Meng Yanxi knelt on one knee, his palm supporting a velvet box, a massive diamond ring offered before her.

Pigeon-egg sized, its dazzling fire refracted into the depths of his pitch-black eyes.

The roar of the helicopter gradually faded away, the sound of the waves softened into a gentle backdrop, even the wind seemed to slow, becoming infinitely tender, brushing against her face like a lover’s caress.

Jin Zhao stared blankly at the man before her. The distant sky fell behind him, like a carefully designed backdrop painting.

“Lingling, marry me.”

He knelt on one knee before her, repeating in a low voice.

Amid the crashing of the waves, Jin Zhao felt as though she were dreaming.

A scene she could never have dreamed of.

The boy she had liked in her youth—when they first met, he had been aloof, cold and unruly, with a poor reputation. Later, she saw the side of him unknown to others, and from then on, she liked him. She liked his arrogance and recklessness, and she also liked his softness and burning passion.

Later still, she saw even more of him. Yet no matter which side it was, his back was always straight. Even when he coquettishly acted pitiful, there was always pride in his eyes—that arrogance born of heaven’s favored son.

This was the first time he had bent his knee, along with the always-proud light in his eyes, now transformed into deep, inky darkness.

In his eyes, Jin Zhao saw an all-or-nothing humility.

He understood her hesitation and indecision, and he had given her ample time. She still dared not move forward. Perhaps he had already anticipated that she might refuse. Yet he was also like a gambler already sunk too deep—willing to snap his own proud spine with his own hands and present it before her, stubbornly gambling on her nod.

Jin Zhao had once thought she would fear the arrival of this day, like an exam in her student years—even with forewarning, when it truly loomed before her, she would still feel timid.

Yet the truth was that from the moment he knelt at her feet, nodding became instinct.

The helicopter’s roar disappeared completely. Against the deep blue sky, the five words written by the clouds lingered, suspended for a long time.

Tears blurred her vision. In Jin Zhao’s mind, there remained only one thought—she would never let him lose.

If the future was a high-stakes gamble, she wanted to win it with him.

She nodded hard, extending her hand toward him.

Only when he grasped her hand and the diamond ring slid onto her warm, soft finger did Meng Yanxi realize that the corners of his eyes were hot.

The diamond ring fit perfectly, snug against her finger. Jin Zhao broke into tears and smiled, and the next moment, she was pulled tightly into Meng Yanxi’s arms, spinning several times in succession on the wave-lashed beach.

“Lingling, thank you.”

His voice was hoarse, buried at her neck, carrying an almost imperceptible tremor.

From the preparations to this moment, the winding mountains and rivers of anxiety and gain-and-loss along the way—only he himself knew.

Jin Zhao was spun until she felt dizzy, all complicated emotions scattered away. Holding his head, she mocked him, “Are you stupid, Meng Yanxi? Who says ‘thank you’ when proposing?”

“Then what should I say?” He laughed softly in delight, then couldn’t help but kiss her once, smoothly going along as he asked, “Say ‘I do’?”

Jin Zhao: “……”

This person always took advantage of every inch, his pace lightning-fast. Each time she had only just crossed one hurdle, he had already leapt to the next step.

“Isn’t ‘I do’ something you only say at the wedding?”

Jin Zhao snorted lightly. “I don’t know—anyway, don’t say thank you. Put me down already.”

Meng Yanxi didn’t. He still held her in his arms. “But I really want to thank you.”

Jin Zhao found it odd. “Thank me for what?”

Meng Yanxi said, “For not rejecting my second proposal.”

Jin Zhao: “?”

Wait—when was the first one?

Jin Zhao racked her brain and still couldn’t recall when the first time was. She suspected he was playing tricks again and warned him with a stern face, “Meng Yanxi, don’t try to fool me.”

Meng Yanxi was amused by her anger and laughed. With a tea-scented, fake-innocent tone, he said, “Alright then. Let’s count this as the first.”

He said it like that—how was she supposed to count it as the first?

Later, under Jin Zhao’s persistent questioning, he reluctantly gave a hint: “Those three days of torrential rain. The hotel in Jinjue Town.”

That hint was worse than no hint at all. Jin Zhao’s face flushed bright red in an instant.

Now, when she thought back to those three days, her mind was filled with all kinds of indescribable scenes and wave after wave of overwhelming pleasure, like surging tides drowning her beyond resistance, leaving her between ecstasy and collapse.

Seeing that Jin Zhao didn’t say a word, Meng Yanxi gave a soft chuckle. “What are you thinking about? Before the little dumpling came.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

She suspected he did it on purpose—putting on a straight face while wildly hinting at how their baby came to be.

This person really was that bad.

With her face burning, Jin Zhao pretended she didn’t understand. “Before which moment?”

Meng Yanxi said, “Think about what I said to you when I first arrived at the hotel and found you.”

At that time, she had accidentally uncovered her relatives’ schemes and returned to the hotel alone, utterly dejected, licking her wounds in solitude. Meng Yanxi rushed there through the heavy rain. She had never been someone who liked to confide in others, yet in his warm embrace, she had haltingly told him the entire story.

She had said to him, “I still gave Grandma the money. I returned the money she supported me with when I was in the UK. After returning it to her, I have neither love nor money.”

Meng Yanxi had said, “I have money too.”

Those were the words Rhett said to Scarlett when proposing in Gone with the Wind—“I have money too. Why don’t you marry me? You’re going to get married anyway.”

Meng Yanxi said, “Besides money, I can also give you the loyalty of someone who has never had faith.”

In truth, at that moment, Jin Zhao had felt something stir in her heart. But she hadn’t been confident enough to casually take one moving line from Meng Yanxi as a proposal.

She hadn’t expected that it really was—and that she’d even been stuck with it.

Meng Yanxi said, “You’re not an ordinary block of wood anymore. You’re a block of wood who has rejected my proposal.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

Of course she refused to admit it was her own fault. She muttered, “You put it so obscurely—who could tell that was what you meant? I thought you were just showing off how cultured you are.”

Lines from Gone with the Wind, poems by Borges. Look at that—President Meng didn’t just know how to make money; he also knew how to quote classics and weave them together.

Meng Yanxi raised his brows, his expression arrogant. “Isn’t it a fact that I’m cultured? Do I really need to show it?”

Jin Zhao was dumbfounded, speechless.

When it came to self-admiration, this man was truly in a league of his own. Sometimes she really wished she could have even half of his terrifying level of confidence.

The last glow of the sunset faded away, and the warm yellow light of the streetlamps spread into a small path in the night. Hand in hand, the two walked back to the hotel at an unhurried pace. Jin Zhao lowered her head and stepped on the overlapping shadows cast by them walking side by side.

Beside her, the man suddenly stopped. “Lingling, I promise you.”

The flippancy drained from his tone, replaced by seriousness. Jin Zhao paused and turned her head, asking, “What?”

Meng Yanxi looked at her.

Night had not fully fallen. Behind her was a full moon that had just risen, its cool, clear light interwoven with the warm glow of the streetlamps, settling on her shoulders like a layer of soft gauze.

His pitch-black, peach-blossom eyes looked straight at her as Meng Yanxi said, “With me, you will never lose.”

♥︎ ྀི◟ ͜ ◞♥︎ ྀི◟ ͜ ◞♥︎ ྀི

After returning to Suiyi, Jin Zhao received an offer from Cambridge.

Visiting scholar, one year.

Soon after, Dean Wang Shi’an of Suida also got the news. As a titan in the field, his sources were, as expected, well connected.

Wang Shi’an called to congratulate her, and naturally, the conversation turned to her future plans.

After hesitating again and again, Jin Zhao said apologetically, “Some things have happened recently. I may need to think it over a bit more.”

She weighed whether or not to mention the pregnancy.

She wasn’t someone who liked to mix work with personal matters, but Dean Wang had given her a great deal of help with the visiting scholar application, and in the beginning, it was his suggestion that had set her on this path.

Wang Shi’an was silent for a long moment before suddenly asking, “Is it because of Meng Yanxi?”

Jin Zhao froze, then blurted out, “How did you know?”

Wang Shi’an said, “Saw it online.”

When Meng Yanxi proposed, he had booked the entire beach. But arranging for a helicopter to write words in the sky covered too wide an area—everyone beneath that stretch of sky could see it—and it was still photographed by nearby tourists. Islands in the Pacific were never short of Chinese tourists. The photos quickly made their way back to China and stirred up buzz on social media.

—Wow! Which family’s crown prince is proposing?

—Is that smoke writing from a plane? So romantic! How much must that have cost?

—No idea how much, but I heard it was Meng Yanxi.

—Holy shit! Meng Yanxi from Yunsen Group? That’s real money!

—To be fair, are proposals this competitive now? Even Meng Yanxi has to propose like this? With that face and that body, what proposal does he even need? Just take his clothes off and I’d let him do whatever he wants!

—Sis, this isn’t a no-man’s land!

—But Meng Yanxi really is it. So handsome and so rich—forget him proposing to me, I’d kneel down and propose to him and even throw in a bride price!

—So jealous of this girl named Lingling!

……

Jin Wenyi also found out about Jin Zhao’s impending marriage by scrolling on her phone.

The nickname Lingling wasn’t especially common, but it wasn’t rare either. At first, Jin Wenyi only paused briefly, not yet sure that this Lingling was Jin Zhao—until she saw Meng Yanxi’s name in the comment section. Her feelings instantly became complicated.

The things that happened before May Day—Jin Wenyi later learned about them from Grandma, and for a time, she didn’t know what to say.

On one side were her parents and elder brother; on the other was her lone, pitiful niece. She couldn’t speak for either side—everyone had their own difficulties. She could only blame fate for playing tricks. It was just that coincidental, coincidentally enough for Jin Zhao to overhear it.

From her standpoint, caught between Jin Wenhui and Jin Zhao, she was ultimately an outsider. Pretending to know nothing was the best course. Yet deep down, Jin Wenyi still pitied Jin Zhao. After waiting two days and agonizing over it repeatedly, she finally took the initiative and called her.

The call was hung up the moment it connected.

She left Jin Zhao a message on WeChat as well—there was still no reply.

Grandpa and Grandma also said that Jin Zhao wasn’t answering calls or replying to messages.

Jin Wenyi then knew—this time, Jin Zhao had come to resent the entire Jin family.

So Jin Wenyi didn’t push it anymore. She also told Grandpa and Grandma to let her calm down on her own.

Then she saw the news online about Meng Yanxi proposing to her.

Jin Wenyi herself had once been at the prime of her youth. Searching her conscience, faced with such a grand proposal, it was hard not to be moved. She thought that Jin Zhao had probably already agreed.

Jin Zhao was about to get married, yet they, her relatives, knew nothing at all. The only scraps of information they had were all dug up from netizens’ comments. Jin Wenyi felt deeply unsettled. She didn’t blame Jin Zhao—she just felt that life was hard. She wanted to pity her, yet also not offend either side. In the end, it only resulted in an outcome contrary to her wishes.

Jin Wenhui’s household was now in complete chaos. Lin Yao’s IVF had failed; her affair with a male college student had been caught red-handed by Jin Wenhui. The couple were in the middle of a divorce, each too overwhelmed to care about anything else. After much consideration, Jin Wenyi still didn’t tell the rest of the Jin family about this matter. Alone, she came to Suiyi and asked to meet Jin Zhao.

She contacted Jin Zhao via WeChat, originally planning that if Jin Zhao still didn’t reply, she would go straight to Sui Normal University to find her. This time, however, Jin Zhao replied very quickly. In the end, aunt and niece arranged to meet at a café near Sui Normal University.

By coincidence, that café was the very place where Jin Wenyi had arranged for her to meet a blind date the year before. Its name was Return Date.

When Jin Wenyi arrived, Jin Zhao was already there. Foreign music played softly. The quiet girl sat alone by the window, gazing absentmindedly at the street across the way, lost in thought. Hearing footsteps, she turned around. Seeing Jin Wenyi, she stood up and greeted her with a smile. “Aunt.”

It was Jin Wenyi who instead felt a twinge of guilt at her smile. Awkwardly, she said, “You’re not angry with me anymore?”

Jin Zhao asked in confusion, “Angry with you?”

Jin Wenyi was also taken aback.

Yes—Jin Zhao had never been someone to take out her anger on others. Back then, because the whole family felt guilty, when Jin Zhao didn’t answer calls or reply to messages, Jin Wenyi had naturally assumed she was still angry, forgetting to confirm whether Jin Zhao had even received those messages.

Those hung-up calls—were they really hung up by Jin Zhao, or was there someone else?

Jin Wenyi quickly thought of a possibility and asked, “The messages Grandpa, Grandma, and I sent you back then—did you see them?”

Jin Zhao froze, then immediately understood what Jin Wenyi meant.

Those three days at the hotel—Meng Yanxi had been both crazed and domineering, not giving her a single moment to catch her breath. When she woke up, he was fiddling with her phone, saying it had been soaked in water and couldn’t be fixed. She hadn’t thought much of it, naturally switching phones and SIM cards.

Now, hearing Jin Wenyi ask this, she immediately understood.

Jin Zhao fell silent for a brief moment. Jin Wenyi had already read the answer.

“Lingling, a man who would lie to you and conceal things like this—can he really be entrusted to?” Jin Wenyi reminded her tacitly.

Jin Zhao’s expression was very calm.

Even knowing what Meng Yanxi had secretly done, she wasn’t angry with him.

She looked at Jin Wenyi, paused for a moment, then asked in return, “Aunt, between honest harm and scheming protection, which would you choose?”

Jin Wenhui had been very honest—honest enough to hurt her.

Meng Yanxi was scheming, but he had always been protecting her.