Chapter 428: The Eve of the

Just as that married woman downstairs was asking Sunny about someone's trust index, that someone upstairs was also suffering under the pressure of Li Juli.

Lin Xiuyuan sat on the sofa, his gaze shifting repeatedly between the water glass on the coffee table, the folds of the curtains, and the carpet at his feet; in any case, he simply dared not meet Li Juli's eyes.

Primarily because the lips of this urban beauty before him were slightly pursed, her chin was lifted, and the aura radiating from her entire being was one of patience awaiting an explanation, along with a seriousness that said not to think about trying to muddle through.

Feeling a bit unnerved by being stared at, Lin Xiuyuan had no choice but to look at her, then took a deep breath, preparing to try and negotiate his way out of this.

If he could really handle her and get her not to leak this matter, then there wouldn't be any trouble.

Thinking of this, Lin Xiuyuan began to cautiously test the waters, "Um, Juli, it would be best if only you knew about this; could you please not tell the others?"

After finishing, he added another sentence, as if bargaining, "Just us few knowing, is that alright?"

"What do you think?" Li Juli was also amused to the point of anger.

If Park Hyomin hadn't been dragged into this, they might still not know about this matter even now.

Thinking of this, the expression on Li Juli's face, which had just begun to show a smile, turned cold once again; her eyes carried a complex emotion as she looked at Lin Xiuyuan with a touch of feigned anger.

She didn't speak.

She just kept staring.

It was mainly because she didn't know how to talk to Lin Xiuyuan about this matter.

By all accounts, as a player herself, she was also very fond of such sports and outings.

That freedom on the snowy mountains, that speed in the wind, that thrill of testing the limits—she understood it all; she understood it too well.

Therefore, in terms of common sense, she could understand Lin Xiuyuan.

Because this was a person's freedom, and others shouldn't interfere excessively, not to mention that Lin Xiuyuan could be said to have already done a lot for them.

Whether it was the Time Gate or that potent tonic, what he had given them far exceeded everything they could ever give back.

So, to go on and demand more would make her and the others seem unreasonable.

But precisely because of these two things, while she could empathize with Lin Xiuyuan rationally and support his pursuit of freedom,

emotionally and from a primal need, Li Juli truly could not bear the thought of Lin Xiuyuan disappearing from her future life.

Whether it was that Gate or this person.

She was truly afraid.

Afraid that one day, Lin Xiuyuan would be gone, and the Gate would be gone too.

If she had to return to that kind of life from before, Li Juli felt she would truly go crazy, really.

So much so that under this explosion of thoughts, two little people in her mind were currently arguing frantically.

One, a free spirit and player, wearing loose clothing, holding a glass of wine, expressed her full support for Lin Xiuyuan with a casual and relaxed posture, feeling that this was his personal free will.

As free souls, they shouldn't try to restrain the other, but rather need to understand them.

If they truly cared about him, they should respect his choices instead of using their own fear to emotionally blackmail him.

The other was a selfish little person, wearing tight clothing, arms crossed over her chest, brows furrowed, the anxiety in her eyes already overflowing.

She hoped to give Lin Xiuyuan a good warning and let him know the importance of his own existence.

Then tell him that his world is no longer just his own.

Then go on to scare him, letting him know what would happen to everyone if something were to happen to him.

She really needed to make him completely clear about his own situation; he was not alone, his life was not his own—it belonged to everyone.

He needed to be reminded, needed to be reprimanded, and needed to be pulled back.

The two little people in her mind were fighting tooth and nail.

One word after another, one push after another, neither could convince the other.

So don't be fooled by Li Juli sitting there with a very calm expression; in reality, her heart was already like a pot of boiling water, bubbling away.

On the sofa, seeing Li Juli fall silent after laughing and scolding him, Lin Xiuyuan thought he had really negotiated his way out of it.

His heart filled with joy, his mouth curled into a grin, and he reached out to gently wrap his arms around Li Juli's shoulders, intending to pull her into his embrace.

Just then, a slender, jade-like hand pressed against his chest.

The fingers were long and fair, the tips slightly curved, the pads of her fingers resting on the chest of his T-shirt; the force wasn't great, but the attitude was very clear.

Immediately following, Li Juli gave him a coquettish roll of her eyes, a hint of an irrepressible smile at the corners of her mouth, "Don't mess around, I never planned on helping you hide this from Xiujing and the others."

However, despite saying that, her body still leaned into Lin Xiuyuan's embrace, and she sat on his lap.

"Xiuyuan, actually, you really shouldn't hide this kind of situation from everyone; it's not like we said we wouldn't let you go play, right? It's just that if problems arise during it, it's better to inform us to some extent."

"Then I'm definitely going to get scolded." Hearing this, Lin Xiuyuan felt like a deflated balloon, his shoulders slumping.

He knew that Li Juli was right.

This kind of thing really shouldn't be hidden from everyone; they really should know.

But knowing is one thing, and being able to handle it is another.

At the mere thought of the reactions from Krystal, Kim Taeyeon, Lin YoonA, and the others upon learning of his situation, Lin Xiuyuan felt a headache just thinking about it, so he simply buried his head in Li Juli's chest, rubbing his nose against the collar of her knit dress, like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

Li Juli was stunned for a moment by his actions, then smiled and patted his head twice, her expression gentle and happy.

Off to the side, Park Hyomin stood at the corner of the hallway, looking at that scene with a rather strange expression.

It was mainly because after she glanced at Li Juli's measurements, looking at those full, undulating curves, she looked down at her own.

She felt like she had lost, what was going on?

Could there really be a second growth spurt?

Over there, after gently patting Lin Xiuyuan's head, Li Juli ran her fingers through his hair, stroking it again and again, as if soothing a startled large dog.

"Don't worry, I'll cover for you."

Lin Xiuyuan sighed, "You better keep your word."

"You wretch."

After laughing and scolding him once more, Li Juli reached out to the coffee table, picked up her phone, unlocked it, and opened the 【Jieyou Small Garden】 group chat.

At this moment, someone in the group chat is spamming messages.

Dalongzai is chatting inside with Lin YoonA and Kim Taeyeon; the content is very mundane and trivial, as if just casually passing the time.

After reading through those messages, Li Juli also begins to edit some text.

And while she is typing, Lin Xiuyuan lifts his head from her chest and raises his eyes to glance at the phone screen.

Although his reaction involves clicking his tongue and sucking in a cold breath, in the end, he does not stop Li Juli from revealing the situation.

He knows that what is meant to come will eventually come.

One can hide things for a while, but not for a lifetime.

Since things have reached this point, he might as well accept his fate.

Finally, as Li Juli's fingertips tap out the last character on the screen, she presses send.

【Everyone, I have a little bit of inside information here.】

After the message is sent, the group chat goes quiet for less than a second.

Immediately following, Dalongzai's reply pops up almost instantly.

【What news? Unnie, Xiaomin Unnie just called me asking where I am. What is going on? Didn't you all set a time?】

Then comes Lin YoonA.

【Juli Unnie, reading this makes one feel a bit panicked.】

Following that is a "shivering" sticker, the kind with a cartoon character huddled in a corner, trembling.

As for Kim Taeyeon, she only sends three question marks: 【???】

Yet the oppressive feeling of these three question marks is stronger than any words.

Watching the replies from the others, Li Juli first raises her hand to swat away Lin Xiuyuan's wolf-paw, which had reached over again at some unknown moment to cause trouble.

Then she continues to type out a paragraph and sends it, her speed neither fast nor slow, as if weighing the gravity of every word.

【Actually, it's nothing much, just that when Xiuyuan was skiing in Niseko last time, two small incidents occurred. One was quite serious; it is said he almost fell into a snow cave on the mountain during a blizzard.】

Once this message is sent, the small group that had been spamming questions about what was going on suddenly falls into a dead silence.

One second.

Two seconds.

Then Li Juli's phone ringtone sounds, exploding in the quiet Living Room like a bomb.

And on the screen, the caller ID shows Kim Taeyeon; in the photo Li Juli set, she is smiling very brightly, forming a sharp contrast with the current atmosphere.

Looking at the caller ID, Li Juli amusedly hands the phone to Lin Xiuyuan, the screen almost touching the tip of his nose.

The corners of her mouth lift slightly as she smiles and says, "Xiuyuan, it seems Taeyeon is really worried about you."

"Guess how I feel right now." Lin Xiuyuan scratches the corner of his brow and rubs his fingers between his eyebrows.

Regarding this matter, what he fears most is for this person in front of him and Krystal to find out.

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the phone in his pocket also starts ringing.

The ringtone intertwines with Li Juli's phone ringtone in the Living Room, performing a rather discordant concerto.

Afterwards, under the gaze of Li Juli and Park Hyomin, Lin Xiuyuan takes his phone out of his pocket, screen facing up, and takes a look.

Well, it's Krystal.

Looking at this call, then glancing at Li Juli's phone, and thinking of the others in the group chat, Lin Xiuyuan raises his head and lets out a wail.

"There's no way to run now, it's a 'Nanny teaching the child' situation, isn't it? Forget it, forget it, if I'm going to die, I'll die. Juli, you really have to help me."

Li Juli looks at his expression of heroic martyrdom and cannot help but laugh out loud, "Is it that serious? Answer the phone first."

Hearing this, Lin Xiuyuan finally lifts the phone to his ear and answers, "Hello, Xiujing."

"See you at the Villa."

The person on the other end is concise and to the point.

Hearing this, Li Juli has already stood up from Lin Xiuyuan's embrace and likewise answers Kim Taeyeon's call, "Hello, Taeyeon."

"Mm-hmm, he is here with me."

"Alright, alright, then let's meet directly at the Villa in a while."

"Understood, I will keep an eye on him."

"See you in a bit."

At the same time, in the car downstairs.

The married woman Park Hyomin sits in the driver's seat; she has just obtained the information she wanted from Sunny, and those details are like a key, opening a door in her heart that had been tightly shut.

So she nods gently and says, "I see, alright, I understand, Shun Gui. Thank you for troubling yourself so early."

"What are you saying, Park Hyomin, you're acting a bit strange." Sunny's voice comes through the receiver, "It's already noon."

"Isn't sleeping until noon a standard operation during a vacation?"

The married woman leaning against the driver's seat backrest, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding the phone, smiles and says, "I'm often like this when I'm alone anyway."

Within her tone is a faint trace of loneliness, but it is quickly covered up by her usual lightheartedness.

Yet this one sentence makes Sunny on the other end of the phone go quiet for a moment.

Then there is a rustling sound, like bedding being pushed aside to get up, and then Sunny's voice sounds again, much more awake than before.

"Alright, then come pick me up in Incheon later; I'll buy a plane ticket and fly over in a bit."

"Ah? What's wrong?" The married woman Park Hyomin is stunned for a moment, her body straightening up from the backrest.

"Coming over to keep you company." Sunny's voice comes through the receiver.

The tone is very calm, but it carries a naked sincerity and a moving quality that one cannot refuse.

So this sentence leaves the married woman Park Hyomin completely stunned in the driver's seat.

The phone was still pressed to her ear, and from the earpiece came the rustling sounds of Sunny packing things, chaotic and disorganized.

Yet it was precisely these mundane sounds that made the eyes of the married woman Park Hyomin sting.

It was as if something was slowly expanding in her chest, then spreading from the location of her heart, passing through her chest cavity, passing through her throat.

It surged all the way to the tip of her nose, to her eye sockets, to every single pore.

A moment later, her head rested gently against the steering wheel.

Her hands hung at her sides, the phone still gripped in her hand, the screen still lit, the call still ongoing.

At this moment, she could not express the surging emotion in her heart, leaving only a long silence.

In the earpiece, Sunny was still talking, her voice intermittent, as if she were talking to herself while packing.

"Xiaomin, I'll just bring a small suitcase, no need to check it, and I have a gift to bring you... hmm, I'll call you when I arrive... never mind, you don't have to drive here, I'll take a taxi to find you... eh eh eh, you'd better come pick me up, if I walk out of the gate I'll definitely be recognized..."

The married woman Park Hyomin listened to those rambling words, and the corners of her mouth slowly lifted into a smile.

That smile was very light, yet it remained on the corners of her mouth, unable to fade away.

Having composed her emotions, she took a deep breath, lifted her head from the steering wheel, and her gaze fell upon the parking lot outside the windshield and the bright sunlight at the entrance and exit.

Everything was very normal, very routine; it was just a very ordinary noon.

Thinking of this, the married woman Park Hyomin raised the phone to her ear again and smiled softly.

"Alright, I'll come pick you up later; remember to send me your flight details once they're set."

"Mm, hanging up."

"Mm."