Chapter 170: Extra 15 END. Parallel Jianghu END.
Bai Li bent and kissed her again, once on the lips, once on her cheek, then one more quick kiss near the corner of her mouth just because she could not help herself. "And you love me anyway."
Yan Cijin touched her face with a tenderness that made Bai Li go quiet. "Yes. I do."
There was no drama in the answer. Just truth.
That night they stayed on the rooftop far later than they should have. They watched the city lights shimmer. They talked about the memory record. They talked about Lili’s habits. They talked about the failed vine trial and how Yan Cijin would rebuild it, because she always did, because failure never truly stopped her. Bai Li listened with one arm around her, occasionally making gentle jokes that pulled laughter out of her wife at the strangest times.
At one point Yan Cijin sighed and said, "You know, you really are unbearable."
Bai Li looked pleased. "Yes."
"I mean it."
"So do I."
"You are also too affectionate."
"That one I take as praise."
Yan Cijin rolled her eyes but her smile gave her away.
Bai Li kissed her shoulder. "You are cute when you act annoyed."
"I am not cute."
"You are very cute."
"That is not a compliment to me."
"It is to me."
Yan Cijin laughed again and pushed lightly at her chest. "You are impossible to debate with."
Bai Li caught her hand and kissed it. "You are not debating. You are blushing."
Yan Cijin immediately protested, "I am not."
Lili, half asleep on the blanket nearby, mumbled without opening her eyes, "Mommy is red."
Yan Cijin covered her face. "I hate both of you."
Bai Li nearly fell over laughing.
The memory chip was opened the next day, and then again later, because once was not enough for a family that loved remembering. The recordings inside were warm and ordinary and therefore precious. Bai Li’s brother sending a message about how weirdly serious Bai Li looked when she talked about Yan Cijin. Yan Cijin’s mother speaking in her calm, elegant way about how happy she was to see her daughter loved so well. A few clips from the clinic staff who had helped them through the gene weaving process and now knew Lili by name. Old images of the first nursery they had prepared, the first little knitted blanket, the first time they had both argued over whether the baby room should be blue or soft green.
It made Yan Cijin laugh and cry at the same time.
It made Bai Li sit beside her and gently wipe her face while pretending not to be proud of herself, which was a lie because she was extremely proud.
"You made this too personal," Yan Cijin said in a weak voice after one recording.
Bai Li kissed her temple. "That was the plan."
"You are terrible."
"Still?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Yan Cijin glared a little, then gave up and leaned against her shoulder. "You know I hate how emotional you make me."
Bai Li’s arm tightened around her. "No, you hate that I see it."
Yan Cijin went very quiet.
Bai Li waited, patient. That was another thing she had learned in the long years of loving Yan Cijin. Sometimes teasing was best. Sometimes silence was best. Sometimes a kiss worked better than any sentence. And sometimes all you had to do was sit close and let the truth arrive when it wanted.
After a long minute, Yan Cijin whispered, "Yes."
Bai Li looked down at her. "Yes what?"
"Yes, I hate that you see me so clearly."
Bai Li smiled softly. "Too bad."
Yan Cijin gave her a tired look. "That is your answer?"
"It is the honest one."
Yan Cijin closed her eyes. "You never let me hide."
Bai Li kissed her hair. "I know. I want all of you. The good parts. The tired parts. The grumpy parts. The pretty parts. The parts that think too much. The parts that cry when you try not to. All of it."
Yan Cijin’s hand found Bai Li’s sleeve and held on.
That was the thing about Bai Li. Her affection was often loud in shape, but deep in substance. She did not just want Yan Cijin’s smiles. She wanted her exhaustion, her frustration, her awkwardness, her ambition, her softness, her failures. It was a kind of love that made Yan Cijin feel seen in a way she had not known she needed until Bai Li arrived and simply refused to stop looking.
The final part of the anniversary night ended with Lili waking, staggering out in her sleep shirt, and finding both her mothers sitting together on the couch in the dim light.
She climbed without a word into Bai Li’s lap, then leaned against Yan Cijin too, as if trying to occupy both of them at once.
Bai Li kissed her hair. "Trouble awake again?"
Lili nodded sleepily. "I dreamed the flowers were singing."
Yan Cijin brushed her cheek. "That sounds lovely."
"It was loud."
Bai Li chuckled. "Like your father?"
Lili looked at her with fierce loyalty even while half asleep. "Mother is louder."
Yan Cijin nearly laughed. "That is completely true."
Bai Li sighed with mock offense. "I am being outvoted in my own family."
Lili buried her face into Bai Li’s shoulder. "We love you though."
Bai Li’s teasing expression softened instantly. She kissed the top of her head. "I know."
Yan Cijin looked at both of them in the low warm light and felt the kind of fullness that did not need to be explained. They were messy, silly, tender, and completely real. That was what made it beautiful. Not perfection. Not polish. But the way they kept choosing each other inside ordinary days.
In the end, the story of Bai Li and Yan Cijin was not really about the future technology that allowed their family to exist, even though that mattered. It was about what they did with the chance they had been given. They made a home. They made a daughter. They made a life from quiet persistence and laughing love. They took science and turned it into tenderness, turned possibility into a child’s sleepy breathing, turned a rooftop into a garden of memory.
And every so often, Bai Li would still reach across the room, take Yan Cijin by the hand, and kiss her like she was still the most beautiful surprise in the world.
Yan Cijin would still blush and complain.
Bai Li would still tease.
Lili would still interrupt at the perfect and worst moments.
The city would still glow outside their windows.
The sea would still move.
And their love, rich with affection and small daily miracles, would keep becoming real in new ways, over and over, as long as they were there to live it.
.
.
.
To be continued.
