Chapter 3: Intertwined with the girl’s gaze…

This was the first time Sheng Sui had called her name since they reunited.

“Why are you calling me?” Fang Fuyi tugged at the corner of her mouth, trying hard to suppress the smile that was threatening to break out. “I’m surprised you even remember my name.”

Having suddenly changed locations, she hadn’t been sleeping well these past few days.

But maybe it was because she’d finally seen Sheng Sui—despite the circumstances, Fang Fuyi didn’t feel particularly sleepy.

Now that Sheng Sui had taken the initiative to speak, she quickly rolled over, crawled toward the edge of the bed to peek at him, and followed up: “Hey, can I talk to you about something?”

“What is it?”

Fang Fuyi had always been full of thoughts and ideas. After being apart for so long, Sheng Sui couldn’t immediately guess what she wanted to talk about.

“I want to eat scallion pancakes and eight-treasure porridge for breakfast tomorrow, okay?”

Fortunately, it wasn’t anything serious. He nodded without hesitation. “Okay.”

“Is there a place nearby that sells them? Is it far?” She even thoughtfully offered a backup plan. “If not, soy milk and fried dough sticks will do.”

“Mm.” He agreed without even thinking about it.

“But wow, this rain is really coming down hard. No idea when it’ll stop.”

“Is your bed sturdy? It won’t collapse, right? What if I fall off in the middle of the night? If I roll to your feet, would you take the chance to kick me while it’s still dark?” She kept talking to herself like a chirping little sparrow—some things about her were still just the same as before, unchanged in the slightest.

“I won’t.”

Sheng Sui replied here and there, seemingly casual, but in truth, he took in every word she said.

Their conversation never really stopped, though none of it was anything urgent. Most of it was just trivial, everyday chatter.

Back and forth they went, chatting on and on like that. Although it was mostly her talking from the bed, and him listening from the floor, he responded to everything she said.

The night grew deeper.

Given how familiar they were with each other, it wouldn’t have been strange for the conversation to end at any point.

“All right, that puts me at ease,” Fang Fuyi said, satisfied with his answer. She yawned, drowsiness finally catching up with her, and as if she finally acknowledged her exhaustion, she collapsed back onto the bed and turned over to sleep.

Her voice disappeared.

The room suddenly felt a bit emptier.

But the silence only lasted for a moment. A sentence that had long been brewing finally surfaced, filling the room again with another voice:

“Fang Fuyi, listen to me.”

The words connected smoothly, like a chilled white peach soda in summer—layered and refreshing, with a faint sweetness lingering underneath.

The man’s voice had a slightly hoarse undertone, but the words he spoke were cold and detached.
“This isn’t where you’re supposed to be. Just make do for the night. After breakfast tomorrow, I’ll take you back.”

Silence fell for a moment.

The atmosphere turned icy, even the moisture in the air seemed to freeze.

“What did you say?” Her voice carried disbelief.

Whatever drowsiness she had vanished. Fang Fuyi went cold all over. She shot upright from the bed without thinking. Only now did she realize—he’d never had any intention of taking her in. “You’re kicking me out?”

He wasn’t doing it directly, but it meant the same thing.

Sheng Sui’s words were the spark that lit the fuse.

His voice pierced through the night, sounding especially jarring against the steady patter of rain. The tension between them—like smoke from a war that never quite broke out—hadn’t dissipated. Instead, it simmered, pressed down by the sound of rain, only to erupt here and now.

“So what am I to you?”

Fang Fuyi’s head went numb, her voice trembling slightly. The moment he silently confirmed it, she lost all control—her long-suppressed anger exploded in full force.

“From the moment I got here, you’ve been cold and distant—You didn’t ask what I’ve been through, didn’t care why I ended up like this. I haven’t even said a word yet, and you’re already forcing me out like it’s settled?”

She was so furious her whole body bristled.
“Just how unbearable am I to make you so eager to draw the line between us?”

She was acting on instinct alone.

In the dim light, the girl climbed down from the bed.

Stumbling over to Sheng Sui, she roughly found her way to him, and once she had a general idea of where he was, she clenched her fists and began pounding on him. “You’re still not talking? Sheng Sui! All the words you’ve said tonight don’t even add up to that one sentence where you told me to leave. I didn’t know you’d gone mute!”

“If you don’t want your mouth anymore, I’ll gladly sew it shut for free.”

She kept feeling around, trying to pinch him—or maybe slap his mouth a few times just for good measure.

Unfortunately, it was all bark and no bite. Sheng Sui was solid muscle, firm and strong. No matter how much she hit or scratched, it only made her own hands ache.

Her voice turned more and more aggrieved. The chill poured over her like a bucket of ice. The joy she’d felt earlier at seeing him was thoroughly extinguished by his words. Her hands fell weakly to her sides. Clenching her numb fists, she choked out her accusation: “Sheng Sui, you were never like this before!”

Sheng Sui didn’t move. He let Fang Fuyi hit him, let her leave scratches on his bare arm.

The air between them grew thick with heat.

The dampness in the room was overrun by the presence of the girl.

After a long moment, he finally spoke.

“But I’m not who I used to be.”

Back then, at least he had a whole, loving family. He had hope for a better future, believed that as long as he worked hard, things wouldn’t turn out too badly. Maybe someday, he’d even be worthy of standing by her side as an equal.

But now…

What right did he have?

His voice was low, tinged with loneliness and numbness.

It was as if he had resigned himself to fate.

“Do you think I’ve been happy all this time?”

A surge of anger rose from deep within Fang Fuyi. She couldn’t stand seeing him like this. Somehow, she found the strength to flip herself over and straddle him, raining a few punches down on his chest as she stubbornly fixated on the issue and yelled at him: “You bastard!”

“If there were things you knew you couldn’t do, then why did you make those careless promises in the first place?!”

Sheng Sui had always been the model child—the one others’ parents compared their own kids to. He was a top student, class president, a leader among his peers. No matter what he did, he excelled. Even now at work, he was the most hardworking one. He had never been yelled at like this before.

His lips parted as if to speak, but he hesitated. He wanted to say something, at least to calm Fang Fuyi down—but he didn’t even get the chance.

The next second, Fang Fuyi opened her mouth and ripped off her own emotional armor:

“Is that what all of you think of me? That I’m just a burden? My mom, my so-called biological dad—
And you?”

“Do you know why I came to find you?”

“Because I have no one else.”

“Something happened to my family. The house and everything else was mortgaged. The whole family ran off abroad.” She laughed at herself. “I don’t even have a place to stay. My bank cards were frozen. I guess they figured I was of no more use to them, so they left me behind without a word.”

Fang Fuyi’s mother wasn’t the legal wife—she’d been kept as a mistress for years under a murky, unofficial status.

The woman had taken good care of herself, living for years in a villa in the suburbs. Her face bore no trace of age—she was a delicate and patient beauty, the kind people called a pretty ornament. From the very beginning, she’d been content to wait.

Over the decades, she waited for Fang Fuyi’s father to divorce his wife, then waited until she could finally have a son. Only then did she manage to officially enter the Fang family.

“I always knew they didn’t see me as real family. I knew they raised me just so they could marry me off to someone else, to serve as a pawn in their business alliances.”

“Because I’m an illegitimate daughter.”

Her household registration was something they’d faked through connections just to get her into school. To this day, it still hadn’t been transferred under the Fang family name.

“But my brother’s an illegitimate child too, right? He’s my mom’s son. So why did they take him with them?” The more she spoke, the more unwilling she felt to accept it. “Why was I the only one they left behind? Just because I’m a girl? Because, in their eyes, I was the least useful one?”

“And you still talk about sending me back?”

“Back where? I don’t even have a home anymore.”

Her heart pounded like a drum.

Her heartbeat seemed loud enough to drown out the sound of the rain.

That summer night when they reunited was made up of wind, rain, and heartbeats loud enough to shake the sky.

Sheng Sui’s breath caught. His Adam’s apple moved up and down.

It was like a green plum tree had suddenly borne fruit, and the sourness spread across his chest, leaving it stifled and heavy.

Every one of her words sank into his ears. Her voice left him nowhere to hide.

Before his brain could react, his body instinctively responded—his large hand gently rubbed Fang Fuyi’s back, patting it slowly, soothingly. Warmth passed through his palm into her body, the motion tender and calming.

Even during the worst days, she hadn’t shed a single tear.

Sometimes, the more someone tries to comfort you, the harder it is to hold your emotions back.

In the dark night, a young girl’s tears streamed down. Sheng Sui couldn’t clearly see Fang Fuyi’s expression, but he could distinctly feel her warmth, feel the teardrops falling onto his chest—pat pat—soaking into his heart, mingling with the sound of his heartbeat, spreading heat across his chest.

She was crying.

In his memory, it was rare for her to cry.

That big hand on her back kept gently patting, just like all the other times he’d comforted her in the past.

He pressed his lips together, and when he finally spoke, his voice was tight, caught in his throat: “Then what about your fiancé?”

He really shouldn’t have brought it up—mentioning it only made things worse.

Fang Fuyi wiped her tears while gritting her teeth, furious, smearing snot and tears all over Sheng Sui’s chest: “Do you think there are that many kind people in this world?! All those people out there are just waiting to see me fall. Once there’s money involved, everyone avoids you like the plague. My family collapsed—how could he possibly treat me the same as before?”

“The day my house got seized, that damn fiancé of mine even came to show off, saying marrying me was out of the question now, but he’d consider giving me a bit of money each month and letting me stay in one of his properties.”

“He said I wouldn’t need to go to school anymore—just follow him around, have his kid, and stay home to raise it.”

“He said people in the circle were already talking, saying, ‘Well, her mom was like that too.’“

Everyone has their own worldview. Fang Fuyi’s mother had been filling her ears with such sayings since she was little: “Girls shouldn’t curse,” “You have to sit and stand properly,” “Obey your father before marriage, obey your husband after,” “You need to know how to cook and be a good wife and loving mother,” “You have to tame your temper if you want to marry into a good family”…

Fang Fuyi was still very young back then, but even hearing those things made her uncomfortable.

Later, when she invited classmates over to her house, she was so worried they wouldn’t come that she whispered in someone’s ear, jokingly saying: “There’s a ^[1]Qing Dynasty (清朝) was the last imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912. It was established by the Manchu people and lasted nearly 270 years until the Republic of China was founded. In … Continue readingQing Dynasty person living in my house—do you want to come see?”

—That “Qing Dynasty person” was her mom.

Her mother might have seemed easygoing on the surface, but Fang Fuyi was extremely stubborn deep down. The more her mom told her not to curse, the more she secretly swore behind her back. In fact, during her angriest moments, nine out of ten of her sentences were curse words—aimed at men.

Everyone has the right to choose. No matter what others did or said, Fang Fuyi refused to pin all her hopes on someone else, or spend her life clinging to a man and a child.

“Tch! Who the hell wants anything to do with him?”

The more she talked, the more fired up she got—and the tears stopped. “That disgusting fake-ass bastard—just looking at him makes me sick. If I did end up tied to someone like that, it’d be like I was cursed for eight damn lifetimes!”