Xie Yunli had originally just wanted to come upstairs to take a look, not intending to disturb her, but now avoiding her would obviously seem too deliberate.
Wen Ran had already come out.
Under normal circumstances, she couldn’t maintain eye contact with anyone for more than two seconds, so when she saw Xie Yunli, it was just for an instant before her gaze immediately shifted to the side.
She was still holding a paintbrush in her hand, wearing an apron covered in colorful paint, her long hair braided into two pigtails hanging on either side, making her look like a college student who hadn’t yet left school.
But she completely failed to display the lively emotions of a normal college student.
“Xie, Xie Yunli…”
Her voice still carried that vague childishness, but the three characters “Xie Yunli” sounded much clearer than other words, which made Xie Yunli feel somewhat surprised.
“Are you painting?”
Wen Ran hid the hand holding the paintbrush behind her back, nodding awkwardly: “Painting, I’m painting… Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. At home, you can do whatever you want.”
Xie Yunli looked at her.
A few soft strands of hair fell across her forehead, making her skin appear snow-white.
Although her complexion indeed wasn’t very good, that delicate face seemed unchanged from several years ago.
He said: “I… was passing by here and thought I’d drop in for dinner.”
Wen Ran nodded. She didn’t know what to say, struggling for a long moment before opening her mouth: “Are you, are you well? Is work very busy? The food outside… doesn’t it taste good?”
Having said three sentences in one go made her breathing somewhat rapid, and she accidentally dropped her paintbrush to the ground, then hurriedly bent down to pick it up.
Xie Yunli was quicker than her, picking up the paintbrush from the ground and handing it to her.
“Thank you.”
Wen Ran carefully took the paintbrush, immediately gripping it tightly with both hands.
She lowered her head slightly, looking at the ground, hearing Xie Yunli say: “Work is very busy, but I’m well. The food outside… most of it doesn’t taste good, but there are some good places too.”
The magnetic voice characteristic of a mature man, neither fast nor slow in pace, every word very clear.
Unlike her, who needed great effort to speak each word used for expression completely.
Wen Ran bit her lip and didn’t speak again.
“Go wash your hands and come down for dinner.”
Wen Ran nodded, watching in her peripheral vision as he turned and walked down the stairs step by step.
She breathed a sigh of relief, feeling somewhat annoyed yet nervous, because she would soon have to go downstairs and eat dinner with Xie Yunli.
What was Xie Yunli to her?
When she still didn’t quite understand what marriage represented, she had agreed to Xie Yunli’s proposal following her mother’s dying wish, so she had changed from being someone’s daughter to being a man’s wife.
But Xie Yunli had always been a stranger to her, distant, unreachable, even confusing.
She didn’t know why Xie Yunli would want to marry her, nor did she know how to get along with him.
As someone with autism, she would reject contact with any strangers. Often, she couldn’t understand others’ emotions, much less clearly express her own thoughts.
To her, Xie Yunli was also a stranger who had suddenly appeared in her life and suddenly imposed upon her such a confusing layer of marital relationship.
During the ten-plus years when her mother was still alive, they had spent a very long time helping her gradually adapt to this world, but that world had her father, mother, and Aunt Zhu in it, so it was a world she could adapt to.
But now, this world no longer had her father and mother, yet it had an additional Xie Yunli.
She didn’t know what to do, yet had no choice but to face it.
It was very distressing.
Fortunately, Xie Yunli didn’t come to this house often.
Situations like coming twice within a short period were rare.
Perhaps it was because the food outside really didn’t taste as good as home cooking?
When Aunt Zhu brought over the dishes, Wen Ran had already changed out of her painting clothes and was properly dressed in a clean dress.
“Ranran, will you have rice?”
Wen Ran shook her head. Aunt Zhu put the prepared vegetables and eggs on her plate, while giving Xie Yunli different food.
“You only eat these?”
Xie Yunli looked at the plate in front of Wen Ran. He had only seen children eat like this, with each type of food neatly arranged in the small compartments of the plate.
Aunt Zhu said: “Yes, Ranran is rather picky about food.”
Wen Ran hurriedly said: “Being picky… is a bad habit. I… I shouldn’t be picky.”
Aunt Zhu quickly said: “No, no, no, it’s fine. Just eat what you like. Mr. Xie won’t mind.”
Fortunately, Xie Yunli understood Aunt Zhu’s meaningful look and said: “I don’t mind.”
Xie Yunli didn’t sit across from her or beside her, but rather two seats away at an angle, so that neither would they face each other directly nor would they be too close, maintaining a distance she could accept.
Aunt Zhu handed the spoon to Wen Ran, encouragingly patting her shoulder and saying quietly: “Don’t be nervous. Just eat like you normally do. Mr. Xie won’t mind.”
Although this was said, Wen Ran still felt somewhat uncomfortable. While eating, her hands couldn’t help trembling slightly, and she nearly dropped her spoon on the table several times.
She stared at the plate in front of her, then suddenly spoke haltingly: “When you eat outside… do you chat? Do you talk? If you do, you can tell me. I will… listen carefully.”
Xie Yunli paused in his movement of picking up food, looking at her with surprise.
Wen Ran held her spoon in one hand and a rice ball in the other, her eyes constantly shifting, not looking at him.
But from her straight back and the way she gripped her spoon tightly, one could tell she was truly earnestly waiting for his ‘conversation.’
Aunt Zhu also looked at Xie Yunli with great delight, signaling him to speak for Wen Ran to hear, anything would do.
But don’t expect a response to every sentence. She could only guarantee that she would listen very carefully, not necessarily being able to respond.
Xie Yunli paused for a moment. He was busy with work every day, and even during his free time after work, he inevitably had to reply to messages on his phone, rarely doing other things.
“Have you heard of Binhai Park? I used to go jogging there in the mornings and saw many students sketching. Since you love painting so much, maybe you could go take a look when you have the chance. It’s autumn now, and the scenery is quite nice…”
He didn’t say much, and she didn’t respond, but anyone could see that she was indeed listening very carefully. Except for the lack of eye contact, her attentive state was like that of a good student listening to a teacher’s lecture.
With no outsiders present, there wasn’t really any awkward atmosphere.
After dinner ended, Xie Yunli picked up his coat and prepared to leave. Aunt Zhu suddenly called out to him at the door: “Mr. Xie, although it’s not very important… I still think it’s better to tell you about something.”
Xie Yunli: “Go ahead.”
“It’s now seven-thirty.”
Aunt Zhu looked at the clock on the wall: “We started dinner at seven. Do you know what this means?”
Xie Yunli frowned: “What do you mean?”
Aunt Zhu took a deep breath and said: “For Ranran, the concept of time is very important. What time she gets up each day, what time she goes to sleep, what time she eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all fixed. This isn’t what we commonly call ordinary obsessive-compulsive disorder, but rather her own rules. As you know, autism is different from others. They have some so-called pathological states, such as repetitive behaviors, strange ritualistic habits, repetitive language, and so on. But these behaviors that seem pathological to others are actually their special way of adapting to a world that has too much information overload for them. They are born with neurological deficits, so this world is too complex for them. If their own rules are disrupted, then they easily fall into anxiety and confusion… Most of this I learned from books, and some is my own understanding. So I’ve never treated Ranran as a sick child. She’s just very special.”
Aunt Zhu didn’t know if saying these things was right or wrong, but she blurted it all out anyway: “What I want to say is, Ranran has never changed her dinner time, not even when she was still with her own parents. If she missed dinner, she would never eat it again. But today, she moved dinner up by half an hour. At seven o’clock, she should have been cleaning up her art supplies.”
Xie Yunli was stunned for a moment.
He certainly understood what she meant.
Wen Ran always had dinner at seven-thirty, but today he came early, and she had dinner with him early.
She had broken rules she had never broken before, even though changing those rules would make her feel physically uncomfortable.
“She was afraid you’d be hungry and specially came to the kitchen to quietly urge me, saying not to eat at seven-thirty today, but to start at seven.”
Aunt Zhu said sincerely: “Thank you, Mr. Xie. This is rare for her, having dinner with someone else.”
Xie Yunli was silent for a long moment, nodded, and said nothing more.
After watching Xie Yunli leave, Aunt Zhu came back to see Wen Ran sitting on the sofa in a daze.
When she was lost in thought, Aunt Zhu generally wouldn’t disturb her, just like when she was little.
But today Aunt Zhu walked over and sat beside her.
“Ranran, are you unhappy?”
Wen Ran hesitated for a moment and said: “Why… would I be unhappy? Is there something that would make me unhappy?”
Aunt Zhu said: “We didn’t eat dinner on time today.”
Wen Ran shook her head and said: “It doesn’t… matter.”
Aunt Zhu: “Ranran doesn’t feel uncomfortable?”
Wen Ran shook her head and said: “No.”
Aunt Zhu smiled and said: “That’s wonderful. You had dinner early for Mr. Xie’s sake. This shows you’re being considerate of others. We should be happy about this.”
Wen Ran tilted her head: “Such a trivial… thing, does it require happiness too?”
She had difficulty understanding complex emotions, and she couldn’t understand others’ jokes or lies because she couldn’t grasp the meaning behind them.
Even if forced to integrate into a group, she would still be the odd one out.
Looking at her innocent, beautiful face, Aunt Zhu sighed, feeling both heartache and helplessness.
But she still believed that even if Wen Ran could never express her emotions freely like ordinary people, and even if she could never understand others’ complex language, someday she would truly understand the meaning of happiness and know what ‘love’ represented.
However, Aunt Zhu also felt that Xie Yunli wasn’t the right person for Wen Ran. Even though he took reasonably good care of Wen Ran in daily life, what was the point of a marriage lacking companionship?
No matter how she looked at it, Xie Yunli didn’t seem like someone with the patience to stay by her side.
After all, he was a self-made businessman. When Aunt Zhu first met him, she felt this man had a fierce and ruthless streak in his bones. His gentle refinement was merely surface-level.
So she didn’t hold too much hope for him. That he could come to see Wen Ran was already quite good.
As for how things would go between the two of them in the future, they’d just have to take it one step at a time.
“Aunt Zhu, I want to go see Kaka tomorrow.”
Wen Ran said: “Is that okay? Aunt Zhu… can you come with me?”
“Of course, Auntie will go with you.”
Going to the animal rescue center meant taking at least an hour-long car ride. Wen Ran had never been able to travel in moving vehicles for too long. The first time she rode in a car as a child, she cried nonstop, screamed in terror when the car braked, and vomited profusely after getting out.
After growing up, she had adapted somewhat to car rides, but long journeys still made her very uncomfortable.
Public transportation and subways were even more out of the question. The overly noisy human voices were absolutely unbearable for her, so after much consideration, Aunt Zhu decided to rent a car.