Jin Zhao left the school and returned to Shanshui City. After becoming pregnant, she moved in with Meng Yanxi.

At first, she was still a little resistant to this further step. Although in reality they had already taken many, many steps forward, deep down, she still wanted to keep a space that belonged only to herself.

Physically, mentally, and also—legally.

But Meng Yanxi didn’t know where he had gotten a formaldehyde detector from. It showed that the organic pollutants in her so-called “talent apartment” exceeded the standard.

The handheld device looked a bit like those big brick phones from movies in the eighties or nineties. Meng Yanxi held the “brick phone” up in his hand, his beautiful peach-blossom eyes so clear they looked downright green-tea, and said to her, “Adults will be fine. It’s not good for Tuanzi (Dumpling).”

Jin Zhao looked at him in astonishment, not even knowing how he had managed to come up with something like this.

He could even think of this? As expected of him.

Absurd, yet truly effective.

Jin Zhao had indeed been especially cautious lately, particularly during the first three months. The housing provided by the school wasn’t anything special; the furniture wasn’t very good either. The doors and cabinets were all made of MDF. Two years had passed, and even with the windows closed there was still a smell. It looked nice on the outside, but the materials were inevitably much worse than regular household furniture, and even more so compared to someone like Meng Yanxi, a big capitalist who was particular about everything.

Meng Yanxi got his wish and brought Jin Zhao back to his place.

Ever since Jin Zhao moved over, he himself also returned to Shanshui City every day, no matter how late it was. Sometimes it was truly too late, and Jin Zhao was already asleep. He wouldn’t go back to the master bedroom, instead making do for the night in the guest room, considerately not disturbing her and little Tuanzi’s sleep.

This night was the same. Meng Yanxi sent her a message saying he had social engagements tonight and told her to go to bed early.

Jin Zhao didn’t ask when he would be back. With social engagements, no one could say for sure, so she simply replied: 【Good night.】

Meng Yanxi was obviously displeased with her coolness again. After several minutes, he sent a rather sour line: 【Alright, I won’t disturb your rest then.】

Jin Zhao: “……”

President Meng’s sense of presence had been very strong lately.

Every sentence didn’t mention dissatisfaction, yet every sentence was full of it.

Jin Zhao was helpless, but with extra patience she coaxed her boyfriend: 【I haven’t gone to rest yet. ‘Good night’ was little Tuanzi saying it to Daddy.】

Meng Yanxi was instantly coaxed into a smug, upturned smile.

He didn’t reply right away, but Jin Zhao could imagine someone’s proud and self-satisfied expression.

A few minutes later, the phone chimed once.

Meng Yanxi: 【I miss you.】

Immediately after, a second message came in.

Meng Yanxi: 【I’m not saying that to little Tuanzi.】

Jin Zhao held the phone, her long eyelashes fluttering rapidly for a moment.

Since becoming pregnant, she had been a bit prone to sleepiness, usually going to bed fairly early. Today, she didn’t know whether it was because of Meng Zhuxi’s words or that line Meng Yanxi had used to tease her before bed, but she slept rather lightly, even unable to tell whether she was indulging in idle thoughts or drifting into a shallow dream.

At one moment she saw Meng Yanxi alone, staring absent-mindedly at that silk dress adorned with feathers; at another she dreamed that he went everywhere looking for someone to restore the data on his phone, but it was all useless. Data recovery was like that—always restoring a whole mess of things you didn’t need, yet never able to retrieve the one thing you were longing for most.

The boy who was calm to the point of near cold-bloodedness rarely lost control of his emotions. Yet because it was deleted by his only younger sister, there was nowhere for his anger to go. In the end, he could only accept it—together with all those missed chances.

When Meng Yanxi came back, she seemed to hear the sound of the door opening, yet she was still trapped in her dream. She didn’t know how much time passed before, in a certain instant, she suddenly woke up. Opening her eyes, she saw a faint light seeping through the crack of the bedroom door.

The living room was very quiet, the light quietly seeping in as a single line.

At one in the morning, Meng Yanxi sat alone on the sofa, one hand propping up his head. There was a faint smell of alcohol in the air.

Jin Zhao wasn’t sure whether Meng Yanxi was asleep. She walked over to his side, moving lightly.

The quiet, downcast-eyed man suddenly lifted his gaze.

Their eyes met. The light was warm. The ticking of the wall clock sounded, every second clearly audible in the stillness of the late night.

Those peach-blossom eyes were pitch-black, looking straight at her.

“Why did you drink?” Jin Zhao asked softly.

Meng Yanxi couldn’t handle alcohol, yet he was extremely self-disciplined. Even during social engagements, he rarely drank.

The man was very quiet. Jin Zhao guessed he must be quite drunk and said, “I’ll go make you a cup of honey water.”

As she turned around, Meng Yanxi suddenly grasped her hand.

His palm was large, warm in the center.

“I’m not drunk,” his voice carried the low, hoarse rasp after drinking. “Go sleep. Don’t you still have to proctor exams?”

Jin Zhao froze for a moment before realizing he meant proctoring the CET-4 and CET-6 exams.

And he said he wasn’t drunk—he was obviously quite drunk.

“You remembered wrong. There’s no exam tomorrow,” Jin Zhao explained gently.

“Is that so?” Meng Yanxi looked at her. “Isn’t it CET proctoring?”

“There’s no CET tomorrow.”

Drunk Meng Yanxi looked very easy to bully. Jin Zhao’s mischievous side rose, and she deliberately teased him: “Tomorrow is the postgraduate entrance exam.”

Meng Yanxi fell silent. After a long while, he accused, “Liar. You’re lying to me again. The postgraduate exam is in winter. It’s summer now.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

It was hard to say whether he was sober or not.

Jin Zhao moved her hand slightly. “Let go of me first. I’ll go make you honey water.”

Meng Yanxi lowered his eyelids. Just like at certain times when he would deliberately pretend not to hear things he didn’t want to hear, this moment was the same—pretending not to hear, his movements carrying a childlike stubbornness.

“There was a civil affairs bureau across from the restaurant today,” he suddenly said.

Jin Zhao’s gaze shifted. The air seemed to fall abruptly silent, even the ticking of the wall clock no longer audible.

Meng Yanxi lifted his eyes and stared straight at her. “It was almost closing time, and there were still a lot of people rushing to get their marriage certificates. They looked very anxious, not wanting to wait even one more day. Lingling, why do you think they’re so anxious?”

Jin Zhao stood in front of him. Under the light, the man’s eyes were pitch-black and clear. Because of the angle of her looking down at him, his long eyelashes appeared distinctly defined, carrying an innocence and cleanness he didn’t have when sober.

“Lingling, actually, I’m quite anxious too.” Meng Yanxi held her hand and gave it a gentle shake. “When are you going to be ready?”

Jin Zhao’s throat suddenly tightened.

In fact, as early as when he discovered the pregnancy—and even before that—Meng Yanxi had hinted several times.

He would very casually mention something like how convenient it was to register a marriage now, that you didn’t even need a household registration book anymore, just an ID card. Probably thinking she hadn’t understood, he tried to be more obvious—like when the two of them went somewhere and he tapped a location on his phone, he would very naturally add, as if without intention: there’s a civil affairs bureau next door.

Jin Zhao could be decisive at times, and hesitant at others.

After all, she had once seen with her own eyes the most heartless side of men. Not only had she seen it—over these many years, she had tasted the warmth and coldness of human relationships to the full. She did like this man now, even to the point of being a little muddle-headed from love, but she didn’t know what the future would be like.

All these years, she had long since gotten used to always leaving herself a way out.

When sober, Meng Yanxi was smooth and perceptive. He always saw through her wanting both this and that, yet never said it out loud. Drunk Meng Yanxi, however, was very straightforward and directly asked, “Jin Zhao, to you, the baby is more important than me, right?”

“The baby is connected to you by blood, and I’m just an outsider. I’m not as reliable as the baby, and I might even compete with you.”

“So you want to go fatherless, keep only the child?”

Jin Zhao was rendered speechless by his questions.

These words—Meng Yanxi didn’t know how long he had been holding them in. So much so that when he finally said them, those pitch-black eyes were full of hurt. Like a fierce, cold beast that had originally been ruthless in the wild, but through one careless moment was tricked into giving away its true heart—losing both body and soul, defeated until nothing was left.

For a brief instant, Jin Zhao absurdly felt that she herself was that utterly unforgivable villain.

Meng Yanxi tried to keep her: “Don’t… actually, I’m not bad either. I’m not that much worse than little Tuanzi.”

As he spoke, the man swayed as he stood up.

Jin Zhao immediately stepped forward, wanting to help him. Meng Yanxi said, “I’m not drunk. I’ll do a set of crunches for you.”

Jin Zhao: “?”

Shanshui City’s original layout was already a large horizontal living room, and it had been greedily opened up by Luo Heng to connect with another room, making the living room even more spacious. A simple set of fitness equipment was placed in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Meng Yanxi walked straight toward the equipment. Jin Zhao had no idea what he intended to do when she saw him, unhurriedly, begin to unbutton his shirt. Right in front of her, he took off his top, revealing a lean, toned physique.

His feet hooked firmly onto the equipment. His upper body leaned back and hung suspended, his waist and back tensed into a straight line, not shaking or trembling. His abdominal muscles were clean and defined; under the play of light and shadow, they lay flat like eight distinct river stones.

“Lingling, look at me.”

As if afraid she might leave, Meng Yanxi had already set his posture and then turned his head to look for her.

His eyes fixed on her, the man tightened his core. His muscles contracted explosively, lifting his torso as he slowly curled up, then lowered it again with absolute control—throughout the entire movement relying solely on his core to fight gravity. He was still holding his phone in one hand, the contrast between the explosive power of the suspended crunch and that relaxed grip striking. Extreme core strength and effortless control coexisted, accompanied by the raw force revealed with each muscular contraction.

At the same time, he could even spare attention to hand the phone toward her: “Lingling, film me.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

That night, at one in the morning, Meng Yanxi refused to sleep and gave Jin Zhao a live demonstration of a full set of crunches.

With the mindset of getting him to sleep as soon as possible, Jin Zhao resigned herself to filming for half an hour.

Only after Meng Yanxi came down from the equipment, checked the footage, and was satisfied did she finally manage to push him into the bathroom to shower.

Halfway through washing, Meng Yanxi suddenly remembered something and abruptly pulled the door open, saying, “Lingling, back it up. Otherwise Meng Zhuxi will delete it.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

She seemed to have discovered President Meng’s psychological trauma from his youth.

Hopefully he would wake up tomorrow morning remembering nothing—just thinking about it made her feel secondhand embarrassment for him.

But in the end, she still underestimated someone’s thick skin.

The next day, when Jin Zhao woke up, Meng Yanxi was already awake, leaning against the headboard and looking at his phone. The volume was turned to silent, but Jin Zhao still keenly noticed that he was watching the video of himself doing crunches last night.

There was no sign of social death at all—he even looked a little smug.

Sure enough, as long as you’re not embarrassed yourself, the embarrassed one is someone else.

Even Jin Zhao felt a bit awkward, and a large part of that was because she was afraid he might bring up that “go fatherless, keep the child” topic again. After all, this person didn’t lose his memory even when drunk.

But sober Meng Yanxi was always very measured, as if nothing had happened at all, showing no difference whatsoever.

Summer vacation arrived quickly.

Compared to high school, university summer vacation was wonderful—no make-up classes, no homework, only complete freedom.

Although the school repeatedly hinted that teachers should keep a low profile and post less on Moments, starting from mid-to-late June, Jin Zhao had switched into globe-trotting mode on her feed.

Her colleagues were all university lecturers. At her age, entering academia put her among the youngest group; most of the others were already married with children, and their Moments were always filled with photos of partners and kids.

Meng Yanxi asked her whether she envied them.

Jin Zhao wasn’t sure whether he meant envying their travels, or envying the fact that they had lovers and family by their side.

But either way, Jin Zhao no longer felt envy.

She had them too.

Little Tuanzi was already three months along, and all prenatal checkups were normal. This probably wasn’t just her own doing. Meng Yanxi’s confidence might not have been blind—his sperm quality was likely genuinely good. During the first three months, aside from loving to eat and sleep, she barely had any pregnancy reactions.

July 21 was Jin Zhao’s birthday.

Strictly speaking, this was a birthday Meng Yanxi had waited ten years for. Ten years ago, during a summer vacation, the boy had asked her about her birthday, and had even felt lucky that remedial classes had already started by then—feeling for the first time that even a ten-day summer break wasn’t so bad. Unfortunately, fate played a cruel joke, and that one goodbye ended up delayed by nine years.

Meng Yanxi asked Jin Zhao where she wanted to go.

Jin Zhao wanted to go to the seaside.

So a week in advance, Meng Yanxi took Jin Zhao to a small island.

Out in the Pacific, lush with vegetation, fine soft sand, and seawater clear like glass.

The two strolled along the shore, hand in hand on the pale white beach, watching the clear waves roll in again and again, covering their feet. The young couple chased and teased each other, and at night, on a large hotel bed facing the sea, they were restrained yet not entirely restrained in their happiness…

At times like this, good sperm quality also became an excuse for occasional indulgence.

On July 21, the little lovebirds didn’t go out until dusk. If Meng Yanxi hadn’t said he had prepared a gift for her, Jin Zhao might have slept straight through the day.

The evening coastline was dyed orange-pink by the setting sun. The sea breeze, carrying a salty dampness, brushed past their hair. The two walked hand in hand along the beach, waves lapping up by their feet before quietly retreating. Meng Yanxi suddenly stopped, his gaze falling on the distant horizon.

Jin Zhao followed his line of sight.

At some unknown point, a silver airplane had appeared in the sky, the engine sound fading and then circling back.

The white smoke trail drawn from the tail of the plane slowly unfurled and spread across the deep blue sky—first blooming into five fluffy cloud-like puffs, like cotton candy softened by the wind, then the strokes gradually becoming clear as they followed the airflow—

Lingling, marry me.

Three words floated across the sky, their edges adorned with fine wisps of smoke, dyed a gentle color by the afterglow of the setting sun.