Snowy Night Kiss

Chapter 29 Year after year
How grand is the word "year after year"?

It was so loud that it shouldn't have come from Jin Yanchen's mouth.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, as soon as the eight o'clock bell rang, Jin Yanchen appeared outside the Jin family ancestral home on time.

The old butler nodded to him slightly, without much enthusiasm, and said, "The master is in the ancestral hall," and left him alone in the courtyard in the cold winter for two hours.

The Jin family is located in a large Chinese-style mansion in the inner ring of Kyoto. They have a reputation accumulated from generation to generation and many rules passed down from generation to generation.

On New Year's Eve, all the family members, big and small, gather here to have a New Year's Eve dinner, and then go to the ancestral hall to worship their ancestors with great fanfare.

Jin Yanchen had never enjoyed such treatment. He was outside the Jin family, but because of power he had to have intricate connections with the family.

He stood at the door of the Jin family mansion as usual. After two hours of drying his coat, a layer of frost covered the inside of his coat. Finally, someone came to invite him in.

Jin Yanchen stopped moving forward when he reached the entrance of the ancestral hall. The incense in the long pavilion was always burning. Four camphorwood tablets were neatly arranged. The old man quietly lit three incense sticks. There was a long silence, and then he walked out and said lightly, "Come here."

Jin Yanchen followed behind him, handed over a file bag, and said in a businesslike tone, "This is last year's financial statement. Net profit increased by 15 percentage points. Please take a look."

The old man picked up the tea at hand and pointed casually, "A Ming, take it here."

Song Ming responded, nodded to Jin Yanchen, and took it.

The old man was not in a hurry to read. He scraped the edge of the cup and chewed the tea leaves in his mouth. After a while, he asked again, "Don't you have anything else to say to me?"

Jin Yanchen's expression remained unchanged, his long eyelashes drooped. He stood calmly and coldly outside the ancestral hall. The smoke of incense did not add a touch of warmth to him. He was like a sharp sword in the cold winter, sharp yet cold and distant enough.

He said no, and that the company’s accounts would be sent to him later, and if there was anything he didn’t understand, he could just send someone to ask.

The old man snorted and chuckled, put down the teacup heavily, and waved at him, "Then you can go."

Jin Yanchen turned and left. Before the corners of his clothes touched the warm air in the main room, he ran into the frost outside.

There was no trace of lingering on his figure, and there was no smoke or fire on his body, as if he didn't care about anything at all.
-
At ten o'clock in the morning, Jian Yi was pulled up by Lin Qingruan to take a hot spring bath.

She was so sleepy that she couldn't open her eyes. Lin Qingruan climbed onto her bed and pulled off her collar. She looked left and right but didn't see what she wanted to see. She simply leaned close to her ear and asked, "Hey, have you done it with Jin Yanchen?"

This question is so straightforward.

Jian Yi was suddenly awakened and almost bit her tongue while speaking.

Lin Qingruan laughed wildly: "You two are not going to have a platonic relationship, are you?"

"No, who would do business at a loss?"

Lin Qingruan muttered softly. Jian Yi actually didn't understand this problem, but the reality was before her. In most things, Jin Yanchen respected her wishes very much, and could even be said to compromise.

He seemed to be really putting his heart into running this losing business.

The water in the private hot spring villa is kept at a constant temperature. Jian Yi ordered a cup of Anji white tea to refresh herself. She leaned against the pool and chatted with Lin Qingruan. She told her that the movie tailor-made for her would be released after the new year, so if she wanted to see her in the future, she would have to see it on the screen.

Jian Yi smiled and said, "Then I will have a big celebrity friend in the future."

Lin Qingruan said modestly that she could not become a big star with just one movie, she was just trying to make a living. When she said this, her eyes were filled with joy, and it was unclear whether it was because her acting career was about to be a big success, or because of the great favor shown by Qingruan Villa.

As they chatted, the topic turned to gossip. Lin Qingruan had already withdrawn from school life, and all she could talk about was everything in that circle.

Earlier, she saw that Jian Yi had no intention of staying here, so she didn't tell her some things. Since they met at the hot spring villa today, as friends, Lin Qingruan had to tell her everything she could know.

As she spoke, she subconsciously looked around and didn't see anyone else, so she spoke carefully.

"Do you know Jin Yanchen's background?" Jian Yi raised an eyebrow. The word "background" was used in a very strange way. With the word "Jin" on his head, who in the romantic world doesn't know Jin Yanchen?
Lin Qingruan sneered, as if laughing at her naivety.

"Besides these, do you want to know something that others don't know?"

Jian Yi had no intention of exploring other people's past, but Lin Qingruan's words were too touching. She said that if she wanted to be a special person in his heart, she had to understand him better than others.

Understand his coldness, understand his alienation, understand his heart which is as warm as a pearl yet as tightly locked as a shell.

It is undeniable that Jian Yi had some unspeakable thoughts about the proposition of entering his heart.

So she watched silently as Lin Qingruan took out a yellowed old magazine from Princess Diana's bag. When she turned to the end of the magazine, she saw a woman with a pretty and elegant face.

Even if he only looked at it from a distance, Jian Yi had an intuition that was extremely certain -
This is Jin Yanchen's mother.

She finally understood why he had such a pair of passionate and affectionate eyes. It was because his mother was such a gentle and beautiful woman. She was wearing a moon-white cheongsam with wide sleeves that outlined her graceful figure. She sat upright in a rosewood armchair with a faint smile on her face, exuding the elegance of a peaceful and quiet life.

But the financial reports Jian Yi saw were clearly not like this. She remembered that one year, the Jin family's business hit its peak and was on the economic headlines for a whole year. The photo on top was a photo of Mrs. Jin at a Bulgari cocktail party. She was wearing an emerald necklace with diamonds and her movements were elegant and graceful. She was a typical Beijing person and had nothing to do with Jiangnan.

Lin Qingruan approached her and whispered:
"Did you know that the Jin family had two wives, one big and one small?"

"Just as the eldest wife passed away, the youngest wife was about to be carried in. On the first day she entered the Jin family, the two sons of the first wife mysteriously disappeared and none of them ever came back. The wedding ceremony for the marriage was not held yet, and the youngest wife also died. The Jin family publicized that she died of illness, but outside rumors said that she committed suicide. With such a large family business and a prosperous family, only the last son was left."

Lin Qingruan raised his eyes with interest: "Tell me, is the story inside bizarre?"

Jian Yi pursed her lips with difficulty, and she looked up and asked Lin Qingruan, "How did you know this?"

Lin Qingruan lit a cigarette and smoked it carelessly. She said, "Men, what are you talking about in bed?"

Jian Yi pursed her lips and asked, "What about the two sons? Why did they get lost?"

When it comes to the secrets of wealthy families, how can I say more?
Lin Qingruan cast a glance at her from a distance and said with interest, "Who knows? Rumor has it that he was tricked out by the young lady's mother and drowned."

"Isn't that murder?"

"As a wealthy family, there are many ways to cover up. Who knows the truth?"

Jian Yi's heart suddenly skipped a beat. She felt like she had stepped into a bottomless ocean. Just the little secrets she had glimpsed were enough to shock her.

Later, Jian Yi was in no mood to enjoy the hot springs to dispel the cold. When she came up, it was just past lunch time and she was in no mood to eat. She kept thinking over what Lin Qingruan had just said in her head.

In fact, it was a very distant world, including the two ladies mentioned by Lin Qingruan. The modern society of monogamy sounded so absurd, but it sounded so smooth and natural when she said it.

Lin Qingruan said that she has not yet changed her student mindset and took it for granted that the world is fair and just, and that what is written in books and what you see with your eyes is the whole world.

But it’s not.

Absurdity is the nature of this world, and sobriety is the only resistance. Beyond law and morality, there is another tacitly accepted world code.

-

Pushing open the door of the private room on the second floor, Jian Yi sighed faintly.

The sigh was about to fall, and a hug came silently from behind, bringing with it a strong chill that made her shiver all over.

Jin Yanchen leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Why are you unhappy?"

His expression could not be seen, and his voice was hoarse as if he had a hangover. It was not known whether it was because of Lin Qingruan's words, but Jian Yi was in a low mood, and everything he looked at was not very exciting.

(End of this chapter)