She Became The Black Lotus’s Pure, Untouchable Love - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

She didn’t want to come.

Truthfully, she really hadn’t wanted to come.

Huo Xingyu’s car had been parked at the entrance for twenty minutes. Watching the stream of people and vehicles moving in and out of the hospital, she couldn’t help but reflect.

She only came because Ning Xiangxiang’s tone on WeChat seemed so aggrieved, so pitiful. And besides…

Huo Xingyu’s long fingers tapped rhythmically against the steering wheel. Besides, Ning Xiangxiang actually dared to be so blunt about “loving” her, especially with that string of kissing and hugging emojis.

Thinking of this, Huo Xingyu suddenly felt the car was stuffy. She reached out and turned up the air conditioning.

In the past… had Ning Xiangxiang ever been this direct? No, she hadn’t. Or perhaps—Huo Xingyu thought—she had been so indifferent and unresponsive back then that Ning Xiangxiang felt wronged and didn’t dare to act this way?

Huo Xingyu caught her reflection in the rearview mirror. When she wasn’t smiling or showing expression, she did look rather sharp—possessing a natural, intimidating authority. She tugged at the corners of her mouth, forcing a smile.

If I smile, I look… relatively kind?

No wonder Ning Xiangxiang dared to be so direct and passionate now.

She watched the sliding glass doors of the hospital. After a while, she spotted a tall woman with a square jaw pushing Ning Xiangxiang out in a wheelchair.

How would Ning Xiangxiang react to seeing her? She’d likely be surprised, her eyes would turn red with excitement, and she’d probably just stare at her like a dazed idiot, right?

Thinking of this, Huo Xingyu felt a slight lump in her throat. She unhurriedly rolled down the window, her phoenix eyes lifting slightly as her gaze tracked Ning Xiangxiang, who was trying to lift herself from the wheelchair to scramble into a taxi.

Huo Xingyu curled her lips into her newly mastered “kind smile.”

—Ning Xiangxiang went catatonic.—

Half-risen from her seat, Ning Xiangxiang froze in a strained posture and looked back at Huo Xingyu in the car behind them. Her mind was a whirlwind of confusion. Why is Huo Xingyu here? Why is she smiling so sinisterly? Why is she staring at me like that??

Why is everything happening so differently from my last life??

Recalling the “history” behind that specific smile and glancing at her broken leg, Ning Xiangxiang suddenly felt like she was in a scene from Final Destination. She hated making eye contact with Huo Xingyu; the woman’s gaze was always scrutinizing and sharp. Being around her felt like being under invisible pressure, a weight that made it hard to breathe.

In the sweltering 37°C summer heat, with the sun half-shrouded in clouds and a humid, stifling atmosphere punctuated by the noise of cicadas, Ning Xiangxiang shuddered. Under the dual impact of the pressure and that “death smile,” she spoke with difficulty: “Fourth Miss Huo, what a coincidence. What brings you here?”

“Looking at the scenery,” Huo Xingyu maintained her smile.

Scenery? What scenery is there at a hospital?

Ning Xiangxiang glanced around in bewilderment. Everyone passing by was either in a wheelchair with a broken leg like her, on crutches, or had a bandaged head. Nearby, someone was being unloaded from an ambulance, completely immobile.

Ning Xiangxiang nodded in sudden realization. Given Huo Xingyu’s robotic personality, maybe something “stimulating” like this actually was scenery to her. It made sense why she’d come today—she was probably just stopping by to view the “broken leg landscape” while on her way to see other “scenery.”

Ning Xiangxiang propped herself up to continue crawling into the taxi, bidding her goodbye as she went: “Then I won’t disturb you, Fourth Miss. Let’s meet again if fate allows.”

Please let our fate end here, Dear God! Let us never meet again!! Ning Xiangxiang wept inwardly as she flopped toward the back seat of the taxi.

Sister Luo, supporting her while secretly wondering if the paparazzi would dare to photograph Huo Xingyu, noticed Ning Xiangxiang scrambling into the car as if being chased by a dog. She wanted to whisper a reminder to maintain her “delicate and gentle” image.

Before she could speak, Sister Luo felt a sharp gaze drill into the back of her head. She turned stiffly. Huo Xingyu had stopped smiling, her eyes unreadable.

Huo Xingyu was breathtakingly beautiful, but when she actually stood before you, it wasn’t her face that captured your attention—it was the aura of pressure that made you want to instinctively obey.

Sister Luo dazed for a moment. Huo Xingyu arched an eyebrow at her, then shifted her gaze back to the struggling Ning Xiangxiang.

Sister Luo suddenly understood. Her hands, which were supporting Ning Xiangxiang, stiffened. She grabbed Ning Xiangxiang’s arm, catching her halfway into the taxi.

Sister Luo smiled and spoke up: “President Huo, are you by any chance heading toward 79 Xinghu Road?”

“I am.”

Upon receiving that affirmative answer, Sister Luo’s grip tightened. She practically dragged Ning Xiangxiang back out of the taxi and shoved her back into the wheelchair.

“Xiangxiang, I’ll carefully consider what you said earlier. You should take President Huo’s car back first…”

Sister Luo’s eyes swept over the paparazzi in the bushes as she pushed the wheelchair with great strides toward the Aston Martin Rapide. “President Huo, thank you for the trouble. We will definitely show our gratitude next time.”

Tucked into the passenger seat, Ning Xiangxiang watched Sister Luo waving goodbye and wept in her heart. She leaned her head against the window, shrinking into herself to minimize her presence.

Huo Xingyu is actually the type of ‘good person’ who gives people rides just because it’s on the way? Why did I never notice this before?

Suspicious and uncertain, Ning Xiangxiang only dared to steal glances through her peripheral vision.

Actually, she thought, having a moment alone with Huo Xingyu might be a good thing. In the past life, when they married, they had no idea what kind of people they were—she never even had the chance to reject the marriage on the grounds of “personality clash.”

But now it was different. Since they were alone, if she acted against everything Huo Xingyu liked, a picky and calculating person like Huo Xingyu would never tolerate her. Ning Xiangxiang had no power to refuse the marriage, but Huo Xingyu did. If Huo Xingyu said “no,” everything would change.

Thinking of this, Ning Xiangxiang fished her phone out of her pocket.

Although Huo Xingyu wasn’t in show business, her “visual goddess” face and the fact that she had come out as gay early on meant she had a massive following of “girlfriend fans.” Ning Xiangxiang remembered a forum thread where people had compiled Huo Xingyu’s preferences and gossip based on her dates at business banquets and various insiders’ tips.

Combined with her own vague memories of the past ten years, those tips would be enough for her to craft a persona that Huo Xingyu couldn’t stand.

A smile touched her lips as her fingers slid across the screen. She quickly found the popular thread:

What kind of women does the Fourth Miss Huo actually like?

It was a massive thread with tens of thousands of replies, filled with photos of Huo Xingyu at business events, candid shots, and even old school photos, along with various “leaks” that were a mix of truth and fiction.

As Ning Xiangxiang scrolled down eagerly, she heard the woman beside her ask: “What are you looking at?”

Her heart squeezed. She instinctively tried to hide the phone, but her eye caught a top-voted comment:

Hand raised! I’m an employee at Huo Corp!! I’m not sure what she likes, but I know she absolutely HATES people who are absent-minded and make her repeat herself. She has zero patience.

Ning Xiangxiang agreed wholeheartedly. Huo Xingyu truly was an impatient person.

Clutching her phone, she turned her head away as if she hadn’t heard a thing, putting on a perfectly vacant, absent-minded expression. She gave no response to the question.

Silence fell over the car. Huo Xingyu never listened to music or the radio while driving, and the lack of sound made the atmosphere feel oppressively awkward.

Ning Xiangxiang peeked sideways. She couldn’t read any emotion on Huo Xingyu’s face, but the car began to slow down until it finally pulled over at a temporary parking spot.

Ning Xiangxiang swallowed hard. She could feel Huo Xingyu’s displeasure, but she had to admit: facing Huo Xingyu’s annoyance gave her a secret thrill.

What would happen next? Would she be kicked out of the car? Her eyes darted around; they were in a commercial district with plenty of people and cars. Aside from the embarrassment of being dumped on the curb, getting another ride would be easy.

Just as she steeled herself, Huo Xingyu reached out and snatched the phone from her hand.

The irritation Huo Xingyu felt from being ignored and treated with indifference vanished the instant she saw the screen.

The title of the thread was: What kind of women does the Fourth Miss Huo actually like?

Huo Xingyu stared at the title, dazed. What is this?

Page after page was filled with her own photos. Business events, news clips, candid shots, interviews—it was all her!

Ning Xiangxiang is researching what type of women I like? She even saw that Ning Xiangxiang had bookmarked the thread and set a “new post notification.” She planned to follow it long-term?

Ning Xiangxiang… actually likes me this much already?

She had never realized it before. As she flipped through the photos, Huo Xingyu felt the temperature in the car skyrocket. Her fingertips felt hot, and she felt as if her face was about to catch fire.

The AC must be broken, she told herself firmly.

By the time she reached the end, she couldn’t tell if the feeling was in her head or her heart, but she felt completely overwhelmed with a sense of fullness.

Trying her best to suppress the corners of her mouth that wanted to curl upward, she lifted her eyes and looked at Ning Xiangxiang sitting beside her.