In the viewfinder, Shi Wenli was looking seriously in her direction.
Xu Qinghe's slightly racing heartbeat was drowned out by the laughter and chatter of the full house.
She chose the best angle for lighting and pressed the shutter several times.
Jiang Yang also joined in the fun: "Sis, take a couple of photos of me and Brother Shi. Our hospital's two flagship faces deserve a few solo shots."
He slung an arm around Shi Wenli's shoulder like a close buddy, a mischievous grin on his face.
Xu Qinghe took five or six pictures of them.
The wedding began, and they took their seats.
Jiang Yang proactively moved one seat over, offering his original chair to Shi Wenli: "Brother Shi, sit here. You and Dr. Xu have things to talk about."
Shi Wenli sat down beside Xu Qinghe. After a morning of running around like a top, he could finally sit and rest.
He casually unbuttoned his suit jacket and turned to talk to her, but she was looking down at her photo album.
"I guess I'm not very photogenic," he said with a faint smile.
Xu Qinghe handed him her phone: "I think you look great."
Shi Wenli flipped through the photos: "Even better than the photographer's."
Xu Qinghe thought to herself, of course. Because the photographer didn't have any personal feelings when taking the shots.
She lowered her voice and asked him, "Why are you sitting at our table? Aren't you going to sit with your family?"
Shi Wenli said, "My family is at this table."
Xu Qinghe understood—he meant his aunt and uncle.
Just then, all the crystal chandeliers in the ballroom dimmed.
Immediately, a sea of pink sunset clouds appeared before their eyes.
Xu Qinghe felt as if she were outdoors in the evening and couldn't help exclaiming, "Even weddings are using such advanced technology now?"
Shi Wenli told her, "There's no red carpet or parent-on-stage segment, so holographic projections are used instead."
Immersive holographic light and shadow created the sunset and the myriad lights of the city that his sister loved.
Xu Qinghe knew he had a distant relationship with his parents, so she nodded and didn't ask further.
She had seen his parents earlier—each had brought their remarried families to the wedding.
She couldn't fully empathize with Shi Wenli's feelings at that moment, but they must have been immensely complicated. His father and mother each had whole new families, while the home that originally belonged to him and his sister had fallen apart.
A romantic piano piece began, and the groom made his entrance.
In the ballroom, the sunset slowly faded away.
The city's myriad lights lit up one after another.
Shi Wenli watched as his brother-in-law led his sister to the stage.
His sister had always dreamed of walking down the red carpet holding her father's hand on her wedding day.
But in the end, that remained an unfulfilled wish.
When he and his sister were very young, their father had remarried and moved to Shanghai.
Their father was a cardiac surgeon, too busy to care for anyone, and had no time to come back.
The siblings could only hope to see him a few times a year, counting the days.
Their mother's new family was in Beijing, but she was also busy.
After remarrying, their father lived with his new wife and stepdaughter.
After remarrying, their mother lived with her new husband and stepchildren, and later had another child.
When his sister was little, she sometimes missed their parents so much, but they never came. She would hide from their grandparents and cry, asking him: "Brother, do Mom and Dad not want us anymore?"
He didn't know how to answer her.
The truth was, their parents didn't want them anymore. They had their own new lives.
But that answer was too cruel, and he couldn't even face it himself.
He could only comfort his sister: "Mom and Dad will always want us. They have to work. They'll come see us as soon as they have a vacation."
Back then, every Friday evening, his sister would tug his hand and insist on going to the small garden downstairs.
He knew she was waiting for their parents there.
Sometimes, when it got dark, she still didn't want to go home: "Brother, can we play a little longer?"
She stubbornly believed that if they stayed a bit later, maybe their parents would come to see them, like other children waiting for their parents to return from work.
He was still young then and couldn't understand why their parents were too busy to visit them.
He didn't understand them, yet he still longed for them.
When it had been a long time since he'd seen them, he missed them terribly too, but he didn't know who to talk to about it.
As he grew older, he came to understand how busy his father was as a cardiac surgeon, and how difficult it must have been for his mother marrying into a powerful family.