My whole family is the protagonist, and I am the only cannon fodder!

Xie Huinian is the type of person who never smokes or drinks. He has his own requirements and particularities about the smell and taste of food. What's more, the smell of cigarettes and alcohol is too strong. He doesn't even like to smell it, and the taste on his lips and tongue should be even worse.

He Feng is the kind of person who is very knowledgeable about various types of wine. He often tells him the differences between different types of wine, what they are made of, what methods are used to brew them, how long they take to ferment, how to preserve them afterwards, and what they are mixed with to make the wine taste better. He can explain all of these in detail.

Xie Huinian could smell a slight difference, but he didn't like to drink it. Sometimes He Feng begged him to drink a few sips with him. Xie Huinian would take a few sips symbolically, and always rinse his mouth after drinking. Later, He Feng was too lazy to let him drink with him, and it made him feel sick just by watching him.

Xie Huinian's dislike for this kind of thing wasn't due to any particular demand for excellence from himself, nor was it related to high-sounding phrases like strict self-discipline or self-denial. If he found something he enjoyed, he was quite willing to indulge himself in it.

He didn't need cigarettes or alcohol to relieve his boredom and fatigue. The world was so vast that there were naturally more, better, and more interesting things that automatically extended into Xie Huinian's sight like extended tentacles, for him to choose freely, allowing him to develop greater and broader interests.

But Xie Huinian still reached out to take it and said thank you - that was the day he started smoking.

That was Xie Huinian’s first time smoking, and it was really choking.

So many years had passed that he could no longer distinguish the brand. He only remembered that it was too strong and pungent. He stood on the empty balcony smoking it, the rising smoke choking him so much that he almost doubled over and coughed, and his eyes were smoked red.

Later, Xie Huinian was handed such a cigarette by chance again. When he smoked it, he felt very calm and relaxed, without any unfamiliarity at all.

Lu Zaozao's funeral lasted for several days, and Xie Huinian never mentioned a word in the group chat. He didn't even fly back to Lincheng once during that time. In everyone's eyes, Xie Huinian was glittering, noble, and kind, and they automatically made excuses for his behavior.

It may be that he is busy with official duties and preoccupied with other things, or it may be that he simply cannot remember this person. It would be hypocritical to talk about irrelevant remembrances.

Everyone still wants to portray Xie Huinian as a perfect good person, because he has always been a favored child of destiny who is admired and loved by everyone.

A stranger? Xie Huinian would rather be a completely unknown, unrelated stranger, a complete and estranged one. He no longer cared about this insignificant fate, and every time he thought about it, he suppressed the pain.

But I can’t——

The crooked ring, which was not even the correct size, was still on his hand. He had hardly ever taken it off except for taking a bath or sleeping over the years. He originally wanted to ask Lu Zao Zao for a more suitable ring.

No matter how he tried to persuade, coerce, or act pitiful, he would always ask Lu Zaozao for a better result - there was just such a bad part in him that he would put in all his efforts and efforts to get what he wanted.