Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
Ji Yunyi studied arts management, and had opened galleries in New York, London, and Beicheng.
She herself was a small-but-well-known oil painter both domestically and abroad, but her paintings were never sold, only donated for charity, with one of them auctioned for nearly twenty million.
The painting depicted shogetsu sakura blossoms blooming in April, spring flowers in full glory, petals blown off by the wind like a spring rain, bright spring light threading through the petals.
In the depths of light and shadow was the back of a little girl in a white dress, barefoot, looking up at something in the air as if waiting for the petals to fall, or as if waiting for the light.
That little girl was Jiang Sese at six years old.
That day when she woke from her nap, Aunt Zhang said Madam was painting in the cherry grove. Not having seen Ji Yunyi for almost half a year, Jiang Sese didn’t even wait to change out of her nightdress, and rushed barefoot to the cherry grove.
The little girl in the painting wasn’t waiting for flowers, nor was she waiting for light.
She was only looking for her mother.
“Teacher Ji” was a form of address others used for Ji Yunyi, and compared to Mrs. Cen or Mrs. Ji, she had always preferred this one.
But when this title came from Jiang Se’s mouth, the smile at Ji Yunyi’s lips did grow a little fainter.
The last time the two had met was the day Jiang Se changed her surname.
That day Ji Yunyi said to Jiang Se: “Since you don’t want the surname Cen, then remember to return everything the Cen family has given you. From now on, don’t call me mother.”
Meeting again now, Jiang Se indeed no longer called her mother.
In the banquet hall, countless gazes fell upon them: curious, probing, and eager for drama.
Cen Minghong frowned at Jiang Se, a flash of displeasure sweeping by like the wind.
Ji Yunyi only gave Jiang Se a gentle nod: “Miss Jiang, long time no see, thank you for giving us the honor of attending the Cen family’s banquet.”
Jiang Se smiled: “Junior sister personally delivered the invitation to Tongcheng. Today is junior sister’s big day, so as her senior, no matter what, I should come over.”
The unspoken meaning was that the one who invited her was Cen Yu, and she was here only in the capacity of a senior.
Ji Yunyi quietly looked at Jiang Se without speaking.
At this moment, the symphony orchestra on the steps finished a piece.
Butler Yu, who managed the Cen family’s old residence, quietly stepped forward; after greeting Jiang Se with respect, he softly called: “Madam?”
Ji Yunyi lowered her gaze, and when she raised it again her eyes had returned to normal. She tilted her head toward Cen Minghong with a smile: “We should go, Little Yu is waiting for us.”
Cen Minghong nodded, gave Jiang Se a glance, and walked with Ji Yunyi toward the spiral staircase.
“Chairman, Teacher Ji.” Jiang Se called after them.
The two paused and looked back. Seeing the expression on Jiang Se’s face, Cen Minghong’s brows furrowed even more tightly.
Ji Yunyi said with a smile: “If Miss Jiang has something to say, why not wait until the banquet ends?”
“Since the occasion is rare today, I’ll say it here. It’s only a couple of sentences anyway.” Jiang Se slowly swept her gaze over them, saying each word clearly, “For the past twenty-three years, thank you both for taking care of me. From here on, I can no longer stay by your side. Here, I formally say goodbye to you both, and wish the Chairman and Teacher Ji a lifetime of deep affection.”
—
Night deepened, and the orchestra began a new symphonic poem.
Within the music were rising and falling murmurs, and even a few impolite, schadenfreude-tinged laughs.
At the edge of her vision, someone lifted a wine glass toward her with a smile.
Jiang Se turned her eyes and met Zhu Mingli’s gaze full of smile.
That smile was hypocritical.
Jiang Se didn’t even have the mind to pretend. With just a drop and lift of her eyelids she completely ignored her. She was just about to step away to find Cen Mingshu when the light beside her suddenly dimmed.
“Sese.”
The newcomer’s voice was low and gentle; she didn’t need to look to know that his eyes must be smiling.
This long-missed voice made Jiang Se momentarily freeze. She turned her head and, looking at the man beside her, answered with a smile: “Fu Yun.”
Fu Yun wore a perfectly tailored white suit, his handsome features holding a faint warmth, gentle and clear.
“How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” Fu Yun lifted his chin slightly to one side, smiling, “Want to chat for a bit?”
Jiang Se glanced at the spiral staircase, then nodded to Fu Yun and walked with him toward the windows. Along the way she said: “The last time we met was at the start of the year before you went to South America.”
“That was in March.” Fu Yun sighed. “In the blink of an eye nine months have passed. I only remember our last phone call was on Mid-Autumn Festival night.”
Jiang Se naturally remembered that phone call as well.
Speaking of which, her relationship with Fu Yun was actually pretty melodramatic.
The person originally engaged to her in the Fu family had been Old Master Fu’s only grandson, Fu Jun. Fu Yun was Old Master Fu’s illegitimate son, two years older than Fu Jun, and Fu Jun’s little uncle.
The year Jiang Se graduated university, she was supposed to get engaged to Fu Jun; however, two months before the engagement, Fu Jun suddenly died in an accident.
The cooperation between the Fu and Cen families had begun long ago, and neither family wanted to give up the marriage alliance. So they wanted another son of the Fu family to take Fu Jun’s place in the engagement with Jiang Se.
The Fu family was a big clan; there were at least two or three candidates who could marry Jiang Se. Old Master Fu, wanting to secure control of their branch, used forceful means to assign the marriage alliance with the Cen family onto Fu Yun.
Fu Jun had been the favored grandson; his position in the Fu Corporation was worlds apart from Fu Yun, who was a child born out of wedlock.
No one knew what Old Master Fu had said to Cen Minghong, but the Cen family actually agreed to let Fu Yun replace Fu Jun.
Before that, Jiang Se had only met Fu Yun a few times. She didn’t have much impression of him, only remembering he was someone with a very gentle temperament.
After they got engaged, her interactions with Fu Yun did increase, but both were very busy people; it was common not to see each other for half a year or more.
That Mid-Autumn Festival phone call came after the Fu family informed her of the switched-at-birth incident between her and Cen Yu, and it was Fu Yun who called her afterward.
On the phone, Fu Yun asked her: “Sese, do you still want to continue with our engagement?”
Jiang Se asked him: “If I no longer carry the surname Cen, would your father agree to you continuing this engagement?”
Fu Yun was silent for a moment before saying: “He wouldn’t, but I can try to persuade him. But before persuading him, I want to know what you think.”
His words had a bit of tenderness hidden inside.
Fu Yun didn’t particularly like her, it was sympathy for her circumstances.
They were both pieces pushed out by their families for marriage alliances; there was no need to create conflict with Old Master Fu over a bit of shared-misery tenderness.
Jiang Se didn’t like owing debts of gratitude.
Not to mention, she only regarded the marriage alliance as an obligation she bore as a member of the Cen family. When she resolved to give up that surname, naturally she also gave up the engagement.
From the moment she learned she wasn’t a Cen, she hadn’t intended to continue.
She told Fu Yun the truth, she said she didn’t want to.
Fu Yun seemed to also breathe a sigh of relief. Hearing her words, he smiled and said: “Then our engagement ends here, but Sese, I’m still your friend.”
After Jiang Se went to Tongcheng, the two gradually had less contact.
Now that they were meeting again, Fu Yun naturally asked about the Jiang family: “Are your relatives there good to you?”
“They’re good,” Jiang Se smiled slightly, “I knew you’d ask that.”
Fu Yun lowered his head and smiled too. His light brown eyes, once touched by his smile, looked like glass marbles glittering under sunlight.
In Beicheng half a month of heavy snow had sealed the skies. Tonight, it was rare to see moonlight; the moon spread across the window eaves like a layer of crushed salt.
The silhouettes of Fu Yun and Jiang Se were drenched in the moonlight, looking like a perfectly matched pair.
Near the spiral staircase, a woman wearing a diamond headband nudged Zhu Mingli’s elbow, signaling her to look at Jiang Se.
“You think if Cen Se doesn’t go back to the Cen family, she’ll cling to Fu Yun? Fu Yun’s pulled off quite a few beautiful jobs these past two years and pleased Old Master Fu. Even though he’s an illegitimate son, he’s now Old Master Fu’s only heir. The Fu family will very likely end up in his hands.”
Zhu Mingli glanced that way; her gaze cooled, and she said with a smile: “Old Master Fu is famous for being shrewd. How would he ever let Fu Yun take a counterfeit? No matter how real a counterfeit looks, it’s still a counterfeit.”
“True.”
Cai Xiao, the woman with the diamond headband, swept a look over the haute couture gown on Jiang Se’s body. She was just about to say something when the doors facing the spiral staircase were suddenly pulled open from the outside, and two butlers respectfully greeted the incoming guest.
Following the sound, Cai Xiao turned her head and saw, amid the wind and snow, a black figure standing in the hazy light under the corridor.
Her gaze tightened. When she finally saw who was standing at the door, she quickly nudged Zhu Mingli again and whispered: “Mingli, look who’s here?”
She jerked her chin toward the door. “The one from the Lu family!”
The man had already stepped past the doorway. Snowflakes carried in with the opening and closing of the door fell onto his shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice. His thin, cool lips lifted slightly as he turned his head to speak to the butler beside him; the high bridge of his nose beneath those gold-rimmed glasses rose like a jagged mountain peak, casting a cage of shadows.
Zhu Mingli narrowed her eyes at him, then in the next moment her peripheral vision swept toward the window. Who knew what she thought of, but her glossy red lips suddenly pressed together tightly.
As soon as the door closed, half the crystal chandeliers in the hall dimmed at once, and a bright, dazzling spotlight spiraled down from above the staircase.
Cen Yu slowly walked into that beam of light from the end of the corridor.
These past few months, Cen Yu had trained her posture well in the Cen household. The deep blue starry gown made her look like a brilliant star.
The low, pouring cello tones rose like a confession as Cen Yu, holding Cen Minghong’s arm, walked step by step down the spiral staircase.
Lu Huaiyan didn’t look that way. He handed the gift box in his hand to a butler, casually saying, “A gift from my grandfather to Miss Cen Yu,” then slowly swept his gaze around the hall.
Very quickly, his eyes fixed on a certain spot.
Everyone else was watching Cen Yu, only he stared unwaveringly at Jiang Se, who was standing by the window.
She wore a gray-blue off-shoulder mermaid gown. The ocean-like shade wasn’t striking, yet it perfectly outlined her elegant shoulder line and slender neck.
Moonlight, like water, streamed through the window, and her creamy skin glowed.
Her head was tilted slightly upward as she quietly watched the people on the staircase. There wasn’t a hint of longing or jealousy in her brows, she was as calm as a lake that no breeze could ripple.
Six years ago, at her coming-of-age ceremony held here, she had also stood like that, holding Cen Minghong’s arm, slowly walking down the spiral staircase under everyone’s gaze.
Back then, she had personally chosen the piece the orchestra played, it was Debussy’s Clair de Lune.
That day, Lu Huaiyan had been irritated by Cen Li and didn’t get a good look at her. When Jiang Se descended the stairs, he gave a cursory glance and then looked away.
He couldn’t remember what the eighteen-year-old Jiang Se in that beam of light looked like.
But Lu Huaiyan felt that the Jiang Se right now was like a beam of bright, arresting moonlight.
She had probably looked like this at eighteen too.
His gaze, when he focused on someone, always carried a weight, almost tangible.
Across the distance, across the lenses, it was impossible to ignore that nearly oppressive stare.
Jiang Se shifted her gaze slightly, and their eyes collided.
Lu Huaiyan walked toward her, and only when he reached her side did he realize that someone else was standing next to her.
As he turned his head, the other man also looked at him.
Lu Huaiyan and Fu Yun had crossed paths before in social settings. They weren’t familiar, but he knew who he was; after all, this was the person Old Master Fu had been grooming as an heir these past two years.
Of course, now Lu Huaiyan remembered Fu Yun more clearly than before—
He was Jiang Se’s former fiancé. Or rather, her second former fiancé.
Whether it was Lu Huaiyan’s aura or something else, Fu Yun, once Lu Huaiyan stood still, turned to Jiang Se and said: “I’ll take my leave first, Sese. While you’re staying in Beicheng these days, if you’re free, let’s find a chance to catch up.”
After saying so, he nodded lightly to Lu Huaiyan, exchanged a polite greeting, and walked toward the spiral staircase.
Passing by Zhu Mingli and Cai Xiao, his steps slowed a little, and he politely nodded to them in greeting. Zhu Mingli didn’t respond; she only tightened her grip on her wine glass and kept glancing toward the window.
After Fu Yun left, Lu Huaiyan stepped into his place, standing beside Jiang Se.
Jiang Se looked up at him and said: “You’re late.”
Lu Huaiyan never arrived late to banquets. Being half an hour late tonight truly was a first.
“Late is late, it’s not an important banquet anyway.” Lu Huaiyan looked at Jiang Se and laughed softly. “Did you think I’d show up twenty minutes early to every kind of event?”
The day they discussed business at that Japanese teahouse, Lu Huaiyan had indeed arrived twenty minutes early.
Jiang Se didn’t respond.
Lu Huaiyan stared at her slightly cool eyes and added: “I went to the Lu house to fetch the gifts. Grandfather prepared gifts for both you and Cen Yu.”
Jiang Se blinked in surprise: “Why would Grandpa Lu prepare a gift for me?”
Lu Huaiyan coming to the Cen house for the banquet couldn’t possibly come empty-handed, the gift for Cen Yu had long been prepared, the gift he went back to the Lu house to fetch last minute could only be her share.
Was it that Old Master Lu learned last minute that she had returned to Beicheng and specially prepared it for her, or was it for some other reason?
Lu Huaiyan said unhurriedly: “Haven’t you always known Grandfather likes you very much? Tonight’s New Year’s Eve, even I have a gift, how would you not? I left the gift in the car, where are you staying tonight?”
Jiang Se looked at Lu Huaiyan without speaking, only after a long while said: “I’m staying at my little aunt’s place.”
“Alright.” Lu Huaiyan answered, “When you’re about to leave later, tell me, I’ll go get the gift for you.”
His voice had just fallen when thunderous applause rang throughout the entire banquet hall.
The two of them turned their faces toward the spiral staircase, and there, Cen Yu was holding Cen Minghong’s arm and had already walked down the spiral steps.
Lu Huaiyan glanced once lightly and withdrew his gaze, amid the lively applause he tilted his head toward Jiang Se, faintly asking: “Why did you come?”
