Crossing the Line – Chapter 69

Vinegar Jar Wife

“She’s my wife,” Jiang Siyi said. “Can she take a photo with us?”

The crowd’s gaze darted back and forth between the two of them for a moment.

            

A wife coming to impersonate a fan.

That much in love?

“Little Jiang Jiejie is so young, and she’s already married?”

            

“What a shame, marrying too young¹.”

A flurry of quiet murmurs reached Lin Ji’s ears.

Lin Ji gazed back at them with a faint smile.

            

The intensity in her eyes made them swallow the rest of their words.

Little Jiang Jiejie was so gentle—how could her wife be so fierce?

They immediately changed their tune.

            

“M-marrying so young, she must have found true love.”

“Of course she can join the photo! Two beauties together—what a treat for the eyes.”

“Let’s take it, let’s take it!”

            

Jiang Siyi held Lin Ji’s hand, letting her claim the center of the frame.

Spoiled by Jiang Siyi’s attention, Lin Ji shifted their clasped hands into interlaced fingers.

Knuckles pressed together, not a sliver of gap between them.

            

When the girl taking the photo counted “one, two, three,” Lin Ji’s fingers stirred, tapping the small bones on the back of Jiang Siyi’s hand.

Jiang Siyi felt the movement and instinctively turned her head to look at her.

The image was frozen in that instant.

            

For a long time afterward, this photo circulated widely online.

Jiang Siyi, head tilted just so, wearing a lively smile, gazing at the person beside her.

The photo was captioned: “Jiashibi’s Rising Beauty Auctioneer Jiang Siyi, and Her Vinegar Jar Wife² Who Insisted on Crashing the Fan Photo.”

            

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At the far end of the glass viewing platform.

Qiao Jin walked to the edge where there were fewer people and snapped a casual photo.

Without lifting her eyes from the screen, she said:

            

“You had the nerve to pin me against the door and kiss me that day—how come you don’t even have the courage to speak to me today?”

Fan Qing, who had been trailing her for most of the day, stopped in her tracks. She pulled her hands from her pockets, kicked at a small stone by her foot, and said:

“That night… I’m sorry. I was too impulsive.”

            

“You shouldn’t apologize for being impulsive.”

Qiao Jin held the phone she’d set back on the table, then turned. A breeze caught a few strands of her long hair, pressing them against her cheek.

“What you should apologize for is your terrible kissing technique.”

            

Fan Qing: …

What’s repressed will always spiral out of control eventually.

The deeper the restraint, the more overwhelming the eruption.

            

She really shouldn’t have gone drinking with Qiao Jin that night.

But then again, for a first kiss… was the technique really that bad?

Didn’t I kiss you until your eyes went unfocused, too?

            

Fan Qing argued back in her head for ages, but when it came to her lips, she obediently said three words—

“I’m sorry.”

She looked tall and intimidating, but when she apologized, her features went soft.

            

Like a puppy that had accidentally bitten its owner, not knowing what to do.

Qiao Jin smiled and said nothing more.

Fan Qing’s heart itched with frustration at Qiao Jin’s attitude.

            

She couldn’t figure out what Qiao Jin thought of her.

People who didn’t talk much were the hardest to read.

BOSS was with her wife, so there was nothing for her to do. Fan Qing lingered by Qiao Jin’s side a while longer.

            

She glanced at Qiao Jin’s phone screen and was a little surprised.

“Why is it still the default wallpaper?”

“Just bought the phone. Haven’t set it up yet.”

            

“Oh.”

“Send me one.”

Fan Qing thought for a moment, then sent Qiao Jin a tasteful floral photography shot with a mature aesthetic.

            

Qiao Jin: .

Qiao Jin: “Is that all you have on your phone?”

Fan Qing: “That’s all.”

            

Qiao Jin actually laughed. “Don’t young people love taking selfies?”

Fan Qing: “I’m twenty-seven, okay? I’m not exactly a young person anymore.”

Qiao Jin said nothing, just watched her pretend to be mature.

            

“Besides, look at my face—do I seem like someone who takes selfies?”

Fan Qing didn’t look at Qiao Jin when she said this.

She knew it came from insecurity.

            

She was about to lean casually against the railing, but Qiao Jin pulled her back.

“Don’t lean on that. Aren’t you afraid of falling?”

Fan Qing had barely straightened up when her chin landed in Qiao Jin’s hand.

            

Her face was gently turned, every detail falling under Qiao Jin’s gaze, savored slowly.

Fan Qing’s gaze went fixed, a moment of captivation.

She let her look, let her handle her, without a word.

            

Qiao Jin smiled faintly. “See? You look perfectly fine. Eyes, nose, mouth…”

With each feature she named, Fan Qing’s heartbeat quickened another notch.

Every subtle shift in Fan Qing’s expression was crystal clear to Qiao Jin.

            

Qiao Jin pinched her chin, gave it a little shake, wobbling her head.

“All very photogenic.”

Just as Fan Qing gathered the courage to lean closer, Qiao Jin let her go.

            

A sensation of stepping into empty air, wanting more—Fan Qing pressed her lips together, not quite naturally.

Qiao Jin picked up her phone, aiming the front camera at both of them.

“Let’s take one. For the wallpaper.”

            

A couple photo?

Fan Qing’s heart was yo-yoing from Qiao Jin’s moves, beating erratically.

She discreetly shuffled a few steps closer until she was right next to her.

            

Through Qiao Jin’s lens, Fan Qing discovered she did look… reasonably presentable, at least?

After taking a few shots, Qiao Jin handed the phone to Fan Qing, asking her to pick one for the wallpaper.

Fan Qing: “You’re going to use a photo of us as your wallpaper?”

            

Qiao Jin: “Mm.”

“Then, what if…”

What if all those little pets who adore you see it? Wouldn’t they throw a fit?

            

She said this in her head, not daring to voice it.

Fan Qing only said, “What if someone sees it and—hmph?”

The rest of her sentence was blocked by a small cookie that Qiao Jin popped into her mouth.

            

Qiao Jin: “Is it good?”

Fan Qing: …

She mumbled two indistinct syllables: “Mm-hm.”

            

Good.

Qiao Jin smiled, patted her cheek, pressed the whole bag of cookies into her hand, took back the phone, set the photo Fan Qing had stared at longest as the wallpaper, and headed toward Lin Xuebo.

She was gone, but Fan Qing’s eyes followed her for a long way.

            

This was fatal.

No wonder everyone wanted a taste of her cookies.

Truly delicious. Truly addictive.

            

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Jiang Siyi’s group finally finished their round of photos, but Lin Ji, who had been itching to take a photo with her, got called away by Lin Xuebo again.

She told Lin Ji to pick photos together with Qiao Jin, touch them up, and post them to Moments.

Lin Ji held her mother’s phone, her eyes still tracking Jiang Siyi, while she said:

            

“You don’t need any retouching. You look good no matter what.”

Lin Xuebo hadn’t expected her daughter to be capable of such sweet talk with her own mother.

Siyi really had excavated a side of her she never knew existed.

            

Lin Xuebo’s eyes curved into crescents of delight.

“I know. I just want you to edit out the people in the background.”

Lin Ji: .

            

She used the one-tap erase feature to clean up the photos Lin Xuebo specified.

And handed the phone back.

Lin Xuebo: “Your wife looks beautiful today too. Do you want photos?”

            

Lin Ji: “I feel like you’re increasingly failing to act with age-befitting dignity³.”

Lin Xuebo: “Don’t want them, then. Fine.”

Lin Ji: “…I want them.”

            

Lin Xuebo savored the pleasure of having her daughter wrapped around her finger, and sent her every photo that featured Jiang Siyi.

Then she selected them all, preparing to post to Moments.

Photos with Jiang Siling in them were placed front and center, where everyone would see them at a glance.

            

After a moment’s thought for a caption, she wrote:

【Good weather means being with my daughters.】

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Yan Yu loved taking photos the most. She dragged Cen Lu along, directing her on angles, composition, and focal points.

            

Cen Lu let herself be bossed around expressionlessly, snapped the photos mechanically, and showed her.

Yan Yu reviewed them with eager anticipation, then critiqued with mild dissatisfaction: “They’re fine, but they have no soul.”

Cen Lu drooped her eyelids. “You’re the subject. If there’s no soul, it’s because you have no soul.”

            

Yan Yu: “It’s your coffin face ruining my performance! I was going to say, everyone else is paired up and we’re both single—maybe we should just make do with each other. But now? Hmph.”

Cen Lu kept her deadpan: “Thank you for sparing my life.”

“? A beauty like me and you’re still being picky? I’ll get my Saosao to take them.”

            

After a few interactions, it was clear that Jiang Siyi had an incredibly good temper and knew how to spoil people.

She was conscientious by nature, an auctioneer at an auction house—her taste had to be good too.

It felt like whether the task was big or small, she’d do it to perfection.

            

Sure enough, Yan Yu went and put on a cute act, and Jiang Siyi agreed. She took Yan Yu’s phone, fully accommodating all her requests while adding her own suggestions, without a hint of impatience. Those professional photo shoots that cost over a hundred thousand a set couldn’t have done better.

After checking the results, Yan Yu said, “Yes, yes! The soul is back! Saosao is amazing! I love you, Saosao!”

Jiang Siyi hadn’t expected that she, with no particular talent for photography, could earn such endless praise from Yan Yu.

            

“Miss Yan is a great teacher. If you want photos taken in the future, you can come to me.”

Beautiful and sweet-tempered—Yan Yu wanted to plant two big kisses on her precious Saosao, but caught a sharp glare from Lin Ji, who was being detained by her mother in the distance, and had to abandon the idea.

Her heels were starting to hurt. Yan Yu sucked in a breath and hobbled on one leg to sit on a stone bench nearby.

            

Cen Lu: “What’s wrong?”

“You-jie glares at me once and my heels split open? It hurts.”

Yan Yu checked her heel—it was red and about to blister.

            

Jiang Siyi crouched down to examine it. “Your new shoes are rubbing.”

Yan Yu: “Oh, I forgot. They are brand-new.”

Cen Lu: “Who wears new shoes on a hike?”

            

Yan Yu couldn’t believe it. “Cen Lu, am I not your most adorable precious childhood friend? My feet are about to blister and you don’t even feel bad for me—you’re laughing at me. You’re not allowed to stay at my place or sleep in my bed anymore!”

Cen Lu loved watching Yan Yu get flustered.

Every time she kicked up a fuss over the tiniest thing, all wounded and genuinely upset—her childishness was a great stress reliever.

            

Cen Lu pulled out her phone, about to flash-deliver a pair of slippers to her.

Jiang Siyi also planned to dig bandages out of her bag.

Her elder sister was like that—always buying shoes in the wrong fit or design that rubbed her feet, blistering her heels the moment she stepped outside. It had trained Siyi into the habit of automatically carrying bandages whenever she went out with her elder sister.

            

As she rummaged through her bag, she noticed the water was gone.

Jiang Siyi: ?

She instinctively looked at Lin Ji.

            

The water she’d been carrying had somehow migrated into the side pocket of Lin Ji’s backpack at some point.

How could someone spoil you without saying a word?

The corners of her eyes curved involuntarily.

            

No wonder she hadn’t felt tired at all after walking three and a half kilometers.

Because of this little interruption, Jiang Siyi was half a beat slower.

Cen Lu was still placing her order.

            

A strange woman was the first to crouch beside Yan Yu, asking:

“Size 38?”

Yan Yu turned in surprise, and her breath caught at a pair of extraordinarily beautiful eyes.

            

The stranger wore gold-rimmed glasses, her French-style mid-length hair ending right at her shoulders. She looked early thirties—refined and intellectual, with the cool edge of a high intellect.

Help. She was exactly Yan Yu’s absolute type⁴.

Yan Yu let out a surprised “Huh?” then nodded obedientently.

            

“Swap with me. These won’t rub.”

Not half a word more—very much in command.

Jiang Siyi and Cen Lu both watched this kind stranger.

            

Shoes were a personal item—Yan Yu wouldn’t necessarily agree to swap, would she?

Yan Yu agreed in a second, eyes blooming with infatuation. “Yes, yes! Thank you, Jiejie.”

Screaming “Mommy!” in her head several times.

            

Jiang Siyi: …

Cen Lu: .

Fine. They’d overestimated her.

            

The two swapped shoes. Yan Yu thought to herself that coming today was the right call—what a stroke of romantic fortune!

Yan Yu: “Jiejie, could we add each other on WeChat? So I can return the shoes to you later.”

Cen Lu turned her eyes away, unable to watch her old friend looking ready to pounce.

            

The woman said, “No need. Just a small favor.”

And she left.

Yan Yu: ?

            

Wait, she really just came to do a good deed?

The romantic butterflies that had just started fluttering crashed straight into her face.

Cen Lu couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Yan Yu glared at her, fuming.

            

Cen Lu calmly accepted Yan Yu’s glare. At the same time, a cool breeze drifted from behind.

The scenery here was indeed beautiful. She figured she’d snap a quick photo.

She turned her phone horizontally, framed the shot, but her fingertip hovered over the shutter button.

            

Even if she took it, there was no one to share it with.

A sense of loneliness washed over her heart like cold water.

She set the phone down, feeling wistful. No photo—just looking with her eyes would do.

            

…

Fan Qing drifted over to Jiang Siling’s side and said mysteriously:

“Jiejie, come on. I’ll buy you ice cream.”

            

Nowadays, whenever Jiang Siling saw Fan Qing, she felt the girl’s surname was Awkward and her given name was Embarrassing.

“No, I’m treating you. Sorry about last time—I misjudged you.”

Around anyone other than Qiao Jin, Fan Qing was sweet as could be.

            

“Don’t worry about the misunderstanding. Jiejie, I have something I wanted to ask your advice on.”

They reached the ice cream stand. Fan Qing bought Jiang Siling a fully loaded two-flavor ice cream.

Jiang Siling accepted it with a touch of guilt:

            

“What is it, Miss Fan? You can just ask.”

“I overheard you chatting with Miss Jiang earlier. You said, ahem.”

Fan Qing glanced in the distance to make sure Qiao Jin was far enough away not to hear.

            

“You said you and your girlfriend are fifteen years apart?”

“Yes. Fifteen years and three months.”

“Don’t you think the age gap is a bit much?”

            

“Not at all.”

Jiang Siling said this while eating her ice cream.

“When I fell for her, I already knew she was that much older than me. I never even dreamed she could like me back. Let alone like—just meeting her seemed impossible. And then…”

            

She trailed off with a happy little smile.

Seeing Fan Qing go quiet, Jiang Siling’s gaze lingered on Lin Xuebo and Qiao Jin in the distance.

“So, Xiao Fan, the one you have a crush on is…”

            

She hadn’t meant to get too deep into it, but worried Jiang Siling might assume her crush was Lin Xuebo, so she immediately clarified:

“It’s Qiao Jin.”

Jiang Siling roughly knew Lin Xuebo’s age, and her friend’s age should be about the same.

            

Wow. That age gap was even bigger than hers and Glenda’s.

Xiao Fan looked simple and sunny, but she was actually quite a deep thinker.

Jiang Siling bought an ice cream for Fan Qing in return—treating each other.

            

They sat side by side on a bench, soaking in the warm sunlight.

“Come to think of it, when I was born, Glenda was already making her mark in the contemporary art world. By the time I was in elementary school, a single painting of hers could fetch tens of millions of dollars. The gap was huge. But precisely because of that, I had the fortune to keep learning from her, to keep admiring her as she walked ahead of me. To me, the path she’s walked, the achievements she’s accumulated, the richness of her inner world—none of that is something my peers could match. How could age be an obstacle? Isn’t being mature and reliable exactly what makes someone captivating? Let alone the fact that she’s still alive—even if she were gone, I wouldn’t stop loving her.”

Fan Qing: …

            

“Besides, what we love is them as a person, not their age. If they were ten or twenty years younger, their charm would actually suffer for it. And you know…”

Jiang Siling whispered in Fan Qing’s ear.

“Older women are incredibly skilled. Young ones can’t compare.”

            

Fan Qing: .

Who could argue with that. Incredibly skilled.

Incredibly skilled at holding someone in the palm of her hand, leaving them utterly spellbound.

            

---

Having finally attended to her mother, Lin Ji couldn’t help but wonder—was today just not going to give her a chance to take a photo with Jiang Siyi?

One thing after another, busier than a workday.

She turned around and found Jiang Siyi standing behind her, who knows how long she’d been there.

            

Watching her busying about, she hadn’t said a word to interrupt.

Hands clasped behind her back, strolling leisurely behind her, just quietly waiting.

The moment Lin Ji turned to look at her, she smiled at once.

            

The slight dejection she’d felt moments ago about her bad luck vanished the instant those beautiful eyes gazed at her.

Jiang Siyi held her phone with both hands. “Want to take a photo? Just the two of us.”

She’d seen through what Lin Ji was thinking all along.

            

“Yes.”

As always, agreeing in a second.

After agreeing, Lin Ji reflected briefly—

            

Had her desire for a photo alone together been that obvious?

The last photo of just the two of them had been on their marriage certificate.

In that photo, Jiang Siyi had been burdened with worry, her smile so stiff it was painful to look at.

            

Today, she’d make up for it with one worth looking at—worth seeing every day.

Jiang Siyi picked up her phone and opened the front camera.

Lin Ji pressed close from behind, wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

            

The two heads that had kept a distance on the marriage certificate were now pressed together.

The smile at the corner of her lips was impossible to suppress.

Click.

            

Frozen in an instant.

In the photo, Jiang Siyi’s smile was radiant and natural.

It reminded Lin Ji of the smile in her childhood photos.

            

This was how she was supposed to be.

She’d finally given her that smile back.

Those beautiful large eyes curved into crescents, and on her left cheek, a faint, lovely dimple.

            

The exact same dimple from childhood…

So beautiful that Lin Ji’s heart drowned in it.

Studying it carefully once wasn’t enough.

            

She traced every detail of Jiang Siyi in the photo with her gaze, inch by inch.

Jiang Siyi wasn’t greedy—one photo was enough.

But Lin Ji wouldn’t let her go, and took many more.

            

In every shot, Lin Ji was so beautiful it was breathtaking. Jiang Siyi couldn’t stop looking.

And herself, still so silly-looking…

But even her silly self was held tightly by Lin Ji.

            

Jiang Siyi asked Lin Ji, “Can I post to Moments? Our photo, I mean.”

“Of course.”

Her last Moments post had been around this time last year.

            

She still remembered the feeling of climbing alone, taking in the scenery in solitude.

The autumn scenery had been beautiful then too, but clouded by a haze of uncertainty about her future.

By last year, she’d already sensed the loneliness ahead, the feeling of having no path forward.

            

Not knowing what kind of future she’d face, she’d been a little afraid.

A new autumn had arrived, and she was married to Lin Ji, surrounded by family and friends.

Both in life and career, the future now held far more possibilities to look forward to.

            

In just one year, her state of mind was entirely transformed.

She selected a group photo with everyone, then picked through the photos with Lin Ji.

But Lin Ji looked stunning in every single one. Jiang Siyi couldn’t decide.

            

Lin Ji pointed to one.

“This one.”

In that photo, Lin Ji’s head rested on Jiang Siyi’s shoulder.

            

Because of the height difference, she had to lean down sideways, her whole body tilted.

Even tilted like that, she leaned against her wife’s shoulder with devotion.

So clingy.

            

She actually picked the clingiest one.

But Lin Ji was so beautiful in that photo.

Jiang Siyi did as Lin Ji said and selected it.

            

Fingertap, eyes bright with a smile.

She posted it to Moments with a line of text—

【This year, my favorite autumn.】

            

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The author has something to say:

Lin Ji: Another day of being spoiled by my wife.

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