Crossing the Line – Chapter 72
by Little PandaI’m Sorry I Couldn’t Grow Up With You.
Xiao You.
A nickname none of her peers dared to use—yet Jiang Siyi said it with such easy intimacy.
The intoxication drained from Song Ti along with her cooling body temperature.
The surrounding temperature dropped, growing colder and colder.
Whether it was her gradually sobering mind recognizing the futility of any performance winning attention, or the genuine chill of the low temperature, she shivered with goosebumps, hunching her shoulders.
Her brain could no longer function. She couldn’t utter a single word.
Jiang Siyi didn’t look at her anymore. She stood up holding Xueqiu and gazed toward Lin Xuebo not far away.
Lin Xuebo was looking at Song Ti with a gaze subtly similar to Lin Ji’s.
Beneath suppressed anger was mostly disappointment and a sense of absurdity.
The butler pulled open the front door. Wind sweeping down from West Mountain gusted into the living room, and Song Ti recoiled like a ghost caught in daylight, squinting and leaning away.
Jiang Siyi looked at the dark clouds pressing down from West Mountain’s peak.
The lead-gray sky and the brilliant red maples formed a stark contrast, slicing the field of vision into two entirely different worlds.
“You’ve completely changed from when you were little.”
The Song Ti of childhood at least had a heart willing to help others.
Regardless of whether that heart came with prerequisites, in the moment she extended a helping hand, it carried genuine goodwill.
No regret in her voice—just a statement of fact.
After saying it, Jiang Siyi left without another word.
She climbed into Lin Xuebo’s car with Xueqiu in her arms.
The car carried Jiang Siyi completely out of Song Ti’s sight. Her heart contracted bit by bit, wringing out an uncontrollable pain.
You’ve completely changed from when you were little.
The words dropped into the lake of Song Ti’s heart, ripples spreading in concentric circles, her emotions churning beyond calm, leaving her in anguished bewilderment.
Why was she different from when she was little?
The glass window clearly reflected her own image, yet it felt foreign.
Gaunt as a skeleton, covered in filth.
Beauty. Dignity. Smiles… Fiancée.
From when did everything that should have been hers disappear?
She had become a joke no one cared about.
In the empty old residence, a sigh of utter, exhausted helplessness echoed.
“Why even come?”
Lin Yunting was thoroughly exhausted. Whether family or career, countless holes waited for her to patch.
Even a person made of iron couldn’t withstand this kind of torment.
Lin Yunting just wanted to wash her hands of everything, do nothing, and sleep soundly.
She turned to go upstairs and heard Song Ti’s faint, nasal voice.
“Mom, are you abandoning me too…”
Both sides of the mountain road were lined with West Mountain’s enchanting scenery.
No one was in the mood to appreciate it now.
The car was very quiet.
Xueqiu, resting on Jiang Siyi’s lap, sensed the tense atmosphere and nudged Jiang Siyi’s hand with his head, then nudged Lin Xuebo’s.
The furry softness against their palms brought Lin Xuebo back to herself.
She looked at Jiang Siyi beside her, about to say something, but Jiang Siyi offered a faint smile first.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry.”
Her tone was calm and rational, showing no sign of being caught up in any emotion.
Jiang Siyi’s maturity and steadiness gave Lin Xuebo’s dazed heart an anchor.
Siyi didn’t want to hear Xiao You’s past from anyone else’s mouth—she only trusted Xiao You.
Lin Xuebo was deeply relieved. Xiao You really hadn’t fallen for the wrong person.
But…
She had heard everything Song Ti said just now.
Xiao You’s painful past—the wounds her family and friends had so carefully protected—had been ripped open raw.
Forcing the person she loved most to witness the most hideous scars.
No matter how good or gentle Siyi was, those were Xiao You’s deepest traumas.
If they were uncovered now, Lin Xuebo couldn’t imagine whether her daughter’s condition, which had finally been showing signs of improvement, might regress or even deteriorate…
The terror of losing her daughter, after so many years, seized her heart once more—like ice, like electricity, wreaking havoc in her chest.
Those seven years when Lin Ji went missing hadn’t only changed Lin Ji’s personality and life trajectory—they had seared Lin Xuebo’s heart full of holes.
At this moment, she had no idea how pale her own face was.
Until a warm hand took hold of hers.
“Auntie Xuebo, look at me.”
Jiang Siyi noticed her unfocused gaze, her hands cold to the touch from fingertips to palms. She clasped them in her own to warm them and spoke gently.
She asked the driver to turn up the heat.
After warming one hand, she warmed the other.
A smart dog is highly sensitive to changes in the condition of people it knows. Xueqiu also sensed that something was wrong with Lin Xuebo. He climbed onto her lap and burrowed into her arms on his own initiative.
The driver said, “Miss Jiang, there’s canned hot tea in the cooler box.”
Jiang Siyi took out a can of hot tea, opened it, and handed it to Lin Xuebo.
The hot tea warmed her throat, and warmth spread from the inside out.
With Jiang Siyi and Xueqiu’s comfort, the coldness in Lin Xuebo’s heart slowly breathed out with each exhale.
Some color returned to her face.
“Siyi…”
Lin Xuebo gripped Jiang Siyi’s hand and wouldn’t let go. The hands that had been cold as ice moments ago were now sweating with anxiety.
“Xiao You has never wanted to leave your side on her own. But if… Xiao You once… went through something terrible, could you… not despise her for it?”
Jiang Siyi wouldn’t believe Song Ti’s words, nor would she weigh whether to believe them.
But the worry revealed in Lin Xuebo’s question right now confirmed a very bad possibility.
Jiang Siyi’s heartbeat quickened. Her dry throat swallowed involuntarily.
Pressing down that unease and agitation, she shook her head.
“I have an unsightly past too. Xiao You saw it with her own eyes and never despised me—she’s always loved me with all her heart. Without her care, I don’t know what kind of life I’d be living now, what kind of person I’d have become… No matter what happened in the past, it’s passed. The one I love is who she is now, the her standing right in front of me. Xiao You is the wife I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving.”
Linyu Shuian.
Sanzhuang Tusi: 【I’m home. Waiting for you here.】
Fresh from the shower, she sat on the sofa and sent a WeChat to Lin Ji.
Not wanting to distract her from work, she kept the message brief—just that she’d wait.
Meaning she wouldn’t go to bed early alone, confirming once more that she’d wait for her to come home.
Lin Ji didn’t reply.
She was in a meeting—it wasn’t a good time to reply. Jiang Siyi understood.
She slipped her phone into her pocket and took Xueqiu out for his walk first.
The pedestrian-and-vehicle-separated community was quiet at night, with occasional voices.
On such a tranquil, temperate evening, her attention still couldn’t settle.
Her thoughts swayed unavoidably, her gaze unfocused, even thinking became difficult.
Xueqiu once again walked ahead of her, looked back, then fell back to her side, matching her pace.
“Miss Jiang.”
A woman’s voice came from behind a tree not far away, accompanied by unhurried footsteps.
Zhou Ni walked into the lamplight, hands tucked in her jacket pockets, leaning against the lamppost with an expressionless face as she looked at Jiang Siyi.
Every previous encounter had been amid crisis. Jiang Siyi had never had a sustained, face-to-face conversation with Zhou Ni in a relaxed state—she only remembered her as somewhat gloomy.
Tonight, under the streetlamp, Zhou Ni had cut away her heavy bangs, revealing beautiful phoenix eyes1, the vertical scar on her forehead faintly visible.
With the gloomy air softened, she looked altogether more striking.
Judging by her relaxed demeanor, there was no immediate danger—she simply had something to say.
The highly boundary-conscious Zhou Ni was, for the first time, voluntarily appearing when there was no threat.
Zhou Ni: “Is this a good time? Just a couple of words.”
Jiang Siyi nodded, picked up Xueqiu, and sat on the bench closest to Zhou Ni.
Zhou Ni sat down close to the armrest, a full person’s width away from Jiang Siyi. She didn’t look at her, only up at the night sky.
“Fan Qing and I both had rotten luck. To survive, we did a lot of… not-good things. We wanted to turn over a new leaf, didn’t want to live like dogs for the rest of our lives. But nobody was willing to give us a chance. Understandable—taking on risk. Who wants to stick their neck out for a stranger? Fan Qing was a bit luckier than me. She met her boss two years ago. I remember the day she got the job, she came running over, thrilled, telling me someone was willing to believe in her, give her a chance. She could finally start over. She could try being a person again.”
Zhou Ni’s words reminded Jiang Siyi of the prominent scar on Fan Qing’s face.
With a scar like that, let alone a personal assistant role, even the most ordinary job interview would likely end in failure.
Not only had Lin Ji given her the job, but the two seemed to interact more like friends.
Recalling how foolishly happy Fan Qing had been that day, a faint smile surfaced on Zhou Ni’s perpetually tense lips.
She drew her gaze back from the night sky and looked at Jiang Siyi.
“Later, something happened to me and I desperately needed money. Fan Qing introduced me to Boss Lin. When we first met, my face was covered in injuries. I didn’t look like a law-abiding citizen, and I asked for a very high price. Pretty absurd, right? But I had no choice… I thought the job was a lost cause, but Boss Lin took me in. Said she trusted Fan Qing’s friend. Before I’d worked a single day, she was willing to advance me a month’s salary. She looks fierce and intimidating, but she’s actually kinder and more generous than many gentle-faced people.”
Jiang Siyi listened, absorbed.
This was the first time she was seeing Lin Ji from another angle, learning another side of her.
“Most people in this world are hypocrites—doling out a little kindness to gain bigger returns. Boss Lin is the exact opposite. I’ve wondered too, what kind of experience gave her empathy for people like us…”
Her thoughts began to wander, but Zhou Ni reined them back in promptly.
“Fan Qing said that as a subordinate, devoting her life to her boss would carry no burden—she’d do anything for Boss Lin. I’ll always remember this debt of gratitude too. What I mean is, Boss Lin is absolutely not the kind of person who plays with people’s hearts.”
Song Ti’s words—Zhou Ni had naturally heard them all.
For someone who usually only dislocated people’s arms to say this much was extraordinary.
Jiang Siyi understood.
Lin Ji looked fierce, but she was cold outside, warm inside.
She was someone worth loving.
How she was admired and deeply loved was no surprise at all.
…
Carrying Xueqiu back home, while wiping his paws at the door, her phone buzzed a few times.
She had a feeling it was Lin Ji’s WeChat—and it was.
,: 【I’m on my way back.】
,: 【There’s something I want to show you.】
When she saw this message, Jiang Siyi’s heartbeat quickened.
Lin Ji must already know what Song Ti said at the old residence.
So what did she want to show her?
,: 【On the second floor, in the climate-controlled cabinet, there’s a letter. Go take a look.】
Jiang Siyi walked to the second floor with some trepidation and opened the climate-controlled cabinet.
Inside lay a yellowed sheet of letter paper, visibly aged.
,: 【Before you take it out, could you put on gloves?】
She really did care deeply about this letter.
A pang of sourness rose in Jiang Siyi’s chest, but she obediently took out gloves from the lower shelf of the cabinet, put them on, and retrieved the letter.
She’d known all along that something very important was stored in this cabinet.
Something related to the feeling Lin Ji had always kept buried in her heart.
The source of her profile picture, the “cinnabar mole” at her heart.
This letter must be what Lin Ji had used as her profile picture for all those years.
Before Jiang Siyi’s heart could ache any further, she unfolded the letter and skimmed the opening. Her gaze stalled.
Why did the handwriting seem somehow familiar?
The letter began with a line of neat yet childish blue ballpoint pen writing:
【Little Pear Meimei, I hope this letter finds you well2.】
Little Pear Meimei?
This wasn’t a letter written to Lin Ji?
Wait… so familiar.
She’d heard “Little Pear Meimei” somewhere before.
The feeling of being on the verge of remembering something was like gazing at shimmering light on water.
Dazzling, right before her eyes—yet the moment she tried to lock onto a specific gleam, it vanished.
“Can you really not remember at all?”
Jiang Siyi had no idea when Lin Ji returned, when she came to stand behind her.
She startled with a jolt.
“Sorry… I called you just now.”
Lin Ji gently smoothed her back.
Lin Ji, returned from the night, carried the distinctive dry crispness of an autumn evening. Her clean, cool fragrance wrapped around Jiang Siyi.
As if no matter where she was, no matter what she faced, as long as Lin Ji was beside her, that sense of grounding could restore Jiang Siyi from anxious unrest to reason.
With Lin Ji’s prompt, she looked at the letter again—every word, every sentence, so familiar.
The signature awakened her memory in an instant.
【Your Little Jiang Jiejie】
Along with a childishly adorable cartoon bunny.
This silly bunny she’d seen not long ago—on Lin Ji’s chest.
It was Lin Ji’s tattoo.
“This letter… I wrote to you?”
Before coming upstairs, Jiang Siyi had imagined countless possibilities. Only the truth before her eyes exceeded all expectation.
“Mm, of course you wrote it. You actually don’t remember? There was an envelope too, but I lost it.”
Mentioning the lost envelope, a wistful sorrow rose in Lin Ji’s eyes.
Jiang Siyi hooked her finger through hers, soothing her mood.
Even as her own mind swirled with clouds and fog, tens of thousands of questions.
“Why would I write you a letter? Why would I call you Xiao Li? Why would I call myself Jiejie?”
Lin Ji let out an almost imperceptible sigh.
She curled a finger and knocked it gently against Jiang Siyi’s head.
“Have you lost your memory or something, Jiang Siyi?”
“I—no, I haven’t.”
Lin Ji was joking, but Jiang Siyi took it entirely in earnest.
The way she tried so hard to remember made Lin Ji laugh.
The tense atmosphere dissolved in her impossibly beautiful smile.
Feeling that the bewildered girl in front of her was utterly huggable, Lin Ji wrapped her arms around Jiang Siyi, unwilling to leave the slightest gap between them, and said with helpless fondness:
“It’s normal. Little Jiang Jiejie was charitable and benevolent—it’s understandable she didn’t take it to heart. So many years have passed. Naturally she wouldn’t remember.”
The words “charitable and benevolent” suddenly sparked a flash of insight in Jiang Siyi’s mind.
It was from when her mother was still alive. She was still in elementary school.
Jiang Siyi looked at Lin Ji with something close to disbelief.
“She… was you?”
Lin Ji nodded.
Jiang Siyi couldn’t quite remember Xiao Li’s exact appearance anymore. She’d only seen one photograph of her in the hospital.
Wasted away by illness, hair tangled and wild, yet with a pair of extraordinarily beautiful eyes, gazing at the camera with longing.
What had captured Jiang Siyi back then was the complex tangle of despair and hope revealed in those eyes.
Grief for a girl she’d never met.
Years passed, and the specific image of those eyes faded with time.
Even though she’d forgotten the exact face of the girl in the photograph, the will to live in those eyes had become an atmosphere, a feeling that still lingered in her memory.
“Wasn’t she a critically ill girl from an impoverished region? How could she be you?”
A rush of conjectures flooded her heart. Jiang Siyi asked anxiously.
Lin Ji loosened her buttons, revealing the tattoo over her heart.
Identical to the simple line drawing “Little Jiang Jiejie” had made.
She’d seen it during their intimate moments too.
Always afraid of letting her imagination run wild, Jiang Siyi had never looked directly at it.
She never imagined that the original prototype for this tattoo was, astonishingly, the little bunny she’d drawn on a whim.
Lin Ji took Jiang Siyi’s hand and guided it gently over the tattoo.
Beneath the ink were the scars of old wounds.
Lin Ji said, “I never broke our engagement, and I never abandoned you. It’s just that, back then, I couldn’t stay by your side. I’m sorry I couldn’t grow up with you.”
Jiang Siyi’s heart tightened painfully with each word.
Which meant…
Her very first fiancée was indeed Lin Ji.
“So what actually happened?”
Dark rooms. Extreme starvation. Guard dogs. Psychological torture. A body covered in wounds…
The moment a single thought surfaced, these fragments of memory would stab into her heart.
A layer of cold sweat broke out on her forehead. Her breathing grew increasingly difficult.
Just before the claustrophobic darkness could lock her in once more, Jiang Siyi held her.
A gentle palm cradled the back of her head, tucking it into the crook of her own neck.
The realness of being held by Jiang Siyi instantly dispelled the terror of claustrophobic darkness.
“Don’t be afraid, baby. I’m here.”
The girl holding her was trembling slightly herself, yet tried her utmost to steady her emotions and voice, comforting her.
After a brief moment of stiffness, Lin Ji held Jiang Siyi more tightly.
Breathing in Jiang Siyi’s unique scent, the tangible reality of having her eased the anxiety.
“This is rather frightening. You can choose not to know. I’ll do everything in my power to keep it from affecting our future.”
Jiang Siyi stroked her back, shook her head, and said:
“We’re spending the rest of our lives together. I want to know everything about you. Tell me. I don’t want to miss a single thing about you ever again.”
The author has something to say:
Lin Ji: Continuing to be spoiled rotten by my wife 🥺🥺
Footnotes
- 丹凤眼 | danfeng yan | A Chinese facial-feature term describing eyes with an elongated shape and outer corners that slant slightly upward, historically regarded as a mark of striking beauty and named after the mythical phoenix.
- 展信佳 | zhan xin jia | A traditional Chinese epistolary salutation literally meaning 'may it be well upon opening,' conventionally placed at the start of personal letters as a graceful wish for the recipient's well-being.
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