Chapter 65 Concealing the Secret They walked side by side in the wind and rain.

At first, only a few drops of rain fell on Zhu Liushuang, and the cool touch did not bother her.

Gradually, the rain intensified, with a continuous "patter, patter" sound. She raised her handbag to shield her head, and her steps quickened.

Raindrops pelted her white dress, each drop leaving a small, spreading stain on the cotton fabric. The hem of the dress, soaked with the weight of the rain, clung damply to her smooth calves.

Zhu Liushuang knew that the heavy rain was about to start, and she would be soaked to the bone if she didn't run. So, she prepared to sprint and planned to run the remaining hundred meters or so in one go.

"Liu Shuang, wait a minute."

Before she could fully dash forward, a deep voice pierced through the rain. The belt around her waist was gently tugged; she instinctively turned, her gaze meeting the man's firm chest.

The familiar suit jacket, the familiar shirt collar. Her long eyelashes fluttered, and she glanced hastily at his barely visible collarbone, then slowly raised her gaze upwards after calming her breathing.

The hand that was holding onto his clothes had already let go. He Ming lowered his head slightly, his voice carrying an undeniable air of authority: "The rain is getting heavier, I'll take you to the bike shed."

The orange-yellow umbrellas kept them away from the damp rain. Perhaps it was the soft evening light, but she suddenly felt that his gaze was warmer than his voice.

Zhu Liushuang avoided his gaze, then turned around and said "thank you" to He Ming without further hesitation.

The rain intensified, with large raindrops pounding against the umbrella, the "pitter-patter" sound disrupting her breathing.

"The weather forecast clearly said it would be cloudy, how come it started raining so suddenly!" Zhu Liushuang complained softly, glancing at the person beside her out of the corner of her eye as she spoke.

"Remember to bring an umbrella next time you go out and put it in your bag," the man replied casually.

Zhu Liuliang walked along, glancing at the air as he explained, "Yeah, I always have the habit of carrying an umbrella. My bag is a bit small today, so I can't fit the umbrella in it. I just put it in the trunk of my electric scooter."

He Ming tilted the umbrella slightly and said, "Okay, let's hurry up, the wind is picking up."

Zhu Liushuang walked on the windward side, and when the wind blew, the raindrops fell obliquely onto her. Compared to her rain-soaked skirt, her arms and shoulders were much drier.

To her surprise, she discovered that, without her noticing, the umbrella that had been barely supporting the two of them had gradually tilted towards her, steadily covering her entire shoulder.

Her gaze involuntarily drifted to He Ming; his left shoulder was mostly wet, and water stains from his suit jacket trickled down his sleeves and onto his wrists. Yet he seemed oblivious, maintaining perfect synchronization with her pace.

My heartstrings were gently plucked, and my breathing became out of rhythm.

Zhu Liushuang opened her mouth, but her voice, barely audible, was instantly drowned out by the sound of rain. Her outstretched fingers clenched into a fist nervously, and she gritted her teeth, quietly moving closer to his side.

Her damp hair brushed against his arm, and half of her cheek brushed against the back of his hand holding the umbrella handle. Skin to skin, her eyelids twitched, and she lowered her head guiltily to explain, "Senior, your...your shoulder is wet."

He Ming paused, realizing the subtext of her words.

"It's alright." He let Zhu Liushuang's hair brush against his arm, and in the instant she lowered her head and was lost in thought, he tilted the umbrella slightly towards her.

The rain showed no signs of letting up, and the carport was right in front of us.

They walked side by side in the wind and rain, looking no different from the intimate couples walking hand in hand on the pedestrian street in the distance.

————

As darkness fell, Zhu Liushuang, holding a short-handled umbrella, hurried towards the stairwell of Building 10 in the Donghu residential complex. She clutched her handbag tightly to her chest, afraid that the rain would soak it again.

"Hey, isn't this Xiao Shuang? Why is your hair and dress all wet..." Just as the motion sensor light came on, it happened to come face to face with Qiu Yan who was walking down the stairs.

“Aunt Qiu—” she forced a smile.

She intended to say goodbye, but Qiu Yan suddenly grabbed her and wouldn't let her leave: "Just got off work, huh? Why didn't you ride your mother's old car to work? You're soaked like this, you might catch a cold..."

"It's alright, my immune system is great," Zhu Liushuang said with a perfunctory smile.

"Aunt Qiu is giving you some friendly advice: take advantage of your youth and find a reliable and wealthy boyfriend... so you won't suffer as much." Qiu Yan seemed enthusiastic. "Your Uncle Lü's workplace has many excellent young men, all graduate students from prestigious universities. How about I ask him to find you some?"

Zhu Liushuang felt something was off. Why was Qiu Yan suddenly so eager to introduce her to someone?

The next second, she understood her intention.

The sound of footsteps echoed upstairs again, and soon a familiar face came into view.

"Xiaoshuang, you just got off work?" Lu Feng was a little surprised. His gaze fell on her from top to bottom. "Did you get caught in the rain? Hurry up and go home to change your clothes."

In the past, Lü Feng would definitely have nagged her a few more times. But things are different now. He only said one word of concern and nothing else. He smiled at Zhu Liushuang and then turned away to continue downstairs.

Qiu Yan seemed very satisfied with her son's performance and called out to Lü Feng, "Xiao Feng, hurry up. Mom knows you value tonight's blind date, but taking so long just to fix your hair is not good for being late!"

"It's still early..."

"I'm afraid of traffic jams on rainy days! Sigh... You know, that girl Xiaoshuang is really pitiful, braving wind and rain every day, having to shoulder everything herself. I was just telling her to ask your dad to keep an eye out for the young men at his workplace..."

The murmurs of the middle-aged woman in the stairwell gradually faded away. Zhu Liushuang pursed her lips and climbed up a floor, taking her hand down from her right ear.

A few minutes later, she walked into her own home.

Gu Chunling had brought a dry bath towel and was waiting by the door. As soon as Zhu Liushuang stepped into the house, her mother wrapped her whole body in a large bath towel.

"Mom—I can't see the road!" Zhu Liushuang smiled helplessly. "I only asked you to turn on the water heater in advance, not to wait by the door!" Although she said this, a warm feeling welled up in her heart.

Her mother's care and love were hidden in the everyday details, and she didn't have to bear everything alone.

“Next time it rains, just take a taxi back,” Gu Chunling said, pulling the towel off her face. “Or you can drive Mom’s car to work.”

"You're already worried about getting a little rain on you?" Zhu Liushuang let her mother dry her hair. "Don't you drive to work yourself? Besides, taking a taxi is so expensive, it's not worth it."

Gu Chunling stopped wiping halfway through her work, stared at her daughter's face for a moment, then turned and picked up her phone from the entryway cabinet, fiddling with it: "Mom got her salary this month, I'll transfer you 1500 yuan, that'll be enough for your taxi fare."

Zhu Liushuang chuckled and pulled a towel from her body to dry her hair: "Keep your money. In a couple of years, when the housing prices come down, we'll buy a house near the People's Hospital. That way, it will be more convenient for you to see a doctor."

Gu Chunling felt a warm glow inside at her daughter's thoughtfulness, but a bittersweet feeling followed her initial relief. Unsure how to respond, she casually helped her daughter with her bag.

"The bath water's hot, hurry up... Give me your bag and umbrella." The umbrella landed in Gu Chunling's hands, but the bag remained unmoved.

Gu Chunling glanced at her daughter, puzzled, and said, "Xiaoshuang, give the bag to Mom, I'll hang it in the entryway for you."

Zhu Liushuang clutched her bag tightly, refusing to let go. Her mind raced, and her smile froze. "Mom... Mom, I suddenly remembered I have something urgent to attend to. I'll go back to my bedroom first before taking a shower." With that, she ignored her mother's reaction, grabbed her bag, and dashed into the second bedroom.

The bath towel slipped from Zhu Liushuang's body and fell to the floor. Gu Chunling bent down and picked it up. She stood there holding the damp bath towel, her gaze fixed on the closed door of the second bedroom.

After a while, she shook her head, turned around and went to the bathroom.

My daughter has finally grown up and has her own little secrets.

Just a few minutes ago, she heard her slam the door shut and then lock it with a click.

But in reality, even if the door wasn't locked from the inside, she wouldn't rashly open her daughter's room door.

Gu Chunling couldn't hide her melancholy. For so many years, she had raised her child as both father and mother, hoping she would grow up quickly. But now that Zhu Liushuang had truly grown into a sensible and well-behaved young woman, she suddenly realized that she was growing further and further away from her daughter's heart.

Unable to see her mother's bewilderment and disappointment from inside the room, Zhu Liushuang tiptoed and locked the bedroom door before sitting down at her desk.

The zipper of the handbag was slowly unzipped, revealing a bright red certificate.

The bright red cover is her marriage certificate with He Ming. The maroon cover is her family's household registration booklet.

Zhu Liushuang took out their marriage certificate and placed it on the desk. Her delicate fingertips traced the bright red cover, the large gold characters on it gleaming softly under the light. Her gaze softened as she recalled the scene an hour earlier when the two of them stood in the carport waiting for the rain.

The rain showed no sign of letting up; raindrops dripped down the edges of the plastic carport, splashing up quite a few water droplets on the ground.

"Wait a little longer before you leave," He Ming said, standing opposite her.

"It might not be able to stop for a while, senior, you should go back first, don't worry about me." In front of him, she was always understanding.

“Grandpa’s condition has been relatively stable these past few days, so I have time.” He Ming paused, then said, “I’ll wait here with you, so… don’t be afraid.”

His hesitant remark was a great surprise to Zhu Liushuang.

It turns out, he was worried about her!

I was worried that she would be scared to be alone in the dimly lit carport shelter from the rain.

Those ten-odd minutes of waiting for the rain to stop felt both short and long.

The man's presence beside her was so close, impossible to ignore, and with each breath, her heart raced uncontrollably.

When she took the initiative to start a conversation with him about various real-life cases of brainstem hemorrhage patients "coming back from the dead" in order to ease the atmosphere, the heavy rain quickly turned into a light drizzle.

As they parted, He Ming turned her electric scooter around and told her to find shelter if the rain got heavier.

Zhu Liushuang responded somewhat awkwardly to each question, and then drove away from the carport.

Even after driving some distance, she could still see He Ming's tall figure in the side mirror of the electric scooter. He stood straight like a pine tree in the night, growing smaller and smaller in her side mirror until he finally disappeared.

Pulling herself back to reality, Zhu Liushuang carefully flipped through the pages of their marriage certificate, her gaze involuntarily falling on their photo. In the picture, they looked perfectly matched, just as the photographer had said. She vividly remembered how, when the photo was paused, he turned his head to listen to her. They were so close then; his warm breath brushed against her neck, making her heart flutter with a sweet, ticklish feeling.

Her cheeks were burning hot. Zhu Liushuang snapped the marriage certificate shut and pressed it tightly against her chest.

She and He Ming were indeed bound together by a marriage contract.

Although... this marriage in name only may have to be kept secret for a long time.

Zhu Liushuang got up, walked around the wooden bed, and went to the wardrobe in the corner of the bedroom. With a creak, she opened the wardrobe door, glanced around, and picked out a wool sweater that she didn't often wear to cover the marriage certificate.

She then bent down, pushed aside a stack of hanging winter clothes, and found the innermost drawer, pulling it open.

The drawer was crammed with neatly folded sweaters, and she hid her wedding photo, wrapped in a wool sweater, at the very bottom of the sweaters.

If asked why she didn't lock the marriage certificate in the desk drawer, Zhu Liushuang couldn't give a clear answer.

She probably felt that the desk was too conspicuous and not a safe place to keep secrets.

Besides, her mother also had a key to the desk.

The wardrobe door closed again, and Zhu Liushuang, having finished everything, let out a long sigh of relief.

There was a knock on the bedroom door, and her mother urged her for the second time to go take a shower.

Zhu Liushuang sighed and walked to the door.

Before closing the bedroom door, her gaze lingered on the leather-trimmed wardrobe. From that day forward, her wardrobe would hold a secret tinged with bitterness, sweetness, and heaviness.

Amid her mother's nagging, she slipped on her slippers and ran to the bathroom.

At the same time, the phone on the bedside table suddenly vibrated.

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Author's note: [Shrug][Shrug] Shuangshuang, are you sure the wardrobe is safe?