Wife, who?

Xu Wei had never been a family man.

In his old life, the closest thing he had to a meaningful connection was his regular customers at the bar. People who came and went, faces he recognized but never got attached to.

But now?

He was waking up to the same two kids and one exhausted CEO every day.

And for some reason, it didn't bother him as much as it should.

It started with small things.

Xinyi no longer hesitated before sitting next to him on the couch.

Yichen would grunt in acknowledgment when Xu Wei asked how school was—still distant, but no longer hostile.

Zhihao?

Well, Zhihao was still Zhihao. Stoic, unreadable, always drowning in work.

But lately, he lingered.

When Xu Wei spoke at dinner, he actually listened.

When Xu Wei joked, sometimes—just sometimes—Zhihao's lips twitched.

It wasn't much.

But it was something.

And that was how, somehow, without even realizing it—Xu Wei became part of their lives.

One night, Xu Wei walked into the kitchen for a midnight snack and froze.

Zhihao was there.

In sweatpants and a plain shirt, hair slightly tousled.

Xu Wei blinked. "Oh. So you do own casual clothes."

Zhihao gave him a look but didn't comment.

Xu Wei grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge. "You ever sleep?"

"When I can," Zhihao said simply, leaning against the counter.

Xu Wei studied him. The dark circles under his eyes weren't as bad as before. Probably because Xu Wei had forced him to take breaks lately.

"Y'know," Xu Wei said, tapping the milk carton, "if you dropped dead from exhaustion, I'd have to explain that to the kids. And I'd really rather not."

Zhihao exhaled. "Why do you care?"

Xu Wei paused.

For once, he didn't have a quick answer.

Why did he care?

He wasn't supposed to.

This wasn't his real family.

He wasn't really Jiang Yurong.

And yet…

He thought about Xinyi crawling into his bed, slowly trusting him.

He thought about Yichen dropping his guard, even if just a little.

He thought about Zhihao, always carrying everything alone.

And suddenly, the answer was obvious.

"Because you're all I've got now," Xu Wei said.

Zhihao's gaze sharpened.

A long silence stretched between them.

Then, finally, Zhihao spoke.

"That's not true," he said quietly. "You just haven't figured out what you really want yet."

Xu Wei's fingers curled around the milk carton.

Something in his chest itched.

He didn't like it.

So, instead of responding, he turned and walked away.

Because if he stayed any longer, he might have had to admit it.

That, somehow, without meaning to—this family had become his.

And that realization scared him more than anything else ever had.