Son, “Mom” Will Back You

Her hand, resting on his shoulder, was slender and fair. Looking at it closely, there was a hint of pink from under her nails.

Gu Nian only turned her head and noticed that Luo Xiu was staring at her hand that was resting on his shoulder after she was done fantasizing about her precious son\'s incredible future.

She quickly pulled her hand back and, keeping her hand raised, said, "Sorry, sorry. I forgot that you are a germaphobe."

Luo Xiu glanced over at her. "It\'s fine."

"I won\'t do that again!"

She thought about it some and it seemed that she had crossed that line more than recently. With a guilty conscience, she made promises quickly. "From now on, I won\'t even touch a finger of yours without Mr. Luo Xiu\'s explicit permission. Trust me!"

"It\'s alright. You can touch."

"… Huh?"

Gu Nian turned her head, baffled. She wasn\'t quite sure whether what he said was the same what she was thinking…

"You are a friend of mine, right?" Luo Xiu looked up nonchalantly. His brown eyes smiled a tender and harmless smile under the sun. "And, as we are friends, you can touch me without explicit permission."

"… …"

Gu Nian was dumbfounded for quite a while.

She could touch him as much as she wanted because they were friends? That sounded like it made sense but not really?

Wait.

Did her precious son just say that she was a friend of his?

After she had come around, Gu Nian\'s face blushed from excitement. "Right! Of course Mr. Luo and I are friends!"

Ten thousand little men were cheering at the same time in Gu Nian\'s mind…

She did it! They were friends now!

The say of her becoming his mother wouldn\'t be far then!

The two of them walked over the entrance of the temple side by side.

The girl looked very happy from behind. It looked like she was about to start skipping any minute. She almost had to stop every few steps and wait for the man behind her so he could catch up to her.

Walking next to her and having his back to the sun, Luo Xiu\'s eyes were covered up by the shadow from his bangs and his emotions were hidden.

The girl\'s cheerful voice rang next to him.

"Mr. Luo Xiu, so you don\'t have germophobic problems when you are around friends?"

"Mmhmm."

"That\'s wonderful!"

"Why is that?"

"Because I have always worried that you have that issue when you are around your friends and family and you will resent them or never get close to them. You will have no friends in a long run that way and you will be lonely being by yourself all the time."

"… Mmhmm. I don\'t resent them."

If only Qiao Xi and An Yi have heard that, they would probably snickered at that comment –

No resentment?

Like heck that was true.

***

As the evening drew close.

Gu Nian took Luo Xiu with her to experience the cable car in town.

They took the very last one on the schedule and they were the only two people in the 6-person cabin. Each of them had their own row, facing each other.

The floor of the cable car was made semi-transparent by design so, in the setting sun, they were able to see the green woods getting further and further away from them.

Leaning in the chair and dangling her legs, Gu Nian looked up and out of the window next to her.

The setting sun casted down from the end of the sky and added a fiery-red rims on the clouds there were still remaining in the sky. As the cable car climbed higher and higher, the clouds seemed to be closing in and the was spectacularly colorful.

"It\'s so pretty."

Gu Nian looked at the sky without blinking, her eyes sparkling.

Luo Xiu turned when he heard that and, his sight lingering on Gu Nian for a while, paused.

A few seconds later, looking at the girl\'s slightly reddened eyes, Luo Xiu stiffened a little. "What is wrong?"