Sweetie, don't look at him, kiss me.

The second incident occurred at Lin Qingqing's wedding after the toasting ceremony.

Chen Qiu stood up, holding a wine glass, and said she wanted to toast the bride. When she walked up to Lin Qingqing, she had a smile on her face, raised her glass high, and spoke in a clear, open voice: "Qingqing, now that you've married into our family, you're family. I'm not much of a mother-in-law, I'm just straightforward. If you ever suffer any injustice in the future, just come to me."

When she said the word "wronged," her gaze drifted almost imperceptibly towards Ji Xingye. Ji Xingye stood beside her with no expression, but simply pulled Lin Qingqing half a step closer to him.

Chen Qiu took a sip of her drink, then turned to look at Lin Qingmian: "And you, Qingmian, you're part of our family now. Call me sister-in-law, and I'll treat you like family from now on."

She paused, twirling her wine glass in her hand. "It just means I shouldn't see my son alone as much as possible anymore. After all, he's your nephew now, right?"

A moment of silence fell over the banquet hall. Some people paused in their act of picking up food, while others held their wine glasses suspended in mid-air. Ji Linzhou, sitting next to Lin Qingmian, reached for his teacup, took a sip, and placed the cup back on the table with a soft, gentle sound.

"My sister-in-law is right," he said, his voice neither loud nor soft. "We really should be mindful of our actions."

Chen Qiu's smile froze for a moment; she hadn't expected him to respond so quickly. She opened her mouth as if to say something more, but Old Master Ji tapped his cane on the main seat: "Alright, today is a good day, say no more."

Chen Qiu smiled and returned to her seat, but the smile on her lips faded and then returned several times. Lin Qingqing stood next to Ji Xingye, her hand holding the wine glass never lowered, her fingertips gripping the glass until they turned white.

After the wedding, the guests gradually left. While Lin Qingmian waited for her car at the entrance, Ji Xingye emerged from a side door, his coat draped over his arm and his tie loosened, as if he had finally crawled out from under something heavy to breathe. He walked over and stood beside her, looking towards the parking lot without turning to look at her.

"Congratulations," Lin Qingmian said.

He smiled briefly, a fleeting smile, like someone had tugged at the corner of his mouth and then released it. "What are you congratulating me on?"

Congratulations on your marriage.

He was silent for a moment, the evening breeze ruffling his hair slightly, but he ignored it. "She told me today," he began, his voice carried by the wind, "that they're going to take wedding photos the day after they get married. Next week they'll start trying to conceive. She plans to get everything done within a year."

He turned to look at her: "She also told me to stop thinking about the past."

Lin Qingmian didn't reply after listening. The wind blew through the gap between them, carrying the lingering scent of champagne and flower petals from the banquet. In the distance, car headlights turned a corner, stretching their shadows on the road for a moment before disappearing.

Ji Linzhou's car pulled up at the entrance. As he got out of the driver's seat and walked around to the passenger side to open the door for Lin Qingmian, Ji Xingye was still standing there, his coat draped over his arm, the hem of his trench coat billowing in the evening breeze before falling back down. He watched Lin Qingmian bend down and get into the car, watched Ji Linzhou close the door and turn back to the driver's seat, watched the taillights of that car merge into the traffic on the main road, growing farther and farther away in the night.

He stood there for about three or four seconds, then turned and walked back to the side door of the banquet hall. The light that shone through before the door closed outlined a golden edge on his back, which was then cut off by the closing door.

Ji Linzhou drove in silence, and Lin Qingmian remained silent as well. After the car passed several intersections, he suddenly broke the silence: "What did he say to you at the entrance just now?"

He said he wanted to take wedding photos and also prepare for pregnancy.

Ji Linzhou's hand paused slightly on the steering wheel. "He told you himself."

"Um."

He was silent for a few seconds, then asked again, "What else did he say?"

"I told him to stop thinking about the past," Lin Qingmian said, turning her head to look out the window. "He meant his mother told him not to think about it."

Ji Linzhou stopped at the red light. The red light shone into the car, casting a thin layer of red on both of their faces. He turned to look at her, the light making his eyes appear deeper than usual: "And you? Did you tell him to stop thinking about it?"

"I didn't say," she said.

He didn't ask any further questions. When the light turned green, he stepped on the gas. The car smoothly drove through the intersection. Lin Qingmian leaned back in her seat and felt her hand, which was resting on her knee, being grasped by another hand. He didn't look at her, but simply held her hand, his thumb gently brushing against the back of her hand before releasing it and resting it on the steering wheel.

That evening, Ji Linzhou received a phone call. After listening for a few minutes, he stood up and went to the balcony. Lin Qingmian saw his back as he stood in the night wind for a long time through the French windows, his phone pressed to his ear, not saying much, mostly listening. When he hung up and came back in, his expression was somewhat different.

"I found it." He placed his phone on the coffee table. "The loan shark agreement you signed back then—the creditor wasn't her family; it was a shell company registered by the Lin family themselves."

Lin Qingmian was coming out of the kitchen pouring water when she paused for a moment in her hand holding the cup.

"Your parents," he said, looking at her, "They used shell companies to impose debts on you, then used those debts to force you to sign documents. Old Madam Ji acted as a middleman, but it was your parents who carried out the actual work. The debt you signed was transferred to her side, and she then wiped it clean by arranging our marriage—your parents received a sum of money, the debt was cleared, and their daughter got married. Both sides were clean."

Lin Qingmian stood in the living room, not picking up the glass of water in her hand again. She stood there listening to him finish speaking, then placed the glass on the coffee table, the bottom of the glass making a crisp sound as it tapped against the marble surface.

"So they knew from the beginning," she said. "They knew everything."

"They knew that shell company belonged to their family, they knew they transferred the debt to you, and they knew who you were going to marry." He looked at her. "They knew it from beginning to end."

She stood in the living room, the light streaming down from the ceiling illuminating her clearly. Her expression remained almost unchanged, but her fingers slowly clenched and unclenched before she walked to the sofa and sat down. Once seated, she looked down at her clenched fingers, remaining silent for a long time—so long that even when Ji Linzhou returned from the balcony and sat beside her, she didn't look up.

"That night you called me to ask about the five million," her voice was soft, "my dad said he wanted to borrow money from you in my name. That's when you found out my parents were still up to something—you already knew then."

He didn't deny it. "At that time, we had already uncovered part of it."

"You never told me."

"I'm waiting for evidence."

She finally looked up at him, a faint smile, the meaning unclear, appearing on her face: "Ji Linzhou."

"Um."

"Tell me what you find next time," she said. "I don't want you to make decisions for me."

He looked at her, and after a while, he said, "Okay."

A night breeze blew through the balcony, lifting and lowering the curtains. She sat on the sofa and felt him reach out and take her hands, which were resting on her knees, into his palms. His fingertips covered her slightly cool fingertips, and warmth gradually transferred to her.

"So now?" he asked, "what do you plan to do with them?"

Lin Qingmian looked down at the hands he was holding, and after a while spoke: "Let them pay what they owe."