Married A Man I Hate - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Giving an Inch and Taking a Mile · Forced Embrace “This is a reward for a good child.”

The moonlight was gentle, and the sound of the wind agitated the bamboo blinds on both sides of the pool.

Those tiny flakes of snow drifted in along with the opening and closing of the gaps, but melted from the rising heat the second before they could touch Le Qingfei’s wet hair, dripping onto his shoulders.

“Hiss—”

Le Qingfei bit his dessert fork and shrank his neck slightly.

Fu Li withdrew his gaze from Le Qingfei’s tender red tongue tip, stood up, tied the blinds tightly, wetted a towel, and placed it on top of Le Qingfei’s head.

Soaking in the water, Le Qingfei’s wet little face was steamed flushed by the heat. He quietly took small bites of his dessert, as if everything that was happening had nothing to do with him.

Fu Li curled his lips, picked up a strawberry from the side, and placed it on top of his head.

One strawberry, two strawberries, three strawberries…

It was like playing a game of how many strawberries it would take to wake up a kitten.

The accumulated snow covered the distant mountains, the nearby treetops, and the area around the hot spring pool, bright and clean, reflecting on Le Qingfei’s body like a thin layer of gauze.

But it seemed Le Qingfei was not satisfied with this.

“I want to take off my clothes too.” Le Qingfei tugged at the white cotton T-shirt that was soaked through and sticking to his body. “But I’m a bit embarrassed in front of you.”

Fu Li’s arms were stretched out and resting on the edge of the pool. His shoulder and back lines were sharp, and his arm muscles were smooth like continuous undulating mountains. With his body of over 1.9 meters submerged in the water, his firm muscles under the water were still faintly visible, as well as those exposed outside—

“Your chest muscles are too big.”

After saying that, Le Qingfei covered his own chest, sat to the other side of the square pool, and refused to stay too close to Fu Li.

The pool water sloshed slightly.

Le Qingfei was still wondering what on earth Fu Li ate to grow so much muscle. Clearly he also ate a lot, so how come he didn’t have any?

He reached out and poked his own stomach—hmm, soft.

The heat source behind him drew closer and closer. Fu Li’s hand propped on Le Qingfei’s left side, pressing against his back in a near-embracing posture. Sensing the warmth of the embrace, Le Qingfei turned his head and met Fu Li’s eyes.

On this dimly lit snowy night, the rising heat made the light increasingly blurry.

Yet Fu Li could see with absolute clarity Le Qingfei’s nose bridge dotted with water droplets, as well as those clear eyes that resembled a summer lake, containing admiration and love for him, and flushing with shyness because of his approach, like the slightly sour berries on Mount Pleiades.

“What are you doing.” Le Qingfei reached out to push him with some dissatisfaction. “You’re leaning too close, your breath is so hot…”

“What about Yan Song.”

“What did you say?”

Fu Li lowered his eyes to look at him, the corners of his mouth flat. “If it were Yan Song, he could lean this close, right?”

Le Qingfei knitted his brows, not understanding why Fu Li suddenly brought up Yan Song, though this person had been weird the whole night anyway.

So he replied, “That’s right, Yan Song just can.”

“If it were Yan Song, he could get angry because another man approached you, but I can’t, right?”

Le Qingfei froze in place.

Fu Li, realizing he had spoken without thinking, snapped back to reality. “I’m sorry, it was a slip of the tongue.”

“Yan Song wouldn’t get angry.”

Le Qingfei said earnestly, “Yan Song has never been angry with me. Whatever I say, he will believe me. He also knows that I only like him, so he wouldn’t get angry.”

Fu Li raised his eyes, his gaze steadily looking at the naive Le Qingfei through his lenses. “It seems that in your memory, Yan Song is perfect in every way. How many days have you two even known each other?”

Le Qingfei blinked, opened his right hand, opened his left hand, and said, “55 days.”

Then, he pulled back one hand. “I have only known you for 15 days.”

“……”

Fu Li turned his face away, took a deep breath, his jaw tensed, and he was unable to speak for a long time.

Le Qingfei glanced at him and stood up to leave. Water flowed down from his light gray shorts, along those snow-white legs, down to his ankles, and was caught by a hand.

Fu Li pulled Le Qingfei back.

It was true; Le Qingfei’s thighs did have quite a bit of flesh, but his calves were very slender, not even as thick as Fu Li’s arm, so he was easily hauled back into the pool.

“Don’t touch my waist, it’s very ticklish…”

Le Qingfei didn’t know what Fu Li wanted to do, but he wasn’t hurt, it was just ticklish. He giggled nonstop in Fu Li’s embrace, his entire self circled within those large hands.

The tension on Fu Li’s face finally loosened somewhat. With a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth, he looked down at the person who was splashing water droplets onto his lenses.

As if returning to that July lake water, Le Qingfei stopped struggling. His soaked body gradually relaxed, leaving only a few strands of wet hair hanging over his forehead, still trembling along with his heavy breathing.

Le Qingfei’s soaked clothes were pulled loose, half of his shoulder pressing against Fu Li’s chest, his body temperature fully transmitted, even hotter than the soaking hot spring.

Le Qingfei slowly raised his eyelashes to look at the person holding him. The identical face caused him to daze momentarily, and as if thinking of something, he looked down at Fu Li’s shoulder.

He wanted to see if there was a tooth mark there—the tooth mark he had bitten into Yan Song’s shoulder back then.

Delicate fingers caressed the skin, just like that snowy night when they met: Le Qingfei was always clinging to a stroke of luck, and Fu Li was always looking at him with deep eyes.

The snow color reflected Le Qingfei’s skin as snow-white, and his face and lips washed by the hot spring were moist and red, pure and flawless, causing that gaze that lingered and wandered over his body to strip away lust as well, merely watching him gently under the moonlight.

At this moment, from the corner of his eye, Fu Li caught sight of a dark shadow.

Le Qingfei had just touched Fu Li’s collarbone when he felt his vision blur. The arm holding his lower back exerted a little force and turned him half a circle, making him sit entirely back inside Fu Li’s embrace.

“What are you doing…”

Le Qingfei complained in a small voice. His hands clearly weren’t struggling, yet his wrists were captured by Fu Li with one hand and firmly fixed in front of his chest, unable to move at all.

Fu Li’s right hand encircled Le Qingfei’s slender and firm waist, and his left arm blocked the hints of color and skin showing through that pure white fabric after it was soaked through.

“Feifei,” Fu Li rested his chin on Le Qingfei’s shoulder, his eyes behind the lenses full of playfulness, “It seems your friend has come to find you.”

“Huh?”

Le Qingfei turned his head over and saw Kong Linxu.

In the steaming hot spring pool, there were only two people. Le Qingfei’s already slender frame looked even more petite against the background of the tall man behind him. If not looking from the front, one could not even see that a person was sitting in the man’s embrace.

—Kong Linux also truly wished he hadn’t been able to see it.

“Qingfei…”

Kong Linxu held a pile of snacks, staring blankly at the two of them. “He, who is he?”

Le Qingfei did want to reject Kong Linxu, but like this… it was unavoidable that it was a bit too terrible for the guy. And, what if Kong Linxu told other people.

“He…”

“I am his older brother.” Fu Li’s steady voice came from behind.

Le Qingfei turned his head to look at Fu Li, somewhat surprised, until his waist was gently kneaded, only then snapping out of it, looking toward Kong Linxu to add, “Yes, he is my older brother.”

Kong Linxu believed it, or rather, he could only choose to believe it. He politely greeted Fu Li.

Fu Li gave a faint “mm,” reached out to take a bath towel, wrapped Le Qingfei up until only half his face was exposed, held his waist to sit him on the edge of the pool, and stuffed a piece of chocolate into his mouth.

“Feifei’s classmate, do you want to join together?”

“Can I? I…” Kong Linxu suddenly shut his mouth. “I still have some things to do. I’ll leave the snacks here. Tomorrow I will come find Qingfei to play again. Goodbye Qingfei, goodbye Qingfei’s brother.”

Le Qingfei blinked.

This was the very first time that without him having to chase someone away, Kong Linxu left on his own.

At this time, Fu Li stood up.

His build was robust and tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, his abdominal muscles like the chocolate bar Le Qingfei was currently eating—a 1.93-meter tall body with a quarter mixed-blood heritage, enough to make anyone run away.

Hmm, suddenly he knew why nobody soaked in the hot spring with Fu Li.

But…

Le Qingfei tilted his head and stared at Fu Li’s chest muscles.

“My build is better,” Fu Li said.

“Is not,” as if some kind of tacit understanding, Le Qingfei knew what Fu Li was talking about without even asking him how he knew, “Yan Song’s build is better.”

Fu Li smiled and covered Le Qingfei’s head with the dry towel in his hand, gently wiping it for him.

“Don’t want to, I’ll wipe it myself…”

“I am your husband. Wiping your hair for you is what I ought to do.”

“……What nonsense are you talking again!”

The moon shadow was hazy, and the two bickered all the way back to the villa.

Le Qingfei fell asleep lying on the sofa. Fu Li put away the hair dryer, made a final confirmation that the hair roots were blown dry, and carried the person back to the bed.

He pinched his face, closed the door, and left.

In the living room, that eyesore of a rose bouquet was still there. Fu Li walked over and picked it up in one go, but stopped his hand the moment before throwing it into the trash can.

…

The next morning, Le Qingfei and Fu Li had agreed to learn snowboarding today.

“Morning, Xu Yi.”

Xu Yi’s hand holding the coffee cup froze mid-air. He was dumbfounded, even forgetting to reply.

Le Qingfei was puzzled, and followed his gaze to look over. Tens of thousands of red roses flooded the entire first floor of the villa, overwhelming and covering everything like burning red magma erupting and spreading from a volcano. It submerged that completely inconspicuous bouquet.

[Feifei ought to accept my roses] [Roses From Flynn with Love]

Le Qingfei stood in the middle of the sea of roses, the fragrance assailing the nose, his face growing hot.

“Who sent this?”

Xu Yi was curious. There were quite a few people chasing Le Qingfei, but not many made such a grand display that looked like a marriage proposal. He read out the signature on the rose-pink card: “Flynn? How come I’ve never heard of this name?”

Le Qingfei hid the card behind his back. “I’ve never heard of it either, I don’t know them.”

“Ah? Then I’ll have the hotel people clear all these roses away.”

Le Qingfei pursed his lips. “Clear them away, just clear them away then. Anyway, I don’t like them either.”

Xu Yi stared at Le Qingfei’s clenched fingers and smiled, “Oh my, I quite like them, let’s keep them.”

Le Qingfei touched the small braid on top of his head. “Hmm, okay then. It’s you who likes them, not mine.”

After saying that, he put the card in his pocket and ran away.

The rosy light of dawn covered the ski trail.

All along the way, Fu Li kept asking him whether he liked the roses he sent, and whether he liked the flowers he sent more.

Le Qingfei glared at him and didn’t speak.

Suddenly, Fu Li pulled Le Qingfei into his arms in one swift motion, bringing him to crash toward a withered tree that wasn’t very tall. The accumulated snow on the branches fell rustling all over their heads.

Le Qingfei seemed to have grown a lot of patience toward Fu Li saying strange words and doing strange things. “What are you doing again?”

Fu Li glanced at the blue-haired guy standing not far away, patted the accumulated snow off Le Qingfei’s hair, pulled out his small braid, and tilted his head to lean close to his ear to speak—a posture that looked almost like kissing.

After Le Qingfei heard clearly what he was saying, he raised his hand wanting to hit him, but his wrist was pinched again, and he was held even tighter.

“Next time we won’t come here to ski,” Fu Li held him, continuing to say in a soft voice, “Where do you want to go? Switzerland or Austria? To go to the ski resort where Feifei skied when you were little, okay?”

Just like a kitten that got to eat a cat treat string, Le Qingfei forgot what he had planned to do and raised his eyes. “Really?”

Across the snow goggles, Fu Li regretted that he had no way to see Le Qingfei’s eyes clearly. He didn’t know how beautiful they would be at this moment, looking at him like shining black pearls.

“Of course, Feifei is so good, and so smart at learning to ski. You can have whatever you want.”

“Is this, a reward?”

Fu Li pushed the snow goggles up onto his forehead, eager to see the eyes of the person in his arms—clear and bright, there would never be anything more beautiful than Le Qingfei’s eyes. “Yes, it is a reward for a smart, good child.”

Far away, after confirming that the two were indeed kissing, Kong Linxu left downcast.

Fu Li swept a glance over, let out a cold laugh, but turned his head back only to see the daze in Le Qingfei’s eyes, and the reflection of himself without glasses in his pupils.

Fu Li turned his face away, pulled up the face guard piled at his collar, covering up to his nose bridge. “Let’s go, today let’s try the Lingguang ski trail.”

The snowflakes fluttered around. Le Qingfei’s near-silence made it impossible for Fu Li to pretend nothing happened and just leave.

Under the tree, the two of them looked at each other, you looking at me, me looking at you. In the end, the one who spoke first was Le Qingfei.

“Are you really not Yan Song?”

“I am not.”

Fu Li could not bear the downcast arc of disappointment in Le Qingfei’s eyelashes. He was just about to speak, but was frozen in place by a single sentence from Le Qingfei.

“I really wanted to kiss you just now.”

After Le Qingfei finished speaking, he smiled slightly, his snow-white cheeks turning faintly red. “I only have the feeling of wanting to kiss Yan Song.”