July 1st.
The breeze was gentle, and the clouds were light.
There was no one else on the balcony.
I gazed into the distance for a while, then secretly loosened my collar a little to let the heat inside dissipate.
The low-cut camisole felt a bit refreshing.
Su Liumeng pushed open the glass door of the balcony, standing behind me, her gaze unconsciously drifting downward.
Sensing the gaze from above, my body stiffened almost imperceptibly.
“All right, I know you’re tall.” I said, a little annoyed.
But though I spoke, I didn’t move to cover myself.
The lace camisole didn’t cover everything; fragrant sweat beaded on fair skin with a faint pink flush, making me look even more alluring under the bright sun. Especially with my eyes holding a hint of spring, my head tilted up slightly, gazing at her with a naive expression—Su Liumeng’s heart skipped a beat.
Wearing a camisole in front of someone so tall was basically the same as wearing nothing.
I just want to say, I really can’t take it.
“What are you holding?” My sharp eyes noticed the book in Su Liumeng’s hand.
“The list of noble families we need to send gifts to.” Su Liumeng handed the book to me, at the same time reaching out to tidy my collar. Her fingertips accidentally grazed my smooth skin, causing her breathing to quicken, her trembling fingers trailing along the milky softness, and a look of puzzled innocence appeared in my eyes.
That childlike, pure gaze fanned the flames in Su Liumeng’s heart. At the same time, another voice seemed to echo: Don’t taint the celestial maiden’s purity. But pulling the immortal down from the altar, the taboo beauty of such forbidden thoughts, only made her fingers press harder, as countless wild fantasies quietly bloomed inside.
“Baby, you’re so beautiful.”
“It makes me want to desecrate you…”
My clear eyes flickered, “What are you doing? Even your flirting is all flowery talk.”
I grabbed Su Liumeng’s hand, which still lingered at my collar. When her warmth was wrapped in mine, I suddenly remembered my plan, so I forced myself to keep calm under Su Liumeng’s expectant gaze, taking her hand as if nothing had happened, pretending I was completely clueless.
“Let me see the gift list.”
Su Liumeng’s tone was full of grievance, “It’s already been a year.”
“You’re about to have been married to me for a whole year…”
“So it’s been a year, huh.” I bit my lip, the innocence and confusion in my eyes making Su Liumeng want to howl at the sky in frustration.
I replied in a crisp voice, “Time really flies.”
Holding Su Liumeng’s hand, I spread the gift list out on the table. “Let’s look together. Which families have weddings or funerals that we need to send gifts for?”
Su Liumeng mentioned casually, “It’s the third Miss of the Mo family. We got her remarriage invitation recently.”
“Remarrying is perfectly normal, it’s modern times now. If it’s not right, it’s just not right. To keep following those old rules about chastity and female virtue only binds you and makes you miserable for life, don’t you think?”
After Su Liumeng finished, she looked into my eyes.
I blinked my big eyes, as if I didn’t understand a thing. “She remarried? That’s pretty good, escaping the old mud and finding her true destined one. That’s something worth celebrating.”
Su Liumeng looked at the wavering in my eyes, as if I really was just giving a simple blessing.
She still wouldn’t give up and pressed on, “Baby, do you really think so?”
“Of course.”
I answered confidently, “If a tree isn’t right for you, why hang yourself on it? This is a lifelong matter—if you run into a bad partner, you should cut it off without hesitation.”
“You… don’t have any other thoughts?” Su Liumeng almost blurted out, “What about you?”
“Me?” My eyes widened, clearly not expecting the topic to come to me. “You mean… you want me to find someone else to marry?”
“That—wouldn’t be right.”
“Or is it—” My tone paused. I squinted, my tone dangerous as I scrutinized Su Liumeng, “You don’t want me anymore?”
I muttered, “I checked, you don’t have any little lovers outside, so there’s no reason not to want me.”
Su Liumeng watched as I stood up, ready to return to the air conditioning. In her eyes, there was a trace of helpless pain, and she finally decided to let things explode. If this wasn’t resolved, she’d go crazy—married for a year and not even a taste of meat? What human could live like this?
As for whether baby would be sad—
Su Liumeng had thought about it.
But being stuck in that place forever, wasn’t that just another kind of running away?
Sometimes, you have to break something to move forward.
Without the courage to break through, how could you hope for a new life?
“Si Xinyan!” Su Liumeng suddenly shouted loudly toward me.
I had a bad feeling, and replied flustered, feet almost slipping as I tried to dash into my room.
Su Liumeng stomped her foot, gritted her teeth, chased after me, and forcibly pulled the petite girl in front of her, “Stop! Where do you think you’re going?”
Su Liumeng was determined to confront Si Xinyan face to face today.
All the frustration and pent-up emotion from a whole year—if she didn’t vent it now, she’d go full caveman in the next second.
Seeing the fire in Su Liumeng’s eyes, as if she was barely holding back, I instinctively shrank my neck and stammered like a quail, “Meng, Xiao Mengmeng, what do you want…”
“Hmph, now it’s ‘Xiao Mengmeng’? Who was it calling me by my full name all day before? Calling when you want, dismissing when you want.” Su Liumeng’s back teeth were about to crack. She seriously suspected that she’d spoiled this girl too much, to the point that she wasn’t even a little afraid—bold enough to dance on her grave.
“Yes, that was me.” My voice got softer and softer, but then, as if thinking of something, I suddenly straightened my back and said, a little stubbornly and righteously, “Yes, it’s me, so what?”
“Let go of me right now!!”
“Did you hear me?” I glared fiercely at Su Liumeng.
But my inborn “henpecked” streak kicked in, and Su Liumeng lost a bit of confidence. Still, thinking of the miserable year she’d had, she stared me down and forced herself to be tough. “No.”
“Today you have to answer me. I just want to consummate our marriage—it’s been so long, do you really not want to be with me?”
The more Su Liumeng spoke, the more wronged she felt, almost to tears. “Last month, you promised me after your period was over, you’d let me fulfill my wish. It’s been a month already, your next period is about to come, and there’s still nothing—how can you treat me like this?”
I choked on my words. So it really was about that.
I tried to tiptoe and pat her head, wanting to smooth things over.
Su Liumeng turned her head to dodge, and my hand froze awkwardly in the air. “Don’t—petting my head won’t help now.”
“Do you know what people would say if they found out about this?”
Su Liumeng stared at me, her eyes already misty.
“If you say ‘the child has nothing to do with me,’ that’s fine… But after nearly a year of marriage, you still won’t let me touch you. So my wife also has nothing to do with me—so what am I?”
“Not just that, I have to take care of your meals, your emotions, feed the child every day, coax you to sleep too.”
“Yes, I chose this road myself.”
“But you can’t have me grovel like this.”
“Sometimes I even feel that even the neighbor’s dog ranks higher than me. Luckily you don’t have a cat or dog at home, or I’d be below the dog in status—do you believe it?” All these words had been buried in Su Liumeng’s heart for too long, and now poured out like a flood.
My little hands were clenched tight.
“I don’t believe it.” I pushed Su Liumeng away a bit. “Stop with this useless stuff, I’m going to coax the child.”
The hurt in Su Liumeng’s eyes deepened. She grabbed my arm again, and I frowned, hissing, “You can’t go. Today you have to explain—is this how you’re going to treat me? Whenever things get real, you turn cold and lose all your usual tenderness. Now I’m starting to wonder if you ever really meant it, or if you just pretended to be gentle all along.”
I frowned again. “Su Liumeng, is that what you really think of me?”
“Who could pretend for so long?”
“What do you want from me? I said I have things to do, I have to go coax the child, and you insist on talking now?”
The impatience in my voice made Su Liumeng’s heart stop.
Her whole spring, never to bloom again.
Su Liumeng’s face turned pale.
“I kept making excuses for you, thinking maybe you were worried you weren’t a virgin, so you didn’t want to go further.”
She gave a bitter laugh, the loneliness in her eyes finally impossible to hide.
She looked like a little abandoned kitten, completely dejected. Even if snow fell in June or July, it couldn’t compare to the chill in her eyes.
“What do you mean, not a virgin?” I noticed Su Liumeng’s expression—what I thought was just a normal conversation suddenly felt like something much more important. I furrowed my brows, thinking back to our earlier words.
My intention had just been to drag things out.
Was saying I needed to coax the child really that hurtful?
Su Liumeng suddenly let go of my hand.
I watched my small hand fall through the air, as if my own galaxy of stars was collapsing and fading inside me. Meeting the emotion in Su Liumeng’s eyes, a wild intuition suddenly seized my heart—as if, after this letting go, she would never take my hand again.
A line parallel to life itself seemed to be drawn between us. If I took another step, we’d be like parallel lines—never to intersect again.
A sharp pain clutched my heart, as if it were being squeezed tightly, making it hard to breathe or speak.
Clutching my chest, I slowly squatted down.
Su Liumeng looked at me, hugging my knees and squatting on the floor. She shut her eyes, ready to walk past me, but her calf was suddenly grabbed by a little hand, white as jade.
“What did you just say?”
“What first time?”
“I think there’s a misunderstanding between us.”
“You can’t go, and you can’t ignore me.” I was almost in tears, wondering how my careful plan ended up like this.
Su Liumeng looked at my face, pale as paper, as if enduring some deep pain. I still gripped her calf tightly, unwilling to loosen my grip for even a second.
Her fragile look was like a porcelain vase, ready to shatter at any moment.
Su Liumeng was silent for a second or two, her bitter smile growing deeper. In the end, she relented, scooping me up, warming my chilled body with her own.
“Weren’t you… not a virgin?”
“Now that I think about it, I really was a fool, believing whatever you said—no ex-husband, your daughter is parthenogenetic, all of it made-up lies, right?”
My eyes went blank, heart twisting with pain. I didn’t want to be wronged like this, so I raised my voice, even patting her arm. “Su Liumeng, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why accuse me?” I wanted to get angry, but realizing there was a chasm of misunderstanding between us, I softened my tone.
“My vital yin is still intact.”
“I…”
“I, I—”
Flustered, I finally remembered something. I quickly took a book out of my bracelet. “You weren’t there when I gave birth to Zhizhi, right? It’s this book. I cultivated the method in it—that’s why…”
Su Liumeng stared at the contents of the book, her mind thrown into chaos.
So.
Had she been wrong all along?
Was she the one who wronged Si Xinyan?
If Yan really had never lied, then why keep finding reasons to refuse her?
No, no—Su Liumeng panicked for the first time.
With all her wisdom, she still couldn’t figure out what was really going on.
Seeing Su Liumeng’s skepticism, I finally bit my lip and said, “Fine, you still don’t believe me? Take me to the room and I’ll show you with your own eyes, okay?”
My struggle was obvious; Su Liumeng could see it clearly.
She fell silent for a moment. “You… still don’t want to?”
I pinched my fingertips.
My hesitation wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I was just worried that, once on the bed, if we couldn’t control our emotions, my plan would fall apart ahead of schedule.
But I wanted even more to explain things to Su Liumeng.
If it gets ruined, so be it.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not unwilling. I said long ago—if it’s you, anything is fine.”
Hearing my words, Su Liumeng could still hear the struggle, but finally said, “It’s fine, I believe you now.”
“You… really believe me?” Seeing the colors in her eyes, I couldn’t help doubting.
I knew Su Liumeng still didn’t fully trust me.
I gave a theoretically plausible explanation, just so she’d have a reason to convince herself.
What she needed wasn’t anything I had to do.
She’d humbled herself so much, just needing any excuse to make herself accept it, so we could stay together.
She didn’t really want to see the truth herself. She just didn’t want to force me into anything I was unwilling to do.
With someone who loves me so deeply, could I ever do enough for her?
In my heartache over her humility, all I could see was the figure before me.
On the balcony, Su Liumeng seemed ready to avoid my decision, yet at the same time couldn’t bear to leave—two mountains of contradiction pressing down so hard, I could barely breathe, guilt growing ever stronger, until I could only hug Su Liumeng tightly. “Mengbao, I swear, believe me one last time, all right?”
“I’m begging you.”
“Just give me a few more days. I’ll give you a satisfactory answer, I promise.”
Su Liumeng listened to my heartbeat, my gentle, watery voice. In her mind, all the doubts and worries seemed to be smashed to pieces, never to rise again.
In this moment.
She finally understood her last bottom line.
Maybe, all she ever really wanted was not much.
Just—just that she didn’t want to be deceived.
And even if she was deceived, as long as she was given some barely plausible reason, she could coax herself to believe.
Because.
She really couldn’t bear to let go of the delicate girl in her arms.
The scene on the balcony replayed in her mind once again.
She couldn’t bear to see Xiao Yan in any pain.
If you are going to lie to me—
Then please, let this lie last a lifetime.
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