He and his sister still hadn’t spoken about their fight. Long Jinjing only informed him today that she and Iris also fought when he fell into coma.
”I apologized to Xiulan and we already made up,” she told him. “Bacon and Ketchup are also speaking to me again. But I feel that Brother-in-law Liwei still acts cold to me.”
Lu Zihao snorted at the mention of Jin Liwei. “Don’t worry about that jerk. He’s not someone important to us.”
She pouted at me. “Don’t say that, Nikolai. He’s the one who managed to wake you up when so many of us had failed. I’m forever grateful to him because of it.”
He rolled his eyes but chose not to argue with her about Jin Liwei. As much as he wanted to deny the man’s role in waking him up and insist that it was just a coincidence, it was still a fact that he had heard Jin Liwei goading him into matching Long Jinjing with different men while he was still comatose.
Alric Bauer and Amanpio Kileksky.
These two men didn’t affect him much. They were nerds who would put more attention on their projects than their lovers. Long Jinjing might be timid and clumsy but she was wise enough not to choose this kind of men.
Then Jin Liwei, the asshole, just had to add René Alejandro into the mix.
What the fuck, man?
It was pure nonsense! Bullshit!
As soon as he heard Jin Liwei suggest pairing the damned Spaniard with his wife, the fury he felt literally had filled him up with enough energy to drag himself out of his comatose state. He wanted to punch Jin Liwei in the face but all his limbs felt too heavy at that time. What a shame!
He also couldn’t forget Jin Liwei’s smirk as soon as he opened his eyes. So annoying! Just remembering it was enough to make him feel violent.
Even though he knew that the things Jin Liwei spouted then were all baloney, Lu Zihao still felt jealous of those three men. He stared at his wife as she sliced an apple for him to eat.
”What?” Long Jinjing asked after noticing his heavy gaze on her. “Is there something on my face? Do you find me…ugly?”
He scowled. “What ugly? Did you hear me say that? Don’t put words in my fucking mouth, Jinjing.”
”Then…am I…p-pretty?” She immediately turned red after asking this. It took her a lot of courage to even say the words.
”Of course.” There was no hesitation in his reply.
”R-really?”
He wasn’t good with saying any mushy words so he decided to just show it instead. He reached over and pulled her before smashing his mouth on hers. His tongue snaked inside her mouth and declared its sovereignty. Her body went limp as she started moaning.
When the sudden open-mouthed kiss ended, Long Jinjing was dazed. He smirked at her.
”Do you still doubt me?” he asked her in a low, devilish voice.
Her amoeba-level brain took a few seconds to register what he said. She shook her head.
”You’re so…h-handsome,” she stammered like a stupid idiot.
His devilish laughter filled her ears and went straight to her core. For a moment, she had the urge to become pregnant and give birth to his child again as soon as possible. Then she caught herself.
What in the world was she thinking?
Their twin sons were only a few months old and she was already thinking about giving birth to the next one?
’Are you crazy, Long Jinjing?’ she mentally asked herself.
’Yes, I’m crazy,’ she also mentally answered herself. ‘I’m so crazy in love with this man that my brain sometimes malfunctions and becomes dumb.’
She could only sigh at her embarrassing thoughts.
”Why are you sighing?” he asked.
”Nothing.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She smiled and pulled away from his embrace with great reluctance. Then she continued slicing an apple before feeding it to him.
”You feel a little…uhm, different,” she commented while observing him eat the apple slices.
He paused. “How so?”
”You feel…uh, how do I describe it? Less intense? Less threatening? Something like that. I feel a bit more comfortable with you than before. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I missed you so much while you were in coma and I’m so happy now that you’re awake.”
He fell silent.
She didn’t notice anything amiss from his reaction—or lack thereof. It was just commenting on something trivial. She didn’t think much of it.
After finishing all the apple slices in silence, he asked, “Do you like me better now then?”
”Huh?” His sudden question stumped her.
”You say that you feel more comfortable with me now than before. So does this mean that you like me better now?”
She thought about it first. “I don’t think that the matter of me liking you more is directly related to me feeling more comfortable with you now. I just like you—no. I just love you, that’s all. I love you more now after experiencing a taste of losing you when you suddenly became comatose. I felt so…helpless, especially since we haven’t been married for that long and our sons are still very young. They’re still babies. I don’t want to lose you so early. Neither do I want our babies to lose their father so soon.”
He reached his hand and touched her face. “What if I’m gone someday?”
She freaked out. “What are you saying? Are you planning on leaving me? Our family? You can’t, Nikolai!”
”Not leave. Just gone.”
She became even more frightened. “What do you mean by gone? Like missing? Or dead? What’s happening, Nikolai? Did something happen to you that I don’t know about?”
He sighed before giving her cheek a light pinch. “Nothing. It’s just a…rhetorical question. Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing serious.”
”Nikolai, don’t joke about something like that!” She pulled his hand from her face and slapped it. “You’re going to give me a heart attack someday, I swear!”
”My sons have become too fat,” he said out of the blue.
Long Jinjing’s brain lagged for a couple of seconds at the sudden change in topic. She glared at him but still went along with him even though she knew that it was deliberate on his part.
”The doctor says that their weights are still within the normal range,” she replied. “They’re fine. Xiulan’s breast milk is just too nutritious, I guess.”
He nodded.
”You should talk to her,” Long Jinjing suggested. “I don’t think the two of you have resolved your fight yet. Both of you are acting civil since you woke up but…I can still feel some tension. You were so close before.”
He grunted.
She wasn’t sure whether it was a yes or a no.
”Actually, just like you, I feel that Xiulan somewhat changed recently as well,” she said.
”You also feel more comfortable with her?” he asked.
”Not exactly. To be honest, I feel that she has become more…uhm, intimidating. But not in a bad way, I guess. Intimidating in a sense of being calmer…and more detached? Something like that. You know how she can get really emotional especially when she was pregnant, right? She’s not so much like that anymore. I feel like we can fight with her and she’ll still hold it together without losing an explosive temper. Isn’t that scarier than usual?”
”Hmm.”
Lu Zihao thought about it. Based on what his wife told him just now, an image of his sister popped in his mind. Not the Evelinka who was Long Xiulan now but the original Evelina Vetrova in their past life.
Due to her resistance to joining the family organization, Evelinka’s personality had grown extremely detached from everyone and everything except for him, her brother, and her passions such as music and computers. It was initially her defence mechanism brought by their family environment but soon became a large part of her personality.
Her detachment gave others the impression that she was a cold and indifferent person even though this was far from the truth. He knew that she was kind, warm and loving.
An angel among a family of devils.
This was how he had always known his sister’s personality. Imagine his surprise when he met her as Long Xiulan. She had become so outgoing, expressive, emotional and passionate in a way that he had never known her before.
A big part of him was happy for her. This was her dream life—to be free to pursue her own passions and showcase all her talents to the world without being tethered by her identity. He wanted her to live in joy, peace, and more importantly, freedom—something that she never had before as Evelina Vetrova.
However, there was still a tiny part of him that felt resentful. He had always denied this part of himself and pretended that it didn’t exist. It only came to light and exploded in the open during his fight with his sister.
Then he fell into another coma. He reflected on a lot of things during and after being comatose.
One of the most important things that he reflected on was the resentment he had with his sister. Indeed, he needed to address it with her as soon as possible.
