"Tingting?" repeated Liu Xinyu.
Yi Qin looked at her and smiled softly when he answered, "Zhang Yating. My girlfriend. My love. Do you know, we were an envious couple in high school."
"Your high school allows dating?" asked Liu Xinyu with a strange tone.
"No, they don't. But we weren't dating at that time either. In fact, it was only after graduation that I asked her out. However, even if we weren't dating in high school, we were pretty close. Everyone could see that we both had feelings for each other but we wanted to focus on school too. That was such a sweet time," he seemed to be reminiscing about the time he spent in high school. "Since neither of us poked through the paper window, there was some ambiguity between us too. I quite enjoyed that period of time. We made so many memories together. Even if those memories were made as just friends, they are very precious to me."
"Those memories are precious because now, the times have changed," was Liu Xinyu's very unbiased opinion. In fact, she was very casual about seeing her young father being in love with another woman. After coming to terms with the fact that she time-traveled to the past rather than an alternate reality, one thing was confirmed. This was the past of her parents.
So, even if she did nothing and stayed still, her parents would still end up together. She had to do literally nothing. She didn't think she was sent here with the mission of making her parents fall in love. That was a joke!
She was also a girl from the modern era, and being in that era, it was impossible not to come across novels or dramas with the theme of transmigration, rebirth, or even time-traveling. Liu Xinyu who wasn't really a big consumer of this genre, still had some ideas. For instance, she could remember a drama she watched where the protagonist never knew who his father was so one day after an accident, he found himself in the past and found that his young mother had two suitors. It was up to him to find out who was really his father between the two.
There was another drama where the protagonist went back to the past to fix the broken marriage of his parents.
Liu Xinyu did not have such purposes. Why change the past when she didn't think that the future was bad? Yes, she was lost but that was her own problem, right? What did it have to do with the past of her parents? She wasn't even a part of this past, so how could it really affect her?
That's why Liu Xinyu was being very open-minded about her father's first love. If he didn't go through this experience, how would he become her father in the future? She'd like to keep her distance from her parents' story until or unless something threatens her future existence.
"Times have really changed now," was Yi Qin's response as he looked at the wristband he wore with a complicated look in his eyes. "We aren't ignorant kids anymore. We have to work on our futures."
"Have you ever envisioned your future?" asked Liu Xinyu. "What does it look like in your mind?"
Yi Qin smiled happily as he shared with her, "I want to design a house and then I'd propose to Yating. My draft is almost done. I'll show it to Yating on her birthday to make her happy. She is working really hard these days, there is a high chance she'll be promoted by the end of the year. I'll propose to her on her promotion day. I'll throw her a party and call all her colleagues and friends and propose to her right in front of them. We'd have a grand wedding. I have already picked out the wedding dress designer. It's a famous designer from Italy. She makes the most gorgeous wedding gowns. I think my Tingting will look amazing in a wedding dress. Oh, we should have two kids because one would be too lonely. One boy and one girl. I don't mind both girls too. I'd support her so that she can excel in her career and achieve everything she wants. We will have a small but warm family."
Okay, it seemed Liu Xinyu was not as open-minded about her young father's first love as she was convincing herself to be. Just listening to his expectations about their future together made her so uncomfortable. She clenched her hand under the table as she forced a smile on her face.
It took her a moment to calm down before she spoke again, "And where are you in that future?"
"Huh?" Yi Qin was dumbfounded by her question. "Aren't I there? I just told you."
"Your vision of the future is all about Zhang Yating. Her career, her happiness, her comfort, her likes, her dislikes, everything is about her. I don't see you there. Isn't it, your future? Why are you taking the backstage then?"
"Why does it matter?" he asked strangely. "As long as my partner is happy, I am happy."
"I understand it now," said Liu Xinyu.
"What?"
"You're too accommodating," answered Liu Xinyu. "Rather than putting yourself first, you like to put the person you love first. Nothing is wrong with that. But, from what you earlier said, I understood one thing clearly. While you are placing Zhang Yating first, is she also giving you the same place in her heart or in her life? Because I don't see it that way. It's good to be understanding of your partner, but sometimes, it's not that good to be understanding either. Isn't it making you already feel uncomfortable that your girlfriend didn't understand you? I believe the reason you came back early today was because she had more important things to do than to spend time with you. You, who is not ambitious enough. You, who is just daydreaming like a child rather than focusing on your career."
Those words really struck a chord and it really hurt Yi Qin. He didn't think he said too much but somehow, she was able to see everything very clearly. He didn't know what he was feeling right now at being seen through like this. He always got prickly when Nan Xing saw through his thoughts but he couldn't even muster a little bit of that frustration around Liu Xinyu.
"I don't think I'm doing anything wrong though," he mumbled in a small voice.
Liu Xinyu raised her brows at his behavior before nodding her head, "As long as you are happy. My opinions or others don't matter. It's your life. Whether it's good or bad, only you'd know." She took a pause before adding, "But there is a famous saying where I come from. We as humans tend to choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven. Because a familiar hell is comfortable. So what if it's just a vicious cycle consuming our vitality slowly? As long as we feel safe in that hell, nothing else matters."
Yi Qin went silent and drank his coffee in silence while pondering her words over and over again in his head. Although he believed her words were true, he still felt like those words had nothing to do with him. He wasn't stuck in a vicious cycle. He could never be.
Thinking of something, he looked up at her again and asked, "What about you? What does your future look like in your mind?"
"Mine?" she repeated as she tilted her head a little. "It's blank."
"What?"
"It's blank," she answered him. "My future had always been like a blank piece of paper. My father says, why focus on the future when you can live in the present? Rather than wasting time thinking about the unknown future, I'd rather focus on writing my present. So, today... No, this very moment is all I know. I'm just living in this moment. Just a while ago, I didn't think I'd be sitting here eating a cake but aren't I here? Just like that, I don't know what I'd be doing next. I never made too elaborate plans in life. If I did that, I'd have really been stuck in the quagmire unable to come out and stand tall over and over again."