◎ “What’s wrong with her just loving me to death?” ◎

— A secret diary from when she had a crush on someone.

Completely, totally, head over heels for a boy.

Either one of those sentences, taken alone, was already something of a bombshell. And Deng Jiao, with the fearlessness of someone who didn’t know what danger looked like, had said both of them directly to Lu Rangchen’s face.

Of course, the moment she finished, she regretted it.

Because the expression on this man’s face had gone beyond what could be described as merely unpleasant.

Lu Rangchen was, at his baseline, someone with a temper — yet his natural resting state was always an arrogant, careless ease, as if nothing quite reached him. But right now the entire atmosphere around him had gone cold, and the feeling simmering beneath his brow was like something on the edge of catching fire.

In all the years she’d known him, Deng Jiao had never seen him like this.

Her eyes darted around once, and with a fairly reasonable display of self-awareness, she shut her mouth, dropped her head, and began very earnestly pretending to read.

Too little, too late.

Lu Rangchen’s good mood had been entirely dismantled. His voice came out flat and sudden: “Where did you find it.”

Deng Jiao’s elbow twitched. She looked up at him with careful caution, and pointed.

Lu Rangchen’s gaze slid toward the butter cookie tin on the bookshelf. Deng Jiao, with an appropriately put-upon air: “The lid wasn’t properly on. I found it by accident.”

“……”

Lu Rangchen was genuinely laughing in disbelief now. “What convenient timing, that accident of yours.”

His gaze grew darker, something sharp edging into it. He tilted his chin. “Did the Teacher give you permission to look at it?”

He’d said Teacher — but the protective instinct in his voice was not the slightest bit diminished for it.

Deng Jiao felt her chest clench. Only now was she truly grasping the weight of what she’d done.

Her round face scrunched up. She pressed her palms together. “Lu Rangchen, I know I was wrong — please don’t tell her, please.”

Lu Rangchen gave a noncommittal tug of the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t be bothered engaging with her any further. He simply took the diary and turned to leave.

Downstairs was lively.

The group of younger boys had the television blaring at full volume, playing a VR game with the equipment set up. Perhaps because there were more people this time, the gathering felt even more festive than the housewarming party had.

Beyond the club members, Li Tie and Zhou Jin would be arriving soon as well.

There was, admittedly, something a little awkward about that.

When Yunque and Lu Rangchen had gone to register their marriage, it hadn’t caused any trouble from the Cheng family’s side — but it had managed to thoroughly irritate Li Tie.

The man had found out about the impulsive registration and called at once to demand an explanation.

It had been evening. The two of them had just exhausted themselves, and Yunque was curled lightly against him, asleep — arms wrapped tight around him.

Lu Rangchen hadn’t the heart to wake her. He rejected the call and messaged Li Tie on WeChat to say: whatever you want to say, say it tomorrow.

But Li Tie was not Deng Zhe.

Deng Zhe had always treated Lu Rangchen as something close to a senior figure — from childhood onward, if Lu Rangchen said something, it was how it was. Li Tie was different. A few years older, he’d always treated Lu Rangchen like a younger brother.

For other matters, not answering the phone would have been fine.

But this was marriage.

A marriage with Yunque.

Li Tie had been genuinely furious. Deep into the night he was still going on at Zhou Jin about it — saying Lu Rangchen had completely lost his head, the two of them had barely been back together, no one could even be sure yet how long Yunque would last this time, and already he’d let himself be swept away into getting married.

Other people learned from their mistakes.

Lu Rangchen, it seemed, no matter how many times it happened, still threw himself into the same river.

Zhou Jin had been half-asleep, listening to his unending muttering, and had come close to shoving him bodily out of the bed.

Being snapped at by her only made Li Tie more frustrated. He doggedly kept calling Lu Rangchen — demanding to know what was going on.

Call after call after call.

Yunque was eventually woken by the vibrations. She didn’t ask who it was — just shifted position and drifted back to sleep.

Lu Rangchen truly did not want to leave that warmth. But Li Tie wouldn’t stop, and there was nothing for it — he got up, went out to the balcony, and took the call while he had a cigarette.

As he’d expected, Li Tie lit into him immediately — same as Lin Zhi had, back then.

And asked where he’d been for so long not answering — thought something had happened to him.

“Sleeping with my wife, obviously.”

Lu Rangchen flicked a bit of ash from his cigarette, with a rogue’s lazy amusement: “You know more about that side of things than I do.”

Back when Li Tie had finally gotten his turn with Zhou Jin, he’d all but forgotten Lu Rangchen’s name. And now he had the nerve to question him?

That jab was enough to send Li Tie into a storm of exasperated curses.

Lu Rangchen only gave a languid, amused hum — insufferably unbothered. In the end, Li Tie couldn’t talk any sense into him.

There wasn’t much sense to be talked, anyway.

The registration was done. No one was about to recommend a divorce.

Li Tie was older, and he’d come around to offer a word or two from experience.

And honestly, it was because he’d witnessed firsthand what those months after the breakup had done to Lu Rangchen that his resentment toward Yunque had run so deep.

Li Tie had always thought Yunque was cold and calculating — someone who approached everything with clear purpose and deliberate method, who had no weakness for romance.

And Lu Rangchen, for all his usual sharpness, became soft and sentimental the moment she was involved.

The two of them fit together like complementary pieces of a puzzle — one willing to inflict, the other willing to receive — a pair that seemed made for each other.

But men, Li Tie said, were more practical than that.

He put it plainly: if Yunque changed her mind again, if she started pushing for a divorce — at that point they’d have built a life together, and the assets he’d worked for would have to be split down the middle.

Lu Rangchen let out a short, derisive laugh. “Can’t you want something good for me, just once?”

He glanced over at the bedroom.

The door was open. The girl inside was still curled in his blanket, sleeping peacefully.

It was a sense of stillness and warmth he had never felt before.

He pulled his gaze back. Lu Rangchen’s eyes grew quiet, a faint smile settling at his lips. “Besides — how do you know for certain that Yunque would push for a divorce?”

“……”

“What’s wrong,” he said, shameless and unhurried, “with her just loving me to death?”

Anyone else would have found that sour.

But for Li Tie, it was simply met with undisguised skepticism. He wasn’t trying to be discouraging for the sake of it — the facts were simply what they were.

Yunque had once walked away from Lu Rangchen without looking back.

Even knowing she’d only been pretending with that Xie Han, Li Tie couldn’t look at her the same way he once had.

Lu Rangchen understood perfectly well what Li Tie was afraid of.

It boiled down to: he was afraid of Lu Rangchen being hurt by her again.

But what Li Tie didn’t know was that Lu Rangchen had already made his peace with it — before they’d even gotten back together.

He’d known: as long as she was still breathing, still in his world, he would never be able to love anyone else.

So even if being together still led nowhere good.

He’d simply have to accept it.

No need for a settling-in period. They knew each other. Even after eight years apart, when their eyes met it was still the same instinctive understanding as before.

Let it be, he’d thought. Let it be like this for a lifetime. At least there’ll be no regrets.

So he’d proposed — or something close enough to it — and to his surprise, Yunque had actually said yes.

Looking back now, every decision made in those moments had a quality of absurdity about them. And yet somehow, without incident, the two of them had registered.

Of course Lu Rangchen also explained a great deal to Li Tie.

Why Yunque had left as decisively as she had. Why she’d pretended to be with Xie Han. The extent of what the Cheng family had done in the years between.

Li Tie genuinely hadn’t anticipated any of that. He fell quiet for a long moment.

Whether he’d been entirely convinced or not, he exhaled and said: “Fine. The deed’s done regardless.”

He paused, then added: “I’m not trying to tell you to leave her. I just — I can’t get over it. All these years, and you still lose your head the moment she’s involved. That’s a fast road to being thoroughly under someone’s thumb.”

Lu Rangchen laughed. “Look who’s talking.”

Li Tie was the resident strategist among everyone who knew him — yet the moment Zhou Jin was in the picture, he had no idea what to do with himself. And here he was, lecturing others.

Li Tie gave a helpless sigh and said: well, what can I do about it — I owe her one. I’ve liked her since we were children.

Lu Rangchen made a pointed, goading sound. “That’s different from me. Mine liked me first.”

A little smug. A little too pleased with himself.

Li Tie laughed despite himself and said: “Come off it. Her? Liking you first? Does that sound like her?”

It genuinely didn’t.

Even though Deng Zhe had mentioned it, even though Yunque had more or less confirmed it in front of everyone, Lu Rangchen had never quite felt the full weight of it as reality.

But whether it felt real or not — it was still worth showing off about, just a little.

Unfortunately Li Tie was the kind of person who didn’t believe it for a second.

And Lu Rangchen, by nature, couldn’t be bothered to argue about it at length. After a while, he’d stopped thinking about it all that much.

It didn’t matter in the end. Yunque — her person and her heart — were both his. Whether he looked into it or not was beside the point.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for Deng Jiao’s stumbling across Yunque’s diary today, he might have gone a long time without that word — crush — even crossing his mind.

He couldn’t quite name what he was feeling right now.

Lu Rangchen didn’t rush downstairs. He went to the guest room balcony and smoked a cigarette first.

The pale blue smoke curled and scattered in slow spirals. Lu Rangchen’s brow was faintly furrowed as he looked, finally, at the diary in his hand.

The notebook wasn’t especially thick — the cover was one of those soft, flexible types, with colorful pages decorated in a very girlish cartoon floral pattern.

It had been well-kept. Even now it looked almost new.

Opening the front cover, the first page bore Yunque’s name, written inside.

The handwriting was graceful and flowing, with the faint quality of ink that had aged over time — matching her entirely, visibly the work of someone steeped in books and learning.

Looking at those three characters, Lu Rangchen curved his lips slightly — and then, just as he was about to turn the page, his fingertips stilled.

He thought of Deng Jiao’s words.

Of the expression on her face when she’d talked about the diary.

By any logical measure, he’d expect the person in these pages to be himself. Yet Deng Jiao had looked at him the way she had — which meant whatever was written inside was something she’d expected to disappoint him.

As for how it might disappoint him.

Simply: the subject of the diary might not be him at all.

That thought settled in, and Lu Rangchen found, with some surprise, that he couldn’t actually bring himself to turn another page.

He genuinely didn’t feel certain enough.

If it turned out Yunque had been pining after someone else entirely back then — he really didn’t know how he’d come to terms with that.

And besides, a diary was a private thing. Even if Yunque hadn’t kept this one all that carefully, a diary was still a diary. A secret was still a secret. He couldn’t bring himself to be that disrespectful to her.

He turned it over in his mind for a while. In the end, he put the diary away.

He gave the placement some thought.

He set it in the bedside table drawer in their bedroom — where, just by rolling over, you’d see it.

By now, Li Tie and Zhou Jin had also arrived.

Lu Rangchen had barely tucked his hand back in his pocket and come downstairs when he saw the two of them standing at the front door with an armful of things, exchanging a few words with Yunque.

Zhou Jin had always been warm toward Yunque. She hadn’t been able to make it last time and had come this visit especially to make up for the wedding gift she’d missed.

Li Tie was noticeably more reserved.

He’d been the most opposed to the reconciliation, after all — so for now, he simply stood behind Zhou Jin, present and quiet, saying neither too much nor too little, with all the stiff formality of someone attending an official function.

It was only when he noticed Lu Rangchen coming down that he raised an eyebrow. “What kept you?”

Yunque heard that and turned to look at Lu Rangchen.

Lu Rangchen glanced at her, then moved to stand beside her and said to Zhou Jin and Li Tie: “Was upstairs checking on Deng Jiao.”

Yunque asked: “Was she actually getting her work done?”

Lu Rangchen gave a quiet hum. “Well enough.”

For some reason Yunque couldn’t quite identify, she had the feeling Lu Rangchen’s mood was a little flat right now.

But with so many people around, it wasn’t the moment to ask.

She simply stayed by his side and helped greet everyone.

It wasn’t long before Deng Zhe arrived as well. Once he appeared, Deng Jiao finally crept out of the study — hanging close to her brother’s side as though she’d been caught doing something wrong and needed the shelter.

Deng Zhe turned to Yunque and asked why Xu Linda hadn’t come.

Everyone had already moved up to the second-floor terrace to get the BBQ ready. Deng Zhe and Yunque were still downstairs sorting out the small side dishes and snacks. Yunque heard the question, paused for a deliberate beat, and said: “She went abroad with her boyfriend.”

At those words, the air went quiet for a few seconds.

Deng Zhe looked as though something had only just landed for him — then made a neutral sound, carefully unhurried: “Oh.”

Yunque watched him.

But Deng Zhe showed no further reaction. He just smiled and nodded. “Fair enough. A relationship comes first.”

Yunque had nothing she wanted to say to that. The two of them picked up what they were carrying and headed upstairs.

The terrace was spacious. Lu Rangchen had arranged the seating with the younger boys already — things were mostly settled. Deng Jiao was at the table with the group of rowdy younger ones, while the adults sat together at another.

Yunque naturally ended up beside Lu Rangchen.

But right now Lu Rangchen was busy at the grill, helping the others cook.

Deng Zhe had the best technique when it came to grilling, but even so he couldn’t manage everything on his own — Lu Rangchen had moved in to help.

It was at that point that Yunque stepped in as well, and the two of them found a slightly more private corner between them.

Yunque helped him arrange the ingredients on the grill, and looked up at him, blinking. “Were you upset with Deng Jiao just now?”

The tone was the same gentle warmth as always.

Yet for some reason, paired with that look she gave him — direct, slightly upward, unflinching — it came across as remarkably bright and compelling.

Lu Rangchen glanced sideways at her, and was completely undone. A smile came without any clear cause.

He wanted to reach out and pinch the soft, fair curve of her cheek — but the grill gloves made it impossible.

So instead he leaned down toward her and kissed her.

No matter who might be watching.

By this point, Yunque had apparently been thoroughly corrupted by him — she simply rose up on the tips of her toes and offered her lips to meet his.

The lightest brush of a kiss. Even Deng Zhe didn’t catch it.

She drew back and tilted her head up to look at him. “Was it that she wasn’t doing her work?”

“No.”

Lu Rangchen lowered his eyes, laid new ingredients across the grill surface, his tone entirely unhurried. “I couldn’t be bothered giving her that much energy.”

“Then what was it.”

Yunque was uncharacteristically persistent. “Your mood wasn’t right when you came downstairs. I could see it.”

Lu Rangchen hadn’t expected her to observe him with such quiet attentiveness. His eyes narrowed slightly, and something warm moved through him. “You keep pretty close track of your husband.”

“……”

Yunque dropped her eyes to tend the fire in the grill, pressing a single syllable out from her lips: “Petty.”

Lu Rangchen gave a scattered, easy laugh. He genuinely didn’t want to keep performing composure for her anymore.

The longer he did, the more it would eat at him — especially with Deng Jiao’s words about completely, totally head over heels sitting in his chest, irritating as a splinter. He was barely holding himself together.

Might as well just say it. He rolled his shoulder slightly. “Nothing major. Just a little jealous.”

Yunque’s tongs paused. She looked at him, genuinely caught off guard. “Jealous of what?”

“Jealous.”

Yunque blinked, looking briefly blank. “……Who made you jealous?”

Lu Rangchen seemed to have finally found the opening to say what had been sitting on his chest. He turned to look at her, perfectly earnest, lips curving with calm, unapologetic conviction: “Who do you think.”

“……”

“Who else could it be, but you — my own wife?”

Author’s note: The Reigning King of Jealousy. Next chapter, I’ll try to get the diary content in!! Give me a little time!!