Crossing the Line – Chapter 53
by Little PandaHow Could I? I’m a Married Woman.
Jiang Siyi stared blankly at the simple cartoon bunny line drawing.
A tattoo utterly at odds with Lin Ji’s usual demeanor, inked right over her heart.
It must carry a special meaning—something deeply important to her.
A pet she once kept? An adorable little bunny.
Or was it connected to a particular person?
She had never once heard Lin Ji mention anything about it…
Come to think of it, why did this silly little bunny head look faintly familiar?
Jiang Siyi was wracking her brain, trying to recall whether she had seen a similar design somewhere before.
Lin Ji stirred, seemingly about to wake.
The tattoo was positioned too low, and Jiang Siyi was still lying this close, admiring it—what kind of person was she?
She bolted upright at once, sitting ramrod straight.
So much so that when Lin Ji opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Jiang Siyi “meditating” on the bed. A puzzled look crept into her still-hazy, sleep-filled eyes.
Jiang Siyi put on her most virtuous, respectable smile. “I came to wake you up.”
Lin Ji checked her phone. It was already this late.
She had actually slept for over ten hours.
How she had fallen asleep last night, she no longer remembered.
Her last memory was of Jiang Siyi telling her—
Try to get some sleep.
And then she had actually fallen asleep.
She slept straight through until dawn—no sudden awakenings, no dreams.
The exhaustion that had been pushing her to the brink over the past two days vanished without a trace. Her foggy mind felt clear and sharp.
The feeling of being fully recharged was wonderful, though the hour was a bit late.
As Lin Ji sat up, the strap of her nightgown slipped down to her upper arm.
The pale, full softness that the fabric could only half-conceal seemed ready to spill free.
Lin Ji in a nightgown had already made Jiang Siyi’s gaze dart and dodge; now her heart clenched, and she immediately looked away.
Oh no. The virtuous gentleman’s face must be bright red.
Lin Ji swung her legs off the bed, hooking the strap back up as she moved. Passing Jiang Siyi, she gave her a gentle pat on the head.
Jiang Siyi: …
Now even her ears had gone red.
Over the next few days, both of them were busy with their own affairs. Lin Ji and her team had meetings with the local government, while Jiang Siyi went to check in at the exchange conference.
At registration, Jiang Siyi finally met that fast-talking female colleague in person.
The colleague’s name was Qiu Yeran, and her eyes lit up the moment she saw Jiang Siyi.
“Xiao Jiang, you’re even prettier in person than on video!”
Faced with such a direct compliment, Jiang Siyi felt a little shy. “Thank you,” she said.
Qiu Yeran pulled Jiang Siyi along to the registration desk as if they were old friends.
After signing in, she walked her through the schedule for the next few days.
The reception after the conference was, in essence, a networking salon.
Board members, shareholders, and senior executives from across the Jiashibi Group would all make appearances.
For a corporate slave, the mere thought made her scalp tingle with dread.
In the eyes of upper management, mingling over drinks and chat with employees was the perfect interaction to foster relationships—an informal strategic alignment, a subtle infusion of corporate culture.
For the ordinary rank-and-file worker, especially introverts, it meant maintaining a forced smile the entire time, transforming into an actor.
They said attendance wasn’t mandatory, but any working adult understood: if someone actually failed to show up, it would be quietly noted on their record.
Qiu Yeran loved pretty girls and couldn’t bear to see one suffer even the slightest injustice. She immediately began imparting her wisdom.
“Before you go to the reception, make sure you eat a full meal. The food at these things is genuinely awful. Awful and fattening. All kinds of potatoes, all kinds of fried things, all kinds of tough, flavorless beef and lamb, and desserts that are sickeningly sweet. Heaven knows why, but after two years here, my taste buds have degraded and I’ve gained twenty jin1. Sorry—oops, I started complaining again without realizing. Anyway, don’t have any expectations whatsoever about the food at the reception.”
Jiang Siyi nodded earnestly.
“Oh, and one more thing—you know President Yan, the Global CEO, right? She’ll be there too.”
Qiu Yeran blinked with a “you know what I mean” look.
Jiang Siyi had heard of President Yan’s name before.
When she had dinner with Manager Wu previously, Manager Wu had told her that during the auction where Zhou Yanlin’s driver had come to cause trouble, Global CEO President Yan had been watching her performance from upstairs.
Thank goodness she had kept her composure and handled the situation on the spot.
Manager Wu had said, “Afterward, CEO Gu pulled me aside and said, ‘Do you realize that Xiao Jiang was right under President Yan’s nose? And you let President Yan focus on her? If Xiao Jiang had performed poorly, with President Yan’s zero-tolerance personality, Xiao Jiang could have kissed the main auction podium goodbye.’ I told CEO Gu, ‘That’s because I know Xiao Jiang’s capabilities,’ but honestly, I was panicking inside. Scared me to death—I almost ruined your career.”
So that had happened.
Jiang Siyi felt a belated surge of anxiety for about half a minute.
At the same time, she filed away the name “President Yan.”
Qiu Yeran had only said half of it, but Jiang Siyi understood the implication.
For the sake of her career, keep her distance from President Yan.
After registration, Qiu Yeran gave Jiang Siyi her staff badge and sent the detailed schedule and timings for the next few days to her work email.
Jiang Siyi read through the program and was speechless for a long moment.
She had known the conference would be tedious and stressful, but she hadn’t expected the pressure to be this much greater than imagined.
She was to deliver an English speech in a grand auditorium seating 1,000 people, in front of the entire group’s senior leadership and colleagues.
Then she had to field questions from the audience in “engaging and effective interactive exchanges designed to foster mutual understanding between regions.”
Everything went black before her eyes.
Who on earth said this conference was boring?
It was thrilling enough to make your scalp go numb.
In other words, before this introvert hell that was the reception, there was an even larger-scale introvert hell.
A chain of introvert hells that even extroverts probably couldn’t handle.
No wonder no one wanted to come…
For the next two nights, Jiang Siyi prepared her speech draft.
As an outstanding auctioneer, she had faced plenty of unexpected situations. Crowd control was her forte—surely a speech and Q&A session was nothing in comparison.
She understood the logic. And yet—the senior executives would all be there.
That President Yan, so exacting she would fire someone over a minor infraction, would also be in attendance.
If her speech was halting or inappropriate, embarrassing J City’s Jiashibi branch would be the lesser concern—being struck from the roster by President Yan was the real threat.
Jiang Siyi rubbed her aching temples.
She didn’t regret coming to London, though. Lin Ji had been resting well these past few days; Siyi would gladly come ten more times if it meant that.
But she needed to buckle down and prepare properly.
On all her business trips, this was the first time Lin Ji had encountered a London sunny enough to be dazzling.
The hazy, poetic drizzle had vanished.
The sunlight, combined with her fully replenished energy, kept Lin Ji’s mood in a cheerful range.
With Jiang Siyi by her side, she had slept soundly every night these past few days.
Sometimes six hours, sometimes a full seven.
Even though the government department had long since plotted how to squeeze more money from her pockets, she at full capacity could handle them with ease.
At ten o’clock at night, when Lin Ji returned to the hotel, Jiang Siyi was curled up on the sofa, quietly reciting her English speech draft.
She wore a long nightgown, her latte-colored stocking-clad feet pressed against the sofa cushion, toes touching, chin resting on her knees. Her hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head, and she was completely absorbed in the draft in her hands, reading and murmuring aloud.
The moment Lin Ji walked in, she immediately sat up straight and pulled the hem of her nightgown to cover her legs.
Lin Ji’s gaze traveled from those now-thoroughly-covered legs to Jiang Siyi’s face. “You have an English speech?”
Jiang Siyi grimaced and gave a muffled “Mm.”
“Don’t you listen to English news every night before bed? An English speech should be easy for you.”
“But I haven’t really given an English speech in front of this many people before. And the group’s senior executives will all be there.”
“Nervous?”
Jiang Siyi nodded.
“I never expected that Teacher Jiang, who calls out prices with rapid-fire fluency at auctions, would get nervous.”
Jiang Siyi flushed at being called “Teacher Jiang.”
“Of course I’m nervous…”
Both index fingers were twisting together, and she still couldn’t find the words to argue back.
Lin Ji couldn’t bear to tease her any longer.
“Nervousness is perfectly normal. I get nervous too.”
Now it was Jiang Siyi’s turn to be incredulous.
“Nervous? You?”
“Of course. I’m human too.”
“Was it during your first shareholders’ meeting?”
Jiang Siyi’s question sent Lin Ji’s thoughts drifting.
There had actually been many moments of nervousness.
The year she returned to China after temporarily finishing treatment overseas, wanting to see Jiang Siyi—spotting her from afar at school—that nervous feeling was unforgettable even now.
Early this year, on her second return, making a phone call in the bitter wind as she walked toward Jiang Siyi once more—the same nervousness.
Lin Ji paused, then said simply, “During the company’s IPO roadshow.”
“Do you have any secret to not being nervous?”
“No.”
“…”
“Nervousness is human nature. Forcing yourself not to be nervous goes against human nature. So back then, I decided to let the nervousness be—to not fight it, and simply focus on doing what I needed to do. I told myself that even if I messed up, it didn’t matter. Life wouldn’t end just because of one failure.”
Knowing that Lin Ji got nervous too—that even the most formidable people were much the same—eased the tightness in Jiang Siyi’s chest considerably.
Lin Ji: “Can you deliver it from memory?”
Jiang Siyi nodded again.
Taking the speech draft from Jiang Siyi’s hands, Lin Ji sat down on the single-seater sofa two meters away, crossing her right leg over her left.
“Then let’s simulate the atmosphere now.”
She looked up at Jiang Siyi.
“Deliver your speech to me.”
Lin Ji’s presence was genuinely intimidating.
Just sitting there, in a relaxed posture, casting a single expressionless glance her way was enough to make Jiang Siyi feel intense pressure.
As if facing the company’s senior executives—no, as if facing the Chairwoman of Jiashibi herself.
Jiang Siyi snapped into presentation mode in a second.
After the speech, Lin Ji corrected her usage of two or three words. Everything else was flawless.
“Good pacing, and your pronunciation is very standard.”
“Really?”
Jiang Siyi’s degree was in Chinese art history, and she had no study-abroad background. Her English was entirely self-taught after graduation, building on what she had learned in school.
For things outside her expertise, she lacked confidence.
Lin Ji gazed at Jiang Siyi. “You can trust my judgment. Your pronunciation isn’t just accurate—it’s lovely to listen to. Have a little more confidence, and you’ll command the room. You’ll make it impossible for anyone to take their eyes off you.”
Being praised like that made her a bit bashful, but Lin Ji had this power to make people believe her.
As if every word she said were true.
And even if it wasn’t true yet, being believed in by her would make it so.
On the day of the conference.
Jiang Siyi delivered her first-ever non-native-language speech with calm composure.
Afterward, she chatted and laughed effortlessly with colleagues from other regions.
She earned applause, and more than a few knowing smiles.
Even President Yan—the person she had dreaded most in the audience—cast a faint look of approval her way.
Her palms were still damp with nervous sweat, but she discovered that it truly hadn’t been as difficult as she had imagined.
Just as Lin Ji had said, she had commanded the room.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
She hadn’t let Lin Ji down. She hadn’t let herself down either.
Her mission for this conference was, by all measures, a complete success.
The conference ended, and the reception was held in the adjacent restaurant.
She hadn’t planned on drinking, but Qiu Yeran emerged from the crowd, linked arms with her, and said warmly:
“Siyi, Siyi, your speech was so fascinating, and your Q&A was incredibly charming. The BOSSes are very interested in you—this is a rare opportunity. Come on, let’s go show your face.”
As she spoke, she pressed a glass of wine into Siyi’s hand.
After days of maneuvering with the government, both sides finally compromised and reached a settlement.
Under Lin Ji’s personal involvement, Huanwei had weathered yet another crisis.
The emergency was, for now, over.
By the time they left the Royal Docks, the sky had long since gone dark.
Lin Ji looked at the WeChat message Jiang Siyi had sent her.
Tonight, after the conference, there was a reception.
The earliest she would be back at the hotel was ten o’clock.
Lin Ji’s fingertip tapped against the edge of her phone with a hint of pleasure.
A certain lady had developed a sense of reporting in now.
But the pleasure had barely surfaced when her attention was caught by two words in the WeChat message.
Reception.
Meaning there was wine, and she might drink.
The fact that Jiang Siyi easily lost all sense of social safety distance after drinking surfaced in her mind.
And she wasn’t by her side.
There were people discreetly protecting her today, of course.
A Jiang’s team had followed along, and was also helping Lin Ji capture footage of Jiang Siyi’s speech.
Lin Ji’s instruction had been: if Jiang Siyi encountered any unexpected situation, contact her immediately.
To ninety-nine percent of people, attending a reception would not qualify as an unexpected situation.
Lin Ji happened to be that one percent.
Discreetly protecting Jiang Siyi’s personal safety was one thing; normal socializing and drinking was another.
She couldn’t very well have a stern-faced bodyguard suddenly appear while Jiang Siyi was clinking glasses with a colleague, blocking the other person’s glass and saying—
Sorry, our madam said she’s not allowed to drink with others.
That scene would not only be bizarre, it would firmly earn Jiang Siyi the title of “wife-obsessed woman.”
The WeChat message from Jiang Siyi had been sent an hour ago.
Meaning the reception had likely been underway for an hour already.
Lin Ji closed her eyes briefly.
She had definitely been drinking then.
Still holding on to a sliver of hope.
，: 【Have you been drinking?】
Five minutes later, Jiang Siyi replied on WeChat.
She sent a photo of herself holding a wine glass.
The glass was nearly empty—and who knew which glass it was.
What convinced Lin Ji even more that she had been drinking quite a bit was that the Sanzhuang Tusi lady replied with just two characters beneath the photo:
【Hehe.】
Lin Ji: …
Hehe.
Very concise and vivid evidence that she was under the influence of alcohol.
During the five minutes she had spent waiting for Jiang Siyi’s WeChat reply, Lin Ji had already obtained the exact address of the reception from the bodyguards.
Without needing to be told, Fan Qing silently turned the car around and headed toward the reception.
Setting her wine glass down by the wine tower.
Jiang Siyi tried hard to focus on her phone screen.
Work meant her WeChat was already busy. After going public with her marriage, combined with this conference, her contact list had swelled by another wave.
In just two short minutes, the “，” she had recently spoken with had already dropped down again.
This “，” said very little, and really did slip down easily.
She didn’t want anyone above her.
Pin to top.
Jiang Siyi manually pinned her to the top.
Seeing the yellowed, abstract letter-corner avatar of “，” leap to the very top, Jiang Siyi smiled happily.
At the same time, she was drawn to that avatar once again.
Now that she thought about it…
Tapping open the avatar photo, Jiang Siyi examined it carefully once more.
No matter how she looked at it, it was the corner of a page of letter paper.
A letter.
Jiang Siyi’s heartbeat stuttered for two beats.
It was a letter someone had written to Lin Ji.
Adding Lin Ji as a WeChat friend had been many years ago. As far as she could recall, Lin Ji had always used this handle and this avatar—never changed.
It must have been written by someone deeply important to her…
To have kept it all these years without replacing it.
The tattoo over her heart—the one positioned right above her heart—was it connected to that person too?
Jiang Siyi couldn’t stop her thoughts from racing.
With a personality that cold and reserved, could she really hold on to someone this deeply for so long?
…
“Where’s Jiang Siyi?”
Not far away, President Yan asked Qiu Yeran from amidst the crowd.
Qiu Yeran, who had also had quite a bit to drink, looked around and spotted Jiang Siyi beneath a tree.
“There. Why is Xiao Jiang standing there all by herself?”
President Yan looked in Jiang Siyi’s direction.
She saw that slender, quiet silhouette—detached from the revelry, lost in thought.
…
When Lin Ji reached the entrance of the reception, the bodyguards had already secured an invitation code for her.
Passing through the open iron gates, she caught the complex scent of countless perfumes mingling with alcohol, carried on the warm night breeze.
Fleeting lights and shadows, revelry and indulgence—none of it lingered in Lin Ji’s eyes.
Her gaze leapt from one Western face to another without pause.
Until she found her.
That distinctly Eastern face was faintly flushed. Jiang Siyi was standing beneath a tree with an exceptionally poised, mature woman, saying something.
The woman speaking with Jiang Siyi appeared to be in her early forties, carrying the authority and magnetism of someone long accustomed to a position of power. She was clearly not one to smile easily, yet now her eyes held a glint of admiring warmth as she tilted her head slightly, gazing at Jiang Siyi and listening patiently.
The flush of alcohol colored Jiang Siyi’s face, and a small patch of red tinged the tips of her ears.
It looked as though, in the next second, the distance between them would close.
Lin Ji’s feet moved faster without her realizing, striding toward Jiang Siyi.
Countless polite yet effective words and gestures that could separate her from the others flashed through her mind.
Jiang Siyi hadn’t yet noticed Lin Ji. Realizing that she and President Yan were discussing some sensitive topics related to promotions, she had unconsciously lowered her voice and moved closer.
Not accustomed to being too near someone unfamiliar, Jiang Siyi used the pretext of shooing away a tiny flying insect to naturally step back.
The distance opened up again at once.
President Yan paid no attention to Jiang Siyi’s retreat, because her own attention had been drawn to a striking woman approaching from afar.
“I look forward to seeing your continued growth, and your ascent to a bigger stage. I have a feeling this autumn’s auction will bring J City’s Jiashibi an impressive showing.”
President Yan shook Jiang Siyi’s hand in a businesslike manner and said, “My wife is here. I should go.”
Jiang Siyi hadn’t expected President Yan to slip away even faster than she would.
Jiang Siyi called out “Goodbye” and watched President Yan go to meet her wife.
President Yan, who never smiled easily, broke into a smile that creased the corners of her eyes the moment she saw her wife.
The two of them happily embraced, exchanged a few words, and then—quite naturally and with unmistakable tenderness—kissed each other on the lips.
As if they had been apart for half the evening and missed each other terribly.
A red-faced Qiu Yeran came over from the side and said to Jiang Siyi in a gossipy tone:
“President Yan and her wife have been married for over ten years, and they’re still madly in love. Oh look, they’re holding hands as they walk—so sweet. Well, no need for dessert tonight.”
Jiang Siyi’s gaze fell on their interlinked hands as they walked away, and she stared for a moment, lost in thought.
Qiu Yeran flitted around the room; after saying two sentences to Jiang Siyi, she picked up another glass of wine and headed off to the other side.
Jiang Siyi collected herself, wondering whether she should take the opportunity to leave too.
She turned her head—and met Lin Ji’s eyes.
“You—how are you here?”
Jiang Siyi was both surprised and delighted.
Lin Ji saw that her peach-flushed face was unnaturally red, and her beautiful eyes were slightly unfocused. She asked with a sigh of resignation:
“How many glasses have you had?”
So she was here to supervise her.
Jiang Siyi pressed her lips together, not letting her joy show, and answered with righteous confidence:
“Quite a few.”
Lin Ji: .
Quite a few…
Lin Ji closed her eyes briefly. “Does Teacher Jiang not know that she tends to shorten her social distance with people after drinking?”
Jiang Siyi’s eyes rounded slightly, and she answered with absolute certainty:
“How could I? I’m a married woman.”
One sentence, and Lin Ji was rendered speechless.
And it wasn’t even a lie. Even after “quite a few” glasses, she had consciously maintained her distance from President Yan just now.
The stifled frustration that had been building all the way here was dispelled entirely by Jiang Siyi’s cuteness and flirtation.
She wanted to pull her into an embrace right then and there, to hide her somewhere no one could find.
She wanted to kiss her.
Her heart surged with longing, but surrounded by Jiang Siyi’s colleagues and superiors, Lin Ji knew she was thin-skinned. Holding back the urge to touch her, she simply asked:
“Can we go back?”
“Mm, probably.”
“Let’s go.”
Lin Ji turned. Jiang Siyi’s gaze fell on the hand hanging at her side.
Just like that?
Lin Ji had barely taken one step when her pinky was hooked.
She turned back in surprise.
“You’re not going to hold my hand?”
Jiang Siyi was still standing there, her slightly tipsy eyes glistening, like a little pet that had been left behind.
“Wives who love each other, don’t they always hold hands?”
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Lin Ji: Spoiled by Wife for days on end
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