Chapter 11: My Parents and Older Brother Love Me Very Much

It rained heavily in Haicheng that day. By the time we left the hospital, the rain had just stopped, and the sky had cleared completely. A double rainbow stretched across the heavens.

Judging by his mood, Lu Mingqi was clearly feeling just as bright as that rainbow.

Following the doctor’s instructions, he took me to our usual restaurant for lunch.

“Do you remember this place? This is where we went on our first blind date.” He looked at me expectantly, waiting for my answer.

I reminded him gently, “I have a memory disorder, not total amnesia.”

He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Then do you remember where we first met?”

I frowned.

“Wasn’t it at our blind date?”

His smile slowly faded.

“You really don’t remember, or are you messing with me?”

“I really don’t remember.”

“Don’t joke about this.”

I tried hard to think, but my mind was completely blank.

“I really can’t remember.”

His expression immediately darkened.

“Jiang Yueling, this isn’t funny.”

I started to feel a little uneasy.

“Maybe… I really did lose part of my memory. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

He was silent for a moment before saying, “Your older brother’s birthday party. Five years ago. Think about it.”

I remembered my older brother’s birthday party.

“You were there?”

“If I hadn’t been, how would we have met?”

I took a deep breath.

“You mean… we met five years ago?”

His expression softened.

“Not exactly. We only met once. I asked your older brother to introduce us, but he said you had just come of age and weren’t ready to think about that kind of thing.”

I finally understood.

“So… you only saw me once?”

“You talked to me.”

I tilted my head.

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

He said it with absolute certainty.

I tried to remember.

“But I talked to a lot of people that night.”

“…”

He fell silent.

I asked again, “Did our families already know each other? Why were you invited to my brother’s birthday party?”

The Lu family was based in Haicheng, while the Jiang family was in Ancheng. We weren’t particularly close. There had only been a few business collaborations between the two families in recent years.

He answered, “Your sister-in-law is from the Lu family. She married into your family. You forgot that too?”

I stared at him.

“That happened?”

He looked at me in disbelief.

“So you don’t remember that your first blind date was arranged by your older brother and sister-in-law either?”

I blinked.

“Nope.”

He sighed.

“Then when you said our marriage was a ‘marriage alliance,’ was that because you thought we were together purely for mutual benefit?”

I answered honestly.

“Wasn’t that the case?”

Then, almost as an afterthought, I asked, “When did my older brother get married?”

He looked at me for a moment before laughing helplessly.

“A long time ago. He already has three children.”

I stared at him.

“Illegitimate children?”

“Legitimate.”

I slapped my hand against the table.

“What is wrong with my brother? He’s married and still—”

He quickly cut me off.

“They’re very happily married.”

“No way.” I was adamant. “He must have taken after my father. A perfect family man at home, and then all kinds of nonsense outside. My dad is even worse. I have, what, a dozen younger brothers and sisters?”

All Lu Mingqi could do was sigh.

“If you said those things in front of them, you might as well forget about going home.”

“I don’t need to go home anyway.”

“You should go back at least once. I think you need to talk to them.”

I stopped.

“Is this part of the story too?”

He nodded.

“My parents and my older brother… really love me that much?”

He nodded again.

“Then why didn’t they come when I was in the hospital? They didn’t even call me once?”

“They did. They stayed at the hospital all night. They only left after you were stable.”

He continued, “At the time, both you and I were in the hospital, and there were still business matters that needed to be handled outside. Someone had to take care of them. Your father and older brother were busy with work, while your mother was dealing with her new studio. Once they were sure you weren’t in any danger, they hurried back to Ancheng. They were afraid of disturbing your rest, so they only contacted me to check on you.”

Lu Mingqi looked genuinely surprised.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t contacted them even once these past few months?”

“They never contacted me either.”

“They probably heard from me that you’d recovered and felt reassured enough to focus on the work they’d left unfinished.”

“Really?”

“Most likely. No one in your family likes making phone calls. They believe that no news is good news. They only reach out when something is seriously urgent.”

Come to think of it, I really was the kind of person who never took the initiative to contact others.

My WeChat had a long list of friends, but I only talked regularly with Lu Mingqi and Zhang Yong.

And even with Zhang Yong, I usually only replied after she messaged me first.

No wonder Lu Mingqi had specifically reminded me to call home that day.

I seriously reflected on my behavior.

Apparently, you really did have to watch where you were walking.

One little fall had caused this many ridiculous complications.

Xiao Li returned to my side as well.

She was extremely grateful because I had once helped Lian Rong with something important. After learning about my condition, she became even more attentive and took especially good care of me.

Lu Mingqi’s work kept him busy, so he couldn’t take me everywhere himself.

Instead, he made a list of places for me to visit, and Xiao Li took me to one or two places every day.

When a short holiday came around, he even made a special trip with me to Ancheng.

And the truth was exactly as he’d told me.

My parents had a harmonious relationship. My older brother and sister-in-law were happily married. Their three sons were all growing up healthy and strong.

My parents told me that the first business project between the Jiang and Lu families had actually been arranged before Lu Mingqi and I ever went on our blind date.

The real matchmakers had been my older brother and sister-in-law.

The project was neither particularly large nor insignificant. It was considered an ideal opportunity for the younger generation to gain experience, so once the agreement was signed, both families handed the project over to my older brother and Lu Mingqi.

Long before that, back when my older brother and sister-in-law were still dating, he frequently traveled to Haicheng to see her.

Over time, he became acquainted with the two Lu brothers, Lu Mingqi and Lu Mingli, and the three of them gradually became close.

The first time I met Lu Mingqi was at my older brother’s birthday party.

According to everyone’s account, he had been extremely impressed by me.

Apparently, it had even been love at first sight.

After that, he quietly kept an eye on me.

But my older brother refused to approve of the relationship.

He said I was still too young and shouldn’t start dating so early.

He told Lu Mingqi to wait another two years. Once I turned twenty, he would introduce us properly.

When my twentieth birthday finally came around, Lu Mingqi became a little impatient and asked my sister-in-law—who also happened to be his cousin—to help him.

My sister-in-law was naturally enthusiastic. That very day, she spoke to my parents about him.

My parents were quite pleased with Lu Mingqi, so they contacted the Lu family elders and officially arranged a blind date.

That really had been our first blind date.

There had never been anything before that.

And Lu Mingqi and I hadn’t been forced together against our will, either.

After our blind date, I had a good impression of him.

At the time, I was studying at Haicheng University. Whenever he had free time, he would take me out to eat or see a movie.

As we started seeing each other more often, our relationship progressed quickly.

Then, on Qixi Festival that year, he even arranged a small but rather romantic proposal.

I didn’t object.

A few days later, both families sat down in a private room at a hotel to discuss the wedding.

Everything happened naturally and smoothly.

For both families, our marriage was like adding embroidery to an already beautiful piece of silk.

Everyone was satisfied.

Including me.

And him.

Throughout the process, my older brother objected twice.

He always thought I was too young and didn’t want me getting married so early.

But Lu Mingqi argued that I was legally old enough to marry. Besides, his own sister-in-law had registered her marriage when she turned twenty.

My brother couldn’t argue with that.

Eventually, he stopped objecting.

If there was anything imperfect about our marriage, perhaps it was the fact that we still didn’t have children after three years.

But neither family pressured us.

My parents already had three grandchildren. More importantly, they didn’t want me to have children too young. They told me to enjoy a few more years first.

Once you had children, they said, your entire life revolved around them. Just look at my sister-in-law. It was clearly exhausting.

The Lu family wasn’t in a hurry either.

Even Lu Mingli, who was nearly thirty, wasn’t being pressured into marriage, so naturally no one was going to rush me and Lu Mingqi.

Calling it “imperfect” was mostly because I personally loved children.

Lu Mingqi, on the other hand, wanted to enjoy a few more years of just the two of us.

His work was demanding, and he worried that once we had children, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his responsibilities as a father.

Personally, I thought he simply liked having me all to himself.

If he had his way, he probably wouldn’t mind never having children, as long as I kept all my attention on him.

He had hinted at it a few times, but I turned him down every single time.

Our premarital medical examination showed that I was completely healthy.

In fact, the doctor had even said I was unusually healthy and might not conceive easily.

That was when I learned that a woman’s body didn’t always cooperate with the whole business of having children.

Sometimes, being too healthy could actually make conception more difficult.

After everything that had happened, I had been worried about my own survival on one hand and preparing myself for a possible divorce from Lu Mingqi on the other.

So I hadn’t given much thought to having children.

Now that my emotions had finally settled down, I figured there was no point forcing anything.

Whatever happened, happened.