Marital Bliss

"Sir," Gopla, captain of the personal guard, handed Di Lin a letter. "It just arrived in the mailbox."

Di Lin unfolded it. There was only one sentence: "Garden bright public open central odd middle imperial after light meeting great sky bright." He frowned, then nodded. Gopla tactfully withdrew.

"What letter is so urgent that it arrived as soon as you returned to the Imperial Capital?" Lin Xiujia, his beautiful and virtuous wife, came over to him. Di Lin had intended to hide the letter, but it was already too late.

"A love letter?" Lin Xiujia teased.

A rare smile appeared on Di Lin's handsome face, usually as cold as ice. "I only love you." He handed her the letter.

"I was joking! You really have no sense of humor at all!" Lin Xiujia scolded him with her words, but her heart was as sweet as honey. "Is it an official letter? Then it wouldn't be appropriate for me to read it."

"It's fine. I have no secrets from you."

Hearing that, Lin Xiujia was so happy she nearly melted. She deeply felt that accepting Di Lin's proposal had been the wisest choice of her life. Fortunately, I chose him...

Di Lin was young, handsome, and brilliant, holding a position of great power and authority. Countless beautiful girls had been drawn to this Red Guard Captain, who was "so coldly handsome that he was indescribably sexy"—now a Deputy Commander—and had tried to win him over. Yet every one of them had crashed into an iceberg: an iceberg that kept everyone at a thousand miles' distance, built from Di Lin's indifference and calm. Among the unmarried women of the Imperial Capital, there had once been a saying: "Di Lin is an iceberg no one can cross!"

It's a pity they've never seen what he's like at home. Lin Xiujia smiled sweetly. What husband, after two years of marriage, could still hold such deep love and tenderness for his wife? Others said marriage was the grave of love, but Lin Xiujia felt that this grave was paradise, because she had married an almost perfect husband...

Almost. His sole flaw was his identity—his extremely dangerous double identity. Lin Xiujia often worried over it day and night...

※※※

"What does 'Garden bright public open central odd middle imperial after light meeting great sky bright' mean?"

Di Lin explained, "It's a skip-character cipher. Try reading every other character."

"'Garden public central middle after meeting sky bright...' I still don't understand!"

Di Lin mischievously blinked. "Try reading it backward."

"'Bright sky, meeting after, middle central, public garden...' Oh, I get it! Someone is asking you to meet them at Central Park after tomorrow's meeting!" Seeing the smile at the corner of Di Lin's lips, she threw herself into his arms and pounded his broad chest. "I'm not playing anymore! You're laughing at me for being stupid again!"

Di Lin made as if to rise, rolled up his sleeves with murderous fury, and looked around. "Who? Who dares call my wife, Lin Xiujia, stupid? Step forward! I'll fight him!"

Lin Xiujia burst out laughing at his act.

Di Lin sat back down and gently held Lin Xiujia in his arms. "How could I? How could Di Lin's wife not be the smartest?"

Lin Xiujia felt a wave of happiness... but then she remembered something. "Who sent the letter?"

"Oh, an idiot who thinks he's clever!" Di Lin's warm smile returned, making his usually cold and handsome features exceptionally captivating.

"Zichuan Xiu!" Lin Xiujia guessed at once.

Di Lin smiled again. "I'm glad you and I share the same opinion of him!"

※※※

In truth, Zichuan Xiu's mysterious antics were utterly pointless. If the letter fell into Yang Minghua's group's hands, their codebreakers could crack such a primitive "cipher" in less than a minute. Zichuan Xiu simply loved making unnecessary trouble by nature. As he put it himself, "That's what secret work is supposed to look like!" He insisted that all letters exchanged among himself, Di Lin, and Sterling use "codes," and the method changed every time. Sometimes they skipped one character, sometimes two; sometimes they skipped according to an arithmetic sequence, sometimes according to a geometric sequence; sometimes they read backward, sometimes they skipped from the middle...

The real victims were Di Lin and Sterling, who would receive letters that looked like heavenly scriptures and have no idea what they meant. Sometimes, after exhausting every effort to crack the "cipher," the contents would often be:

"The weather is wonderful today—I ate too much watermelon and nearly got diarrhea."

"A really hot young lady came to Tianmeng Restaurant, though she was a little too prim and proper."

"Sterling, about the money I owe you—could I delay repayment for another three months?"

※※※

Lin Xiujia looked displeased. "It's him again, always asking you to do dangerous things—I just don't understand. When the three of you divided the work back then, why were you assigned to go undercover? You always say they're your friends, yet they let you take on the most dangerous work..." Seeing Di Lin's face turn completely cold, she wisely stopped.

Di Lin slowly watched white clouds drift across the blue sky outside the window, calm as still water.

Lin Xiujia hardly dared breathe. She understood now: although her husband was normally so accommodating and loving toward her, there was still a Sacred Land in his heart that could not be touched.

After a long while, Di Lin finally sighed. "Zichuan Xiu and Sterling aren't my friends—they're my brothers. I didn't hear what you just said."

Lin Xiujia obediently nodded. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have said so much."

"It's nothing, just..."

Di Lin could not continue. He lightly kissed Lin Xiujia. "You should go rest."

After Lin Xiujia's figure had left the study, Di Lin muttered the rest of what he had wanted to say: "It's just that you don't understand the bond between the three of us... But it would be difficult to explain to a woman what brothers who would live and die together really are!"