Crossing the Line – Chapter 80
by Little PandaThe Feelings Come Fast and Heavy
The marriage leave began.
With Duan Ning volunteering to take over Jiang Siyi’s workload, the entire month ahead was honeymoon — she could rest right up until the autumn auction, with time to spare afterward for easing back into form.
Jiang Siyi asked her over WeChat.
【Can you really hold my job down for that many days?】
Duan Ning replied with total confidence. 【It’s a few days, that’s all — what, afraid I’ll work myself to death? You already helped me earn enough commission to cover next year. A little overtime won’t hurt someone my age. Go and enjoy your honeymoon properly. If you spend even one more second thinking about work, it’s disrespectful to the honeymoon.】
They traded a few more jokes and signed off.
Duan Ning, half-leaning against Manager Wu’s desk, hung up the voice call with Siyi and heard someone sigh behind her.
“How come you cover for Xiao Jiang and never for me?”
“Sure. Give me that manager’s chair of yours and I’ll cover for you this instant.”
Wu Yilu leaned back in her chair, blinking eyes that ached mercilessly, and said:
“Come, Manager Duan — from now on, this is your throne. Remember to lead the meimei in charging up the numbers every month, hit the department KPI, wage open and covert war with every other department manager while keeping up polite facades, keep your superiors charmed and your subordinates in line…”
“Alright, Master, stop chanting.”
Wu Yilu laughed. “Honestly, I have high hopes for you, Duan Ning. Your best friend is going to the Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Department to lead the charge first — Xiao Jiang’s ability is manager-tier at the very least. Once she climbs up and pulls you over with her, you’ll skyrocket.”
Duan Ning: “Hah? Send me to a department where you wake up already owing the company a million yuan in sales? How much pressure is that? Respectfully declined — I’d like to live a few more years.”
Wu Yilu burst out laughing.
Duan Ning: “And if we both left, what would Your Venerable Self do? Wouldn’t that hairline of yours retreat another inch?”
Called out like that, Wu Yilu checked her own reflection in the glass.
Perhaps because she spent year after year sweeping every strand back from her forehead into a neat, respectable bun, her hairline did look to be in genuine crisis.
Then she looked at Duan Ning — hair loose whenever she wasn’t on the auction stage, a woman in her twenties, fresh and radiant as a ripe peach.
Wu Yilu touched her forehead without thinking.
“It’s from worrying about you little brats, that’s what.”
Duan Ning: “Here’s my proposal. I take your seat, you take out CEO Gu, and then you, me, and Siyi form the Jiashibi Golden Triangle — riding the winds, breaking the waves, happiness all around.”
Wu Yilu: “Oh-ho. You dare to dream bigger than I do.”
Duan Ning: “Obviously. People who do big things have to start by daring to dream big. Taking out CEO Gu is only step one — next up, President Yan.”
In all her years working, Jiang Siyi had never taken a break this long.
Lin Ji was the same — the sort of person who had held exactly one anniversary gala in Huanwei’s entire history, head down and charging forward for years, with no appetite for entertainment.
This year was destined to be different.
Work arranged, everything delegated, one hour of online contact maintained each day. Every other moment, she wanted only to be with Jiang Siyi, savoring a honeymoon hard-won.
Before the honeymoon, though, they had to go see the wedding gifts from family and friends.
“See” was, indeed, the operative word.
Yan Yu’s four-deck yacht had already been outrageous; Cen Lu went and gifted an entire vacation estate.
The estate sat in J City’s prime suburban resort belt, anchored by a mountain-view villa that took in the whole of West Mountain’s maple foliage at a glance. Less than 500 meters from the villa lay natural hot springs — for warm winter soaks in the years to come, convenience itself.
Standing on the villa’s fourth floor, looking down over the entire estate, Yan Yu was stunned.
“Cen Lu, you called me out for not playing by the rules, and then you went straight to a nuclear weapon? Is that even right?”
Cen Lu: “When you get married, I’ll give you the same.”
Yan Yu: “…You’re just stringing along the single masses. Ugh, when will I ever meet that jiejie who swapped shoes with me again? I swear I’ll—”
Cen Lu: “Seize the moment and confess?”
Yan Yu: “Propose to her!”
Cen Lu: “…Isn’t your life just a little too reckless?”
Down in the courtyard, Jiang Siyi and Lin Ji were planning how to convert the enormous yard into badminton and tennis courts.
Coming down the stairs, Cen Lu added, “There’s a huge stretch of private land out back, lying fallow right now. A party garden, a wine cellar, a par-three golf course, or even a small private zoo — any of it would work.”
Lin Ji: “I’ve already decided. Our greenhouse strawberries can go into expanded production.”
Cen Lu’s mouth actually twisted sideways. “Hah? Strawberries?”
All that land — and you’re planting dainty little strawberries?
It felt as if her childhood friend, since getting together with Jiang Siyi, had shed that whole gloomy, somber air and softened considerably — even the backyard was growing pink, tender strawberries now.
Strawberries, of all things. Just how delicious must they be?
“Fine, whatever you like. Just remember to feed me a share every year,” Cen Lu said. “You two only have one car, right? Let me add another for you — go pick it out before the honeymoon.”
The estate alone had left Jiang Siyi’s heart still reeling; now a car on top of it. She was about to say “you really shouldn’t spend so much” — but Lin Ji beat her to it, showing Cen Lu no such courtesy.
Lin Ji: “We’ll pick it today.”
Cen Lu: “Then let’s go now.”
Lin Ji asked Jiang Siyi, “What car do you want?”
Jiang Siyi blanked for a moment.
She genuinely didn’t need a car.
A path from the house’s back door ran straight to the community’s rear gate, right beside a long row of shared bikes and shared e-bikes. Even walking to Jiashibi took only fifteen minutes — going to the garage to fetch a car was actually more trouble.
Besides, hailing a ride was easy these days, the subway reached everywhere, and driving yourself meant finding parking. Exhausting.
Frugal to the bone, Jiang Siyi’s head was one long chorus of “there’s really no need.”
And yet three pairs of eyes were all fixed on her.
Jiang Siyi: …
Now she finally understood how her elder sister felt.
Being ringed and stared at by the three of them really did feel like a herbivore circled on all sides by predators. The pressure was immense.
With one small difference.
These three predators were all waiting for her, the herbivore, to issue her orders.
In the end, what Jiang Siyi squeezed out was: “The newest-model electric bicycle. Would that be okay?”
Lin Ji: ?
Yan Yu: ??
Cen Lu: ?!
Jiang Siyi explained, “I really, truly have no need for a car. Besides, Xiao You already picks me up and drops me off for work.”
Yan Yu tried to talk her around. “An e-bike, seriously? Saosao Baobao, miss this chance, and the next time you get Lu-jie to fork out like this might be your funeral.”
Lin Ji grabbed Yan Yu by the back of the collar and lobbed her aside — grinning, she bounced right back instantly. There was no throwing her off.
Cen Lu asked Lin Ji, “Seriously? Don’t try to save me money — I made plenty in Northern Myanmar1.”
Lin Ji: “In our house, what Siyi says goes. The newest-model electric bicycle it is.”
Cen Lu conceded.
One of them plants strawberries across an entire estate; the other commutes by bicycle.
No wonder you two are a couple. Of course you’d end up together.
“Fine. We’ll go with whatever Ms. Dai says.”
Lin Ji: “Ms. Dai?”
Cen Lu: “Your wife is ‘Daizhuang Tusi’ — Bagged Toast. If you’re not Ms. Dai, who is? Keep playing dumb.”
Lin Ji: 。
Fine. Another surname change.
The first time, she took her mother’s surname; the second time, her wife’s. If that isn’t growing more and more accomplished, what is?
The painting Jiang Siling had raced against the clock to finish on the wedding day itself now hung in the most prominent spot on the second floor of Jiang Siyi and Lin Ji’s home.
That painting, drawn from the two of them, was titled 《Happiness》.
Two abstract silhouettes — the graceful curves of women, and something like drifting arcs of light.
Different colors melted together at their borders, each one holding the other inside itself.
Look closely, and you’d find they were actually joined head to tail — never apart, a ring of fate linked from the very beginning.
The island honeymoon was tomorrow. On a leisurely afternoon, Jiang Siyi and Lin Ji sat shoulder to shoulder on the soft rug before the giant canvas, together stroking Xueqiu2‘s soft head.
The more they looked at the painting, the more they loved it.
Jiang Siling understood them.
Every glance at it brought a fresh sense of fate’s uncanny pull, working somewhere beyond sight.
Sitting here on the second floor, Jiang Siyi couldn’t help her curiosity.
“Why are the second and third floors both empty? Did you just never plan out how to furnish them?”
Lin Ji’s shoulder pressed against hers, head resting on Jiang Siyi’s.
“Mm. I never needed this much living space on my own. The first floor was enough — I didn’t know what to put up here.”
Jiang Siyi stroked Lin Ji’s cheek.
“Then why buy such a big house? Was it because you dislike cramped, enclosed spaces?”
“Not entirely. Ms. Xuebo is a majority shareholder in this community’s developer — I picked out this Courtyard No. 1 very early on. I hadn’t even returned to China yet. When I saw how close it was to Jiashibi, where you worked, my heart was set. I couldn’t fill a house this size alone, but I kept fantasizing that perhaps one day…”
Lin Ji turned her head and tipped her nose against Jiang Siyi’s.
“…you would come, and furnish it with me.”
Just like the “，” handle from before.
Lin Ji didn’t want to end with Jiang Siyi — in this life, she still wanted there to be a continuation.
“So I took it upon myself to leave it all standing empty, waiting for you.”
Whether Jiang Siyi chose her or not, fell in love with her or not, whichever road she walked in this life, Lin Ji would forever keep a road open for her to come back to.
This was what Lin Ji had once told Yan Yu — Jiang Siyi had always been inside her life plan.
She’d assumed that, at that night’s tell-all — the confession about “harboring designs from early on” — Lin Ji had already handed over every last scheme.
She’d never imagined those designs ran so much deeper than Jiang Siyi had guessed.
Holding her gaze, Jiang Siyi’s eyes darkened with feeling.
In all the years she’d known nothing about, Lin Ji had been quietly preparing every last romance for her.
Lin Ji was afraid she’d spiral — disaster if she started crying again.
It wasn’t like when they were small. These days she was terribly hard to soothe.
She kissed her ear, then nuzzled into the crook of her neck, redirecting her attention a little.
It tickled enough that Jiang Siyi laughed and hunched her neck — but she didn’t dodge.
She simply let her kiss her, nuzzle her.
“So the upstairs is all reserved for you. However you want to furnish it — it’s up to you.”
For a moment, Jiang Siyi had no ideas.
The first floor already covered daily life completely — never mind the front and back yards, the cinema, the gym, and the library. It was practically a small community of its own. If she didn’t have to work, as someone with social anxiety, she could stay inside this house for a year or so without ever feeling bored.
“Then…”
Lin Ji tapped the fingertips Jiang Siyi was bracing against the rug.
“What if we made it a studio?”
“A studio?”
“Your elder sister told me you gave up studying art for her sake, back then.”
“…That was all a very long time ago. And I’m quite happy with what I studied later. If I hadn’t studied Chinese art history, I probably never would have gotten into Jiashibi.”
Jiang Siyi hadn’t expected Lin Ji to remember that.
She caught and trapped the finger Lin Ji kept poking around with.
“Besides, I don’t have the energy to take up painting again now.”
“You don’t have to take it up. Just draw — draw for fun. Don’t put any pressure on yourself; treat it as a pastime. Of course, if you find yourself wanting to take it seriously partway through, that’s fine too.”
“Now that you mention it — you can tattoo. Is your drawing good too? Did you study it?”
“No. I just doodle.”
Lin Ji pointed at her own chest.
“I wanted to do the tattoo here myself, so I went and learned the technique — just drew casually. Huang Qingzheng and Yan Yu both said I have a fair bit of talent.”
“You tattooed it yourself? That’s incredible.”
Only after praising her did Jiang Siyi remember — back when they attended the same middle school, Lin Ji had been the famous academic star of the entire school. That storied senior who held first place in her grade year after year — even Siyi, down in the junior division, had heard her name thundering through the halls.
Thinking it through now: Lin Ji had lost seven crucial years of her youth. Even if she’d studied in secret in that village, it could hardly have been a systematic education.
Yet she’d caught up with the curriculum in so short a time after returning — even skipping a grade.
At this moment, Lin Ji’s brilliance took on a fully concrete shape.
A clear, unmistakable admiration crept into the way Jiang Siyi looked at her.
When others praised her, Lin Ji forgot it almost as soon as she heard it.
Jiang Siyi’s admiration made the corners of her mouth lift before she could stop them.
All right — perhaps she was a little impressive.
Painting, as a hobby or taken seriously — either was fine.
Lin Ji only wanted her Siyi to have no regrets, none at all.
The second floor would become a studio first.
Today a studio; tomorrow, if she fell for gaming, a game room; the day after, if it was music, change it again.
Anything she wanted — as long as Jiang Siyi liked it.
Sunlight poured into the house soon to be dressed in new decor, creeping bit by bit across the two women lying on the rug, kissing.
Fingertips glided; hot kisses tangled.
Each of them wanted the other’s breath to seep deeper into her body, into her life.
……
The honeymoon destination was an island.
The very island where Jiang Siyi and Lin Ji had been engaged as children.
The only details of that time came secondhand from Lin Xuebo, and they were few — the parties themselves barely remembered.
Perhaps a few days on the island would shake something loose.
The island was where they began — a place heavy with meaning. Naturally, it was the only real choice for a honeymoon.
Xueqiu came aboard the private jet with them.
It was Xueqiu’s first flight — curious and nervous the whole way, glued to Jiang Siyi’s feet.
Jiang Siyi simply picked it up and, before takeoff, fastened Xueqiu’s seatbelt herself.
Once the plane reached the stratosphere, seatbelt unclipped and window shade raised, Xueqiu — cradled in Jiang Siyi’s arms — stared out through the porthole, transfixed by the great billowing clouds.
Jiang Siyi tapped its head.
“Little Xueqiu, watching the big snowballs.”
Xueqiu spent the whole trip looking, eating, playing — looking, eating, playing. When they reached the island, it stepped onto the beach alongside its two moms in the glow of the setting sun.
Barefoot on the sand, Jiang Siyi felt the sun’s lingering warmth; the texture was exquisitely fine — truly like stepping on flour.
The mint-green clarity of the sea, the small islands surfacing and vanishing in the distance, the orange of the sinking sun, and Lin Ji holding her hand — and suddenly, across that shimmering sheet of water in Jiang Siyi’s memory, a single fleck of light surfaced, one she could be certain of.
“So familiar. I think I really have been here.”
Jiang Siyi stopped mid-step, gazing out, lost in the distance.
The sea wind lifted Lin Ji’s black hair. “Of course you’ve been here. You came with me. We walked this beach together too.”
Lin Ji’s words sketched a picture in her mind.
What a pity — only an imagined picture, no further details surfacing.
She couldn’t truly see how she and Lin Ji, as children, had walked this winding coastline together.
How she’d demanded to be carried, and how Lin Ji had coaxed her.
Seeing her a little downcast, Lin Ji wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her wife closer.
“You were only three. Even I, at six, remember little enough — it’d be stranger if you did recall it.”
Lin Ji kissed the top of her head.
“From this moment on, we can make the memories we’ll carry for the rest of our lives — together.”
Jiang Siyi nodded and looked toward the red sun sinking, unhurried, beneath the sea’s edge.
She knew all that.
It was only a small regret, that was all.
They strolled along the beach, aimless, talking about whatever came to mind, doubling over laughing together, drinking the same local specialty fruit drinks.
When the sky had gone fully dark, they walked back to the hotel hand in hand, Xueqiu with them.
There was just one bathroom.
Jiang Siyi told Lin Ji to shower first.
Watching Jiang Siyi’s back as she brushed Xueqiu’s fur, Lin Ji leaned against the bathroom doorframe and called to her.
“Wife.”
Jiang Siyi turned instinctively. “Mm?”
Jiang Siyi had already gotten used to the address “Wife.” Lin Ji found this very satisfactory.
“Wife. Come here.”
A perfectly serious tone.
Jiang Siyi came over at once, quick steps.
“What is it?”
She’d barely reached the doorway when Lin Ji pulled her into the bathroom, leaving behind only a soft startled cry.
“We’ll wash together.”
Jiang Siyi was about to say something else when she realized Lin Ji, not a thread on her, was holding her, fingers gathered in the hem of her dress as if to strip it away.
The bathroom light fell along the graceful curve of her neck, pooling there, bright.
A mature woman’s body was simply too beautiful — and her skin so hot to the touch.
One glance, and Jiang Siyi was too dazzled to speak.
As Lin Ji kissed her lips, she thought: her meimei was just too easy to fool.
Lured over with a single sentence again — and she’d come with “serious business” written plainly across her face.
Adorable.
The mouth Jiang Siyi wanted to speak with was kissed several times; not half a word would come out.
Her ears were kissed red too.
All she could do was let Lin Ji slip the long dress away — dizzy, utterly unable to resist.
They’d been married and living together a while now, and Jiang Siyi still responded to her every touch.
The feelings came fast, and they came heavy.
Kissed until she could barely breathe, her soft, hot little tongue sucked until it went numb, still trying to answer Lin Ji’s.
Lin Ji’s heart all but melted clean through from Jiang Siyi’s cuteness.
She wanted to cradle her in her palms forever and spoil her, never letting her come to the slightest harm.
And she wanted, just as fiercely, to close those same hands around her and crush her, leave her utterly, beautifully undone.
They carried the same bath-gel scent back to the bedroom.
Lin Ji gathered her soft-limbed wife up and laid her on the bed.
The flush hadn’t yet faded from Jiang Siyi’s face; her loose hair still carried wisps of moisture from the blow-dry.
Desire seemed almost out of place in Jiang Siyi’s guileless eyes.
But the moment it appeared there, the contrast was devastatingly alluring.
In the silence, her arms hooked lingeringly around Lin Ji, as if asking for what happened in the bathroom to go on.
Pure yet wanton — a beauty that tugged straight at the heart.
Lin Ji couldn’t help kissing her again.
On honeymoon, they could leave marks on each other’s bodies to their hearts’ content.
Between them it was fierce physiological attraction — passion like fire, love like honey — and once these two bodies tangled together, nothing could pull them apart.
The next day they slept until — who knew what time. Slept their fill. Slept until they woke on their own.
Before Jiang Siyi’s eyes were even open, Lin Ji kissed her on the lips.
Lin Ji: “Your phone’s been buzzing for a while. Want to check it?”
Thinking Manager Wu might have some work matter, Jiang Siyi picked up the phone — it was Jiang Siling on WeChat.
【Baby! Do you know what I found!】
【Yesterday I took Glenda to visit my first art teacher. She gave me a little box — some old things I left with her when I stayed at her place after Mom passed. Mom’s old phone was in there, the one I’d used back then. I wanted to see whether there were any photos of her on it, so I sent it in for repair. And guess what turned up—】
Siling sent two videos.
【They’re videos of you and Xiao You on the island! Mom actually filmed them!】
Jiang Siyi sat bolt upright.
Lin Ji had heard Siling’s voice messages too. She sat up as well, wrapped herself around Jiang Siyi from behind, draped against her back, and watched the phone with her.
The videos finished downloading quickly and began to play.
The grainy, dated footage still set Jiang Siyi’s heart racing.
She’d never imagined she’d get to see footage of her past self with Lin Ji.
A perfectly round little head appeared in the frame. It turned — big eyes, round face, skin as smooth as fresh cream, pretty as a little sprite: Jiang Siyi. Three-year-old Jiang Siyi.
Lin Ji’s breath caught. The arms wrapped around twenty-five-year-old Jiang Siyi tightened all at once.
Just too cute.
Little Siyi in motion was far cuter than in any photo she’d seen, or any blurred memory.
Her mother’s voice came from offscreen, asking little Siyi.
【Do you like Xiao Ji-jiejie?】
Little Siyi answered at once: 【Yes, I like her!】
【Then when you grow up, will you marry her?】
Little Siyi immediately nodded her big head — and only after finishing the nod did she ask:
【Marry?】
She didn’t even know what marriage was. As long as it was Lin Ji, she agreed.
Tao Xu was laughing herself silly.
【Getting married means spending your whole lives together — being each other’s wife.】
【Wife!】
Little Siyi’s big eyes lit up at once. With her still-tiny vocabulary, she declared with total certainty:
【Yes, yes — I want a jiejie-wife!】
The author has something to say:
Lin Ji: Turns out I was the one being pampered by my wife since childhood, too.
Footnotes
- 缅北 | Mianbei | Literally 'northern Myanmar,' the border region between Myanmar and China's Yunnan Province, widely reported in Chinese news as a hub of telecom-fraud compounds and cross-border scam operations; often invoked online as shorthand for shady, fast money.
- 雪球 | Xueqiu | Literally 'snowball,' a typical affectionate name in China for small, white, fluffy pets; billowing white clouds are also commonly likened to snowballs in everyday Chinese.
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