Meng Xianwen stood beneath the shower, letting the water pour over him, when the door suddenly slammed open. Even he looked startled as he turned toward the entrance.
Ning Zhen didn’t care in the slightest that he was showering. At that moment, her mind and eyes were filled with only one thing: the enormous diamond ring on her left ring finger.
Her expression was complicated.
There was the delight of receiving a piece of jewelry exactly to her liking, along with the irritation of having a whole stomachful of questions she wanted to hurl at him.
Steam billowed through the bathroom, blurring her view.
Under normal circumstances, Ning Zhen wouldn’t even have approached him, much less walked in on her own. But after tossing and turning in bed, unable to hold back all the questions crowding her mind, she had thrown off the covers and charged in with righteous fury.
Meng Xianwen’s expression shifted slightly. Without turning off the shower, he continued washing himself calmly, as if he had not been the one to slip the diamond ring onto her finger while she slept. Completely composed, he said, “Why are you up so early? Want to take a shower?”
“I’m not showering, Meng Xianwen!”
Ning Zhen shouted, breathing unevenly.
She wanted to throw her arms around him, yet she also wanted to strangle him. How could anyone be this infuriating? They slept in the same bed every night, and she had never known he was planning to propose.
No, wait. She had nearly let him anger her into losing her head. Why had she decided this was a proposal, anyway?
She refused to acknowledge it! Who proposed like this?
He, on the other hand, remained calm and unruffled. Wiping the hot water from his face, he said evenly, “Be good and hand me a towel.”
Ning Zhen glared at him before finally realizing that he was in the middle of a shower.
She pressed her lips together. Even her thin nightdress seemed dampened by the heat. She knew she ought to turn around and leave, but he had dangled bait in front of her, and she was unwilling to let the conversation end there. Her gaze wandered as she reluctantly took a few steps inside. Just as she was about to rise onto her toes and reach for the neatly folded towel, a warm body pressed against her from behind and an arm wrapped around her waist.
“Hey, you… don’t…”
The clean, crisp scent of shaving cream brushed past her ear and down her neck. He kissed and sucked at her skin with shameless insistence, testing whether her pulse had begun to race.
He knew exactly where she was vulnerable.
Ning Zhen’s breathing grew ragged, and the skin he had kissed flushed red. If her resolve had not been so firm at that very moment, he might truly have broken through her defenses inch by inch.
She managed to pull away and turn around, bracing her right hand against his shoulder. Her eyes fixed on the ring, still glittering brilliantly through the hazy steam. Her voice came quick and urgent.
“What is this? What do you mean? Explain yourself!”
He smiled faintly but did not look at the diamond. Instead, he caught her hand and pressed kisses to her fingers.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to be with me forever?”
As he spoke, he lifted her effortlessly with one arm and set her on the sturdy vanity. Then he bent over and buried his face against the side of her neck, licking and biting at her skin.
“…”
Ning Zhen was completely defeated. She finally understood.
He had taken what she said the previous night—“I want to be with you forever”—as a translation and elaboration of “I do.”
In truth, when a couple had a stable relationship and reached a certain age, people were bound to start asking when they planned to get married. Ning Zhen was not yet the one approaching thirty, and even when Xiao Xuezhen and Meng Jingshan had tried to sound her out, she had always let the questions go in one ear and out the other.
She had assumed he felt the same way.
He had seemed even less concerned than she was.
But now that she thought about it, perhaps that had never been true.
He must have been preparing this ring for quite some time. In other words, while the two of them had been happily dating, this shameless man had already been thinking about marriage!
“This doesn’t count as a proposal!” she said breathlessly. “What kind of proposal is this? You didn’t even ask whether I was willing—ah!”
“Then are you willing?”
His tone was as casual as ever, but his actions were forceful.
Meng Xianwen knew exactly how to handle her. The moment he sensed that she was about to say she wasn’t willing out of sheer stubbornness, he seized her right hand and pressed it against the mirror, intending to remove the ring.
Seeing through his wicked plan, Ning Zhen immediately clenched her fist and used all her strength to stop him.
Her breathing was hurried, her cheeks flushed crimson, and her words came out broken by the movement of her body.
“I—I never said I—I wasn’t willing!”
Meng Xianwen’s hot breath brushed against her ear. He smiled knowingly.
It wasn’t that he had never considered a grander proposal.
But the grander the proposal, the more people would have to be involved.
She would never leave him. That was a matter between the two of them, and no one else had anything to do with it.
Apparently satisfied with her answer, he gave her a chance to catch her breath. Bracing one arm against the vanity, he lowered his head and kissed her collarbone.
“Don’t get too pleased with yourself.” The pressure in her chest temporarily eased, and Ning Zhen let out a breath. She turned her head away, trying to dodge him. “I never said I was willing, either. I need to think it over before I give you an answer. As for this ring, I’ll keep it here for now and do you the favor of looking after it. You’re careless and always losing things. Do you understand that I’m taking care of it for you?”
Her self-righteous expression was too amusing.
Meng Xianwen let out a low laugh, pulled her into his arms, and took control of her once again.
—
The first Saturday after they returned to the country.
Meng Xianwen had come back from leave, but there was still too much official business waiting for his review and approval. To him, weekends were no different from weekdays. Ning Zhen, on the other hand, was free. After sleeping until she woke naturally, she met Guo Xia at a restaurant to give her the souvenirs she had brought back from the trip.
She had deliberately reserved a private room.
After ordering their food, the server temporarily left. At Guo Xia’s urging, Ning Zhen took the ring from her bag, beaming as she showed it off.
“Here. This is the one.”
Guo Xia took it and examined it for a moment before shutting her eyes in pain and handing it back.
“Take it away. If I look at it for one more second, I’ll have to go assassinate your husband tonight. He has so much money that I hate him.”
Ning Zhen leaned against her shoulder and laughed without end.
“But did you say yes or no?” Guo Xia asked again.
“I agreed to half of it.” Ning Zhen took a sip of water, the corners of her lips curling upward. “The other half depends on how hard he works. Does he think one diamond ring is enough to marry me? He can dream!”
“You call that one diamond ring?”
Guo Xia couldn’t take it anymore and pushed her head away.
“I’m starting to hate you, too!”
Ning Zhen defended herself indignantly. “Buying this ring was no different from you buying a cake. It really was effortless for him. He chose a style, placed the order, transferred the money, and picked it up. Of course, I’m not saying he didn’t put any thought into it. He definitely did. But I don’t think it was enough. Xiaxia, do you think I’m being too fussy?”
If it had been a Valentine’s Day gift, the sincerity behind it would have been more than enough, and she would have been overjoyed and thrown herself into his arms.
But if the ring carried another meaning—if it represented a promise for a lifetime—
Then she felt it wasn’t enough.
Guo Xia pondered this. “Now that you put it that way, I understand.” Then she changed the subject. “So what are you going to do?”
Ning Zhen’s eyes shifted, clearly revealing that she already had a plan. It was as though she had found something more interesting to do amid their increasingly sweet and peaceful life. She lifted her chin arrogantly.
“You’ve got it wrong. It’s not what I’m going to do. It’s what he’s going to do!”
In the past, she and Meng Xianwen had always managed to match each other move for move, with neither able to claim a clear victory.
Wasn’t that because she understood his methods too well?
When going up against him, she absolutely could not take the problem onto herself and try to solve it or prove herself. She had to throw it back at him.
With that, she leaned close to Guo Xia’s ear and whispered for a long while.
When she finally finished, Guo Xia gave her a thumbs-up. The two of them looked at each other and smiled.
…
Ning Zhen had been busy for nearly half a month. During these more than half a month, Meng Xianwen was also patient. Since he returned to China, he never mentioned the follow - up of his proposal once, nor did he urge her to give an answer. No one knew whether he was really calm or just pretending.
One day, he had a business engagement and didn't get home until late at night.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, Ning Zhen hurriedly got out of bed and rushed out of the master bedroom. Unusually, she put her arms around his neck and didn't mind the faint smell of alcohol on him. She kissed his chin and thin lips. As he held her tighter, he also observed her suspiciously, "What's up again?"
He sounded as if he was sure she was up to something.
"I'm in a good mood and won't argue with you!"
She quickly explained her unusual behavior. She excitedly pulled him to the study, nodded towards the safe, and said, "You wanted to give me the status of your fiancée. I've thought about it for a long time and decided to accept it. Hey, be serious. Don't laugh!"
Meng Xianwen turned his face and had to hold back his smile.
After a busy day, the fatigue seemed to disappear completely at this moment, and his somewhat dull mood became strangely more cheerful and lighter.
He wasn't so confident as to think that she would definitely agree to get married now.
Most likely, it would end up in nothing.
But unexpectedly, she was willing.
"However!"
Ning Zhen emphasized these two words, warning him not to be too proud too soon. "I'll also give you the status of my fiancé. Whether you can get it depends on your ability. There's a men's ring in the safe. I bought it with my savings from years of work!"
"I asked Jiaran, that friend who sells safes, to reset the password. You have one chance to enter the password. If you fail once, the lock will be disabled for half a month. You have to keep trying until you open it. If you can't open it, I'll sell it on Xianyu!"
It's not that she didn't like him or his proposal.
But she didn't want to be the one who said "I do".
For such a major event in life, she wanted to be the protagonist and must steal the show.
Although she always called him "husband" in daily life, it was just for fun.
Deep in her heart, she wouldn't be so easily moved by a beautiful and shiny diamond ring and perhaps his heartfelt love words (which he hadn't even said) to the point of willing to spend the rest of her life with him.
The husband of Ning Zhen should not only love her but also understand her, thinking about her thoughts day and night and racking his brains.
Meng Xianwen was silent for a long time, staring straight at the safe containing his ring. He smiled faintly as if he was sure of victory. "Okay."
Ning Zhen gloated and was also very proud. "Come on, husband!"
-
One month passed, then two months. The northern city stepped into late autumn, but the safe door remained firmly closed.
Every time Meng Xianwen entered the password and the "wrong" message popped up, the instant tension on his face would make Ning Zhen secretly happy for half a month.
She found a long - lost kind of joy - watching this confident man enter the password confidently only to end up disappointed. How satisfying!
However, during the time of guessing the password she set, he got more deeply involved in her life and even her whole being. He knew the birthdays of her parents who gave her life, her college entrance examination score, and the date of her first day of internship.
Those little things he hadn't cared about before all came to the surface and were remembered by him.
To pick the sweet fruit, one must go through the winding path, and this path was also the 25 - year life path of Ning Zhen.
Vehicles sped along the broad road. The ginkgo leaves on the ground were wet by the rain and covered with a layer of frost. Winter came as scheduled.
One day, Meng Xianwen got off work early. Xiao Ding drove him to pick up Ning Zhen from the company, and then they were going to a birthday banquet of an old acquaintance to present their congratulations.
The inside of the car was warm and dry.
Meng Xianwen was closing his eyes and resting when his phone vibrated twice. It was an alarm reminding him that the once - every - half - month chance to enter the password had come.
He stared at the screen for a while. His headache was getting worse. He had some clues before, but now he had none. The repeated failures made him feel a rare sense of anxiety.
He rolled down the window. The cold wind rushed in. Meng Xianwen noticed that this wasn't the usual route. When the car stopped at a red light, Xiao Ding saw him frowning through the rear - view mirror and quickly explained, "Mr. Meng, there seems to be an obstacle on the previous road. The navigation shows a traffic jam, so I took another route. It will be faster."
Meng Xianwen responded with a grunt and casually looked out of the window.
The weather was gloomy. A little girl in a red down jacket was hopping on the sidewalk. Maybe she was finally out of school and very happy. Her parents were following behind.
Suddenly, he smiled.
He vaguely remembered that she also had such a down jacket before. It was puffy, and she looked like a red envelope in it.
Just as the car started moving.
A long - blurred picture flashed through Meng Xianwen's mind. A little girl with a ponytail was looking around curiously with a pair of round eyes. Suddenly, she looked up at the opened window on the second floor and locked eyes with a young boy who had just woken up from a nap.
She tilted her head and sized him up without any timidity, then grinned and smiled.
"Xiao Ding, change the route," he said in an authoritative tone. "There's still plenty of time. Take me home first."
After finishing her work, Ning Zhen habitually checked the location to see if he had arrived downstairs. But she was stunned. What was going on? The car was parked downstairs at home. What was he going home for at this moment?
She immediately opened the chat box and sent a question mark.
After waiting for a while and getting no reply, when she was about to call him, she suddenly guessed a possibility and her heart started pounding.
He must have something extremely urgent.
Something so urgent that he couldn't even wait a second to go home.
What could it be?
Had he guessed the password and was very certain?
Ning Zhen covered her face with both hands and laughed quietly. He'd better open the safe today. Otherwise, when he got home tonight, she would definitely mock him. "Oh, aren't you smart and capable? How come you can't even guess a six - digit password?"
At the same time.
Meng Xianwen swiped his fingerprint to enter the house. He didn't even have time to put on his slippers and rushed eagerly to the study. Standing in front of the safe, he took a deep breath and slowly entered six numbers.
Beep beep beep. Correct. Open.
The men's ring in the box was shining brightly. He held his breath and stared directly at it. Without hesitation, he put it on his ring finger. It fit perfectly. It was truly his ring.
A moment later, he realized there was a folded letter. He unfolded it.
"I knew you'd definitely open it.
Because you're Meng Xianwen.
Because you're the one I've chosen!
Congratulations on unlocking a new identity in life - the true love of Ning Zhen."
