Chapter 148: Taking Care of President Fu

Xu Chuyin regarded her as his spiritual faith. The reason he studied forensic medicine was simply because he refused to amount to nothing. He could have lived as the pampered and infinitely glamorous young master of the Xu family, but he would never be able to measure up to her, multi-talented and brilliant as she was.

He lacked Fu Yanyan’s meticulous, thread-by-thread business acumen of a master strategist; he lacked Xu Yaochuan’s unorthodox, fearlessly daring outlaw spirit; and he lacked Fang Wenjin’s God-given, breathtaking musical talent.

He did not want to live under the protection of the Xu family clan; he wanted to stand tall and walk the earth as a true, upright man.

The feeling of being perpetually shrouded in darkness had driven him to his absolute limit.

Compared to pleading guilty and accepting the law, he loathed even more this version of himself who hid away in the radiance of others.

If there were a next life, he only wished for a simple love, a simple family bond, to be born into an ordinary household, and to spend his days doing the things he truly loved.

***

Zhong Huayan had just arrived downstairs at her rental apartment with the third elder brother.

She noticed a modest, understated private car parked by the curb. Upon seeing them, the driver stepped out of the vehicle and respectfully opened the door.

"Miss Li, our President Fu is feeling unwell today. Might I ask if you could come over and look after him? He refuses to listen to anyone else right now. If this drags on any longer, his condition will only worsen."

The driver wore a sorrowful expression. Holding an umbrella, he could see the emotions stirring on the woman's face opposite him.

"Alright, I'll go take a look. Third Brother, you go on back first. Don't worry about me."

Standing in the rain, Zhong Huayan felt a momentary daze. Fu Yanyan was sick? The softest part deep within her heart was touched. Without overthinking it, she simply got into the car. After listening to her third brother's parting instructions, she decided to go.

She could not accept the sight of Fu Yanyan—such a proud son of heaven, a figure she had always held aloft in her heart—reduced to a state of illness. Vaguely, she realized that she truly cared about him, that her heart ached for him, that she wanted to hold him in her arms, and that she spontaneously longed to see him smile and look at her with yearning eyes... This romantic desire, burning up from the ashes and rising from the dead, was something even she found hard to articulate or explain.

At this precise moment, she understood with absolute clarity: this was not mere gratitude or dependency.

It was pure affection and love.

Dusk was slowly approaching.

The car drove up to the mountainside villa. The surroundings were filled with the fragrance of white gardenias, casting a pool of rich, lingering floral mist over the grounds. This was her first time at this particular villa. Yet, like all his other estates, it shared a common trait: white gardenias bloomed all around the exterior. Among his countless properties, the vast majority were planted with the scent of white gardenias. It was precisely because of this that she, who had frequently suffered from nightmares after surviving a fire, was able to finally sleep peacefully. The white gardenia was her favorite fragrance from childhood to adulthood; to her, it was far more effective than any sleeping pill.

Rain pattered down relentlessly, scattering the white gardenia petals.

As soon as Zhong Huayan stepped into the villa, she saw scattered debris everywhere—blue-and-white porcelain or huanghuali wood artifacts that had been smashed off the shelves.

There were also tea stains splashed across the floor, alongside broken teacups. The entire room was in a chaotic mess, with over a dozen servants frantically tidying up the wreckage, wiping away oil stains and spilled tea from the floor. The moment they saw the woman standing at the entrance, it was as if they had caught sight of their savior; they hurriedly cleared a clean path in the middle and handed her a pair of indoor slippers.

"Miss Li, you're finally here. President Fu drank a great deal of alcohol during a business banquet today and flew into a terrible rage. He smashed everything in the villa's living room that could possibly be broken."

"He drank at a business banquet?"

Zhong Huayan knew that with Fu Yanyan's standing, it was usually his place to ply others with drinks. How could a business dinner possibly drive him to drink to this extent?

She walked up to the tea room on the second floor. Just as she pushed open the door, a teacup came flying straight out from within, striking the door frame and shattering into pieces, scattering scalding tea water all over the floor. She herself narrowly missed being cut by the flying shards. Before she could even speak, she heard the harsh, stern reprimand of the man from inside the tea room.

"Get out! None of you are to linger here and be an eyesore!"

"Ayanyan, it's me."

Zhong Huayan skirted around the broken teacups on the floor and walked carefully toward him, her tone carrying the gentle, winding cadence of a spring drizzle.

Inside the tea room sat the man, pressing his fingers against his temples. He raised his head. His complexion was flushed, and the moment his eyes caught sight of her, his eye rims turned red. Even his delicate hands were flushed from the alcohol, trembling slightly as they held a cigarette that continued to burn down slowly to the filter. He wore a crisp white shirt, buttoned up to the very top, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, making the veins on his arms stand out prominently.

That face belonged to a high-and-mighty Buddhist ascetic who had fallen into the mortal realm; yet now, in a rare display, he looked like a pampered, sulking beauty locked away in a boudoir who felt aggrieved and wronged, fidgeting nervously.

"What did you come here for?"

Though his voice remained icy cold, it was laced with a trembling suppression.

His gaze kept involuntarily drifting toward her.

"You've been drinking? I'll go downstairs and fetch you a bowl of hangover soup."

"I'm not drinking it."

Zhong Huayan felt a slight headache coming on. When he chose to be stubborn, absolutely no one could do a thing with him.

Zhong Huayan felt a prick of guilty conscience. Could it be that her stealthy visit to see Xu Chuyin today had been discovered? Surely not... With such a high cable car, and Xu Chuyin fully disguised, she shouldn't have been spotted, right?

Seeing his terrible complexion and his rather forceful attitude, she abruptly found her own mood souring as well.

Why on earth should she feel guilty? She hadn't done anything underhanded!

She had always possessed a stubborn streak in her bones; since she hadn't done anything wrong, there was no need for her to compromise. If he truly minded, he could just come right out and say it. She hated playing these guessing games with words.

"Fine then. I'll go sleep in the guest room downstairs. When you start smashing things again, just try not to disturb me."

Gone was all of Zhong Huayan's earlier patience; she spoke with her usual cool, rational detachment. Little did she expect that before she could even cross the threshold by half a step, the man lunged from behind and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. His grip was so fierce she felt as though her spine might snap, and she couldn't help letting out a soft cry of pain. Feeling the man's burning hot cheek against her, alongside the reek of alcohol spilling from his clothes, she saw tears teetering at the corners of his eyes, his lids rimmed a vivid red. Fu Yanyan’s hard-nosed facade completely collapsed into ruin as he murmured against her temple:

"Don't go... Feed it to me yourself, won't you?"

"Now that's a good boy~"

Lifting her hand just as she used to, she gently stroked his hair, her eyes overflowing with tenderness, and lightly kissed his cheek. Visible to the naked eye, the corners of the man's mouth instantly curved upward in a smile he simply couldn't suppress, while he clung to her in an endearing, sticky fashion.

Downstairs, the servants watched the woman descend the steps to fetch the hangover soup and carry it back up, all of them whispering amongst themselves in private discussions.

"What did I tell you? Miss Li is the only one who can ever handle him. Oh, thank goodness we don't have to stay up late cleaning up this mess."

"The boss still loves Miss Li deep down. He couldn't bear to vent his anger on her at all—unlike my good-for-nothing ex-husband, who was always yelling and cursing."

"It really must be nice being doted on by a wealthy man. Even if you just look a tiny bit like someone else, it still saves you a few lifetimes of ordinary struggling."

"Oh, stop being so sour. Why don't you go find someone you look like? Besides, this Miss Li is talented and brilliant—she's no mere vase."