My Queen, My Rules - 97
Extra: Comprehensive Epilogue
New Year's Eve, eight in the morning.
Outside, firecrackers popped and crackled, occasionally punctuated by the giggles of children playing.
Gu Kaiyang tugged off her sleep mask, yawned again, and slowly sat up in bed, lifting both arms overhead to stretch out her laziness.
Her work kept her busy. All year long, the only time she could truly sleep to her heart's content was during the few days off for the New Year.
Her phone, left on the nightstand, kept lighting up automatically as New Year greeting messages came in one after another.
She didn't look. These days, she no longer had to keep her nerves wound tight, clutching her phone at all times for fear of missing an important call from a superior.
Gu Kaiyang was thirty-five this year, editor in chief of Zero Degree, one of China's top men's magazines. A few years earlier, she had stepped into the public eye after appearing on a dating reality show featuring ordinary people, and had gradually built herself into a prominent fashion blogger with thirty million followers on Weibo.
The little loft apartment she had once emptied her savings to buy had long since been replaced by a panoramic luxury flat overlooking the river in one of the country's first-tier cities. Her Beetle, too, had given way to a Ferrari.
The life she had once imagined for herself at fifteen had been completely realized by the time she turned thirty-five.
The only slight imperfection, perhaps, was that at thirty-five, she was still alone.
Gu Kaiyang hadn't dated anyone in all these years. She had neither the time nor met anyone she found appealing enough to be worth spending that time on.
If she traced her last real flutter of the heart back far enough, it would probably lead to Zhou Jiaheng, whom she had met while filming that reality show.
Zhou Jiaheng was now the de facto head of Junyi Group. A few years earlier, he had married a gentle, beautiful high school English teacher.
Gu Kaiyang had been on a business trip in Milan at the time and could not attend the wedding, so she had sent a suitably generous wedding gift through WeChat instead.
For nearly half a month afterward, Ji Mingshu and Jiang Chun had spoken to her with exaggerated caution, afraid of accidentally stepping on a landmine and upsetting her.
Gu Kaiyang found it both helpless and amusing.
She truly did not think there was anything that needed tiptoeing around. When she'd joined the show back then, she had indeed been a little interested in Zhou Jiaheng. He was an excellent catch, graceful and measured in the way he dealt with people, and with the other male contestants making him look even better by comparison, it had been perfectly natural for her to develop feelings for him. She had never denied that.
But Gu Kaiyang wasn't the sort of person who could pick something up and then refuse to put it down. Nothing had ever begun between them in the first place, and Zhou Jiaheng had never had any feelings for her. She was feeling down for a few days, and then, as far as she was concerned, she turned the page and moved on.
She had explained to Ji Mingshu and Jiang Chun more than once that it was all in the past, but those two watched enough melodramas to keep writing imaginary subplots for her. There was really only so much helplessness she could muster.
Though she was already awake, Gu Kaiyang had no desire to get out of bed and wash up, much less go outside for breakfast. There was only one reason. The moment she came face-to-face with her parents and all the assorted aunts and uncles who had come over for the New Year's Eve reunion dinner, the conversation would inevitably turn to finding her a man.
In a big city like the capital, being thirty-five, single, and unmarried was hardly unusual. But the moment she returned to her hometown, no matter how capable she was or how much money she made, she couldn't escape being labeled a “leftover woman.”
Sometimes she even felt an urge not to come home for the New Year at all.
People in her hometown tended to favor sons over daughters. When Gu Kaiyang had been an only child, her parents had never shown any obvious signs of that attitude, and they had even supported her in going abroad to study design.
She had always thought her parents were different. Then, in the year she graduated from university, they had given birth to a son without even telling her beforehand, and every so often they reminded her that since they had paid for her education abroad, she would have to do everything she could to support her younger brother in the future.
Little by little, her relationship with her family had somehow grown distant. After she started working, the money she sent home increased year by year, while their phone calls became fewer and fewer. Add seven or eight years of relentless matchmaking and marriage pressure, and whatever affection remained had been worn thinner and thinner. Eventually, they could barely find anything to say to one another.
She lay there for another half hour, but the noise outside kept growing louder. Her aunts and assorted relatives had probably all arrived by now, and even she couldn't justify hiding in bed any longer.
She got up, washed and did her makeup, then picked up her phone and glanced at it.
Zhan Xingyi: [Editor-in-Chief Gu, Happy New Year’s Eve! /grinning]
Seeing the latest WeChat message was from Zhan Xingyi, Gu Kaiyang was mildly surprised.
Zhan Xingyi was a male celebrity, officially twenty-seven, though judging by her own estimate, he was probably a year or two older. Fortunately, he had a distinctly boyish quality about him. After several years of struggling without much to show for it, he had shot to fame over the past two years on the strength of two hit dramas, quickly joining the ranks of the hottest young male stars.
She and Zhan Xingyi occasionally crossed paths for work. Before the New Year, when she had just returned from a business trip to Paris, she happened to run into him after a group of obsessive fans had forced him to swap clothes with his assistant. Unfortunately, even after changing his appearance, he was recognized by passersby who were fans of his and could not get away for quite some time. Without thinking much of it, she had casually provided cover for him and then happened to give him a ride back to the hotel where he was staying.
Zhan Xingyi had thanked her profusely at the time. She hadn't been shy about accepting his gratitude either, asking him on the spot for a stack of signed photos. She figured they would come in handy when she returned home for the New Year, perfect for handing out to the young girls among her relatives who were obsessed with celebrities.
Seeing Zhan Xingyi's WeChat message, Gu Kaiyang stared at it for two seconds. For the sake of those signed photos, she casually typed back: [Happy New Year's Eve.]
After receiving her reply, Zhan Xingyi began carefully considering how to keep the conversation going. Gu Kaiyang, however, thought nothing of it. She tossed her phone aside after replying and went outside to mingle with her relatives.
By the time the reunion dinner began, both round tables in the living room were packed. As the most successful person in the Gu family, and the thirty-four-year-old "leftover woman" who still hadn't married, Gu Kaiyang was naturally the center of everyone's attention. And the topic orbiting that center was, predictably, dating and marriage.
Knowing this was coming, Gu Kaiyang had prepared herself well in advance. After all, they only saw one another once a year. Whatever they said, she could simply listen politely and respond politely. It wasn't as though she would lose a piece of flesh.
Her mental preparation was more than sufficient, but there were always a few relatives who had an astonishing talent for taking an inch and demanding a mile, acting as though they were the center of the universe and using the guise of concerned elders to make themselves feel superior.
Gu Kaiyang endured it again and again. Finally, when a distant aunt from somewhere ten counties away offered to introduce her to a nearly forty-year-old junior civil servant who had already been married once, she couldn't hold back any longer. In the same drippingly sarcastic tone, she shot back, "Auntie, I think you might have a misunderstanding about what counts as good conditions. His salary for a whole year isn't even as high as the interest my money earns in the bank in one month. How exactly am I supposed to live with that?"
The aunt’s face flushed red, then turned pale. “But he’s an honest man!”
Gu Kaiyang gave a soft scoff. "There's a university of science and engineering right across from our house. I could find myself a male student and support him for a few hundred thousand a month. I'm sure he'd be pretty honest too. Plus, he'd be young, and I wouldn't have to help raise someone else's kid."
"Gu Kaiyang!"
"You're in your thirties. How can you still don’t know how to speak properly!”
Her mother set down her chopsticks and scolded her sternly.
Gu Kaiyang said, "It’s fine if I don’t know how to speak. As long as I know how to make money.”
The atmosphere around the table turned awkward. The other relatives hurried to change the subject and smooth things over. Having finally gotten all that pent-up anger out of her system, Gu Kaiyang had no desire to stay any longer. She casually made up an excuse and left the table.
She was just about to report her glorious victory to her friends when she opened WeChat and discovered several new messages from Zhan Xingyi.
Zhan Xingyi: [Thanks again for covering for me last time.]
Zhan Xingyi: [By the way, Editor Gu, what are you doing for the New Year?]
Zhan Xingyi: [Are you in the capital?]
Gu Kaiyang wasn't some naive young girl. She stared at the messages for quite a while before picking up on the unusual implication behind them.
She carefully thought back over her previous interactions with Zhan Xingyi.
He was actually pretty sunny.
A little puppy-like.
He had a good reputation in the industry.
But he wasn't even thirty.
Gu Kaiyang didn't know what she was thinking. After a long while, she finally replied with a question of her own: [What about you?]
Zhan Xingyi replied instantly: [I'm in the capital.]
Zhan Xingyi: [Spending the New Year alone this year.]
Zhan Xingyi: [If you're in the capital, want to have a drink tonight and watch the New Year's Gala?]
Gu Kaiyang stared at the words "watch the New Year's Gala" for quite a while before she finally failed to suppress the curve of her lips.
Gu Kaiyang: [Sure.]
After sending the message, she opened a flight-booking app and booked herself a ticket back to the capital.
---
New Year's Eve, two in the afternoon.
The snow had stopped in the capital, leaving a thick layer of fresh snow covering the ground. Jiang Chun and Tang Zhizhou were making dumplings in the courtyard with their children.
In the third year of their marriage, Jiang Chun and Tang Zhizhou had welcomed twin boys. Their grandmother had named them Tang Jingxing and Tang Xingzhi.
Jiang Chun had gone out of her way to look up the origin of the names: “The mountain is admired, the lofty path is revered.”
After reading the explanation, she had even whispered her complaint to Tang Zhizhou. "Jingxing goes with high mountains. Do you think his grandmother thought Tang Gaoshan(High Mountain) wasn’t as nice-sounding as Tang Xingzhi, so she didn't give them matching names? And besides, those two names are such a mouthful. We could've just called them Tang Dalu (Big Road) and Tang Gaoshan. Much easier to say."
So whenever Jiang Chun got angry, she would shout:
"Tang Gaoshan! If you don't eat your dinner right now, you can forget about eating ever again!"
"Tang Dalu! Turn off the TV right now! Otherwise, you can forget about watching Ultraman for the rest of your life!"
After being subjected to daily brainwashing by his demonic mother, little Tang Jingxing once wrote his own name as Tang Dalu on a first-grade exam. The paper was later filed with the papers of another child in a different class who was actually named Tang Dalu, causing quite the hilarious mix-up.
Jiang Chun, however, showed no sign of repentance. Even while making dumplings for the New Year, she didn't forget to use the boys’ beloved nicknames to urge them on.
“Tang Gaoshan, where are the pleats on your dumplings? You made them so ugly that our little Zhuo-bao definitely won't eat them."
"Tang Dalu, don't put in so much meat! Zhuo-bao is still so little. How could she possibly eat a piece that huge?"
That's right. Jiang Chun had been plotting far ahead. From the moment Zhuo-bao was born into Ji Mingshu's family, she had mentally reserved the little girl as her future daughter-in-law, taking her own two boys to visit Zhuo-bao-meimei every few days just to make sure they stayed on her radar, while encouraging the two boys to compete fairly for her affection.
But no matter how much Jiang Chun urged them on, the dumplings the two boys eventually produced were still hideous enough to make anyone lose their appetite.
On their way to the Ji residence to deliver the dumplings, Jiang Chun let out a worried sigh. "If I'm relying on those two, I might never get to become in-laws with my dear Xiao Shu in this lifetime."
Tang Zhizhou backed the car smoothly into the garage, leaned over to unfasten her seat belt, then reached over and rubbed her belly, his voice full of laughter. “You can rely on her too.”
Mm... The baby in her belly had already been confirmed to be a girl. If she were to become Cen Yan's wife, there would not be anything wrong with that, either.
At the thought, Jiang Chun once again smiled until her eyes narrowed into happy crescents.
---
New Year's Eve, seven in the evening.
As usual, Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen spent the afternoon at the Ji residence and returned to Nanqiao Hutong in the evening. The main difference from before was that now, whenever they went out, they had to bring Little Cen Yan and Little Cen Zhuo along too.
That evening, Little Cen Zhuo ate two of the dumplings her little Goose Auntie had brought over, then opened her tiny mouth and began nodding off. Little Cen Yan and the other children from the Cen family carried several cardboard boxes out of the trunk, all excitedly preparing to set off fireworks.
Ji Mingshu had eaten a little too much. She coyly clung to Cen Sen and coaxed him into taking a walk with her to help her digest.
Nanqiao Hutong had remained unchanged all these years. It had also been included in the plans to restore the old historic streets, so it might well retain its original appearance for years to come.
The snow was deep. Ji Mingshu picked her way forward in her little sheepskin boots, sinking deep into some patches and shallow into others. Looking at the familiar streetscape, she couldn't help recalling memories from long ago.
"Do you remember that you confessed your feelings to me on New Year's Eve one year? Right here." Ji Mingshu stopped beside the utility pole at the mouth of the lane and suddenly became sentimental.
Cen Sen gently wrapped his arms around her from behind. "I remember."
Ji Mingshu seemed to have thought of something, and the corners of her lips curled upward before she could stop them.
"Hm? What's so funny?"
Ji Mingshu quickly suppressed her smile, then cleared her throat with exaggerated seriousness. "Nothing... I just think this is exactly what people mean when they say whoever falls in love first loses. Look at you. You confessed to me first, and now you're completely wrapped around my finger, right? So I think we need to raise our little Zhuo-bao to be a little more aloof when she grows up. That way she won’t be so easily tricked away. Don't you agree?"
Cen Sen could not help remembering the secret confession Ji Mingshu had made while he was asleep back then. The corners of his lips lifted slightly, but he merely followed her lead and agreed, “Mm. Right.”
---
New Year's Eve, midnight.
Fireworks burst in clusters into the night sky, and in an instant, the capital's silent night was lit up as bright as day.
Gu Kaiyang and Zhan Xingyi, bundled up until only their eyes were visible, smiled as they clinked glasses in a little bar and wished each other a Happy New Year.
Jiang Chun and Tang Zhizhou sat at the dining table with their two boys, eating steaming-hot dumplings while counting down along with the hosts on television;
Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen had finished building four little snowmen in wonderfully abstract shapes in the courtyard. Zhuo-bao was still asleep, and Little Cen Yan thoughtfully covered her little ears.
The old year's contract expired at this very moment, and the new year renewed it.
May year after year, season after season, bring us back to this very day, this very moment.
---
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