Before Huang Ling got together with Liang Wenpei, she had heard that he had a younger sister.
Back then, Wen Hanchi and Luo Shuang were in that ambiguous stage, just one thin layer of paper away from confessing their feelings. Luo Shuang had planned a trip to the amusement park for days, putting considerable effort into everything from strategy guides to outfit choices. But right before they were supposed to go, Wen Hanchi casually remarked that the weather that day wouldn't be good.
Luo Shuang was so furious when she heard this that she directly changed the visitor information on the amusement park tickets to Huang Ling's name. But then, the day before the trip, Wen Hanchi managed to smooth things over with Luo Shuang.
However, ticket information could only be changed once. If Huang Ling didn't go, the ticket would go to waste, and they'd have to buy a new one for Wen Hanchi. But with three people going, Huang Ling would feel awkward.
Luo Shuang angrily cursed out Wen Hanchi again, but within moments, Wen Hanchi said the problem was solved—his roommate Liang Wenpei would come too.
And so, the Three Sworn Brothers became the Four Great Constables.
During the amusement park trip, Liang Wenpei mentioned he wanted to buy a plush toy for his sister as a gift.
That was also the first time Huang Ling learned that Liang Wenpei had decision paralysis. In the end, Huang Ling picked out the doll, and Liang Wenpei bought a greeting card to go with it.
When she saw the name Pei Wenliang, she thought Liang Wenpei was joking with her.
"Your family's naming sense is way too casual."
"Can't help it. If you can't make everyone happy, make everyone unhappy."
Two years passed before Huang Ling finally met Liang Wenpei's younger sister.
At that time, Pei Wenliang was a sophomore in high school, and Huang Ling was a junior in college. During winter break, Huang Ling had been sent to a hotel as free labor. After getting chewed out by the manager over that room card incident, she called Liang Wenpei crying.
It was ten o'clock at night.
She was crying a mess. Seeing how badly she was sobbing, the manager threw her a bone and let her go back to rest for the night.
Liang Wenpei was already in bed when he got Huang Ling's call. He threw on a down jacket and drove to the hotel where she was interning to pick her up.
The location she gave was easy to find. The moment Liang Wenpei arrived, he saw Huang Ling munching on corn—drowning her sorrows in food.
The street vendor, worried about her crying alone on the road, had been about to pack up for the night but insisted on staying with Huang Ling for an extra twenty minutes until Liang Wenpei arrived before leaving.
Liang Wenpei took her back to his apartment.
Pei Wenliang was also staying there during winter break. Huang Ling's face was a mess from crying, and she hadn't expected to open the door and find a young girl sitting on the living room sofa.
Liang Wenpei said it was his sister.
Pei Wenliang was only sixteen or seventeen at the time. Based on the siblings' faces, Huang Ling could extrapolate just how ridiculously good-looking their parents must be.
Pei Wenliang curiously stole glances at Huang Ling, and when she spoke, she didn't call her "sister-in-law"—she called her "jie jie."
As a younger sister, ever since she'd grown old enough to realize that her parents could never possibly give her an older sister, Pei Wenliang had lost count of how many times she'd fantasized about waking up to find her brother transformed into her sister.
And to her, this sister-in-law she'd heard about but never met became a free "older sister"—a childhood dream come true.
"Jie jie, are you staying the night? Do you want to sleep with me?"
Liang Wenpei, holding the down jacket Huang Ling had taken off, shot a glance at his nosy sister. By then, she and Liang Wenpei had been dating for two years. They were both adults and had long since done intimate things. Sleeping in the same bed was no big deal.
"That's not out of the question." Liang Wenpei didn't outright refuse, which was a rare sight in the eyes of both Huang Ling and Pei Wenliang. But the next second, he started threatening: "But if I sleep alone at night, I'll be really bored. And when I'm bored, I'll have plenty of time to chat with Mom and Dad—and tell them about how you only scored 54 on your math final."
"I'm going to bed now." Pei Wenliang said, bolting out of there, afraid that even a second's delay would make Liang Wenpei retaliate by assigning her three extra math worksheets tomorrow.
Watching this pair of siblings, Huang Ling's bad mood lifted a little.
After her shower, she came out of the bathroom wearing one of Liang Wenpei's t-shirts. The apartment had heated flooring, so even in winter it was comfortable.
Liang Wenpei was lying in bed playing on his phone, holding it horizontally as he gamed with his roommate Wen Hanchi and the others. His peripheral vision caught Huang Ling, and he subtly muted his mic, finishing the round before logging off.
Huang Ling's hands and feet tended to run cold in winter, and even after a hot shower, they weren't much warmer.
After turning off the lights, Liang Wenpei pulled her into his arms. "What time do you need to be at the hotel tomorrow?"
"Five in the afternoon." Huang Ling automatically placed her feet on his legs, finding a comfortable spot in the crook of his arm.
He had nothing much to do during winter break—his main responsibility was making sure his sister didn't waste her vacation, so he had plenty of time to drive her around.
"You're still going?" Liang Wenpei teased, seeing that she wasn't as upset anymore. "Weren't you going to rent a shared bike and run over your manager?"
"I'm afraid I won't graduate if my winter internship doesn't pass." As Huang Ling finished speaking, she heard a noise from outside.
Her head instinctively lifted, but Liang Wenpei reached out and pressed it back down. "My sister's out looking for a snack."
Speaking of his sister, Huang Ling's first impression was quite good: "Your sister is pretty cute. Don't keep scaring her."
"After she turned five, my sister stopped being that adorable little girl from childhood. She scored 54 on her math test—back in my day, my dad would've beaten me half to death for that. If I'm not strict with her now, her life will be ruined." Liang Wenpei sighed as he spoke. "No, actually, maybe her life was already ruined the moment she was named Pei Wenliang instead of Pei Sairo."
"Pei Sairo?" Huang Ling frowned. That was even worse than Pei Wenliang. "Who came up with that? Does it mean something?"
"I did. Ultraman Zero." Liang Wenpei seemed to perk up at the mention of Ultraman. "Son of Ultraman Seven, disciple of Ultraman Leo. When Ultraman Belial overthrew the Land of Light, Zero defeated Belial single-handedly and saved the Land of Light. Super cool."
Liang Wenpei was about to continue when he suddenly felt his arms empty—Huang Ling had already slipped out of his embrace.
"Why are you sleeping so far away?"
Huang Ling pulled the blanket tighter around herself. "Because I think your odds of being killed by your sister are no longer zero percent."
Later, Huang Ling gradually saw his sister more often. In her first year in England, his sister had gone to England with her brother for a trip and stopped by to visit her.
Three years had passed since they last met, and she had grown more and more beautiful.
"I thought you were still abroad." Pei Wenliang looked at Huang Ling a bit shyly, her eyes darting around aimlessly.
"I only came back recently." Huang Ling was also curious why she was at this hotel. "Why aren't you working with your mom?"
"It's awkward." Pei Wenliang pointed to a corner spot as she spoke. "I came here with my friend to interview. I'm so afraid I won't pass."
By the time she took her college entrance exams, Huang Ling and Liang Wenpei had already broken up, so Huang Ling didn't know how she'd done. She'd only heard during their meeting in England that Pei Wenliang was studying accounting and finance.
Huang Ling was about to encourage her when she heard Qiao Yun speak up.
Qiao Yun's gaze swept over them. "Vice Manager Huang, this is your sister?"
Huang Ling nodded.
"Then don't worry—just have your sister say a word to Young Master Lu." Qiao Yun smiled.
Pei Wenliang caught the odd undertone in those words and realized that Huang Ling must have a close relationship with this "Young Master Lu." Could it be that her brother was completely out of the picture?
"Sister Qiao, stop joking." Huang Ling cut Qiao Yun off, then turned to Pei Wenliang with a smile to reassure her. "Don't be nervous. Go in, introduce yourself, and just answer whatever the interviewer asks."
The housekeeping department interviews were held in another room. After ten candidates came through, Huang Ling selected three women and one man.
All were fresh graduates from this year.
By the time she finished, the other departments' interviews had also wrapped up, and only the administrative staff remained in the conference room cleaning up.
When Liang Wenpei returned to the law firm, his face was completely dark.
Wen Hanchi was curious about what had happened to him.
Chu Ying followed behind and whispered to Wen Hanchi: "Senior Liang argued his case with everything he had and was about to get the divorce granted, but then the client suddenly said 'I still love you' in court. In the end, the divorce wasn't granted, and the client asked Senior Liang if he was incompetent, why she couldn't get divorced successfully."
Although Chu Ying had spoken very quietly, every word still reached Liang Wenpei's ears. What had been nothing but exhaustion and fatigue now suddenly ignited into rage, burning so hot it made his chest ache.
Wen Hanchi looked at him and feared he might have a stroke from anger—blood pressure spiking, cerebral vessels spasming.
"Maybe you should take Dashun for a walk too?"
Liang Wenpei felt his head start to throb again. He pressed his forehead, took a moment to recover, and prepared to go report to the professor.
Chu Ying felt a pang of sympathy seeing him like this. "Senior Liang, just go home first. I'll ask my dad for leave on your behalf."
Probably genuinely feeling unwell from the anger, Liang Wenpei requested leave and drove back to his residence.
The moment he opened the door, the smell of spicy malatang wafted through the apartment. Following the light inside, he saw Pei Wenliang lounging comfortably on the sofa in her pajamas, playing on his Switch.
"Bro, you're home early today?"
Liang Wenpei walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the fridge.
Not hearing a response from him, Pei Wenliang tossed aside the Switch and trotted into the kitchen like she was carrying a treasure, leaning against the fridge.
She teased him: "Guess who I ran into today?"
The cold water went down his throat, and only then did he feel his emotions settle slightly. "I don't know, but I hope it was the Grim Reaper, so he could take me or take my client."
Seeing her brother in such a lifeless state, Pei Wenliang grew more and more certain that what she knew would definitely revive his spirits.
"I ran into Sister Huang Ling." Pei Wenliang said, but saw Liang Wenpei's utterly calm reaction, which was completely unexpected to her. "Why aren't you excited? I ran into Sister Huang Ling at my interview today. She's actually back in the country. You finally don't have to use me as an excuse to sneak off to England every year to see her."
Liang Wenpei drank the remaining mineral water from the bottle, his tone still as calm as ever: "You applied to work at the hotel where she works?"
"Yeah. I looked at a few other companies before, but either the work environment wasn't good or the location wasn't right." Pei Wenliang nodded, and as she spoke, she realized the conversation had drifted off track, but seeing her brother like this, she thought he was truly out of the loop. "Why are you so calm? Don't you like Sister Huang Ling anymore?"
"That's none of your business." Liang Wenpei turned and walked toward his room, planning to change clothes and head out to the gym.
The worse his mood, the more he needed to exercise.
"Are you really over her?" Pei Wenliang still couldn't quite believe it, but thinking back to what Qiao Yun had said before the interview, she added, "Well, it makes sense. Sister Huang Ling seems to be on good terms with the young General Manager Lu at the hotel. You two broke up so many years ago—who would stay in the same place forever? Forget it, pretend I didn't say anything."
The hand reaching for clothes paused mid-motion.
"Young General Manager Lu?"
The three words came out of his mouth, laced with contemplation and undisguised gunpowder.