Chapter 3 White Daisy "Lianlian, you can't leave me, you can't leave me..."
The baked toast with fresh milk, the bacon fried with butter, the rich aroma of food travels through the air and permeates every inch of the room.
Zhui Lian followed the scent out of the bedroom and saw Yu Peizhi opening the window.
"Is the baby awake?"
Hearing the footsteps, Yu Peizhi turned to look at her and said gently, "If you're done washing up, let's have breakfast."
The window was opened, revealing the potted plants on the windowsill.
Green ivy, sage, hyacinth, geranium... Zhui Lian pulled out a chair and sat down, her eyes casually sweeping over the flowers and plants, but she caught a unique touch of pure white among the various colors.
That was the pot of small white daisies that Ben had placed on their bedroom windowsill...a potted plant.
"Why is the little daisy placed here?" Zhui Lian frowned slightly and asked.
Three years ago, she and Yu Peizhi first met.
That was the cemetery where her white moonlight Qiao Xunli was buried.
Xunli, who helped her when she dropped out of school and felt helpless, Xunli, who rescued her from being bullied and excluded, Xunli, who always listened to her quietly—
Now it is framed on this small, neatly-shaped tombstone, and the young man's handsome face can only be seen in a black and white photo.
In front of the monument, Zhui Lian placed Xunli's favorite white daisy, and then the rain came unexpectedly that day.
A violent, crazy rain that seemed to be able to turn the whole city upside down.
And she forgot to bring an umbrella.
Yu Peizhi appeared at this time.
The pure black umbrella opened above Zhui Lian's head. She turned to look at the man holding the umbrella for her and saw a face that was about 60% similar to Xun Li's.
The man also held a bunch of fresh white daisies in his hand and asked her very gentlemanly, "Miss, do you need any help?"
Later she found out that the man's name was Yu Peizhi, a distant cousin of Qiao Xunli. He used to live in Z City and came to S City this time to collect materials for a new comic.
But since I'm here, I'll pay my respects to Xunli.
At that time, they had not yet officially established a relationship, and one of the places they often went to on dates was the flower market.
The pot of white daisies in the house now was picked out by them when they first went to the flower market together.
"Why is it here?"
In reality, Yu Peizhi's confused voice interrupted Zhui Lian's memories, "Aren't the daisies always placed here?"
"How is that possible? Yesterday I..."
Zhui Lian almost blurted out that last night she poured the hot milk she didn't want to drink into the daisy, but fortunately she reacted in time and stopped.
She remembered that she had already dealt with the traces in the potted plants, and she felt relieved.
So she paused and continued, "No, I saw it on the bedroom windowsill yesterday."
"Really?" Yu Peizhi put down the spray bottle and walked back to the dining table. "I don't quite remember."
He pulled out a chair and sat down, lowering his long eyelashes and speaking apologetically, "I'm sorry, Lianlian, I seem to have been..."
"The old problem has come back again." Yu Peizhi said.
Zhui Lian paused and asked, "What's the old problem?"
The air was heavy at this moment.
Yu Peizhi seemed to find it difficult to speak. After a while, he sighed and said, "I had sleepwalking when I was a child."
He pressed his eyebrows, as if thinking hard, "But it hasn't happened in more than ten years. Could it be... it's come back again?"
"It's okay, this—"
In my mind, the scene that came into my sight when I opened the ray of light from the living room yesterday is still vivid.
Zhui Lian couldn't help but shiver slightly.
It was a long time before she felt that she had found her voice again, but it still had a slight tremor.
She asked, "Can it be cured?"
"It's a bit difficult, but I will go see a doctor." Yu Peizhi's tone was very gentle, but with a hint of imperceptible fatigue.
He walked up to Zhui Lian, half squatted, looked up at her, then he grabbed her hand and pressed her palm against his cheek.
"Lianlian." Yu Peizhi called her, his eyes moist as he looked at her. "If I can't be cured, will you abandon me?"
Zhui Lian was stunned and speechless for a moment.
My memory flashed back in many fragments, blurry, clear, fragmented, complete, things I should remember, things I shouldn't remember...
"Will you not want me?"
The dead man had asked her this question over and over again in her ear - in an infatuated, sticky, and cold tone, over and over again.
Then, over and over again, softly and coldly, she repeated: "Lianlian, you can't leave me, you can't leave me, you can't leave me..."
I have a splitting headache.
And the air is still silent.
Yu Peizhi still looked up at her. He rubbed her palm with half of his cheek, and his tone contained a hint of uneasiness: "...Baby?"
Zhui Lian finally came back to her senses. She opened her mouth and was about to speak when she saw Yu Peizhi in front of her suddenly smile miserably.
"I see."
The other person stood up and seemed to be preparing to walk towards the bedroom.
"Pei Zhi!"
Zhui Lian also hurriedly stood up and trotted over.
She opened her arms quite familiarly, hugged him from the back, and grasped his robe ties tightly with her ten fingers. She asked, "What are you going to do?"
"…fine."
Yu Peizhi smiled, but that gentle smile contained a hint of loss that could not be concealed. "I think my existence makes Lianlian a little embarrassed, so--"
He paused mid-sentence, and Zhui Lian's grip on the belt around his waist tightened unconsciously. She couldn't help but ask, "So what?"
“So I went to get my papers.”
Zhui Lian was a little confused: "What do you want the ID for?"
Yu Peizhi's hand fell down, his movements were extremely gentle, but he pried open Zhui Lian's fingers that were gripping his laces one by one.
He whispered, "Lianlian, let's get a divorce."
divorce?
Her mind went blank for a moment, and Zhui Lian didn't know how much truth the other person was saying, but she blurted out unconsciously: "No!"
Yu Peizhi looked down at her, a trace of confusion between his clear eyebrows: "Why?"
“…There’s no reason.” Zhui Lian said, “I said no, and that’s it.”
Yu Peizhi raised his hand and suddenly embraced Zhui Lian in his arms. He buried his whole face in the crook of her neck and said in a very low voice, "Okay."
Why didn't she agree to a divorce? Zhui Lian herself couldn't answer.
Was it because he looked too much like Xun Li? Or was it… fear that the world would collapse again, that he would lose his safe haven once again, and return to the loneliness of having no anchor?
"Tick-tock", burning like hot sand.
She felt a warm and wet sensation at the crook of her neck, and a tear rolled down onto the back of Zhui Lian's hand, interrupting her thoughts.
Zhui Lian was surprised: "Why are you crying?"
"I just thought... the baby was going to abandon me." Yu Peizhi sighed softly.
Zhui Lian couldn't help but feel flustered when her husband, who was always gentle, mature and polite, showed such a vulnerable side.
She could only pat Yu Peizhi's back soothingly and repeat, "I won't abandon you, I won't abandon you, I won't abandon you."
"Really?" Yu Peizhi raised his face from the crook of her neck, his eyes actually red.
Zhui Lian held his face and assured him earnestly: "Really."
"Baby."
Yu Peizhi's voice sounded a little hoarse, and his breathing rose and fell in her ears.
He raised his eyes, and the look he cast down was gentle and harmless, with a hint of hope and expectation——
"Then tell me you love me, okay?"
Zhui Lian raised her hand, ruffled her husband's hair, and said, "I love you."
"not enough."
Yu Peizhi pressed his cheek tightly against Zhui Lian's, their skin touching.
"Lianlian, you want to say——"
His tone sounded very gentle, even with a hint of coquettishness.
But there is an indescribable chilling feeling.
He said: "I only love you, I love you the most, and I will love you forever."
*
Before going to bed, the girl's comic book was still placed on Zhui Lian's bedside.
The cover is a gentle aqua blue mixed with light pink, but now it has a suspicious color.
After taking a shower, Zhui Lian picked up the comic book and prepared to put it on the desk first, and find time to donate it to the storage box downstairs tomorrow.
"Baby--"
Yu Peizhi appeared behind her at some point, and he pressed close to her. The warmth from his solid chest was so hot that it burned her. The mermaid line was clearly visible under the body covered by the bathrobe.
He reached out and placed his hand on the comic book, his tone sounding somewhat regretful: "I'm sorry, honey, this should belong to Xiaoxu."
Little Xu?
Xiaoxu's full name is Wenxu. She is a high school girl who lives downstairs from their house and has a cat named Lulu.
Zhui Lian met Xiao Xu because he found the lost Lulu.
Xiaoxu thought Zhui Lian was beautiful and gentle, and had a good impression of her. He invited her to his home for dinner several times, but Zhui Lian was unable to go due to various "unexpected events".
Of course, this accident is most likely related to Yu Peizhi.
Yu Peizhi: "When I was taking out the trash today, I saw Xiaoxu's delivery slip in our trash."
Zhui Lian uttered a bewildered "Ah" and asked, "Did you get the mixed delivery?"
Each residential area has its own express delivery collection point, and the express deliveries are placed together, so it is common for them to be mixed up.
"It should be." Yu Peizhi nodded and said gently, "This matter is my negligence. I will go to Xiaoxu to apologize and compensate her tomorrow."
Zhui Lian asked, "What about this comic?"
Yu Peizhi seemed to think for a moment, then said softly, "Just keep this at home. It's not good to tear apart other people's things and then give them back."
Zhui Lian stared down at the comic book.
The author's signature is written in the lower right corner of the comic, which is a pen name that fits the style of girls' comics very well - [Jiujiu]
Maybe... it's really just a coincidence.
There was a sound of turning pages, and Zhui Lian's eyes flashed back to the apartment in England when she was nineteen years old. Gouache paint was scattered all over the floor, and her comic manuscripts were nailed all over the wall by the dead man.
At the bottom of each manuscript, the signature is also written in small characters: "Jiujiu".
But Jiujiu is a very popular pen name after all, isn’t it?
His fingertips trembled slightly.
In a trance, Zhui Lian felt as if his chest was pressed against the cold wall again. The drawing nailed on it was shaking, and the rubbed lead-gray ink was spreading on the snow-white paper.
"Who else does Lianlian want to show the painting to?"
The moist breath fell on her ears, like a snake licking. Her wrist was pressed in the center of the drawing by the man, and the impact from behind was violent.
"Ugh... not here..."
The word "Jiujiu" swayed and overlapped in the sight.
Overlapping back to the present day.
Zhui Lian's hand unconsciously turned a page of the comic, but quickly stopped and closed it again.
but--
She turned to her husband and asked, "Pei Zhi, why did you say yesterday that I like reading this kind of comics?"
"Ah?" Yu Peizhi looked at Zhui Lian in confusion, "Baby, didn't you tell me that yourself?"
……Yeah?
That splitting headache came back again.
Zhui Lian felt like her brain was in a mess.
But Yu Peizhi had already changed the subject. He gently pinched the back of Zhui Lian's neck in a very controlling gesture and said, "Baby, I want to discuss something with you."
From the perspective that Zhui Lian couldn't see, a barely perceptible mocking smile appeared at the corner of his lips, but his tone was serious—
"How about we install a camera? That way we can find out what I'm doing at night."
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