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Outside Sui University’s lecture hall stood a golden acacia tree. It was the season when the acacia was in bloom—brilliant golden yellow, with a faint fragrance. Meng Yanxi stood beneath the tree.
From a distance, and with Meng Yanxi standing in the shadows, Wang Shi’an couldn’t see his face clearly. He could only vaguely make out a tall, upright young man, hands in his pockets, his dark gaze falling in their direction. When their eyes met as Wang Shi’an turned to look, he gave a slight nod.
Wang Shi’an returned the nod politely, then turned back to Jin Zhao and joked, “Your boyfriend is quite fortunate—born ten years too late.”
Jin Zhao said, “What?”
Wang Shi’an said, “If it were ten years earlier, I’d have introduced my son to you. There’d be no room for him.”
Jin Zhao was momentarily speechless, then laughed.
Wang Shi’an drove off. As he passed Jin Zhao and Meng Yanxi, he lowered the car window and greeted them again. Jin Zhao smiled and said goodbye to Dean Wang. Meng Yanxi ignored him.
Jin Zhao suspected Meng Yanxi had heard everything. At this hour it was quiet, and voices carried far.
She took the initiative to hold her boyfriend’s hand and explained, “He was just joking. You know, literature professors always like telling jokes.”
Meng Yanxi held her hand and said, puzzled, “What? Wasn’t he talking about his son? Are you saying his son is a joke?”
Jin Zhao: “……”
They were so far removed from him, and he still found a way to attack that.
Truly worthy of Meng Yanxi’s mouth.
Sui University was close to Shanshui City. Once out the school gates, that was it. Meng Yanxi hadn’t driven over, so that night Jin Zhao went back with him to stay in Shanshui City.
Ever since the online incident, the two of them hadn’t seen each other for more than ten days. Jin Zhao didn’t know what he had been thinking during that time. Although they video-called every day and he seemed as usual, Jin Zhao still keenly sensed changes in his mood.
Especially just now, when he stood alone beneath the acacia tree, standing in the shadows—not only had Wang Shi’an failed to recognize him, even Jin Zhao felt something different about the aura around him.
A little cold, a little heavy.
She didn’t understand why.
Meng Yanxi wasn’t the type to be affected by these things, let alone when this matter wasn’t something he had done.
Perhaps it was that a brief separation made reunion feel like a new marriage—tonight, Meng Yanxi was especially tireless.
All kinds of endlessly inventive explorations meant to please her; before they had even truly begun, the bedsheets beneath Jin Zhao were already soaked through.
She stared blankly at the ceiling. Under the lamplight, large expanse snow-white skin gleamed dazzlingly bright, her breath coming fast and uneven.
Meng Yanxi covered her again, moisture still clinging to his chin, and went to kiss her.
Jin Zhao turned her head away, only for him to catch her chin and pull her back, kissing her lingeringly. Just like before, his tongue probing deep.
“Lingling, are you happy?”
Between breaths, Meng Yanxi asked hoarsely, his dark eyes burning as they fixed on her.
Jin Zhao flushed red, panting, and didn’t make a sound.
She was truly too embarrassed to say she was happy to the point of madness.
At some point, rain had begun to fall outside.
Spring rain was always especially plentiful—once it turned tender, it lasted the whole night.
Tonight’s rain was particularly fierce, thick columns of rain pounding violently against the acacia, scattering petals and crushing buds.
Jin Zhao instinctively wrapped her arms around the man’s shoulders, feeling the repeated tightening and loosening of his muscles, the force and the release.
At first it was thunderous and overwhelming; later it gradually softened, like spring rain and dew, gentle and lingering.
“Do you trust me?”
He lifted her up, letting her sit in his arms, those pitch-black peach-blossom eyes staring straight at her.
Jin Zhao tilted her head back to look at the chandelier on the ceiling, her neck stretching into a snow-white curve.
She didn’t know if the light was too dazzling, but tears splashed from the corners of her eyes.
Every time it was like this, she never had the leisure to think about anything. It took her a long while to react before she understood what he was asking.
Her brows knit slightly, seeming both pained and joyful. “I do. I trust you.”
He pressed on stubbornly, “Why do you trust me?”
Jin Zhao thought seriously for a full half minute, then took the initiative to wrap her arms around his neck, turning her head to kiss his lips, murmuring softly, “Meng Yanxi, because you are the most dazzling person I have ever met in my life.”
So no matter what you have done, or haven’t done, I will trust you.
I will always, without hesitation, stand on your side.
Meng Yanxi fell silent.
Silently exerting himself, silently watching the way she looked at this moment, silently watching her lose herself again and again.
Fireworks exploded in his mind, one cluster after another, each faster than the last.
Jin Zhao felt as if she were floating in the clouds. In a daze, she heard the man’s voice muddled within the rain and passion, low and hoarse, his emotions indistinct.
“But Lingling, back then, I really was prepared to act.”
Meng Yanxi had never considered himself kind. In fact, he was very clear about himself—he was someone who would stop at nothing.
As long as he could achieve his goal, he didn’t care about the process.
If he had even a little kindness, he wouldn’t have inflicted childhood trauma on little Meng Zhuxi.
He got his driver’s license right on schedule at eighteen. After the college entrance exam, he could already drive skillfully on the road. His car was parked by the roadside as he watched Meng Shixu’s girlfriend come out of the villa. As she walked, her dress was lifted by the wind, clinging tightly to her swollen belly.
He stared at that belly, his face expressionless.
He had investigated—she wasn’t some innocent, virtuous woman either.
In families like theirs, once interests were involved, things would never end as mere minor scuffles. The Wu family’s case was already considered mild. Wu Nian had only fallen into the abyss; at least she was still alive. Forget sayings like “even a vicious tiger won’t eat its own cubs”—he had seen entire bloodlines wiped out, roots and all.
His wings were not yet fully grown. Meng Zhuxi was still so young, and so naive.
The car the woman was driving had also been given by Meng Shixu—a Maserati. Not far after leaving the garage, there was a traffic light ahead. The car stopped behind the crosswalk.
Meng Yanxi’s hand closed around the steering wheel. His foot pressed down on the accelerator.
Luxury cars had robust safety mechanisms. A minor rear-end collision wouldn’t cost a life, but it could eliminate future trouble.
Meng Yanxi drove toward the car stopped at the red light.
The red light was about to end, the countdown beginning at ten seconds.
Meng Yanxi glanced at the bright red numbers jumping on the display. When it reached seven, as if possessed, an image suddenly surfaced in his mind—Jin Zhao dancing onstage in a red dress.
A long silk gown trimmed with feathers, its color like red jade tempered by fire, like shattered evening clouds. The sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl was like a gardenia bud about to bloom—pure, white, spotless.
The lights that night were so bright, yet they couldn’t compare to her at all. She herself was like the embodiment of fire and light, like a true Luo Shen, a quiet face imbued with merciful divinity.
He suddenly remembered that day—Ji Haoxuan’s mother had publicly humiliated her so badly. Yet when Ji Haoxuan came again to pester her, asking whether she liked him, implying that as long as she nodded, he would immediately sever the mother-son relationship with his self-righteous mother—
That spotless feather merely walked away coldly, leaving behind a single sentence: “You’re overthinking it.”
He had been watching from the side back then, sneering inwardly, mocking her foolishness and useless kindness. Clearly, with just a nod from her, she could have taken revenge, could have endlessly tormented those who had hurt her.
But at the instant his car was about to crash into hers—at that very moment—it was as if he suddenly understood her incomparable purity.
She herself, everything about her, was utterly clean. If she wanted to become better, she simply became better; if she wanted to obtain something, she simply obtained it. In between, there was never the slightest trace of sharpness, aggression, or filth.
She was unattainable, yet he couldn’t help yearning for her.
Someone like him might never be redeemed in an entire lifetime, but that didn’t prevent him from longing for her.
In the suburban villa area, there were few cars around. The woman in the Maserati was looking down at her phone, unaware of the red light changing, and even less aware of his car approaching.
Just as his car was about to crash into hers, he suddenly turned the steering wheel.
The red light turned green. He sped past her car.
And sped past the abyss of eternal damnation.
♥︎ ྀི◟ ͜ ◞♥︎ ྀི◟ ͜ ◞♥︎ ྀི
After it was finally over, Meng Yanxi carried Jin Zhao out of the bathroom.
At that moment, although Jin Zhao was lost in a daze, she had in fact vaguely heard what he said. She didn’t say anything, only held him tightly, as if she wished to warm his once-icy heart with her own flesh and blood, and as if she longed to merge into one with him.
That night, she unusually didn’t fall asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, even though she was more exhausted than ever before.
In Meng Yanxi’s heart seemed to be a mass of fire—previously hidden beneath an iceberg. Tonight, as the snow mountain melted, she truly and clearly felt the boiling heat deep within him.
She quietly wrapped her arms around his waist, nestling into his embrace.
Meng Yanxi, too, was unusually silent.
In the past, at moments like this, he was always talkative; he had always liked this moment very much.
Meng Yanxi pressed the bedside lamp, and the room fell into darkness.
When he held her again, he heard the person in his arms call his name: “Meng Yanxi.”
“Mm?” he answered very softly.
Jin Zhao lifted her face, looking at him in the dim light. “Judge by actions, not by intent.”
You were not wrong.
Even if you once had the thought, if you did not act, then you were not wrong.
In this world, who is a saint?
And who has never harbored a bad thought?
None of this has anything to do with you.
Meng Yanxi was silent for a long while.
In the end, he only tightened his hold on her and lightly kissed the crown of her head.
“Lingling, my birthday is next week. Have you thought about what gift you’ll give me?” he suddenly asked.
Jin Zhao was a little speechless.
For some reason, she had the strange feeling that she’d just been moved all by herself for nothing.
After all that, her boyfriend just wanted to ask her for a gift.
Jin Zhao said coolly, “No.”
Meng Yanxi said, “Then give me a cat.”
Jin Zhao said, “A cat?”
Meng Yanxi said, “Mm. I want to raise a cat together with you.”
