Thinking of how Nie Qianyu's eyes had been red like a rabbit's, Zhang Xiaohua smiled. "At every festival, one misses one's loved ones all the more"—that was indeed true. Even though Nie Qianyu usually conducted herself like an adult, at a time like this, one could truly see that she was only a little girl who had just turned twelve.
Nie Qianyu's name "Little Fish" had also been given by Zhang Xiaohua that day. He had originally wanted to call her Little Rabbit, but there was no similar character in her name, so he had settled for calling "Xiao Yu" "Little Fish." Anyway, Nie Qianyu had been the one who asked him to call her that, so what did it have to do with Zhang Xiaohua? At first, Nie Qianyu had been delighted, thinking Zhang Xiaohua had finally called her by her childhood name. Only after listening carefully did she realize it was not what she had imagined. She had then clung to Zhang Xiaohua and stubbornly demanded that he change it. Yet look—even now, wasn't Zhang Xiaohua still calling her "Little Fish"?
Thinking of Nie Qianyu's red eyes, Zhang Xiaohua could not help recalling the scene of celebrating her birthday. Before the three of them had entered Danhe City, they had once told each other their ages. Nie Qianyu had said then that she had exactly one month left before her twelfth birthday. At the time, Zhang Xiaohua had merely marveled that a little girl not even twelve years old had already seen far more of the world than he had; even if he whipped his horse to death, he could not compare. He had not given it any further thought. But that day, on a sudden whim, the idea had popped into his mind. Counting the days carefully,