The innocent and sweet girl turned red at first glance, shattering her abstinent and domineering per

"Oh Mom! Please, don't just do something on a whim! I haven't done any of the necessary preparation, and you suddenly bring up getting a marriage certificate."

Lu Yun glared at Zhou Shijing. "You two got engaged when Songsong was eighteen, and now she's twenty. A full two years, isn't that enough time for you to rethink your mindset?"

"Besides, given how good your relationship is right now, getting a marriage certificate is a natural progression. Why don't you ask Songsong if she needs to prepare herself mentally?"

Wen Song hadn't placed the chess piece in her hand for a long time. Feeling several pairs of eyes on her, her cheeks flushed, and she lowered her head in embarrassment. Distracted, she casually found an empty spot and gently placed the chess piece down.

"Oh dear, what a pity, what a pity."

Grandpa Lu shook his head regretfully, "Girl, you have to concentrate when playing chess. One wrong move and you could lose the whole game."

Wen Song responded obediently, and then dared not be distracted again. He focused his mind and tried his best to reverse the disadvantage he had just fallen into.

Even after the servants had finished setting up the banquet and respectfully invited everyone to move to the dining room, the game on the chessboard remained evenly matched.

Grandpa Lu rarely finds a worthy opponent anymore. His eyes never leave the chessboard for a moment. He said with great interest, "Wait a little longer. I'll win in just a few moves."

"You can't win."

A deep, mellow male voice fell from above. Wen Song was startled and looked up abruptly, only to realize that Zhou Shijing's original position had been replaced by Lu Zhiheng.

He must have been standing there for a while. His gaze passed over her head and landed lightly on the chessboard. He tapped a spot on the board with his slender fingertips and spoke slowly, "When you placed your piece here, the situation was already decided. The stalemate we've been in until now is only because she's been holding back and deliberately letting you win."

Wen Song was slightly startled. She hadn't expected that Lu Zhiheng would see through her carefully concealed act at a glance. Her cheeks flushed instantly. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn't find a way to refute it.

"Grandpa, I..."

Fortunately, Old Master Lu was broad-minded. After Lu Zhiheng pointed it out, he immediately understood the whole situation and shook his head with a smile, saying, "So it was a miscalculation. Wen girl, next time you mustn't deliberately let me win. Show me your true abilities!"

Wen Song was thinking about Zhou Shijing. After searching for a long time, she found him feeding the fish in the backyard pavilion. He looked listless and seemed to be in a bad mood.

She walked over and quietly sat down next to him. "Shi Jing, what's wrong?"

Zhou Shijing, who had been listless, threw down the remaining fish food in his hand upon hearing this, turned to Wen Song, and asked, "Songsong, do you really want to marry me?"

Wen Song didn't understand why Zhou Shijing suddenly asked that question. She blinked and asked in return, "You...don't you want to?"

Wen Song still remembers that when she turned eighteen, at her coming-of-age ceremony, Lu Zhiheng invited her to dance their first dance, and at the end of the dance, he confessed to her, "Wen Song, I want to marry you, and let me take care of you for the rest of my life, okay?"

"It's not that I don't want to, it's just..."

Zhou Shijing frowned slightly. "You know, the team has a lot of races lately, and I don't want to be distracted."

Wen Song's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, eased slightly. "It's okay. If you don't want to settle down so soon, I'll talk to Aunt Yun about it when I get back. As long as it's you, it doesn't matter if it's sooner or later."

As she finished speaking, a strong sense of resistance and annoyance flashed in Zhou Shijing's eyes. He wanted to say something, but when he met Wen Song's overly clear eyes, the words stuck in his throat.

"never mind."

He forced a smile. "Didn't you say it yourself? It's the two of us anyway, so it doesn't make any difference sooner or later."

Does this mean you agree?

Wen Song couldn't help but feel overjoyed. Even after Zhou Shijing received a call from the racing team and left early, she sat alone in the pavilion, grinning foolishly.

Then a lazy female voice suddenly appeared in the air, "Are you really not able to tell, or are you pretending? Didn't you realize he doesn't want to marry you at all?"

Wen Song looked up and saw that a girl of about thirteen or fourteen years old was sitting in the seat opposite him.

The early autumn night was still chilly, but she was wearing a graffiti-print short-sleeved shirt and a pair of exaggeratedly ripped jeans.

Her shoulder-length short hair was bleached and dyed blonde, and she had a row of ear piercings on each ear, which were covered with earrings.

Wen Song didn't remember seeing such an outspoken girl in the front hall just now, but since she was able to enter the Lu family, she must be the child of one of the Lu family's relatives.

"Who are you? Were you talking to me just now?"

The girl looked at Wen Song, her hands supporting her on the chair, her legs dangling casually in the air. "If I said I was your daughter, would you believe me?"

Wen Song blinked twice, wondering if this was some new scam.

She didn't answer her question directly, but instead gently asked in return, "Little sister, I'm twenty this year. Do you think I, at my age, could give birth to a daughter as old as you?"

The girl shrugged nonchalantly. "I never said I was born from the future, you know? I came from the future."

Wen Song was even more dumbfounded. "You have quite the imagination, but don't make these kinds of jokes to strangers next time."

After she finished speaking, she turned to leave.

The girl didn't try to stop you, but spoke calmly, "Wen Song, born in Zaocheng. When you were five, your mother died in a car accident. When you were twelve, your father died protecting Zhou Shijing from a knife attack during his kidnapping. In the same year, you were taken in by the Zhou family to be cared for. When you were eighteen, you got engaged to Zhou Shijing..."

What the girl said was true, but it wasn't a secret. Any relative familiar with the Zhou family's background would already know it.

Seeing that Wen Song remained unmoved, the girl's lips curled into a smirk. "You're allergic to alcohol and pollen; you have a petal-shaped birthmark on your side; there's a small red mole at the crown of your head; there's a banyan tree in the Zhou family's yard, and buried under it is the puppy you rescued from the water when you were twelve..."

As the girl talked more and more, Wen Song's expression began to change. The first few things were fine, but about the puppy buried under the tree, she had buried it alone in the middle of the night and was sure that no one else knew.

But then I thought, maybe she thought she was the only one who knew? Perhaps one of the maids in the house saw her when she got up at night, or…

Before she could think any further, the girl stood up, her tone cool and resolute, "What, still don't believe me? It's okay, I didn't come here to acknowledge you as a relative anyway. I'm just telling you, don't get your hopes up. No matter when you and Zhou Shijing set the date for your marriage certificate, he won't show up."

Why?

Wen Song instinctively pressed for an answer, but before the girl could reply, someone called her name from behind, "Song Song... Song Song..."

Wen Song turned around and saw Lu Yun walking towards her from a distance, lifting her skirt. "You silly child, who were you talking to? I called you several times and you didn't answer!"

"Me and..."

Wen Song only managed to utter two words before the rest of his speech suddenly caught in his throat. The spot where the girl had just stood was now completely empty, without a single person in sight.

Her fingers were still frozen in mid-air, her whole body stiffened, and an indescribable chill spread from the inside out.

Could it be that everything that just happened was an illusion?

Otherwise, how can we explain how a living person can appear without warning and then disappear without a trace?

But the girl's eyebrows and eyes, her tone of voice and demeanor, every detail was so real that it felt tangible.

And her last piece of advice was crystal clear, each word resonating firmly in my ears, not at all like a mere illusion.

"What are you thinking about? Shi Jing just left, and you're already so distracted?"

Lu Yun always liked to tease the two children. She smiled and reached out to hold Wen Song's hand, "Alright, after you get your marriage certificate in a while, Shi Jing will naturally settle down. Then I'll arrange for him to work in the company, and you won't have to be separated all the time."