You're my wife, don't doubt it!

Xiao Yao gently shook his head.

Indeed, he had such concerns earlier, and when he first saw Shen Jie's condescending and aggressive demeanor, he became even more certain of this suspicion.

However, all of that vanished with Shen Jie's sudden lunge.

"So, you think it's you who changed your mind?" Shen Jie seemed to be able to see through Xiao Yao's thoughts.

Xiao Yao shook his head, denying the conjecture: "That's not right either. Logically speaking, if I really am the kind of heartless person who abandons his wife and daughter in the future, Changsheng shouldn't be so close to me. And when you see me, even if you still rush over, you'll probably slap me a few times."

"My husband has always been this smart since he was a child." Shen Jie's praise seemed sincere, but she was also suppressing a chuckle.

“There’s another possibility,” Holmes continued, “I’m a good father and a good husband, but you’ve made some fundamental mistake that I’m sorry to have, so I chose to leave. That way, you and Changsheng might still have feelings for me, and you won’t have the right to blame me…?”

Shen Jie was somewhat taken aback. After a few seconds, she started laughing loudly, pounding her stomach on the table.

"You...you...imagining yourself wearing a green hat...is...is that really that fun?"

"Well, it's alright, isn't it?" Xiao Yao said somewhat awkwardly, "But you haven't changed your habit of bursting into laughter in 30 years."

"No...no..." Shen Jie said, "It's been so long since I've been this happy."

Xiao Yao waited helplessly until she finished laughing, and a hint of doting appeared in his narrowed eyes.

Considering the huge age difference between the two, the scene does look a little strange.

When the laughter finally subsided, Xiao Yao reached out and pressed down on Shen Jie's hand: "Confess."

Shen Jie raised her head and looked into the boy's pure eyes: "Do you really have to know?"

"I must find out today." Xiao Yao nodded, conveying his determination in his words.

Shen Jie lowered her head and thought for a while, as if she was brewing something.

“My husband, Tianyun’s father, Shen family’s son-in-law, Xiao Yao, you are still in jail.” The woman’s eyes were fixed on the table.

Xiao Yao was suddenly taken aback.

The atmosphere suddenly became oppressive and serious.

...But thinking about it carefully, this answer is really fucking reasonable.

I had guessed and speculated for so long, but I had never considered this possibility. I had truly fallen into a blind spot in my thinking.

"What crime did I commit?" After a silence that was neither too long nor too short, Xiao Yao finally remembered what he should ask.

"Xiao Yao did nothing wrong, Xiao Yao is innocent!" Shen Jie suddenly became agitated again: "Xiao Yao's biggest crime in his life was marrying into the Shen family for my sake..."

Xiao Yao was initially quite upset, but seeing her like this, he quickly offered her some words of comfort.

After calming down, Shen Jie whispered, "You took the blame for my father."

"What—" Xiao Yao's mouth dropped open: "That despicable guy! Me, for him?"

“I,” Shen Jie said, somewhat saddened, “I tried to persuade you for a long time, but you insisted on doing this, leaving us, mother and daughter, behind—you’re right, when we met, I should have slapped you twice first.”

"No, wait a minute," Xiao Yao tried to gather his thoughts, "That guy—your dad, what did he do?"

"Do you believe that people who build their businesses to that level have absolutely no clean hands?" Shen Jie chuckled dismissively. "It's just a matter of when their rivals will find something to use against them..."

“…That makes sense,” Xiao Yao said. “But why the hell would I do something like that?”

“Because at that time, the Miwei Group couldn’t do without Dad,” Shen Jie said sadly. “I didn’t have the ability, you didn’t have the prestige, and that playboy Daoming was even less of a threat. No one in my Shen family had the ability to take on this responsibility—if Dad fell, the group would fall into the hands of the board of directors…”

"And who is Daoming?" Xiao Yao asked Shen Jie.

“My younger brother, your brother-in-law.” Shen Jie replied strangely, “Oh, I forgot, he wasn’t born in 04, no wonder you didn’t know—he was born in 05, I think, yes, 05.”

"You were born in 87, and you have a younger brother born in 05?" Xiao Yao asked cautiously.

Shen Jie shrugged: "This isn't something I can choose, is it?"

It seems she doesn't really like her younger brother very much.

Xiao Yao wanted to say something witty like "the four pests of the water area" to lighten the mood, but he opened his mouth and couldn't say it: "So, how much longer do I have in my sentence?"

“It’s hard to say. The plea bargain at the time resulted in you pleading guilty in exchange for forty years in prison,” Shen Jie told Xiao Yao. “Now we can only work on things like sentence reduction, bail, and medical parole.”

"So it's not in China?" Xiao Yao exclaimed in surprise. "I remember that in our country, the maximum sentence is twenty years, and after that it's indefinite."

"Yeah, in Mississippi, you might be deported after being released, and you might have to go back to jail when you come back..."

Xiao Yao's vision went black, and he lost hope for the future.

“Don’t be nervous, we’ve been trying to figure things out,” Shen Jie told Xiao Yao. “Where do you think I’ve been these past few months? I’ve been in the US the whole time. Besides doing business with Americans, I’ve also been able to visit you in my spare time and work on getting you medical parole…”

"Just how many people did your dad kill...?"

"Anyway, our whole family has never given up on you, you know?" Shen Jie didn't directly answer Xiao Yao's mutterings, but just squeezed the back of his hand: "Our whole family is waiting for you to come back."

"Is it too late for me to break up with the 17-year-old you now?" Xiao Yao asked half-jokingly.

Shen Jie didn't say anything, but just shook Xiao Yao's hand.

Seeing that Xiao Yao still looked sullen, he said, "There should be enough time!"

"Alas," Xiao Yao sighed, "Is this my fate?"

"Alright, stop being upset," Shen Jie said. "Now you know why Yunyun and I didn't want to tell you, right? It was you who insisted on knowing. What good would it do to know? It would only add to your troubles."

“No,” Xiao Yao shook his head and said, “Actually, it’s better than I expected. I really thought I was dead, or even worse, that our relationship had broken down and we had separated.”

"Huh?" Shen Jie said, "Is being separated from me worse than death?"

"Yes." The young man hesitated for a moment before giving an affirmative answer: "That's how it is for me."

Shen Jie was somewhat moved.

She hadn't heard such a sincere confession from anyone in a long time.

Even if someone said such things to her, she would just laugh it off and wouldn't pay any attention to it or take it seriously.

However, with her years of experience in the workplace and the people-reading skills she had developed, Shen Jie could tell that the young man was serious.

“I…” Shen Jie said, “Thank you.”

"You're welcome."

"Now that we have the ability to travel through time, perhaps we can change all of this?" Shen Jie asked tentatively.

"I don't know, I don't know," Xiao Yao said twice.

……

There was another silence, neither too long nor too short, before the two of them spoke at the same time.

Shen Jie immediately shut her mouth, signaling Xiao Yao to speak first.

"No, I just wanted to change the subject," Xiao Yao said.

"You can ask me anything you want," Shen Jie replied gently.

“As far as I know,” Xiao Yao said, recalling the events, “Shen Jie has spoken to you on the phone several times. She has also been communicating and reporting to you about what Tianyun and I encountered, and about the time-space portal, including—”

“I know what you want to ask,” Shen Jie told Xiao Yao. “Actually, before I came back to see you and saw Tianyun calling you ‘Dad’ so affectionately, I always thought of this whole thing as… well, maybe ‘prank’ isn’t accurate, well, a game I played with my daughter, you could say that?”

"A...game...?" Xiao Yao twitched his nostrils in confusion.

"Use your brain and think about it. If you were busy working in the US, and suddenly your daughter called you from thousands of miles away and said that the mirror in your house had turned into a time portal, what would be your first reaction?" Shen Jie prompted.

“I…I understand,” Xiao Yao said. “If it were my parents, they definitely wouldn’t believe this either—I couldn’t believe such a simple thing. Adults are all the same. I actually thought you would believe it, even Shen Jie did…”

“I’ve never spoken to you, but the things Shen Jie talked about with me on the phone are information that could have been obtained from Tian Yun or through other channels,” Shen Jie explained. “The reverse is also true; I believe that what Tian Yun told me about you two is also verifiable…”

“In that case,” Xiao Yao asked Shen Jie, “why didn’t you tell her to stop her delusions, or to stop playing pranks on you?”

Chapter 239 It’s too late to meet

2023-06-19

“In that case,” Xiao Yao asked Shen Jie, “why didn’t you tell her to stop her delusions, or to stop playing pranks on you?”

“You’ll tell your child,” Shen Jie smiled gently, “that Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist, that Mom buys all the Christmas presents, and that Dad can’t come home for Christmas because he’s in jail for Grandpa?”

“But she’s about to go to high school, she’s not a little kid anymore,” Xiao Yao pointed out.

“She’s about to go to high school, how could she not be able to distinguish between fantasy and reality?” Shen Jie said absentmindedly, “Since she’s willing to weave a beautiful dream for me, why shouldn’t I stay with her and let her dream it out? Why must I pop that soap bubble? If I had a choice, I would also like to immerse myself in such a beautiful dream… But I no longer have that ability.”

"I think I understand now," Xiao Yao nodded.

“I know that she has missed her father all these years, and I can understand her feelings—because my feelings are the same as hers.” Shen Jie continued, “So, I choose to ‘believe’ her because she is my only precious daughter.” Shen Jie’s tone revealed a tenderness: “So no matter what she says, I am willing to ‘believe’ her. If she says something that sounds plausible, I will listen to her as if it were true.”

Xiao Yao: "Hmm..."

"So later I found out that she not only made up stories for me, but also had a friend call me and say that it was me in the past," Shen Jie smiled. "I thought it was so funny, so I continued to play along with her and even called her friend several times at her request. I only realized now that it really was me in the past. It's such a wonderful feeling."

"To be honest, I really hoped what she said was true, because if I really had this opportunity, I would have so much to say to my past self. So, I really treated the friend she found as my past self and told her many things that I wanted to say to my past self."

"After saying those things to her, I did feel a lot of pressure released, so I could better understand Yunyun's behavior. Once, when I was on the phone with Shen Jie, I actually had a feeling that I was talking to my past self—looking back now, could this be considered a woman's intuition?"

Xiao Yao chuckled twice, offering no comment.

"Of course, sometimes I also feel that, Yunyun, no matter how good your relationship is with that girl, she is still an outsider. You shouldn't tell her everything about your family."

"Then why did you decide to pop this soap bubble today?" Xiao Yao asked Shen Jie.

"Because I accidentally saw you and Yunyun sitting on my sofa, being all lovey-dovey," Shen Jie said bluntly.