Dawn and Dusk
Xie Corporation, Executive Conference Room
The sudden chime of Xie Xunzhao’s personal WeChat notification shattered the silence in the conference room.
The night before, Rong Ci had borrowed his phone to play with it and turned the volume all the way up without turning it back down. Now, the notification was deafening.
Everyone’s heart gave a startled thump.
Xie Xunzhao was accustomed to Rong Ci using him as her personal memo pad. He had intended to lower the volume and continue the meeting. After all, she never sent just one or two messages at a time. But when he saw the photo, his gaze paused slightly.
The man seated at the head of the table was openly slacking off in front of everyone. The executives exchanged glances.
Xie Xunzhao raised his eyes and gave Su Qingyan a faint look.
Secretary Su, the ever-composed chief secretary, immediately stepped in and stabilized the situation. “The meeting has run long. President Xie is considerate of everyone’s hard work and has arranged some refreshments. We’ll take a thirty-minute break.”
The executives were curious, of course, but none dared make it too obvious. They gratefully took the opportunity Secretary Su had offered.
Before long, the enormous conference room was empty, with only Xie Xunzhao remaining.
In just two minutes, nearly ten more messages from Rong Ci came flooding in.
Xie Xunzhao didn’t rush to read them. His gaze remained on the photo.
Rong Ci was smiling at the camera, the sun behind her like a blazing ball of fire. The brilliant light fell on her, on her skin, yet somehow seemed impossibly gentle, as though even the scorching sun was showing her special favor.
Beneath the bright, almost white conference-room lights, the man’s dark eyes held no trace of frivolity. Instead, he seemed lost in thought.
Xie Xunzhao recalled the conversation with Meng Lingzhou before his marriage to Rong Ci last year.
His feelings for Rong Ci had never been those of a brother. Now that they were legally married, it was only natural that he wanted them to be husband and wife in every sense of the word.
It was just that…
When it came to her health, Xie Xunzhao would never be careless, not even in the slightest.
Meng Lingzhou’s words still rang in his ears.
“She’s been physically frail for years. Getting her health back on track won’t happen overnight.”
“You can think of it this way: her bone age is still that of a minor.”
And yet now…
Looking at this photograph, no one would think Rong Ci hadn’t fully developed.
Xie Xunzhao held down the image to save it, then unhurriedly scrolled down.
Astraia: [Look at Zeus! Hahahaha! A cat doing the doggy paddle! Photo.jpg]
Astraia: [The sunshine is so lovely today. Photo.jpg]
Astraia: [Brother, look at my swimming! Isn’t my form amazing? Everyone says I look like a mermaid! Video]
Astraia: [!!! I was wondering why Xiao Xiao was giggling when she took my picture just now. Brother, how could you bite my neck?!]
When Xie Xunzhao reached the last message, a trace of amusement flickered in his eyes.
Helios: [I’ll be gentler next time.]
[And Mumu, that wasn’t biting. That was kissing you.]
Rong Ci immediately fired back: [Next time, I’ll bite you back!]
But before she got the chance, Xie Xunzhao finalized a business trip.
Country A. One week. A six o’clock morning flight.
It happened to fall just before Rong Ci’s semester started. The night before he left, in the walk-in closet…
Rong Ci sat cross-legged inside Xie Xunzhao’s silver-white suitcase, her long skirt spilled over the edge and spread across the carpet. She reached down to pull the trailing fabric back inside, then tilted her head to look at Xie Xunzhao, who was standing before the full-length mirror, adjusting his clothes.
He had already changed into a suit; the satin fabric lent him an air of understated luxury, with an unusually elaborate brooch on his chest.
It was shaped like a planet, inlaid with a tiny heart-shaped preserved leaf, supported at the very bottom by a miniature bow and arrow — exquisite and unique.
“Brother, take me with you.”
Hearing the plaintive plea, Xie Xunzhao fastened his watch and glanced sideways at her.
She was slender and delicate, sitting inside that enormous suitcase like a life-sized doll, as if she really could be packed up and taken along.
She might have grown up, but her personality hadn’t changed.
Xie Xunzhao remembered visiting Rong Ci every winter and summer break. Whenever it was time for him to leave as the new semester approached, she would behave exactly as she was now.
Little Rong Ci had been even smaller back then. She really could fit inside his suitcase.
When she was three, she had once waited until all the adults were distracted, then secretly climbed into his suitcase and even fastened the lock herself. Fortunately, he noticed something was wrong in time and rescued the little troublemaker, who had been turning red from lack of air but was too afraid to make a sound.
When she was discovered, Rong Ci had looked as though the sky had fallen.
And every time they had to part after that… Rong Ci would cry terribly at the airport.
She rarely cried under ordinary circumstances. It was only whenever Xie Xunzhao had to leave that she developed an almost uncontrollable tendency to burst into tears.
On several occasions, Xie Xunzhao had been unable to leave at all under the assault of her big, rolling tears.
He could only slip away while she was asleep in the middle of the night.
After that happened two or three times, Rong Ci learned her lesson. Every night, she insisted on sleeping with her arms around her brother.
No one else was allowed to take his place. No matter what anyone said, she wouldn’t listen.
At the airport…
Rong Ci clung to Xie Xunzhao’s leg. “Brother, Mumu won’t let you go!”
Her father, Rong Huaian, picked her up. “Your brother has to go to school.”
Rong Ci stretched both arms toward Xie Xunzhao, leaning so far out of her father’s embrace that half her body was practically hanging in the air.
“I want to go to school with Brother too! Brother, take me with you!”
Her biological brother, Rong Qingtiao, drawled lazily, “The school doesn’t accept little kids. Wait until you’ve grown a few more years.”
Rong Ci turned around, her expression utterly serious. “Dad, buy Brother’s school.”
Buying the school was out of the question.
Rong Huaiyan doted on his daughter, but he had no intention of raising a spoiled little tyrant.
First, she wanted him to buy a school. What would she ask him to buy next? People?
In the end, it was Xie Xunzhao who picked Rong Ci up and agreed to all sorts of demands.
For example, they had to video-call every day. And he had to think about her a thousand times a day. Back then, Rong Ci could only count as high as a thousand.
Rong Ci had always been incredibly clingy with Xie Xunzhao. No one else would do. It had been that way more than ten years ago, and it was still the same today.
Xie Xunzhao bent down and lifted her out of the suitcase. Her silky skirt brushed against his black suit trousers, stirring the faintest ripple in the air. “It’s still early. Go back to sleep for a while.”
Rong Ci was lying on the bed, but her arms were looped around his neck, refusing to let go.
“You’ll be gone for seven days. That’s so long.”
“My semester starts the day after tomorrow. And once I go back to school, it’ll be ages before I see you again.”
Rong Ci looked up at him with pleading eyes.
Her university was in Shencheng, even farther away than Lingcheng.
“I’ll come see you after my business trip.” Xie Xunzhao gently held her wrist.
“Oh.” Rong Ci puffed out her cheeks. “Then you have to think about me every day.”
“You can have a pass not to think about me while you’re working. Actually, forget that. Here’s the rule: think about me once before you go to work every morning, once before you go to sleep, and once at each mealtime. You have to think about me regularly.”
“And whenever I message you, you have to reply to every single one.”
“You can’t just reply to the last message.”
They looked at each other for several seconds.
The man’s eyes were dark and deep, like a still, bottomless pool, simply watching her without saying anything.
Seeing his silence, Rong Ci furrowed her delicate brows. “Are you—”
Her words abruptly died in her throat.
Xie Xunzhao’s Adam’s apple shifted slightly. In the end, he couldn’t resist. He bent down and, through the thin fabric, pressed a kiss to her flat stomach.
Then he murmured, “Grow up quickly, okay?”
~~
Xie Xunzhao had kissed Rong Ci in many places before: her fingers, her forehead, her lips, even her neck. None of those kisses had ever given her such a subtle, strange feeling.
Except for the one on the morning he left for his business trip. He had kissed her stomach.
Even after returning to school, Rong Ci could still feel the warmth lingering on that patch of skin. “Ci Bao, are you going back to the dorm to rest at noon?”
After their morning classes ended, Rong Ci and her roommate, Shu Yuzhan, walked downstairs arm in arm.
Although Rong Ci didn’t live on campus, she occasionally stayed in the dormitory during lunch breaks when her class schedule was particularly packed.
“Let’s go back.”
Rong Ci glanced at the time. She had to head to her afternoon class at one-thirty.
There were still plenty of classes in the fourth year of the architecture program, with two or three days a week packed from morning to evening. The assignments were demanding, too.
It hadn’t even been a week since the semester began, and although Rong Ci was busy, she never forgot to contact Xie Xunzhao every day.
If she spotted a little patch of grass growing in a particularly perfect shape along the way, she’d take a picture and send it to him. And of course, she had to report in after class.
Rong Ci was looking down at her phone, her lashes lowered as she typed, when Shu Yuzhan suddenly tugged at her arm. “Look over there. Someone’s confessing to a girl downstairs at our dorm.”
Curious, Rong Ci followed her gaze. A very tall young man stood beneath the huge camphor tree outside the dormitory, surrounded by a group of people.
The next second, he spotted her too.
He actually waved at her as though he knew her. “Hey, babe!”
Rong Ci:?
Who was this guy, calling her babe out of nowhere? How rude.
Even Brother had never called her that!
“Oh, my God!”
“Don’t tell me he’s confessing to you?” Shu Yuzhan stared at her in disbelief.
Rong Ci glanced sideways at her. “I don’t even know him.”
Shu Yuzhan seized on something else. “Don’t you read the confession wall? This exchange student has been all over it lately.”
“His Chinese name is Ying Jiaren. They say he’s mixed from four nationalities, grew up in Country F with his mother, so his Chinese isn’t very good, but his family background must be pretty impressive. He gets picked up and dropped off every day in a super-luxury car.”
“Most importantly, he’s far too handsome. Our university has never had a guy this good-looking!”
And so…
He had become an instant campus sensation the moment he arrived.
Even the usually quiet university forum had seen its number of new posts multiply several times over.
Tall, long-legged, blond, with deep blue eyes and strikingly defined features—genuinely very handsome.
But…
Not as handsome as Brother.
By then, Ying Jiaren had already walked over to Rong Ci, holding a huge bouquet. Roses mainly, mixed with all kinds of flowers.
He dropped to one knee without hesitation, as though he were certain that his carefully planned confession would succeed.
“Ever since I caught a glimpse of you at the university gate two days ago, I’ve fallen in love at first sight. Rong Ci, babe, will you be my girlfriend?”
Rong Ci took one look at the bouquet and spotted two kinds of flowers she was allergic to. She instinctively stepped back several paces.
“Say yes! Say yes!”
A group of onlookers began whispering and cheering.
“Get together! Get together! Get together!”
Quite a few people even pulled out their phones to take pictures.
Rong Ci took a couple of seconds to respond. “Thank you for your affection, but I already have a boyfriend, so I can’t accept.”
“Rong Ci, someone confessed to you last year, and you said you wanted to focus on your studies during university and weren’t considering a relationship. Where did this boyfriend come from?”
“Hahaha! Isn’t that just an excuse?”
Rong Ci: “…”
A slip of the tongue.
That had happened almost a year ago. How did people still remember?
Was she supposed to say: To be honest, I recently got married. Not dating, but I have a husband.
They would probably think she was making up an even bigger excuse.
Ying Jiaren gazed at her with eyes so tender they could have made even flowers and grass fall in love with him. “It’s all right if you don’t accept me. I’ll work hard to win your heart.”
“Rong Ci, sweetheart, please allow me to pursue you.”
By contrast, when Rong Ci met his gaze, her lowered lashes seemed to be veiled in sunlight, making her already pale eyes look even calmer and cooler.
His confession stirred not the slightest ripple in her.
She was just about to turn him down coldly when Jiang Zhuoqi happened to pass by and stepped in to help. “She really does have a boyfriend. Everyone, disperse.”
“Whoa! Jiang Zhuoqi! Don’t tell me you’re Goddess Rong’s boyfriend!”
“I knew it! That’s why you went all the way across campus to help Rong Ci carry her textbooks last time!”
Ying Jiaren declared, “I want to challenge you to a duel.”
Young men who had grown up overseas could be exceptionally quick learners, but differences in their cultural environments sometimes led them to make rather bewildering remarks.
Jiang Zhuoqi: “?”
“Let’s have a life-or-death duel!”
Seriously, brother. How about taking a few Chinese lessons first?
What the hell was this duel?
The situation spiraled into complete chaos.
A newly popular mixed-race campus heartthrob, whose looks had instantly outshone every other guy at the university.
A beautiful, low-key campus goddess who was famously aloof and reserved.
And a top academic who ranked first in his department year after year and had already secured a recommendation for graduate school.
“It’s a love triangle!”
“This is getting exciting!”
The G University campus forum hit a new record for traffic that day.
~~
Ten o’clock that evening, at the Cloud Club, Beicheng.
Xie Xunzhao had just gotten off the plane when he received a call from Chu Songlin.
If it had only been Jiang Fulan and Rong Qingtiao, that would have been one thing, but Pei Huaixu was there too.
For years, Pei Huaixu had been occupied with physics research, buried in his laboratory day after day. Whenever he went into seclusion, it lasted for years at a time. Getting him to come out was harder than summoning a god.
“Our little princess certainly has quite the appetite. A red flag standing firm at home and colorful banners fluttering outside, even playing love triangle now.”
Four men with equally exceptional intelligence were playing cards. Watching them was giving Chu Songlin a headache, so he took out his phone to give his brain a break and took a quick peek at the little princess’s daily study-life updates.
Who would have thought that instead of finding her study-life updates… He’d stumble across a love triangle first.
Xie Xunzhao casually tossed down his cards and took the phone. There were plenty of photos on the forum, some clear, some blurry, taken from near and far.
Xie Xunzhao’s gaze settled on Rong Ci’s face. She was smiling at someone else.
Under the dim lighting, the man’s handsome features seemed to be covered by a thin layer of frost. He glanced at the timestamp, and it had happened at noon.
His little chatterbox, who usually couldn’t resist telling him every last detail about the taste of all three meals each day, hadn’t said a single word about this.
Rong Qingtiao glanced over, then smiled. “Didn’t Rong Mumu tell you last time that the two of you were each other’s most trusted people? It’s just a few photos posted online. You’re not going to be bothered by that, are you?”
“Even if she were dating someone, it wouldn’t be a big deal. University students date for fun and gain some relationship experience.”
“The first requirement for becoming a son-in-law of the Rong family is being magnanimous.”
Xie Xunzhao stood up and picked up the suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair, and said in a calm voice, “He Jinyao started university this year too, didn’t she?”
“If you have time, give her some guidance as well. She can date a few people in university and gain some experience.”
Everyone in the private room turned to look at the two of them.
Both men were impeccably dressed in suits, refined and distinguished in appearance, and yet the things they were saying…
Pei Huaixu lifted the glass of wine beside him and remarked quietly, “Why do those two seem to have an even worse relationship than they did a few years ago?”
Weren’t they officially family now?
Why did it feel as though they were always one step away from coming to blows?
Those words were practically daggers.
Jiang Fulan smiled faintly. “Just get used to it.”
“There’s an inherent rivalry between a brother-in-law and a sister’s husband.”
“Stay out of their way. You don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”
Pei Huaixu: “…”
Clearly, this man had plenty of experience.
“Brother?”
Rong Ci was half asleep when she answered Xie Xunzhao’s call, holding the phone against her ear.
During the summer break, while staying at Mirror Lake Manor, she had developed a healthy routine. After nine o’clock, she’d start getting sleepy, and by ten, she’d be in bed.
“Mm?”
The man’s voice was low and deep; perhaps from drinking, it carried a slightly husky, magnetic quality as it came through the phone. “Did I wake you?”
Rong Ci seemed caught between sleep and wakefulness. Her cheek rested against the phone. “You didn’t wake me.”
“I wanted to hear Brother’s voice.”
“Can you talk to me a little longer?”
Her mind was muddled.
It seemed that she drifted back to sleep without hearing what he said next. She only felt as though she were wandering through a strange dream.
Thousands of miles apart, his voice seemed to come from the far reaches of the sky, faint and distant, like a clear breeze, and like Sanskrit chanting.
Rong Ci dreamed of the Deer King Jataka, the mural she had seen years ago in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang when she accompanied her mother to work on mural restoration.
The nine-colored deer seemed to have stepped right out of the painting.
She stared blankly at the sacred, noble creature, standing high above her on a bank of clouds, its presence untouchable.
The divine nine-colored deer, pure and holy, bestowing blessings and bringing good fortune.
Just like Xie Xunzhao. As long as he was there, she always seemed to be lucky, as though she were forever blessed.
And at that moment, the divine deer lowered its long, coral-like antlers toward her, piercing through the blazing sun and striking straight into her soul.
Rong Ci jolted awake. The spot where the antlers had pressed against her was burning hot, exactly where Xie Xunzhao had kissed her stomach.
The next second, a pair of familiar arms wrapped around her waist.
Xie Xunzhao whispered beside her ear, “Baby, what did you dream about to be breathing like that?”