Chapter 34 A Piece of Candy
After the banquet, Fu Zhiheng returned to his room with Luo Xincheng's gift.
He opened a safe that was about half his height, looked at the neatly arranged items inside, adjusted their positions slightly, and placed the pair of cufflinks she had given him in the very center.
His gaze swept over the well-preserved and clean items, and a light smile unconsciously crept onto his lips.
It mostly contains small, miscellaneous items, such as hair ties, hair clips, umbrellas, and sun protection masks.
She is a bit forgetful in life. Although she usually likes to wear her hair down, she will want to tie it up when she is frustrated while doing her homework. However, she often forgets to bring her hair tie to school, and it is not good to borrow from her classmates all the time. So later, she would occasionally put some hair ties and small hair clips in Fu Zhiheng's bag for emergencies.
Fu Zhiheng kept them very well, but Luo Xincheng didn't always remember to ask him for them; most of the time, she brought them with her own.
Later on, she entrusted him with more and more little things for safekeeping, but she rarely took them back.
By graduation, Fu Zhiheng had accumulated a lot of colorful hair ties and pretty hair clips in her bag.
The umbrella was unusable because one of its ribs was broken, but Luo Xincheng couldn't find a trash can right away, so she handed it to him to help her throw it away.
He didn't throw it away.
We won't need the sun protection mask anymore since winter is almost here. Once, I put it in his backpack and forgot to take it out again.
She has a really bad memory; she left a lot of things with him but doesn't remember to ask for them back.
Aside from the small items, the item that originally occupied the most central position in the safe was a pair of glasses.
It was given to him by Luo Xincheng after they had been dating for a year.
Back then, her most frequent saying was, "Spending money on a man will bring you bad luck for life."
Therefore, from the very beginning of their relationship, she frankly admitted that she was extremely stingy. Although she had a lot of pocket money, she would never spend it on him, so that he would not have any wild ideas and try to get some expensive gifts from her.
The main reason was that at that time, many rich girls in their grade gave their boyfriends the latest electronic products and brand-name sneakers. Luo Xincheng was afraid that Fu Zhiheng would think that she was also a generous person, so she warned him from the beginning not to have any delusions.
Even when Fu Zhiheng gave her a gift for the first time, although she seemed quite happy, after playing with the gift for a while, she solemnly reiterated:
"Thank you for the gift, but I'll only give you something of similar value in return. Don't expect me to give you anything expensive; that's impossible, absolutely impossible."
Fu Zhiheng felt a little wronged that his sincerity was being questioned, but the next second he thought that she might have been harassed by people with bad intentions because of her family background and suffered losses, which was why she was so sensitive to these things.
So he explained gently, "I gave you this gift just to make you happy. I'm not trying to get anything in return. As long as you like my gift, that's enough. You don't need to give me anything in return."
Faced with her suspicious gaze, his expression became even more earnest. "I'm not saying nice things to deceive you. It's okay if you don't believe me now; time will prove my point."
After saying that, Luo Xincheng burst out laughing, "How cheesy!"
She seemed to have taken his words to heart, and afterwards she accepted his gifts with a clear conscience every time, and indeed never reciprocated.
During the conversation, she jokingly asked him if he felt resentful or that his feelings had been trampled on after receiving so many gifts without ever receiving any in return. His answer was the same as always: he didn't care about receiving gifts in return.
She would always scoff and complain that he was being cheesy, always using sweet words to deceive her.
Fu Zhiheng recalled his extremely simple words and felt that her understanding of 'sweet words' was far too low; his words were clearly from the bottom of his heart.
A year passed like this, and one day, on the eve of Labor Day...
Luo Xincheng asked him casually, "I'm going to Denmark for vacation. Is there anything you'd like as a souvenir?"
Upon hearing this, Fu Zhiheng, who was engrossed in his homework, looked up in surprise. "You're going to bring me a souvenir?"
His eyes were filled with disbelief, which made Luo Xincheng a little embarrassed and annoyed. "What do you mean? So in your eyes, I'm just a stingy miser?"
He laughed, "Didn't you say yourself that you're stingy and shouldn't expect me to spend money on you? And you even said that spending money on a man will bring you bad luck for life..."
Enraged, Luo Xincheng poked him with the tip of her pen, "If you keep talking nonsense, I won't bring it for you!"
"Okay, okay, I was wrong."
He gently brushed her pen aside with his fingertips, his light tone revealing an obvious longing.
"Just give me whatever you think is appropriate as a gift. I've never been to Denmark and don't know what's special there, so just give me whatever you think is appropriate. I'll like anything you give me."
Soft sunlight filtered through the transparent window, like melted, translucent butter, slowly and quietly flowing over his reddened ears, his lowered eyes, his thick, long eyelashes, and his upturned lips...
When he was enveloped in this buttery light, Luo Xincheng seemed to smell a sweet and delicious aroma.
She rested her chin on her hand, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed to look at him for some reason. After a moment of silence, she whispered, "Okay, just wait."
He smiled and said, "Yes, I'm looking forward to it."
He was really looking forward to it.
After all, back then, besides saying "spending money on a man will bring you bad luck for life," the other phrase she often said was "where the money is, there is love."
The fact that she wants to spend money to buy him gifts shows that she has feelings for him, right?
For the next two days, he kept thinking about it, his heart filled with anticipation, which would occasionally boil over and bubble up.
Unexpectedly, before he received Luo Xincheng's gift, he received news of his grandfather's death.
*
When Fu Zhiheng realized something was wrong, he had already prepared breakfast, set it on the table, and called his grandfather to come and eat.
I called him several times, but he didn't respond.
At first, he didn't think much of it, assuming that his grandfather was sleeping soundly or that his hearing had worsened, which was why he hadn't heard his voice.
He simply went to his grandfather's room to find him.
But when Fu Zhiheng tried to shake him awake after entering the room, the skin he touched was not the warm skin he usually felt, but a cold, stiff one.
In that instant, Fu Zhiheng was dazed, his mind buzzing.
In fact, this wasn't the first time he had faced death.
When he was in elementary school, his mother died of illness. When he was in middle school, his maternal grandmother passed away in her sleep. As for his father... he has never seen his father since he was born, and he probably died long ago.
But when he faced the death of his family members the first two times, at least he had his grandfather by his side. The two relied on and comforted each other, and they were able to get by.
He just didn't expect that he would have to face this situation alone so soon.
For a moment, Fu Zhiheng truly felt that perhaps he was a so-called cursed star, destined to have few family ties and a lonely life.
But no matter what, life goes on. No matter how unacceptable reality may be, the earth will not stop turning because of one person's grief.
So he mustered his spirits and contacted close relatives to help him organize his grandfather's funeral, and soon he was busy working non-stop.
Almost every relative who came to the funeral looked at him with that subtle, seemingly pitying gaze.
Some said he was so pitiful, being left all alone before even reaching adulthood, and they didn't know how he would survive... Many others said he was pitiful for his grandfather, who passed away before seeing his grandson go to university... And some were secretly whispering that he was a jinx, that his family members had all died because of him...
He listened to the gossip but ignored it, mechanically continuing the funeral as planned.
Was he sad? He didn't know; it seemed that all those intense emotions had been used up when his mother and grandmother passed away.
Why isn't he crying? I don't know, maybe he's not that sad, so he can't cry.
After the funeral, it was almost Labor Day and the holiday was about to end, but he wasn't in a good condition to go to class, so he asked his homeroom teacher for leave and planned to rest at home for two days.
After explaining the situation to his homeroom teacher, he opened Luo Xincheng's account, hesitating, unsure how to explain his leave request to her.
My language organization skills seem to have regressed to kindergarten level at this moment.
He stared at his phone absentmindedly for half an hour, then thought better of it and decided to explain it to her when he got back to school.
He put down his phone and began cleaning the house, especially the room where his grandfather had lived, cleaning it thoroughly inside and out.
While wiping the table, there was an ink disc that my grandfather often used, but he couldn't find a matching cover for a long time.
He turned around with the inkstone in his hand, only to find no one behind him.
He suddenly fell silent, staring at the empty room for a long time before he came to his senses and turned back to continue wiping the table.
The table got wetter and wetter as he wiped it, and it took him a long time to put down the rag.
After that, he began to adapt to living alone.
Life at home alone was extremely boring, and he would occasionally look at the white walls and feel a little unfamiliar with them.
This house is so big, it's like his voice echoes. It's so big it doesn't seem like his house at all.
His house is very small.
The doorbell rang three times before Fu Zhiheng finally realized that it was indeed his own door that was being rang.
Is it a relative? Or someone from the neighborhood committee?
Thinking this, he got up and dragged his slow steps forward.
The moment the door opened, a burst of bright light suddenly filled his dark eyes.
Outside the door, Luo Xincheng, dressed in a blue and white school uniform, looked up at him, her voice clear and bright.
"Fu Zhiheng, why haven't you gone to school these past two days?"
He looked at Luo Xincheng, who was still panting after climbing the stairs outside the door. His throat felt constricted, and his brain went blank for once, like an old television with a broken signal, flickering with static.
By the time he realized what had happened, he had already unwittingly welcomed Luo Xincheng into his home and even poured her a glass of soda.
"Thanks."
Luo Xincheng picked up her soda and took two sips, her gaze fixed on his face without blinking. Then she put down her glass and stammered, "Your...eyes are so red and swollen."
This was the first time Fu Zhiheng had seen her so cautious. He touched his eyes slowly, only to feel a slight sting.
"Is there?"
He asked with difficulty, "Isn't it ugly?"
She shook her head and asked again, "Why haven't you gone to school these past two days?"
He paused for a moment, then quietly explained the reason for his leave.
After hearing this, she became restless and uneasy, as if she were about to run away at any moment.
"I...I thought you had a cold or something..."
He smiled at her, his voice a little hoarse as if he hadn't had water in a long time, "I'm so glad you came to see me, thank you."
She tried to smile at him, but the smile she managed to force was dry and unattractive.
"It's really nothing." He turned his head away and adjusted his glasses. "Actually, I'm used to it."
She hugged her schoolbag tightly, muttering to herself, "How can I ever get used to this..."
Fu Zhiheng lowered his head and remained silent.
Luo Xincheng put her schoolbag aside, moved her stool closer to him, and touched the corner of his red eyes with her fingertip.
I've been very worried about you these past few days.
Fu Zhiheng blinked and looked at her through his glasses.
He wiped the lenses until they were clear and clean, but when he looked at her, it was as if he were looking through a thick layer of frosted glass. The more he tried to see her clearly, the more blurry her face became.
Her voice seemed to come from a very distant place, faint and indistinct.
By the time he realized what she had said, his tears had already soaked her fingertips.
Her face was blank with confusion, unsure how to handle the situation, so she could only awkwardly wipe away his tears.
"I'm sorry..." He dodged her hand, wiping his eyes on his own, his voice trembling, barely audible, "I...I didn't mean to cry...It's so embarrassing..."
Tears streamed down his face, and he couldn't wipe them all away in time. His glasses, which had been pushed up to his forehead because they were in the way, wobbled and fell to the ground.
Snap.
One of the lenses was thrown directly out of the frame.
Luo Xincheng was stunned for a moment. Just as she was about to bend down to pick it up, she saw Fu Zhiheng move even faster. He half-knelt on the ground, picked up the glasses, and tremblingly tried to put the detached lens back into the frame.
Tears, like broken strings of pearls, splattered onto the lenses, making them slippery with moisture.
"I'm sorry... I..."
I don't know if the lens is too slippery, or if my hand is shaking, or for some other reason, but I can't put the lens back in.
Luo Xincheng squatted down and patted him on the shoulder.
He immediately shrank back like a frightened bird, his body trembling. Embarrassed, he held his broken glasses and looked up at her, forcing a smile that was both awkward and pathetic.
"How could this happen... How embarrassing..."
Luo Xincheng touched his damp cheek and said softly, "It's okay. It's normal for your glasses to break after wearing them for so long."
After saying that, she turned around, took off her backpack, and unzipped it.
"I was planning to give it to you on the first day after the holiday, but I didn't expect you to take the day off."
She took an eyeglasses case out of her bag and handed it to him.
"I spent a few days in Denmark, and it didn't seem like there was much to do there, but it's the birthplace of Lindbergh, and I've heard that their glasses are pretty good and very lightweight..."
She opened the glasses case, and inside was a pair of square-framed glasses.
"Luckily, I asked about your eye measurements last month... Your prescription shouldn't have increased these days, right?"
He sniffed and said no.
Luo Xincheng breathed a sigh of relief exaggeratedly and said, "That's good."
Then she picked up the glasses and pretended to put them on him.
He quickly leaned closer and bowed his head in agreement, but what he was greeted was not the glasses, but her slightly pouting lips.
*Smack*
Her soft lips brushed against his wet eyelids, then quickly pulled away.
He froze on the spot, stiffly maintaining his posture as he tried to get closer to her. The scene was still, and he even felt breathless.
Later, Luo Xincheng coughed uncomfortably, "Why does it feel like... I've been disconnected? There's no response at all."
He belatedly looked up at her, his eyes widening in disbelief.
I don't know how many times I've cried these past two days; my double eyelids are almost swollen into single eyelids.
Looking at him like this, Luo Xincheng couldn't help but lean in and kiss him.
He then seemed to snap out of a daze and touched the eyes she had kissed, saying helplessly, "Don't do this..."
Luo Xincheng's face immediately fell. "Don't you want me to kiss you?"
He shook his head repeatedly, "I want you to kiss me, but I don't want to... I don't want to because you feel sorry for me..."
He lowered his head in frustration, unsure of what to say.
Are you happy to be kissed by her?
Of course he was happy, so happy he was practically going crazy.
But when he received her kiss in this setting and occasion, while he was pleasantly surprised, he couldn't help but feel a surge of awkward and bitter emotions in his chest. He had always known that he didn't have a great or impressive image in her heart, but he didn't want to be pitied by her because of these things, and he didn't want to use these things to beg for her affection.
"That's not the reason."
Luo Xincheng pressed her forehead against his in a serious manner, their eyes met, and there was an interesting smile in her eyes.
"Your eyes were red and swollen, like a peach, so cute," she said, emphasizing each word. "After you finished crying, you looked like a peach that had been rained on, even cuter."
"I didn't kiss you because I felt sorry for you."
"I kissed you because I thought you were cute."
After saying that, she planted a heavy kiss on his eyelids.
"Did you understand?"
Fu Zhiheng didn't say whether he understood or not. He just silently opened his arms and suddenly pulled her into his embrace.
Suddenly, her head pressed against his heaving chest. Luo Xincheng froze for a moment, her arms moving aimlessly until hot tears dripped onto her neck. Only then did she tentatively wrap her arms around his lean waist.
The two hugged each other in an awkward position, and within two minutes, Luo Xincheng felt her legs ache and her body stiff.
But she didn't complain at all, quietly listening to his vigorous and passionate heartbeat.
"Luo Xincheng".
"Um?"
"Thank you."
She didn't say anything, but gently patted his shoulder.
...
For a long time after entering high school, Fu Zhiheng always felt that his school life was boring, dull, and depressing.
He was not good at socializing and had almost no friends. While others were playing and having fun in groups, he usually acted as an uninvolved bystander, spending his days studying, studying, studying.
But after being with Luo Xincheng, his life became very different.
She has an unpredictable personality and a wicked sense of humor. She seems to enjoy seeing him embarrassed, so she will deliberately create difficult problems for him. When he finally doesn't know what to do and can only awkwardly beg her for forgiveness, she will laugh triumphantly.
They're so cute.
She was certainly not a ray of light in his life, much less a salvation in his miserable existence.
She herself has always scoffed at the redemption plots in novels.
She's more like a multi-flavored candy.
Sweetness is subtle, spiciness is stimulating, sourness is astringent and bitter, and pain is vivid.
A myriad of feelings, indescribable.
In Fu Zhiheng's life, which is as bland as plain water, he yearns for these complex and vibrant flavors.
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