The unexpected visitor was Li Jinyu’s aunt by marriage. Dou Juhua had few descendants, with only one grandson. Family ties were thin, with only one sister left to rely on. Her sister’s family branch was flourishing with many children and grandchildren, but none were particularly successful, except for Yang Tianwei’s father. A few years ago, he didn’t know better and accumulated a large gambling debt, but in recent years he had finally settled down doing business in Guangdong to repay his debts. The rest of them loafed around at home sleeping all day while still dreaming of getting rich.

This aunt was one of them. Whenever she visited, it meant trouble—either borrowing money or trying to play matchmaker for him.

“These days, being a matchmaker is hard work.” Ye Meng woke up the moment the aunt entered the door, because Ping’an kept barking, seemingly disliking this visitor as well.

She had just woken up and had a dry mouth. With sleepy eyes, she pitifully lay on the table, poking at Li Jinyu’s palm. “Honey, I’m thirsty.”

Li Jinyu didn’t want to confront his aunt directly at this moment. Leaning against the chair back, flipping through his book, he asked lazily and annoyingly: “Want to drink saliva?”

Ye Meng had one arm cushioning her head, while her other hand was intertwined with his as they played with each other’s fingers. She laughed with her head on the table, her eyes suddenly moving downward to tease him: “Can I drink something else?”

“Drink what?”

Li Jinyu didn’t catch on immediately and looked at her blankly. Meeting her suggestive gaze, his eyes involuntarily followed hers downward, slowly falling to his crotch. Suddenly realizing her meaning, he was inexplicably choked, coughing violently and unexpectedly, then couldn’t help but rarely curse a single syllable while smiling.

“Fuck.”

Ye Meng laughed with her head on the table, her eyes like the rouge clouds staining the window outside, clear and beautiful, with a careless and casual wildness that moved with the wind.

In the living room, Ping’an finally stopped barking and lay down quietly.

“Is Li Jinyu at home?” The aunt heard the cough and glanced at Li Jinyu’s tightly closed bedroom door, saying to the elderly lady, “Why doesn’t he come out to see his aunt?”

“He’s inside with his wife,” the elderly lady sat in her wheelchair covered with a small blanket, rolling her eyes. “Who wants to keep an old woman like your company?”

The aunt showed a strange expression on her face, exclaiming in surprise: “Oh, Li Jinyu is married?”

“Yes,” the elderly lady said, maintaining her composure. “We haven’t had time to notify everyone yet. We’ll let you know when they hold their wedding banquet.”

The aunt couldn’t resist asking curiously: “Which family is she from?”

“You’ll find out then,” Dou Juhua said impatiently. “What are you here for today anyway?”

The aunt thought to herself, seeing the elderly lady’s attitude, that this daughter-in-law probably wasn’t much to show off. So she cleared her throat, sat up straight, and probed in a low voice: “I heard that Li Jinyu’s birth mother has a large antique company in Beijing?”

The elderly lady looked at her coldly: “What business is that of yours?”

The aunt gave an awkward smile, “It’s Yang Gaoyi. Gaoyi feels there isn’t much future in the town and wants to go to Beijing to develop. Could Li Jinyu’s birth mother help out? We’re all relatives. Look at Yang Tianwei in Beijing now, doing so well. Gaoyi says that Yang Tianwei bought a pair of sneakers yesterday for two thousand yuan.”

The elderly lady was old but not confused and understood the meaning behind the words.

Her son had seen Yang Tianwei living well in Beijing, his eyes reddened with envy and now wanted to find a way to develop in Beijing as well.

“You’ve spoiled Yang Gaoyi since he was little. He’s not as hardworking as Yang Tianwei,” the elderly lady mocked.

The aunt immediately said: “Gaoyi can work hard. This child has never enjoyed any blessings in our family. Look at other families who dig up treasures from their land and instantly get several houses in exchange. Our family has guarded this piece of land for so many years, but no treasures have ever come out.”

Ningsu also had a thousand years of history, with countless antique dealers in town. In earlier years, many had gotten rich this way. The Yang brothers stubbornly guarded this piece of land and refused to leave for a reason—because farmers occasionally dug up treasures from the ground, then found cultural relic dealers from outside the area to sell them, making huge profits. At that time, there were more buyers than goods. Later, the government specifically designated several thousand acres of land as cultural heritage protection sites, and after the revision of the new Cultural Relics Law, strictly prohibited the trading of cultural relics. Any unearthed treasures were required to be handed over to the local cultural relics bureau, with private dealing punishable by severe sentences.

Under severe punishment, many had restrained themselves. Cultural relic dealers were no longer rampant but had gone underground. To this day, many dealers still wait in town. Some farmers were still unwilling to hand over treasures dug up from their land and secretly sold them to cultural relic dealers.

Other people’s fields seemed blessed by Guanyin with holy water, with every inch of land worth its weight in gold, spurting money. Their Yang family couldn’t shake out any treasures even with an earthquake. The aunt’s family had lost hope. So looking at Yang Tianwei’s recent social media posts, jealousy arose, and she decided to visit her convenient nephew-by-marriage Li Jinyu to find a path.

In the room, the atmosphere remained the same as before. Ye Meng was no longer sleepy. With one hand cushioning her head, she lazily lay on the table, playing with her husband’s long, distinct fingers, occasionally kissing his fingertips, appearing genuinely fond of him. Li Jinyu let her play, occasionally pinching her ear when he got excited, telling her not to disturb him and to be quiet for a while.

Ye Meng was extremely bored. With her chin resting on the table, she finally couldn’t help but ask: “Baby, how much longer will you be reading?”

“Bored?” Li Jinyu asked.

“A bit.”

Li Jinyu tossed his book aside, pulled her over, pressed her between his open legs, and lazily leaned back in his chair, looking at her: “Shall I keep you company for a while?”

Ye Meng sat on him, playing with the zipper of his sports jacket, saying: “Why don’t you ask me why Gou Kai was at my place that day?”

Li Jinyu watched her randomly zip and unzip, allowing her to fiddle back and forth, his eyes lowered with a cold arc as he said softly: “I don’t want to ask anymore.”

Ye Meng sighed, leaned down to cup his face, and recounted the entire story in detail. Finally, she nuzzled his nose appeasingly and said, “You should be more discerning about who you’re jealous of. Gou Kai isn’t even handsome, and he’s so short. I’m not crazy—why would I go looking elsewhere when I have such a fine-looking husband at home?”

Their faces were close, breathing just inches apart, with warm, moist breath spreading on each other’s faces.

“‘Fine-looking’ is used to describe women. Are you asking for a beating?” Li Jinyu said without any intimidation.

Ye Meng mercilessly exposed him: “Stop pretending. You’re pleased hearing me say that.”

They were extremely close, their peripheral vision filled with each other’s passionate gazes. Li Jinyu very much wanted to kiss her but ultimately restrained himself, coughed, and pretentiously said: “No, I’m just moderately pleased.” Ye Meng collapsed laughing at him.

After they played around for a while, they heard chattering arguments outside the door.

They exchanged a glance and without a word stood up and went out. When the aunt saw Li Jinyu finally emerge, her eyes brightened, and she immediately left the elderly lady to hurry toward them.

The elderly lady couldn’t stop her due to her limited mobility, and could only shout angrily from behind: “It’s useless talking to him! That woman has nothing to do with our family!”

The aunt ignored her and went straight toward them, glanced at Ye Meng behind Li Jinyu, and first asked: “Is this your wife?”

Li Jinyu gave a noncommittal “mm” and asked, “Do you need something?”

The aunt then repeated to Li Jinyu, in excruciating detail, what she had said to the elderly lady outside.

Li Jinyu’s expression grew colder as he listened, but he remained silent and didn’t interrupt. When the aunt finally finished her rambling speech.

He said: “I’m sorry, I can’t help. My mother doesn’t recognize me.”

Ye Meng felt deeply sorry for him, seeing his increasingly cold, icy face with a chill in his eyes that had never been there before.

The aunt persisted tactlessly: “How could she not recognize you? After all, you’re her biological child. No mother in the world doesn’t love her child—”

“She is one.”

“You just don’t want to help, right, Li Jinyu? You can’t be like this,” the aunt leaned on her seniority, completely ignoring him and relentlessly imposing: “I’m leaving this matter to you to handle. You must do it beautifully for me—”

Ye Meng couldn’t listen anymore. She pulled Li Jinyu behind her and gently interrupted: “Auntie, do you have any other business?”

The aunt’s well-calculated plans of many years seemed to stop at this moment.

The elderly lady had relied on her sister for companionship with few descendants of her own, so she always had a soft heart for her sister’s children. Sometimes when she was tight on money or when Yang Gaoyi needed something expensive, the aunt would come and play the sympathy card with the elderly lady, who would give without hesitation, emptying her savings. Indeed, the elderly lady was truly a treasure, seemingly inexhaustible. Every time she came, she would get eight or ten thousand, enough for half a year’s expenses in their family. The old woman and the young man, one with limited mobility, the other not calculating—the aunt knew they were easy targets and had been squeezing them for years. Suddenly, a female master of the house appeared, meaning she wouldn’t find it so easy to get money from the elderly lady anymore.

The aunt was naturally displeased. Looking at how she protected her husband—merely an abandoned son whose own mother didn’t recognize him—one might think he was some diamond-encrusted treasure. The aunt had a dirty mouth; when provoked, all sorts of words would spew out, beyond what could be described as a fishwife’s scolding. But now, since she needed a favor, she restrained herself.

“You’re Ye Meng, right? I’m Li Jinyu’s aunt by marriage. Yang Gaoyi is also Li Jinyu’s cousin. As young people, we hope he can go out and make his way—”

“I heard you, you’ve said this already,” the aunt spoke in circles, repeating the same thing over and over. Ye Meng didn’t have Li Jinyu’s patience and directly cut her off. “Didn’t Li Jinyu already say he can’t help? Here’s my suggestion: check recruitment websites.”

“What website?”

“58.com, Job Street. If all else fails, try Century Jiayuan dating site—perhaps you’ll find a rich woman willing to support your son.”

Accusing her son of living off others?

The aunt caught the sarcasm in her words and felt somewhat embarrassed: “How dare you speak like that?”

“Weren’t you pretending not to understand human language? But you understood that?” Ye Meng smiled. “When Li Jinyu said he couldn’t help you, you acted as if you were deaf.”

Ye Meng gave a slap followed by candy, seeing her face quickly turning sour, and immediately said: “Have Yang Gaoyi contact me. I might have a way.”

The aunt was stunned, her expression quickly softening: “Really? What do you do?”

Ye Meng joked: “Human trafficking. If you don’t believe me, never mind.”

At this point, the aunt had pinned all her hopes on her, no longer daring to question. The previous unpleasantness vanished like passing clouds, and she immediately smiled and said, “Give me your phone number, and I’ll have Yang Gaoyi contact you when I get home!”

After the aunt left with a satisfied face, the elderly woman, the young man, and even the dog in the house looked at her with dissatisfaction.

Li Jinyu turned and went back to the room, with Ye Meng following. This time the door was wide open; they hadn’t bothered to close it. He sat down, pulled Ye Meng onto his lap, and said, “Do you enjoy meddling in other people’s affairs?”

Ye Meng exclaimed: “Heartless! I felt sorry for you.”

“I don’t want you to get involved with those people. They’re leeches. Once it starts, it never ends. They never know when to be satisfied. And where would you have such connections in Beijing? Huh? If you end up owing Gou Kai a favor because of this, I’ll kill you.” He leaned back, warning her, and suddenly pinched her waist.

Ye Meng was ticklish and laughed as she dodged.

Li Jinyu was more displeased and kept pinching her, roughly kneading her waist while fiercely threatening, though it seemed he was just teasing: “What are you dodging? Huh? Why are you dodging? Hmm?”

“I didn’t say I’d help him find something. Why are you so anxious?”

Li Jinyu: “Then you shouldn’t have promised. This aunt, if you promise something and don’t deliver, she’ll annoy you to death.”

“Oh,” Ye Meng pleaded, “I said I have a way, can’t you just trust me? Honey, I want dinner.”

Li Jinyu lazily picked up his book, “Tired, don’t want to cook.”

Ye Meng said: “Fine, then let’s eat out today.”

Li Jinyu quickly returned to his reading state: “No, let’s order takeout and eat at home.”

Ye Meng understood and sat on his lap with a smile, teasing him: “You’re clingy. Want to take a bath together tonight?”

The bathroom door had a frosted glass panel. Li Jinyu said knowingly: “Grandma will peek.”

“She’s peeking now,” Ye Meng said.

Li Jinyu instinctively looked back, and indeed, the elderly lady was pretending to feed the dog while occasionally glancing in their direction—

Li Jinyu turned his gaze back to his book, remaining motionless and pretending to read for a while.

Then he casually pulled her off his lap and said coolly: “Go close the door. I want to kiss you.”

Precious.

As Ye Meng closed the door, the elderly lady in the living room uttered these two words.

When the two opened the door again with serious expressions, the elderly lady uttered a few more words: “You brat, such a hypocrite.”

Yang Gaoyi quickly contacted Ye Meng, sending over his resume.

Compared to Yang Tianwei, Yang Gaoyi was much more glib, adding a line: “Thank you, beautiful sister.”

Ye Meng ignored him and scanned the resume. Yang Gaoyi looked quite good, with rare standard facial proportions. While flipping through it, she unconsciously said: “Your family has good genes. Yang Gaoyi is quite handsome, nothing like his aunt. Why do I feel he looks so much like you?”

Li Jinyu snorted coldly.

Ye Meng didn’t pay attention at the time, thinking he was probably a bit jealous hearing her compliment someone else. Who knew that later when she met Yang Gaoyi in person, she was truly shocked. She compared the person with the photo, examining the features ferociously, and finally diplomatically expressed: “Your photo editing is… quite excessive.”

Was this edited to look like Li Jinyu?

Yang Gaoyi explained: “Li Jinyu is handsome. All the brothers in our family use his ID photos as templates when we go to photo studios to edit our pictures for job applications or school. After all, we’re cousins, we must look somewhat alike.”

Not in the slightest. Ye Meng felt a bit irritated.

Li Jinyu doesn’t have your beady eyes.

Yang Gaoyi himself wasn’t ugly, at most his features were regular, but the editing on the photo was so stunning that seeing the real person created a huge gap. She finally understood why Li Jinyu had snickered. So he knew all along.

Ye Meng sighed and held out her hand: “Hand over Li Jinyu’s ID photo.”

That evening when she returned home, Ye Meng endured another round of mockery. Li Jinyu was reading in the room, and when he saw her return, he glanced at her with teasing and smug eyes: “So? Handsome? Isn’t our family’s gene pool quite good?”

Ye Meng was indignant: “Yang Gaoyi is such a fraud. He even uses that photo as his WeChat profile picture. Why doesn’t he just use your photo directly as his profile picture!”

She shamelessly added, “Baby, you’re handsome.”

“Save it,” Li Jinyu casually flipped two pages, as if making an imprint, not looking up as he asked offhandedly, “Have you eaten? If not, I’ll cook for you.”

“I have.”

He raised an eyebrow, “What did you eat?”

“Japanese seafood.”

“Tsk, tsk,” he shook his head repeatedly with a hint of jealousy. “Seafood Japanese cuisine for Yang Gaoyi, but county chain restaurant food for me?”

“Yang Gaoyi paid. Would I spend that kind of money? My money is only for my husband.” Ye Meng bent down in the dim light, leaned over to cup his face, and kissed him.

The window was open, the curtains not drawn. Peach blossoms were deep red in clusters, filling the branches. A cat quietly lay on the wall, softly meowing as if at the opening of a film prelude, calling companions to come watch.

Li Jinyu was stacking the last scene in his memory palace, with two more knowledge points to complete.

His gaze remained fixed on the book, scanning page by page while casually kissing her.

After memorizing, he tossed the book aside, bit her lip heavily, and whispered in her ear.

“Help me.”

After they finished in the bathroom, Ye Meng found that Li Jinyu was becoming increasingly shameless. Previously, he would obediently let her handle things, not daring to say a word, suffering in pitiful silence even when uncomfortable. Now, if she was too rough or too slow or the rhythm was off, he would spray her with the shower head in silent protest. He was getting bolder and bolder.

…

Ye Meng was highly efficient in her work and truly found an opportunity for Yang Gaoyi. It was a workplace interview show with quite a high acceptance rate.

Gou Kai had previously participated in this workplace program, and by coincidence, Ye Meng knew the program’s director. They had a good relationship. The director briefly looked at Yang Gaoyi’s resume and readily gave an OK gesture, “I’ll arrange it.”

Following that, Yang Gaoyi was notified to come for recording a week later.

The night before, Ye Meng received a call from Tai Mingxiao, saying he and Gou Kai were flying to France next week because a French collector was going to auction the “Long Zhong Ding,” a Chinese national treasure that had been lost overseas for nearly a hundred years.

“That’s a national treasure,” Ye Meng was shocked. “Which auction house?”

“Gadai,” Tai Mingxiao said. “Now all industry friends who have received the news are already rushing over there. This time it’s not for money; it’s to bring back something that rightfully belongs to us Chinese people. So, congratulations, your vacation is over. Come back quickly.”