Lili cooked dinner.
After she and Xiaoye finished eating.
Xiaoye lay against the window, gazing longingly at the sky. “Mommy, is the fireworks display from your studio happening tonight?”
Lili was a fireworks designer. She had a fireworks studio under Pei Corporation.
Three months ago, it had won the bid to design the fireworks display for the city-center plaza.
She and her team had devoted three months of painstaking effort to it and gone through countless tests.
Only then had they designed the fireworks display “The Galaxy Gives You.”
The fireworks would make their debut on New Year’s Eve—in other words, tonight.
Lili walked over.
She crouched down in front of the child and asked patiently, “Does Xiaoye want to go to the plaza to watch the fireworks?”
Xu Xiaoye nodded vigorously.
Just then.
Lili’s phone rang, and the words “Husband” flashed across the screen.
Lili’s expression darkened slightly.
She answered the call.
After making sure Shen Qingli could hear him, Pei Wendu said softly, “Lili, I’ll go back and pick you and Xiaoye up to watch the fireworks at the plaza. I’ll be there in about half an hour. Get ready. It’s quite cold today, so wear something warm.”
Lili naturally did not want to go.
But Xiaoye, beside her, was eager to try, his large, watery eyes filled with anticipation.
Lili pressed her lips together and said, “All right.”
The call ended.
Lili put Xu Xiaoye in a thick down jacket, wrapped him in the cashmere scarf she had knitted herself, and bundled the child up into a plump little dumpling.
She put on a white down jacket herself as well.
Mother and child finished getting ready.
Xu Xiaoye was already impatient. “Mommy, I’ll wait for Uncle at the door!”
Lili checked the time. There were about five minutes left.
She picked up her bag and led Xu Xiaoye straight outside.
Snow was still falling.
Xu Xiaoye squatted at the entrance of the villa, rolling snowballs.
Minute after minute passed.
Xu Xiaoye was trembling from the cold. He pressed himself tightly against Lili’s side and spoke with a nasal voice. “Why hasn’t Uncle come yet?”
Lili checked her phone. Pei Wendu was already thirty minutes late.
Lili soothed Xu Xiaoye.
She took her phone from her pocket. The low temperature instantly reddened her fingertips, and she called Pei Wendu.
Pei Wendu did not answer.
More than ten seconds later, he called back. “Lili, I’m sorry. Something came up on my end, and I really can’t get away. I have no way to go pick you and Xiaoye up. The snow is falling so heavily, and I hate to think of you and Xiaoye getting frozen out here. Go to bed early and get some rest.”
Lili opened her mouth.
She wanted to ask Pei Wendu why he could not have said so earlier, leaving them to wait foolishly in the wind and snow for more than half an hour.
But before the words caught in her throat could leave her mouth, Song Mingyan’s bright, coquettish laughter came clearly through the receiver. “Brother, let me give you half of my candied hawthorn! Hee-hee!”
Pei Wendu quickly hung up.
Lili took a deep breath. The icy air rushed into her windpipe, and she suddenly coughed twice.
Xu Xiaoye noticed that something was wrong with Lili’s mood.
The little boy hurriedly hugged Lili’s leg and raised his head. “Mommy, I don’t want to watch the fireworks anymore. Let’s go home and sleep!”
While ordering a car through the phone app, Shen Qingli hugged Xu Xiaoye. “Mommy will take you.”
She paid extra to call a car.
Twenty minutes later.
Shen Qingli and Xu Xiaoye appeared at the central plaza. On New Year’s Eve, the plaza was ablaze with lights, and crowds streamed through it like a weaving shuttle.
She brought Xu Xiaoye up to a relatively high viewing platform.
They had just steadied themselves.
Shen Qingli’s gaze swept unintentionally across the bobbing heads in the crowd, and she saw Pei Wendu and Song Mingyan.
At that moment.
There was no longer any surprise in Shen Qingli’s heart, much less any anger.
All that remained was a calm serenity.
As if.
This was exactly how things were supposed to be.
One of them was cheating within his marriage, while the other knowingly acted as the third party. They seemed destined to appear at all sorts of occasions that could prove they were a couple, pretending to be an ordinary pair of lovers, pretending they were not a pair of adulterers.
Shen Qingli silently took out her phone.
The giant countdown clock in the plaza began to chime.
The crowd erupted in a unified chant.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!…”
“One! Happy New Year—!”
Amid the deafening cheers, the first enormous firework shrieked into the pitch-black night sky and exploded with a thunderous roar.
Countless brilliant golden streamers instantly cascaded down, illuminating most of the sky—and Shen Qingli’s phone screen.
On Shen Qingli’s phone screen, every couple at the scene was kissing amid the cries of “Happy New Year.” In the very center of the screen were, unmistakably, Pei Wendu and Song Mingyan.
Shen Qingli lowered her phone.
The prelude fireworks ended, and it was time for the debut of “The Galaxy Gives You.”
Several bands of light in different colors spiraled gracefully into the sky. Upon reaching their highest point, they spread and intertwined with elegant grace, transforming into a starry vault that slowly unfurled, its radiance flowing and shifting.
Exclamations rose and fell around her.
Shen Qingli smiled from the bottom of her heart.
Her work.
Had been liked by so many people.
It was her honor.
When the fireworks display ended, many people hailed taxis and prepared to head to their next destinations.
The taxi Shen Qingli had ordered was already number thirty-six in the queue.
She decisively canceled the order.
Taking Xu Xiaoye by the hand, she found Pei Wendu.
“What a coincidence.”
“Lili.”
Pei Wendu quickly let go of Song Mingyan’s hand and smiled faintly. “It’s so cold out. Why did you still bring Xiaoye here?”
Pei Wendu stepped forward.
He enclosed one of Shen Qingli’s hands between both of his and rubbed it anxiously before bringing it to his lips to warm it with his breath.
Shen Qingli silently pulled her hand back. Her gaze moved between Pei Wendu and Song Mingyan. “You two came to celebrate the New Year together?”
The expression on Pei Wendu’s face stiffened for two seconds. He pinched Shen Qingli’s cheek. “It’s cold, and I couldn’t bear to let you come out and freeze. But I also regretted that you wouldn’t get to see the fireworks you designed rise into the sky. Mingyan can film, so I specifically asked her to come and record the whole thing for you. Tomorrow, I’ll have the irrelevant people edited out and send it to you.”
With a faint, knowing smile, she curved her lips into a tiny dimple, delicate and beautiful. “Is that all?”
Song Mingyan spoke first. “Sister, did you misunderstand—”
Shen Qingli turned her head and looked calmly at Song Mingyan. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you that when no one is asking you a question, you should keep quiet?”
Song Mingyan’s face flushed red.
Shen Qingli let out an “oh” as if she had suddenly realized something. “I forgot. Your parents don’t like you, so you have no parents to teach you.”
“That’s enough!”
The patience on Pei Wendu’s face finally vanished completely. “Are you suspecting me? Lili, don’t you know how I treat you? In my eyes, Mingyan is just my own younger sister. If an older brother brings his younger sister out to watch some fireworks, isn’t that only natural—even if it wasn’t to film them for you?”
“Tomorrow is the day the company goes public. I’ve been so busy lately that my feet have barely touched the ground. I’m already exhausted in both body and mind, yet I still have to make time to comfort you and deal with your inexplicable jealousy. Can’t you put yourself in my shoes and think about things from my perspective?”
“Your stepfather is waiting for me to invest, your younger brother is waiting for me to pay the annual rent, and Xiaoye is about to undergo cochlear implant surgery. Lili, if I didn’t love you, would I take care of all those burdens you carry behind you? Your suspicion today has truly made me feel very hurt.”
This was the first time Shen Qingli had seen Pei Wendu fly into a rage out of shame.
She suddenly thought of a saying.
When you suspect him wrongly, he is gentle.
When you suspect him correctly, he flies into a rage.
Because a person is most likely to lose control when he feels the guiltiest.
Shen Qingli took one step forward.
She raised her hand and gently brushed the snowflakes from the shoulder of Pei Wendu’s overcoat.
Her voice carried a hollow gentleness. “How could I suspect you? Adu, you said yourself that you treat her as your own younger sister. If the two of you had something going on, wouldn’t that be incest? This is a civilized society. Only beasts would do something like that.”
The corner of Pei Wendu’s mouth twitched violently.
Shen Qingli gently tugged at the corners of her lips. “It’s getting late. Let’s go back. Adu, you still have a tough battle ahead of you.”