Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“Why did you come out?”
Luo Xiyun turned over. Realizing that Chen Xu had emerged, she said hurryingly, “Go back and rest.”
‘She really does care about me,’ Chen Xu thought.
From her instant reaction, Chen Xu was absolutely convinced.
After entering society and having suffered a few losses, he came upon a principle of dealing with people. Don’t listen to what others say, but rather see how they act.
Their actions would help you discover his or her attitude towards you.
Moreover, as his life experience built up, he could vaguely understand that sometimes what a person said was entirely different from what they did. Perhaps it wasn’t because they intentionally wanted to deceive somebody else; it was rather that even they themselves don’t know what they truly wanted.
People are contradictory, and women are the peak of contradictions.
He felt that he had grasped Luo Xiyun’s psychological pattern and was all hyped up. He laughed, “The room is too stuffy. I came out for some fresh air. Don’t worry, I’m okay now. Look, I can do thi–ouchhh!”
Chen Xu hopped twice as he talked. Suddenly, his feet went feeble for a moment and, following a totter, his calf hit the stool on the side. The pain left him sucking in cold air.
“Chen Xu—”
When Luo Xiyun saw him fall, she dropped the pot in her hand, rushed over, helped him up, and asked anxiously, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Chen Xu shook his head while holding in the pain as he slowly stood up with his left hand around her waist.
Luo Xiyun sensed something from his eyes and asked, “Did you hurt yourself somewhere?”
Chen Xu had already come to at that moment. He said with a little embarrassment, “My leg got a little banged up.”
“Let me have a look.”
She bent down and carefully pulled up the edge of his pants. Seeing that it was only a tiny bruise and it wasn’t all that serious, she let out a sigh of relief and said, “Stop showing off. Let me help you back to the room.”
Chen Xu didn’t say anything. He repositioned his left hand on her waist and walked towards the room.
As they walked, he turned over to look at her face. There wasn’t anything peculiar about her expression. It was like she didn’t at all notice that their current posture was very intimate.
In the room, Luo Xiyun helped him to the bedside, asked him to sit down, hauled in a medicine box, grabbed the medication oil, and helped him apply it on his wound. Finally, she said, “You should rest here.”
After she left, Chen Xu recollected the various contradicting attitudes she showed towards him, and an idea gradually came to his mind.
…
During dinner, Chen Xu kept staring at Luo Xiyun.
“Do I have something on my face?” Luo Xiyun couldn’t help but lay down her chopsticks and grope around her face.
Chen Xu shook his head and said with a deep voice, “It is so great to be able to sit with you for dinner now. I thought I would never get to see you again.”
Luo Xiyun moved her lips twice before asking, “H-how did you end up there?”
“The car broke down, so I could only walk. I accidentally tripped when I was at that slope, and my rotten luck got me walloped on the forehead. That’s why I passed out,” Chen Xu said in a relaxed tone.
“Why didn’t you stay in the car?” Luo Xiyun took a deep breath. “It was snowing heavily yesterday, so it would have been very dangerous for you to walk. If it isn’t that I just happened to pass by that place, maybe you… you…” In the end, her inflection became a little agitated.
Listening to her censures, Chen Xu didn’t feel annoyed at all. There was a kind of joy in his heart. He explained softly, “The car stopped too far away.”
Luo Xiyun frowned hearing that. The place where she found Chen Xu was already the farthest region. Further ahead would be the frozen ground that had no end.
Abruptly, something clicked. She had her eyes wide open as she asked in shock, “Did you go into the frozen grounds?”
The so-called frozen grounds referred to the massive, low-lying region that was flooded by the rain. After the temperature dropped, it was capped under a thick layer of ice.
She occasionally went out with Chen Xu and had some understanding of the surrounding environment.
The few kilometers’ radius around the villa they were living in was like an isolated island surrounded by the frozen grounds. No matter which direction you looked, one would only see an endless range of ice.
As far as she had known, Chen Xu had always been in the “Lone Isle” region, never the frozen grounds. Hence, her thinking didn’t go down that direction in the beginning.
“Yeah.” Chen Xu nodded.
“You…” Luo Xiyun bit her lower lip and asked, “Is it because we are low on gasoline?”
“We can still get by half a month with what’s left in the storehouse. I wanted to explore this time around. Never thought that I’ll run into an accident on the way back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Chen Xu said, “We agreed on it back then. I’ll do the work outside the house, and you take care of the inside. This is my responsibility.”
“That’s you being a male chauvinist,” Luo Xiyun said flat-out.
After some time, as she was thrusting the rice grains around with her chopsticks, she asked, “How long did you walk in the snow?”
Chen Xu said, “A couple of hours, perhaps.”
A couple of hours?
Luo Xiyun thought of the snow and the fact that the visibility range would have been fewer than ten meters yesterday when she went looking for him in a car. As the snow on the ground grew thicker and thicker, she was forced to slow down, and even after doing that, the wheels of her car would still slip from time to time. Occasionally, she would have to get out of the car and push it when the wheels slithering into soft snow stopped her from advancing.
Even driving had been so challenging, let alone walking!
She couldn’t imagine what kind of perseverance he had in him to be able to persist for a few hours under such harsh weather.
“You…”
“Actually, I didn’t have a choice,” Chen Xu said. “There is too little food in the car, and I felt that the blizzard would last for a few days. So, I’d have dropped dead anyway if I stayed in the car.”
Luo Xiyun opened her mouth slightly and glanced at him, but she didn’t expose him.
After she’d rescued Chen Xu, she opened the backpack he was carrying. Half of it was filled with chocolate, compressed cookies, and canned food. That was enough food for a week.
Even up to this moment, this man was still holding onto his secrets.
……
After washing the dishes, Luo Xiyun pushed open the door of the room and saw that Chen Xu had just come out of the bathroom and was apparently wiping his hair with a towel. It was evident that he had just taken a shower.
“Your turn,” he said.
She walked to the closet and found herself a set of clothing, but within her eyes was a hint of hesitation.
Chen Xu was seemingly aware of her worries. He said, “Relax, I won’t peek.”
She didn’t say a word. She took her clothes and walked into the bathroom. After closing the door, she remembered that Chen Xu had just taken a bath here. She couldn’t help but feel a little strange, but she wasn’t that repulsed over it.
Back when she was still having a cold war with Chen Xu, even when she was drying their clothes, she had to separate her clothes and Chen Xu’s a few meters apart.
Now, she wasn’t that finicky anymore even when they had to share a single toilet.
It couldn’t be helped. There was a gasoline shortage now. they had to use less. Having this thought in mind, she began to undress.