It was drizzling in the early morning at the old Lin family mansion in Donghai. Lin Aotian stood in front of the wardrobe and tied his tie. He tied the Windsor knot into a knot for the third time. Su Qing came out of the bathroom in her bathrobe, her hair dripping with water. She laughed when she saw him struggling in front of the mirror: "Why don't you just stop tying it? Zhou Mingxuan said your tie is like strangling your neck."
"Today is the clan quarterly meeting." Lin Aotian pulled off his tie, revealing a faint red mark on his Adam's apple. "The elder said he wanted to discuss the 'identification of the clan leader's spouse.'" When he turned around, the wooden dragon in his suit pocket hurt his thigh - it was the "amulet" that Zhou Mingxuan had forced on him yesterday.
Su Qing paused in the act of drying her hair, her fingertips still stained with mint-scented shampoo: "Do they still mind that I'm not from the clan?" She looked at the jade bracelet on the dressing table, the golden dragon pattern flowing in the morning light, "How about I go and tell them that I actually know how to do the 'three bows and nine kowtows' required by the clan?"
"Come on," Lin Aotian suddenly chuckled, remembering the scene where she almost broke the celadon sacrificial vessel in the ancestral hall last week, "As long as you don't spill the lotus seed soup on the family tree, the elders will be thankful." He walked over to wipe her hair, and the towel rubbed against the mole on the back of her neck, "Besides, why does the dragon's mate need to be identified by others?"
The atmosphere in the clan meeting hall was colder than the rain outside the window. As soon as Lin Aotian sat down, the third elder pushed a document with Su Qing's personal information printed on the cover: "According to investigation, Miss Su's grandfather once worked at Xingyao Capital, which makes us have to suspect——"
"Stop." Lin Aotian interrupted him, his eyes swept across the "Suspected of Commercial Espionage" circled in red on the document, "Su Qing's grandfather was a security guard at Xingyao Capital, and he didn't even get a badge when he retired." He suddenly took out his mobile phone, and the album contained a photo of Su Qing and her grandfather. The old man was wearing a washed-out security uniform and smiled with narrowed eyes, "If this is also considered a suspicion, then I suggest checking the tea pet of the first elder to see if it was given by Tang Wei."
The elders' whispers were interrupted by the sound of Su Qing pushing the door. She was wearing Lin Aotian's old shirt as a coat, the hem was long to her knees, and she was holding a crooked cake in her hand - obviously baked by herself, with "Aotian will win" written on the cream with chocolate sauce, but it was crooked to "Ao Bi Sheng Tian".
"Sorry for being late!" She placed the cake on the long table with familiarity, and the cream rubbed against the audit report of the third elder. "Today is the 100th day since Aotian became the clan leader, and I baked a cake to celebrate!" She suddenly pointed to the first elder, "You said the sweet-scented osmanthus cake was delicious last time, so I added sweet-scented osmanthus honey to the cake!"
There were gasps in the meeting room. Lin Aotian watched Su Qing hurriedly dividing the plates, and suddenly remembered the first time she baked cookies in college. She baked them into charcoal blocks and insisted that they were "burnt and tasty." At this moment, the collar of her shirt was open, revealing the freesia necklace inside, which was the birthday gift he secretly bought for her last week.
"Miss Su," the elder's tone softened a bit, but his face was still stern, "This is the clan meeting room, not..."
"I know, I know!" Su Qing stuffed a piece of cake into his hand, "Just treat it as celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival in advance! Try it, I whipped the cream myself, and I almost threw the whisk away." Her eyes were sparkling, like glass soaked in water, "Aotian said that clan rules are dead, but people are alive. Look at this cake, isn't it crooked but edible?"
The elders looked at the cake in their hands, and the cream was dripping down through their fingers. The third elder suddenly chuckled and poked the crooked "天" character with a toothpick: "Indeed, it's better than the one my granddaughter baked." The atmosphere in the meeting room finally relaxed, and Lin Aotian took the opportunity to stuff Su Qing's information into the cake box: "Elders, why don't we discuss while eating?"
In the afternoon at the Huading Group headquarters, Zhou Mingxuan was scratching his head in front of the computer, and the financial report on the screen was red. Hearing footsteps, he turned around abruptly, with coffee stains on his floral shirt: "Aotian! Save me! I made a mistake in the decimal point of the budget for the West Coast project, and now the CFO wants to kill me!" Lin Aotian scanned the report and saw that the "30 million" had become "300 million". He suddenly felt a headache and pressed his temples: "How did you do it?" "I, I thought adding an extra zero would make it look more impressive..." Zhou Mingxuan shrank his neck and suddenly took out a USB flash drive, "But I have a surprise for you! I found your mother's secret account at Xingyao Capital!"
The file in the USB flash drive showed that his mother opened an anonymous account at Xingyao Capital and deposited 5,000 yuan every month, with the note "Aotian's wife-marrying money". Lin Aotian's throat suddenly tightened, and he remembered the jade bracelet his mother had stuffed into him before she died. The cold touch overlapped with the temperature of his palm at this moment.
"Ahem," Zhou Mingxuan scratched his head, "Although you don't have to worry about money to get married now, this kind of thought..."
"Go and edit the report." Lin Aotian kicked him, but carefully put the USB drive into the inner pocket, "If you make a mistake in the decimal point, you will go to the dock to move durian for three days."
In the bedroom of the old house late at night, Su Qing was studying the clan etiquette video in front of the mirror, with a dragon-shaped hairpin bought from the night market in her hair. Lin Aotian pushed the door open and saw her making the "three bows and nine kowtows" gesture to the air, with a Band-Aid on her knee from the bruise she got that morning.
"Stop it." He walked over and hugged her, his suit still smelling of tobacco from the Zhou Group's conference room, "The elders secretly ate your cake clean when they adjourned today."
Su Qing turned around and rubbed her nose against the wooden dragon on his chest: "Really? Did the elder say I broke the rules?"
"He said..." Lin Aotian suddenly chuckled, remembering the red envelope the elder stuffed into him before leaving, which contained a handwritten recipe, "He said that if you can improve the osmanthus honey cake into a sugar-free version, you can be the chef in the ancestral hall next Mid-Autumn Festival."
The rain outside the window stopped at some point, and the moonlight sprinkled on the dressing table through the carved window lattice. Su Qing touched the broken jade bracelet on Lin Aotian's wrist, and suddenly remembered the scene she saw in the clan hall during the day: the elders ate the cake she baked, and the discussion was mixed with the sweet smell of cream, just like a club party in college.
"Aotian," she suddenly spoke, her fingertips brushing across the wrinkles between his eyebrows, "Do you think the Dragon King will regret becoming a human?"
"How could that be?" Lin Aotian lowered his head and kissed the freesia in her hair, "The Dragon King said that being a human being, being able to eat the cakes baked by Su Qing, being able to see her tie tied into a knot, and being able to listen to her jokes in the middle of the night, is much happier than being alone and glowing in the deep sea."
Su Qing punched him, but couldn't help laughing out loud: "Slippery tongue, Zhou Mingxuan taught you that, didn't he?" She suddenly pointed to the wooden dragon at the head of the bed, "But seriously, put this little guy in the clan hall tomorrow, so that the elders don't always think you're cold."
The phone vibrated on the bedside table, and Chen Mo sent a message: "The Southeast Asian consortium sent an expedited express, a carved sandalwood box with dragon patterns engraved on it." Lin Aotian stared at the screen and suddenly remembered what Su Qing said during the day. "The dragon's roar doesn't have to be deafening," he suddenly chuckled: "Let the courier deliver it to the old house. Su Qing said that the sandalwood box can be used to store her baking tools."
As the night deepened, Su Qing fell asleep with her head on his arm, her eyelashes casting a butterfly-like shadow under her eyes. Lin Aotian looked at the swaying tree shadows on the ceiling, and suddenly realized that the so-called Longyu business is never a high-rise building with rules, but in the fireworks of the world, leaving an open door for the loved one so that she can break in with a crooked cake and turn the serious clan meeting into a warm tea party.
When the first ray of sunlight shone on the crooked wings of the wooden dragon, Su Qing's alarm clock rang. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, suddenly pointing at Lin Aotian's shirt and laughing: "The printer toner you got from Zhou Group yesterday is still on the collar!"
Lin Aotian looked at her messy hair and suddenly felt that such imperfections with traces of life were more moving than any carefully designed perfection. He reached out to help her remove the cake crumbs from her hairpin, and suddenly chuckled - it turns out that the most powerful dragon breath is not the roar that shakes the world, but the breath of fireworks that warms the people around you.