The two days without Lu Xun around left her a little lonely, but Qian Wei kept herself thoroughly occupied focusing on the divorce legal aid case. She carefully read through the case file, met with the client, worked with her to confirm several key timeline details, organized the list of evidence, drafted the complaint, and went to court to file the case.

As luck would have it, she ran into Li Chongwen in the courthouse lobby. This was the second time she’d seen him since she and Liu Shiyun had visited him in the hospital.

“Qian Wei.” Li Chongwen looked to be in great shape, even a bit heavier than before. Along with his usual refined, handsome features, there was now a warm glow about him. He smiled at her. “Thank you for coming with Liu Shiyun to see me last time. It’s just a shame I had a hearing that day and didn’t get to chat with you both properly—I wasn’t much of a host.” He looked a little helpless. “Seems like every time I run into you, you’ve got a hearing to rush off to. But there’s actually something I wanted to tell you.”

Before Qian Wei could react, Li Chongwen had already pressed a red invitation card into her hand.

“Next spring—my wedding. You have to come.” His expression was bright. “This whole misdiagnosis scare turned out not to be entirely a bad thing. At the very least, it showed me that I’ve had someone by my side watching over me and caring for me all along, someone who wouldn’t leave even in the face of illness. Having my health scare turned out to be a kind of wake-up call too—it made me ease off work a little. I finally realize now that there’s so much more to life beyond work.” He glanced at Qian Wei. “Remember to come with Lu Xun.”

Qian Wei blinked in surprise, then smiled and nodded graciously.

As she walked out of the courthouse, she got a text from Lu Xun.

“Back tomorrow night.”

Four simple characters, followed by flight information.

Even though tomorrow was Lu Xun’s birthday and she wished she could see him from morning to night, she knew how demanding his work as a lawyer was. That he could make it back at least by tomorrow night, his birthday, was already more than enough for her.

She looked up. In that moment, it struck her how beautiful the sunlight was today—her mood as clear and transparent as the sky overhead, light and at peace. Time leaves its marks on everyone, but it had never shortchanged her.

Perhaps it’s only once you’re truly ready to embrace happiness that you realize everything was always meant to be this quietly, gently good.

Qian Wei deliberately waited until the stroke of midnight on Lu Xun’s birthday to send him the first happy birthday message. The two of them exchanged sweet words for a while longer before finally going to sleep—which was why, the next day, Qian Wei was now slumped over her desk at the office, yawning nonstop, her eyes watering.

“Qian Wei, we’ve got an event tonight—want to come?”

Just as she was dozing off, Xiao Yan crept up to her, looking mysterious. “Tonight we’re planning…”

Without even thinking, Qian Wei turned her down. “No, no, I can’t. I’ve got something really important tonight—I can’t make the group thing. Next time.”

Obviously—tonight she had a birthday to celebrate for Lu Xun. Everything else could take a back seat.

Xiao Yan tried to persuade her further. “Really can’t? This time we finally managed to get everyone together, and we’re all set for tonight…”

“No, no, no.” Attorney Chen walked by and cut Xiao Yan off, declaring righteously, “The whole point of organizing this event was that it’s voluntary—we can’t force anyone. Our Qian Wei must genuinely have something important tonight, or she wouldn’t be missing it. Right?”

Qian Wei nodded gratefully. Everyone at the firm was usually so busy that, aside from the year-end gathering, they rarely organized any large group events. Missing this one did feel a bit of a shame. “Next time. I promise I’ll come next time—I’ll even treat everyone to dinner.”

Xiao Yan quickly pulled out her phone, ready to record. “Say that again, so I’ve got it on tape as evidence.”

Attorney Chen patted Xiao Yan on the shoulder. “No need to record. Our Qian Wei isn’t the type to go back on her word. She’s not making an excuse tonight—she’s obviously got something important. A date, probably.”

Xiao Yan looked skeptical. “But every pore in Qian Wei’s body screams die-hard single career woman, and she’s practically working late at the firm every single night—what boyfriend could put up with being ignored like that?”

Attorney Chen defended her. “Maybe she’s got a blind date tonight! As one of the top names on our firm’s ‘Hardest to Get a Boyfriend’ list, Qian Wei’s love life is obviously more important than tonight’s little get-together! Am I right or am I right?”

“Wait… ‘Hardest to Get a Boyfriend’ list? Where do I even rank?”

“You used to be second.”

“So what am I now?”

“Now you’re first,” Attorney Chen explained helpfully. “Since the guy who used to be first—Attorney Lu—went and got himself out of the single life recently with that whole passionate-kiss-in-public thing!”

Qian Wei wasn’t giving up. “Who made this list, anyway?”

Attorney Chen blinked innocently. “Me!”

“…”

After Xiao Yan left, Attorney Chen lingered, standing beside Qian Wei and gazing at her with unmistakable affection.

Qian Wei understood immediately. “Alright, spit it out. What is it?”

“I bought a bunch of Li Mengyan posters—next time you happen to see her, could you get her to sign them for me?”

“…” Qian Wei thought to herself that she’d actually believed, for a moment, that Attorney Chen had come to her defense out of colleague solidarity. Turns out there’s no such thing.

She spent the rest of the day in a near-daze of anticipation, but by evening, Lu Xun’s flight had been delayed. Qian Wei sat alone in the arrivals hall, anxious.

She’d never felt this restless before. It seemed that ever since she and Lu Xun had gotten together, she’d completely lost the knack for waiting patiently.

After an hour’s delay, the flight finally landed. Qian Wei stood at the arrivals gate and watched Lu Xun walk out, travel-worn. Despite the crowd around her, Qian Wei felt like Lu Xun was the only person she could see.

Without a single thought for what anyone around them might think, she rushed straight up and threw her arms around him. Lu Xun set down his suitcase and pulled her into a deep embrace.

The two of them stood there, wrapped around each other, oblivious to the bustling crowd of the airport. Qian Wei breathed in the familiar scent at the crook of his neck, and felt her heart go inexplicably soft.

Lu Xun kissed her hair, his voice low. “So—what’s the birthday gift tonight?”

Qian Wei checked the time and looked crestfallen. “I managed to book that Michelin three-star restaurant that’s nearly impossible to get into, but their policy is strict—no waiting for latecomers, you have to be on time. With the flight delayed an hour, I called and explained, but there was nothing they could do. We can’t make it tonight…”

Lu Xun took her hand and kissed it. “It’s fine. Having you here is already the best birthday gift.”

Qian Wei grumbled a little. “So what do we eat, then? Michelin three-star’s out, and everywhere else feels not special enough…”

“With you, even a street food stall would feel like a Michelin three-star.” Lu Xun looked at her, his eyes seeming to hold a whole sky of stars, deep and sincere. “Haven’t you heard the saying? What matters was never what you eat, but who you eat it with.” He smiled. “As long as I’m with you, I don’t even need to eat. Just having you here is enough.”

Lu Xun drove Qian Wei back toward the city center, and in the end, the two decided to just leave it to chance.

Lu Xun casually pointed at a small restaurant by the roadside. “Let’s go here. Looks like a good fit.”

It was a cozy little home-style restaurant, a husband-and-wife-run place—not expensive, but with fresh ingredients and food that looked, smelled, and tasted great. The place was full of locals from the neighborhood: a family with a child celebrating an improved exam score, old friends catching up over beer and braised chicken feet, and a young couple out for a casual meal. Though the restaurant itself was small, it was full of the buzz of everyone chatting, and yet Qian Wei found herself feeling, for no particular reason, deeply warm inside. She used to long for some grand, sweeping romance—but only now did she understand that perhaps, somewhere in a person’s life, they eventually meet someone who makes even the same simple, repetitive, everyday life—the mundane routines of daily living—feel like something worth savoring gladly.

“By the way, Lu Xun, I was thinking—how should we go about telling everyone at the firm about us?” Qian Wei sipped her orange juice, looking a little troubled. “What’s the best way to do it without making it too awkward, so people can just take it in stride? I feel like doing it gradually would be better, otherwise they might not be able to handle it…”

“Our firm doesn’t have any rule against office relationships. What’s there to ease into?”

“That’s true, but still…”

Before Qian Wei could finish, Lu Xun’s phone rang, interrupting her.

Lu Xun picked up, and after listening for a moment, his brow furrowed. “Alright, I’ll head back and get it right now.”

He hung up and pressed his lips together. “I need to swing by the office first. Legal counsel from Gaoyang Sports told me there’s an urgent legal matter that needs consultation—they mailed the materials to the firm yesterday, so I need to go pick them up.”

Qian Wei looked a little disappointed. “So you’re going to be working overtime tonight after all?”

But Lu Xun’s voice was gentle. “I’ll wait until you’re asleep before I get to work.” He leaned close to her ear. “Want to go to our wedding house tonight?”

Qian Wei blushed a little. “What wedding house?”

Lu Xun said, perfectly serious, “I always thought I’d be marrying you soon, so I bought a place early and got it ready as our future home. Turns out I had to wait until I was twenty-eight. Tonight, I’ll finally bring the lady of the house home to take a look.”

The two of them made their way back to the office building, gazing at each other tenderly the whole way. By then it was already nine at night, and most of the office workers in the building had gone home. The elevator was empty. Lu Xun seemed to be trying to hold himself back, but in the end, he couldn’t—he leaned down and pressed Qian Wei against the elevator wall, kissing her deeply, again and again.

Their lips didn’t part until the elevator gave its “ding” on arrival. But once certain things start, it seems there’s no putting on the brakes. Lu Xun looked at Qian Wei, his gaze dark and intense, and Qian Wei didn’t hold back either—she rose on her toes and kissed him first.

The two of them stayed like that, still wrapped in each other, as Lu Xun kept one arm around Qian Wei and used his free hand to swipe his access card at the door.

But what neither of them expected was that the instant the card reader gave its beep and the door unlocked—

“Surprise!”

Accompanied by a chorus of shouts, someone flipped the light switch with a click, and the previously dark open office space suddenly blazed entirely into light…

“Happy… birth… day… Attorney Lu…”

Qian Wei, still wrapped in Lu Xun’s arms, found herself and him completely exposed under the lights, face to face with all forty-some coworkers from the firm, everyone staring at everyone else in stunned silence…

It turned out that all of Qian Wei’s worrying about how to explain her relationship with Lu Xun to her coworkers had been entirely unnecessary… because there was now, quite simply, no need to explain anything at all…

Of everyone there, Xiao Yan’s expression was the most dramatic. She stood there slack-jawed, her mouth practically wide enough to fit an ostrich egg. “Attorney Lu?? Qian Wei?? You two??”

Under the shocked stares of forty or fifty pairs of eyes, Qian Wei wanted nothing more than to find a hole in the ground and disappear into it—especially since she’d just been clinging to Lu Xun, practically begging for a kiss! Oh god! What had she just done in front of all her coworkers?! This was mortifying, like getting caught red-handed!

She thought to herself—so this was the “group activity” her coworkers had mentioned! Why hadn’t anyone told her properly that the so-called group activity was actually a birthday party for Lu Xun?!

As for the other party involved in all this, Lu Xun’s demeanor was, by comparison, far calmer. He maintained his usual air of quiet, commanding presence, sweeping a glance over all his colleagues without a trace of embarrassment, and said, as if it were simply the most natural thing in the world, “Qian Wei and I will be getting married within three months. You’re all invited to the wedding banquet. That’s all.”

Qian Wei stared at him, baffled. “Wait, you haven’t even proposed yet!”

Lu Xun glanced at her, unfazed. “Didn’t you propose to me at the airport? I said yes.”

Qian Wei: ???

The assembled coworkers: ???

“And why three months? Why does it have to be within three months?”

“Because I already checked. The best hotel in City A has a wedding booking schedule that’s backed up nearly three months.”

“…” Qian Wei thought to herself, this man had apparently been quietly plotting out this whole elaborate production in his head without saying a word!

Attorney Chen was the first to snap out of it, gushing shamelessly, “Congratulations to Attorney Lu and Qian Wei on tying the knot! Ahaha! I could tell from the start you two were a perfect match! Honestly, Qian Wei and Attorney Lu have always been top three on our firm’s ‘Most Eligible Singles’ rankings—I always thought, with credentials like theirs, getting a partner would be a snap, ahaha.”

Qian Wei wanted very badly to demand of Attorney Chen: what happened to that “Hardest to Get a Boyfriend” list you mentioned earlier? Did you just eat those words???

Meanwhile, straightforward Xiao Yan still hadn’t quite caught up. “But… but wasn’t Attorney Lu with that woman in red before? The passionate-kiss thing—didn’t we all see it…”

“That was Qian Wei.” Lu Xun’s explanation was similarly brief and to the point. “It’s always only ever been Qian Wei.” He swept his gaze over the group. “Actually, tonight I did find it a bit odd—Gaoyang Sports’ legal counsel is normally reliable and wouldn’t sit on urgent dispute materials for a whole day before telling me. So this was all planned by you all, wasn’t it?”

Someone spoke up nervously. “That… we just wanted to get you back to the office for a surprise…”

“Right, right! We’ve all learned so much from Attorney Lu’s guidance here at the firm—even though he’s the boss, we really feel like we’ve grown so much. Especially me, since I didn’t graduate from one of the top schools, but Attorney Lu still gave me a chance…”

“That’s exactly right, Attorney Lu is like a guiding light in my life, illuminating the path forward…”

A whole crowd of shameless flatterers had spontaneously launched into an impromptu Lu Xun appreciation rally right there on the spot.

Qian Wei was thoroughly unimpressed. “You all have no shame at all, do you? Is Lu Xun really that great??”

“If he weren’t, why were you just now hugging him like that?!”

“…”

“Alright.” Lu Xun finally spoke up, taking control of the room. “In any case, Qian Wei and I are together now. Does anyone have any objections? If not, feel free to get on with my birthday celebration.”

“No objections! Ha ha!”

“None, none at all.”

“…”

Qian Wei watched as everyone excitedly brought out a cake and lit the candles for Lu Xun.

She was still floating in a mild daze. Now that the secret of her and Lu Xun’s relationship was out, her coworkers had all loosened up too—everyone chatted casually, griped about difficult clients, laughed as they watched Lu Xun make a wish and blow out the candles, then shared out slices of the cake.

Though the intimate evening for just the two of them hadn’t happened as planned, as Qian Wei ate her slice of cake, she found this turn of events sweet all the same.

Being with Lu Xun, receiving everyone’s blessings, having someone to love and colleagues and friends standing beside her—that, in itself, was already something rich and wonderful.