, breaking things off after all. How could Lin Chengyan, who came from a respected family, marry a woman like her?
A wife like that would have humiliated the family name at every gathering, every time someone asked whose daughter-in-law she was.
The colleague glanced back at her table. "She looks like a completely different person. I couldn't even recognise her for a moment."
"Is that man her family? And those kids…don't tell me she married someone with children."
Lin Chengyan said nothing, just gave a short hum, not bothering to deny it. His eyes hadn't left the table once.
The colleague blinked, genuinely stunned. He'd never imagined the proud, difficult Qin Lian he remembered marrying a man who already had three kids.
"Well. As long as she's happy." He hesitated. "Did she come here to meet you? Did she know you'd be here?"
Lin Chengyan didn't answer right away. That was exactly the question eating at him.
"I don't care why she's here," he said, sharper than he meant to. "I have nothing to do with her." He stood, tossing a few bills on the table. "Let's go. I don't want to sit here any longer."
His colleague nodded and followed him out.
As they walked toward the door, Lin Chengyan half-expected her to look up, to call out to him, to somehow "accidentally" cross his path; he knew her old tricks too well for that.
There was only one entrance. Her table sat almost directly in front of it. There was no way she hadn't seen him.
She didn't look up once.
Outside, glancing back through the window, he found himself standing still longer than he meant to.
Through the glass, he could see the five of them, her, the man, three children, laughing over their food.
She was smiling, leaning over now and then to feed the smallest boy a spoonful of something and helping the other kids to eat comfortably.
Watching her like that, so at ease, so warmly domestic, felt like looking at a stranger wearing a face he used to know.
A strange, unwelcome feeling settled low in his chest, something that had no business being there, considering he was the one who'd ended things. He told himself it was irritation.
It didn't feel entirely like irritation.
"What's wrong?" his colleague asked, noticing him still staring back at the restaurant. "Forgot something inside?"
Lin Chengyan shook his head, tearing his eyes away. "Go on back to the office. I need to stop by home for something."
It wasn't a lie, exactly. He did need to go home.
He just hadn't decided yet whether it was to forget what he'd just seen, or to find out exactly what she was planning.
His colleague left.
Lin Chengyan stood there a moment longer, watching the restaurant through the glass, before finally turning and walking toward the residential compound, his steps slower than he intended them to be.