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

However, Xiao Yao was still quite certain that there was a forced smile beneath her expression.

Under Xiao Yao's repeated questioning, the girl finally revealed her true feelings.

"Xiao Yao, don't you think I'm like a burden right now?" Shen Jie said softly.

"How could you have such a thought?" Xiao Yao was shocked.

“Look at what happened this time,” Shen Jie lowered her head, took Xiao Yao’s arm, rested her head on his shoulder, and said in a low voice, “In this shadow invasion, I feel like I didn’t help at all. I was just a burden. I kept getting rescued. First it was Daiyu, then Brother Bo, then Sha Mei, and finally you… I feel like I’ve become the kind of princess in a fairy tale that I used to hate the most, helpless and just waiting for someone else to save me…”

“That’s not true,” Xiao Yao quickly said. “Without you, our strongest fighter, we would definitely not have won this invasion.”

He didn't know if what he said was true or not, but right now, "truth" wasn't the most important thing.

“Back then, in Teacher Yao’s hall,” Xiao Yao thought for a moment, then added, “if it weren’t for your help, the two of us… I would at least have died inside. You are my savior.”

Shen Jie smiled and said, "You saved me once too. We've been brothers for life for a long time, which is why I decided to give you a chance back then."

"Okay, thanks," Xiao Yao said.

"Are you unhappy? I was talking about back then," Shen Jie said coquettishly, "It's different now, I'm completely smitten with you."

“Yes, I know,” Xiao Yao said calmly.

"Back then, I didn't think much of you," Shen Jie said, seemingly unintentionally avoiding the topic. "Mainly because I was too confident before."

“You deserve it.” Xiao Yao’s tone was quite sincere, without any hint of sarcasm.

“No, I just overestimated myself.” Shen Jie insisted, “I’ve always thought of myself as smart, quick-witted, capable, understanding, multi-talented, able to handle everything, possessing ladylike virtues, and broad-minded… Laugh if you want.”

“I think your self-assessment is quite accurate. While it may not be considered modest, it's not exaggerated at all,” Xiao Yao said sincerely. “I am your admirer.”

"Is that really what you think?" Shen Jie reached out and squeezed Xiao Yao's hand. "Thank you, Gouzi."

"Thank you." Xiao Yao leaned closer.

“But now I realize,” Shen Jie turned her face away, looking sad and heartbroken, “that self who was fawned over, that self who thought she was so great and so powerful, was just an illusion—that wasn’t me, it was just Shen Hongsheng’s daughter. Do you understand?”

"I understand, but I don't quite understand," Xiao Yao replied cautiously.

“I’m actually very ordinary, extremely ordinary. I just happened to be born into Shen Hongsheng’s family. People respect me not because Shen Jie or Xu Qingwei are anything special, but simply because they respect the eldest daughter of the Shen family,” Shen Jie said. “What’s so special about me? What makes me worthy of respect? My assets were all earned through my father’s hard work. My environment and education are all closely related to my family—for a long time, I felt that these things truly belonged to me, Shen Jie. But now, I’ve broken ties with my father. As Shen Jie, what do I have left? I can only be a burden to everyone.”

“You can’t think like that—” Xiao Yao quickly advised, “And I suspect that your loss of self-confidence will also weaken the power of your mental fortress, and then create a vicious cycle.”

"What do I have left that's truly my own?" Shen Jie continued, talking to herself. "I'm not bad looking—though that's a gift from my mother, so I guess I can call it my own; I'm very short, the shortest in my class, and that's something I can't really change; but besides that, what else do I have? I want something that's truly my own, something unique to Shen Jie—"

“You do,” Xiao Yao interjected.

“I want to be a help to everyone, instead of a useless piece of trash waiting for my partners to take turns rescuing me,” Shen Jie said. “Xiao Yao, do you know why I’ve always wanted to do something with Mei Yu? It’s not because I’m short of money. We actually have enough money to live on right now—”

“I understand,” Xiao Yao nodded. “At first I thought you wanted to help her, but now I know you want to prove your own abilities. You want to prove that you can do just as well as your father, and do a great job.”

"Mmm." Shen Jie hummed softly, nodded, and said nothing more.

“Even so, you are still a towering mountain that I can never reach,” Xiao Yao said, hooking his arm around Shen Jie’s shoulder. “I still like you and admire you so much.”

"You just need to be a pretty girl, right?" Shen Jie retorted.

Xiao Yao: "?"

Xiao Yao wondered how Zhao Xiaomei was doing, but he didn't say it aloud.

As they were talking, the boat had already reached the shore.

"Come on!" the fisherman shouted.

Xiao Yao helped Shen Jie off the boat and stepped into the water, which was up to her knees. He secretly regretted that Shen Jie wasn't wearing socks.

Seeing that the fisherman seemed hesitant to speak, he politely invited him to speak.

"Young lady, if I may say something," the fisherman said.

"Please speak, please speak," Shen Jie said hurriedly.

“It just so happens that our priest spoke about it during his sermon last Sunday, so I remembered it,” the fisherman said. “It’s a line from the Bible, I don’t remember the exact words, but it roughly means: ‘I want to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may abide in me.’”

“Ah, I’ve read that sentence before,” Xiao Yao said. “Wasn’t it said by St. Paul?”

Shen Jie blushed. Although she had tried to keep her voice down, she didn't know how much of their conversation had been overheard by the older man.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop!" The fisherman was a little embarrassed and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "That's why I was wondering whether I should tell you."

"It's alright, it's alright." Shen Jie bowed deeply to the fisherman, her gratitude evident. "I will always remember this."

The two returned to the "Saint Love Hotel," where the breakfast buffet was almost empty except for scraps. Luckily, there were still some left.

After dinner, under Xiao Yao's persistent coaxing, Shen Jie put on a pair of white cotton socks with ruffled edges that went past her ankles, and the two of them went out to play again.

"Aren't you taking me with you?" Yu Luying stood at the entrance of the Saint Love Hotel, wearing a white long dress, plain white cotton socks and white canvas shoes, leaning to her right.

"Hey, take me with you," Shen Jie greeted her with a smile, taking Yu Luying's arm in hers. "We've been looking for you."

The first stop on their three-person date was a trapeze artist.

According to Shen Jie, this wasn't very interesting, "skydiving is more fun," but Xiao Yao and Yu Luying had never skydived before and insisted on trying it, so Shen Jie waited for them below.

Xiao Yao and Yu Luying each had an umbrella, which looked just like a parachute. They were tied up tightly by the staff, and somehow they were propelled into the sky and flew straight over the beach.

The boy exclaimed excitedly, like a little child, "Ee-ee! Wow!"

Yu Luying didn't scream, but just pursed her lips tightly, looking a little scared.

"Don't be afraid, it's very safe!" Xiao Yao said.

The strong wind drowned out his voice, so he had to convey his words directly to Yu Luying's mind.

Xiao Yao: "Don't be afraid, it's very safe."

Yu Luying: "I'm not scared at all."

Xiao Yao: "Shout with me!"

Yu Luying: "Isn't that stupid?"

Immediately, Xiao Yao heard the girl scream loudly: "Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh—"

"Hi yi——————"

The two people's shouts rose and fell in turn.

"Don't drop your shoe, it might kill someone."

"No, I tied it very tightly."

"Hey, look, look, isn't that Shen Jie?"

"I don't know, but judging from the color of her clothes—oh, she's waving at us."

"That must be her, no doubt about it."

Xiao Yao and Yu Luying waved vigorously at the little red dot on the ground.

“Silly girl, seeing this umbrella reminds me,” Xiao Yao continued telepathically, as the umbrella had already flown to one end of the beach and the staff below were pulling them back with ropes. “After leaving the hotel yesterday, you two were carrying a big black umbrella the whole time. Is there any significance to that? Is it to enhance the power of the Holy Body?”

“No, it’s just a formality,” Yu Luying told Xiao Yao. “When a king goes on a tour, he needs a canopy, so in church liturgy, a canopy must be used during the Eucharist procession. But there wasn’t one yesterday, so we just used an umbrella instead.”

Xiao Yao: "...At a time like that, you're still being so fussy."

Yu Luying: "Grandpa and Uncle Paul are both very particular about etiquette."

“Even Uncle Paul has come out,” Xiao Yao said. “So, does this mean you two have officially made up?”

After the question was asked, Xiao Yao was met with a long, prolonged silence, until the two of them landed lightly on the beach.

The next game was a speedboat. Xiao Yao especially loved driving speedboats in GTA, and seeing a live speedboat for the first time made him jump around excitedly.

However, the old revolutionaries encountered a new problem: a motorboat could only seat three people, including the driver, and a yacht could not carry all three of them.

Shen Jie does know how to drive this thing, but none of the operators dare to let tourists drive the speedboat out to sea themselves—they're afraid they can't bear the responsibility.

Two jet skis would be fine, but Xiao Yao was stingy and didn't want Shen Jie or Yu Luying to hug the male driver's waist, so they were stuck there for a moment.

Shen Jie and Yu Luying politely declined each other's offer. Yu Luying meant, "I was the one who went up to heaven just now, so it's your turn to go down to the sea this time." Shen Jie meant, "I'm already tired of this stuff. You've never done it before, so you should." The two girls kept deferring to each other for a long time, to the point that Xiao Yao suspected that neither of them wanted to play with him.

Finally, Xiao Yao proposed the back of the hand, and the three of them used the slang that kids in Shanghai used when playing the back of the hand guessing game: "Black (back of hand) White (palm) Big cross (everyone) Oily fortune (from this) Together." The first round was all back of the hand, the second round was all palm, and the third round determined who would serve Yu Luying in bed—ah, no, play with her.

By the time Yu Luying sat at the very back of the jet ski, her canvas shoes, white socks, and the hem of her white skirt were completely soaked, clinging wetly to her calves. When she turned around, she saw Shen Jie standing on the shore, smiling and waving at her, and she couldn't help but feel annoyed.

As the motorboat started moving, gliding on the crest of the waves and bouncing towards the depths of the sea, the girl's frustration gradually turned into joy.

This is so much fun!

She began to feel fortunate that she had won against Shen Jie.

Yu Luying sat at the back of the jet ski, her arms tightly wrapped around Xiao Yao's waist, her cheek pressed against the boy's back; Xiao Yao sat in the middle of the jet ski, hugging the driver tightly, all three wearing red life jackets.

The golden sun peeked out from behind the clouds near the east, casting its rays upon the boundless sea. This light was like a shining avenue leading to the infinite unknown. Xiao Yao and Yu Luying both felt that this moment was a new beginning; the sunlight dispelled the gloom, and their motorboat sped across the surging ocean. Everything became so beautiful and full of vitality.

The jet ski weaved through the turbulent waves, and Xiao Yao felt a thrill with every bump. The wind whipped his hair wildly, and sitting on the jet ski, he felt as if he were riding the wind.

A live-action GTA, so awesome!

Before him stretched waves like small hills, and as the jet ski hurtled towards them, Xiao Yao felt like Don Quixote charging towards the hills. Each time it soared over a hill, the jet ski would crash heavily onto the sea, making his backside ache, before relentlessly continuing its charge towards the next hill.

White foam spread outwards from both sides of the jet ski, as if a giant had spat a lot of saliva into the sea. Xiao Yao turned around and saw a girl sitting behind him, her clothes and shoes soaked through. Her hands were tightly wrapped around his waist, and her body was pressed against his back.

Behind the girl was a long, white trail, stretching far, far across the sea. He and Yu Luying leaned forward to avoid the splashing water, then accelerated again, rushing through even higher waves.

At first, Xiao Yao could still vaguely see the outline of the coastline, but gradually, that horizon disappeared from his sight, and all around him, apart from the sea and the sky, he could see nothing else.