For the next two days, Su Rui and Li Kai lived almost like a real mother and son.
At seven o'clock in the morning, just as sunlight crept past the window frame, the aroma of soy milk drifted from the kitchen.
"Time to get up. If you don't, you'll be late,"
she called softly as she knocked on his door—her voice gentle, yet carrying an unshakable firmness.
On the dining table sat a breakfast still steaming—golden, crispy fried dough sticks, a sweet, soft rice ball, and a cup of freshly blended hot soy milk.
The boy rubbed his eyes as he sat down, and with the first sip of soy milk, his eyes narrowed slightly in quiet satisfaction.
Watching him, Su Rui felt a faint warmth in her chest.
It had been a long time since she'd felt such calm and steadiness in her mornings.
Though she wasn't his mother, she couldn't explain why—every time she looked at Li Kai, there was an inexplicable closeness in her bones, as if some invisible mark had been carved in her heart long ago.
Over breakfast, they would talk about small, ordinary things—not only Lin Yueying's past, but also bits of neighborhood gossip, and even the girl Li Kai secretly had a crush on in his class.
Whenever she teased him with mock seriousness, he would feign annoyance, yet the tips of his ears would quietly flush red.
All these years, Li Kai had never spent this much time with his "mother."
They would walk side by side along the field paths in the golden hour, watching rice stalks sway in the wind; sometimes they'd stop by the corner shop to buy two bottles of soda and chat as they walked.
The feeling of being accompanied like this—perhaps not perfect, but far better than the emptiness he'd known before.
At night, Su Rui would sit at his bedside and tell him stories in a gentle voice.
More often than not, he would be asleep before the story ended, his breathing deep and even.
His face in sleep, brows and eyes relaxed, seemed to shed all his defenses—and that sight made Su Rui's heart settle, too.
She sighed softly. This child must have suffered plenty when he was little.
Looking closer, she noticed that the set of his brows bore a faint resemblance to her own original face.
Suddenly, Li Kai turned over in his sleep, and a faint, muffled word slipped from his lips—
"Mom…"
That single word was like a soft knock against her heart, tender enough to make her nose sting.
Her gaze drifted without meaning to, and a long-buried image began to surface in her mind—
those were the days she had spent in a foster family.
A time she had never spoken of to anyone, now quietly rising to the surface…