“Ziyao, you’re the one Grandpa worries about the most.”
Gu Ziyao bit her lip, holding back her tears.
“Your Eldest Brother isn’t home, and your Second Brother has to manage the company.” Grandpa’s voice was intermittent again, pausing to catch his breath after every few words.
“After Grandpa is gone, only the two of you will be left in the Gu family. Your Second Brother, he takes everything upon himself. I’m afraid he’ll carry it all until he collapses.”
“Grandpa, I’ll take care of Second Brother.”
“Grandpa knows you will.” Grandpa turned to look at her, his cloudy eyes filled with a deep, deep worry. “But who will take care of you?”
Gu Ziyao opened her mouth but couldn’t speak.
“Your parents left early, and Grandpa won’t be around much longer either.” Grandpa’s hand patted hers gently, slowly and lightly, one tap after another.
“Ziyao, Grandpa worries about you being alone.”
The hospital room fell silent for a long time.
The heart monitor emitted a rhythmic “beep,” the air conditioning vent hummed, and occasionally, the sound of a nurse’s cart rolling by echoed from the corridor outside.
“Grandpa mentioned the Shen family to you before,” Grandpa suddenly spoke.
Gu Ziyao’s fingers paused.
She remembered.
Grandpa had mentioned the Shen family more than once. He said that back in the day, he and Old Master Shen had a life-and-death friendship. They had been sent down together to the Northeast, endured hunger together, and shouldered rifles together. Later, after returning to the city, one went into trade, the other into real estate. The two families had close business dealings and were as close as family.
One year during the New Year celebrations after her parents married, Old Master Shen, having drunk too much, took Grandpa’s hand and said, “Old Gu, let’s arrange a marriage between our children.”
Grandpa, also drunk, slapped the table and said, “It’s settled!”
The two old masters exchanged tokens on the spot. The Shen family gave a family heirloom jade pendant, and the Gu family gave a jade bracelet.
That was nearly thirty years ago.
Since then, this marriage arrangement had been left hanging—no one mentioned it again, but no one canceled it either.
“That boy from the Shen family, Grandpa has met him a few times,” Grandpa said slowly.
“He looks decent, acts steady, and is reliable. After his grandfather passed, he’s been managing the Shen family too.”
Gu Ziyao said nothing.
“Grandpa isn’t trying to force you,” Grandpa looked at her, a thin layer of moisture in his cloudy eyes.
“Grandpa just thinks, if there could be someone by your side, Grandpa could leave in peace.”
She looked into Grandpa’s eyes, her throat feeling as if something were stuck.
She wanted to say, “Grandpa, I don’t need anyone else. I can manage on my own.”
She wanted to say, “Marriage isn’t child’s play. You can’t tie two people together just because you’re worried.”
She wanted to say, “Shen Junyan and I haven’t even met. How can we get married?”
But she couldn’t say it.
Because she saw the moisture in Grandpa’s eyes, his pale, bloodless face, and his once-powerful hands now trembling even while holding a cup of water.
She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“Grandpa, I’ll think about it,” she said.
Grandpa nodded and said nothing more.
That night, Gu Ziyao sat on a bench in the hospital corridor for a long time.
The corridor lights were a stark white, casting a bluish tint on the tiled walls.
The air was filled with the smell of disinfectant, mixed with the scent of traditional Chinese medicine wafting from one of the wards.
A woman’s stifled sobs echoed from afar in the corridor—some family member, crying with restraint, yet unable to hold back the choked sounds that reverberated through the empty hallway.
She sat there, turning her grandfather’s words over and over in her mind.
She had heard of Shen Junyan before.
The youngest vice president of the Shen Group, famously known in Shanghai’s business circles as the cold-faced King of Hell. Business magazines occasionally featured reports about him, but never with a photo.
She had tried searching for information about him online, but all she found were business news articles—no face, no personal details.
She didn’t even know what he looked like.
Marry someone whose face she had never seen?
Gu Ziyao closed her eyes, feeling the absurdity of it all, as if it couldn’t be real.
But when she opened them, she saw the door of the ward at the end of the corridor, her grandfather’s name posted on it.
Absurd.
But did she have a choice?
She didn’t.
Her grandfather couldn’t wait any longer.
Three days later, Gu Ziyao retrieved the jade pendant from the safe.
It was wrapped in a deep red velvet cloth and placed inside a carved wooden box. The lacquer on the box had faded in places, the corners worn pale, but when she opened it, the jade pendant lay quietly on the velvet—green as two deep pools, glowing with a gentle luster under the light.
She placed it in her bag.
The Shen family’s residence was in an old villa district in Shanghai’s western suburbs, nearly half the city away from the Gu family’s old home.
Gu Ziyao took a taxi. Stuck in traffic for forty minutes, she repeatedly took the jade pendant out of its box in the back seat, only to put it back in, over and over.
The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror but said nothing.
When she arrived, she stood before the Shen family’s front gate and took a deep breath.
June in Shanghai was as hot as a steamer. The sun beat down harshly on the ground, softening the asphalt, and the air was thick with the smell of hot tar.
Cicadas screamed deafeningly from the plane trees, their sharp, piercing cries as if trying to shout out the entire summer.
Standing at the gate, the sun scorched her skin, yet she felt cold.
Not physically cold, but a chill seeping from deep within.
She rang the doorbell.
A woman in her fifties answered the door, eyeing her up and down before asking who she was looking for.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Shen,” Gu Ziyao said, her voice calmer than she expected. “I’m from the Gu family—Gu Ziyao.”
The woman clearly knew of the Gu family. Her expression shifted slightly as she stepped aside to let her in.
The Shen family’s living room was spacious, decorated in an old-fashioned, luxurious style—rosewood furniture, a crystal chandelier, and a massive landscape painting of Huangshan’s Greeting Pine hanging on the wall.
The air conditioning was cranked high, and a wave of cold air hit Gu Ziyao, raising goosebumps on her arms.
She was invited to sit on the sofa, where the woman brought her a cup of tea, saying Mrs. Shen would be down shortly.
Gu Ziyao sat on the sofa but didn’t touch the tea.
She looked around, noticing an open magazine on the coffee table, folded at a page featuring a report on European vineyards. A neatly folded light-gray cashmere blanket lay draped over the armrest.
In the corner stood a curio shelf displaying several porcelain pieces, one with a small chip but still kept there, not discarded.
This room bore traces of life, of human presence—but it didn’t belong to her.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Mother Shen descended from the second floor. In her fifties, she was well-maintained, wearing a dark blue cheongsam with her hair coiled at the back of her head and a pair of pearl earrings.
Her facial features bore some resemblance to Shen Junyan’s, especially the eyes and brows—equally cool and distant.
“Miss Gu?” Mother Shen’s voice was not loud, but it carried a natural sense of detachment.