In Chapter 600, Gu Luo and Lu Xuexue both wore black masks, sunglasses, and wide-brimmed hoods, covering most of their faces.

His large, warm palm held her small hand tightly. The two walked slowly side by side in the crowd, like an ordinary couple, yet carrying an unspeakable secret.

After walking for about a few hundred meters, Gu Luo suddenly stopped, turned his head to look at the little girl beside him, and said in a muffled voice through his mask, "Xuexue, I'm sorry to have wronged you."

They both knew exactly what he was referring to.

She voluntarily withdrew from the competition for the marriage certificate. Even though she was also the one he cherished, she insisted on secretly dating him, even hiding their hand-holding behind masks and sunglasses.

Lu Xuexue was slightly taken aback. Her long eyelashes curled up slightly. Instead of saying "I'm not wronged" as usual, she pursed her lips and remained silent.

How could I not feel wronged?

Which girl doesn't want to stand proudly beside her lover, wearing a wedding dress and saying "I do"?

But she was well aware of her situation—if Gu Ximan hadn't made such a generous concession, she wouldn't even have had the chance to join this big family, so how could she dare to compete with Gu Ximan for that certificate?

Seeing that she didn't speak, Gu Luo felt even more heartbroken and tightened his grip on her hand.

Looking at the couple walking arm in arm across the street, without any need to hide or conceal themselves, their eyes were filled with emotion.

He couldn't even openly hold hands with Lu Xuexue for a walk, so his words of "I will make it up to you" sounded like empty promises now.

“Brother Gu,” Lu Xuexue suddenly spoke, gently shaking his hand, her voice soft, “I’m so happy to be with you and to get along well with my sisters.”

She tiptoed and, through her mask, gently touched his cheek. "Besides, I trust you. You won't treat me unfairly."

Gu Luo's heart felt as if it had been soaked in warm water, both soft and hot.

He bent down and hugged the little girl, whispering in her ear, "Xuexue, thank you for always being so understanding of me."

Lu Xuexue buried her face in his chest and nodded vigorously. Her nose brushed against his coat, and she smelled the familiar scent of cedar. All her grievances vanished.

A gentle evening breeze swept through, swirling up fallen leaves. The silhouettes of the two embracing were stretched long under the streetlights, their smiles, hidden behind their masks, shining brighter than the neon lights.

At this moment, the streetlights across the street cast long shadows of a couple embracing, and also made the two figures standing on this side of the street appear particularly solemn.

They were Lu Xuexue's parents, Cai Zhou's top lawyers.

Lu Lei's sharp, dark gray suit gleamed with a cold, hard sheen in the twilight, and his gaze behind his gold-rimmed glasses was fixed like that of a hawk on the petite figure across the street.

—To be precise, he was staring intently at the girl's off-white cashmere coat and the brown lambskin ankle boots he had brought back from abroad last month.

As an elderly father, his knuckles had unknowingly turned white from clenching his fists, and the veins on the back of his hands were becoming visible.

"Honey, what should we do?" Lin Ting's voice was extremely low, her meticulously manicured nails unconsciously digging into the leather of her Hermès bag.

As one of Cai Zhou's top lawyers, she had seen too many cases of broken relationships, but this was the first time she felt suffocated in the face of evidence.

That adorable profile, the slight curve of her neck as she turned around—it was clearly her beloved daughter whom she had raised for over a decade.

But now, she's leaning so intimately into someone else's arms.

Lu Lei's Adam's apple bobbed, and he squeezed out a calm, almost cruel, response through his teeth: "Let's see what the specific situation is. It's normal to date at this age."

But the sentence was almost bitten into pieces, each word carrying the calm rationality of a lawyer analyzing evidence, mixed with the father's instinctive resentment.

Lin Ting took a deep breath, the cool air mixed with the smell of car exhaust filling her chest.

She forced herself to maintain the composure she usually displayed in court, only the slight trembling of her pearl earring betraying her emotions: "Hmm, let's see. Xuexue is so well-behaved, she definitely won't do anything out of line."

Just then, the boy across the street gently tidied the girl's hair, which had been ruffled by the wind. This tender gesture made Lin Ting's heart suddenly clench.

She remembered the first time she braided Xuexue's hair more than ten years ago, when those soft little hands wrapped around her fingertips in the same way.

But now, but now...

They watched as the two children walked hand in hand toward the intersection. As the girl jumped, her hood slipped down, revealing her twin ponytails in adorable arcs—a gesture clearly reminiscent of Xuexue's joyful expression whenever she received candy as a child.

As the taillights of the ride-hailing car disappeared into the twilight at the intersection, Lin Ting subconsciously took half a step forward, her high-heeled boots making a crisp sound on the concrete.

"Should we call Xuexue?" Her voice finally betrayed a slight tremor.

She was terrified that her daughter had been deceived.

Lu Lei slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, his right hand unconsciously stroking the button on his suit jacket: "No need, we'll ask her when she gets back tonight."

His gaze behind his glasses was as dark as night: "But when we get home, we can adjust Xuexue's position."