Crossing the Line – Chapter 75

Letting Herself Fall into the Palm of Lin Ji’s Hand

The tears she had managed to hold back came rushing forth again at that single sentence.

Lin Ji gently rubbed her heaving back.

            

Kissing her forehead, her eyes, her lips.

Jiang Siyi choked up, and the moment she opened her eyes, several more tears rolled down.

Lin Ji sighed softly and could only reach for more tissues.

            

Her eyes were going to be so miserable tomorrow.

Jiang Siyi: “…So your name was changed after you were brought home, too?”

“Yes. After I was brought home, my mother was still resenting my father, so she changed my surname to match hers—Lin. She prayed to Buddha for my safety and sought a pet name for me—Xiao You. She said that being able to find me again was incredibly lucky, a blessing from heaven. I quite liked the name, but I never felt it was heaven’s blessing.”

            

“Hm?”

“It had nothing to do with heaven. The ones who blessed me were clearly the family and friends who never gave up searching for me. Clearly, the kindhearted Teacher Wei.”

Lin Ji’s eyes held a soft, luminous shimmer.

            

“Clearly, it was you.”

The guilt and indebtedness she had carried until this moment were healed by Lin Ji’s words.

The pet name “Xiao You” was, astonishingly, tied to her by such a deep thread.

            

Jiang Siyi pressed the crown of her head against Lin Ji’s collarbone and wrapped her arms around her waist—she couldn’t tell whether she was pulling Lin Ji into her embrace or throwing herself into Lin Ji’s.

She only wanted to press close against her, exchange body heat, let each other’s breath seep into their blood and bones, and never be separated again.

Lin Ji’s head was nudged back by her, and she smiled, stroking the person in her arms.

            

Her always-reserved wife was rarely this clingy, but tonight was the exception.

Her shoulder grew damp and warm—Siyi wasn’t making a sound, yet she was crying even harder…

While her heart ached, Lin Ji also found it impossible to resist the strange satisfaction of knowing that Jiang Siyi’s tears were falling because of her.

            

Burying her face against Lin Ji’s shoulder, crying without a sound, Siyi felt Lin Ji’s hand smooth from the back of her head down to her thin spine, and the aching, bitter emotions drained from her body little by little through that touch.

Perhaps the soothing technique was too comfortable—her emotions gradually settled into calm.

Resting in her embrace, Siyi mentally retraced the timeline and suddenly recalled a specific detail.

            

“I just thought of something.”

Jiang Siyi’s voice was thick with nasality, her eye rims water-red, yet she was still thinking hard.

She sniffled and said, “‘Seeing is believing’?”

            

At those four words, Lin Ji’s gaze sharpened slightly.

Jiang Siyi had finally remembered.

When they were young, Song Ti would often say “seeing is believing” while helping her solve problems.

            

But that day, when Lin Ji confessed to having “harbored designs from early on,” she had also blurted out that same phrase.

At the time, Siyi had thought it sounded familiar.

She had always assumed “seeing is believing” was Song Ti’s personal philosophy. But now, cross-referencing it with the timeline of Lin Ji’s return to the country after treatment, that might not be the case.

            

Song Ti had only started using the phrase after helping Siyi deal with the incident where a boy she disliked cut her hair.

That was right around the time Lin Ji returned to the country.

It was also from that point onward that Song Ti’s ideas multiplied, and her methods became remarkably effective—each time, she could precisely resolve Jiang Siyi’s troubles.

            

Only, every time, she needed to “go home and think about it” before telling Siyi the next day.

How had she not realized until now?

Jiang Siyi braced her hands against Lin Ji’s shoulders, pushed herself upright, and knelt on the bed.

            

“So back then, she went home, asked you, and you gave her the answers?”

Lin Ji looked up at her without confirming or denying.

She was genuinely afraid of making her cry again and didn’t dare open her mouth.

            

Jiang Siyi’s reddened eyes gazed down, demanding a definitive answer—this mattered to her enormously.

“It was all you, wasn’t it, Lin Ji?”

She was afraid that the moment she admitted it, Siyi would cry again.

            

But Jiang Siyi was asking—and had even grown urgent enough to call her by her full name.

She couldn’t not answer.

So she looped her arm around Jiang Siyi’s waist, rested her chin against her stomach, and nuzzled up and down—a wordless admission.

            

So it really was like that.

The last shred of doubt dissolved completely.

Jiang Siyi looked down at Lin Ji with a tangle of emotions.

            

The tears pooled in her water-red rims finally spilled over.

“So it turns out—this heart of mine has loved you from the very beginning.”

The relief that followed the revelation still carried a trace of dazedness, but her chest heaved deeply with the sudden truth.

            

Her lashes clung with tears, wet and clumped together.

That fragile beauty made the heart pound, and the confession made one sink helplessly, deeply, in an instant.

“It’s always been you.”

            

Lin Ji’s enamored gaze, filtered through the shimmer of tears, poured into the depths of Jiang Siyi’s eyes.

Her fingertips threaded into the hair at the back of Siyi’s head, gently caressing, drawing her down.

It was an invitation to kiss—and Jiang Siyi could now read every one of her small signals with perfect fluency.

            

The moment she leaned in, Jiang Siyi parted her soft lips on her own.

The kiss was searing with passion, igniting on contact.

Perhaps, back when they were betrothed on that island, Lin Ji wasn’t the only one in whom the little seed of “liking” had been planted.

            

Otherwise, why was it that the moment Lin Ji held her, she stopped crying?

Why was it that when she saw that photograph of “Xiao Li”—without even knowing who the girl was—Jiang Siyi couldn’t stop thinking about her?

From the very, very beginning, her fiancée had been Lin Ji.

            

From the start of their lives, they had been destined for each other.

This strange, fluttering realization made Jiang Siyi’s heart burn with a heat she couldn’t suppress.

The kiss tangled deep, two soft feminine curves grinding together, nearly melting into one.

            

Lin Ji’s whole body flushed hot from that proactive, passionate kiss—her palms were burning.

A shy, reserved person, once she took initiative in silence, was devastatingly alluring.

Jiang Siyi’s possessiveness was simply intoxicating.

            

Fire-hot hands clamped around Jiang Siyi’s waist, tight against skin and bone, gripping hard enough that Siyi’s brow, eyes closed as she focused on the kiss, furrowed slightly—whether from pain or from too much pleasure.

Such a slender waist—it seemed both hands could close completely around it.

Stroking from waist to back, drawing out waves of fine trembling.

            

This was the first time Jiang Siyi had actively climbed onto Lin Ji.

Her legs weren’t quite sure how to position themselves.

Lin Ji parted them with her knee.

            

It was deeply embarrassing, but with Lin Ji arranging her like this, she found herself kneeling face-forward.

The dizziness came on fast and fierce this time.

Jiang Siyi’s vision went white. She clung to Lin Ji’s neck, panting helplessly into the hollow of her throat.

            

What she felt in her hand was even more pronounced than the previous times.

Lin Ji’s eyes were completely captivated by her, and she drew one already-crimson little ear between her lips.

Her heart was filled to bursting with sweetness, yet swelled with an indescribable ache at the same time.

            

Between nips and murmurs, she whispered against Jiang Siyi’s ear.

“Will you always love me like this? As you do right now?”

It wasn’t only Jiang Siyi who felt that their relationship was an improbable, dreamlike turn of events—too beautiful to be real.

            

For Lin Ji, it was even more so.

Jiang Siyi trembled uncontrollably beneath her touch.

The nip of teeth and the whispered words of love immediately flooded her with that heady feeling all over again.

            

Her waist went so soft it seemed to melt into Lin Ji’s palm.

“Mm…”

The sound that hummed from her burning breath—she couldn’t tell if it was a response or an uncontrollable, dazed moan.

            

Until she surfaced from the haze.

“…I will always, always love you.”

Sweat dripped from Jiang Siyi’s chin. She cupped Lin Ji’s face and made Lin Ji look into her eyes.

            

A devout believer, receiving a goddess’s promise.

“Forever, as in this very moment.”

Forever, as in this very moment.

            

…

Chaotic, endless, thoroughly indulgent—it was a night that defied all description.

Jiang Siyi now had a true understanding of just how much stamina Lin Ji possessed.

            

The previous consecutive runs—two days, three rounds, even four hours—had not been her limit.

Tonight would be sleepless. So be it if it was sleepless.

Whatever Lin Ji wanted, she would give her.

            

Every position she had been too shy to try no matter how much Lin Ji coaxed—tonight, Jiang Siyi acquiesced to all of them.

Always indulging, letting herself fall into the palm of Lin Ji’s hand, letting Lin Ji’s essence thoroughly permeate her body and soul.

Wanting to belong to her, wanting to brand everything she was with Lin Ji’s mark.

            

Breath mingling—from the bedroom to the bathroom, pinned against the bathroom wall and kissed until dizzy, lifted off the ground.

Afterward, carried to the sofa before the mirror, facing it.

On the bright, high-definition mirror surface, everything was reflected—possession, belonging, and desire.

            

Bracing her at the knees, caressing those red lips. Fingertips parted the already swollen and reddened petals, delving in, pressing against the little tongue. Glistening wetness overflowed between Lin Ji’s fingers.

When overwhelmed, several times she didn’t even know what name she was crying out.

Xiao You, Wife—switching back and forth in a tearful whimper.

            

Jiang Siyi’s waist had gone numb to the point of losing all sensation, the roots of her thighs trembling until they ached.

Still, terrified of neglecting Lin Ji’s lips, she struggled in her daze to turn her neck and kiss the woman behind her.

She never knew it was possible to shatter her own limits again and again.

            

The person holding and caressing her seemed to know no fatigue.

Every time she thought it was impossible, the next moment she was lifted again.

The red flush rose quickly, a surging wave of sensation cresting.

            

Before her eyes, clouds of color drifted like fireworks detonating, then fading back into white blankness.

That was roughly where she lost consciousness.

The dream was predictably chaotic.

            

Fragmented scenes she could barely remember.

She only recalled dreaming of Lin Ji.

A young Lin Ji, around seven or eight years old.

            

Jiang Siyi herself was in her adult form.

Little Lin Ji smiled at her, then suddenly ran.

Panicked, she called out “Xiao You,” but her Xiao You didn’t look back.

            

She gave chase immediately, twisting through a maze of alleyways, unable to find Xiao You, frantic, calling her name over and over.

A sudden tremor—and she woke up.

Late-morning sunlight filtered through the gap in the curtains.

            

Aside from Jiang Siyi’s heartbeat, everything around was quiet and peaceful.

As consciousness gathered, she saw Lin Ji beside her, still in calm sleep—the adult Lin Ji—and her racing heart slowly extricated itself from the grip of panic.

She’s right here. She wasn’t lost…

            

Jiang Siyi felt cold sweat on her forehead and gently wiped it away with the back of her hand.

She tried to turn over to face Lin Ji.

The moment she moved, a phantom sensation lingered intensely.

            

As if that beautiful hand was still there.

Filled completely with Lin Ji’s scent, her body had been shaped by Lin Ji’s unique touch into something exclusively hers.

The recklessness of last night flooded back.

            

Why didn’t she have any memory of falling asleep?

Could it be that she had passed out mid-encounter?

If she had passed out in that state…

            

At that thought, she immediately looked down.

Her waist was covered in residual finger marks—traces of last night’s abandon.

But her underwear had been changed. She was fresh and clean, with no suspicious remnants.

            

Even the sheets, which had been left in complete disarray, had been replaced with incredibly soft, skin-friendly Egyptian cotton.

Relief was quickly followed by the thought of who had changed them, who had cleaned her so meticulously.

Having been seen in such an overwhelmed state, and then tended to so carefully, bit by bit…

            

In broad daylight, a flush crept up her face.

She hadn’t been drinking last night. How had things gotten to that point?

Her own constitution was entirely beyond her imagination.

            

It turned out she didn’t know even one ten-thousandth of Lin Ji—and had been equally ignorant of what she herself was capable of.

But it was because of Lin Ji that she had burned this fiercely.

Jiang Siyi slowly turned to look at the person beside her.

            

Still asleep. She checked the time—this was going to break a record.

Today was a rest day. Let her sleep until she woke naturally.

Last night, every one of Jiang Siyi’s doubts had been completely resolved.

            

So there had never been any “stand-in.”

The avatar Lin Ji had used for so long was the letter she had written.

The tattoo over her heart—a pattern that would remain on her body forever—was the simple sketch she had doodled.

            

Always, always her.

From beginning to end, the only person Lin Ji had ever loved was her.

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

            

Jiang Siyi gently rolled over, then rolled back, hugging her side of the quilt and watching Lin Ji.

While Lin Ji was still sleeping, Jiang Siyi tugged the covers down a little.

The tattoo on her left chest was fully exposed.

            

Beneath the simple-line drawing of the silly rabbit, a faint scar was visible.

The one Lin Ji had described—the burn left by fire tongs when she had zoned out thinking about Jiang Siyi.

There were no other scars on her body, no calluses on her palms from farm labor.

            

Auntie Xuebo had probably had them removed with cosmetic procedures while taking her abroad for treatment—not a difficult thing to do. Given Auntie Xuebo’s attentiveness, she certainly would have.

So…

Why had this one been left, covered only with a tattoo?

            

She raised a fingertip, wanting to touch it, and halted one centimeter above the scar without making contact.

Until her wrist was grasped by Lin Ji, who had woken at some unknown moment—pulled forward and pressed directly against it.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore. You can touch it all you like.”

            

Lin Ji opened one sleep-puffy eye and gazed at Jiang Siyi with a faint smile.

Jiang Siyi was helpless with her.

“Even so, be a little gentler.”

            

Lin Ji loosened her grip on her wrist, and Jiang Siyi’s fingertip lightly traced the shape of the scar.

“It must have hurt so much back then.”

“Right now it itches.”

            

Jiang Siyi: .

The tenderness she’d been feeling was completely interrupted and couldn’t be picked back up.

Lin Ji pulled her in and kissed her forehead.

            

“You’ve cried yourself into single eyelids already—don’t be sad anymore. What if you start crying again? I kept this scar on purpose, to memorialize that wondrous feeling of thinking about you in that instant. I’ve always felt it was a telepathic bond that belonged only to you and me. The tattoo isn’t entirely to cover the scar—it’s to help me remember.”

“Remember what?”

Lin Ji paused. She didn’t say.

            

Jiang Siyi blinked her swollen eyes.

“Tell me. I promise I won’t cry. Xiao You, I really want to know.”

Lin Ji so loved the exquisite feeling of Jiang Siyi’s eagerness to know everything about her.

            

“It’s that—no matter where our life paths extend in the future, I will always carry you in my heart.”

Jiang Siyi’s nose tingled. Seeing her like that, Lin Ji helplessly kissed her eyes.

“How come Ms. Sanzhuang Tusi isn’t following through on her word? Didn’t we agree you wouldn’t cry? If you cry again, all that secret ice-compress work from last night will have been for nothing.”

            

Jiang Siyi was both amused and incredulous.

“No way—I didn’t wake up when you were icing my eyes?”

“You did. You were just too exhausted. Understandable.”

            

Her fingertips traced light circles on Jiang Siyi’s stomach.

“…”

In the end, she didn’t cry again.

            

They went to wash up together. Lin Ji placed Jiang Siyi’s toothbrush under the automatic toothpaste dispenser, one arm looping around the slender waist beside her, bracing against the counter on the other side.

A new day, starting with clinging to the wife.

The dispenser whirred mechanically, and Lin Ji asked Jiang Siyi:

            

“By the way, why is your WeChat name Sanzhuang Tusi?”

Jiang Siyi looked at herself in the mirror. Even with the cold compress, her eyes were still swollen into absolutely spectacular single eyelids.

“Because I was always in a ‘loose, unpackaged’ state—like, I didn’t feel like I had a home. What about you? Why a comma?”

            

Lin Ji handed Jiang Siyi her toothbrush.

“When I set that WeChat name, I was still holding on to a fantasy—I didn’t want to put a period.”

“…All of it—it was all about me?”

            

“Mm. All of it.”

Lin Ji remained the most direct person Jiang Siyi had ever known, from childhood to adulthood, when it came to expressing her feelings.

A warmth crept up Jiang Siyi’s face, and she leaned subtly against Lin Ji.

            

She just wanted to press closer.

“I want to change my WeChat name.”

Lin Ji prepared her own toothpaste.

            

“What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing.”

Xueqiu had been awake for a while. He had completed his self-walking duties in the courtyard and dutifully taken care of all his important doggy business at the designated spot.

Discovering that the poop scoopers were finally alive, Xueqiu peeked half his head through the doorway.

            

He saw the two humans leaning together, each brushing their teeth with one hand and holding a phone in the other, movements synchronized, thumbs tapping away at something.

Never mind that—one whole night and morning without seeing them. Xueqiu squeezed directly in front of their feet and flopped his entire body across them.

Four feet served as his bed. He tilted his head up, watching the two of them laugh.

            

He didn’t understand what they were laughing about, but they looked so happy.

Xueqiu opened his little mouth, poked out his little tongue, and smiled along with them.

This was a rare rest day.

            

Two very busy people seldom had time to sit together on the living room sofa like this, holding Xueqiu and idly channel-surfing, watching whatever came on.

Lin Ji continued applying cold compresses to Jiang Siyi’s eyes—by afternoon, the swelling should go down.

An antique appraisal show happened to be on TV.

            

There were so many details in Lin Ji’s past that Jiang Siyi would recall them from time to time.

The round head resting on Lin Ji’s shoulder lifted up, and she asked:

“I remember that when you first started going to Jiashibi, you were looking for your grandmother’s Ancestral Jade Dragon and Phoenix Pendant.”

            

At the time, she had only known it was her grandmother’s heirloom. She hadn’t realized it had been taken by human traffickers—who would have sold it off, its whereabouts unknown.

The village’s traffickers had certainly been arrested, but Siyi didn’t know whether the original trafficker who had abducted Lin Ji had ever been traced. Lin Ji hadn’t mentioned it, and she didn’t want to pry.

“Right.” Lin Ji knew what she wanted to ask. “The appraisal result for Fang Yi’s piece came back as highly similar.”

            

“Meaning it might not be the same one.”

“Mm. My grandmother had always kept the pendant in her collection. Not many people had seen it, and there were no experts to document its distinguishing features. I only wore it for half a night myself—my memory of it is very blurry now.”

At this, Lin Ji briefly drifted into thought.

            

“It’s all right. If it’s meant to be, we’ll cross paths with it again.”

“Is there a photograph?”

“There is.”

            

On her seventh birthday, the day her grandmother gave her the pendant, she had taken a photo with her grandmother while wearing it.

“Taken with an early smartphone. It counts as an old photo—not very high-resolution.”

“Could you send it to me? I want to try matching it and keep an eye out.”

            

In this field, Jiang Siyi was genuinely an expert—and her work brought her into contact with a large volume of jade artifacts.

There was hope, but it was a very faint hope. They both knew that.

Lin Ji stroked her head.

            

“Don’t fixate on it.”

She said it lightly, but Jiang Siyi knew that Lin Ji had been collecting similar jade pendants all along, sparing no expense.

Her grandmother had passed away with regrets, the heirloom still adrift somewhere in the world. This was a heartache Lin Ji had never spoken aloud.

            

Jiang Siyi understood. She knew Lin Ji cared, that she desperately wanted it found.

“How will we know if we don’t try? What if?”

Jiang Siyi’s eyes were red and swollen, but beneath them burned a bright, clear light.

            

Once, on the swings at the Small Park, she had prayed to her mother, asking her to bless Lin Ji with the recovery of her grandmother’s heirloom, to let her have everything she cherished.

And now, she wanted to do it herself—for Lin Ji.

To bring back everything that should have belonged to Lin Ji.

            

So that she would never have to taste the pain of loss again, for the rest of her life.

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The author has something to say:

Lin Ji: About to be pampered to the heavens by my wife.

            

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