When I Meet the Moon - Extra Chapter 5
Extra Finale (Part 2)
3.
When meeting Fu Dongsheng and Chen Jinping for the first time after their marriage, Yun Li moved her lips for a long time before finally whispering, "Dad, Mom."
Fu Shize had never used such a soft, sweet voice to address them, and half of Chen Jinping and Fu Dongsheng's hearts melted instantly.
Yun Li was well-behaved, adorable, and affectionate toward them, practically fulfilling both elderly parents' emotional needs for children.
Chen Jinping frequently bought items for them, having them shipped directly to their home, though almost everything was for Yun Li's use—things like skincare products, cosmetics, and necklaces.
Whenever Fu Shize came home for dinner, he showed no inclination to be affectionate with his parents, which in the eyes of Fu Dongsheng and his wife made him look like a textbook rebellious teenager.
Coupled with the fact that Fu Shize happened to be right in the middle of a major research grant application window, whenever Fu Dongsheng asked him to go out, his own son would invariably turn him down with concise, clipped rejections.
In his office, Fu Shize had just finished typing up a document. Opening his phone, he saw dozens of unread notifications from the family group chat. Frowning slightly, he wondered if something had happened at home.
Dad: [Look at this, son. Lili is flying a kite with your mom and dad.]
Dad: [Look, son, we took our very first group photo of the day.]
Dad: [Son, Lili said this is her original recipe, and the two of us are the very first ones to taste it.]
Dad: [Son, Lili said she's going to bake my birthday cake herself.]
......
Fu Shize tapped out a reply: [Dad, how old are you turning?]
Dad: [?]
Dad: [Even your wife remembers your dad is turning sixty-two, what kind of son are you?]
Mom: [Exactly, exactly.]
Fu Shize: [Oh. If you didn't say anything, I would've thought you were turning six.]
On the other end, having been lightly roasted by Fu Shize, Fu Dongsheng widened eyes that bore a striking seventy to eighty percent resemblance to his son's, looked over at Yun Li, and sighed. "My son has a truly terrible temper. I hope you don't mind."
Yun Li: "......"
When Fu Dongsheng's birthday rolled around, he was currently staying in Nanwu. Yun Li and Fu Shize made a special trip, catching a flight back to Nanwu to celebrate with him.
Facing the prospect of meeting Fu Shize's sprawling extended family for the first time, Yun Li felt a knot of anxiety in her stomach. Upon arriving at the Beishan Maple Forest estate, she spent the better part of a day baking a birthday cake for Fu Dongsheng before retreating to her room to pace back and forth.
Lying on the bed with a languid air, Fu Shize remarked, "No need to be nervous."
"But..." Yun Li groaned in quiet agony, "didn't you say there are over thirty people?"
This was Yun Li's very first time attending such a massive family gathering; the closer it got to dinnertime, the more frantic she felt, wishing she could sprout a pair of wings and fly straight back to Xifu.
Seeing how wound-up Yun Li was, the tension around Fu Shize's brow eased slightly. "Stay close to me later."
She paused, staring at him unblinkingly for a few seconds.
Putting his phone aside and as if struck by a sudden thought, Fu Shize slowly spat out two words: "Actually, no."
Propping himself up slightly, he half-knelt on the mattress, leaned forward, and pulled Yun Li right against his side. "You can stay close to me right now."
Not long after the two of them went downstairs, Fu Shize was immediately swarmed by a pack of young children. Although he was not one for smiles, because he frequently brought the younger generation along to play with robots, he was immensely popular within the family.
Children possessed pure and innocent minds, entirely unlike adults who could keenly pick up on his outward aloofness. Surrounded and besieged by them, the furrow in Fu Shize's brow smoothed out as he cast a helpless look toward Yun Li.
Spotting Xia Congsheng and the others in the distance, Yun Li decided to wander over and say hello, leaving Fu Shize to be escorted upstairs by the cluster of kids.
Midway across the room, a woman approaching fifty years of age reached out affectionately and grabbed her arm. "You must be Zeze's bride, you're Lili, right?"
Hesitating for a split second, Yun Li offered a polite greeting: "Hello, Auntie."
The woman crinkled her eyes into a smile, the fine lines at the corners doing nothing to dampen her bubbling cheer. "Oh, don't call me that! Shize is my first cousin, just call me older sister—it keeps me feeling young."
"......"
Yun Li's head was spinning. Whenever she encountered older people, her instinctive reflex was to address them as uncles and aunts.
Only to discover that these people were, what the hell, all members of her own generation.
Meanwhile, the relatives closest to her in age were practically all her juniors.
The most devastating blow of all occurred while she was chatting with Xia Congsheng.
Xia Congsheng had gotten married the previous year, and at that moment, she was cradling her baby in her arms.
Blinking mischievously at Yun Li, she teased with a half-smile, "Aunt-in-law."
Since they were fairly close, Yun Li chuckled. "Stop teasing me."
The tiny infant raised a finger, babbling and cooing away, prompting Xia Congsheng to speak in a soft, doting voice: "Look, that's your Great-Aunt."
With that, she affectionately nudged the baby closer to Yun Li. "She actually seems to really like you. Want to hold her?"
Yun Li nodded and cautiously scooped the swaddled infant into her arms. As Xia Congsheng continued coaxing the baby—"Great-Aunt is holding you right now, do you like Great-Aunt?"—
It took Yun Li a full moment to process... Great-Aunt?
She was only twenty-four years old, and she was already a great-aunt?!
After the banquet concluded, Yun Li returned to her room and brought up the incident with Fu Shize. Listening to her gloomily lamenting the fact that she had already attained the generational status of a great-aunt, Fu Shize couldn't help laughing softly as he bowed his head to unfasten her jewelry.
Seeing him remain completely unfazed, Yun Li sighed, cupped his chin in her hands, and stared into that flawless face of his with a blank, bewildered look. "Good thing you've got a face that permanently looks twenty-four."
Suddenly sweeping her up into a bridal carry, Fu Shize caught her off guard, prompting her to wrap her arms around his neck in a panic. "What are you doing?"
Lowering his gaze with an expression of supreme, accommodating helpfulness, he murmured, "Allowing you to conduct a physical inspection to verify whether my body is twenty-four as well."
4.
When they ran into Fuzhengchu during the day of the banquet, Fuzhengchu had enthusiastically invited Yun Li and Fu Shize to join him for a game of badminton at the university.
It was a promise to play a match that had been delayed by a few years.
Yun Li readily agreed.
As the day of the game drew close, Bilibili happened to push a recommended video to Yun Li's feed: a compilation of badminton novice bloopers. While Yun Li initially laughed until her stomach hurt, her expression dropped deadpan shortly after.
She could vividly picture herself looking exactly like that when her turn came.
Remembering that both Fu Shize and Fuzhengchu would be watching, an intense surge of survival instinct welled up within Yun Li's chest.
Fu Shize was working overtime at the university, and his badminton rackets were all kept on campus. Practicing her stances against her computer screen while clutching nothing, Yun Li found her hands empty, so she paced around the apartment searching for a substitute for a racket.
After Yun Ye finished his evening self-study session and packed up his school bag to go pick up Yin Yunyi, his phone vibrated. Unlocking the screen, a couple of new messages popped up immediately.
Older Sister: [[Video]]
Older Sister: [Check this out and tell me if my form is standard.]
Yun Ye tapped open the video to find Yun Li holding a wooden spatula, facing the camera and mimicking swing after swing.
Yun Ye: "......"