Married A Man I Hate - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: The Landing Butterfly Another kiss.

The dawn snow made no sound.

Le Qingfei lay beside Fu Li’s pillow, touching all over his face—from his eyebrows to the bridge of his nose, and then his lips.

His fingertips were like a little butterfly, pattering and flying onto that tiny black mole underneath the left eye.

He touched it and leaned close to look.

“It really is exactly the same. How could it be like this?”

The butterfly would be attracted; this face, which had never even appeared in his dreams, was the greatest temptation.

When Le Qingfei straddled his body and was seriously researching the Adam’s apple, Fu Li finally could endure it no longer and let out a light cough.

Le Qingfei closed his eyes tightly and plunged his head into Fu Li’s embrace, deceiving himself.

“……”

Le Qingfei didn’t dare to move, waiting patiently to fall asleep so he could leave silently without a sound.

Fell asleep.

Le Qingfei fell asleep.

Fu Li opened his eyes, lowered his head to glance at the person in his arms, and let out a soft laugh.

Supporting Le Qingfei’s thigh with his right hand, he exerted a bit of strength, lifted the blanket, and pulled the person inside.

He didn’t dare to use too much strength—not because he was worried about waking him up, but because he was afraid of hurting him.

Le Qingfei lay on his chest, as light as the ripples blown up by the wind on the lake water. He was too small, his skeletal frame small and thin; even his thigh—the only part with a bit of meat—Fu Li could hold with just one hand.

His hand held it, reluctant to leave, yet he wanted to look at his face even more.

Fu Li freed his left hand to tuck the strands of hair falling beside Le Qingfei’s cheek behind his ear, his finger pad brushing past the delicate auricle, whose rounded contour resembled a little spoon.

The little spoon was placed beside the cake; his face was so soft.

Fu Li stared at the ceiling, his right hand holding his leg and his left hand gently squeezing it, reluctant to leave.

He didn’t dare to eat him.

Le Qingfei’s wariness toward him completely exceeded Fu Li’s expectations.

He thought that Le Qingfei would gladly accept it after being surprised, just like that fictional love story; he should have kissed his cheek right when Le Qingfei lowered his head to sniff the white camellia.

Le Qingfei startled slightly, and the instant his eyelashes lifted, his cheeks also turned red. He avoided his gaze, yet he would gently hook his finger after lowering his head.

Fu Li had imagined the scene of reuniting with Le Qingfei countless times, but he had never thought that Le Qingfei would dislike him.

“I like you the most, and you like me too, right?”

Fu Li unconsciously increased the strength at his fingertips a bit. The person in his arms let out a very soft groan, and his brow also knitted slightly.

Fu Li lowered his head to apologize, changing to using his palm to gently soothe the flushed cheek.

Comfortable now, Le Qingfei’s eyebrows smoothed out bit by bit, yet his hands held him even tighter, as if he liked the sound of his noisy heartbeat.

“Le Qingfei, you’re really bad.”

The bad egg Le Qingfei was “bullying” the children who came to attend tonight’s birthday banquet out in the snow.

“Mom, waaa——!”

Several children from the Fu family and the Zou family were all beaten by Le Qingfei until they wailed loudly, tugging at the adults’ clothes and crying.

Le Qingfei adjusted his white puppy earmuffs, clapped his hands, and lofted his chin, lacking even a shred of guilt for using his larger size to bully the small.

“I am going to hit you,” Le Qingfei stood with hands on his hips. “Who told you to mess up my snowman and mock me?”

These children were very malicious.

Le Qingfei’s snowman was built perfectly fine. In the brief moment he bent down to scoop up snow, it was kicked into ruins with one foot, almost kicking his head as well.

The child didn’t apologize and even mocked him for still building snowmen at his age; the parents also only acted as if they suddenly grew eyes and ears after Le Qingfei knocked the person down with a snowball, saying how could he—an adult—bother to argue over every little thing with small children.

Le Qingfei rolled a much larger snowball and pelted the adult along with them.

The kid’s dad came over, so Le Qingfei chickened out a bit and hurriedly ran to look for Fu Li.

Fu Li was currently picking a carrot for him. “No need for a nose anymore, why?”

Le Qingfei sullenly told him everything that happened, his eyelashes lowered, and his strawberry hairpin pitifully clamped a few strands of hair, drooping on one side.

Fu Li put down the carrot, pulled out chocolate from his pocket, peeled it open, and fed it to his lips. “Mm, Feifei is right. They are all bad children.”

Le Qingfei nodded in agreement, no longer angry.

Fu Li stood behind him, taking off both the earmuffs and the hairpin. His fingers combed through the strands of hair, braiding the little braid anew and clipping the hairpin back on.

He was as proficient as if he had done it many times before.

“Why didn’t you wear the hairpin I gave you?”

“Mm?” Le Qingfei thought about it. The Christmas gifts Fu Li gave him filled up that seven-meter Christmas tree at home, and among them was a custom ruby strawberry hairpin. “I want to save it to wear for the New Year.”

Fu Li smiled and led him back inside the house to change out of his sweat-dampened clothes.

“Wait for me to come back and pick you up, don’t leave the bedroom by yourself,” Fu Li instructed.

After what happened last night, Fu Li was very tense in the morning, guarding him almost without leaving his side for a single step. Even when searching for the carrot, he was only willing to go after Le Qingfei promised repeatedly that he wouldn’t run around blindly.

Le Qingfei, on the other hand, had forgotten most of it; after all, the matter had already been resolved.

The servants present had apologized to him and had already been dismissed; as for Zou Ying, Le Qingfei never thought she would apologize to him, but he also didn’t expect her to enter the hospital emergency room in the middle of the night.

He asked Fu Li what happened, but Fu Li also wasn’t quite sure.

Le Qingfei scanned the room. For some unknown reason, he always felt that the place became eerie when Fu Li wasn’t around, or rather, the entire house and the people inside the house were all very bizarre.

He couldn’t put it into words.

Just as Le Qingfei took off his sweater, the bedroom door was forcefully pushed open by a servant. The person outside apologized repeatedly, closed the door, and backed out.

Now, he knew what was bizarre.

During lunch, the dining room still had only him and Fu Li. Fu Qian went to the hospital to accompany his mother, and the other guests were all in the small building and didn’t eat together with them.

Le Qingfei leaned against the back of his chair, staring at that plate of T-bone lamb chops in front of Fu Li—golden, charred, and crispy, the meat aroma assaulting the nostrils.

However, Fu Li did not like to eat lamb.

No matter what jams, cakes, or cookies Le Qingfei made at home, Fu Li would always show his support by eating a lot, even though Le Qingfei could tell that Fu Li did not like sweets.

But that day he roasted very fragrant lamb rib chops, yet Fu Li only ate one bite.

Fu Li was very good to him.

Therefore, Fu Li must really, really hate lamb.

Why would the servants of the Fu family not know this?

The servants at his uncle and aunt’s house would remember their preferences, only failing to remember his; nor would they fail to knock on the door when entering his room, just like today when he was changing clothes.

However, Fu Li was so powerful, how could he be the same as himself?

Le Qingfei did not understand.

Fu Li spread the napkin for Le Qingfei. He lifted his head, and the plate of food that caused him aversion and disgust had disappeared, replaced instead by a plate of spaghetti.

Fu Li startled slightly.

Le Qingfei forked a piece of lamb, put it into his mouth, and used mouth shapes to say to him: No need to thank me.

In the afternoon, the banquet hall was very lively.

Le Qingfei originally thought he would see that group of annoying children from the morning, but to his surprise, not a single child was seen; it seemed as if they had all returned to their respective homes right over lunchtime.

“What is Feifei looking at?”

“It’s nothing, I’m just happy,” Le Qingfei said. “The annoying fellows are all absent.”

Fu Li smiled and didn’t speak.

Fu Li brought Le Qingfei along wherever he went, but those commercial topics really made Le Qingfei doze off. Like the hypnosis of an economics major class, he could even fall asleep while playing on his phone.

“This year, the transmission and distribution pressure of the Central Asian pipeline has already approached the threshold…”

Fu Li’s back was gently bumped. He extended his hand, pulling Le Qingfei—who was leaning against his back and almost falling asleep—into his embrace.

Le Qingfei, however, woke up with a jolt.

At this moment, a kind lady opposite Fu Li, who was likewise bored listening with her husband, stood out and said she would take Le Qingfei to play on the side.

Le Qingfei blinked his eyes. “Husband, can I go?”

Fu Li pondered for a moment and nodded. “Call me if anything happens.”

“Okay, husband. Thank you, husband.” Le Qingfei extended his arms to hug Fu Li like a little robot executing an order. “Goodbye, husband.”

Brought into the wives’ gossip circle, Le Qingfei no longer dozed off, his eyes widening as well. While eating cake, he listened to one shocking piece of wealthy family news after another.

Some wives saw that he came together with Fu Li, but because of his young age, they only assumed he was a child from the Shang family’s side.

Thus, playing to his preferences, they began to curse together with him about the Fu family’s ruthlessness and the Zou family’s usurpation of the nest.

Le Qingfei, who originally tilted his head and frowned in confusion, sat straighter and straighter throughout the other party’s narration. The cake in his hand was also set down, and his mouth grew wider and wider.

……

Fu Li: “I am not worried about the contract over on HB’s side, it’s just that Percy is preparing for his wedding lately and doesn’t have much time… Why are you back?”

Le Qingfei shook his head, hugged his arm, and stood quietly. Finally, as if discerning Fu Li’s worry, he tiptoed and said in a small voice, “It’s nothing, I just want to stay together with you.”

Fu Li smiled and rubbed the little braid on the top of his head, continuing to chat with the person opposite him.

Le Qingfei lowered his eyes, yet he wasn’t sleepy at all, perhaps because he couldn’t hear these dry and tedious words; those words from just now were still echoing in his ears.

At this moment, Zou Ying, who had just returned from the hospital, walked into the banquet hall.

Zou Ying wore a purple evening gown, looking no different from last night. It was only when she turned around that Le Qingfei discovered to his surprise that her left eye was wrapped in gauze.

Le Qingfei: “What happened to her eye?”

Fu Li took a sip of the whiskey in his glass and shrugged. “Not clear.”

Le Qingfei held no doubts about his words, though he felt pain just looking at that piece of gauze.

Unexpectedly, Zou Ying suddenly snapped her head around—like a zoom close-up in a Shaw Brothers movie—locking eyes directly with Le Qingfei, one eye gouging fiercely toward him.

Le Qingfei immediately hid behind Fu Li’s back in fright.

He was inherently a bit afraid of Zou Ying; she was quite similar to his aunt, very fierce.

However, would Zou Ying bully Fu Li?

Stepping in her high heels, Zou Ying walked toward the two of them. “Fu…”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Le Qingfei suddenly drilled out from behind Fu Li, blocking in front of him and glaring at Zou Ying. “You are not allowed to bully my husband.”

Both Fu Li and Zou Ying froze.

The nearby guests caught a fright in their hearts and fled one after another.

The grievances and resentments of the Fu family had long ceased to be fresh news, but in Jinggang, no one yet dared to gossip face-to-face. However, the way Le Qingfei spread his arms to block in front of Fu Li really resembled a little chick protecting an eagle too much; thus, while they fled, they turned their heads to watch.

Le Qingfei’s legs were both shaking, his limbs ice-cold, yet he still lofted his chin to lock eyes with Zou Ying.

He knew everything now—Fu Li had been getting bullied by them all along!

This beautiful estate with several buildings was the ancestral home of Fu Li’s maternal grandfather’s family, yet now it was occupied by the Zou family just like the company; Fu Li was suppressed by the Zou family’s forces in the company, and the servants at home also bullied Fu Li, making them live in such a small room and failing to remember Fu Li’s preferences… Clearly, this was Fu Li’s home.

Fu Li had been protecting him all along; he also wanted to protect Fu Li.

Thinking up to this point, Le Qingfei took a deep breath. “Don’t bully Fu Li just because he has a good personality, respects the elderly, loves the young, and never gets angry. My personality isn’t good at all; I get angry every single day, and I can even beat people up.”

Fu Li: Mmh.

Zou Ying was flabbergasted.

She wasn’t an 18-year-old child; what could she possibly do to Fu Li in broad daylight? Roll up her sleeves to argue with someone in front of so many people?

Besides, Fu Li… respects the elderly and loves the young?

Respects the elderly? In the middle of the night, her eye—the one that “ought to be gouged out and washed clean”—was inexplicably bitten by bugs. Loves the young? Fu Li sent people to drive away several families of relatives, just because they ruined Le Qingfei’s snowman; even the balloons held in the children’s hands were all shot and exploded by Fu Li using a toy gun, and he casually threw the gun up onto the roof.

Respects the elderly and loves the young.

Fu Li was simply a dog that didn’t bark.

In front of the media and outsiders, he put on an appearance of an eldest son with a tragic life story sidelined by his stepmother, gentle, refined, and elegant; in reality, his heart was blacker than anyone’s.

After the events of these past two days, Zou Ying even felt that her being alive was probably because they were domestic; otherwise, Fu Li could directly find someone to drive a car and crash her into the sea.

Being alive was more important than anything.

Zou Ying cast a resentful glance at Le Qingfei and left.

Eh?

Le Qingfei blinked his eyes.

She just left like that? Could it be that he was truly this powerful, scaring her back?

Le Qingfei let out a long sigh of relief, lowered his arms, turned around, and his proud eyelashes tilted up. “Husband, am I actually pretty powerful?”

Fu Li looked at him. Perhaps because of the ice and snow outside the window, Le Qingfei seemed to turn into an unprecedentedly cute icebreaker ship, crashing through those non-existent thick ice sheets and sailing toward him with a head-on collision.

Time and time again, at the moments when he thought it was impossible to love him more.

Fu Li reached out his arms and hugged Le Qingfei.

“Mm, Feifei is so powerful.”

“No need to fear, Fu Li. I will protect you too, just like you…”

Le Qingfei’s words were interrupted by a kiss falling upon his forehead—ticklish, like a butterfly landing.

“Feifei, thank you.” Another kiss.