The misread sentence stirred his heart, and he lowered his eyes to suppress his surging emotions.

After Gu Qingyan told her about those things, Xu Zhaozhao felt relieved.

The male protagonist will definitely receive unseen help, but he's just too stupid.

Yes, it's stupid.

Yin Qi might not be able to use any clever methods, after all, he's been tricked by the main villain over a hundred times already...

The villain failed once, and this time will be no exception.

Even Yin Qi himself didn't realize that, having lived so long and constantly dying and coming back to life, he had become somewhat complacent.

Aside from verbal attacks, nothing else caused Gu Yulin any substantial harm.

perhaps……

There is still hope that the male lead and the main villain can become brothers.

Xu Zhaozhao has recovered and is able to speak again.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, her voice trembling with tears, and repeated the words, "Gu Qingyan, let's get married."

Gu Qingyan lowered his head and gently kissed away her tears.

He pressed his forehead against hers, meeting her gaze. His beautiful eyes sparkled with starlight, and he parted his thin lips slightly: "Who proposes to someone like that?"

Xu Zhaozhao's sadness vanished instantly, her eyelashes still wet with tears, as she stared blankly at him.

?

Who is proposing to you?

Looking back, what I said really sounded like a marriage proposal.

She blankly pulled a strawberry candy from her pocket and presented it to Gu Qingyan with both hands.

"Here's some candy for you."

Xu Zhaozhao stopped crying and smiled, looking at him with her watery almond-shaped eyes: "Then, little pig, would you like to marry me?"

Her voice still trembled with sobs, tinged with a hint of coquettishness.

"marry."

Gu Qingyan answered without hesitation.

Xu Zhaozhao's eyes curved into a smile as she dodged his outstretched hand from taking the candy and instead stuffed it into his shirt pocket.

Strawberry candy visualizes his heartbeat.

A pale pink hue peeked through the white shirt, trembling slightly with his heartbeat.

Gu Qingyan took her hand and placed it on his hand, saying, "It beats for you."

Xu Zhaozhao's gaze, however, was fixed on the Buddhist prayer beads in his right hand.

She forcefully pulled Gu Qingyan's hand down, and with her other hand, she stroked the beads, the intricate patterns tracing across her fingertips.

The sandalwood-colored Buddhist prayer beads and the white jade on her wrist looked like a match made in heaven.

"Gu Qingyan, since you've already agreed to marry me..."

She looked up into his eyes, her expression serious for the first time: "I'm asking you one last time, why are you wearing these Buddhist prayer beads?"

Xu Zhaozhao didn't want to know before, simply because she didn't love him.

How can you not want to know everything about someone you love?

The word "atonement" wasn't enough; she wanted to know more, and she must have asked more than once.

If Gu Qingyan doesn't tell her this time, then she'll keep it to herself; she won't want to know.

Gu Qingyan did not speak immediately, and the two stared at each other in silence.

Xu Zhaozhao was inexplicably angry. She grabbed his bead and said sourly, "Hidden so deeply? Could it be some dead white moonlight, and you're doing this for some woman..."

Xu Zhaozhao's words were interrupted by his sudden princess carry, and she subconsciously tightened her arms around his neck.

His voice came from above: "It really is a woman."

Before Xu Zhaozhao could ask any more questions, Gu Qingyan carried her out of the villa and into the back garden.

He put her down in front of the peach tree that had sprouted new branches.

It was already evening, and the golden rays of the sunset cast a glow over the peach trees and the trees themselves.

"This peach tree must be very important to you, right?"

They even transplanted it here from the old house.

Xu Zhaozhao reached out and touched its newly grown green leaves.

"I wouldn't say."

Gu Qingyan hugged her from behind, his chin resting on her shoulder, his breath brushing against her ear.

Xu Zhaozhao knew that he was about to start telling stories again.

I sat next to him and listened silently.

That was probably when he was four years old; he said it was only as tall as the peach tree stump after it was cut down.

His mother loved peach trees, and her first request upon moving into the old house was to transplant a peach tree.

We also need to hire someone to take care of this peach tree so that it blooms all year round.

Before he was four years old, Gu Qingyan still had a mother.

He could no longer remember what the person looked like, only what she said to him.

"Ayan, you must listen to your father."

"Ayan, go tell your dad that your mom bought you this toy."

"Ayan, how could your father go to see another woman? Have you been naughty? Go apologize to your father right now."

...

However, four-year-old Gu Qingyan already knew that his father did not like him, but he still obeyed his father's orders time and time again, even though he would be scolded.

He would often watch his mother cry, and sometimes she would scold him when she got emotional.

I don't remember the specifics of what I said.

But what his parents said most often was, "Gu Qingyan, why were you born!"

One day, the two had a fight, and the entire Gu family was on edge. Gu Ru smashed a lot of things.

He hid behind the liquor cabinet, trembling.

When he came to his senses, the only person in the living room was Gu Ru, who was completely drunk.

He ran out to look for his mother, but couldn't find her anywhere in the Gu family compound.

His mother had been missing for three days, but he could only wait anxiously in the room, unable to do anything about it.

One rainy night, he missed his mother very much. Ignoring the wind and rain outside, he ran to the tree that his mother had carefully protected.

He saw chunks of meat, and the sticky air was filled with a nauseating smell of blood, and a faint, almost undetectable scent... that belonged to his mother.

The four-year-old stood frozen in place, too terrified to react.

At that moment, the old butler noticed him, pulled him back into the house, and threw a blanket at him.

"Young Master, it's going to rain. Don't run around outside. If anything happens to you, I'll be responsible!"

Clinging to his last shred of hope, he clung to the arm of the old butler he usually disliked: "Grandpa Butler, please tell me, where is my mother..."

"The master said to chop it up and use it as flower foam."

The old butler shook it off with a hint of disgust, flicked his sleeve, and said, "Of course, I'm going to heaven. Where else could I go?"

The four-year-old was completely stunned, feeling a chill run down his spine.

His mother was just a minor actress who was good-looking and spent one night with Gu Ru.

If it weren't for him, his mother wouldn't have moved into the old house; she would have just been played with and discarded by Gu Ru, instead of losing her life.

In this way, they were tortured and killed.

They didn't even leave a trace in the Gu family, not even a name.

Because his mother works in the entertainment industry, the entertainment industry is considered unlucky by Gu Ru.

"At that time, I was thinking... maybe I really was a mistake."

Gu Qingyan closed his eyes, his vision completely dark, and his voice was terrifyingly low: "It's not her who's going to die, it's me."

After that, he started having recurring dreams, dreaming that his mother was crying, dreaming that someone was slashing her with a knife, and that she was screaming for help...

He opened his eyes, and the image of the peach tree was reflected in them.

“At my worst, I thought about chopping myself into pieces and burying myself with her under the peach tree to be used as flower mud…”