Chapter 31 - Should I take you to a hotel or... go home...?
When the plane landed, Lin Xi was surprised to find that Zhou Leyan was the one who came to pick her up.
From afar, you could see him standing tall and straight in the crowd. For some reason, his usually carefree figure looked somewhat forlorn at this moment.
When his gaze fell upon them, he instantly straightened up, reverting to his carefree and unrestrained demeanor. It seemed that the fleeting sense of loneliness he had felt just moments before was merely the boredom of waiting in vain.
Zhou Leyan stretched out her hand and waved to them, "Fu Qingli, Lin Xi, over here!"
Lin Xi looked at Fu Qingli in confusion: "Why is Brother Leyan here? Did you tell him?" It seemed like that was the only possibility.
Fu Qingli's face remained expressionless; she simply nodded.
Lin Xi was even more puzzled: "How come you're in contact with him? Didn't you two have a fight and then stop talking to each other?"
After that fight, the two men began to dislike each other, even to the point of childishly ignoring each other.
Fu Qingli was more mature and sensible than her peers since childhood, and her way of dealing with people was proper and polite. This was the first time she had felt such a strong aversion to someone.
But how can we say that he used to eat at Aunt Yao's house for a month when he was a child, and whenever he went to Nanqing, he would always make time to visit the Zhou family? How can our relationship have deteriorated like this?
Lin Xi tried to mediate, but Fu Qingli, for the first time, didn't even give her face and refused to make peace with Zhou Leyan.
Unexpectedly, after many years, they found themselves in private contact again.
Fu Qingli didn't intend to go into details, but simply explained, "We bumped into each other a few days ago and exchanged contact information."
“You said that Aunt Yao has treated you like her own daughter all these years, so I contacted Aunt Yao through Zhou Leyan to inform her in advance about our marriage.”
Lin Xi's eyelashes trembled slightly as she realized her oversight.
Fu Qingli squeezed her soft hand to comfort her: "Don't worry, Aunt Yao agreed to our marriage, so it's not like we acted first and asked for permission later!"
As they spoke, they had already reached Zhou Leyan's vicinity.
Judging from Fu Qingli's words, it's not hard to guess what they were discussing.
Zhou Leyan laughed and replied, "Yes, when my mom heard it was Fu Qingli, she was so happy she wanted to fly to Beicheng to see you get your marriage certificate! She was just telling me that your marriage certificate shows you are a perfect match."
As he spoke, he opened the car door, revealing a bouquet of pink double-petaled lilies on the black back seat.
"Happy wedding! I wish you a long and happy marriage!" Zhou Leyan said sincerely and solemnly, having stopped her earlier teasing.
*
Before leaving, Zhou Leyan put down her phone and turned to ask the two of them, "Should I take you to a hotel or... go home?"
“My mom has finished cleaning, so I can go back and check on her anytime.”
When he asked that question, he was naturally referring to the Lin family's house.
Lin Xi lowered her head and remained silent.
Fu Qingli was sitting close by and could clearly feel the subtle trembling of her body.
He reached out and placed his hand on the back of her hand, his fingertips gently stroking the protruding knuckles to ease her tension.
"Xiaoxi, don't push yourself. If you feel unwell, we can stay at a hotel. I arranged rooms before we came."
Lin Xi wasn't feeling unwell, she was just a little hesitant.
Her father's formal funeral was a year after the accident, when she was finally allowed to return home.
The house was still furnished the way it was before I left, but after a year of no one living there, it was covered with a thick layer of dust and looked somewhat dilapidated and abandoned.
Faced with the changed circumstances, she fled in panic.
Five years later, she didn't know if she had the courage to face her empty home without her father.
But she couldn't keep running away forever.
The events of that year were a fatal blow to themselves, Aunt Yao, and Zhou Leyan, and they succumbed to their instincts and fled Nanqing.
Three years ago, Zhou Leyan overcame his inner demons and chose to return to Nanqing to inherit his father's police badge.
To better care for her son, Aunt Yao learned to face her grief and made the difficult decision to return to her old home in Nanqing, where she is now able to live a normal life.
Only I remain trapped in sorrow, endlessly choosing to escape.
But we can't keep running away like this forever, can we?
Fu Qingli's palms were warm, the warmth passing through their skin as they touched, patiently soothing her tension and unease, giving her the courage to face the situation.
Lin Xi grasped Fu Qingli's large, bony hand and intertwined her fingers with his, drawing strength from him in the process.
She made up her mind: "Let's go home."
Backlit, Zhou Leyan's face was hidden in shadow. His ambiguous gaze swept over their clasped hands before he turned back and started the car: "Alright!"
The ending note rises upwards, making it difficult to detect the subtle bitterness mixed in.
After a day of emotional rollercoaster, Lin Xi's body finally gave out.
In her extreme exhaustion, she also remembered that she had run away from the meeting, and her colleagues were probably terrified.
Moreover, he was so focused on returning to Nanqing to tell his father about his marriage that he didn't even ask for leave.
It's only Tuesday tomorrow!
She was mostly awake in an instant, and hurriedly started looking for her phone, but she had boarded the plane empty-handed, letting Fu Qingli lead her by the hand.
There was nothing else on him.
Fu Qingli grabbed her groping hand and asked, "What are you looking for?"
"My phone!" Lin Xi was so anxious she almost cried. "I don't think I brought it, but I haven't asked for leave for tomorrow yet."
“It’s here with me.” Fu Qingli said, taking her phone out of her other pocket and handing it to her. “Don’t worry, Zhou Qi has already asked for leave for you.”
Upon turning on the phone, there wasn't the overwhelming number of inquiries and phone calls I had expected.
Many colleagues tagged her in the group chat, telling her to rest well and that they would take care of the remaining work.
Scrolling up, it was the post Zhou Qi had made—
Meng Qiqi: [Lin is feeling a little unwell and needs to go home to rest.]
But she never contacted him privately.
Lin Xi took a while to react before turning to Fu Qingli and asking, "So... it was Zhou Qi who notified you?"
Fu Qingli nodded: "And Gun Gun, it's always been with you!"
However, Lin Xi lost all awareness of her surroundings at the time and relied solely on instinct to avoid crowds and vehicles, failing to notice Gun Gun.
Lin Xi was still troubled by Zhou Qi's matter: "So, does she know about our relationship?"
Sensing the anxiety in her voice, Fu Qingli frowned and asked, "Which do you mean? Marriage?"
"No, it's about when we broke up..."
Fu Qingli: "..."
Zhou Leyan, sitting in the front row, chuckled unkindly: "Lin Xiaoxi, isn't it inappropriate to bring up unhappy things on the day we're getting our marriage certificate?"
Fu Qingli glanced at him coldly through the rearview mirror.
He seemed quite happy when he saw him fall, a smug kind of happiness.
"You don't want her to know we knew each other before?" Fu Qingli quickly grasped the key point, somewhat incredulous. "Why?"
He asked the question with a blank expression and a somewhat cold tone.
Lin Xi felt inexplicably guilty: "No, it's just that I feel a little awkward. We were pretending not to know her before."
Thinking of something, she suddenly felt a little wronged and complained softly, "Didn't you also not want your friends to know I exist? Why are you only yelling at me!"
Fu Qingli was taken aback, realizing she had been a bit hasty. Her facial features immediately softened, and her voice coaxed, "I wasn't mean to you, but I didn't..."
He paused, realizing why Lin Xi thought that way. "I didn't want you to meet them before because I was afraid that person was cunning and would try to sabotage things. But they all know you exist and have always wanted to meet you!"
So that's how it is.
A few words untied the knot in my heart that had been lingering for years.
But her happiness didn't last long before Lin Xi suddenly realized, "President Zou knows me too?"
"Hmm." Fu Qingli could roughly guess what she was thinking, so she put her arm around his shoulder and let him lean back into her arms. "But he only found out who you were after you joined the company."
"Does this make you feel uncomfortable?"
Lin Xi shook her head. She was pleasantly surprised to know that he was willing to let his friends know about her, but it was a bit sudden and she didn't know how to face them at the company.
"How about we have a meal together in a few days so we can get to know each other formally?"
"good."
Fu Qingli always seemed to be able to catch her subtle thoughts and offer appropriate solutions.
When she was with him, she felt at ease being a child, leaving all the problems she encountered to him.
Now, it seems that this is also possible.
The car moved forward smoothly, and I was surrounded by a sense of peace.
Before long, Lin Xi's eyelids began to droop, her consciousness gradually faded, and she fell asleep.
She slept very soundly this time, and didn't even wake up when Fu Qingli carried her out of the car.
It was past 11 p.m., and Aunt Yao was still awake at home, waiting. Whenever she heard a noise, she would peek out the window to take a look.
The family compound has six floors in total, but no elevator has been installed. Fu Qingli carried Lin Xi and slowly walked up the familiar yet somewhat unfamiliar stairwell.
Everything seems unchanged, yet it also seems the same.
The walls on both sides of the corridor have been newly painted, and the graffiti left by the children before is gone. Instead, cartoon stickers that are popular among children nowadays are pasted upside down.
As they grew older, the hallway became increasingly narrow, making it impossible for two adult men to walk side by side.
Zhou Leyan led the way, making sure nothing in his line of sight tripped him up.
Aunt Yao opened the door to the house on the left side of the fifth floor in advance.
Everything is the same as before, except that Lin Fengyuan will never again come out of the kitchen and call out, "We're home! Wash your hands and eat!"
In fact, during his senior year of high school, Lin Fengyuan was rarely able to go home on time due to work.
He often doesn't come home for several days in a row, and even when he does, it's usually late at night. By the time they get up, he's already left.
But memory is so magical; the few scenes we recall subconsciously fill in the gaps in our memories.
They felt that he had always been there, that he had been with them in this family for many years.
Even someone as aloof as Fu Qingli was moved by the scene, and her eyes welled up with tears.
Fortunately, Aunt Yao came out to greet us. She looked a bit older than I remembered, but she was still as warm and welcoming as I remembered: "You're back."
Zhou Leyan popped out from behind and shushed her, saying, "Xiaoxi is asleep."
"Oh, oh," Aunt Yao hurriedly pointed to Lin Xi's old room and said to Fu Qingli in a low voice, "It's all packed up, you can take it in first."
"good."
This wasn't the first time Fu Qingli had entered Lin Xi's room.
The moon-shaped bedside lamp filled the room with a warm yellow glow, and the faded pink and purple floral wallpaper, though worn and white, still suited the space.
Along the edge of the neatly arranged books on the natural wood-colored bookcase, there was a row of cute ornaments, most of which were brought back to her by Fu Qingli over the years.
Fu Qingli gently placed Lin Xi on the bed. When she took off Lin Xi's shoes and socks, Lin Xi unconsciously hummed and rubbed against the pillow. She didn't wake up, turned over, found a comfortable position, and continued to sleep.
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Author's Note: I don't know if everyone will find this chapter a bit boring. Actually, after revising the story so many times, I was really torn about whether to go back to Nanqing when they got married, and whether to write about Aunt Yao and Zhou Leyan. In the end, I decided to write about them. To put it sentimentally, during the time when Fu Qingli was away, they were the ones who stayed by her side. They really treated Lin Xi as family, and Fu Qingli's gratitude towards them also needs to be expressed in some way. But this part will be done relatively quickly.
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