As Liu Zhengyu needed to go on a business trip for three days, Yu Yi called a carpenter to build a swing in the Liu family garden. On the third evening, she set up wine and dishes near the swing.
At dusk, Liu Zhengyu returned home. Cui’er was waiting in the hall and immediately asked him to visit Hong Yan. Liu Zhengyu frowned slightly. Although he had listened to Jin Zhi and not punished Hong Yan, he still harbored resentment about her secretly using family funds to support her own family. He asked casually, “Is she feeling well?”
Cui’er answered that she was fine, so Liu Zhengyu said, “I’ll go see her after eating.”
Liu Zhengyu arrived at the main courtyard.
As soon as he entered, he smelled the aroma of food. Walking a few steps, he saw the swing set up. A few more steps, and he saw Jin Zhi, with wine and dishes beside the swing.
Jin Zhi was wearing a moon-white silk oblique-front short jacket, paired with a water-green satin long skirt. A slender waist was cinched with an autumn-green silk belt. Her hair was loosely pinned to the side, with three slender, long jade hairpins inserted in a fan shape. She hadn’t noticed him, sitting sideways on the swing, head slightly lowered.
Liu Zhengyu stared blankly at Jin Zhi’s side profile, suddenly feeling that her posture on the swing was beautiful. In a daze, he was transported back to his youth, when he would see her sitting on the swing in the courtyard, gently swaying back and forth, laughing with her sisters. Her smile was radiant and bright, like sunshine on a spring day. He was deeply attracted by her smile and thus proposed to her father.
Liu Zhengyu suddenly felt regret, realizing that after marriage, perhaps because they had become too familiar, he rarely looked at her so carefully, and had even forgotten how beautiful his wife was.
Yu Yi had actually known long ago that Liu Zhengyu had returned, and all of this was carefully orchestrated by her.
