Chapter 78 Brother-in-law [VIP]
Qingran sighed; this time it wasn't intentional on his part.
Taking advantage of the man's pause, he quickly withdrew his hand and took two steps back.
He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then turned to look at the beautiful woman staring at him from a distance, her face ashen, and felt somewhat at a loss.
Qingran didn't know how to handle the situation; he had no experience with it.
Fu Qingyan misunderstood his mother's anger at this moment. Although he was a little confused, he still took half a step to shield Qingran behind him.
"Ms. Wen, you taught me 'don't look at what you shouldn't' when I was a child. Isn't it a bit rude of me to do this now?"
The tall, elegant man stood before Qingran, calmly meeting Ms. Wen's gaze.
Based on Fu Qingyan's understanding of his mother, Ms. Wen was not a narrow-minded person who could only accept heterosexuals, and she shouldn't be so angry about what she witnessed.
Even if you don't look at what is improper, your own behavior must also conform to the standards of propriety!
Ms. Wen did not argue with Fu Qingyan at this moment. She gave him a cold glance, then softened her expression and asked Qingran gently.
"You're the friend Qingyan brought back? What's your name? My surname is Wen. If you don't mind, you can call me Aunt Wen."
Hmm, why does it feel like Ms. Wen treats him better than she treats Fu Qingyan?
Is it because he is an outsider and family scandals should not be aired in public, and he is disappointed in Fu Qingyan?
A jumble of thoughts raced through her mind as Qingran stepped out from behind the man and greeted him politely.
"Hello Aunt Wen, my name is Qingran, my surname is Xi, you can just call me Qingran."
He was wearing a top and pants as pajamas, which looked much more dignified than a loose-fitting robe that didn't cover much.
Nevertheless, the pajamas still looked a bit too big on him, revealing a lot of skin on his neck and chest.
And the marks on the skin that clearly show it has been pampered.
Qingran didn't really think there was anything wrong with it. Perhaps demons are naturally shameless, even now he still prefers to transform into his original form naked and sunbathe.
However, considering that it might be difficult for humans to accept, he pretended to be uncomfortable and adjusted his collar.
In Ms. Wen's eyes, this was yet another piece of evidence that he was not entirely willing!
Especially when Qingran introduced herself, her surname was Xi, Xi Qingran...
As she considered a possibility, Ms. Wen's expression softened further.
As if oblivious to Qingran's embarrassment, she said in a gentle tone, "Okay, then I'll call you Qingran."
"Qingran hasn't had dinner yet, has she? We've failed to provide adequate hospitality."
He took out his phone from his handbag, made a brief call, gave a few short instructions, and then told Qingran after hanging up:
"I'll have Uncle Fang take you to get something to eat. Uncle Fang is the one who takes care of the garden for my dad. He's a good cook and easy-going, so don't be nervous."
Qingran was indeed a little hungry.
As soon as Fu Qingyan saw him outside the door, he pinned him against the wall and kissed him before he could even say a word.
Hearing this, she nodded and thanked her, "Thank you, Aunt Wen."
What a polite child.
Ms. Wen smiled gently: "Don't be shy, make yourself at home."
Qingran: "Okay."
Fu Qingyan, who had been quietly listening to their conversation, had a flicker in his eyes when he heard this.
After realizing that Ms. Wen's anger was directed at him, he stopped trying to interfere with their conversation and became unusually quiet.
Perhaps he's still hoping Ms. Wen will help him out?
If Qingran finds out that his family won't stop them from being together, will he still be so determined to leave?
Lost in his own thoughts, the man paid no attention to what Qingran and his mother were talking about, until Uncle Fang received a call and rushed over. Qingran then said goodbye to Ms. Wen and prepared to go to dinner with them.
Fu Qingyan lifted his foot without thinking.
“Qingyan—” Ms. Wen called out to him.
Ms. Wen's gentle face wore a smile as soft as water, and her tone was calm yet assertive.
"I need to ask you about something, so please don't come along."
Fu Qingyan realized something, stopped in his tracks, nodded calmly, and said to Qingran, "You go have dinner with Uncle Fang first, I'll come find you as soon as I'm done here."
Qingran didn't think much of it, said goodbye to the two of them again, and left with Uncle Fang.
Ms. Wen quietly observed their interaction for a while, and after Qingran's figure disappeared behind the moon gate with Uncle Fang, she gave him a faint look.
"Come with me."
Fu Qingyan didn't ask anything, and followed her into a quiet room.
The meditation room was very spacious, with only a few futons woven from cattails placed in the large room. It was a place where the Wen family would occasionally use to clear their minds and meditate.
Ignoring the people behind her, Ms. Wen walked to a half-person-high storage cabinet by the wall, took out an incense stick, lit it, and as the smoke rose, the faint scent of pine gradually drifted into the air.
Throughout the process, the woman's movements were skillful and elegant, and her fitted cheongsam outlined her graceful figure. The scene was serene and beautiful, like a painting of a lady who had traveled through time.
The sudden vibration of a cell phone shattered the tranquility of the room.
Ms. Wen took out her phone and looked at it. When she made the call earlier, she had sent a message to her assistant instructing her to collect information about Qingran. Now that she had read the reply, she already had a good idea of what was going on.
She looked up at the character "静" (quiet) written by her father, which was hanging on the wall, without turning around.
"Is Qingran the younger brother of your ex-girlfriend?"
Fu Qingyan, with one hand in his pocket, was also looking at the words on the wall, his expression filled with reminiscence.
He was familiar with this room; he often came here when he was a child, though it was often with a punitive purpose, meant to calm him down.
Hearing Ms. Wen's question, he knew that Ms. Wen had already investigated Qingran's matter thoroughly and had no intention of hiding it. He nodded in response.
"Your breakup with Xi Qingning, is it related to Qing Ran?"
"It's related, but not to feelings."
Fu Qingyan explained.
"Although my relationship with her wasn't based on a bet as the outside world claims, it was pretty much the same. I agreed to use her name to appease her father and make it easier for me to get into the company."
"So that means you agreed to pretend to be her boyfriend."
"yes."
"Later, when I met Qingran, I remembered to end the relationship. In order to avoid outsiders from making any connection between the two of us, I made the excuse that it was just a bet."
"yes."
"Absurd! Is this how you treat feelings?" Ms. Wen said coldly.
She turned around and scrutinized the man who was a head taller than her: "I'll ask you one more question, and you must answer me truthfully."
"Did Qingran choose to be with you?"
Any other day, if asked this question, Fu Qingyan would have answered "yes" with certainty.
Now he hesitated.
Before today, it might have been voluntary, but after today... he doesn't know.
Ms. Wen clearly saw the man's lowered gaze and his silent reaction, which left him with no way to explain himself.
Ms. Wen took a deep breath, finding it even more absurd than when she heard Fu Qingyan say he agreed to pretend to be Xi Qingning's boyfriend.
She was puzzled, unable to understand how her carefully nurtured child had turned out this way.
"Qingyan, you've been smart since you were little, you can learn anything in no time, but you just can't settle down and always like to take risks and chase thrills."
"Perhaps it's because you get things too easily that you can't learn to cherish them and find it hard to feel a sense of accomplishment?"
"To temper your temperament, I made you learn etiquette, calligraphy, and musical instruments, and forbade you from engaging in extreme sports."
"After graduating and joining the company, you gradually gave up those overly dangerous sports. I thought you could understand my good intentions?"
“I understand,” Fu Qingyan said, looking up.
One reason he doesn't touch those things is that he doesn't want to hear Ms. Wen nagging in his ear.
"If you understand, why did this idea resurface? Why did you have to start messing around with men?"
Ms. Wen gazed intently at her child.
"Still in that disrespectful and brutal way?!"
The exposed wrists all looked like that; what's underneath the clothes...?
Qingran's experience was already terrible enough. One of his adoptive parents was vicious and weak, and the other was an alcoholic and violent. It's unimaginable how bad his living environment must have been over the past ten years.
According to the assistant, the two men came to the Xi family's door today, demanding that the Xi family return their son. They said they would either return their biological son or the one they raised, or they would refuse to leave.
The Xi family even called the police, and the matter is still not resolved.
Qingran had finally managed to reunite with the Xi family and enjoy a couple of peaceful days, but her adoptive parents were causing trouble, and even her son turned out to be a villain who had harmed her!
Fu Qingyan did not explain that he acted that way because Qingran had lied to him, and he was so angry that he lost control.
He remained silent and allowed Ms. Wen to accuse him, without uttering a single word in his own defense.
“I will handle this matter. I will arrange for someone to take Qingran back tomorrow morning. You are not allowed to bother him again.”
Ms. Wen said as calmly as possible.
"impossible."
Those three short words instantly ignited the anger that Ms. Wen had barely suppressed.
"Smack!"
The woman raised her hand and slapped Fu Qingyan across the face, raising her voice in warning: "Fu Qingyan!"
After finishing her meal, she realized Fu Qingyan hadn't appeared yet, so she groped her way over. Just as she reached the door, she heard a sharp slap and Qingran's angry shout: "..."
The door to the quiet room was open, and he stared blankly at the mother and son inside, who were locked in a tense standoff.
[Zero Zero, what's going on?]
He doesn't usually use his spiritual sense to monitor human movements, so he's unaware of what's happening right now.
The system wasn't paying attention either; I'd just slipped away to the tea room to listen to some old men commenting on current events. Now I urgently need to check the surveillance footage.
Fortunately, there were surveillance cameras in Wenyuan. Although it was in the garden, the pieced-together evidence was enough for the system to roughly reconstruct what happened.
It said with some surprise: [Host, it seems Ms. Wen misunderstood that Fu Qingyan forced you.]
Why isn't Fu Qingyan explaining this?
Qingran was puzzled. If he didn't want to, who could force him?
The system doesn't know either: [I don't know~]
The figure standing at the door was quite conspicuous, but neither of the two people inside paid any attention to it.
Fu Qingyan's face was slapped to one side, directly facing Qing Ran.
He didn't even look up at Qingran. Instead, he rubbed his numb cheek and turned back to Ms. Wen, repeating each word clearly: "Impossible."
Ms. Wen, who did not want to argue and be impolite in front of outsiders, became furious and took a deep breath: "Are you determined to go down this path to the bitter end?"
"I'm 25 years old, and I know what I want," the man said calmly, his face bearing the handprint of the slap.
"At 25, you still can't learn the meaning of mutual consent and knowing when to stop?"
The conversation between the two seemed calm on the surface, but it was actually filled with the tension of an impending storm.
Qingran finally found an opportunity to interject: "Um, Aunt Wen, Fu Qingyan didn't force me."
He didn't see the expression on the man's face after hearing those words.
Ms. Wen noticed this, swallowed the rest of her words, adjusted her expression, and gave Qingran an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry you had to witness such a rude scene," she said gently. "Would you like to sit in the collection room next door for a while? I'll come over and chat with you in a bit."
Qingran glanced at the tall figure standing to his side, nodded, and went over.
Watching Qingran's figure disappear, Ms. Wen turned around and glanced at the person who was frozen in place like a statue, then took out a stick of incense from the storage cabinet.
"You will kneel here today to reflect on your actions, and you are not allowed to get up until the incense has burned out."
After saying that, he picked up his phone and went out to the collection room.
The "collection room" she mentioned wasn't for storing antiques or collectibles, but rather for housing the works of her father, Mr. Wen.
When Ms. Wen entered, Qingran was looking up at the long calligraphy scrolls hanging in the room. The faint scent of ink lingered in the air, a genuine fragrance of books.
Ms. Wen led Qingran to sit down on either side of the table carved from an old tree root in the middle, with her phone placed on the table.
[Host, Ms. Wen's phone is currently on a call.]
[With Fu Qingyan?]
[Bingo, correct answer!]
Qingran seemed completely unaware of this, and when Ms. Wen asked him if dinner suited his taste, he replied as usual that he ate very well.
"That's good. Auntie was always worried that you wouldn't feel comfortable here."
"Because of Fu Qingyan?"
Ms. Wen did not expect him to bring it up on his own initiative.
Seeing that Qingran's face showed no aversion or rejection, she took the opportunity to ask in return, "Qingran, do you think my argument with Qingyan was because I misunderstood that he forced you?"
Before Qingran could answer, she said directly, "That's one reason, but not the whole reason."
"Before we discuss the next topic, please forgive me for having someone check your identity and background without my permission," she said apologetically.
Qingran shook her head: "It's okay, I don't mind."
Ms. Wen smiled gently, looking at Qingran's overly young and overly delicate face with tolerance.
"I'm angry because he didn't show you the most basic respect."
Qingran: "Even if it was voluntary on my part?"
Ms. Wen nodded with a smile.
Qingran was puzzled. What was wrong with just tying them up and playing with them?
[That's because you can break free and resist at any time, host.] The system whispered a reminder.
Qingran seemed to understand, but not quite.
"People who lacked love in childhood often cherish even the smallest kindness shown to them by others, while convincing themselves to accept the harm and violence inflicted by those others, believing it to be an expression of love."
“I’m worried about whether you really understand your feelings for Qingyan.”
Qingran understood what Ms. Wen meant. She thought that because he lacked love in his past experiences, he took advantage of Fu Qingyan.
"You've misunderstood Aunt Wen. Today was an accident."
"Harm under the pretext of an accident?" Ms. Wen disagreed, but she didn't intend to persuade Qingran immediately.
"How long have you been with Qingyan?"
Qingran said, "Almost two months."
Ms. Wen: "Why did you choose to be with him?"
Qingran: "He's good-looking."
This answer left Ms. Wen both amused and exasperated.
Fortunately, Qingran then added, "Also, I like and am happy to be with him."
It is beneficial to physical and mental health.
This surprised Ms. Wen: "Isn't it because he's good to you?"
Qingran smiled and said, "Compared to that, I think being happy is more important."
These words greatly changed Ms. Wen's opinion of him, and the worry she had felt after learning Qingran's identity dissipated.
Even though she grew up in that environment, the person sitting in front of her now has a well-rounded personality.
“Now it seems I was wrong,” Ms. Wen said, “but that doesn’t mean Qingyan’s actions were right.”
"Don't indulge his bad temper."
Qingran blinked but didn't reply. From Ms. Wen's perspective, her concerns were valid.
But……
The two chatted for a long time in the ink-scented collection room until late at night, when they were both a little tired, and the conversation came to an end.
Ms. Wen watched Qingran return to Fu Qingyan's room to rest, then turned back to the quiet room herself.
The room was dark, with only a few rays of outside light filtering in, making the room appear exceptionally dim.
In the darkness, a tall figure knelt upright on a prayer mat, with a slender incense stick burning slowly in an incense burner in front of him.
Ms. Wen slowly walked to the figure's side.
"You heard everything on the phone?"
"Um."
"My original intention was to let you hear Qingran's words with your own ears so that you would give up on that unrealistic idea, but things turned out differently."
Ms. Wen said without any hesitation.
Fu Qingyan also said, "I know."
Ms. Wen: "I also want to apologize to you. At first, I thought you were just a glutton who would do anything for physical pleasure."
But Qingyan's expression after Qingran appeared made her realize that it wasn't true.
"I'm sorry, Mom lost her temper and hit you."
She turned her gaze away and looked down at the large shadow beside her: "But that doesn't mean I approve of your actions. Who knows if your 'loss of control' won't push him further away?"
"That's all I have to say. You should seriously reflect on yourself."
After the woman finished speaking, she turned to leave.
"Thank you, Mom."
The footsteps paused for a moment. "I won't tell your dad and the others about what happened today." Then she walked away.
Fu Qingyan remained kneeling quietly on the floor inside the room.
He thanked Ms. Wen for helping him get an answer; he admitted to losing control and causing harm.
But if he had heard a different answer on the phone today, he still wouldn't have given up, no matter how many times he had to do it again.
Light footsteps sounded again outside the room, but unlike the crisp sound of high heels, they were accompanied by the soft sound of slippers.
The man stiffened upon realizing who it was.
A figure approached in the dim light, carrying a pillow. He casually tossed the pillow beside the man, patted it flat, and then curled up and lay down.
"Go back, it's not comfortable to sleep here."
A hoarse voice came from the darkness.
The figure ignored him, shifted its body, and rested its head against the back of his knee.
"..."
The incense sticks in front of him were almost burned out. Fu Qingyan relaxed his back, which had been straightened all night, and knelt down, his right hand reaching out to touch the young man's soft face.
Are you feeling unwell?
The subordinate shook his head quietly.
The man said in a hoarse voice, "I'm sorry."
"I hid it from you first, and you don't blame me, but instead apologize to me?" another voice asked him strangely.
"These are two different things."
The air was quiet for a moment.
The voice then asked softly, "Does your face hurt?"
The kneeling figure shook his head, thinking that the young man couldn't see: "I don't feel anything anymore."
"Lower your head a little."
"What are you doing?" the man asked, but his body betrayed his intentions as he bent down.
The person lying on the ground adjusted their posture and reached out to touch his face. A faint spiritual energy passed through, and his slightly flushed face instantly returned to normal.
"Hmm, it doesn't hurt anymore," the man said with a slight smile, taking it all as a psychological effect.
The room fell silent again.
In the dim light, the quiet room was so quiet that only their soft breathing and the sound of burning incense could be heard.
despair.
A clump of incense ash fell.
The man, who had straightened his back again, fumbled for the next incense stick and lit it with a lighter.
At the tip of the incense stick, the golden-red embers flickered on and off.
Until dawn.
A note from the author:
Thanks for the lightning strike, thanks for the watering, chirp!
The person threw a landmine
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