The engagement was with the younger brother, but I've fallen for the older brother.

Ning Jingzhi's eyebrows twitched slightly, and then he smiled.

"Are you so sure?"

"It was decided when we got together."

He Sichen's gaze fell on the dark figure on the lawn in the distance.

Si Yimian was surrounded by classmates taking pictures. Her hat was askew, and she reached out to straighten it while laughing.

Ning Jingzhi smiled slightly, not expecting the answer to come so quickly.

"You're in a hurry to get it done once you get back to China."

"No rush," He Sichen replied.

"She's graduated, I have no reason to delay any longer."

Ning Jingzhi suddenly remembered something and frowned slightly.

"But I heard that Mianmian was previously engaged to Nanxian?"

He Sichen replied calmly, "The engagement has been cancelled."

Ning Jingzhi nodded thoughtfully.

"So, you're with her now, after the engagement was called off?"

He Sichen corrected her: "It happened before."

Ning Jingzhi was stunned. After a moment, the smile on her face slowly widened, as if she were solving a puzzle that she hadn't expected to be so interesting.

"From childhood to adulthood, you've never done anything out of line."

"The only thing that's out of line is your brother's fiancée."

"She went too far."

He Sichen added calmly, "It's not one-sided."

Ning Jingzhi listened in silence for a while.

Then she looked up at the sky and let out a profound sigh.

"Oh my god."

"My son isn't made of wood."

"You've abstained from women for thirty years, and the first time you do, you head straight for the enemy camp, and it's a two-way trip to the enemy camp."

"I never imagined that your marriage with that girl from the Si family would come full circle again."

At this point, Ning Jingzhi took a deep breath.

"I thought my mess with your dad had really hurt you a lot."

"A few years ago, your grandfather told me that you hadn't been in a relationship all these years, and asked me to introduce you to someone abroad. He said that girls in China were all afraid of the cold because of you, and asked me to look for someone here who could withstand the cold."

"At that moment, I thought to myself, 'That's it, this child's life is ruined.'"

He Sichen's lips twitched involuntarily.

"You're still so direct."

"Otherwise what? Do you think you can listen to me just going around in circles?"

Ning Jingzhi withdrew his gaze and looked at the noisy group of graduates on the lawn.

"When I first heard you say you'd get married as soon as you got back to China, I thought, 'Isn't that pretty efficient?'"

He Sichen remained silent for a long time.

"Marriage was indeed a high-risk gamble for me; I didn't even have the courage to get close to it."

"But if she were sitting across from me, I'd be willing to lay all my cards on the table and show them to her."

He paused, and his voice suddenly became low.

"Winning or losing doesn't matter; what matters is that she's the one at the gambling table."

"I still don't have confidence in marriage."

"But I have confidence in her."

Ning Jingzhi looked into his eyes and listened quietly to what he had to say.

In those eyes, she could clearly see every emotional rise and fall, from infancy to adulthood.

At this moment, there was no evasion or hesitation in his eyes, only the determination of a man betting his entire life on it.

She suddenly reached out and patted his shoulder.

"Si Chen, what's between you and your father is our business, not your answer."

"My separation from your father is not a failure of our marriage, but a failure of our relationship."

"You've been cleaning up our messes since you were ten years old, as if you'll never repeat the same mistakes as long as you don't make them."

"But you can't stop driving just because you've seen one car accident. You drive more steadily than anyone else, so what are you afraid of?"

"In short, remember this: the story of me and your father doesn't mean that every story can only have one ending."

"You are not your father, and she is not me."

"You will write completely different stories."

She paused, and her tone suddenly relaxed.

"You don't need to treat marriage as a project to conquer; you just need to treat her as an irreplaceable person in your life."

"Moreover, people who are afraid of marriage are often the ones who take marriage the most seriously."

"Because I take it too seriously, I don't dare to place bets casually."

"Your attitude towards relationships has never changed. You either don't start anything, or once you start, you only date one person."

"So I'm not worried that you'll follow in your father's footsteps."

He Sichen did not respond immediately after hearing this.

Ning Jingzhi's words were like a key, pushing into a drawer in his heart that had been locked for twenty years, and then suddenly turning it.

The lock wasn't fully open, but light leaked in through the crack in the door.

He Sichen turned his head to look at her, his lips moved slightly, but in the end he only nodded.

"it is good."

Ning Jingzhi nodded, but didn't ask any further questions. Instead, he changed the subject to another question.

"What are your plans for the wedding? How much do the He family know about it?"

He Sichen withdrew his gaze and answered her.

"After returning to China, I talked to my grandfather."

Does your grandfather know?

"I might know a little bit."

"A little bit?"

Ning Jingzhi laughed out loud.

"Your grandfather, who is over eighty years old, has eyes sharper than an eagle."

"You said he knows a little bit, so that means he knows everything, he just hasn't revealed it yet."

After saying that, Ning Jingzhi stopped laughing.

"Your grandfather is doing alright; he's more eager for you to get married than anyone else."

"You'll probably have to give your dad an explanation."

He Sichen tapped his knuckles lightly on his knee: "I'll handle it."

"OK."

Ning Jingzhi didn't say much more. He patted his knees, stood up, and smiled back at him.

"Let's invite Mianmian to dinner tonight, it's on me."

"This is a good opportunity for me to formally meet my future daughter-in-law."

He Sichen looked up at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"it is good."

……

Dinner was arranged at the French restaurant next to the school.

Ning Jingzhi's partner, David, is indeed a person who is flawless.

He was gentle and considerate, elegant and refined, and his personality and soul were a perfect match for Ning Jingzhi.

Their relationship seemed to have grown naturally over countless days and nights.

He suddenly remembered the scene he saw through the crack in the office door when he was ten years old.

That image has lingered in my mind for many years, like a painting splattered with ink, the stained colors impossible to wash away.

But now he sees a completely different painting.

That tattered script, which he took as a model for marriage, turned out to be far from the only version his mother had ever lived through.

What he was always afraid of was not marriage itself, but the fear that he had inherited his father's genes and would one day become like him.

The mother could lose once, but she didn't overturn the gambling table.

She simply changed her opponent, sat down again, and won once more.

That drawer, locked for twenty years, was cracked open by Ning Jingzhi's words that afternoon, and then completely opened by this meal.

The rain had just stopped when the event ended, and the road was wet, reflecting the streetlights in fragmented patterns.

They parted ways with Ning Jingzhi and David at the street corner. David took off his coat and draped it over Ning Jingzhi's shoulders. The two of them slowly walked away along the path.

He Sichen stood under the streetlight, watching the two people's backs overlap, stretched and shortened.

He looked away and glanced at Si Yimian.

She was tiptoeing to step into the reflection of a puddle, her shoe tip splashing a small spray of water, then she pulled back and grinned at him.

He raised his hand and pulled the bag strap that had slipped to her shoulder back into place.

His hand paused on her shoulder for a moment, then slid down her forearm and grasped her fingers.

"Mianmian".

Si Yimian looked at him and sensed that something was wrong with him.

"What's wrong with you? Did your mom's happiness overwhelm you?"

He Sichen's tall figure gradually shrunk, and then he knelt on one knee on the wet road.

He Sichen looked up at her and took out a small box from the inside pocket of his suit.

Deep blue velvet, inside which is a diamond ring the size of a pigeon's egg.

"Would you be willing to help me redefine marriage from a high-risk option in life to the optimal solution?"

"Can I become a legal spouse from a pet?"