"Is that so?" Shi Nian had no choice but to blush and lower her head again, turning to look at Xiong Jie, who couldn’t help but frown even in her sleep: "How should I put it, I really hated her, especially after she wrote that article. However she fought with , I was never afraid of her; I just really disliked her using to insinuate against others, causing others to be hard because of ... But at this mont, she wasn’t herself anymore; in my eyes, she beca myself."
She lifted her eyes to look at him: "The forr ."
She spoke, trying to smile: "...Back then, how I wished that in such desperation, there could be soone as gentle as my mother to accompany , to take care of ."
Between the single and double sofas lay a carpet with a glorious pattern of peacock feathers, topped by a tea table about a ter square. The distance between him and her was thus just a step away, yet distinctly separated into two worlds by these clear lines.
He interlaced his fingers, squinting at her, "Did you rember sothing?"
She herself felt awkward, smiled and shook her head: "It’s all my old past, events that happened across the ocean, why did I bring it up to tell you, sir. Sorry, please forget it, sir."
"Tell , did you rember sothing?"
He suddenly stood up, his tall figure crossing the barrier of the tea table in one step, kneeling on one knee on the carpet, grabbing her wrist, staring straight into her eyes.
Shi Nian quietly inhaled: "... Writing on the palm. Also, warm companionship." She closed her eyes, trying hard to capture those fragnted mories: "Soone used to pat to sleep; when I cried with tears, soone held in their arms."
"What else?"
The sunlight in the winter mountains was particularly bright, transparently flowing in through the window, enveloping her whole body. She stood in the center of the light, her face glowing with a gentle shimr.
He stared at her intensely, his gaze moving across her features, finally resting on her tightly shut eyes.
His hand unconsciously applied more pressure, gripping her wrist tightly.
.
Shi Nian closed her eyes, took a deep breath: "I still can’t piece everything together, but I’m increasingly certain that indeed there was that person in the darkness." Her delicate brows furrowed, shaking her head: "He wrote in my palm... Over and over, he told not to be afraid, saying he wouldn’t harm , he would protect ."
She opened her eyes, tears already shimring in them.
"Sir, why did you also write in my palm back then?"
Huangfu Huazhang let out a long sigh, his long eyes locking onto hers.
"You already have the answer in your heart, don’t you?"
Shi Nian trembled slightly, grabbing his arm: "You know about my past experiences, don’t you, sir? What do you know? Tell , won’t you?"
But Huangfu Huazhang closed his eyes: "...I’m afraid you’ll bla ."
"What do you an?" Shi Nian was stunned: "That’s my experience, related to my dad’s profession, why would I bla you?"
Huangfu Huazhang didn’t care about the dirt on the carpet and sat down, his long legs folded.
"...I ca to M Country at twenty to inherit the Fude Group. To help the company through tough tis and to earn my family’s approval, I fought fiercely for the first three years, almost without sleep. The leg problem I had in childhood had been rehabilitated well, almost as if it was cured, but during those three years, it relapsed. Western dicine at the ti suggested surgery, and so doctors even considered ’amputation,’ which I couldn’t accept, so I returned to China to seek traditional dicine therapy."
He quietly lifted his eyes, his gaze shimring with a gentle mist: "To hide my identity, I stayed in a property that wasn’t under my na, secluded in a quiet alley. It was that year, there, that I encountered you."
He smiled, his long lashes quivering gently: "After those three hellish years of struggle, and the nightmare of my leg relapsing, I t you... I felt it was fate, a reward, a compensation from heaven for all I had given."
Shi Nian nodded: "But that was around when I was thirteen, and my kidnapping happened four years ago, when I was twenty-one. There’s an eight-year gap, sir, why are you starting from so long ago?"
His gaze gently fell: "Eight years? Does it seem long to you? It doesn’t, for soone determined to wait a lifeti, eight years are just a few monts."
"Moreover, Nian, you miscalculated. There wasn’t an eight-year gap, but only a short three years. Because I encountered you when you were thirteen, but my attention to you extended for a full six years. Do you still rember those photos? They are records of those subsequent six years."
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