Crossing the Line – Chapter 13
by Little PandaDelicate and Easy to Control
Xiao Shen led Jiang Siyi into the workspace, asking her to sit down and wait for a moment.
“Teacher Lin will be right over.”
“All right.”
Lin was a common surname, so Jiang Siyi didn’t connect “Teacher Lin” with “Lin Ji” at all.
After all, Lin Ji and this tattoo studio didn’t seem to have the slightest connection on the surface.
She’d always known that tattoos were painful. Even though she felt excited and happy about giving herself this little gift, she still couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous while waiting for the tattoo artist to arrive.
As she flipped through the studio’s portfolio, the door behind her pushed open. Teacher Lin had arrived.
Jiang Siyi turned around to see a tall woman with her long hair pinned up, wearing a face mask as she stepped into the room.
The eyes exposed above the mask were stunning—they looked just like Lin Ji’s.
The moment the thought arose, Jiang Siyi felt she was being foolish.
A busy person like Lin Ji was harder to book than a three-star Michelin restaurant. How could she possibly have time to work as a tattoo artist here?
It was probably just a coincidence that her surname was Lin and she bore a slight resemblance.
While preparing her equipment, Lin Ji asked, “Tattooing the back of your neck?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It’ll hurt a bit more than other spots.”
“That’s fine.”
What was going on? Why did even her voice sound so similar?
Jiang Siyi wanted to turn around to make sure, but a hand pressed down on her shoulder.
“I’ll disinfect the area first.”
“…Okay.”
Jiang Siyi stopped moving. Lin Ji’s gaze fell on the back of her neck, where her hair was pinned up, slowly tracing over it inch by inch.
A few stray baby hairs hovered over the pale, smooth skin, which radiated a gentle warmth.
Perhaps because the skin was so delicate, it looked remarkably thin and fragile—the kind of complexion that would bruise or leave marks easily.
The curve of her neck was slender and soft, as if it could be easily controlled with a single hand.
Her thoughts wandered for a rare moment, but Lin Ji’s momentarily frozen eyes quickly returned to normal. Ignoring the slight warmth under her hands, she focused on the tattoo.
Since this was something that would remain on Jiang Siyi’s body forever, and it was being done by her own hand, she naturally wanted to do her absolute best.
She wanted Jiang Siyi to be entirely satisfied, without leaving any regrets.
After disinfecting, she used transfer paper to apply the chosen design to the designated spot, took a photo, and showed it to Jiang Siyi for confirmation.
The design Siyi had selected was a tiny pair of unfurled wings.
They were in a simple, cartoonish style, with rounded feather tips that lacked any sharp edges, giving them a persistent sort of softness.
Elegant and delicate, they suited the slender curve of Jiang Siyi’s neck beautifully.
Jiang Siyi was stunned when she saw the photo; it looked even better than she had imagined.
Once it was confirmed, Lin Ji stood behind her with the tattoo machine.
She offered one final reminder before starting.
“I’m starting. Let me know if it hurts.”
Jiang Siyi had thought this Teacher Lin would be hard to approach because of her cold voice, but she was unexpectedly grounding and attentive.
“Teacher Lin, I’m not afraid of pain.”
Lin Ji hadn’t expected Siyi to actually call her “Teacher Lin.”
She still hadn’t recognized who she was.
Unbeknownst to Jiang Siyi, a complex emotion flickered in the eyes of the person behind her.
Lin Ji leaned forward, pressing her left hand down to pull the skin taut.
Through the gloves, she could vaguely feel the warmth of Jiang Siyi’s body. Her fingertips rested against the back of Siyi’s neck, her knuckles measuring how delicate and easy to control the person in front of her was.
The needle pierced her skin. Even though she’d prepared herself, Siyi still let out a muffled whimper of pain from the depths of her throat.
It really hurt.
Her eyes grew slightly damp, but fearing she might disrupt the tattoo process, she gritted her teeth and quickly endured it.
Lin Ji raised her eyelids slightly.
She was indeed quite resilient.
She continued.
Lin Ji was usually a woman of few words, but to help distract Jiang Siyi, she uncharacteristically took the initiative to explain the aftercare instructions.
“It’s normal for some tissue fluid to seep out over the next few days. After all, it’s an open wound. Just rinse it gently with warm water and remember to pat it dry. Don’t go swimming, don’t take baths, and avoid smoking, alcohol, raw or cold foods, and spicy foods. Apply the aftercare ointment I give you, or Vaseline is fine too. In a few days, the wound’ll scab over and start to itch. Don’t scratch it; let it fall off on its own.”
Jiang Siyi listened very attentively, offering a soft “mm-hmm” at every pause in Lin Ji’s words to show she’d noted it down.
The tattoo was small and didn’t take very long to complete. Lin Ji helped her apply a layer of plastic wrap to protect the wound.
As Lin Ji pulled off her gloves, she added, “If there’s too much fluid seeping out, or if the pain is severe, don’t just endure it. It could be an allergic reaction or even an infection. Remember to contact me. Just send me a message on WeChat.”
“All right, Teacher Lin. Let’s add each other.”
Lin Ji: …
Tossing her gloves onto the workstation, Lin Ji, still wearing her mask, propped one hand on the edge of the table and leaned her upper body toward Jiang Siyi.
Jiang Siyi: ?
Why had the distance between them suddenly closed so much?
“Jiang Siyi.”
Lin Ji hooked her fingers under her mask and pulled it down.
“You still haven’t recognized me?”
Lin Ji’s striking, highly defined features suddenly appeared in full view, like a priceless gem presented up close in sharp focus.
It really was Lin Ji…
Siyi had rarely looked at her face from such close proximity. The sheer impact of that mature, cold beauty made Siyi’s breath hitch.
Moreover, Siyi still hadn’t decided how to respond to the marriage alliance proposal, yet she’d run into Lin Ji right here. Forcing her features into a dry, strained smile, Siyi said:
“Lin Ji-jie… It really is you. Actually, I did recognize you earlier, I just… didn’t dare to believe it.”
Didn’t dare, Lin Ji thought. Meaning she’s still afraid of me.
Lin Ji knew she didn’t smile often, and she was well aware that Siyi had actively avoided her since childhood. Now that they were alone, she didn’t want to make the girl feel utterly lost.
Tugging up the corners of her mouth, Lin Ji forced a somewhat stiff smile that she believed looked warm and approachable.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re exceptionally easy to read when you lie?”
Lin Ji was genuinely making small talk, even teasing her, but she was terrible at such things and had no idea how intensely interrogative and oppressive it sounded to Jiang Siyi.
Since she rarely smiled, she was unfamiliar with the mechanics of a gentle grin; her rare smile only sent a shiver down Siyi’s spine.
Siyi felt as though any moment now, Lin Ji would stuff her into a suitcase, throw it into the trunk of a car, and dump her body in some random river.
With her back stiffening, Siyi felt that telling the absolute truth was her only way out.
“I… I actually thought the eyes and the voice were so similar, but then I thought, how could that be possible… So, looking at it that way, I guess I really didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry!”
Lin Ji knit her brows in confusion.
Sorry?
They were just chatting; why was Siyi apologizing?
Her gaze was drawn to Siyi’s index fingers, which were nervously twisting together.
She was actually this terrified.
Lin Ji: …
The tattoo was done anyway. She should stop scaring her.
“You may go—”
Before the sentence was even finished, Jiang Siyi fled as if granted a divine pardon. Socially anxious people truly excelled at vanishing in a split second.
“Thank you, Lin Ji-jie! Goodbye!”
Lin Ji: .
After paying, Siyi headed straight for the subway. The bustling crowd tethered her nerves back to the mortal world.
The tattoo room just now had felt like another dimension.
A world with Lin Ji.
And a world where she was alone with Lin Ji.
Siyi rubbed her ears, which had grown soft and burning hot, tingling with a faint, itchy sensation.
Why had she run away like that?
Whenever she crossed paths with Lin Ji, she became completely abnormal.
She’d feared Lin Ji since childhood, and she’d never imagined that Lin Ji would one day extend an invitation for a marriage alliance.
Inviting Siyi to become her partner, her most intimate companion…
The sheer absurdity of it only compounded her anxiety.
Then again, no matter how nervous she was, she shouldn’t have acted like that. It was embarrassing.
Who knew what Lin Ji thought of her now? Would she think Siyi was completely neurotic?
Taking out her phone, Siyi debated whether to send an explanation to Lin Ji, to tell her that the tattoo was beautiful, far better than she’d imagined.
But she didn’t know if Lin Ji would even care to reply to her.
While she was hesitating, a WeChat message popped up on her phone. It was actually from Lin Ji.
【Is the meaning of the wings that you want to fly higher?】
Jiang Siyi’s heart gave a violent tremor.
It seemed that every time she was at a loss, Lin Ji would appear at the perfect moment to ease her anxiety.
On one hand was that terrifying aura, but on the other was a deep comfort Siyi had never experienced before.
It’d been a very long time since anyone had cared about her inner thoughts, or asked what she wanted.
Siyi held her phone with gravity and typed a serious reply.
【Of course, the higher the better. But even if I can’t fly that high, I hope I can at least go wherever I want to go.】
Lin Ji replied almost instantly: 【You want freedom.】
【Yeah, freedom is something everyone wants, right?】
…
When Yan Yu returned to the lounge, she saw Lin Ji sitting on the sofa with her long legs crossed, silent. She held her phone against her knee with one hand while the back of her other hand supported her chin. Her eyes were completely still, as if she were deep in thought.
How extraordinary. Lin Ji, who never batted an eye when acquiring massive corporations, was currently deep in contemplation.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lin Ji caught some movement. Coming out of her thoughts, she looked toward Yan Yu at the doorway.
Yan Yu was enthusiastically taking photos of her with her phone.
Lin Ji: ?
“It’s my first time seeing you look so preoccupied,” Yan Yu said. “If I don’t snap a photo for posterity, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Lin Ji: …
If not for replying to Lin Ji, Jiang Siyi certainly wouldn’t have opened WeChat so quickly, and who knew when she’d have seen Song Ti’s messages.
The tattoo studio was only two subway stops from where Siyi lived. It was only when she arrived downstairs at her apartment building that she noticed Song Ti—whom she’d unpinned from the top of her chat list—buried among a sea of notifications, ignored for several hours.
She’d even sent six consecutive WeChat messages.
What an irony. In the past, Siyi had eagerly anticipated Song Ti’s messages, only to receive perfunctory replies or endless silence.
But now that Siyi’s heart had been broken to pieces and she’d resolved to wait no longer, that very person had actively sought her out with immense fanfare.
Song Ti had never been this proactive toward her.
Siyi didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to know a single thing about that person ever again.
Just as Siyi was about to exit the app, a sudden sharp pain gripped her wrist. Siyi was yanked back instantly before she could step into the entrance of her building.
Startled, Siyi turned around, colliding with Song Ti’s icy face.
Perhaps because Song Ti usually wore a pleasant smile and was widely recognized within her social circle for her good temper, Siyi was too accustomed to her soft-spoken manner. Having not seen her for several days, this face dark with a brewing storm caught Siyi off guard. For a fleeting second, Siyi dithered before recognizing exactly who stood before her.
“Why didn’t you reply to my messages? What’s the meaning of mailing all those things back to me?”
Song Ti squeezed with all five fingers, her grip so tight Siyi’s bones ached.
Grimacing from the discomfort, Siyi forcefully wrenched her arm free and took several cautious steps back.
Song Ti’s half-open fingers remained suspended in mid-air.
Siyi had always been at her beck and call in the past, perfectly content to trail behind her for any length of time. Yet after being out of contact for several days, Siyi had finally shown up—only after Song Ti had waited downstairs at her apartment for over two hours—acting as if she were some sort of plague to be avoided.
Song Ti’s eyes widened slightly at Siyi’s unfamiliar behavior.
Rubbing her aching wrist, Siyi said coldly, “Weren’t you always looking for an opportunity to call off the engagement? You don’t have to trouble yourself anymore. I’ve taken the initiative to break it off. Someone like me, whose abilities, personality, and family background are entirely beneath your standards, will completely vanish from your life starting today. Isn’t this exactly what you wanted? From now on, we’re strangers. I never clung to you in the past, and I certainly won’t pester you in the future.”
Siyi hadn’t wanted to make things look this ugly.
Given how much Song Ti looked down on her, Siyi had assumed that after she sent the breakup message, Song Ti might not even bother replying. She’d simply be glad that Siyi had done it, quietly letting the engagement dissolve.
Even if she did reply, it would’ve been a few brief words to dismiss her, happy to be rid of a major headache.
In Siyi’s mind, a successfully single Song Ti should’ve been on a yacht somewhere, popping champagne with a new flame to celebrate finally shedding her biggest nuisance.
She shouldn’t have sent six consecutive WeChat messages, and she certainly shouldn’t have come to wait downstairs at Siyi’s apartment when she didn’t get a response.
The scene unfolding before Siyi’s eyes was completely unexpected.
Realizing her hand was still hanging in the air, Song Ti withdrew it with a trace of embarrassment.
It was true. She’d always wanted Jiang Siyi to be the one to bring up calling off the engagement.
She’d plotted, had Xie Shuyi draft schemes, and spared no effort to achieve this.
What she wanted was that when Siyi pulled out of the marriage, Lin Yunting would have no grounds to blame her, and none of the trust-fund kids in J City’s tight-knit second-generation social circle would be able to utter a single bad word about her.
She’d still be that soft-hearted, kind-natured Eldest Miss of the Song family, forever upright and bright, forever noble and respectable.
Yet when her carefully calculated, long-awaited ending finally materialized exactly as she’d wished, she realized she wasn’t as happy as she’d imagined. Instead, her chest was consumed by anger and frustration.
Song Ti didn’t actually love Tan Ya. The two had been university classmates. After Tan Ya settled abroad, they’d reconnected when Song Ti made her first business trip to London.
Song Ti wasn’t particularly obsessed with women of Tan Ya’s type. She was simply pretty enough to serve as a distraction for a game.
While indulging in the thrill of the chase was a shallow pleasure, Song Ti knew that what she truly wanted was an act of rebellion—a revolt against the arranged marriage that bound her life. Even if she’d enjoyed the arrangement in the beginning, who was to say that liking something for a moment meant she had to like it for a lifetime?
Jiang Siyi was the rope that bound her hands and feet, while Tan Ya was merely a plaything.
She’d never intended to grow old with Siyi, nor did she ever plan to have a future with Tan Ya.
In her heart, neither of them was worthy.
Now that Siyi had called off the engagement as she’d wished, Song Ti felt humiliated—as if she were being judged by a subordinate—and deeply offended.
“Is that so? Then before we become strangers, let me give you one final warning.”
Song Ti still held herself like a proud, elegant peacock, her chin raised. Holding back the resentment that made her skin crawl and the toxic words rising in her throat, she did her utmost to appear entirely indifferent.
“Once the engagement is broken, your life in the Jiang family’ll only get harder.”
Jiang Siyi wasn’t angered in the least, let alone worried.
This “well-meaning” piece of advice ultimately met with a calm, almost dismissive response.
“That has nothing to do with you anymore. Please don’t come back to bother me.”
Hearing Siyi draw such a clean, absolute boundary, Song Ti felt her eyelid twitch uncontrollably.
She watched helplessly as Siyi turned her back to her, revealing a pair of tattooed wings on the nape of her neck beneath her pinned-up hair.
It was a brand-new tattoo.
She was going to spread her wings and fly away.
An intense feeling of resentment flashed like lightning through her mind.
For once, she blurted out words without thinking them through.
“I don’t agree to calling off the engagement.”
Siyi paused in her tracks. When she looked back, her eyes were filled with disbelief.
The cold winter sun hung low behind Song Ti, casting a hazy, grim light.
“You think you can just call it off whenever you feel like it?” Song Ti demanded. “Who do you think you are? I don’t permit it.”
…
The tattoo studio.
After completing Jiang Siyi’s wing tattoo, Lin Ji prepared to leave for the day.
Before she left, Yan Yu was still hesitating to speak.
Wrapping a broad, warm scarf around the lower half of her face, Lin Ji said, “It’s her.”
“I haven’t even asked anything yet,” Yan Yu muttered.
“Haven’t you wanted to ask for a long time?”
“Well, that’s true…”
Yan Yu was indeed incredibly curious. Ever since Lin Ji mentioned in autumn that she was getting married, Yan Yu had been dying to know what kind of heavenly beauty could catch her eye and prompt her to start planning a wedding as early as winter.
She had her suspicions earlier at the afternoon tea lounge, but Siyi was indeed the one—the most unremarkable, fallen-from-grace daughter in their social circle.
Granted, Siyi was undeniably beautiful, possessing delicate, elegant features that exuded a pure, classical charm.
Still, from what Yan Yu’d heard, the Jiang family was already on its last legs.
What was more, Siyi had been her cousin’s fiancée… Was Lin Ji planning to cross that line?
Then again, after that incident at the afternoon tea lounge, that “fiancée” status had likely already shifted to “ex-fiancée.”
Leaning against the doorframe with her hands shoved into her jacket pockets, Yan Yu sighed.
“I never expected an absolute J-type like you, someone who despises anything outside of a set plan, to make such a sudden decision about marriage.”
Lin Ji casually tied a knot in her scarf, her gaze shifting slightly. Her usually aloof eyes softened at the mention of that person.
“It wasn’t sudden,” Lin Ji said. “She has always been in my life plans.”
The author has something to say:
Lin Ji: Step two of wife-luring—never miss any opportunity to seduce my wife.
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