She finished speaking, but saw no surprise on Old Chen's face. Instead, he was unusually calm.
Old Chen pulled out a cigarette pack from his pocket, took out a cigarette, placed it in his mouth, lit it, and began to smoke.
In the past, in the countryside, he always liked to carry a pipe to smoke tobacco leaves. Now that he had moved to the city, his habits had subtly changed.
Old Chen let out a long sigh, "That's for the best. You and him, you have fate but no destiny."
That day in the apartment, when Old Chen was chatting with Qing Muye and Meng Jingwei, he noticed Meng Jingwei's eyes flickering, as if she had other thoughts.
He saw it but didn't say anything.
Therefore, Old Chen had already anticipated that Meng Jingwei would come to talk to him about Qing Muye's matters. He just didn't expect that the news she brought along also included her pregnancy with twins.
"Whether we have destiny or not, no one can say for sure."
Meng Jingwei leaned back in her chair, glancing to the distance, and sighed, "The Yin Clan is fraught with danger. I just don't want to implicate him."
"Isn't that still having fate but no destiny?"
"It's different."
Meng Jingwei shook her head.
In Summer Yan, the sun blazed like fire, and a gentle breeze brushed her face, bringing a touch of coolness and ruffling the strands of hair on Meng Jingwei's forehead.
She raised her fair, jade-like fingers to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and said, "As long as I can stay alive, we can still continue our destiny."
"Hmph."
Old Chen snorted coldly and stopped arguing with Meng Jingwei on this topic. "What do you plan to do now?"
"Leave Lan City as soon as possible, go somewhere no one knows me, give birth to the children and settle them down first. Then, I'll return to the Yin Clan."
The matters of the Yin Clan had to be dealt with. Meng Jingwei couldn't hide forever.
However, with the children in her womb already nearly two months old, hiding for eight months should be fine.
At that time, after safely giving birth, she would find someone to take care of the children before she could return to the Yin Clan without any worries.
"Will that kid Muye let you leave?"
Old Chen took off his security cap, scratched his head, and then put the cap back on, humming softly, clearly not believing that Qing Muye would let Meng Jingwei leave.
"Given his feelings for me, he definitely won't let me leave. But..."
She paused halfway through her sentence, her eyelids slightly raised, her clear, watery eyes looking at Old Chen, "If he forgets me, he naturally won't stop me."
"What do you mean?"
Old Chen suddenly found Meng Jingwei's thoughts a bit unfathomable.
Meng Jingwei blinked her long, thick eyelashes, her lowered eyelids obscuring the faint glimmers of starlight that appeared in her eyes.
In just a blink of an eye, her eyes became dull and lifeless again.
After a long pause, she finally said, "I had the good fortune to read a book called..."
Slowing her tone, she looked up at Old Chen and said, "The Secret History of the Yin Clan."
After stating the title of the book, Meng Jingwei kept staring at Old Chen, as if trying to detect clues from his subtle facial expressions.
As expected, Old Chen frowned, a hint of surprise coloring his eyes. "Where did you see it?"
"Where I saw it is not important. However, the book clearly states that there is a secret art within the Yin Clan that can seal a person's memory."
Some things were coincidences, yet they seemed arranged by fate.
For example, when she went to the Qing family's old manor, she accidentally fell into the underground palace of the Qing family's old manor. By chance, she found the book titled "The Secret History of the Yin Clan" in the study of the underground palace.
At that time, she was lost in the underground palace and exhausted. Seeing the book, she curiously read it for a while, and coincidentally saw the statement about the Yin art sealing memories recorded within it.
Meng Jingwei couldn't help but wonder if this was destined by fate.
Old Chen held the cigarette in his mouth and took several puffs, stubbing out the cigarette butt in the ashtray only after it had burned out.
"Answer my question."
Old Chen pressed.
Meng Jingwei knew that Old Chen was particularly concerned about the matters of the Yin Clan, so she didn't intend to hide anything and truthfully replied, "There is an underground palace in the Qing family's old manor. Once, he and I accidentally trespassed into the underground palace, and I saw it by chance in the study of the underground palace."
"The Qing family's old manor underground palace? What era was that underground palace from? And the book, how old was it?"
"The underground palace is at least a hundred years old. 'The Secret History of the Yin Clan' is a blue-covered book, like a rare copy left from the last century."
After she finished speaking, Old Chen leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, deep in thought.
After a long pause, he murmured, "The Yin Clan has always been very reclusive, and not many people know of its existence. Why would the Qing family's underground palace contain 'The Secret History of the Yin Clan'? Could it be that the Qing family once had members of the Yin Clan?"
"If the Qing family had members of the Yin Clan, would there be any consequences?"
Meng Jingwei noticed Old Chen's solemn expression and knew that this matter was not trivial.
"That depends on the rank of the person within the Yin Clan," Old Chen sighed again and waved his hand. "Never mind, never mind. I'll put this matter aside for now and investigate it later. But you said you want to seal Qing Muye's memory, have you thought it through?"
"Mmm."
She nodded without hesitation.
"You won't regret it?"
"Since I met him, he has saved me many times, and I owe him a lot. When I was first with him, it was natural for him to save me, and I even felt he was very good and worthy of trust. But as the frequency of him saving me increased, and his sacrifices for me grew, I began to feel it was an unpayable debt, a burden that made my conscience uneasy."
Love also requires mutual effort.
Meng Jingwei wanted to do many things for Qing Muye, but her abilities were limited.
In the more than a year since she met Qing Muye, he had repeatedly risked his life for her. The favors she owed him were difficult to repay in a lifetime.
But her current situation was not only that she couldn't repay them, but she was also adding to the 'favors'!
Ultimately, it touched the bottom line of what she could bear, and she could no longer accept Qing Muye's sacrifices for her.
"That is indeed a method. However, sealing memories is not something anyone can do. Tell me after you've made up your mind, and I'll contact someone for you as quickly as possible."
"No need to think, I've already decided."
Meng Jingwei's attitude was firm.
That stubbornness made Old Chen feel gratified, yet also pained.
He looked at Meng Jingwei meaningfully and remained silent for a long time.
Finally, he just nodded, stood up, and left.
Meng Jingwei sat alone under the sun umbrella in the rest area for a very, very long time.
Buzz buzz buzz—
Her phone in her pocket rang unexpectedly.
She took out her phone and saw that it was Qing Muye's call.
Meng Jingwei hesitated for a moment before answering, "A Ye?"
"Are you done shopping? Why haven't you replied to my messages?"
On the other end of the line, Qing Muye's voice was gentle as he asked.
Listening to his soft words, Meng Jingwei felt a dull ache in her chest, and her heart ached for him even more.
"Mmm, I'm done shopping. I'll be back soon."
"Okay, I'll wait for you at home."
...
Nightfall Apartment.
More than half an hour later, Meng Jingwei returned to the apartment. As soon as she entered the living room, she saw Qing Muye sitting on the sofa.
When Qing Muye heard the sound, he turned his head towards the entrance. He saw Meng Jingwei standing there changing her shoes, one hand holding the wall and the other holding shopping bags.
She looked exhausted and pouted at him, "Oh, Chu Xue really loves to shop. I'm almost dead tired."