Without much hesitation, Fu Xuanliao said, "You won't."
“I will,” Shi Meng said. “Five years ago, have you forgotten?”
"That wasn't the drug you administered."
Shi Meng was caught off guard by his resolute tone, and after a long while, he spoke again: "Who else could it be but me?" He felt even more ironic at this answer, "You didn't say that back then."
Fu Xuanliao explained, "Back then, there was no evidence to prove that you did it. It was just by chance that we met you, and that's why we assumed it was you."
Shi Meng gave an "Oh," still maintaining a nonchalant attitude: "So now you have evidence?"
“No,” Fu Xuanliao answered truthfully, “but I know you won’t hurt me.”
If it were you, there would be no need to choose that time, and you certainly wouldn't use such despicable means to force me to submit—this is what Fu Xuanliao realized the night before arriving in Xuncheng.
Seemingly touched, Shi Meng's eyes trembled slightly, then she averted her gaze as if to avoid it, looking at the island counter: "Have you forgotten who tied you to their side with a contract?"
Fu Xuanliao slowly shook his head and said, "I only remember who helped the Fu family through the crisis."
The completely unexpected turn of events stunned Shi Meng for a moment, then she let out a half-smile and a breathy sound: "Help? So this is how President Fu treats those who offer help."
During the contract period, they resisted fulfilling their obligations, and even repaid kindness with enmity.
Called "President Fu" in an unfamiliar tone, Fu Xuanliao lowered his voice and said, "It's my fault..."
“Moreover, this isn’t helping,” Shi Meng continued before he could finish, “it’s opportunistic and exploitative.”
It was Shi Huaiyi who actually offered help; he merely took advantage of the contract for his own benefit, which, strictly speaking, was a case of profiting from someone else's misfortune.
Therefore, it is understandable that Fu Xuanliao wanted to escape; no proud person would willingly be bound.
However, just as Shi Meng finally understood using normal human thinking, Fu Xuanliao said, "That's because I took advantage of you."
“You are so good to me, and I not only didn’t cherish you, but I also hurt you recklessly. This is the first thing I want to apologize to you for coming here.” He took a deep breath. “I misunderstood you and did so many terrible things to you… I’m sorry.”
Shi Meng began to regret mentioning the drugging.
He had been avoiding reminiscing about the past, but the door to the past was like Pandora's box; once opened, it would unleash endless troubles.
He should have stopped caring about these things long ago, and he shouldn't have been moved by the change in other people's attitudes and the so-called "truth coming out." But at this moment, he had to admit that his originally calm emotions had been stirred.
Language is far more powerful than writing, and its unconditional concessions are all too evident.
Ironically, his original intention in bringing up this matter was to provoke Fu Xuanliao, thereby forcing him to leave and preferably never appear again.
For Fu Xuanliao, however, it was a fortunate thing. Shi Meng's initiative provided him with an entry point to express the apology he had been holding back for so long.
Even though he knew that getting forgiveness wouldn't be easy, judging from Shi Meng's reaction, there was no sign of him backing down.
Since yesterday, Shi Meng's attitude has been extremely cold. On the surface, he has completely compromised and accepted everything, but in reality, he has erected all his thorns and is trying his best to convey resistance even in his breathing.
Shi Meng ignored Fu Xuanliao's apology, picked up the coffee cup that had been neglected for a long time, and placed it on the coffee machine base.
With the sound of flowing water, two steaming cups of coffee were placed on the table. Shi Meng stood at one end of the island counter, picked up a cup and slowly sipped it.
Fu Xuanliao stepped forward and picked up another cup.
Perhaps because of the close proximity, Shi Meng noticed the two dark scars on Fu Xuanliao's right index and middle fingers and took a second look.
"I got burned by cigarette smoke." Fu Xuanliao immediately answered without asking after noticing. "It hurts a little."
But I know that's nothing compared to the pain you're going through.
Shi Meng seemed not to understand what he said, or perhaps she simply didn't want to understand. Her gaze lowered again, Shi Meng put down her cup, pursed her lips, and clasped her hands together on the table.
This reminded Fu Xuanliao of the first time he met Shi Meng more than ten years ago. At that time, he was ten years old and Shi Meng was eight. When faced with his friendly approach, Shi Meng sat quietly and politely, but his tightly clenched fingers revealed his timidity.
I should have held his hand and told him not to be afraid.
Having lost his footing, Fu Xuanliao stopped just before his hand touched the bandaged back of his hand, curled his fingers, and quietly withdrew it.
Fu Xuanliao raised his cup and took a sip of coffee, saying frankly, "Although I was prejudiced against you back then because of this incident, which was the beginning of all evil, I am still glad that you were the one who barged in that day."
As he spoke, he exhaled, trying to make his words sound less heavy.
“If you don’t want to think about the past, then we won’t.” Fu Xuanliao turned his head to look at Shi Meng. “From now on, anything you give me, even if it’s poisoned, I’ll drink it willingly.”
These unverifiable words were forcibly forgotten by Shi Meng as soon as Fu Xuanliao left.
He closed the door tightly, locked it, went upstairs, moved the half-finished painting to the new easel on the downstairs balcony, grabbed a piece of beef jerky from the windowsill next to him, and chewed it to neutralize the bitterness left on his lips and teeth by the coffee.
It took Meng five whole days to paint this picture. During that time, he was always in a hurry when he went out to buy groceries. He ran into Aunt Pan at the supermarket, but they only chatted for a few minutes before he had to leave because he was in a rush to finish the painting.
On Friday night, there was a knock on the door. Shi Meng didn't want to open it for some reason. Only after recognizing who it was from the voices outside did she hurriedly put down her pen, stand up, and walk to the door.
Upon opening the door, the first thing that caught my eye was a bag of bright yellow oranges. When the oranges poked their heads out from behind the bag, they grinned widely and made funny faces, which startled Shi Meng so much that he took a half step back.
"Is it that scary?" Pan Jiawei muttered as he rubbed his feet on the floor mat before walking in and placing the oranges on the table. "My mom asked me to bring these for you so you can eat more. There are more at home after you finish these."
His mother was Aunt Pan from next door. Shi Meng thanked her, and Pan Jiawei waved his hand and said, "You're welcome." Then, without any ceremony, he dragged a dining chair over, sat back, draped his arms over the back of the chair, and asked, "I heard you haven't left the house for a week. What have you been doing cooped up inside?"
Guests rarely come to the house. Shi Meng treats guests according to his own ideas. He poured a cup of hot water and placed it on the table before returning to his easel and sitting down.
The answer was concise and to the point: "Painting."
"Is it still the one hanging on the wall of the breakfast stall?" Seeing him struggling to draw with his left hand, Pan Jiawei advised, "The proprietress doesn't know anything about these things. She might think your drawing is like an elementary school art assignment, and she won't be able to tell if it's good or bad. Why are you taking it so seriously?"
Shi Meng used a freshly washed brush to mix a low-saturation beige color and applied it to the dumpling skin: "Seriousness and perfunctoriness can be distinguished by the naked eye."
Pan Jiawei pursed his lips, picked up an orange from the table, and leisurely peeled it.
"I never knew you were an artist. I thought..."
Shi Meng has been living here for over a month. Earlier, when Pan Jiawei came home on weekends, he would visit with Aunt Pan a few times. Now that he said this, it naturally aroused Shi Meng's curiosity.
He stopped writing and turned to look in the direction of the restaurant: "What did you think?"
Pan Jiawei was also looking at him. Suddenly their eyes met, and he felt inexplicably guilty under the gaze of those clear eyes that seemed to see through everything. He quickly looked away, his voice becoming weak as he mumbled, "I thought you were... a celebrity."
It took Shi Meng quite a while to realize that Pan Jiawei was saying he was good-looking.
Because he spends most of his time painting indoors, he has little contact with people. Apart from Jiang Xue occasionally using his appearance as a selling point in public, Shi Meng has almost never heard anyone praise him to his face.
Therefore, he was inevitably surprised to be told that he looked like a celebrity. But then he thought about it again and realized that he had often been told that he looked like a vixen. Although it was a derogatory term, it probably also meant that people acknowledged his appearance.
The reason why the descriptions used are so different is because of the different backgrounds.
In Fengcheng, he was the illegitimate son of the Shi family, the son of a prostitute, and therefore naturally the little fox spirit born of a big fox spirit; in Xuncheng, no one knew his background or origin, so they judged him by his appearance and assumed he was a "star" living in seclusion there.
Having grasped this principle, Shi Meng gained a new understanding of the absurdity of this world.
However, he knew that Pan Jiawei was just being straightforward and said what he thought without any intention of mocking him.
"I'm not a celebrity," Shi Meng could only say.
"Then what are you doing hiding here?"
"...I didn't dodge."
"I don't believe it." Pan Jiawei broke off a segment of orange and stuffed it into his mouth, his eyes closing from the sourness. "The only people living in this urban-rural fringe area are old men and women, or people who have gone out to avoid debts."
Shi Meng gave a perfunctory "hmm".
After finally swallowing the orange, Pan Jiawei took a deep breath to calm himself down and asked, "Is it a debt of money or a debt of affection?"
He asked casually, but Shi Meng thought about it seriously.
The conclusion is that there are no debts; all of them have long been paid off. Furthermore, there was absolutely no affection between them.
Pan Jiawei was used to Shi Meng's taciturn nature. When he didn't get a reply, he assumed that Shi Meng hadn't listened to him. He finished eating the orange, clapped his hands, and stood up.
"You're busy, I'll go now."
Shi Meng stood up again and escorted the person to the door.
Pan Jiawei was walking ahead. When he turned around, Shi Meng, who seemed lost in thought, almost bumped into him.
He then realized that Shi Meng was only slightly shorter than him, with a forehead that reached his eyes, very black hair, and a natural soapberry fragrance about her.
He blushed inexplicably.
Pan Jiawei turned his face away and coughed lightly, saying, "Next weekend, I'll bring my guitar back and sing you the songs I just wrote."
Shi Meng paused for a moment, as if she didn't know why she was singing for him, but she didn't refuse and gave a soft "hmm".
As he reached the gate of the courtyard, Pan Jiawei turned back and instructed the child who was home alone: "My mom said she's been seeing a lot of out-of-town cars around here lately, acting suspiciously. Be careful when you're home alone, and don't open the door for strangers."
Shi Meng took this to heart and went to find a locksmith on the street early the next morning.
Jiang Xue's house was renovated in a hurry, and the gate to the yard hasn't been locked yet. For safety reasons, Shi Meng plans to install one for her.
Almost as soon as he stepped out the door, he noticed footsteps following behind him.
It's Saturday again in the blink of an eye.
Fu Xuanliao arrived in Xuncheng overnight with bloodshot eyes, looking like he hadn't slept. Just a few hours earlier, he had been having a meeting with his employees at the company, and hadn't even had time to eat before setting off in his car.
Fortunately, they made it in time. Fu Xuanliao hurried forward and, after repeatedly asking "What are you planning to do today?" and "Where are we going?" without receiving any answers, he stopped and looked up at the small advertisements on the telephone pole.
Before anyone could figure out what was going on, Shi Meng took out his phone, dialed one of the numbers, quickly made a verbal appointment with his master, and turned to walk back.
"A locksmith?" Fu Xuanliao asked as he followed him, "Is the lock broken? Should I try to fix it for you?"
Shi Meng ignored it, but when the locksmith came and took out a square lock from his toolbox that looked quite heavy, Fu Xuanliao suddenly realized what was going on.
The foreman was installing the lock on the courtyard gate with a clanging sound. Fu Xuanliao asked Shi Meng, who was supervising the work, "Is this... to keep me out?"
Everything is understood without words.
Even during his lunch break, Shi Meng kept the courtyard gate tightly locked. At noon, the sun was high in the sky, but the wind was strong. Fu Xuanliao, who was guarding the gate, was so windy that he felt dizzy. He stared at the iron fence, which was high enough to be easily climbed, for a long time, but in the end, not wanting to scare the people inside, he refrained from climbing it.
He has always been impatient. When he was a child, he never lasted more than a week learning piano, basketball, or painting. But with Shi Meng, he had to be extremely patient.
In this world, only Shi Meng is worthy of his complete patience.
The weather in Xuncheng changes faster than turning the pages of a book in autumn. When Shi Meng went out to the hospital in the afternoon, the sky had already turned overcast.
The air conditioning on the No. 21 bus they were on was broken, and the wind was blowing in from all directions. Fu Xuanliao took out some hand warmers from his coat pocket and handed them to Shi Meng.
"Put it on, wherever it's cold." He was still standing, bending over to protect Shi Meng's posture. "I'll shield you, no one will see."
As Shi Meng came out of the consultation room, he saw that Fu Xuanliao had another hand warmer-like thing in his hand. When he saw him come out, he put it in his hand and said that it could relieve muscle stiffness caused by cold and had a miraculous effect on blood circulation in the finger joints.
On the way back, I held it and tried it out. The heat flowed through my skin, and my warm hands were indeed much easier to move than my frozen hands. The rehabilitation exercises I learned last time didn't hurt much when I did them this time.
Fu Xuanliao knew he had made the right choice when he saw Shi Meng's expression, and happily said he would buy some delicious food to celebrate.
"Do you remember the roasted chestnuts you bought me?" he said. "There's a branch of this shop in Xuncheng too. I'll buy some for you later."
Shi Meng seemed not to hear, silently lowering his head and playing with his hands.
In addition to receiving rehabilitation guidance, I also had the bandage on my hand removed during this hospital visit. The wound has healed, and the doctor said I don't need to wrap it anymore.
However, the thick scar running across his palm was extremely obvious and alarming to behold.
Shi Meng, however, seemed indifferent, even playing with the scar while seated, rubbing it with his fingertips and scratching it with his nails, making Fu Xuanliao, who was standing next to him, nervous and almost wanting to stop him.
Fortunately, Shi Meng got bored after playing for a while, put his hands on his knees, leaned against the window, and fell asleep as the bus swayed.
Later, when Shi Meng recalled that day, he still found it hard to explain.
Due to his personality, he has almost never fallen asleep in public places since childhood. It is a rare thing for him to fall asleep on a bus that is constantly moving and noisy.
He naturally didn't want to attribute the reason to the person sitting next to him; he simply thought that he was too tired lately, and with the car heater on, it was normal to feel drowsy.
I never expected that a mere ten minutes of "relaxation" would allow someone to take advantage of the situation.
Opening my eyes from a brief sleep, the first thing I saw was Fu Xuanliao's profile.
Long ago, Shi Meng knew he was handsome. Her gaze slowly focused on the upper half of his face, with its smooth lines. Even though it was already deeply etched in her mind, looking at it now, purely from an aesthetic point of view, it was still captivatingly charming.
Perhaps subconsciously, Shi Meng felt that this person shouldn't be here, so no matter how Shi Meng looked at him, he felt that he carried a kind of weary and worn-out look.
Now, those deep, experienced eyes gazed at the wound in Shi Meng's palm, making him feel its warmth and weight.
As dusk settled outside the window, the streetlights cast a soft, hazy glow around me.
Shi Meng stood there stunned, unable to distinguish between reality and illusion, watching as Fu Xuanliao gently lifted his wrist, nodded, and covered the ugly scar with his warm lips, as devoutly as if kissing his lifelong faith.
I was delayed at the hospital today, and it was already dark when I got off the bus.
Shi Meng walked ahead, taking extremely fast steps, so fast that the wind whistled past his ears.
The people behind him quickened their pace to catch up, as if he had become shameless ever since he admitted defeat, and was willing to do anything even if it was humiliating.
As Shi Meng approached his home, he took out his key from his pocket as he walked, but perhaps because it was too dark, he couldn't get it into the lock for a long time.
The person behind him stepped forward and said, "Let me do it."
Shi Meng turned away from him, insisting on doing it herself.
After some fiddling, the door was finally opened. Shi Meng stepped inside and was about to close it when she saw the person behind her leaning against the doorframe, saying relentlessly, "I was wrong, don't be angry."
When he was caught red-handed in the car, he gave the same answer, confident and open.
Shi Meng didn't want to get entangled with him: "I'm not angry."
“You’re angry,” Fu Xuanliao said with certainty. “I can tell.”
Why should I be angry?
"Because I... stole a kiss from you."
The atmosphere became subtly awkward as two people who had done everything discussed such a pure topic. Shi Meng's right hand clenched into a fist out of sight, and a strange warmth seemed to linger in his palm.
“Actually, it’s not really stealing a kiss.” Fu Xuanliao thought for a moment and added, “When I was a child, if I fell or got injured, my elders would blow on it like that.”
"Blow it, and the pain will fly away."
As he uttered those six words, which sounded like they were meant to comfort a child, Fu Xuanliao belatedly realized his embarrassment and understood that liking someone, besides giving one a surge of courage, also breeds timidity.
It turns out that Shi Meng approached him with such feelings, while living in fear and trepidation when he couldn't see her, for fear of being disliked by him.
The love and grudges in this world are truly locked in a circle; no matter how things change, they will always return to the starting point unexpectedly.
Now that the words were out, he was in a difficult position and looked at Shi Meng with almost trepidation: "Do you feel... any better?"
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