Just when Xia Ruoxin was about to eat another mouth of carrots, Gao Yi reached out his hand and took her entire bowl away.
He picked up all the carrots in her bowl and placed them in his own. “This is my favorite vegetable; don’t you dare touch a single strand of it. Eat your little vegetables.” He picked all the shredded carrots away and then placed the plate of carrots in front of himself. “Okay, let’s just eat our own food; don’t think about touching my carrots.” As he spoke, he picked up a bunch of other vegetables with his chopsticks and placed them into Xia Ruoxin’s bowl.
“Yes. Eat more vegetables; it’s good for your skin.”
Just as he finished speaking, he began eating large mouthfuls of his food, one bite after another. The carrots practically all went into his stomach. However, in a place unknown to others, a bitter smile faintly arose on that gentle and elegant face of his.
Ruoxin, you’re hesitating.
Outside was a snowstorm. Xia Ruoxin cleared the bowls and chopsticks, and when she walked out, she saw Gao Yi taking out his scarf and a hat.
“Wasn’t today your off-day?”
Xia Ruoxin remembered that Gao Yi did not have work today. He was on a night shift. What was he going out for now?
“I’m not the one who is going out.” Gao Yi headed towards Xia Ruoxin, twirling the scarf around her neck and putting the hat on her head.
Xia Ruoxin couldn’t understand. Her eyes were filled with questions.
Gao Yi actually liked this look in her eyes the most. It was always a very clean look, and her soul was there. No matter how many hardships she went through or how much she got hurtfrom the beginning to the end, she always had that pure heart.
He opened the door and took Xia Ruoxin’s hands.
“Go on.”
Xia Ruoxin placed her hand on the door. Why did she have to go out?
“Talk it out with the man outside.”
Gao Yi pushed her out. The cold air outside blew onto his face. It was at that moment, Gao Yi felt like the cold, howling wind had frozen his heart into ice.
Xia Ruoxin’s hand didn’t leave the door handle.
She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to have anything to do with that man again. It was just that they had too much between them that couldn’t be resolved, that couldn’t be severed all because of that daughter who was related to him by blood.
“Go on.” Gao Yi placed his hand on Ruoxin’s hair then bent down and whispered into her ear, “You’re not a woman who runs away. No matter how long it takes, this problem will have to be resolved someday.” At that moment, he was saying it from an outsider’s perspective. Just like a kiss between the opposite sexes—in his laughing black pupils, something seemingly flashed by.
If other people made him uncomfortable, how could he not seek revenge?
Xia Ruoxin’s hands slowly loosened. Then, she walked out into the blizzard. Behind her, the man stood leaning onto the door. She turned back only to see the man give her an encouraging smile.
Xia Ruoxin tightened the scarf around her neck. A speck of snow fell onto her neck, causing her to retract it. She hadn’t felt like that for a long time.
The man standing amidst the snow practically became a snowman. His hair, his shoulders, his clothes, and even his eyelashes had a layer of falling snow. The man’s extremely thin lips were pressed tightly together at that moment. His expression was very grim. Just then, he instinctively blinked his eye, causing the snow on his lashes to fall abruptly. Tears rolled down the side of his eyes, merging with the melting snow-a perfect disguise.
It was a little icy and a little chilly… a little cold and frosty, too.
“Ruoxin, can my mom see her for a while?”
Chu Lui took his hands out of his pocket. He wanted to clench them, but his fingers were too frostbitten to move. It was such a simple action, and yet he couldn’t do it. It seemed like he was still human, a human with blood and flesh and one who could go numb from freezing in the cold weather.
Snow fell onto Xia Ruoxin from time to time, but she didn’t want to speak. Especially not with the man standing in front of her.
The man’s lips slightly parted, seemingly letting out a sigh.
Xia Ruoxin just turned around.
“Ruoxin…” Chu Lui called out to her, his voice hoarse. “She is a child of the Chu family after all, isn’t she?”
Xia Ruoxin stopped in her tracks. She wanted to know as well… if one day, her voice could sound as cold as the snow around her.
“The Chu family?” She laughed slightly, her laughter filled with sarcasm. “You and your Chu family have no right.”
She would never forget how Rainy managed to survive. She was just three-years-old, and yet she went through so much pain and hardship, even almost losing her life.
The Chu family’s blood flowed through her veins, but nobody from the Chu family helped her.
She would never forget which person robbed Rainy of her first place in the nursery… made her cry, sad, and stand outside the classroom door causing her to fall sick. Yes, this Chu family; what right did they have? What right?
The wind blowing in her face stung-it really stung.
As she headed back, Gao Yi approached her gently patting the snow off her shoulders. Xia Ruoxin smiled at him, just that her smile had a hidden tint of chilliness… just like the color of the sky, just like the snow.
Chu Lui just stood there dumbly as if his body was frozen. He stood there until he became a block of ice, a snowflake… a grain of dust.
At night, Xia Ruoxin sat up from her bed. Actually, she did not know why, but recently, she had been losing sleep. These few years, there was never a day where she could not fall asleep. Every day… every month, she had to pull through the fatigue just to earn a little more money. Yes, it was exhausting. That’s why she never lost a night of sleep, and yet today…
She stood up and headed outside, reaching out her hands to open the curtains. The snow was still falling, and outside had already become a cold, white world.
Light from the streetlamp illuminated the cold, white floor. It seemed possible to feel the coldness within the warmth of the light and also within the man who remained standing outside.
The warmth was from his body, but the coldness was in his eyes. A speck of a snowflake fell into his eyes. He opened his eyes widely. The snowflake melted into water and rolled down the side of his eyes.
Once he returned to the office, he was practically like an icicle. The clothes on his body were all soaking wet.
“Did you fall into a river or something?” His soaked appearance really gave Du Jingtang a scare. He hastily unpacked his recently bought clothes and brought them to Chu Lui. Walking around like that in this kind of weather, did he have a death wish?
“Brother, did you manage to meet my niece?” Du Jingtang anxiously asked Chu Lui. “What about the child, did you get to meet her?”
Chu Lui’s hands that were drying his hair with a towel paused for a slight moment. After that, he continued to dry his hair as if nothing had happened, his black pupils looking into the distance, seemingly deep in thought.
