Chapter 90 Escape [VIP]
Chapter Summary: Falling in love is clearly the most undeniable thing.
Fu Xianyin closed the folder and then opened it again, then closed it again.
The letters on the black paper were clearly visible, without any change whatsoever.
The swirling air from the turning pages of the paper wafted through the car. Alex, glancing sideways at her, said, "Isn't it cooler inside than outside? Do you need to turn on the air conditioning?"
Fu Xianyin ignored his joke and slammed the project proposal shut.
The hard cover of the folder made a slight clinking sound.
Fu Xianyin turned her head to look out the window.
The snow hadn't melted completely; there were still some unmelted ice fragments by the roadside. The ice fragments were no longer snow-white; the outer layer was covered in dust or mud, a dusty mess.
She suddenly became inexplicably irritable.
The return trip went smoothly. Fu Xianyin switched places with Alex again at the last service area. The car drove all the way to Andrew's house, where Fu Xianyin helped Alex carry a few of his relatively light pieces of luggage.
She had told Andrew that she would stay at their house the day she brought Alex back, since the next day was Christmas. At the time, Fu Xianyin thought it would be too much trouble to make another trip, so she figured it would be better to come a day earlier. But when the day actually came, she suddenly started to regret it.
The string of letters on the black and white paper looked as if someone had branded her with their mark.
Fu Xianyin just wanted to find a secluded place to catch her breath and get used to the sudden brand on her body.
Since we're already here, we should definitely help.
Fu Xianyin's cooking talent is average, but after so many years, her skills are certainly enough to support herself. Andrew's wife, Mia, mainly cooks traditional Western dishes for holiday celebrations. Fu Xianyin prepared the ingredients for her and then carefully selected some to keep for herself.
Mia watched her silently help tidy up and asked, "Did you have a fight with Alex on the way here?"
Fu Xianyin: ...
She forced a smile and said, "No, of course not."
What's there to argue about with Alex? That kid is as loud and boisterous as a large dog. Although he can be a bit cheeky at times, Andrew and Mia have raised him very well. He has all the proper manners and upbringing.
Fu Xianyin was helping out when Mia suddenly left. About ten minutes later, she came down the stairs with a bottle of wine in her hand.
Mia handed the wine to Fu Xianyin and said, "If you're in a bad mood, you can drink a little. This wine is quite good."
Fu Xianyin stared at the brand-new bottle of wine, speechless.
But she accepted it in the end.
Mia noticed that she was in a low mood, so she gave her a big hug, patted her on the shoulder, and told her to do whatever she wanted without being shy.
Fu Xianyin thanked her politely and took the wine to the small courtyard outside the door.
She straightened her clothes, put the wine bottle on the ground, and started pointing and looking at her notebook repeatedly.
Fu Xianyin finally gave up when that familiar face appeared on the page.
All hopes were dashed, and all access points were shut down.
It's not a case of someone with the same pronunciation or name; it's him.
That's Gu Linzhao.
For some reason, after seeing the person on the page, Fu Xianyin suddenly felt the tightness in her chest slowly dissipate.
She opened the wine, poured it into a glass, and took only a few sips when she felt as if a figure had come beside her.
Alex pulled up a chair and poured himself a glass of wine.
Fu Xianyin glanced at him and asked, "Does Mia allow you to drink?"
Alex protested, "Hey, I've already graduated, okay? How could she not allow it?!"
He asked, "It's so cold outside, why don't you come inside?"
Fu Xianyin casually made up a story: "The experiment isn't going very well, so the cold air helps clear my head."
Alex said "Oh," took a sip of his drink, but didn't go inside; instead, he sat down.
After a long pause, he asked in an ambiguous tone, "Are you going back to China?"
Before Fu Xianyin could say anything, he continued to ask:
Will they come back?
"What kind of question is that?"
Fu Xianyin laughed: "I haven't graduated yet, of course I have to come back to study."
The wine glasses were placed on a glass coffee table, their bottoms clinking together with a crisp sound.
Alex suddenly asked, "How long has it been since you went back?"
Fu Xianyin swirled her wine glass and said, "This is the sixth year."
Alex said, "I thought you would never go back."
Since he met Fu Xianyin, Fu Xianyin has rarely mentioned words like "hometown" in front of him.
It was as if she had been drifting like this since birth, like a duckweed, without roots or support.
The snow seemed to be falling heavier than before. Fu Xianyin sipped the wine in her glass one sip at a time. She picked up the bottle and poured herself another glass. The liquid swirled and circled in the glass, clinging to the side before slowly dripping back down.
Fu Xianyin's voice sounded ethereal and intangible, as if it would dissipate with a gust of wind.
She said, "Life is so long, how can you say for sure?"
The wine was sipped slowly, soaking into the throat before flowing down into the stomach.
Beside me, Alex kept talking about his college life.
He talked about his school, how he played rugby and frisbee with his friends, how he stayed up all night to study before the exam but still couldn't get a satisfactory grade, and about all the big and small things that happened to him at school.
Towards the end, he seemed to have drunk a bit too much and started telling Fu Xianyin about his childhood.
Alex said that on the day he got his driver's license, he took his family up the mountain to see the stars.
“You know what, Yin, I almost hit a deer. Mia was terrified and kept screaming in the car.”
Fu Xianyin listened with great interest.
Perhaps dissatisfied with being the only one talking, Alex picked up the bottle, poured some more into his empty glass, and said, "What about you? Tell me your story. Yin, I know almost nothing about your past."
Perhaps it's for the same reason as when he faced Zhang Tong.
For those unaware of that past, Fu Xianyin was actually more able to recount the events of the past fluently:
"When I was in high school, I went up the mountain with someone to see the stars."
"That day was my eighteenth birthday, and he took me to see the Centaurus meteor shower. When we were on the mountaintop, I kissed him, and then we got together."
Fu Xianyin expected to hear Alex exclaim in surprise, but instead he just took a sip of his drink and said, "So it was you who took the initiative?"
Fu Xianyin said, "It was his initiative."
Alex said, "But you said you kissed him."
Fu Xianyin said, "That's because I acted without thinking. I was young and reckless back then."
Alex said, "That's because you take the initiative."
He didn't know why he was fixated on this point. Fu Xianyin looked at the blush rising on his cheeks, chuckled, and said nothing more.
Just when everyone thought the topic was over, Alex picked up his glass and drank the wine in one gulp.
The next second, he turned around, looked at Fu Xianyin, and said:
"So the reason you're not going back to China is because of him."
"Cough cough cough"
Fu Xianyin choked on her drink, frantically trying to catch her breath. Before she could say anything, Alex said something else:
"You can't forget him."
Fu Xianyin felt that her heart was beating faster.
Her first instinct was to pick up the bottle on the table and take a look, to see how much alcohol she had consumed to be in this state.
Turning around, I met Alex's confident expression.
His eyes seemed to be veiled by a layer of mist, making it difficult to see clearly.
But his gaze was fixed directly on her.
He repeated, "You can't forget him, he's still in your heart."
Fu Xianyin replied quickly: "He and I have been separated for a long time..."
She suddenly stopped.
The words left unsaid were swallowed back down his throat, and even the swirling snowflakes in his vision seemed to stop.
She sat on the recliner, her fingertips still clutching the glass bottle of wine. The icy chill traveled upwards, clearing her muddled mind.
She suddenly understood
She is running away.
Alex asked her if she couldn't forget him, and if there was still someone in her heart.
If the question is yes or no, then you only need to answer yes or no.
There's no need to beat around the bush or offer these unfounded reasons.
Fu Xianyin suddenly grinned and smiled.
She fled in panic.
She was flustered because her heart was fluttering.
When I was young, I was stubborn and never wanted my heart to go beyond my control.
Thus, the excitement blurred into panic, and the panic was then misinterpreted into anger.
Years later, when everything had settled down, and looking back, she finally had to admit...
Feeling your heart flutter is something you can't deny.
On Christmas morning, everyone was unwrapping presents.
Fu Xianyin prepared gifts for every member of Andrew's family, including the dog Lucky, who was wearing a new red and green collar and was circling around Fu Xianyin's feet.
Mia watched this scene with a smile and said, "Lucky really likes this new collar."
Fu Xianyin gave Mia a pearl necklace. The pearls were all perfectly round and full, and they shone with a smooth luster under the light.
Mia was so enamored with the necklace that she immediately put it on and couldn't bear to take it off.
Mia's youngest daughter also loved the hair clip that Fu Xianyin had prepared for her. She begged Fu Xianyin to put it on her head herself. The little girl swayed back and forth in front of the mirror, constantly shouting that it looked good.
Amidst the cheerful atmosphere, only Alex looked somewhat awkward.
Fu Xianyin glanced up at him, her voice tinged with amusement: "What, don't you like the gift?"
Alex's gaze darted around, his hand clutching the frisbee Fu Xianyin had given him, and he said, "N-nothing."
It's fine if it's not there.
Fu Xianyin received an affirmative answer and had no intention of delving into the reason behind Alex's unusual behavior.
She was about to go to the kitchen to help prepare the food when, in the instant she turned around, her arm was suddenly grabbed.
Alex's ears were red, and he stared intently at her, asking, "Can we go outside?"
Andrew was decorating the Christmas tree with Claudia at the entrance. Alex pulled Fu Xianyin around to the back door, and only when they were in a secluded spot did Alex, as if he had been mentally prepared, say:
"I...I didn't prepare a gift for you."
That's it?
Fu Xianyin raised an eyebrow and chuckled to herself.
She said, "So what if I wasn't prepared? It's no big deal."
The cold wind was biting, and Fu Xianyin wasn't wearing a coat, only a sweater.
She crossed her arms, intending to turn and go inside, but seeing Alex's conflicted expression, she sighed. She stopped, stood there, and, braving the cold wind, comforted him:
“I don’t care about these things. You know, I didn’t celebrate Christmas for the first eighteen years of my life, so I don’t have the habit of receiving Christmas gifts at all. I’m grateful if I receive one, but it’s normal if I don’t. You’ve been busy graduating lately, so it’s understandable that you haven’t had time for it. It’s nothing, really.”
In the short time it took to say just a couple of sentences, the cold wind almost blew her through.
She couldn't take it anymore and said, "I'm freezing, I'm going back inside," before turning and going inside.
Alex was left standing there, lost in thought.
Actually, he did prepare a gift.
He asked around among the girls, and after thinking about it for a long time, he prepared a very large gift box for Fu Xianyin.
There was a scarf, a crystal ball, and...
A bouquet of flowers.
He originally intended to give this carefully prepared gift box to Fu Xianyin on Christmas Day, and he was even looking forward to seeing what kind of expression Fu Xianyin would show when she saw the bouquet of flowers.
Will she be pleasantly surprised? Will she like it a lot? Will she be so excited that she... rushes up and hugs him?
At that time, he could then naturally say the words he had prepared to Fu Xianyin.
He was even afraid he would forget his lines, so he wrote them down on small cards well in advance and carried them with him at all times.
But everything last night disrupted his plans.
She can't forget that person.
He was also unable to give all that he had prepared to Fu Xianyin.
Everything happened so suddenly that Alex didn't even have time to prepare a new gift for Fu Xianyin.
No, that's not right.
Actually, he could have given that scarf to Fu Xianyin. He couldn't give away the flowers or the crystal ball, but he could at least give away the scarf, right?
He stood there, unable to contain his frustration at his own foolishness.
Alex lowered his head, sighed, and suddenly wanted to know who the person Fu Xianyin couldn't forget was.
He kicked a snowflake at the doorway, and couldn't help but think defiantly:
What's so good about a guy who expects girls to take the initiative?
So good that she still remembers it fondly to this day.
[Author's Note]
Thankfully, Alex didn't question Yinyin by saying, "What's so great about someone who expects girls to take the initiative?" Otherwise, even if he had blacked out, Yinyin would definitely have dragged him out and interrogated him thoroughly, hahaha.
We'll reunite in the next chapter! Look forward to it, everyone! I'm definitely excited, hehehe.
Same as in this chapter, leave a comment and I'll send you a red envelope!
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