On this point, Mr. Ming did not get the breathalyzer he wanted.
Because after listening to those words, the well‑informed Uncle Lu simply brought the car to a steady stop.

Ming Lu told him this was a completely normal reaction.
Not only normal, but in fact they could get out of the car right now.
Because in the RV’s snack box there just happened to be a big jar of peach candies, a big box of milk candies, plus a huge tub of Zhao Mom’s colorful New Year “lucky candies” in every flavor.

And with great foresight, the Ming family’s butler had made good use of modern, highly advanced technology and entered a whole string of very specific locations into the navigation system.
Ming Lu had taken over the wheel from his master at dawn, and after a few hours of safe driving, they were now only five hundred meters away from the nearest church.

As for the professional standards of three generations of Ming family stewards—
It was hard to say whether the master or the young master was more easily embarrassed, or if perhaps, when the two of them were alone together, they both got nervous very easily and yet could also let go completely.

In any case, by the time Butler Ming had parked, explained the situation, and stepped out of the front car, Ming Chi was already jumping down from the RV, holding a jar of candy and pulling on Ming Weiting’s hand.

The weather outside was freezing, the sky a little overcast.
Wrapped in Mr. Ming’s thick windbreaker, every breath from his lips turned to pale white mist.
This little “kettle” gave no sign of having been very skillfully pretending to sleep just moments ago.

Not only did he show no trace of it, but when he very solemnly stuffed candies into Uncle Lu’s hands, his eyes were full of clear, clean traces of a smile.
Ming Weiting helped straighten the young master’s collar and took the jar of candy from his arms.

…

What happened next—if Fang Hang and Xiang Luan had been there, they would definitely have kept the camera rolling without missing a second, taken it back to cut and edit, then slapped on a decent soundtrack from some Quan Huaisheng Entertainment artist and handed it out telling everyone it was a scene from a movie.

Because if it were not a movie, who would think of having the idea to “make the relationship official” one second, and the very next second head straight for the nearest church?
Who would invite no guests, no band, no priest, ignore lawns and flower arches, and instead use a single guitar for the entire background score, with every passerby who received a candy serving as a witness?

Even Ming Chi himself could not help finding it thrilling.

With a peach candy in his mouth, a fine sheen of sweat forming on his forehead, he hugged his beloved guitar and waved hard at the shadow gentleman and Uncle Lu.
Ming Weiting strode toward his young master.

There was never any worry that Ming Chi’s guitar would lack an audience—
How could there not be strangers passing by, drawn to a stop, listening for a while to those fiery, brilliant tunes, smiling and waving at him?

There were many things a person would understand the moment they paused.
For example, that the young man with the guitar was going with the gentleman handing out candy to the church.
For example, that the two of them had long since thought everything through and already decided that the other was the only one in their life—they were merely waiting, patiently.

Waiting for the blank places in memory to be completely filled with new memories.
Waiting to meet enough interesting, remarkable people.
Waiting to try everything they loved, waiting for that ball of fire to be free again.

Waiting until all of that was successfully done and the original conclusion still did not change—still firm and unwavering: home was here.
Waiting as the constellations turned, as sunrises and moonsets came and went.
That now‑completely‑free flame still liked the shadow gentleman best.

…

Ming Weiting took hold of Ming Chi’s hand.
He took the guitar from him, slung it on his back, and lifted the young master up in his arms.

They gathered witnesses all along the way.
The first witness was of course Uncle Lu; the second was a little child in a padded jacket and tiger‑head shoes; the third and fourth were an elderly grandfather and grandmother just back from a walk.

The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth were a group of young people skateboarding in the church square during their holiday.
Ming Chi could not resist borrowing a board; drawing on his surfing experience, he picked it up in ten minutes flat, nearly making everyone else’s jaws drop to the ground.

Not everyone could understand or accept this sort of thing, but the vast majority of people could understand joy and accept happiness.
And if they still did not understand, they could just listen to the guitar in that young man’s arms.

Later, the number of witnesses grew and grew, and they nearly ran out of candy to give away.
Witnesses one hundred through one hundred and twenty‑seven were a flock of pigeons; witness one hundred and twenty‑eight was a lightning‑fast little squirrel that stole a piece of candy.

A little girl running a flower stall finally made her first sale. She picked out two of the prettiest bouquets and, blushing, asked in a small voice, “Isn’t this way too informal?”

“Yes,” Ming Weiting said, accepting the flowers with a word of thanks. “Next time will be more formal.”

The girl’s eyes went round as marbles.

Ming Chi could not help laughing; he coughed lightly, then nodded with a straight face. “That’s right.”

“We’re planning to hold two weddings a month—wherever we go, we’ll have one,” the young master said without missing a beat. “We’ll do that for a year and see.”

The shadow gentleman was very quick‑witted now.
He even remembered to nod in agreement on cue.

Ming Chi treated the squirrel to a full feast with a whole bag of pine nuts, then hand in hand with the shadow gentleman, completed their vows with the enthusiastic prompts of their witnesses, all talking over one another.

Just as they spoke their final words, Ming Chi suddenly felt a chill at the tip of his nose.
He raised his hand and touched it, and realized it was snow.

It was snowing.
No wonder the day had felt more overcast than usual.

Evening was drawing near. The setting sun dyed the clouds along the horizon in layer upon layer of crimson and warm orange. Snowflakes drifted down, and the streetlights flicked on one after another.

A breeze swirled around them.
Flakes of snow were caught up in the wind, as if they might fly off to some impossibly distant place; some fell on their coats, every detail clear to the naked eye without any magnifying glass.

Wrapped tightly in Mr. Ming’s coat, with his hands tucked into the shadow gentleman’s pockets, Ming Chi looked up and blinked.
The snow resting on his lashes turned to a quick, icy chill.

Ming Weiting watched him closely, laughter glinting in his eyes, and bent to kiss the crystalline wetness at the tips of his lashes.

…

The little “kettle” almost boiled over on the spot.

He buried his face in the shadow gentleman’s shoulder, working hard to cool down.
When he finally lifted his head again, he saw people waving to him from afar, people smiling at him, and the skateboarders cupping their hands around their mouths and shouting at the top of their lungs for him to be happy.

Ming Chi waved back with all his strength.

“…I dreamed this,” he said.

He thought it over carefully, then corrected himself: “No, this is better than the dream.”

Better than the dream, by far.

That dream belonged to the part of his memory that he had lost, but the feeling it left behind remained.
Ming Chi thought that he must once have longed for a first day like this.
He must have looked forward to it for a very long time.

In a soft voice, he said, “Thank you, shadow gentleman.”

A warm palm came up to cradle the back of his head and neck.
Ming Chi raised his head and met that dark, intent gaze.

“It isn’t because of me,” Ming Weiting said. “You were always this good.”

If not for that sudden illness, his young master would certainly have protected himself just fine—
He would have driven the RV he designed with his own hands to chase freedom, go wherever he liked, live the life he wanted.

Then they would still have met on some cruise one day.
He would still have recognized at a glance that ball of fire from the shore, and over the course of that voyage, they would have grown familiar with one another.

Then, he would definitely have gone to ask Uncle Lu whether Father had left behind any secret handbook on how to chase a star.

At that, Ming Chi could not help laughing. “How could something like that exist?”

“There’s one for chasing my mother,” Ming Weiting said. “It should be similar.”

He ruffled the young master’s hair and carefully wiped away every melted droplet. “They’re all for chasing the person you love most.”

A sudden heat flared in Ming Chi’s chest.

All at once, he missed his mother so fiercely it almost hurt—
Strange, in a way: the happier and more blessed he felt, the warmer his chest became until he could not speak, the more he missed her.

He wanted to tell her every happy thing.
He wanted to give her wedding candy.
He wanted to tell her she absolutely did not need to worry about him, that he was doing super, incredibly well and would go on being well forever.

So she must be happy too, and be the freest, most carefree, most joyful mother in the whole world.

“All right,” Ming Weiting said. “For the next wedding, let’s go to the Seaview Villa.”

Ming Chi froze for a second, then suddenly looked up. “The next one?”

“Didn’t you say two weddings a month?”
He lowered his head. “The next one will be at the home you shared with your mother.”

His original idea had been one wedding a day, but the young master had thought it through more carefully.
A wedding could not be that casual every time—some needed to be relatively formal and solemn, and that required real preparation.

He wanted to take the young master to the Aegean Sea again, and also back to the place where he himself had grown up.

They could hold a wedding in a secret underwater cave, with fish, jellyfish, and bioluminescent plankton as their guests, and another at the summit of a snowy mountain, beneath a vast glacier.

Ming Weiting outlined his ideas simply, then looked at the still‑stunned young master and paused. “Is something wrong?”

Snapped out of it, Ming Chi immediately shook his head hard.

…Though, still.
He had only been speaking casually, and never imagined there would really be a plan for two weddings a month.

But who could possibly turn down such an exhilarating plan?

Getting married under the sea, in a crystal cave, witnessed by fish and glowing plankton—that was just too cool.

He jumped right in, adding concert venues and their new home—with floor heating, suitable for spending the winter—to the list of wedding sites.

“In that case, we have to figure out a way to deal with the drinking issue,” he said.

With the planning over, he put away his ever‑present journal and asked very seriously, “What should we do?”

“If you don’t want to drink, then you don’t have to,” Ming Weiting said, patting his hair. “There’s no need to force yourself.”

Of course, Ming Chi did not feel forced at all—grape wine really was delicious.
But that wasn’t what he truly wanted to say.

Wrapped solidly in warmth, with snow swirling around them, he looked up at the shadow gentleman and studied him for a moment, then suddenly broke into laughter.

He rose on tiptoe and, so fast it was almost sneaky, kissed Ming Weiting’s eye.

“Will the RV make you dizzy?” he asked. “If you feel carsick, you have to tell me.”

Ming Weiting’s breath hitched, and his arms tightened of their own accord.

He did not quite know why Ming Chi was asking this, nor whether this strange new feeling in his chest came from motion sickness or from that sudden kiss.

Before he could work it out, he heard his own voice agreeing.
“Okay.”

Ming Chi took his hand. “I had a dream,” he said.

The home he had designed with his own hands was waiting for him just up ahead.
Snow was falling in a deep and gentle hush, laying a thin blanket over the ground, leaving a footprint with each step.

Hand in hand with his gentleman, leaving a trail of prints as they walked toward home, Ming Chi said, “In my dream, my mom taught me a new recipe. It’s specifically for motion sickness—an ultra‑effective, alcohol‑free custom mocktail cure.”

“Drink it and you won’t feel sick?” Ming Weiting asked suddenly.

Ming Chi nodded with complete certainty.

“Then in that case, hold on a second,” Ming Weiting said, stopping him.

“While I’m still dizzy.”

Ming Chi turned back in curiosity and had just opened his mouth to ask what exactly they were going to do “while dizzy” when he was already enveloped in warmth—
The arms around him were tighter than the strength he was used to.

“I’m very lucky,” said Ming Weiting. “Today is the luckiest day of my life.”

He still had not completely caught up with everything that had happened, but the vows were written so clearly in his mind that he could not forget even half a sentence.
Lowering his head, he repeated softly, “We’ll be together for a lifetime.”

Ming Chi nodded. “Right.” Then, after thinking it over, he added with a solemn smile, “Maybe for many lifetimes.”

“In all those lifetimes,” Ming Weiting said quietly, “I’ll be just this lucky.”

The care in each syllable and the gentle, over‑soft volume warmed straight through to the heart.
Without realizing it, Ming Chi closed his eyes for a second and had just lifted his head to confirm it when the arms at his back tightened again.

Ming Weiting stood in the last light of the sunset.
He bent his head and, together with the wind and the falling snow, kissed his young master.