Married A Man I Hate - Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Please Hug the Little Fish “Fu Li, it really wasn’t me…”

In the living room, for countless times, Zou Ying was shouting and cursing because she couldn’t win the argument against Fu Li.

“Do you really take yourself for some Eldest Young Master of the Fu family? Your mother left the Fu family eight hundred years ago, and stop bringing up Hengyao so much! So what if it belonged to your maternal grandfather? Can a dead person still compete with the living?”

Fu Li sat on the chair, the golden wire frames of his glasses casting a soft glow under the crystal chandelier. He picked up his teacup, not saying a single word.

What Zou Ying hated the most was Fu Li’s putting on airs.

“Yo, still putting on a show. Yes, your Shang family is amazing, great nobility! Ladies from official families! You donated the most gold, and all the face was given to your family! Then let your mother and your maternal grandfather crawl out from underground to take a look, to see if your face has been completely lost by marrying a man…!”

The more she looked at Fu Li’s calm and unruffled appearance, the angrier she became. “And that little nobody who popped out of nowhere with you, don’t let me catch your little braid!”

After finished cursing, Zou Ying turned around wanting to leave.

“I haven’t finished speaking yet. On this trip to London, I casually took a look at that luxury mansion under Fu Qian’s name in Hyde Park. The decoration is not bad, it’s just that the payment account and that sixty million pounds overseas investment fund that disappeared from the group last year came from the exact same shell company, and the amounts match up as well.”

Fu Li took a sip of tea. “What a coincidence.”

Zou Ying’s face changed drastically. Her face swelled to the color of pig liver, yet she didn’t dare to say another single word, going upstairs resentfully.

Fu Li stood up. Out of the corner of his eye, a touch of red appeared in the snow, reminding him of something.

Shang Rong heard that Zou Ying had come to look for Fu Li to argue again. When he rushed over, he happened to see Fu Li returning from the courtyard holding a branch of red plum blossoms.

Fu Li replied simply with a few words, saying he could handle it well himself.

Shang Rong thus didn’t ask further, steering the topic toward Le Qingfei. “Why did you bring him over here?”

To Shang Rong, the marriage between Fu Li and Le Qingfei should be as low-profile as possible, at least don’t bring the person to appear in public occasions, so as to avoid trouble when divorcing in the future.

After speaking, Shang Rong looked at his pink shirt again, knitting his brows. “The shirt color is too frivolous, it doesn’t suit you. The eyes of the board of directors and the media are all on you, you…”

“Bang!”

The sound of porcelain shattering came from the second floor.

Shang Rong only felt a gust of wind blow past his face. He squinted his eyes and opened them again, and Fu Li’s figure had just disappeared at the staircase.

Porcelain was shattered all over the ground.

Fu Qian didn’t care much, letting out a “tsk” and kicking away the fragments near his feet. Suddenly, he heard Le Qingfei crying.

Le Qingfei stood in the corridor, his face pale. His shoulders and fingers suddenly began to tremble uncontrollably, his legs giving out as he fell to sit on the ground. Staring at that ground full of fragments, the sound of crying seeped through his tightly clenched teeth.

“Hey, what is there to cry about?”

Fu Qian knitted his brows. “There are plenty of these vases at home. If you like it, just pick one and leave.”

The pink beret also seemed to have become crooked. Because of the shaking, strands of hair sneaked out from the edge of the hat, swaying even more violently as Le Qingfei cried harder and harder.

“It was you, it was you…!”

Le Qingfei slapped the floor one stroke after another, wanting to use this method to make the words he spoke be heard more clearly by people. “It’s like this again, it was clearly done by you… I didn’t even touch it at all…!”

Fu Qian was dumbfounded.

He also couldn’t understand why Le Qingfei’s reaction would be this big. “Nobody said you did it, isn’t there surveillance here?!”

But Le Qingfei seemed completely unable to listen to it, shaking his head forcefully like a cat experiencing stress.

“It’s completely useless, surveillance will also always break down. Everyone says it’s me, but it was clearly you guys…!”

“Hey, Le Qingfei, what on earth is wrong with you?”

The first to rush over were the servants of the Fu family. Seeing the ground full of mess, they cried out in surprise repeatedly.

They first glanced at Fu Qian, and very quickly cast their gazes toward Le Qingfei who was kneeling on the ground crying. “Oh dear, this… Master Qingfei, what is going on here?”

Zou Ying was originally on the second floor, and came over when she heard the commotion.

Seeing that it was the man Fu Li brought home, she smiled immediately, pulling together the fur on her shoulders. “Haha, what you pray for really comes, I just had to catch it.”

Fu Qian froze. “Mom, what are you guys doing? I broke this vase.”

Le Qingfei did not lift his head, seemingly knowing what would happen next.

“Oh dear, good son, does Mom still not know you?” Zou Ying walked to the front of Fu Qian, reaching out her hand to adjust his collar. “You’ve looked at these things from childhood to adulthood, it’s only those who haven’t seen the world…”

Fu Qian brushed away his mother’s hand, pointing to the camera in the corner of the wall. “Isn’t there surveillance here? Everyone has so much bulls*** talk, why not go watch the surveillance!”

Zou Ying acted as if she didn’t hear, turning around to look at Le Qingfei who was already crying so hard he couldn’t speak. “You…”

“Feifei!”

Fu Li ran over with quick steps.

Only then did Le Qingfei lift his head, but his eyes were already completely blurred by tears, unable to see clearly no matter what. It was just like that snowy night when he first met Fu Li, making him think the person running toward him was Yan Song.

After being held to stand up, he stubbornly buried his face into Yan Song’s chest, refusing to say a single word.

Fu Li held him with his left hand, and gently stroked the back of his head with his right hand, lowering his head to kiss the top of his hair. “It’s fine, I know, don’t worry.”

Fu Qian rolled his eyes, pushed open the surrounding crowd, put his hands in his pockets, and walked away.

Le Qingfei heard the footsteps of Fu Qian leaving, crying even more sorrowfully. It had always been like this—those people never had to bear anything after making a mistake, the one in the wrong was always him, and absolutely no one would listen to him speak.

No one believed him, except Yan Song.

“So many people are surrounding this place, yet you don’t know to first clean up the fragments on the ground?”

Fu Li’s deep voice came from above his head. “The things in this house were all part of my mother’s dowry back then. Since when is it your turn to point fingers?”

Zou Ying’s face changed sharply, forcing herself to stay calm. “These things belonged to me long ago. I haven’t even settled accounts with you guys yet, and you turn around to falsely accuse me first.”

“Settle accounts?”

Fu Li stared at her. “Which eye of yours saw that Feifei shattered it? Since you think he did it, then bring out the evidence yourself. If after watching the surveillance it’s found that you wronged him, are you going to kneel down to apologize to him, or gouge out your own dog eyes to wash them clean.”

Zou Ying was flabbergasted. “You, what did you say?”

Fu Li glanced at the surrounding servants and Shang Rong who was walking toward them. He pulled back his expression, bent down to scoop Le Qingfei up by his thighs, and turned around to leave.

Returning to the room, Fu Li did not put the person in his arms down, but instead carried Le Qingfei to the bathroom.

The lights weren’t turned on; there was only the moonlight in the heavy snow outside the window, faintly hazy.

Le Qingfei sat on the sink counter. A warm towel covered his eyes, wiping gently, time and time again, until no more new tears fell down.

“Fu Li, it really wasn’t me…”

“I know,” Fu Li kept his head down, as if confirming whether his eyes had cried too red. “If it were Feifei who accidentally broke it, he would definitely apologize.”

Le Qingfei wanted to cry again.

Fu Li put down the towel, gently cupping his face with both hands, as if treating some fragile treasure.

“This kind of thing has happened many times, right? No matter what Feifei says, they will only believe what they think themselves, or play deaf and dumb. That’s why you are so sad, unable to utter a single word.”

The moonlight shone on Fu Li’s face, so gentle.

Le Qingfei looked up at him, tears falling down unconsciously like a little fish in the water. “Don’t you think I am very useless?”

Fu Li rubbed his face. “Of course not, this is a normal reaction, isn’t it?”

Le Qingfei watched Fu Li lean closer and closer, the warm breath enveloping him. His cold limbs gradually warmed up after Fu Li lightly pressed their foreheads together.

“This kind of thing won’t happen again.”

Fu Li extended his hand, holding Le Qingfei’s clenched fingers. “Now and in the future, I will always be by Feifei’s side. No need to be afraid, no need to be nervous. Just like last time and this time, we will handle it well, you know?”

Le Qingfei nodded blankly.

The breathing of the two intertwined in one place, like the invisible moonlight shrouding them, a bright night that only existed in summer.

Only Yan Song could easily soothe Le Qingfei.

Lying sideways on the bed, Le Qingfei stared at the crescent moon showing half of itself outside the window, suddenly opening his mouth to speak.

“One time, Fu Qian, me, and three other people were responsible for organizing the summer camp library…”

Fu Li leaned against the carpet by the bedside, handling work while guarding him to fall asleep.

Hearing this, the fingers typing on the keyboard hovered in mid-air, slowly curling up. He asked in a hoarse voice, “And then?”

“And then, none of them did any work. It was me alone who organized all the books and did the cleaning. They even hid inside to smoke cigarettes, and when they left they forgot to lock the door properly. Raccoons and foxes ran inside, making the library so messy…

“The counselor only called me over and asked me what happened. I told him exactly what I just told you. Yet he said——

“‘Right, since you said it was you alone who organized the library, then the matter of closing the door should also be done by you.’”

Le Qingfei buried his face into the pillow and rubbed against it. “Anyway, everything is my fault…”

At this moment, a large hand gently stroked through his hair. Without words, it quietly stroked his hair stroke by stroke, just like his father and mother did when he was little, like Yan Song did when he suffered grievances at the summer camp.

Le Qingfei suddenly didn’t feel that bad anymore.

“The me at that time didn’t know why it would be like this, and even suspected that I really did something wrong. I hid by the lake and cried for a very long time, and it was also that night that I met…”

“Sleep.”

Fu Li suddenly opened his mouth.

That large hand moved to the front of Le Qingfei’s eyes, a blanket of darkness obscuring his eyes.

Le Qingfei fell asleep.

In his dream, he returned to that night. When Fu Li hugged him from behind, the warm body temperature was like the heat that had not yet dissipated from a summer night.

Le Qingfei’s scorching tears dripped into the lake that reflected the crescent moon.

“Was it really my fault?”

The lake water was clear and transparent, layers of ripples crashing against his slender calves. The navy blue shorts barely reached his thighs due to his sitting posture, and the white polo shirt only had one button fastened, revealing his chest and collarbones that turned red from crying.

Le Qingfei’s ears were also red, looming indistinctly under the swaying shadows of the trees by the lakeside, yet wonderfully hard to ignore.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the darkness not far away.

As if something had stepped over the fallen leaves on the ground, walking toward him.

Le Qingfei instantly became alert. There were wolves and bears on Mount Pleyades, and they would carry whistles and sprays with them, but it just so happened he had nothing right now.

The seventeen-year-old Le Qingfei picked up the oar beside him, kneeling up tremblingly, and at the instant the dark shadow appeared, he smashed it over with a “bang.”

An old, abandoned wooden pier, the wooden boards had long become loose.

The dark shadow, hit on the back of the head, staggered slightly in his steps, stepped on the edge of a damaged wooden board, and fell into the lake.

Holding the oar, Le Qingfei was drenched all over by the splash of water created by the one-meter-ninety-three man. His little braid hung in front of his eyes dripping water, and his tears were thus diluted, washed away, and disappeared after being scattered.

How come… it feels like a person.

Slowly, Le Qingfei squatted down by the edge of the pier, his legs together, his fingers pinching together, looking nervously at the lake surface that was still bubbling.

In the next second, a hand grabbed his ankle.

Le Qingfei fell backward in fright, his hands supporting himself on the wooden boards. Before he could cry out in surprise, a man with wide-open eyes climbed up from the lake water, gritting his teeth.

The moonlight was hazy, and Le Qingfei didn’t see the man’s expression clearly.

That was the first time he met Yan Song. Yan Song, who in his memory was always gentle and tolerant toward him, at that moment only wanted to throw him into the lake to feed the fish.

……

Opening his eyes.

That empty white porcelain vase on the narrow table, at some unknown point, had an extra branch of red plum blossoms inside.

Le Qingfei stared at it, adapting to the light for a moment, recalling the dream from last night. What a pity he couldn’t dream of Yan Song’s face.

Though, it seemed he had never dreamed of it.

Yan Song had disappeared, and even his dreams had never been visited by him.

Le Qingfei turned his body over to continue sleeping, but just after closing his eyes, he slowly opened them, looking toward the man sleeping in the makeshift bed on the floor beside the bed.

He had never thought that “meticulous and serious” could be used to describe a person sleeping.

Fu Li lay flat sleeping soundly, the navy blue blanket smoothly covering up to his chest without almost any wrinkles, his hands properly crossed over his chest, his breathing steady. As if even sleeping had someone holding a ruler requiring it of him.

Le Qingfei’s gaze returned to his face.

Suddenly, Le Qingfei was somewhat unable to distinguish between dream and reality. He propped his body up, swimming to Fu Li’s side like a little fish.