That night, Jin Zhao put the little dumpling to sleep early and waited alone for Meng Yanxi to come home.

She had thought about many things that day—reflecting on herself, and also on her relationship with Meng Yanxi. She really hadn’t done well. Maybe it was even worse than that—maybe her personality itself wasn’t good, and she simply hadn’t realized it.

At first, she patiently coaxed the little dumpling to practice saying “Mama” and “Papa,” wanting to use that as a way to talk to him—talk about the baby, talk about other things—and then act as if nothing had happened and let it pass. But after spending most of the day finally getting the baby to call out “Mama” and “Papa,” with the video already recorded, she started to regret it again.

Wouldn’t that just mean going back to square one? He was clearly very hurt, and she was deliberately ignoring it.

No. She couldn’t do that. If she did, Meng Yanxi would really shatter.

Jin Zhao thought for a moment, then took out her phone and typed out a long message. Now that she had the baby, with the little dumpling occasionally coming over to make trouble, she was afraid she might accidentally send half-finished words, so she deliberately avoided the WeChat chat window and used her phone’s notes app instead. By the time she finished revising it again and again and copied it into WeChat, it was already evening.

She hesitated three or five times, and in the end still didn’t send it.

Better to say it face to face.

But Meng Yanxi still hadn’t come back.

These days, he rarely stayed out this late. Even if he had social engagements, he would never be out past ten at night, and he would always video call her in advance, telling her to wait for him or go to sleep early.

Jin Zhao kept opening Meng Yanxi’s profile picture again and again. Her heart inexplicably tightened, like when she was a child who had made a mistake and was about to face a teacher or elder.

If he still wasn’t back by eleven, she would ask where he was and go find him.

Thinking this way, at ten-thirty, she first saw Luo Heng’s Moments post.

Even without a location tag, Jin Zhao could tell at a glance that it was Meng Yanxi’s exclusive suite at Luxi. Even through the phone screen, she could almost smell the alcohol.

On the coffee table, a pile of empty wine bottles lay scattered in disarray, their reflections catching the bright crystal chandelier on the ceiling in the mirrored glass. The man who had kept her mind unsettled all day was slumped into the sofa, one arm bent and draped over his face. His fringe was messy across his forehead, the taut lines of his forearm muscles revealing a desolate weariness. He didn’t move at all, as if all his strength had been drained away.

Jin Zhao stared at Meng Yanxi in the photo. It felt as though something clenched her chest hard, a dull, suffocating ache.

When Jin Zhao rushed to Luxi, Meng Yanxi was complaining that Luo Heng’s phone had terrible reception—even a single Moments post wouldn’t go through.

Lawyer Luo was also quite skilled at striking where it hurt. With a smile that wasn’t quite a smile, he said, “Still better than you. Your phone costs tens of thousands, and it hasn’t made a sound. At least mine rang—just now Si Tian called me. At least sixty-five decibels. Did you hear it?”

Meng Yanxi: “……”

Meng Yanxi lowered his eyelids, his gaze silently fixed on the floor at his feet.

Seeing him like that, Luo Heng sighed again and sat down beside him. “Brother, this pure-love-only approach of yours really won’t work. You’re not without tricks—you’ve got eight hundred schemes up your sleeve—but at critical moments, you just can’t use them. If you’d just apply a bit of those methods to your wife…”

Meng Yanxi suddenly looked up at him.

Meng Yanxi’s peach-blossom eyes were dark and deep. When he didn’t speak, he carried an inherent sense of pressure. Luo Heng was startled and instinctively touched his nose, guilty. “I’m not telling you to do anything immoral. Just introduce a bit of competition, let her know you’re actually quite in demand. If she doesn’t cherish you, someone else will snatch you away.”

Luo Heng lifted a hand and draped it over Meng Yanxi’s shoulder. “I’m telling you, brother, this trick really works. Look at me—Si Tian and I could count as childhood sweethearts, right? All these years that girl’s always been lukewarm toward me. I was like a damn lapdog. Recently, a new girl joined our law firm and flirted with me for two days—she immediately developed a sense of crisis. Now she knows how to be nervous about me. I’m telling you, people—men or women—you’ve got to make them wake up first. A little jealousy sweetens things; it’s perfect for opening someone’s eyes.”

Meng Yanxi didn’t know whether he had taken it in or not. He didn’t say a word.

Luo Heng said, “Why don’t you give it a try?”

Meng Yanxi stared at Luo Heng. After a few quiet seconds, he suddenly asked, “That Moments post of yours—did you set it to ‘visible to me only’?”

Luo Heng: “……”

For a moment, he honestly didn’t know whether this situation called for covering his ears to steal a bell or playing the lute to a cow.

The teacher never taught this.

Fortunately, the ringing phone promptly rescued the ill-fated Lawyer Luo. Never had Luo Heng felt that flat, old-fashioned landline ring sound so much like heavenly music.

The front desk had just said someone was looking for President Meng when Luo Heng immediately jumped up in ecstatic tears. “She’s here! She’s here! Your wife’s come to pick you up and take you home!”

Meng Yanxi, who had been sitting upright on the sofa, upon hearing this, lay flat in a second, one arm bent to cover his face. That sulky look made it hard to tell whether he was sulking or pretending to be pitiful.

Luo Heng stared at this outrageous maneuver in stunned silence, completely speechless.

Brother, we’ve known each other for so many years—I really didn’t see that you had this side to you. You hid it well!

Even so, when opening the door, Lawyer Luo still tactfully hauled Lu Jingyue out along with him.

But the moment the door opened, Luo Heng froze. Lu Jingyue, who had just woken up groggily, froze at the same time.

The three of them stared at one another.

“Wu Fei—why is it you?” Luo Heng asked dully, even unwilling to give up as he glanced behind her.

Where was Jin Zhao?

Jin Zhao wasn’t at the door. Wu Fei stood there gracefully, wearing a fitted spaghetti-strap dress. She lightly brushed the hair behind her ear and then gathered the thin cardigan around her shoulders, saying, “I was having dinner nearby with friends. I saw the Moments post—Yanxi-ge’s condition didn’t look very good. I was afraid something might happen to him, so I came over to take a look, see if there’s anything I can help with.”

At eleven o’clock at night, a young unmarried woman in the prime of her life came alone to a married man’s room. Luo Heng thought to himself: this wasn’t hard to judge—this was too easy to judge.

It was practically his wife’s name written all over it—Sima Zhao’s intentions, known to every passerby.

Luo Heng turned his head to look at Meng Yanxi.

Meng Yanxi, as if completely beaten down, lay motionless on the sofa, one arm covering his face.

The landline in the room rang again at this moment. Meng Yanxi still didn’t answer. Luo Heng sighed inwardly, What kind of fate is this of mine, and once more went back, dutiful as ever, to pick up the call.

Someone else was looking for him. This time, Luo Heng asked warily who it was.

Front desk: “President Meng’s wife.”

Luo Heng shot a glance at the person on the sofa who didn’t know whether he was sulking or playing dead, and deliberately raised his voice. “What? You’re saying President Meng’s wife has come to pick President Meng up and take him home?”

The man on the sofa finally moved, ever so slightly.

When Jin Zhao entered the elevator, she happened to run into Luo Heng, Lu Jingyue, and Wu Fei coming down from upstairs.

Each of them had their own urgency in their hearts. They exchanged brief greetings. Jin Zhao entered the elevator. Luo Heng supported Lu Jingyue as they walked out, asking the front desk to arrange a car. Wu Fei took two steps, then suddenly turned back and, through the elevator doors, said to Jin Zhao, “I heard you and Yanxi-ge are getting married soon. Congratulations.”

Jin Zhao froze for a moment, then smiled slightly. “We’re already married. Next month is just a make-up wedding.”

“Is that so?” Wu Fei brushed back her hair, half-smiling. “But for families like ours, only after the wedding is it considered a marriage.”

The phrase “families like ours” was used subtly, invisibly drawing a line between Jin Zhao and Meng Yanxi.

Wu Fei continued, “Yanxi-ge spent a lot of money on this wedding. You might not know—many people wouldn’t earn this amount in several lifetimes. You’re really fortunate. I envy you very much. If possible, could you tell me how you made him like you so much?”

Jin Zhao’s gaze had originally been anxiously fixed on the elevator buttons, wondering whether it would be impolite to press close in front of others. Hearing this, she met Wu Fei’s eyes.

Because the elevator had lingered too long, the doors began to close automatically.

Jin Zhao said slowly, “That might be because…”

Wu Fei: “Because of what?”

The metal doors slid along the track, neither fast nor slow—two seconds, or perhaps three.

Through the slowly closing elevator, Jin Zhao looked into Wu Fei’s eyes and said calmly, “I’m worth it.”

When Jin Zhao went upstairs, Meng Yanxi had sat up again. As she pushed open the half-closed door, he lifted his gaze.

Under the bright warm-yellow light, their eyes met, and the air seemed to grow quiet in an instant.

Meng Yanxi didn’t speak, his pitch-dark eyes fixed on her.

Jin Zhao closed the door. As she stepped toward him, she glanced at the empty wine bottles on the coffee table. “When I first saw Luo Heng’s Moments, I thought you’d drunk all of this.”

Meng Yanxi looked up at her, silent.

Jin Zhao stopped in front of him and said softly, “My heart ached.”

Hearing this, Meng Yanxi tugged lightly at the corner of his lips. “You’re lying to me again. Your lies are always told so convincingly.”

His voice was very low, a little muffled, like a grown boy sulking and deliberately saying something spiteful. Jin Zhao often thought that Meng Yanxi when drunk was a bit funny—if she compiled everything he’d done while drunk into a collection, she could laugh at him for a lifetime.

But today’s Meng Yanxi wasn’t funny at all. It made her heart ache in fine, dense twinges.

She didn’t know why she had made him misunderstand things so deeply.

Was her personality really that bad?

She sighed softly and went to sit beside him.

She didn’t know where to begin. She sat there beside him thinking for a while, when Meng Yanxi suddenly turned his head and stared at her in disbelief, as if he’d suffered a great grievance. “You actually accepted it by default? Don’t you know I said that because I wanted you to deny it?”

Alright—she took back what she’d just said. Tonight’s Meng Yanxi was a little funny too.

“I know,” Jin Zhao said helplessly. “I was just thinking about where to start so you’d be more willing to believe me, and not feel like I was lying to you.”

Meng Yanxi pressed his thin lips together lightly. Two seconds later, he said haughtily, “That depends on your sincerity. I’m not easy to fool.”

Jin Zhao couldn’t help laughing. “Meng Yanxi, let me tell you something—something you don’t know.”

Meng Yanxi’s ears immediately perked up. “You still have something I don’t know?”

“It was many years ago.” Jin Zhao thought for a moment, then slowly began. “When I was in my second year of high school, my stepmother got pregnant, and a maternity nanny moved into our home. One night, the chickens they kept on the balcony knocked over a stainless-steel water basin. I was woken up by the noise. The next day, I wanted to bring the basin inside, but the nanny told me it was my problem—that I was too sensitive. She said that with a sensitive personality like mine, I’d end up with depression sooner or later.”

Meng Yanxi’s fist tightened.

Jin Zhao looked at him. “I still remember this incident to this day. It was actually a very small thing, but I remember it. Do you know why?”

Meng Yanxi said, “Why?”

“Because I didn’t argue back then. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to—I was just a bit slow. In those few brief seconds, my mouth couldn’t react in time. After it was over, only then did it hit me. I thought, I should have cursed her out just now, I should have said this instead…”

Jin Zhao paused, then looked into Meng Yanxi’s eyes. “When you told me today that I don’t love you, I wasn’t acquiescing. My mouth just didn’t react in time. By the time I figured out how to refute you, you had already left. So next time you’re angry with me, can you wait for me one minute? No—half a minute will do. Let me organize my words. After all, your Lingling is like this—just a bit slow. You have to wait for her.”

The crystal chandelier overhead was bluntly dazzling. Meng Yanxi stared at her quietly, then suddenly let out a low laugh. “Jin Zhao, you’ve gotten smarter. After saying all that, you’re just trying to make me feel sorry for you so you can muddle through.”

Jin Zhao said earnestly, “I do want you to feel sorry for me—but not to muddle through.”

Meng Yanxi’s fingers moved slightly. “Then refute me now.”

Perhaps Meng Yanxi was right—she really had become smarter. These slightly roundabout hints used to take her a moment to process. Today, she understood them in an instant.

She looked steadily into Meng Yanxi’s eyes and said, word by word, “Meng Yanxi, I love you.”