Qingran didn’t know what Lin Zhou wanted to say by asking her to step aside for a talk.
When she sat with Lin Zhou in the café, she looked at the man’s cold, ethereal profile, and it was only at this mont that she fully realized that this man, who accompanied Li Qingran till their hair turned white in the book, was the unresolved feeling she had always suppressed in her heart.
At the mont when her mory awakened, before she had t Lin Zhou, she had wondered many tis, what kind of man was Lin Zhou to actually accept such a flawed Li Qingran?
In the book, he was undoubtedly the last glimr of hope for Li Qingran in her despair, forcefully entering Li Qingran’s world, shining brightly and giving her hope with the rest of his life.
What about himself, though?
Before the arranged marriage with Li Qingran, he didn’t even know who Li Qingran was.
Marrying Li Qingran began as a debt of gratitude, but spending a lifeti with her?
Almost thirty years of a solitary life, suddenly accepting not such a good girl as a wife, and then step by step guiding her towards a new life, how much did he sacrifice, how many hardships did he endure? How did he do it?
All these had beco the doubts in Qingran’s heart. Until the minute before Lin Zhou called her, she thought she would never have the chance to ask these questions in this lifeti.
Even now, after eting Lin Zhou, those events that haven’t happened yet, the current Lin Zhou still couldn’t solve her doubts.
Qingran ordered a cup of mocha coffee, opting not to add sugar; she felt she needed the bitterness to keep her mind clear.
The coffee-making was not fast, and as they sat across from each other, neither of them broke the silence first.
Lin Zhou also seed lost in thought, his gaze on the wooden table, his expression a bit faint.
At this ti, the café wasn’t very crowded, the comfortably regulated air conditioning relaxed the nerves quite a bit, making the silence eerily quiet.
Just as Qingran was about to break the silence, Lin Zhou spoke up at the sa mont.
Qingran: "You..."
Lin Zhou: "I..."
Both felt a bit embarrassed. Qingran managed a stiff smile and gestured for him to speak first.
Lin Zhou didn’t stand on ceremony. He let out a soft, gentle laugh, and when he spoke again, there was no hesitation in his expression: "I was presumptuous to ask you over so abruptly, but there are so words that I fear I won’t have another chance to say if I don’t say them now."
The young man was still very young, and even a gentle smile was like a clear breeze after the rain.
Having seen too many extraordinary beauties, Qingran was not swayed by the young man in front of her. She lowered her gaze slightly, looking at the decorative artificial flowers on the wooden table: "Professor Lin, what would you like to say?"
She looked at the artificial flowers, while Lin Zhou looked at her, his gaze unabashed: "The first ti I t you, I felt like I knew you, and only now do I realize that you are Mr. Li Dongyu’s daughter."
Li Dongyu was Mr. Li.
What was the point of bringing up Mr. Li?
Qingran stopped looking at the flowers and looked up at him, their eyes eting across the space.
There was mutual detachnt, no awkwardness in the air.
Just then, the server brought over the coffee, a mocha for one and a latte for the other, placed in front of them.
The bitter aroma of the coffee spread through the air, growing richer.
"Perhaps you don’t know," Lin Zhou stirred the spoon in his cup and continued, "It was Mr. Li who sponsored my high school and university education, and it was he who helped leave my village. I’ve always been grateful to him, and I’ve even thought about visiting him."
He gave a wry shake of his head with a chuckle: "But Mr. Li is too busy with work; ever since I graduated, I’ve hardly ever managed to et him."
Mr. Li was indeed busy, with the burden of the company all on his shoulders. Aside from eting others, he barely had ti to spend with his children.
However, the detail that Lin Zhou ca from a poor little village was subtly ntioned in an extra story in the book, which said that Lin Zhou had never forgotten his roots, and every holiday he would take so school supplies and materials back to the village, mostly to sponsor the children there to study.
Only by having experienced it himself did Lin Zhou know that in impoverished and dismal places, education was their only way out.
Whether Li Qingran was involved in these books or not, I don’t know, but birds of a feather flock together. Having been around Lin Zhou for so long, I guess eventually Li Qingran might have been influenced bit by bit.
"My dad is very busy; I hardly see him usually," Qingran explained.
Unexpectedly, Lin Zhou suddenly looked at her with a scrutinizing gaze. He leaned over the wooden table and moved slightly closer to Qingran: "Why aren’t you at all surprised when I say Mr. Li funded my education?"
The smile at the corners of Qingran’s mouth stiffened, and she disguised her reaction by picking up her cup to take a sip of her mocha.
Bitter. She couldn’t taste anything else but bitterness!
Her expression furrowed, and she didn’t respond.
Then Lin Zhou said, "As far as I know, you children are completely unaware of Mr. Li’s funding. To hear it suddenly and remain as calm as classmate Li Qingran does is indeed quite impressive to ."
Every word he spoke was tinged with probing.
Qingran knew what he was probing for, but she didn’t know why Lin Zhou would suddenly do this?
It couldn’t be that he had awakened his mories like she had, right?
That would be too terrifying.
But she could also see that in Lin Zhou’s gaze towards her, there was no feeling of familiarity, only a faint estrangent and probing.
So dealing with smart people is always the most annoying because you never really know what they’re probing for.
"It’s not surprising," Qingran took another sip of her mocha, using this to hide her emotions: "My mom once ntioned that in the few years after my brother and I were born, my dad had an overflow of compassion and did many good deeds anonymously."
She had indeed heard this from Mrs. Li when she was seven or eight years old, but she was too young to take it to heart at the ti.
Lin Zhou took a sip of his bitter coffee, his expression unchanged. After all, he had co from days of hunger, so this kind of bitterness was nothing to him.
Lin Zhou attributed the indescribable and familiar feeling he had towards Qingran to the fact that she was the daughter of Mr. Li, who had funded him.
"Let’s exchange contact information," Lin Zhou pulled out his phone: "If you ever need assistance in the future, I’ll be at your service."
The young man’s expression was full of seriousness, and seeing the surprise in Qingran’s eyes, he smiled again: "It may be too soon to say this, but Mr. Li has been kind to , a debt I must repay in the future."
Qingran swallowed and slowly took out her phone from her pocket, reaching out to scan the QR code presented by Lin Zhou.
The young are keen on martial virtues, and only she, who has seen the big finale, knows that Lin Zhou is a true man, a drop of kindness rewarded with a spring of gratitude.
The mont her phone screen displayed a grey profile picture and Lin Zhou’s na, a woman from the table next to the café suddenly stamped over towards them—
A tight skirt wrapped around the woman’s attractive figure, and under the light makeup, she looked to be no more than in her early twenties and quite eye-catching.
The woman first glanced at Qingran, her eyes arrogantly and rudely sizing up Qingran from head to toe.
The woman’s gaze was too abrupt, causing Qingran to frown.
Then the woman looked towards Lin Zhou, starting with a cold snort, her pleasant voice heavy with mockery: "Lin Zhou, are you so desperate now that you don’t even spare high school students?"
Lin Zhou’s face suddenly turned grave. He looked up at the woman with icy eyes: "What nonsense are you talking about?"
Huh?
Did Lin Zhou have other romantic debts before this?
Unable to bear the weird atmosphere, Qingran grabbed the cell phone on the table and was about to slip away, but she froze in the mont she turned around.
She saw Xie Ying’an sitting to her right rear.
The young man half-closed his eyes, looking at her. Even in his sickly state, his face was still tensed, looking very much like soone catching a cheater in the act.
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