Crossing the Line – Chapter 10
by Little PandaBold Temptation
Yan Yu roughly knew what was about to happen and really wanted to stay behind to eat melons1, but unfortunately, Lin Ji would not let her. She had no choice but to take her leave.
As she put on her coat, she reminded Lin Ji once more:
“Since I’m being so good, come by my studio sometime to boost my business. I’m counting on the orders you print out to bury me.”
Lin Ji: “We’ll see.”
After Yan Yu left, muttering under her breath, Lin Ji’s gaze fell on the corner once again.
The woman beside Song Ti had eye-catching, long, curly golden-brown hair and heavy makeup. She was indeed the very same person Lin Ji had seen at Heathrow Airport before the New Year.
Two and a half months ago.
Lin Ji had been invited to attend a financial summit in London. At the airport, she’d spotted two women holding each other.
Since Lin Ji had arrived on a private jet, her landing terminal was far from the high-traffic main terminal. With few people around, she easily confirmed that one of those two women was indeed Song Ti.
The person she was intimately embracing and kissing as if no one else were around was clearly not her fiancée, Jiang Siyi.
As the two of them walked into the private lounge, chatting and laughing, Lin Ji remained standing in the empty space, her mind rarely tying itself in a knot.
After a long pause, she pulled out her phone and opened WeChat.
The contact pinned at the very top of her list was named 【Sanzhuang Tusi2】, using a picture of a puppy as the avatar.
The fluffy white furball had a pair of round, pitch-black eyes and was sticking its pink little tongue out at the camera, looking as if it were smiling.
That was the puppy Jiang Siyi raised, Lin Ji knew.
Lin Ji also knew the puppy was named Xueqiu, and that Jiang Siyi doted on it.
On the very day she added Jiang Siyi as a friend, Lin Ji had pinned her.
Even though over all these years, except for Siyi proactively sending her various holiday greetings to which Lin Ji passively replied, they had no other communication, Jiang Siyi had always remained at the very top, never changing.
In Lin Ji’s memory, Jiang Siyi always stood outside the crowd, never fighting or arguing; she would only speak when someone proactively talked to her.
She was always waiting, never causing anyone any trouble.
But even so, some people were unwilling to simply give her a clean resolution.
Opening Jiang Siyi’s Moments, the latest post was still the one from a month ago about watching the red maples alone.
The maple leaves bloomed in a lonely, fiery crimson, and the person who took the photo hadn’t accompanied it with a single word of caption.
The quiet sense of loneliness pierced through the phone screen and pricked Lin Ji’s heart.
After the summit ended, Lin Ji returned to the group headquarters and officially initiated her plan to return to China.
Everything was faster than anticipated.
Lin Ji called the server over again.
“Is your manager here?”
Hearing that she wanted to see the manager, the server looked as if she were facing a formidable enemy.
Their shop was in the core CBD. Most of the guests were high-level white-collar workers, investors, and bankers, who were extremely difficult to please and would complain to the manager at the drop of a hat.
The server cautiously asked her, “Ma’am, is there anything you are unsatisfied with?”
Lin Ji saw her nervousness. “It’s not about the service, I have something else to discuss with your manager.”
The server breathed a slight sigh of relief. After the manager arrived, the two spoke in low voices for a bit, and the manager’s tense expression quickly shifted from tightness to secret delight.
He’d thought she was here to cause trouble, but she turned out to be a God of Wealth3 bearing fortunes.
Lin Ji consulted with the manager, asking if they could have all the customers leave by giving everyone a one-thousand-yuan restaurant voucher.
She would pay for the value of the vouchers, and if any customer didn’t want the voucher, she could also give them the cash equivalent on the spot.
This was a presumptuous request that might affect the restaurant’s reputation, so she was willing to pay an additional one hundred thousand yuan as compensation for the restaurant’s losses.
The manager had worked in this area for three years and had seen countless bizarre customers, but this was the first time he had ever seen a customer whose extravagant spending was bizarre in its own right.
The manager said, beaming with joy, “Alright, alright, I’ll go try to speak with the other guests.”
Lin Ji: “Thank you for your trouble.”
With such a good deal, the customers were naturally happy to oblige. While the manager gleefully went to fetch the vouchers, he kept thinking to himself that this stunning beauty looked a bit familiar, as if he had seen her somewhere before.
Her actions were so overbearing, yet her words were highly polite. Coupled with her breathtaking looks, she made people follow her lead without even realizing it; she was truly something else.
This restaurant was a place Song Ti and Tan Ya frequented.
The last time Tan Ya returned to the country, the two of them had also met in this private corner.
The restaurant did not overlap with Jiang Siyi’s social circle and was some distance from the Song family’s company, so it was hard to run into any acquaintances.
In addition, the high-backed chairs and the corner location facing the glass window meant that unless someone walked over on purpose, basically no one would notice them.
Through the spacious, panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, one could look down at the bustling urban transportation network of J City.
The heavy snow was tirelessly blanketing the urban skyline, while Song Ti and Tan Ya kissed while enjoying the snowy view.
They were so engrossed in their appreciation that they didn’t even notice the other customers in the restaurant behind them slowly thinning out.
Song Ti asked Tan Ya, “How long is your vacation this time?”
Tan Ya: “Why? Can’t wait for me to head back already?”
“How could I?” Song Ti pinched her fingers. “I just want to know how long you can stay by my side so I can plan to take you on a trip to the surrounding areas.”
Tan Ya leaned against her shoulder. “Then plan as you wish. I’m not leaving this time after returning.”
The two fell silent for three seconds. Then, Tan Ya suddenly sat up.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Song Ti knew she couldn’t possibly stay domestically; her entire family was in London, and her job was there too.
She was saying this on purpose.
The childish testing made a sliver of irritability flash through a corner of Song Ti’s heart.
Song Ti pressed that irritation back down, continuing to maintain her stable core persona.
“No, I’m not.”
“Didn’t you say you have no feelings for that Jiang girl and were forced together? Aren’t you annoyed to death by her clinging to you? Isn’t it just feudal dross? Weren’t you always trying to find a way to call off the engagement? What, are you scared now that I said I’m staying in China?”
“Not at all, don’t overthink things.”
Song Ti stroked Tan Ya’s smooth, long hair.
“I’ve been looking for an opportunity, and it’s about to succeed. Don’t throw off my rhythm at a time like this.”
Tan Ya let out a soft huff. “Who knows if this is just your excuse to placate me?”
Song Ti had been talking about breaking off the engagement for nearly two years now.
“You clearly know how dissatisfied I am with the one surnamed Jiang.”
Song Ti pressed her ring finger against her temple, massaging it with varying pressure while her other four fingers elegantly arched upward, and her brows pinched together in a frown.
“From ability to personality to family background, there’s not a single outstanding area. I’ve survived these years purely on willpower. If it weren’t for Jiang Siyi’s mother bringing this massive trouble on me, I wouldn’t have been pestered to this day. I hope Heaven opens its eyes and quickly…”
Song Ti stopped mid-sentence.
Tan Ya looked at her in confusion, seeing her eyes staring fixedly at the floor-to-ceiling glass wall in front, her expression no different from having seen a ghost.
Tan Ya followed her gaze and saw the reflection of a girl on the glass.
The girl’s large eyes were completely red and brimming with tears, her hands clenched tightly, her knuckles turning pale.
Tan Ya recognized this face.
It was none other than Jiang Siyi, the fiancée Song Ti had been trying to get rid of.
The server delivered the coffee to Lin Ji right on time.
“The coffee you ordered, ma’am.”
Lin Ji looked in Jiang Siyi’s direction and said, “Give it to her.”
The server: “…Alright.”
Song Ti turned around, her eyes meeting Jiang Siyi’s.
“Why are you here? Did you have someone investigate me?”
Jiang Siyi’s chest rose and fell violently, her lips turning a deep red due to her intense emotions.
Just now, Tan Ya’s contemptuous words and Song Ti’s mocking remarks fell into Jiang Siyi’s ears without missing a single word.
She’d never dreamed that Song Ti thought of her this way.
Just as she was in a state of extreme anger, the server brought that cup of coffee over.
“Hello, your cof—”
Before the words could even be finished, Jiang Siyi grabbed the coffee and splashed the entire cup onto Song Ti’s face.
Along with it, Tan Ya’s hair, which she had just spent a fortune on, and her current-season haute couture outfit were completely ruined.
Song Ti was so scalded that she jumped up, completely discarding her decency.
“Jiang Siyi, have you lost your mind?! How dare you splash me!”
In Song Ti’s view, Jiang Siyi had no temper and would never get angry; she was an herbivore whom anyone could bully.
She had not expected that no matter how docile the herbivore, no matter how avoidant the personality, they would still get angry when their bottom line was stepped on, and would strike back regardless of everything.
Jiang Siyi forcefully suppressed her tears, telling herself she absolutely must not shed tears in front of these two people.
Even though she tried hard to control her tone, the slight tremor in her voice was still very obvious.
“If you want to break off the engagement, just tell me directly. I won’t cling to you.”
She set the coffee cup aside, staring at Song Ti with sharp eyes that Song Ti had never seen before, and said:
“You have no right to mention my mother. The next time I hear you mention her, it won’t be just a cup of coffee.”
Song Ti had never seen this side of Jiang Siyi. Although indignant, she was left temporarily speechless and unable to retort.
Not wanting to look at these two, Jiang Siyi turned and left the restaurant.
Lin Ji had already wrapped her shawl around herself, following Jiang Siyi’s footsteps as they walked out the main doors together.
When Song Ti saw Lin Ji’s figure, her heart skipped a beat.
Oh, no.
“Cousin—”
Song Ti’s urgent call chased after Lin Ji’s retreating figure, but Lin Ji paid her no attention.
The glass wall was wiped too clean, leaving absolutely no room.
Allowing Song Ti to see Jiang Siyi at a glance, and also to clearly see her current self.
Her long hair, which she spent a fortune on maintaining every week, now had absolutely no styling left to speak of. The coffee stains looked like a large clump of muddy water splashed onto her, and she had never been in such a pathetic state.
Anger welled up from deep within.
She had finally managed to hold out until now, and Jiang Siyi was just about to break and proactively raise the matter of calling off the engagement, only to be discovered at this moment. She felt a frustrating sense that all her prior efforts had been wasted.
It would have been fine if only Jiang Siyi had found out, but she just had to run into her cousin as well. It was truly rotten luck.
What was even more embarrassing was that she heard someone whispering.
“An affair?”
Tan Ya shouted at the whispering servers, telling them to bring some towels.
When the server brought the towels over, she pointed to the button on the table and reminded Tan Ya with a smile:
“If you need any service next time, there is no need to shout so loudly. You can just press the button directly.”
Tan Ya: …
Song Ti did not take the towel. Her gaze was still fixed on the direction Lin Ji had just chased after, her brow furrowing.
Originally, Song Ti had planned to take Tan Ya to the best hot spring in J City, but now she was completely out of the mood.
Song Ti still held her head high; even if she was disheveled, she was still a proud peacock.
“I’m going home to clean up. You should go back to your hotel too.”
Seeing that Song Ti lacked any smile, Tan Ya knew her mood was extremely bad.
Tan Ya could easily guess what was on Song Ti’s mind.
She must be resentful, thinking that if she hadn’t returned to the country at this time, they wouldn’t have been caught by Jiang Siyi. It was all her fault.
Tan Ya also lost interest. The two of them left the restaurant and went their separate ways.
Song Ti returned home, threw away all the dirty clothes, and showered for a long time before finally washing off the smell of coffee.
When she returned to the living room, she found her phone had been vibrating non-stop.
She wasn’t at the company today and hadn’t attended the high-level meetings, so a bunch of decisions were waiting for her to settle—they were practically hounding her to death.
Irritated, Song Ti turned off her phone, too lazy to deal with it.
She turned on the TV, wanting to find a mindless movie to watch and relax.
Just as she started watching, Lin Yunting and Song Liming arrived. They drove rapidly all the way from the courtyard gate and forcefully pushed open the door to the living room.
Song Ti propped up her aching head and asked impatiently, “Why did you come without warning again? You didn’t even knock. I have privacy too.”
Lin Yunting sat down on the single-seater sofa next to her, her voice deep and low.
“If you didn’t want to get married, you could have just called off the engagement directly. Now look at you, things have turned out so ugly.”
Song Ti knew the family would definitely find out, but she didn’t expect them to find out so quickly.
“You all know already?”
Lin Yunting cast a sidelong glance at her. “If only we knew, that would be fine. Your grandparents have also heard about it!”
A certain nerve throbbed violently; Song Ti lowered her head and did not speak.
Song Liming stood to the side, saying in his usual teasing tone, “Since things have turned out this way, why not just call off the engagement directly? It’s better for both sides.”
“Easy for you to say!”
Lin Yunting scolded her husband before turning back to Song Ti.
“All my face has been thrown away by you! If you wanted to do this kind of thing, you should have hidden your tail! Who is that woman?”
Lin Yunting’s sharp accusations and Song Liming’s schadenfreude kept stabbing into Song Ti’s brain.
Song Ti suddenly sat up straight. “I didn’t want to marry her in the first place, it was you who forced me! Saying Jiang Siyi is suitable for me—where is she suitable? If it weren’t for you, things would have never reached this point today.”
“We forced you?”
Lin Yunting stood up directly, the anger she had suppressed for half the day finally erupting.
“Back then, who was the one constantly saying they liked her in front of me? Knowing the marriage alliance partner wasn’t you, you even came home and lost your temper at us! Have you forgotten how I helped you secure this marriage? I worried day and night, and what do I get in return? Just your heartlessness?”
Song Ti stood up as well, a full half-head taller than her mother.
“That was all in childhood; is there any point in bringing it up now? Do you not know her family’s current situation? Mom, ask yourself honestly, does she match me? Haven’t you been the ones constantly disdaining her all these years? If it were truly for my own good, you should have called off this marriage long ago. You talk a big game, but from start to finish, all you cared about was your own face!”
Song Ti did like Jiang Siyi quite a bit when she was a child, because she was beautiful, like a doll made of crystal, whom anyone would adore on sight.
When they got engaged, she thought it was great. But the Jiang family plummeted after the engagement and became a laughingstock; was she supposed to become a laughingstock as well?
She was no fool!
Lin Yunting was too shocked by her daughter’s resentful expression to speak.
In her eyes, her daughter had always been gentle and filial, never having been so harsh.
The red-eyed woman in front of her made her feel an awkward familiarity amidst the strangeness.
She looked a lot like someone.
Yes, Lin Yunting understood—like her father, like Song Liming.
Aggressive and passive-aggressive, she was exactly like Song Liming.
“Go,” Song Ti said, holding her head as she sat back down on the sofa, turning her face away. “I don’t want to see you right now.”
Jiang Siyi thought she would be sad, that she would have a good cry, but when she came to her senses, she found that she hadn’t cried.
Her eyes were bloodshot, but there were no tears.
She had only walked a very long way aimlessly in the heavy snow.
Her hands, face, and feet were all frozen stiff.
She didn’t know where she had walked to; there were still many people.
J City was too big, lacking even a single quiet corner for one to space out for a while.
Up ahead was an unfamiliar bus stop.
Jiang Siyi sat under the awning of the bus stop. On the billboard behind her, a female celebrity was holding a cup of steaming hot coffee, her happy smile making the currently dejected Jiang Siyi feel a bit envious.
The wind and snow were blocked a bit; having warmed up slightly, Jiang Siyi’s brain could finally function again.
Looking back at the scene in the restaurant just now, the only thing she was glad about was that the restaurant was quiet. Otherwise, she might not have heard Song Ti’s voice the moment she walked in, nor would she have discovered her and that woman sitting in the corner.
She would probably still be worrying about Song Ti’s affairs like a fool right now.
Thanks to the restaurant having few people, otherwise, with the big commotion they made, who knew how it would have escalated.
Jiang Siyi rubbed her red hands; she had rushed out too quickly and forgotten to wear gloves, and her slender fingertips were already frozen red.
The thick snow that fell on her hair slowly melted, turning into wet snow-water, dampening her hair and collar, which was quite uncomfortable.
Wearing a thick down jacket, raising her hand to sweep the snow-water off the top of her head became difficult, her arms feeling shorter out of nowhere.
As her head tilted down accordingly, Jiang Siyi always felt she had forgotten something.
The substantial weight of the backpack behind her finally reminded her of the Green-yellow Jade Dragon and Phoenix Pendant, and the name ‘Lin Ji’ quickly surfaced in her mind.
She had come over this time to find Lin Ji to privately negotiate the green-yellow jade.
But because of Song Ti, she had completely forgotten about it.
While feeling ashamed of her own lack of professionalism, Jiang Siyi thought: Lin Ji must have also been in the restaurant at that time…
In that case, wasn’t everything that happened also seen by her?
Lin Ji is Song Ti’s cousin, they are family bound by blood. Seeing her splash Song Ti with coffee, she would probably be disliked by Lin Ji…
Jiang Siyi again thought with delayed realization—
Come to think of it, whose coffee was that?
She had actually just grabbed it and splashed it out so casually.
After splashing it, she just set down the empty cup and left; the owner of the coffee must have found it completely baffling.
Jiang Siyi supported her burning face. What a chaotic evening, like a long and disordered dream, everything that happened was so surreal.
At the moment of experiencing huge twists and turns and life transitions, a sense of absurdity poured from her head to her feet.
The road ahead was blurry, seemingly illusory and not real.
Not until a Bentley stopped in front of her and the automatic door slowly opened did she awaken from her nightmare-like daze.
The cold wind, carrying rain and snow, broke into the warm and orderly interior of the car. Sitting inside, the tips of Lin Ji’s hair were swept up by the wind, and her eyelashes were instantly touched by a few rude flakes of snow.
She did not care at all, only looking at Jiang Siyi, who was shivering uncontrollably from the cold.
Lin Ji’s striking features were not particularly familiar to Jiang Siyi.
This sense of being half-familiar instead turned into a reality that broke through the chaos at this moment.
Those eyes, which seemed to harbor stars, were like a gust of wind, blowing open the barriers of Jiang Siyi’s life; her sluggish heart and brain suddenly woke up.
“Get in.”
Her tone was not strong, yet it made it impossible for Jiang Siyi to refuse.
Entering the car, she sat beside Lin Ji.
Jiang Siyi felt the atmosphere inside this car was a bit strange, but for a moment she couldn’t say what was strange.
Between the back seat and the driver’s seat was a smart variable-color glass partition; after Jiang Siyi got in, the glass partition slowly changed into a textured grey tone.
The driver’s presence disappeared, and the entire cabin became a private space exclusive to the two of them.
In the quiet space, the cool scent of Lin Ji’s perfume could be faintly smelled.
The just-right temperature and humidity highlighted that everything around them was neatly kept through meticulous care.
The woman sitting next to her had an even stronger sense of distance, completely spotless.
As for Jiang Siyi, who was wet from her hair to her clothes, she wasn’t even sure if her makeup had smudged. All the snow on her body was quickly melted by the warm temperature in the car, and some water droplets were already dangling from the tips of her hair.
As a disheveled outsider, it was hard for her not to worry about whether she would dirty someone else’s car.
Was Lin Ji here to ask about the Green-yellow Jade Dragon and Phoenix Pendant?
“By the way, that jade pendant.”
Jiang Siyi immediately went to retrieve it from her bag, already prepared for Lin Ji to come demanding answers.
Before the jade pendant was even pulled out, her wet hair was wrapped in something.
Jiang Siyi looked back in surprise, seeing that Lin Ji was using her cashmere shawl to gently absorb the water droplets on her long hair.
Little by little, carefully, she absorbed the water from the hair ends before slowly wrapping upward, without pulling Jiang Siyi at all.
This cashmere shawl had just been on Lin Ji’s shoulders; it was a spring model from a top luxury brand, costing almost as much as the commission Jiang Siyi earned from exhausting herself to host an auction, but now it was being used by Lin Ji as an absorbent towel for Jiang Siyi.
Feeling very embarrassed, just as she was about to say, “How about I do it myself,” Lin Ji had already handed the shawl into her hands, and even said something that made her temporarily daze.
“She does not know how to cherish you; you might as well change to a higher-quality marriage partner.”
This “she” naturally referred to Song Ti.
Jiang Siyi did not think Lin Ji was someone who played matchmaker in emotional matters, so she instinctively asked back:
“Change to… whom?”
Lin Ji slowly lifted her eyelids, those cool peach-blossom eyes focusing intently on Jiang Siyi’s face, a hint of affection faintly seeping out.
“Me.”
Jiang Siyi’s breath caught in her throat.
The distance was so close that it lost its safe range; within the subtle undercurrent was a bold temptation.
The author has something to say:
Lin Ji: Step eight of wife-stealing—seize the opportunity to recommend myself and tempt my wife.
Footnotes
- A popular Chinese internet slang term meaning to watch drama unfold as an onlooker or bystander, similar to watching with popcorn in English.
- Sanzhuang Tusi literally translates to bulk toast or loose toast, a casual, slightly humorous nickname.
- In Chinese culture, the God of Wealth (Caishen) is a deity who brings fortune. Calling someone this indicates they are a generous benefactor.
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