I raised stunning young ladies, but they all wanted to possess me.

Pei Youyi's slender fingers tightened slightly as she held the phone.

She glanced at Gu Yan subconsciously, then quickly looked away.

Her voice was still the same gentle and proper tone, but Gu Yan could sense that she was trying hard to suppress something.

"Yu Ran, you're overthinking it."

"That person is the deputy of the Chiyomiya family, and his spiritual energy fluctuations are different from your brother Gu."

"The association is still investigating the crystal coffin matter; it may not necessarily be your brother Gu."

There was another long silence on the other end of the phone.

Pei Yuran's voice was exactly the same as usual.

Indifferent, concise, and unmoved.

But Gu Yan heard that extremely fine crack deep inside, something she had never heard in her voice before.

"You know I'll see for myself."

"The plane is almost here."

"I want to see him first when I get there."

"Whether he is or not, I will see for myself."

Pei Youyi's knuckles turned slightly white as she gripped the phone, but her tone remained calm.

"it is good."

"Call me when you arrive, and I'll come pick you up."

She paused.

"Yu Ran, wear more clothes."

"It's windy at sea."

"Um."

The phone was disconnected.

Pei Youyi put her phone back in her pocket, and the sea breeze gently blew the stray hairs that weren't tied up properly across her forehead.

She turned to look at Gu Yan, her gentle eyes holding a complex smile.

"She felt that I had kept it from her."

"In fact, I did keep it from her."

"That child has never asked me for anything like this before, from childhood to adulthood."

She tucked the strands of hair that had been ruffled by the sea breeze behind her ear and sighed softly.

"But when did she learn to get ahead of me?"

Gu Yan opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say.

The way this matriarch of the Pei family expresses jealousy is quite unique.

"What are you planning to do?"

"If all else fails, just be honest."

Pei Youyi put her phone back in her pocket and tidied her hair, which had been blown about by the sea breeze.

The bulkhead next to the elevator platform blocked most of the wind, but the hem of her cardigan still fluttered gently, like a white butterfly that couldn't find a foothold in the night sky.

"You can't hide it for long."

"No matter how you disguise yourself, Yu Ran will recognize you at a glance this time."

"When she finds out that I was lying to her too, that we were both lying to her, she'll be even more upset."

Gu Yan leaned against the cabin wall and remained silent for a while.

Moonlight streamed in through the narrow porthole behind him, falling on his pale profile.

His expression was calm, but Pei Youyi could see that his fingers, which were hanging at his sides, twitched slightly, a small gesture he only made when he was nervous.

"If I tell you the truth, Yu Ran will be angry."

"She never tells you when she's angry, and she never yells like Jinyu does."

"She would just sit alone on the mountaintop, holding her sword, and not say a word for days on end."

Pei Youyi remained silent.

Of course she knew Yu Ran would be angry.

When Yu Ran is angry, she doesn't cry or make a fuss. She just closes her already cold eyes even tighter, like adding another layer of frozen soil to a frozen lake.

But she also knew that Yu Ran would always find a way to resolve things on her own, and would always swallow down those sharpest and most hurtful emotions alone.

Yu Ran was not the kind of child who would quarrel with her over this.

Seeing that she didn't speak, Gu Yan assumed that she was worried about her daughter.

But in fact, she remained silent because she had another, even more difficult-to-speak-about thought.

Actually, she wasn't doing it all for Yu Ran; she also had her own selfish motives.

If Yu Ran came, she wouldn't be able to spend time alone with Gu Yan like this.

Yu Ran will be sad, Yu Ran will hold onto him. She has never fought with her daughter for anything in her life, and she would never start such a thing.

These days are the first time she hasn't been living as the matriarch of the Pei family.

From the moment she stuffed the sunflower into Gu Yan's arms in the alley of Kyoto, she was no longer the matriarch of the Pei family who needed to sit properly in front of everyone.

She was just an old maid who finally mustered up the courage to confess her feelings, which she had kept hidden for so long, to someone, and was accepted by that person.

So when she said, "If all else fails, just be honest," she herself was stung by those words.

Gu Yan noticed that she lowered her eyes.

Her eyelashes were long, and when they fell down, they cast two small, faint shadows on her face, obscuring the emotions surging in her gentle eyes.

He guessed she had something on her mind, but not wanting to press her, he straightened up from the bulkhead, intending to give her some space.

"Sister Youyi, if there's nothing else, I'll head back now."

"Elena is still waiting for me on the deck."

He had just taken half a step when his sleeve was tugged very lightly from behind.

The fingers of that hand were long and slender, with very light nude pink nail polish.

The force with which she was holding his sleeve was so small that he would break free if he walked any faster.

But she didn't let go.

"Could you... spend some time with me?"

Her voice was very soft, so soft that it would dissipate with a gust of sea breeze, as if she were discussing with the sea breeze some request that she dared not speak aloud.

Gu Yan turned around.

She kept her head slightly lowered, with a few stray hairs hanging down beside her ears from the edge of her hair bun held in place by the jade hairpin.

Her fingers were trembling slightly.

It wasn't nervousness or fear, but rather a soul that had been suppressed for far too long finally mustering the courage to extend an invitation to another person, and then quietly waiting for a response.

He nodded.

Pei Youyi led him through the narrow, dimly lit corridors inside the aircraft carrier.

Her hands were cold, but she held them tighter than she had that night in the Kyoto alley.

They walked in silence, the only sounds being the crisp sound of high heels on steel plates and the dull thud of his combat boots.

Gu Yan thought she would take him to the deck.

Like we did in Kyoto before, watching the moon and feeling the sea breeze together, drinking a can of hot coffee, and chatting about things unrelated to the defense line.

But she stopped in front of a hatch deep inside the island superstructure.

There were two rows of nameplates on the hatch. The top one was Pei Youyi, and the bottom one should have been Pei Yuran, but the nameplate had been removed, leaving only a little bit of glue residue.

She took a tiny brass key from her sleeve, inserted it into the lock, and gently turned it.

The door opened.

The room was very small.

A single bed was placed below the porthole, with light gray sheets printed with extremely fine white floral patterns.

On the bedside table sat a small, unlit nightlight with a pale orange lampshade. Next to it was a half-open ancient book from the Great Xia Dynasty, its pages worn and frayed, with a dried ginkgo leaf tucked between them.

A traditional Chinese ink painting hung on the wall, depicting a water town in Jiangnan, with small bridges, flowing water, and covered boats. It was the same painting he had seen at the Pei family's house before.

She brought it to the land of cherry blossoms, and then to this ship.

On the windowsill sat a tiny succulent plant, its plump leaves gleaming a vibrant green in the moonlight.

The cabin was clean and tidy, with no perfume or cosmetics, only a very faint scent of soap and the smell of sun-dried bedding.

But it is these extremely subtle details that, when put together, make one feel that this is not a military cabin, but rather that someone has quietly made it their home.