Married A Man I Hate - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: The Tempted Man · 40%  “Feifei also likes it very much…”

In the heavy snow, Le Qingfei was held in Fu Li’s embrace, stammering, and took a long time to squeeze out a few sentences.

“It’s just, you are different from other people.”

“When you touch me, I don’t feel uncomfortable; when you kiss me, I don’t hate it very much either…” Le Qingfei was very distressed, unable to figure it out, and his heart couldn’t hide things. “I’ve never had this kind of feeling, so I don’t know what to do.”

Fu Li looked at him, astonished by Le Qingfei’s candor and his own incomparable luck.

“Feifei, do you like me?”

“No.”

Le Qingfei answered very decisively. “The person I like is Yan Song. A person will only like one person, so I don’t like you.”

Fu Li touched the bridge of his nose.

Le Qingfei caught the trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth and was unhappy. “What are you laughing at? I didn’t say I like you, why are you so happy?”

Fu Li shook his head, wanting to say he wasn’t, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he laughed out first, turning his head to compose himself for a moment.

Turning back, locking eyes with Le Qingfei’s angry yet ashamed eyes, he couldn’t resist wanting to kiss him again.

He didn’t dare.

Fu Li had no choice but to lean his forehead over, his nose tip rubbing against Le Qingfei’s soft cheek, pressing close to his ear. “It doesn’t matter, Feifei doesn’t need to respond to me.”

Le Qingfei was made to feel very ticklish on his ear by him. He couldn’t push him away, and his hands were caught again, held even tighter.

Having provoked the person into an anxious state, Fu Li softened his voice again to coax him: “No need to worry about being unable to respond to me. You only need to try to accept everything I do for you, and try to be moved by me. Remember?”

The person in his arms quieted down a few fractions.

From this angle, Fu Li could see Le Qingfei’s eyelashes trembling along with his breathing, as well as his slightly puffed-up, snow-white cheeks. Therefore, he buried his face into Le Qingfei’s fluffy and soft pink scarf before he managed to suppress the urge to kiss him.

It was like ripping open a gash.

The moment he kissed Le Qingfei’s skin again, that summer imprisoned in his body boiled up from its silence, destroying everything in its path, nearly drowning out the rationality he relied on for survival.

Le Qingfei’s lifted eyelashes, his crimson cheeks, and the gaze directed toward him all became hints.

As if tempting him to approach.

“Feifei, try to accept my approach.” He continued to coax Le Qingfei. “Kissing is not an unpleasant thing, right? Feifei also likes it very much, I know.”

Le Qingfei’s ears turned red again. He pursed his lips and didn’t speak, yet his chin was firmly and gently pinched, lifting his head to lock eyes with the man.

“Have a try,” Fu Li said. “If Feifei feels uncomfortable, I will definitely stop, okay?”

Le Qingfei couldn’t control the occurrence of his curiosity. “Try what?”

In the next second, Fu Li’s face leaned closer and closer, along with his breathing.

A warm and cool sensation pressed against the outer corner of his eye.

Fu Li tilted his head, briefly kissing him. “Try to accept my kiss.”

After finishing the kiss, Fu Li gentlemanly apologized to him: “Sorry, I forgot that before kissing you, I need to obtain your permission.”

“……”

The puppy exploded in fury.

The instant Fu Li loosened his strength, Le Qingfei immediately tackled him to the ground, fiercely grabbing snow and stuffing it all into Fu Li’s clothes.

“You’re not allowed to kiss me, you’re not allowed to kiss me! You bad egg, I’m going to turn you into a giant ice egg!”

……

He caught a cold that very night.

Not the giant ice egg, but Master Le who manufactured the giant ice egg.

“Open your mouth.”

“Ah——”

Le Qingfei held the thermometer that Fu Li stuffed into his mouth, a cooling patch stuck to his forehead, and every joint in his body ached.

Fu Li sprayed on medicine, continuously rubbing and kneading into Le Qingfei’s aching bone crevices.

His palms were very large and very warm.

Le Qingfei half-blinked his eyes, looking at Fu Li’s tightly knitted brows due to worry, and seemed to remember something.

That night, it was also like this… Uh, no, it seemed to be Yan Song?

Le Qingfei couldn’t remember clearly.

An illness goes away as slowly as pulling silk.

Even when Le Qingfei took Fu Li back to his uncle and aunt’s house for a meal after the New Year, his speech still carried a nasal tone.

“Why didn’t you let me go see the New Year’s Eve fireworks?”

Le Qingfei sat in the back row of the car. His nose, which had just been sprayed with physiological saline, was being pinched with a moisturizing tissue by Fu Li, and his voice completely changed. “It wasn’t easy for Jinggang to set off fireworks for once.”

“If you want to see fireworks, I will set them off for you when your illness gets better.” Fu Li pinched his nose. “Blow out a bit.”

Fu Li watched him jump up and down every day without getting tired, yet his physical foundation was poorer than anyone’s—just like a Maltese dog: agile, nimble, petite, and energetic, but in reality, he could fracture a bone just jumping down from a sofa.

Not long after their marriage, he had taken Le Qingfei for a full-body examination.

The only thing about Le Qingfei that didn’t border on “malnutrition” was that he didn’t have the so-called sallow face and emaciated muscles; in a crowd, he was still the remarkably fair-skinned and beautiful center of attention.

Yet the fact was, his parents’ heights were 190 cm and 176 cm, but he was less than 175 cm. His voice was on the slender side, his body shape on the smaller side, and even his hair was brown.

However, genetic inheritance allowed his hair to produce a beautiful luster, as if it were constantly bathed in sunlight. It caused everyone who saw Le Qingfei at first glance to assume he was a doted and luxuriously raised young master from some family.

Especially his innocence, which was close to a blank sheet of paper, was most capable of mystifying people.

Fu Li was one of them.

Therefore, it was only when he tore away his prejudices against Le Qingfei layer by layer and saw that heart which had never possessed a single shred of hypocrisy from beginning to end, that he fell in love with him, unable to extricate himself.

Perhaps it was contradictory; he loved this kind of Le Qingfei, yet loathed the chief culprit who brought him all this.

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Before her death, his mother always kept this sentence on her lips, yet he had disappointed her. He didn’t become this kind of person who repaid grievances with virtue; he only learned to take a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye.

Inside the Le family villa, Fu Li sat in the primary seat, smiling mildly.

“I hope I have expressed myself clearly. After all, you two are Feifei’s relatives, and naturally, you are my relatives as well. If some unnecessary misunderstandings cause Feifei to be sad, I will be extremely disappointed.”

Kang Wei was already frozen in place from fright. She still wanted to open her mouth to say something, but was stopped by Le Wangzong with one hand, who hurriedly shook his head.

“We understand, we understand.”

Le Wangzong bowed continuously. “President Fu is right. Qingfei is still willing to call us ‘uncle and aunt’, which is giving us immense face. Since we can remain in Jinggang, we will definitely behave ourselves and keep our place. In the future, if there is any area where we can be of use, we will definitely exert our utmost effort.”

Fu Li smiled. “What kind of talk is that? We are all one family.”

Only after confirming that Fu Li had gone upstairs did Kang Wei dare to pull Le Wangzong into a corner, her face pale. “This, what exactly is going on…”

“Do you lack eyes or a brain? Can’t you tell?”

Le Wangzong’s intestines were turning green with regret. Listening to the Zou family’s words to send Le Qingfei for an alliance marriage, his first reason was wanting to dispose of Le Qingfei—this time bomb; his second was to fawn on the Zou family; and his third was placing bets on both sides out of selfish motives.

He had thought that if Fu Li succeeded, Fu Li would give them face no matter what.

Le Qingfei was a soft-hearted one too; by bringing up the sentiment of upbringing and crying about his deceased eldest brother and sister-in-law, his heart would definitely soften.

But what caught him completely unprepared was that Fu Li struck too fast—whether toward the Zou family or toward them.

Kang Wei slumped onto a chair. “I knew things weren’t right. As soon as Le… Qingfei left, the servants at home suddenly all resigned, and we couldn’t even recruit new servants… Look at my hands… washing dishes this past month has aged them completely!”

“Lower your voice! The person is still upstairs.”

Fu Li bent his waist and walked into the small attic.

Le Qingfei was sitting cross-legged right on a gray cushion, holding a crochet hook, his fingers rapidly crocheting a tiny sweater.

Hearing Fu Li’s footsteps, he let out a huff. With his feet pressing against the floor, his buttocks, along with the cushion, shifted toward the corner.

Who told Fu Li to kiss his eyebrow again while they were in the car.

“—Aie!”

The cushion was yanked backward by a large hand.

Stopping, Le Qingfei’s forward-leaning body leaned backward under the effect of inertia, precisely crashing into Fu Li’s embrace.

“What are you knitting?”

Fu Li gently rested his chin on Le Qingfei’s shoulder. He knew Le Qingfei was knitting a sweater for a kitten again—it had been posted on his Moments—he just wanted to divert his attention so he could hold him a bit longer.

Le Qingfei held up the strawberry sweater to show him. “A sweater, for a kitten.”

Fu Li smiled. “Looks like a glove.”

“Is that so?” Le Qingfei tilted his head, putting his hand inside to test it. “It doesn’t look like one. Where would there be a glove this big?”

At this moment, Fu Li’s hand reached over.

The man’s finger pads and palm slid forward slowly against the back of his hand, like a flowing current of warm water, only stopping after his broad palm completely covered Le Qingfei’s hand, pressing against him intimately and completely.

“It’s quite small,” Fu Li said after trying it.

Le Qingfei felt his hand go numb. He looked up at Fu Li and suddenly bumped him with his head like a little calf. “Even if it fits, I won’t give it to you. It’s for a kitten.”

“Hiss—”

Fu Li’s chin took quite a heavy blow.

Taking advantage of the situation, he tightly gripped Le Qingfei’s hand in pain, locking their ten fingers together. “Which kitten? How come I remember that the cats at the Padata Cabin all have sweaters to wear already?”

Le Qingfei was somewhat surprised. “How do you know?”

“I visited once two days ago. When you were sick, you talked in your sleep, saying you were worried the heating wasn’t working well and that Sanlang’s cold had just gotten better…”

Fu Li paused for a moment. “You called Sanlang’s name four times. Fortunately, when I went to the cabin and called out, a fat orange cat wearing a name tag came walking out, meowing.”

The Padata Cabin wasn’t large, but it was kept clean and tidy. Every kitten wore a strawberry sweater and was exceptionally clingy.

Le Qingfei and his friend took very good care of them.

Hearing this, Le Qingfei let out giggles.

He discovered to his pleasant surprise that Fu Li actually remembered every kitten’s name, and his tone became even more lighthearted. “Two days ago, I discovered a little stray cat downstairs at our building. A very beautiful little white kitty.”

Le Qingfei spoke like wind chimes, tinkling merrily. The three words “at our building” (literally: at our home) were spoken very cutely by him.

Fu Li: “Do you want to raise it? Our home can have two cats.”

Le Qingfei shook his head instead, his eyebrows knitting into a petite knot. “It seems unwilling to come home with me. When I talk to it, it answers me, but upon hearing that I want to take it back to our home, it runs away… I’ve looked for it many times.”

“Mm, then when we go home, I will look for it together with you?”

Le Qingfei’s round eyes brightened, and he nodded.

To prevent the kitten from getting stressed—or rather, before Le Qingfei realized he had been holding him for this long—Fu Li proactively released his hand.

Obtaining permission, he stood up to hunt for treasures inside this small attic where Le Qingfei had lived for ten years.

On the slanted, grid-patterned square window, faded Christmas tree and snowflake paper cuttings were pasted—this was probably Le Qingfei’s way of celebrating holidays. Overhead on the ceiling, there were scratch marks from applying waterproofing agent, not considered neat—this was probably repaired by Le Qingfei himself. A broken socket left an empty square space, which had been turned into a little door using Lego by Le Qingfei, and inside slept a little felt mouse.

Fu Li squatted down, touching the little mouse’s head.

Thinking of something, he turned his head to look under the single iron bed, reaching out his hand to lift the draping bedsheet—

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

With a flying pounce, Le Qingfei hugged his arm.

Fu Li raised his eyebrow. “What did you hide under the bed?”

On the wooden floorboards under the bed, it was full of marks smeared with chalk.

A map, and also two matchstick stick-figures. Like a Marauder’s Map, the stick-figures would appear at different locations on the map.

“What is this?”

Fu Li caught Le Qingfei, who wanted to flee, holding him in his embrace, and asked softly against his ear: “Is this my wife’s dating diary with another man?”