Between the verdant cliffs and the endless stretch of sea and sky, the Maybach drove out of the estate, gradually disappearing into the distance along the asphalt drive.
Ying Yin watched it go, lingering for a moment before finally turning around. The emotions that had risen in her slowly settled. Now that the letter was safely in her hands, she suddenly felt self-conscious. She wondered whether her eye makeup had smudged, whether Wen Youyi had noticed anything, and whether the long while Shang Shao had spent comforting her just now might have looked rather improper in Wen Youyi’s eyes.
When she turned around, a faint layer of cherry-pink still lingered over her tear-streaked cheeks. She clutched both the envelope and her clutch tightly in her hands.
Wen Youyi smiled, making no attempt to ask what the two of them had been talking about beside the car. Instead, she simply said, “Ah-Shao used to be just as patient when he was comforting his younger sisters. Mingxian was much more difficult than you, while Mingzhuo was much harder to figure out.”
Ying Yin couldn’t help following up. “What about Babe?”
“Babe? Babe was born too late. By then, Ah-Shao had already used up all his patience, so Babe never got to be comforted by him.” Wen Youyi walked beside her as they headed back toward the house. “Instead, she once sneaked into his study and got grabbed by the collar and tossed out like a little puppy.”
Ying Yin couldn’t help laughing. “But Babe seems to be both afraid of him and not afraid of him at the same time.”
Wen Youyi nodded. “That’s because Ah-Shao is the kind of person who easily inspires admiration and respect, rather than love. Babe is like that too. She loves him and wants to be close to him, but she also looks up to him and is too intimidated to approach him. I remember when Mingbao was seven or eight. One day, she came running to me looking rather downcast. I asked her what was bothering her. She said, ‘Mommy, I want to go play with Brother, but I can’t.’”
“Why can’t she?” Ying Yin asked.
She had no idea that the worry which had just made her feel so awkward and self-conscious had already been quietly dispelled by Wen Youyi, without her even noticing.
“Babe said it was because he looked like someone who had a lot of important things to do every day. She felt embarrassed about bothering him with those childish picture books.”
Ying Yin couldn’t help smiling, pressing her lips together.
“So I took Babe by the hand and knocked on the door of his study. It was a weekend, and A-Shao spent quite a while playing tennis with her. When they got tired, he picked her up, sat her on his lap, and read picture books with her.” Wen Youyi recalled the scene and laughed. “You have no idea how nervous Babe was. Her little fists were clenched so tightly, and she didn’t dare move a muscle. When they finally finished, I touched her head and palms, and they were both covered in sweat.”
Perhaps she had remembered something even funnier. Wen Youyi lowered her face, her smile widening. She held it back for a moment before continuing, “Ah-Shao didn’t understand either. He asked her, rather puzzled, ‘So you don’t like me?’ Babe just stared at him with her mouth open, not knowing how to answer, and simply ran away. Her heart wasn’t very strong when she was younger, so the whole family always went along with her. But she was always so eager to spend some time with Ah-Shao. Even if they did absolutely nothing, she felt as though she’d gotten something precious out of it.”
The word Wen Youyi used – eager – made Ying Yin understand instantly. For a moment, she felt as though she had become Shang Mingbao herself: looking up to her older brother with longing, yet becoming nervous whenever he came close, afraid that she might do something wrong.
Wen Youyi gathered her thoughts. Her calm eyes rested on Ying Yin for a moment.
“Actually, Ah-Shao is a very gentle person. So why is it that even his little sisters admire him with a touch of fear? He gives people whatever they ask for, and the way he takes care of others is always so unobtrusive. Even his appearance and demeanor aren’t particularly cold. And yet, the people around him all seem to have the same thoughts as Babe. For a long time, Ah-Shao was always trying to distinguish between the respect people had for him and the love they had for him. That isn’t easy.”
“Maybe it’s because of Mr. Shang’s position, the way he does things, the things he thinks about, and the interests he has in life. They make his life seem so serious, so dignified.”
Wen Youyi carefully turned Ying Yin’s words over in her mind. After a long silence, a smile slowly spread across her face.
“Ah-Shao was very close to his grandpa. Whenever he had a problem, his grandpa was always the first person he thought to turn to for advice. When his grandpa passed away, Ah-Shao was overseas. There was a terrible storm that day, and all flights were grounded. When he finally made it home, he stayed by his grandpa’s coffin through the night. Later, when he went into his grandpa’s study, he found a letter his grandfather had left for him in a drawer.”
Ying Yin thought that, as the eldest son and heir who had been entrusted with so many expectations, Shang Shao’s grandfather’s final letter must have been a thick one, filled with all the wisdom and experience he had accumulated over a lifetime. Surely, he must have written at length about his concerns for the group and the family, carefully offering Shang Shao guidance on every matter.
Wen Youyi was quiet for a moment. She lowered her eyes and curved her lips ever so slightly.
“Unexpectedly, there were only five characters: ‘Caught in your own web.’”
They had been written in calligraphy on xuan paper, then folded neatly and placed inside an envelope. It sounded like a warning, a reprimand, and a sigh all at once.
“Miss Ying, can you decipher what those characters mean?”
Ying Yin gently shook her head. “I’ve only heard the saying ‘weaving a cocoon and trapping oneself inside it.’ I don’t know what ‘caught in your own web’ means.”
Wen Youyi nodded. “Then wait until Ah-Shao comes home tonight. He can explain it to you himself.”
By the time they reached the foyer, the servants had already laid out soft leather slippers for them to wear indoors. Wen Youyi was helped into hers, then asked Lin Cunkang to brew a pot of tea.
“You’re tired. Go get some sleep first. We can continue talking when you wake up. I have so many stories about him to tell you.”
Ying Yin had been sleepy to begin with, but hearing that Wen Youyi had stories about Shang Shao to tell seemed to wake her right up.
“It’s so pleasant outside right now. Why don’t I keep you company and have some tea for a while?”
The outdoor area on the second floor was spacious, with white sofas arranged around the deep-blue swimming pool, forming an open-air living room beneath the sky. Once the servants had brewed the tea, they withdrew to a little distance away, ready to come when summoned.
After they had each had a few cups, Wen Youyi received a call. From her tone, it was clearly business-related, so she apologized to Ying Yin and went back inside to take the call in private.
Ying Yin waited for quite a while. Eventually, Lin Cunkang came over to let her know that Wen Youyi wouldn’t be finished anytime soon and that she could go and rest on her own.
“Uncle Kang, do you have a utility knife? Or a paper cutter?” Ying Yin asked.
He had noticed the letter lying beside her long ago, and nodded. “One moment, please.”
It was still early in the day. Out on the distant sea, things were just beginning to come alive. Surfers and people sailing small boats moved about in the distance, too far away for their voices to carry. From here, they looked like frames from an animated film.
Ying Yin watched for a while before laying the letter flat on the glass coffee table. Slowly, inch by inch, she ran her fingertips from the center toward the edges, lingering over the envelope.
She examined it with such concentration that she even studied the stamp and postmark carefully.
It was a finely detailed painted stamp featuring a jacaranda tree, with postage of HK$4. Printed on it in slender white traditional Chinese characters were the words:
「Seasonal Trees in Hong Kong」
It was from a series that had only just been issued that spring.
Once she had looked her fill, Ying Yin turned the envelope over. Holding the small paper cutter, she carefully slipped its blade beneath the seal and sliced it open.
The writing inside was in fountain pen.
“I couldn’t sleep all night because I missed you.”
Ying Yin only had to read it once before her fingers tightened around the letter. She pressed it against her heart, staring unblinkingly at the shimmering surface of the pool for a long while before finally forcing down the wave of aching emotion that had risen in her eyes.
Because Shang Shao had mentioned it beforehand, she had been wondering all along which words he had wanted to say to her in person.
Was it:
“You said this was the first time you’d ever received flowers from a man. You don’t know that, to me, those words felt even more like a gift you had given me.”
Or perhaps:
“I’m the kind of person who needs you to be the one to ask for love first.”
Her gaze moved downward.
Only two more lines.
Her heart gave a sudden thump.
She had found the answer.
“Give me the rest of your life.”
Ying Yin abruptly pressed the letter down and sprang to her feet. She began pacing aimlessly beside the pool, unable to settle down. The servants waiting at a distance exchanged bewildered glances, having no idea why she had suddenly started walking in circles. As she paced, she kept fanning her face with her palm, her cheeks flushed an almost unbearable shade of pink.
Only after she had taken enough deep breaths did Ying Yin return to the sofa and finish reading the letter.
When Wen Youyi returned from her phone call, all she saw was Ying Yin with tears hanging from her cheeks. She had no idea how long she had been sitting there crying over the letter. Her footsteps were so quiet that Ying Yin didn’t notice her approach.
Following the movement of the letter as Ying Yin turned it over, Wen Youyi’s eyes happened to fall upon a tiny line of writing at the very end, as though it were an afterthought, a little note added beneath everything else:
“Then give me a moon that never sets.”
In that instant, Ying Yin understood.
With tears still in her eyes, she broke into a smile.
And as she smiled, she drew both arms around her knees and buried her face in them. Her shoulders trembled, the sound of her sobs muffled completely against her knees.
Wen Youyi picked up the sheet of paper that had fallen to the floor. She didn’t take a single extra glance at it, simply refolded it along its original creases and placed it back on the coffee table.
Before closing the door behind her, she looked back at Ying Yin once more.
They seemed to have been through so much.
By the time Shang Shao finished his work and returned, Wen Youyi had already gone back to Hong Kong.
He patiently called Wen Youyi first to pay his respects and apologize. After only a few brief words, he hurriedly ended the call and headed straight upstairs to the third floor.
The white duvet rose gently over the sleeping figure. She was lying on her side with one arm beneath her head, sleeping peacefully.
She was kissed awake.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Shang Shao sitting on the edge of the bed. He hadn’t even changed out of his suit or loosened his tie. As his fingers reached over to brush back her hair, they carried that familiar scent of agarwood and tobacco.
“Why did you go to sleep so early?” He leaned down again and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Are you feeling unwell?”
Ying Yin took a moment to fully wake up. “My flight’s at six. I have to leave by four-thirty at the latest.”
She was exhausted. This was going to be her routine for the next week. To fit in as many city roadshows as possible, they often had to rush between two or three places in a single day. Her body clock would be completely turned upside down, and she could only steal bits of sleep whenever she found a gap.
“Isn’t Junyi handling your check-in and baggage?”
“It’s a fifty-minute drive from here to the airport, and then there’s security, getting to the gate…”
Shang Shao interrupted her. “What time is the event?”
“Nine o’clock for the screening, and then I have to attend the event afterward. It’s…” She blinked, unable to calculate it in her head.
“Eleven?”
“Mm.”
“Then get to the airport at eight. I’ll have my plane take you there.”
“…”
“Is that not okay?”
“It’s okay…” Ying Yin hesitated, then said guiltily in a tiny voice, “But it doesn’t seem right… That’s your private jet.”
“I happen to have business in Beijing.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up.
“No.”
“…”
Shang Shao chuckled. He took her by the arm, pulled her up, and drew her into his embrace.
“How did things go with Xiao Wen today?”
“Mm.” Ying Yin nodded. “I showed her around the place, took her to see Rich, and had tea with her. At dinner, she heard that I was eating light, so she had Uncle Kang prepare the same for her.”
Of course, there was one little detail she kept to herself.
Wen Youyi had shown her videos of Shang Shao riding horses when he was little. He had been so serious, so proper. After finishing with the horse, he would gently stroke its small forehead with his tiny hand and lean close to its ear, murmuring words of comfort and encouragement.
It had been unbearably cute.
Ying Yin had watched without blinking, so absorbed that while hugging Rich around the neck, she had nearly squeezed the poor thing into unconsciousness.
“I’m sorry. It was your first time meeting her, and I didn’t handle things well. I should have been there with you.” He let Ying Yin rest her head against his shoulder.
Ying Yin shook her head. “She’s very nice. She told me so many stories about you when you were little.”
“Such as?”
“For example…” Ying Yin paused. “How you used to bully Babe.”
Shang Shao laughed and tapped her on the nose. “Absolute nonsense.”
Caught out, Ying Yin pressed her lips together. She knelt upright on the bed, stretching languidly as she asked, “Mr. Shang, what does ‘caught in your own web’ mean?”
Shang Shao was genuinely surprised by the question.
“She even told you about that?”
“Mm.”
“It was a warning my grandfather left me.”
He was intelligent and thoughtful, always wanting to get to the most essential, most unadulterated truths. He had once asked Shang Baiying about something he had never been able to understand: What was the difference between respect and love? How could he tell when someone truly loved him, rather than merely respecting or fearing him, or being drawn to his power and wealth?
Shang Baiying had never been able to give him an answer while he was alive, because being respected, revered, and feared was simply Shang Shao’s fate.
But he didn’t want the grandson he had raised with his own hands to build a lofty tower around himself, losing touch with the richness and texture that life was meant to hold because he was too caught up in such abstract questions.
Love, after all – so what if it contained a little respect, a little fear?
A spider’s web was thin. It could not truly bind a person. All that hesitation, all that holding oneself back, was nothing more than self-imposed confinement.
His grandfather’s final words were like a sigh, asking him to see through this one last layer, to take one step forward – and find the breeze brushing gently across his face.
And Wen Youyi had seen the way Ying Yin and he were together. By turning those words over once more, she was telling him that, from now on, there would be someone who loved him as well as respected him; someone who was close to him, and cherish him.
“Do you know why Xiao Wen wanted to tell you about this?” Shang Shao lowered his eyes as he asked.
“Wasn’t it just something that came up naturally?”
Shang Shao smiled, genuinely at a loss as to what to do with her innocence.
She had learned all the twists and turns of socializing in the entertainment industry inside out, but when it came to a world like theirs, that knowledge was far from enough.
“When you spent time with her today, didn’t you get the impression that her life must be very hard?” he asked instead, watching her eyes closely.
“How could I?”
“She’s actually not much more relaxed than you are when you’re in front of the cameras. As far back as I can remember, she was always taking classes, learning all kinds of systematic knowledge.” Shang Shao thought for a moment. “Things like art management, art history, art investment, asset management, financial management, philanthropy, public welfare, funds, the management and operation of foundations, family management, the art of speaking and public speaking, the subtleties of navigating human relationships. She had to memorize countless complicated webs of connections and understand public relations, human resources, sociology, law and politics, and sports. Of course, a lot of this was knowledge she had absorbed simply by growing up around it. That includes her manners and conduct, how she interacts with people, and even something as simple as how to host a successful afternoon tea or dinner party.”
Ying Yin: “…”
She was utterly bewildered.
“And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.” Shang Shao gently stroked her cheek. “There’s much more that I haven’t even thought of because I assumed it came naturally to her, when in fact it was the result of her ability to learn and her sheer determination. Take the way she raised and educated the five of us, for example.”
“I’m not having that many children,” Ying Yin immediately said.
Shang Shao froze for a moment, pressing his lips together to suppress the smile tugging at their corners. He looked at her with leisurely composure.
Under his gaze, Ying Yin’s face gradually, gradually flushed red.
The sudden acceleration of her heartbeat lasted only an instant.
“What did you just say?” Shang Shao asked, deliberately pretending not to know. His eyes remained fixed on hers as he began slowly undoing his watch.
Ying Yin buried her face in the snow-white duvet. Waves of heat rose through her body, and a sheen of sweat appeared along the nape of her neck, half-hidden beneath her thick black hair.
If the redness in her face could fade onto something else, the duvet would probably have been dyed pink by now.
She let out a small, animal-like “Mm,” already regretting having blurted it out.
The tourbillon watch landed on the sheets, heavy in her palm, yet making hardly a sound.
After taking off his watch, Shang Shao first gathered her tousled hair and swept it back over her shoulder, tucking it behind her ear. Then he pressed his palm against her cheek and slowly stroked downward, deliberately and suggestively, until his knuckles rested beneath her chin. He gently but firmly tilted her face upward.
Her eyes were filled with mist, and under the glow of the bedside lamp, there was nowhere for it to hide.
He took her delicate hand in his. Leaning closer to kiss the corner of her lips, he murmured, “Help me take it off.”
“You haven’t showered yet…”
“Much easier to shower once it’s off.”
It was, annoyingly, perfectly logical.
Ying Yin lifted both arms and began loosening his tie. His kisses left her completely dazed, while the straps of her nightdress slipped down her arms, leaving a delicate flush across her shoulders where his hands had touched her.
His body was warm, hormones radiating beneath his suit and shirt. When he guided her backward into his arms, a fine sheen of heat had already gathered across her back beneath her nightdress.
Shang Shao held her in his arms and, true to his word, didn’t go any further. He simply kept kissing her and asked, “So how many do you want? Tell me.”
He paused meaningfully. “So I know how hard I need to work.”
Ying Yin desperately wished she could tell him to stop working so hard.
