A Summer’s Sweet Offering: Chapter 14

Little Lu Jin’s clear eyes quietly studied her face, as if trying to decide whether to believe her or not.The word “girlfriend” was still far too early for a six-year-old heart to comprehend.Xia Zhen swallowed her urge to tease him further. Instead, she gently rubbed his cold hands between her palms and asked with a warm smile, “How old are you this year?”

His fingers were icy at first, but slowly, under her warmth, sensation returned.It had been so long since someone had smiled at him like that. Gradually, the chill left his small body. Even his ears turned red with heat. In a shy, almost embarrassed voice, he replied, “Six years old.”

The way he lowered his gaze, trying to appear composed, was unbearably adorable.Xia Zhen kept reminding herself not to behave like some strange overenthusiastic aunt—she absolutely could not traumatize him for life. Restraining her impulse to pinch his cheeks, she carefully lifted him into her arms.“It’s too cold here,” she murmured. “If you stay out any longer, you’ll get sick. Chronic illnesses are terrible—they linger and make everything harder.”

At that, his small body stiffened slightly. He wanted to say that he couldn’t leave, that his parents might come looking for him. But the words caught in his throat.He already knew they wouldn’t.Quietly, he buried his face into the hollow of her neck. He said nothing.A warmth touched her skin—moist, fragile.Xia Zhen didn’t force him to lift his head. She simply pressed a soft kiss to his hair. “I came to find you,” she whispered. “You’re not alone.”

The boy’s body tightened. His eyes widened where she couldn’t see them, mist gathering silently. He didn’t move—perhaps he was afraid that if he did, she would disappear.She chuckled softly and stroked his downy hair. “Let’s go somewhere warm.”Snow continued to fall outside. His health was already poor. If they stayed any longer, she was certain he would fall ill.

In the original storyline (the narrative world she came from), Lu Jin would suffer a severe illness at eighteen—years of neglect, hidden conditions, and frailty finally catching up to him. If not for his stubborn will to live, he might not even have survived that long.At the entrance to the residential compound stood a small guardhouse. The light inside glowed warmly against the snowy darkness. The door was ajar. No one was inside. A wooden sign on the desk read: “On Patrol.”

The heated room felt like another world entirely, separated from the freezing night outside by more than just a door. Xia Zhen set him down carefully on a chair. Then she removed her coat and wrapped it around his thin shoulders. Enveloped in the lingering warmth of her body and scent, he hardly dared breathe too loudly. His eyes grew brighter and brighter as he stared at her, afraid that blinking might make her vanish.

She crouched in front of him. “Are you still cold?”He shook his head.She touched his face again, making sure warmth had returned before finally relaxing. “Little Lu Jin, you have to be smarter than this. It’s so cold outside. You’ll get sick easily. If you get sick, you’ll suffer—and I’ll suffer too. That doesn’t benefit you at all, understand?”He nodded slowly. “I understand.” His voice was soft, obedient.

She leaned forward until their foreheads gently touched. “You must protect yourself.”After a moment, he asked quietly, “Didn’t my future self protect himself?”Her brows lifted in surprise. “Why do you ask that?”

“You said you’re my future girlfriend.”She couldn’t help laughing softly. “Do you even know what a girlfriend is?”The little boy reached for her hand with innocent determination. “If I can hold your hand, then you’re my girlfriend.”His hand was so small—barely enough to wrap around her fingers. He seemed to realize this. His lips pressed together in concentration. Then he used both hands to hold just one of hers, as if that would make it more convincing.

In that tiny gesture was a strange, stubborn seriousness.Xia Zhen’s heart melted completely. She slipped into childishness along with him. “That’s right. If you can hold my hand, I’m your girlfriend. So you’re not allowed to hold any other girl’s hand. Not even the girls in kindergarten.”Little Lu Jin nodded solemnly, as if accepting a sacred oath. “Okay. I understand.”Though only a child, he tried so hard to appear mature and steady.

Xia Zhen couldn’t endure it any longer. She pulled him into a tight embrace, her voice bursting with excitement. “Little Lu Jin, you are so, so, so cute!”A blush spread across his pale cheeks, finally giving his face some color. For a fleeting moment, he looked like a healthy child instead of one carved from snow.When her laughter softened, she lowered her voice. “The future you… because you don’t care about your health at all, ends up very weak. It worries me terribly.”

He looked up at her immediately. “I won’t let you worry.”Her laughter returned, gentler this time. “You have to take good care of yourself. I know it’s not easy in your family right now… but I’ll tell you a secret.”She leaned closer, as if sharing something sacred. “When you turn eighteen, you’ll get into the best university. You’ll leave the Lu family. You’ll earn a lot of money on your own. You’ll live very, very well.”

Light slowly gathered in the boy’s eyes.“So…” Her brows curved tenderly. “Never give up, Lu Jin. In the future, you’ll be very happy. Everyone will envy you. There will be no one happier in this world than you.”Her words were like a seed, pressing deep into the soil of his fragile heart—planting hope where only snow had been.He didn’t yet know how to name the feeling swelling inside him. It was as if she had handed him a treasure known only to the two of them—a secret shared in the quiet of the night.

After a long pause, he asked softly, “Can you stay?”Her smile faltered. “No.”Even though she had known that answer all along, saying it still hurt.

“I’ll wait for you in the future,” she said gently.Silence stretched between them.

“You won’t lie to me, will you?”

“I won’t lie to you.”

She didn’t know how much longer she could remain here. Holding him close, she patted his back lightly. “I’ll leave after you fall asleep.”He nestled deeper into her embrace and murmured a faint “Mmm.” His eyelashes trembled, but eventually, exhaustion overcame him. He closed his eyes.When he was fully asleep, Xia Zhen carefully laid him on the small bed in the guardhouse lounge. She wrote a short note to the guards, asking them to look after the child, then returned to tuck her coat securely around him.

Leaning down, she pressed a gentle kiss to his snowy-white hair.“See you in the future.”The light flickered.The girl vanished.The boy’s eyes opened.He reached out instinctively, trying to grab the coat that still seemed to carry her warmth and scent—but his fingers closed around nothing. The coat had disappeared with her.He curled into himself, small hands clutching empty air.

His eyes reddened quietly in the darkness.

Around ten in the morning, Xia Zhen was still fast asleep when her phone rang sharply beside her pillow, dragging her out of her dreams.On the other end was Xia Yu. His voice was calm, but beneath it simmered restrained anger.“What do they mean by saying you’re not home?”He had left early that morning for a business trip. On weekends, Xia Zhen always slept in until ten, so he had never made a habit of waking her before leaving. Only after boarding his flight did he receive a call from the villa.They told him the young lady had left a note—she couldn’t sleep in a new bed, so she had gone to the smaller house near the school.

The moment he heard that, he called her.Xia Zhen rubbed her eyes, still half-asleep, and replied lazily, “It means I’m not home.”

“You’ll go back immediately,” Xia Yu said, each word clipped. “I’ll have Uncle Zhao pick you up.”

“No.”His patience thinned. “Xia Zhen.” He rarely used her full name. “Go back.”“I don’t want to!” She sniffled suddenly, her voice turning pitiful. “When I open my eyes, I’m faced with such a huge house. It’s so empty. There’s no sign of Dad anywhere. It just makes me feel even lonelier.”There was a pause.

“…What did you say?”

She sobbed harder. “A smaller house makes me feel safer. Even if I live in a big villa, if there’s no family around… Dad would never understand that kind of loneliness!”Silence stretched across the line.She sniffed again for good measure.Finally, Xia Yu said, “I’ll have Aunt Fang go stay with you.”

—

In a high-rise conference room in another city, the atmosphere had been tense moments before—like a volcano waiting to erupt. Yet when Xia Yu put down his phone, the fury that had hovered around him dissolved. He seemed as gentle as a breeze after rain.He turned to the man beside him. “Mr. Zhang, you have a daughter in high school, correct?”
Mr. Zhang nodded. “Yes, first year.”

Xia Yu asked calmly, “Does your daughter feel lonely when you travel for business?”Mr. Zhang laughed. “Lonely? When she was little, she begged me to hug her. Now that she’s grown up, she barely looks at me. As long as I give her enough pocket money, I could disappear for six months and she wouldn’t notice.”

Someone else chimed in, relieved to speak. “I thought it was just my daughter like that!”

“Exactly! One minute they complain about the smell of cigarettes on their dad, the next it’s the smell of his shoes. If our toothbrushes even touch, they act like it’s a disaster!”

“They’re busy chasing celebrities online all day (a common Chinese teenage hobby, often involving idol fandom culture and obsessive online support), but their old fathers? Completely ignored.”The room shifted. These powerful executives, most balding and dignified, now looked like ordinary middle-aged men complaining about their daughters.

Xia Yu lifted his teacup, took a slow sip, and set it down with a soft click.The room fell instantly silent.Everyone realized they might have overstepped. They watched him cautiously.

“My daughter,” Xia Yu said evenly, “is also quite immature.”They waited.“I’m only going on a short business trip,” he continued quietly, “and she cries because she feels lonely.”The room froze.

Xia Yu frowned slightly. “Such a troublesome child.”General Manager Zhang recovered first, laughing heartily. “Mr. Xia is joking. Miss Xia just doesn’t want you to leave because she’s attached to you.”“Yes, that shows you have a very good relationship!”“If it were my daughter, she’d cry if her idol sprained an ankle, but if I were hospitalized, she might not shed a tear!”…That wasn’t necessarily true.Xia Yu said nothing. Instead, he silently picked up his phone and transferred another sum of money to Xia Zhen.

—

Back at the small apartment, Xia Zhen had just received the bank notification when Aunt Fang arrived.Aunt Fang had taken care of her for years and genuinely couldn’t understand why Xia Zhen had suddenly abandoned the luxurious villa to stay here.While eating lunch, Xia Zhen suddenly heard a door open across the hallway.

She glanced toward the kitchen—Aunt Fang was still busy—then quietly crept to the door. Through the peephole, she saw the Lu family: the husband, the wife, and Lu Ci.They were laughing together. Lu Ci was holding three movie tickets.A perfectly happy family of three.

“Miss?”

Xia Zhen, still holding her rice bowl and standing guard by the door like a suspicious sentry, froze awkwardly. She turned around with an embarrassed smile. “Eating while standing helps digestion.”Aunt Fang looked utterly confused.

—

After lunch, Xia Zhen coaxed Aunt Fang to take a nap. She insisted she didn’t need help, and Aunt Fang, being older, quickly grew drowsy on the sofa. After reminding Xia Zhen several times to call if she needed anything, Aunt Fang finally went to her room.Xia Zhen waited.When she was certain Aunt Fang had fallen asleep, she slipped out like a thief and knocked on her neighbor’s door.

No response.Was he sleeping?She knocked again. This time, she heard a faint kitten’s meow from inside. Her heart tightened. Had something happened?Just as she considered calling building management, the door opened.

“Zhenzhen.”

He tried to sound calm. But the moment she saw him—his face even paler than usual—she knew something was wrong.She hurried inside and cupped his face. “What’s wrong?”He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“Are you feeling unwell?” Anxiety trembled in her voice. His fragile appearance pulled her straight back to that snowy night in her memory. She felt both panic and anger. “Don’t endure it! Tell me—does something hurt?”Cold sweat dampened his forehead. He clearly was not fine.
Her concern dissolved the last trace of coolness in his tone. He took her hand gently. “I’m really fine.”

She glared at him. “Do you want to see me cry?”He was speechless.Her eyes were indeed reddening.Finally, he gave in. “It’s just a stomachache. Nothing serious.”She had never experienced one herself, but she could imagine the discomfort. “Wait for me!”Before he could stop her, she dashed back to her apartment, filled a cup with warm water, and ran back.

She pressed it into his hands. “Drink.”Without argument, he obediently drank most of it.

“I’ll go downstairs and buy medicine.”Suddenly, her arm was tugged sharply. She stumbled and fell onto his lap. Afraid of pressing on his leg and worsening his pain, she glared at him. “What are you doing?!”The remaining water spilled, soaking her skirt.

He lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. His voice softened. “I don’t need medicine. Just stay with me.”His pale eyes curved faintly, as though smiling.His body was in pain—but his heart was brimming with warmth.

Was he delirious?He guided her hand and placed it over his abdomen, where the pain pulsed beneath his thin shirt.

“Zhenzhen… rub it for me.”

The usual chill in his voice had melted away. What remained was unconscious tenderness—a low murmur that sounded almost like a plea, almost like coquettish dependence.Her ears tingled. A shiver ran along her scalp.

Since when had this boy become so dangerously alluring?

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