Chapter 98: Acting Cute

The next morning, when Song Qingyou woke, the space beside her was already empty.

The bedroom door had not been shut all the way, and from the kitchen came the faint sound of a knife meeting the cutting board.

Her lips curved before she could stop them. She washed up in half the usual time and hurried off to find Fu Wenzhou.

The pink apron wrapped around the man’s waist was the very one she had bought on a whim at the supermarket before, thinking she could learn to fend for herself with her own hands. Later, after she barely managed to cook a meal by following a recipe, the result was so inedible that she could barely swallow it.

Only then did Song Qingyou finally understand that some things could not be learned, no matter how hard one tried.

Fu Wenzhou was different. It seemed as though he had been born able to do anything: handsome, a good cook, too, with the exception of a somewhat rotten temper.

The somewhat rotten-tempered man was bending over the fruit platter with patient concentration when he heard the sound behind him.

Song Qingyou walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his lean waist, resting her head against his broad back.

Her voice still carried the soft, spoiled lilt of just waking up. “Fu Wenzhou, I’m hungry.”

Her sudden closeness made his spine tremble. Fu Wenzhou silently cursed his poor self-control, then, with a kind of resigned wickedness, thought that with Song Qingyou, he had never had any self-control to begin with.

He turned around. His hands were still damp, so he did not touch her; he only brushed his lips lightly against hers. They were very soft. Fu Wenzhou could not help but sweep them once with the tip of his tongue.

Song Qingyou’s lips itched from the moisture. She widened her eyes. “If you’re going to kiss me, kiss me. Why are you licking me?”

Fu Wenzhou gave a huff, lowered his head, and repeated the motion with deliberate satisfaction. “You belong to me. What’s wrong with licking you once?”

Song Qingyou pressed her lips together and for a moment could not think of a retort.

Seeing her ears redden with frustration, Fu Wenzhou finally satisfied his perverse little amusement. His voice lowered, taking on a coaxing note. “Five more minutes and the porridge will be ready. Go sit in the living room first.”

Song Qingyou pouted a little. “Oh.”

Even she had not noticed that she was different in front of Fu Wenzhou.

She had little tempers and little habits that were hard to detect, the sort that belonged only to lovers.

Back when Gu Bai said Fu Wenzhou had a masochistic streak, always sticking his warm face up to Song Qingyou’s cold shoulder, and that any time he angered her he still had to stand there and take the scolding, Fu Wenzhou had answered with great pride and smugness: “What the hell do you know? You idiots just never get to see how good my Yoyo really is.”

Song Qingyou would stand in front of him with her small body when Fu Tingshen, with others in tow, bullied him and mocked him for having no father or mother. She would tutor him seriously when he failed Chinese, only to end up in tears herself when he failed again the next time. When the old master forced him into the army and everyone, ignoring his own wishes, tried to push him down the road of politics, she told him that passion mattered more than suitability.

She would turn and have the servants hand him an umbrella in a torrential rain; she would bring him medicine and take him home when he was drunk; and she would yield and indulge him through his endless persistence.

From the joy of a first meeting in youth to love ripened over years.

What could Gu Bai and the others possibly understand of Song Qingyou’s goodness?

Fu Wenzhou had forgiven the girl who, at eighteen, had turned and walked away even as he crushed his own dignity beneath his hands and knelt to beg.

Or rather, what he had always resented was never that she had given him up.

It was that she had forgotten him.

How could she forget? Before he went abroad to recover from his injuries, he had clearly told her that he would come back for her.

It had only been a few short years. How could she have forgotten so completely?

When he learned that she was going to marry Fu Tingshen, he threw aside his studies, rushed back from overseas that very night, knelt on the ground and begged her not to marry him, begging for two years. Just two years, and he would be able to drag Fu Tingshen down from the Fu family empire. By then, the one linked by marriage to her would be him.

Song Qingyou did not wait.

For the next three years, Fu Wenzhou was like a lone wolf gone feral. At twenty, he took control of the Fu family, his methods ruthless, his name notorious for madness, so that no one dared provoke him.

With such overwhelming growth, his temper grew worse by the day, his nature more and more unbridled.

He used every means to force Song Qingyou and Fu Tingshen into divorce, yet could not bear to truly do anything to her. Last year, he bought an island and arranged a professional management team to run the Fu Group and SY.

He had been ready to bind Song Qingyou to that island and live out a lifetime there with her, never letting her go anywhere.

At the very last moment, he gave it up.

Because he discovered he could not bear to see Song Qingyou cry.

Even kissing her a little would make her cry in anger, coughing and gasping for breath. If he truly forced her to that island, what if she cried every day?

The island plan never came to pass, but Fu Wenzhou found a far better method.

Song Qingyou feared relentless pursuit above all else.

Fu Wenzhou, as though he had discovered a new continent, clung to her day after day. He would come into her room whenever he pleased, kiss her, hold her, and he especially loved the way she looked when she was furious beyond reason yet utterly helpless.

So adorable.

As the days of entanglement went on, his possessiveness toward Song Qingyou grew ever more severe. If she exchanged even one extra sentence with Fu Tingshen, he could nearly be driven mad with rage.

So every day he poisoned Zhuzhou’s mind in front of the little thing, until the moment Zhuzhou saw Fu Tingshen, it would raise a paw and scratch him.

Fu Tingshen’s visits went from few to none.

Fu Wenzhou was very pleased with this and pressed even more shamelessly closer to Song Qingyou.

He knew she found him annoying. So what?

Even the fiercest woman can be worn down by a relentless suitor.

He did not believe Song Qingyou could remain unmoved forever.

Fu Wenzhou loved Song Qingyou with his life. If she did not want him, then he did not want himself either.

Fortunately, she had taken him in.

Fu Wenzhou’s fingers trembled slightly as he ladled the porridge. A little spilled from the spoon and scalded the back of his hand, instantly blooming red across a wide patch. He frowned and wiped it clean with a paper towel.

He brought the bowl to Song Qingyou’s side and tried to feed her with the spoon.

Song Qingyou lowered her eyes and glanced at the palm wrapped in gauze, then reached out and took the bowl from him. “It’s not like I’ve lost an arm or a hand. I don’t need you to— what happened to the back of your hand?”

Her tone shifted, sharper now.

Fu Wenzhou glanced aside and did not take it seriously. “I burned myself while serving the porridge. Try it and see how it tastes today. I added some herbs.”

Song Qingyou set the porridge down with a cold face, went into the room, found some burn ointment, and smeared it on for him.

The cool touch eased the sting. In truth, it was only a patch of reddened skin; there wasn’t even a blister. In the past, when Fu Wenzhou fought underground bouts, his whole body had been covered in wounds. Injuries like those from yesterday and today meant nothing to him at all.

But seeing Song Qingyou frown because she was worried filled him with an inexplicable pleasure. A lazy, roguish smile curved at the corner of his mouth as he stared at her without blinking.

“Yoyo,” Fu Wenzhou asked, “when did you start liking me?”

Song Qingyou’s fingertips paused. She gave him a sidelong glance and said slowly, “I forgot.”

Fu Wenzhou frowned in displeasure. “How can you forget even that? Do you actually not like me at all? Were all those things you said before just to fool me?”

Song Qingyou: “...”

This man really was... as childish as ever.

Seeing the man’s face darken further, Song Qingyou had no choice but to say, “I’ve never liked anyone before, but you’re different to me. So I think... I should like you.”

What kind of answer was that? Fu Wenzhou’s brow furrowed deeper and deeper, and suddenly he felt a surge of crisis.

His eyes burned as he lowered his voice and asked, “Say it clearly. What do you mean by should?”