Brian Carter still spoke in that unhurried tone, “I really do have something to do.”

“Then tell me, what is it?”

Brian Carter didn’t answer.

The unfamiliar old man said, “See, you just don’t want to go.”

Alice Grant walked down the stairs, the sound of her footsteps catching the old man’s attention. He turned his head curiously and saw Alice Grant coming down the stairs.

Since there were only Brian Carter’s clothes in the house, after showering yesterday, Alice Grant was wearing one of Brian Carter’s shirts and a pair of oversized boxers—plain, old-fashioned boxers and a shirt, the kind only a pedantic scholar would wear. Not only did they not fit, but Alice Grant had made them look all wrinkled.

She looked as if she had just gotten out of bed, not even wearing shoes, barefoot, which left the unfamiliar old man dumbfounded. He stared in surprise for quite a while before turning to his old neighbor and saying, “Old Jiang, how come there’s a young lady in your house?” Then he seemed to realize something, “Oh, she must be a relative’s child, right? That’s rare. I’ve never seen any of your relatives come to stay before.”

Brian Carter didn’t know what to say. He got up and brought a pair of slippers for Alice Grant to wear.

The unfamiliar old man watched with amusement, and suddenly saw the young lady put on the slippers Brian Carter brought her, then step forward and give Brian Carter a kiss on the cheek.

“Hello, my name is Alice Grant, I’m his wife,” the young lady said.

Chapter 3

Henry Clark had lived in the Tongshu Community for over ten years, and had known Brian Carter for about as long. They had always gotten along well. Unlike his own children and attentive wife, this neighbor, Mr. Carter, was truly a solitary man. For more than a decade, except for the occasional visit from former students during the holidays, his home was always quiet and lonely.

Henry Clark knew a bit about his old friend’s situation: an only child, parents passed away early, had a wife when he was young, but she seemed to have died, and he never remarried. Now, at his age, he didn’t even have a child. Both Henry Clark and his wife were cheerful and open-hearted people. After learning about this, they often invited Brian Carter over for meals and would ask him out to go fishing.

As for Brian Carter’s character, Henry Clark trusted him completely. In his words, Mr. Carter was a man of outstanding character, upright and self-disciplined, with absolutely no issues of impropriety.

But today, witnessing this scene with his own eyes, Henry Clark began to doubt—doubt his own eyes. He didn’t immediately suspect that Old Jiang was up to something improper, but rather wondered if he was just getting old and his eyesight was failing, or if he was ill and hallucinating.

With Old Nie falling silent, the living room became even quieter. Alice Grant glanced down at her slippers, then at the frozen Brian Carter, and asked with a straight face, “Can’t I kiss my own husband?”

Brian Carter was stunned by her kiss, his glasses askew, but he quickly regained his composure, stepped back to adjust his glasses, coughed awkwardly, and didn’t answer her question. He glanced at the dumbfounded neighbor, Old Nie, and gently said to Alice Grant, “There’s breakfast in the kitchen, it’s still hot. Go eat something first.”

Watching Alice Grant head to the dining room for breakfast, Brian Carter turned his attention back to Henry Clark and sat down in front of him. Old Nie, realizing something was off, rubbed his eyes and found it wasn’t a hallucination, so he asked seriously, “Old Jiang, what’s going on? Who is this young lady to you?”

Brian Carter was silent for a moment. “She’s my… wife.”

“The same wife I married forty-one years ago.” He calmly explained the matter of time travel.

“What?!” Old Nie, who had already imagined Old Jiang’s late-life scandal, was stunned by this unexpected turn. He thought for a moment and realized the name ‘Alice Grant’ sounded familiar, and soon recalled something.

Old Jiang rarely spoke of his late wife. The first time Old Nie heard about her was a few years ago when they were drinking together. One of Old Jiang’s students had won a big award, and in his happiness, Old Jiang drank a bit too much and, while drunk, mentioned the name Alice Grant.

He had cried as he spoke—this was a man who never frowned at any difficulty, but when talking about his wife who died young, he couldn’t hold back his tears.

Thinking of this, Henry Clark felt a surge of emotion and didn’t know what to say. He took a while to process it, glanced at the faint figure in the kitchen, and leaned in to whisper to Brian Carter, “So what are you going to do now?” He was a bit worried for his old friend. Though they had been husband and wife, the age gap was now too great, it just didn’t seem right. He knew Old Jiang well—he wasn’t like those old lechers who liked young girls and would be happy just to have a young and pretty wife.

But Brian Carter himself wasn’t worried like his old neighbor. He said, “She’s not dead, that’s a good thing. Let’s not talk about anything else for now. Right now, I need to take good care of her. She’s suddenly gone through something like this, and she’s unfamiliar with the world now. She must be feeling terrible. At my age, I don’t care about anything else. As long as I can take care of her for a day, I will. No matter what she thinks in the future, I’ll make sure she’s settled… She doesn’t have any other family now.”

Henry Clark didn’t know what to say, so he just patted his old friend on the shoulder. “Sigh, fate really does play tricks on people.”