Chapter 34 Changfeng exceeded the limit by one minute and forty-three seconds.

When the girl's soft lips brushed against his, Rong Chengzhou paused, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly.

Looking down at her bright and innocent smile, a dirty thought arose in my heart.

He gazed at her intently for a long time before slowly tightening his arms and lifting her up.

Jiang Mingxue hugged his neck, her legs dangling naturally in his arms, and suddenly wondered, "Am I much heavier than before?"

She was supervised by Rong Chengzhou to eat every day, and when she weighed herself at the clinic in the morning, she weighed 86.4 jin (approximately 43.6 catties).

Rong Chengzhou lifted her up and down a couple of times to feel her weight.

Even while holding her, he could still move his arms freely: "I didn't feel any changes."

For men who don't exercise much, lifting someone weighing over 80 pounds is quite strenuous.

But for Rong Chengzhou, it was as easy as eating and drinking; gaining ten or twenty pounds made no difference to him.

Jiang Mingxue asked curiously, "What's the maximum weight you can bear?"

Rong Chengzhou held her in one arm and opened the bedroom door with the other: "I haven't tried it, but if it were you, I could carry you even if you weighed 200 pounds."

Jiang Mingxue laughed: "That's a bit difficult for me."

He walked to the bedside, put her down, and then lay down on the other side himself.

He turned off the lights and pulled her into his arms.

"Is your leg better?" A deep voice sounded above her head.

"Mmm." Jiang Mingxue nodded, leaning against his chest. "I'm almost better."

"Oh," Rong Chengzhou responded calmly, his hand on her waist slowly moving up two inches.

Jiang Mingxue didn't notice and looked up to say, "By the way, I'm going out with friends tomorrow, so don't wait for me for lunch and dinner."

Rong Chengzhou paused, then asked, "What time tomorrow?"

Jiang Mingxue said with her eyes closed, "We agreed to meet at seven o'clock, so let's get up at six-thirty."

It's already 10 p.m.

Rong Chengzhou paused for two seconds, then subtly moved his hand back.

He tightened his arms around her and said, "Go to sleep."

--

Early Saturday morning, Jiang Mingxue didn't let Rong Chengzhou take her; instead, she drove to Cheng Ying's house to pick her up, and they went to Huzhou Gorge together.

Huzhou Gorge is a relatively high cliff in the northern part of the city, quite far from the city center, requiring a 40-minute drive to reach.

Jiang Mingxue was driving when Cheng Ying noticed a diamond ring on her left hand and teased, "Your husband has good taste; the diamond ring he chose is quite beautiful."

Jiang Mingxue held the steering wheel, a slight smile playing on her lips: "It wasn't chosen; he designed it himself."

Cheng Ying raised an eyebrow: "Oh, your husband, who's in the military, has this skill too."

Jiang Mingxue smiled, not being modest on his behalf: "He will indeed receive a lot."

He enjoys horseback riding, rock climbing, fishing, cooking, designing wedding rings, and even flying airplanes.

This is only what she knows; her understanding of Rong Chengzhou is far from complete.

When Rong Chengzhou was mentioned, her expression softened.

Cheng Ying stared at her intently, feeling that something about her seemed different after two months apart.

She tilted her head and looked at it for a long time, noticing the curve of her lips, and finally discovered the difference.

The emotions are more pronounced than before. Before, the smiles were mostly polite, but now the smiles are from the heart.

She is the person who knows Jiang Mingxue the most, and I am very happy for her.

She laughed too, half-jokingly and half-remindingly: "Then you'd better keep your diamond ring safe when you skydive later."

Jiang Mingxue: "Of course."

The two arrived at the drop point and put on their respective gear. Jiang Mingxue took off her ring, put it in the inside pocket of her skydiving suit, and zipped it up so she wouldn't lose it.

Cheng Ying asked, "By the way, why didn't Yan Ze come along today?"

She and Jiang Mingxue were regular skydiving partners until two years ago when Jiang Mingxue accidentally found Yan Ze at the bottom of a cliff. After that, the two of them would always invite him to skydive.

This is the first time Yan Ze has been absent in two years.

Jiang Mingxue looked down as she fastened her seatbelt: "I'm not sure. I haven't seen him for a week either. He said he had something to do and would come back next time."

Cheng Ying nodded, understandingly saying, "He's also a mysterious person."

They put on their gear and checked each other's equipment.

Cheng Ying carefully pulled on the lock rings on her body to check if they were secure: "Does your husband know you're here to skydive today?"

Jiang Mingxue's expression faltered slightly: "I don't know."

She only said she was going out with friends, but Rong Chengzhou didn't ask what they were going out to do, so she naturally didn't say either.

Are you planning to tell him?

Jiang Mingxue was stumped by the question; she had indeed never considered it.

She first got into skydiving because she had a conflict with her family during college about studying medicine. Coincidentally, the school's extreme sports club was recruiting, so she joined and met Cheng Ying in the club.

Cheng Ying's situation is different from hers. She wanted to study medicine but was prevented by her family. However, Cheng Ying did not want to study medicine but her family changed her college application, so she had no choice but to study medicine.

What they had in common was that both she and Cheng Ying chose to skydive because they were too constrained by their families and wanted to break free from those constraints, and neither of them told their families.

Cheng Ying had always been curious: "I wonder what your family's reaction would be if they knew that a good girl like you had been skydiving for eight years behind their backs."

Jiang Mingxue would always just smile nonchalantly and say, "Then we'll just keep it from them."

Although he and his parents have cleared up the misunderstanding with his grandfather in the past two years, they are still getting old and would only worry if they knew about this.

Apart from Cheng Ying and Yan Ze, no one knew that she could skydive.

She never thought of telling anyone.

But she hadn't decided yet as for Rong Chengzhou.

What would his reaction be if he found out that his usually gentle and dignified wife secretly enjoys extreme sports?

As they spoke, Cheng Ying had already finished checking her equipment.

Jiang Mingxue came to her senses: "Never mind, I'll tell him when I have the chance."

The weather was perfect on Saturday morning, with blue skies, white clouds, and a suitable wind. Besides them, there were many skydiving instructors leading novice students on the cliff top of Huzhou Gorge.

Two slender girls stood on the cliff top with their arms outstretched, drawing a graceful arc against the clear blue sky.

My body plummeted downwards, the clouds spread out like a dense white carpet beneath my feet, the distant coastline looked like a shimmering ribbon, the city shrank into building blocks, and the skyscrapers that usually pierced the clouds became tiny cubes.

After descending to a certain altitude, they pulled the locking pins on their parachutes. With a "bang," the parachutes opened sharply, pulling their bodies upwards and abruptly slowing their speed.

Their hair was blown about by the wind, and they controlled their descent with ease, changing their posture and direction as they fell, like two birds with wings, flying freely in the sky.

--

Meanwhile, in Song Yunting's bridal chamber, Yu Feijie knocked for a long time before an aunt opened the door for him.

She changed her shoes and rushed straight to Rong Chengzhou's study, only to find it empty: "Huh? Where is he?"

Aunt Lian told him, "The master is in the wife's study."

"oh."

Yu Feijie followed Aunt Lian to Jiang Mingxue's study. As soon as he entered, he saw his good brother sitting behind the desk reading a book.

As soon as I walked in, I collapsed onto the folding sofa like a lump of mud, panting and shouting, "I'm exhausted—"

Rong Chengzhou glanced at him coldly: "You can't lie on my wife's sofa since you haven't showered."

Yu Feijie: "......"

She quickly got up from the sofa, looked around and saw there were no extra chairs: "Then where should I sit?"

Rong Chengzhou: "Standing."

Yu Feijie: "......"

He wouldn't listen, and went to the restaurant himself to bring over a chair and sit opposite Rong Chengzhou.

He glanced around and asked, "Brother Rong, why are you home alone? Where's your wife? Is she seeing patients on Saturday too?"

Rong Chengzhou didn't even look up: "I went out with friends."

Yu Feijie casually asked, "Where did you go? Shopping? I was thinking of treating you guys to dinner tonight."

Rong Chengzhou paused for a moment.

He didn't ask.

Yu Feijie seemed to have noticed something and asked provocatively, "You don't know, do you?"

Rong Chengzhou ignored him and asked in a flat voice, "What are you doing here?"

Speaking of this, Yu Feijie looked mournful: "Didn't Ning Jialing find her half-brother? She's been unhappy these past few days and insisted on finding someone to ride horses to vent her anger. Brother Pei definitely didn't have time to play along with her, and Brother Song had to go to work, so she dragged me along for three days in a row."

“Three whole days!” He gestured with his fingers, his expression exaggerated. “You have no idea how fast she goes when she’s angry. I can’t keep up at all. She won’t let me go. She’s been riding from morning till night. I’m so sick of riding her these past few days. I don’t want to ride a horse for the next six months.”

Rong Chengzhou looked up at him and said, "You think she can't find you just because you're hiding here with me?"

Yu Feijie chuckled: "Your place is the safest. She dares to go to anyone else's house, but she would never come here in person."

Rong Chengzhou remained silent, lowering his eyes to turn a page of his book.

"What are you looking at?" Yu Feijie asked curiously, tilting his head. Seeing the words in the header, he said, "Compendium of Materia Medica? Why are you starting to read this kind of book? What, are you planning to quit the army and become a doctor?"

Rong Chengzhou said calmly, "The herbs your sister-in-law grows need someone to take care of them."

Yu Feijie clicked his tongue repeatedly: "Brother, do you know that you keep talking about your sister-in-law? You're showing signs of being love-struck."

Rong Chengzhou looked up from his book at him: "What is a love-struck brain?"

Yu Feijie: "...I don't want to talk to elderly people."

Rong Chengzhou: "Then get out of my house now."

"Oh, no!" Yu Feijie stubbornly insisted on staying there until dark. "I came all this way to share some shocking secrets I know with you."

Rong Chengzhou was not interested and looked down at the herbal illustrations and annotations in the book.

Jiang Mingxue's "Compendium of Materia Medica" contains more than a thousand kinds of herbs. He reads it every day except when he was drawing wedding ring designs. It took him more than a week to finish reading half of it.

Yu Feijie continued, "I heard from Ning Jialing that her brother is her father's illegitimate son, whom he raised outside the family, just so that when Grandpa Ning's health is not good, he can bring the illegitimate son back to fight for the family property."

"Actually, this kind of thing is quite common in the circle of the wealthy, but what's most interesting is that this illegitimate child ran away from the villa two years ago for some reason. Ning Jialing's father sent people to search for him for two whole years before he finally found him. Now that Old Master Ning is seriously ill, it's a critical moment, and Ning Jialing's beastly father is afraid that something else will go wrong, so he locked him up."

Upon hearing this, Rong Chengzhou lifted his eyelids and asked, "What's Ning Jialing's brother's name?"

Yu Feijie thought for a long time: "I think his name is Ning something Ze?"

Rong Chengzhou: "Ning Yanze?"

"Oh right! That's the name." Yu Feijie looked at him in surprise. "Aren't you not interested in gossip? How come you even remembered someone's name?"

Rong Chengzhou frowned slightly: "He has been an apprentice at Yuanhe Medical Clinic for the past two years."

Seeing his expression, Yu Feijie keenly sensed something unusual.

A bold idea flashed through his mind, and he widened his eyes and asked, "Wait... could it be that Ning Yanzhe changed his name and infiltrated Yuanhe Medical Clinic specifically for his sister-in-law's sake?"

His thin lips pressed into a straight line, Rong Chengzhou's voice deepened slightly: "More or less."

Although he also found it absurd, Yan Ze seemed like the kind of person who could go crazy like that.

"Holy crap!" Yu Feijie was even more agitated than him. "Brother Rong! How can you sit still like this?! Being in such a close position, you've had a rich second-generation young man pretending to be someone else and living with your wife day and night for two whole years, and you haven't done anything about it? Aren't you afraid your wife will run off with someone else?!"

Rong Chengzhou glanced at him coldly: "She's not that kind of person."

Yu Feijie: "Oh dear, I know my sister-in-law would never cheat, but there are so many men having affairs these days. Maybe it will affect your relationship?"

Rong Chengzhou tapped his index finger lightly on the table, seemingly pondering the question.

He and Jiang Mingxue didn't have much of a relationship, so even if Yan Ze tried to interfere, it wouldn't have much of an impact.

Moreover, Jiang Mingxue probably wouldn't be interested in someone younger than her.

Thinking of this, he slowly closed the book, his voice calm:

"A child is nothing to fear."

Yu Feijie: "......"

You'll be proven wrong someday.

--

Yu Feijie stayed at Songyunting until the afternoon before returning home, and Aunt Lian went home after finishing cooking.

The huge house was empty, with only Rong Chengzhou living there.

Rong Chengzhou sat in the living room drinking tea, glanced at the clock, and saw it was only three in the afternoon.

Jiang Mingxue was going to play with her friends for a long time and wouldn't be back until evening.

In the empty living room, the clock ticked away.

He slowly finished his cup and put away the tea set.

On my way back to the study, I glanced at it again.

It's only 3:20.

He hadn't felt time passing so slowly when Yu Feijie was nagging in his ear.

Feeling a bit bored, Rong Chengzhou went to the gym and did dumbbell exercises and planks for an hour.

Then I took a shower.

When I came out with the towel, the first thing I did was go to the living room to check the time.

4:48.

It's almost five o'clock.

Jiang Mingxue should be back soon.

Looking around, he saw that Aunt Lian had tidied the room up perfectly, and he had nothing to do.

Finally, she went to Jiang Mingxue's study and trimmed the branches and leaves of the herbs and flowers that Jiang had tended to just two days ago.

Around six o'clock, he went out of his study to wash his hands and asked, "Aunt Lian, has Madam returned?"

Aunt Lian: Not yet. Before Madam left, she said she wouldn't be eating dinner at home and that you should eat by yourself first.

Rong Chengzhou nodded slightly and sat down at the dining table.

Knowing that Jiang Mingxue wasn't there, Aunt Lian cooked even more to his liking today.

But when he habitually looked up, he found only an empty chair opposite him.

Suddenly I lost my appetite.

He put down his chopsticks and said, "I'll eat later."

He took out his phone and sent a message to Jiang Mingxue:

【CZ】: When are you coming home? Do you want me to pick you up?

Jiang Mingxue and Cheng Ying danced again in the afternoon. That evening, after returning to Beicheng, they went straight to a restaurant for dinner. Halfway through the meal, she received a message from Rong Chengzhou. She put down her chopsticks and typed a reply:

I went home after dinner; I should be home in about half an hour.

【CZ】: Okay.

Rong Chengzhou sat back down at the table and ate a few bites.

Aunt Lian, watching anxiously, asked, "Sir, is it that today's dishes are not to your liking?"

Rong Chengzhou put down his chopsticks: "No, it was done very well. It was my fault."

Aunt Lian breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good."

After he finished eating, Aunt Lian cleaned up the restaurant and left.

A few minutes later, the door finally rang.

Rong Chengzhou glanced at the time.

It exceeded the limit by one minute and forty-three seconds.