THE REAL PROTEGE

"Because if I'm standing again… I won't do it alone." Ling Li said.

Four Eyes rose — not quickly, not dramatically, but with the kind of steadiness that came from knowing you were being given one final chance.

And when they stood face to face, eye to eye under the golden sky, a hush seemed to fall over the estate.

Then—

From a distance, Ren, Lily, Kim Kim, and Chin Chin, together with Pharsa and Mushu, had just arrived to witness this scene. The twins were crying loudly and demanding to go home to see their Mom and Dad, so Ren decided to come back without Shi Min's knowledge.

Kim Kim and Chin Chin let out synchronized gasps and squeals of delight. "Mama's holding hands with Papa again!" Kim Kim shouted, tugging on her flower girl's sash like it might help her fly down faster.

Ren and Lily had appeared at the archway, blinking back emotion with soft smiles as Pharsa stepped into the light behind them, her arms crossed and her lips twitching faintly.

El Padre tilted his head. "Seems the tide turned."

El Capitan smirked. "About time."

And Shi Min exhaled — deep and long — as his shoulders relaxed, the tension washing from him like rain off armor.

Ling Li looked up at Chu Yan and gave one steady nod.

"No more misunderstanding," she said again. "Only us."

His eyes glistened. "Only us."

Hand in hand, they turned toward the house.

And though the day had unraveled, though a thousand things still needed to be repaired…

This was how they chose to begin again — not with vows in silk and ceremony…

But with truth, bruised knees, and a love that refused to shatter.

The moment fractured — like sunlight through stained glass — as Ling Li halted mid-step, her voice calm but unmistakably laced with command.

"Are you all just going to stand there and not come in?"

She didn't look over her shoulder with softness — she looked back like a general beckoning her unit to fall in line.

Behind her, at the end of the driveway, the group blinked as if released from a trance.

"Ah! We're coming!" Ren cried out, breaking the standoff with a breathless laugh and tugging at Lily's sleeve.

But before the sisters could herd the littlest ones forward—

Kim Kim, and Chin Chin broke free.

Tiny feet smacked against stone as they bolted forward with squeals of joy, their flower gowns fluttering like capes behind them.

"Mama!" cried Chin Chin.

"Papa's standing again!" Kim Kim added proudly, as if she had conjured it by magic.

They ran full speed until Ling Li crouched just in time, catching them against her like a wave meeting the shore. One in each arm, she closed her eyes briefly, burying her face in their hair with a breath that wasn't quite a sob, but close.

Chu Yan stood frozen for half a second… then moved. He crouched beside them, carefully wrapping all three into his arms — his family, if they would still have him.

The moment — messy, unscripted, raw — was perfect in ways the ceremony never had the chance to be.

Behind them, Pharsa approached slowly, her eyes glistening just a little as she watched the twins chattering away at both parents.

Lily stepped forward, stunned. "Did we just…"

"Did we just witness Mom forgive Paps?" Ren murmured, blinking.

Shi Min let out a breath like it had been held for a century. "Not forgiven. Not yet. But she's walking with him. That's something."

El Padre leaned over to El Capitan, arms crossed. "You owe me tea. I told you she wouldn't make him grovel all night."

El Capitan grunted. "That wasn't groveling. That was penance done right."

"...."

As everyone finally stepped onto the threshold of the mansion behind the reunited family, the estate gates shut softly behind them, sealing the moment away.

Inside, light spilled from the chandeliered foyer — warm, welcoming, and real.

Whatever came next would not be a perfect fairytale.

But it would be theirs.

==========

The living room had barely settled into a fragile calm when Shi Min, still standing at full attention with arms rigidly crossed, spoke with cutting precision.

"Mom, tell me. Since when do you know that Nina was alive?"

The temperature in the room dropped by degrees.

Ling Li, seated in the high-backed armchair with Chin Chin in her arms, didn't flinch. She tilted her head slowly and met her son's eyes — cool, unreadable, calm as still water in a sealed jar.

Shi Min took a step forward. "Don't look at me like that. I could tell the moment that woman walked into the cathedral — you already knew who she was. Now, tell me."

Pharsa, seated by the window, went still. Ren and Lily glanced between their brother and mother like a storm was beginning to gather. El Padre and El Capitan shifted subtly where they stood at the far side of the room, arms crossed, saying nothing, not wanting to be caught in the middle of crossfire — yet watching everything.

Ling Li sighed as if they were discussing the weather.

"Oh, that." Ling Li leaned back casually, eyes flicking to the ceiling as though trying to remember whether she had left the stove on. "I saw her in a medical cabin at Camp Phoenix. Hooked to life-support machines. Unconscious. Breathing, barely. Didn't expect her to wake up again."

The room didn't breathe.

"You what?!" Shi Min's voice sharpened, a note of disbelief laced in steel. "You saw Nina. Alive. And you didn't tell us?"

Ling Li lifted her teacup, sipped.

"Sorry," she said flatly. "I forgot." Not only did she forget, but she also omitted the part where she had seen Nina awake, pretending to be unconscious.

The silence cracked under the weight of that.

Shi Min's eye twitched as he pressed his hand to his forehead, a soundless exhale hissing between his teeth. He turned slightly, just enough to keep from saying something harsh, his entire body tense with the effort of reining in emotion. His knuckles had gone white.

"Mom…" he said slowly, voice tight. "You forgot that Nina, whom we all assumed to have been dead, was alive in a lab, and you just — what? Skipped over that fact while planning your wedding?"