Married A Man I Hate - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: The Tempted Man · 20% — “Next time you can kiss here…”

“Feifei, thank you.”

Le Qingfei pinched his hands in front of his chest, staring up blankly at Fu Li. The back of his head was gently supported, and the little butterfly landed on his forehead for the second time.

It felt crisp and tingling—it was just like this when Yan Song kissed him.

The warm breath felt like summer arriving ahead of schedule. Shrouded in dazed thoughts, Le Qingfei even forgot to move.

In everyone’s eyes, it was merely a kiss. They were a married couple, and kissing was the most ordinary occurrence.

No one understood the chaos inside Le Qingfei’s mind at this moment.

Like a newlywed couple blessed by everyone, Fu Li held his fingers, leading him, and walked toward the birthday protagonist surrounded by the crowd.

Le Qingfei seemed like a kite, drifting obediently and gently by Fu Li’s side. He remained quiet from beginning to end and never lifted his eyes—just like his earlobes, which were half-hidden by his brown hair yet still dripping blood-red.

Like a cherry.

It took Fu Li a great deal of effort just to suppress the urge to lick it.

It was very strange, wasn’t it?

Le Qingfei could always strip himself bare in front of him without any burden whatsoever. This morning, because he felt it was comfortable sleeping in his embrace, he even gave in to laziness and wanted Fu Li to help him change into his pajamas.

Yet a forehead kiss could turn the gardenia flower—which was always baring its fangs and brandishing its claws while emitting fragrance—into a mimosa plant hiding in the corner.

“It wasn’t just one…!”

Le Qingfei lay sideways in the snow, his ear pressed against the ice-cold snow, stating with righteous indignation, “Two. You kissed me twice…!”

“Your ears will get frostbitten.” Fu Li smiled and picked him up. “What should we do then, since I’ve already kissed you?”

Le Qingfei sat in the snow, his short white graffiti cotton jacket crumpled into a ball, looking like a little neckless snowman. A pair of large eyes looked at Fu Li pitifully. “You ask me what to do, but I can’t possibly kiss you back, right?”

Fu Li’s expression was serious: “You can.”

Le Qingfei curled his lip, and the moment Fu Li knew he was about to cry, Fu Li raised his hand wanting to touch his face.

The moment his hand let go, Le Qingfei fell straight backward—like cookie batter poured into a mold—his entire body sinking completely and perfectly into the snow.

“Fu Li, you are too much. How can you kiss me without my permission…”

“I’m sorry,” Fu Li leaned over, his tall body propped over him, blocking out the snow as he apologized earnestly. “Next time I will ask you in advance, okay?”

Le Qingfei looked at him. Fu Li’s face was blurred in the drifting snow, yet it felt familiar and clear.

He nodded.

Fu Li froze; he hadn’t expected Le Qingfei to actually agree.

At this moment, Le Qingfei lay flat on his back in the snow, his soft and lustrous long brown hair spread out like a waterfall. Broken, bright glints reflected by the ice crystals fell upon his face, making him look like a child cherished by the stars—radiant and beautiful.

His petite and rounded nose tip was like a small pearl, revealing a shallow pink tint in the snow.

Fu Li looked down at it, raised his hand, and tapped it with a finger wearing a black leather glove. “Next time, can I kiss here?”

Between heaven and earth, all was a vast expanse of white.

The figures of the two people looked so small, so small in the snow… like a tiny wooden boat on a lake surface. The pure white lake water separated them from the chaotic world, leaving only the heartbeats in their chests that had not yet calmed down when they locked eyes.

Le Qingfei’s eyes were clear, gazing at him, as if presenting a certain transparent hint.

As if confirming whether he had misread the intention, Fu Li took off his glove. His warm fingertip hooked up Le Qingfei’s chin, which was covered by his collar, lifting that beautiful face slightly to form an angle convenient for kissing.

Le Qingfei continued to gaze at him, making him unable to distinguish whether it was a silent refusal or a temptation.

“Feifei,” Fu Li’s Adam’s apple rolled up and down a fraction. Approaching closer, he asked him, “Can I?”

A light was suddenly turned on in the distance. The light reflected in the lenses of Fu Li’s golden wire glasses, brightening for an instant like a light abruptly appearing in a dreamscape, urging a person to wake up quickly.

Le Qingfei blinked his eyes, distinguishing Fu Li from Yan Song, and raised his hand to push him away. “No…!”

The man always yielded to him, cooperatively getting pushed down into the accumulated snow. He even supported Le Qingfei with both hands when Le Qingfei angrily straddled his waist and abdomen, fearing that Le Qingfei might fall.

“Why did you kiss me just now?”

Le Qingfei grabbed snow and pressed it onto Fu Li’s cheek. “Nobody kisses someone just to say thank you…!”

Fu Li squinted his eyes from the ice-cold sensation but still didn’t dodge. “Feifei, I like you, you know that. Wanting to kiss the person you like, this is the most normal thing possible, isn’t it?”

Le Qingfei startled, and the movements of his hands also stopped.

Fu Li held his hand to warm it up for him, continuing: “From the day we registered our marriage, I have said that I like Feifei, and under the objective condition of being married, I want to subjectively develop into a lover relationship with Feifei…”

“That’s not true.”

Le Qingfei interrupted him, scrambling and climbing down from his body. “You don’t like me at all.”

What?

Fu Li froze.

Le Qingfei walked ahead with his head down, automatically blocking out Fu Li’s pressing questions, saying to himself: “You kissed me just now not because you like me, but simply because you wanted to say thank you. You don’t like me.”

“Feifei…”

Fu Li reached out his hand to hold his hand.

Just like the night of their reunion, Le Qingfei pulled his hand out from his sleeve without any politeness, refusing to let him touch it.

But this time Fu Li did not let him have his way. Taking a large step forward, he wrapped him up in his coat and hoisted the person up over his shoulder with one arm. “Even when throwing a tantrum, you can’t just take off your clothes blindly.”

“Let me down…!”

Having depended on others for a living since childhood, Le Qingfei’s height was only 175 cm, which was truly not enough to look at in front of Fu Li. Just like the night at the hot spring, he was held in an embrace, unable to move a muscle.

“You like taking off your clothes this much?”

Returning to the bedroom, Fu Li tossed Le Qingfei onto the sofa, staring at him. “Take them off.”

It was no wonder Fu Li was angry; Le Qingfei was only wearing a single shirt underneath—a pastel pink shirt so thin that it could faintly reveal his skin tone. Taking a turn out in the sub-zero snow, he would definitely come back with a fever.

Le Qingfei knelt on the sofa, lowering his head, his face gradually turning red.

In the next second, Le Qingfei plunged into the crevice of the sofa, picking up a throw pillow to press over his head, refusing to speak with Fu Li.

“I’m going to ignore you.”

“Mm, ignoring me yet still speaking to me.”

Le Qingfei’s voice came muffled from inside the throw pillow: “That sentence just now doesn’t count…” He paused. “This sentence doesn’t count either.”

Le Qingfei was serious.

The next day, he unilaterally launched a cold war against Fu Li.

Looking at Le Qingfei—who wouldn’t even accept chocolate, kept a stiffened small face, and picked up a snowball maker to run outside by himself to play with snow—Fu Li fell into deep thought.

Le Qingfei would always forget the unpleasant things that occurred after eating a dessert and sleeping a wink.

It worked every single time.

Why?

Fu Li was completely unable to understand it after much deliberation.

Fu Li was called to the study by Shang Rong to talk about some matters for a while.

By the time he brought out the freshly cut fruit and warm water to look for Le Qingfei, Fu Qian had already been scratched by Le Qingfei until his face was full of bloodstains.

“You are just talking nonsense! My husband is not a bad person at all, what does your mother getting hurt have to do with him?”

Fu Qian lifted his arm to block his head. “Le Qingfei, don’t you truly think I don’t dare to hit you!”

“I said it, if you insult my husband again, I am going to beat you up…!”

Le Qingfei couldn’t reach him, so he prepared to pounce onto Fu Qian to continue hitting. “When my husband comes, he will even help me beat you up together… Husband?” A pair of powerful large hands caught him in mid-air.

Le Qingfei’s feet dangled in the air. He turned his head to look at Fu Li, who was holding him by the waist.

Fu Li turned his face over, picked up his hands, and inspected them carefully. Only after confirming there were no injuries did he set Le Qingfei down, casting a cold gaze toward Fu Qian on the side.

Fu Qian cursed in anger, “The one beating people is Le Qingfei, why are you looking at me?!”

Fu Li: “Would he beat you without rhyme or reason? Won’t his hands hurt from beating you? Do you not have legs to know how to dodge?”

Fu Qian: “……”

As half-brothers from the same father, their facial features shared a few resemblances, yet their surrounding temperaments were entirely different. Fu Qian, who called the shots at school, looked like he hadn’t even grown his feathers properly in front of Fu Li, yet his heart remained unwilling to submit.

He pulled a cigarette case out from his pocket. “Le Qingfei, remember the words I said. Don’t come crying and begging me one day in regret.”

After finished speaking, he lit a cigarette and left.

Fu Li knitted his brows. “What did he just say to you?”

Ten minutes ago, Le Qingfei was building a snowman when Fu Qian suddenly ran over, clamoring and shouting again to make him divorce Fu Li, but this time there was a so-called reason.

“He said you are a bad person, ruthless and cold-blooded, saying that if I’m not obedient one day, my little life might not be preserved. He also said you had a girlfriend in America before and don’t like guys at all, telling me not to get fooled by you.”

Le Qingfei finished repeating in just a couple of sentences what Fu Qian had babbled into his ear for over ten minutes.

Fu Li was currently using a disinfectant wipe to clean Le Qingfei’s hands. Hearing this, his hand paused for a moment, and he said in a deep voice: “Don’t believe it.”

Le Qingfei shook his head. “I know now. He and his mother are just bullying you, which is why they keep saying bad things about you in front of me and even want me to divorce you. It’s simply…”

“He likes you,” Fu Li said.

Eh?

Le Qingfei froze.

Fu Li kept his head down, the area beneath his deep brow bones cast in shadow. Lowering his eyes, he said it once more: “Fu Qian likes you.”

Once again, Le Qingfei discerned sadness from his face.

But very quickly, Le Qingfei snapped out of it and shook his head firmly. “No, he doesn’t like me.”

The corner of Fu Li’s mouth twitched, and he let out a soft, bitter laugh. “What do you know.”

“I just know,” Le Qingfei looked at Fu Li earnestly. “Ever since we were at Hardlyn Public School, Fu Qian and I always argued. He always pulled my hair and hid my hairpins. His math was also very terrible and he took the exact same math class as me; he’s so rich yet he never brought pens or scratch paper, always using mine. When I took baseball class and always failed to hit, he would bring his group of lackeys to mock me constantly… He doesn’t like me at all.”

“He wants to be seen by you,” Fu Li said. “Being hated by you is also being seen by you.”

Le Qingfei startled for an instant, recalling those words Fu Li had said to him in the past. The words Fu Li spoke were always right and could always convince him easily.

But this time, it wasn’t so.

Le Qingfei stamped his foot in anger. “No, he doesn’t like me.”

Fu Li also didn’t know why he had to say these words to Le Qingfei. He shook his head, softly uttered a “Sorry,” and intended to end this topic.

But now, it seemed it was Le Qingfei’s turn to prepare to convince him.

“Because liking someone isn’t like that.”

Le Qingfei’s eyes were very bright, his tone firm. “Liking someone means you won’t pull his hair, you won’t take away the things he likes, and you won’t mock him when he fails to do something well… This isn’t liking.”

Fu Li smiled, seemingly understanding Le Qingfei’s train of thought.

He raised his hand, took off Le Qingfei’s white puppy earmuffs, and tidied his hair. “Mm, so what do you think counts as liking?”

“They will think that whatever I do is very wonderful—even accidentally burnt cookies are wonderful, and falling down while walking is different from others. They will remember which star I like and what kind of moon; they will send me beautiful flowers, nice clothes, and a snowboard that everyone envies; when my hair gets messy, they will use very gentle fingers to comb it out for me bit by bit, never hurting me…”

Le Qingfei looked into Fu Li’s eyes. “This is what counts as liking.”

Fu Li’s hand hovered in mid-air, the brown strands of hair lying softly between his fingers, resembling fireworks lingering for him.

“So, Feifei knows, right?” Fu Li approached closer. “Regarding the fact that I like you, why were you unwilling to admit it last night?”

“……”

Le Qingfei’s eyelashes trembled. He turned around wanting to run, but was scooped back by Fu Li with one arm around his waist. He shrunk his hands in front of his chest like a puppy caught by the scruff of its neck by an old fox, not daring to move.

Fu Li: “Speak.”

“%￥#……&#”

“Speak properly.”

Le Qingfei: “I don’t know what to do.”

Fu Li seemed to think of something, his brows furrowing. “You don’t know what to do? When you encountered those people who confessed to you, did you also hide from them like this?”

“Not at all,” Le Qingfei felt a bit annoyed. “You are different from them anyway. I didn’t want to reject you that much.”