After breakfast, they lingered at the table over tea, the morning still and unhurried around them.
Jin Liwei set down his cup and turned to her with an easy smile. "Get ready after this. We're heading out."
She looked up. "Where?"
"Home," he said. Then, catching her expression, added, "My parents' place. They've been asking about you since you woke up."
The warmth from breakfast cooled slightly in her chest. She set down her teacup.
"Don't you need to go to the office today?"
He shook his head. "It's more important to accompany my wife to meet my parents. After all, it's been a long time since you've been there." A brief pause. "They've also been worried about your health since you woke up."
'It's so soon,' she thought. She had barely found her footing here, in this house, in this life. And now his family.
A small fear she couldn't quite name kept picking at her. She had seen in another life what it meant to walk into a family that didn't want you. She knew his parents weren't like that. She knew that. And yet.
She didn't realize she had gone quiet until his voice pulled her back.
"Hey." Jin Liwei was watching her, something attentive in his expression. "If you're not ready, we don't have to go."
"No." She shook her head quickly. "I want to go. I just..." She paused, searching for the right words. "There are some things I can't remember clearly. I don't want to embarrass you in front of your parents."
Jin Liwei's expression softened. "They know about your condition. And trust me, my family isn't as dramatic as you might think." He reached across and gave her hand a light squeeze. "Don't think too much. Let's get ready, okay?"
She took a small breath. "Okay."
A beat of silence passed.
Then she turned to look at him, eyes narrowing. The composure from a moment ago was entirely gone. "Couldn't you have told me beforehand?"
She gestured vaguely at him. "I need to buy gifts. I need to properly dress up. There are so many things to prepare, and you just tell me now, over tea, like it's nothing. You're so useless."
Jin Liwei blinked. Then he laughed, surprised. "We're just going home. Is it really such a big deal?"
"It might not be for you. But I'm going to meet my in-laws. Of course, I have to show my absolute best." She shot him one last look over her shoulder. "You don't know anything."
And with that, she was gone, footsteps quick up the stairs.
Jin Liwei sat alone at the table, teacup still in hand, blinking at the empty doorway.
Then slowly, a smile settled on his face. Warm. Quiet.
She was nervous about meeting his family. Already thinking about gifts. About making a good impression. It was as if she had already accepted them. Already accepted this.
He said nothing, but the smile didn't leave.
…..
Upstairs, she stood in front of her wardrobe for longer than necessary. Through Xie Ming's memories, fragments of his family came to her in pieces.
His grandfather, the Jin family patriarch, formidable and deliberate in everything he did. It was he who had arranged this marriage, a dying man's wish to secure his granddaughter's future, honoring a lifelong friendship with her grandfather Li Qiang.
His aura was not easy to face. And yet from what she could gather, he had always carried a quiet soft spot for Xie Ming.
His mother, Jin Yue, was warm and elegant. The kind of woman who had tried, genuinely tried, to welcome Xie Ming into the family.
Those memories sat uncomfortably in her chest because alongside them came flashes of how Xie Ming had responded. Cold. Dismissive. Pushing away every hand extended to her.
His father, Jin Hui, was harder to picture. A name that carried weight in every room it entered. Beyond that, the memories grew thin.
In her past life, she had longed for a family that would accept her. She had cooked and waited and hoped and received nothing. Now she was walking into a family that had already tried to welcome her, and she had been the one to push them away.
She would not make that mistake again.
With a deep breath, she reached for her clothes and began to get ready.