This wasn't the first time Shi Meng had heard these six words.
When I first arrived at the Shi family, I once tripped on the stairs and hurt my leg. Fu Xuanliao, who was visiting, saw this and couldn't find a band-aid. So he leaned in and gently blew on the wound. Since I was still a child, he coaxed me like a child and said in a gentle voice, "Blow on it, and the pain will go away."
Now that he's brought this up again, whether intentionally or not, it's undoubtedly a reminder to Shi Meng that the person in front of him was born into a happy family and is making those around him happy in his own way.
He possesses a complete system of understanding right and wrong, good and evil, and always does what he believes is right.
Back then, when Shi Meng had nothing, he was attracted by this happiness and indulged himself into becoming a fanatical maniac who couldn't get what he wanted, a complete madman.
It was as if one foot had stepped into the mud again, and if the center of gravity shifted even slightly, the same mistake would be repeated. Shi Meng took a step back and retreated from the center of the storm.
“I’m not angry,” he insisted. “You did nothing wrong, so you don’t need to apologize.”
Fu Xuanliao observed his expression: "Really?"
Shi Meng forced a smile and said, "Yes."
"So, next time..." Fu Xuanliao's embarrassment came and went quickly, "...I can still touch you?"
Shi Meng was stunned, his eyes widening in surprise at this person's peculiar thought process.
Then I remembered that Fu Xuanliao was originally this kind of person, saying whatever he thought, with an undisguised frankness that Shi Meng once longed for but now only wanted to avoid.
“No.” Shi Meng refused decisively.
"Oh," Fu Xuanliao said somewhat dejectedly, "then I'll try harder."
As he spoke, he let go of her hand.
The iron gate slammed shut. Shi Meng turned around and heard Fu Xuanliao say behind her, "Good night."
The word "reassurance" that he used to desperately seek is now readily available, yet Shi Meng feels only bewilderment.
After entering the room, taking a shower, and getting into bed, Shi Meng habitually lay on her side, crossing her arms and hugging her body.
He suddenly felt a desire to communicate with someone, or rather, a hope to receive advice. He reached under his pillow for several letters, opened one of them, and read it line by line under the bedside lamplight.
He saw Li Bihan's explanation of family and love, saying that when fate arrives, no one can predict whether it will be a sunny day or a storm.
Although he hadn't found the answer, Shi Meng felt inexplicably relieved.
He closed his eyes and told himself that everyone encounters this kind of problem.
However, what he was facing was a sun shower. First, the dazzling sunlight left him no way to hide, then the torrential, biting rain mixed in with it, and after the cold air moved away, the sun blazed down on his head again.
Someone was advising him to put down the umbrella and not to be afraid, but Shi Meng in the dream didn't believe it and didn't want to look up. He just held the umbrella handle tightly and hugged himself.
The story ended at sea that day, but there are always people who sail small boats to disturb the calm of the sea and try to change the ending.
Fu Xuanliao hadn't left by Sunday. Perhaps he had spent another night in the car. In the morning, he looked haggard and exhausted, but he still smiled brightly when he met Shi Meng's gaze and cheerfully said good morning.
He thought that Fu Xuanliao probably hadn't had enough of his downfall. After all, this man had tried to break his hand back then, and now that he had gotten his wish, why not take a few more glances for amusement?
Then let him see for himself.
Anyway, there's nothing left to lose.
Thinking this way, Shi Meng actually felt a little relieved. He went about his business and let Fu Xuanliao follow behind him.
When Shi Meng was delivering the completed painting to the breakfast stall and was about to leave, she saw Fu Xuanliao standing on a stool helping the proprietress hang the painting on the wall. She heard him and the proprietress praising the painting in unison, saying that even the steamed buns were painted so cutely that they looked just like the real thing.
While getting a haircut at the barbershop, Fu Xuanliao stood up from the waiting area and whispered in Shi's ear, "You don't need to cut your hair short, you look good too."
Back home, Shi Meng heard a knock on the door, but pretended not to hear it. When she went out to throw away the trash that evening, she saw a paper bag on the platform outside the yard with a large "chestnut" character on it and a note underneath. Under the streetlight, she read two sentences, neither too long nor too short.
One of them is an imperative—eat the chestnuts while they're hot, or I'll peel them for you next time.
Another saying is—"That kid next door always peeks into your room through the window, so make sure to draw the curtains at night."
When he heard that the chestnuts had been thrown into the trash can, Fu Xuanliao was initially saddened, but then smiled and said, "Let them be thrown away, they're cold anyway."
After Shi Meng turned and walked away, he shamelessly chased after her and said, "Today is my birthday. If there's a cake at the door later, could you please not throw it away?"
There was a time when he was leaning against the car door, his eyes heavy with fatigue from days of work and travel, rubbing his temples to relieve the strain. But the moment Shi Meng appeared, he put on a vibrant and energetic face and asked Shi Meng if he had had enough of the bus ride and if he wanted to try off-roading.
When Shi Meng said he didn't need it, he would breathe a sigh of relief and say with a smile, "You'll need it eventually."
In fact, Shi Meng did not agree with those accommodating and flattering words.
He believed there must be a purpose behind it, but he didn't want to confirm it, nor did he want to be systematically defeated.
But he could only dodge and avoid, passively resisting, hoping that the sun would shine into the dark corners while willingly staying in the same place and getting soaked in the rain.
Only when he occasionally received letters from Fengcheng could he temporarily hide under the umbrella with peace of mind. Most of the time, he had to make his own decisions about the future.
For example, one day I received a call from Fengcheng. The caller claimed to be a staff member of a pet store and said that I had a cat boarded there and asked when I would like to pick it up.
Shi Meng was puzzled at first, but when he heard that the cat's name was Mumu and that the owner's phone number on the nameplate was the same, he suddenly realized that Yang Youlan and Sun Yanfeng had been detained by the police and the cat had been temporarily sent to the pet shop. Now that the boarding period had expired and no one was taking care of it, the call naturally came to him.
Upon hearing this, Jiang Xue was the first to object: "Have you no shame? These two bastards, first they raised Shi Mu and ruined your perfectly good life, and now they've left you with a cat named Mu Mu to bother you. Are you doing this on purpose?"
Shi Meng looked down at the scar on her palm: "I don't know."
"That cat even scratched you. You're lucky you're still alive, even though you haven't finished your vaccinations."
“Yang Youlan should have vaccinated the cat,” Shi Meng said. “That’s why I’m fine.”
After a moment's hesitation, the person on the other end asked, "You want to keep this cat?"
Shi Meng didn't speak, but suddenly remembered that rainy night when he had traveled to many places and finally found the cat. In addition to the numb desolation, he also felt a faint sense of relief.
I also recalled the day I was painting when a cat suddenly jumped onto my lap and I was startled.
"I'll go take a look first," Shi Meng said. "A cat is a cat, and a person is a person."
After all, some people are worse than cats and shouldn't be lumped together.
Shi Meng originally wanted to take a taxi, which would take five or six hours round trip. He figured that if he paid a little more for gas, there would be a driver willing to do it.
But he forgot that it was Sunday, the roads were busy, and it was raining. He waited at the intersection for about ten minutes, then walked two more streets to the crossroads, but still couldn't get a single empty car.
The downsides of not liking to go out were now becoming apparent. Shi Meng suddenly remembered that Jiang Xue had mentioned that he could hail a ride online. He held an umbrella in one hand and pressed his phone with the other. Raindrops were blown onto the screen by the wind, making his fingers slip and preventing him from opening the app.
At that moment, a black Land Rover turned at the intersection and slowly stopped in front of Shi Meng.
Fu Xuanliao got out of the driver's seat without an umbrella and walked up to Shi Meng: "Going to the city center?"
Shi Meng shook his head and continued fiddling with his phone.
"Is that going back to Fengcheng?" Fu Xuanliao said immediately. "Get in the car, I'm going back to Fengcheng too."
Shi Meng raised his head and looked at him with a mixture of belief and doubt.
Fu Xuanliao was at a loss when he saw him looking at him like that, and conceded, "You see, it's not easy to get a taxi now, so how about we just requisition my car and charge by the mileage?"
There was no way to catch a ride anytime soon, and refusing would only make him seem pretentious. Shi Meng believed he just wanted a ride to get there and back quickly, and had no other intentions, so after weighing the options, he nodded in agreement.
After getting on the bus, Fu Xuanliao first handed Shi Meng a few tissues: "Wipe your face."
It was windy and rainy outside, and even with an umbrella, you'd still get half soaked. Shi Meng took the tissue and wiped her face haphazardly. Just as she turned to look for a trash can, the crumpled tissue in her hand was taken away and replaced with a thin blanket.
"I was covered up, but my body was all wet."
Fu Xuanliao calmly made the arrangements, starting the car and turning up the air conditioning temperature, while also adjusting the air vents towards Shi Meng.
Perhaps everything happened too fast. It wasn't until the car was driving smoothly on the road that Shi Meng realized that Fu Xuanliao's smooth and effortless movements were actually a habit left over from the past.
Even during the worst of their arguments, when Fu Xuanliao was driven to the point of anger by him, she would still come over to hold an umbrella for him when it rained, and she would turn up the car's heater because he was afraid of the cold.
The wind and rain were kept out, and the thin blanket kept the warmth in. Shi Meng looked out the water-blurred car window, exhaled very lightly and slowly, and her heart, along with the cold air, felt lost and slowly fell.
It was noon when we set off, and we were in a hurry. It wasn't until we got on the highway that Fu Xuanliao remembered to ask Shi Meng if he had eaten.
Shi Meng, fearing trouble, said she had already eaten. Fu Xuanliao nodded, "That's good. I haven't eaten yet; I'll buy something at the service area later."
Upon arriving at the service area, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Fu Xuanliao bought far more food than he could eat alone: eggs, grilled sausages, oden, corn, zongzi (sticky rice dumplings), and grilled squid. The plastic bag he was carrying was also filled with various biscuits, drinks, and snacks. The variety was so great that it seemed he had brought everything edible in the entire service area.
The smell inside the car was incredibly enticing. Although Fu Xuanliao didn't usually care much about his diet, he rarely ate anything so unrestrained for the sake of his health. He pulled out a grilled squid and waved it in front of Shi Meng: "Smell it, doesn't it smell like the barbecue skewers outside the school gate back in high school?"
Shi Meng was forced to inhale the spicy aroma of the oil, and pursed her lips: "Mmm."
"Try it, maybe it tastes about the same."
With the bamboo skewer practically placed in front of his mouth, Shi Meng took it and took a bite.
"They do look very similar, don't they?"
"Um."
Once it happened, it happened again. In the next ten minutes, Shi Meng unknowingly ate the food that Fu Xuanliao offered her under various pretexts, including but not limited to an egg, a grilled sausage, half an ear of corn, and several savory snacks.
When his full stomach sent a signal that he was full, Shi Meng realized that he had clearly said he had eaten lunch. Now most of the food had gone into his stomach, which was quite a slap in the face.
Shi Meng immediately felt uneasy, crumpled the garbage bag in his hand, and was about to get off the car to throw it away.
Fu Xuanliao beat him to it, snatching the trash from his hand and quickly stuffing it into a bag. Before getting out of the car, he only said, "Sit still and don't wander off."
Shi Meng would naturally not wander off. This service area is in a county under the jurisdiction of Xuncheng. He is unfamiliar with the place and the surrounding area is just endless fields and highways. Where could he possibly go?
But Fu Xuanliao seemed to really believe he would run away. He was in such a hurry to throw away the trash that he didn't even open his umbrella and got soaked to the bone. When he got back to the car, he shook his head and splashed water droplets all over his face.
"Feel sorry."
He knew he was being reckless, so he took a tissue to wipe Shi Meng's face, but Shi Meng turned her head away, a smile still on her lips: "Why don't you go to the back seat? You can lie down for a while."
They feed her until she's full and then lull her to sleep, treating her like a pig. Shi Meng frowned imperceptibly, thinking that staying away was better than staying close, and ultimately didn't refuse the suggestion.
Shi Meng, who was no longer cold, folded the blanket neatly and turned to put it back in the back seat.
Then, the moment she turned around, she met Fu Xuanliao's gaze, which was staring straight at her.
The rainy day was dark, and the car interior was dark. The atmosphere seemed to have been established from the moment I got in the car, inseparable from warmth and humidity.
Even a one-sided approach is enough to quickly shorten the distance, so close that their breaths collide.
At this moment, Shi Meng thought inappropriately, if he had stayed in that vast ocean, would he no longer be reminded of the past and no longer instinctively yearn for the warmth of the other person?
Like something lifeless, it always tries to be tainted by some vibrant life.
Just like the scattered memories about that cat, they shouldn't exist in his mind, which had died once. He should have gotten rid of them long ago and shouldn't have been bothered by them anymore.
But once he got on the bus, without having had time to make sufficient preparations, he had no choice but to face the situation.
Just as Fu Xuanliao was about to get close, Shi Meng raised his hand and pressed down on his shoulder, stopping him.
The next moment, Shi Meng saw an almost cold-hearted person in Fu Xuanliao's dimmed pupils.
A person so cold-blooded that no wavering can be seen to the naked eye.
The man asked, "What do you want?"
What do I want to do?
Fu Xuanliao also asked himself this question.
He has many things he wants to do, such as expressing his feelings and telling you that he won. If the person who wants to express their feelings loses first, then I will definitely be the one who loses.
I can't help but want to kiss you, and I want to protect you with all my might, so that no matter how strong the wind and rain outside, not a single patch of your clothes will get wet.
But Shi Meng did not believe it.
He was suspicious of every time Fu Xuanliao approached him.
"Didn't you want to break my hand?" Shi Meng asked. "Why bother with that now?"
The beautiful moment vanished in an instant, and a torrential downpour swept in, carrying painful memories and tearing at every nerve soaked in the past.
All Fu Xuanliao could say was, "I'm sorry: I will never hurt you or take advantage of you again."
I'm too heartbroken to even think about making amends.
However, he could not always believe it.
He said, "Shouldn't there only be hatred between us?"
There should only be life-or-death struggles, endless speculations, and lingering resentment.
Fu Xuanliao replied, "You can hate me, for as long as you want."
This time Shi Meng understood, and therefore thought he was extremely cunning.
Hate and love are always separated by a fine line.
In the past, I relied on provoking the other person to prove that I was loved, and even thought that if I stopped suffering, I would lose that attention.
Even now, Shi Meng still feels pain, but subconsciously just wants to stay away.
We can't let him continue to manipulate the whole situation with such ease.
With a click, the seatbelt unbuckled, and Shi Meng reached for the car door handle.
Fu Xuanliao stopped him by pressing the door lock button: "Where are you going?"
He seemed terrified that Shi Meng would disappear, but Shi Meng was too preoccupied with his own problems to care and only said, "I want to go down."
Unable to open the door latch, Shi Meng turned to look at the center console, frantically searching for a button to open it, as if he couldn't bear to stay any longer.
Before I could find it, my wrist was suddenly grabbed.
"If you don't want to see me," Fu Xuanliao said in a low voice, "you stay in the car, I'll get out."
As she spoke, her wrist, which had just been gripped, loosened. When Shi Meng came to her senses and turned her head, she only caught a glimpse of Fu Xuanliao opening the door and getting out of the car.
A rare heavy rain in autumn.
I don't know if it's because of the temperature drop, but even though the car was heated, I felt a chill in my body, and my hands gradually grew colder.
Shi Meng used the long stretch of time to count. He counted from one to one hundred, then counted backwards, listening to his noisy heartbeat return to calm, but the speed at which he silently counted the numbers became faster and faster.
The wipers stopped working, and the raindrops gathered into drops and slid down the glass.
Through the damp curtain, one could vaguely see a figure standing outside the car.
Unable to see his expression clearly, Shi Meng could only guess that he was angry.
My impression of him was that he always lost his temper with me, so when I got to know his gentler side, I would feel scared and want to run away as soon as possible.
After counting to one hundred again, Shi Meng opened the door and got out of the car. As soon as his feet touched the watery ground, he saw a person who had been standing still like a statue for a long time stride over: "Don't move yet, wait for me."
Fu Xuanliao ran to the driver's seat, grabbed an umbrella, walked around to the passenger side, opened it, and waited for Shi Meng to come down before covering Shi Meng's head with the umbrella.
Looking through the damp air, his lips were purple from the cold, and he was breathing out white breath, but there was no trace of anger or dissatisfaction on his face.
This left Shi Meng feeling empty inside, as if a play had ended before its climax. Disappointed, he couldn't help but ponder the meaning of coming here.
Even if you've long since lost your strength, if you don't hate, it will evolve into another kind of terrible emotion.
Shi Meng was pushed onto the stage against his will, with the subtitles next to him displaying the narration: "The pleasure of revenge."
His soul seemed to have been emptied, but the thought of not wanting to repeat the same mistake still dominated. Shi Meng stared almost numbly at the person in front of him who was soaking wet and trembling.
Then I heard myself ask, "Fu Xuanliao, how shameless are you?"
The sound drowned out the patter of the rain, and was even colder.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com