Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
His deep gaze sent her into a flurry. As she recalled how bold she was earlier, she became flushed. When she liked him many years back, she was just a little child who had an immeasurably strong possessive streak that did not want him to leave her. This possessive streak now had a hint of desire to it. She wanted him. His heavy breathing lingered around her. She looked at his lips and really wanted to kiss him, but she was also afraid of the awkwardness that would follow when he rejected her. Between them, she used to be the one who had the final say as she had the overbearing presence of a queen that he had to obey. Where had that self-confidence and courage all gone to?
Hailan’s death utterly shattered everything.
She was afraid that he would coldly push her away. When she apologized, what immediately followed was him leaving her.
“Xu Nuo, what are you doing here?” Ye Ningyuan gently asked. His voice sounded a tad harsh, but his emotions were apparent in his eyes. He had never expected to encounter her here.
“Xu Nuo, what brings you here?”
Xu Nuo opted to remain silent and did not look into his eyes. As she was immersed in her own pain, she did not see the pain in the depths of his eyes. She opted to remain quiet despite whatever Ye Ningyuan asked.
Everything except the truth became excuses. He surely knew.
However, she could not tell the truth.
She was afraid that he would not believe her.
Ye Ningyuan sighed and hugged Xu Nuo tightly. He slightly flipped his body and carried her. She struggled to leave. Instead, he held her tightly and said, “Don’t move!”
Ye Ningyuan was about to have her for himself, but their emotional knots remained, and she, out of her guilt, would certainly agree. However, that was not what he wanted. As Ye Ningyuan carried her, her scent reached him, and his body felt warmer. His mind was even clearer.
While love and passion would last for the moment, what followed?
How should they face it?
“If you do not want to say it, I’ll not ask,” Ye Ningyuan gently said. “Xu Nuo, if you’ve something in your mind, please directly ask me.”
Xu Nuo still remained mum.
Ye Ningyuan kissed her lips and gently smiled. “When did you become this quiet?”
Wasn’t she one with a sharp tongue?
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Sure!”
Ye Ningyuan was in an extremely good mood. He suddenly carried Xu Nuo sideways and Xu Nuo exclaimed and reached out to hit him. “Put me down!”
Her face was red from the princess-hug. Nobody had carried her like this since young, and Xu Nuo felt really embarrassed. In her impression, she was a strong and independent person. Being carried like this was as though she was relying on him and she instantly became jellied.
“Don’t you want to talk to me?” Ye Ningyuan gently smiled as he carried her toward the mansion. Xu Nuo was embarrassed and had no reason to rebut him. She suddenly saw the jade pendant on his chest and froze.
She could not help but reach out to touch that warm jade pendant.
As he had worn it for many years, the chains were a tad old. Wouldn’t a man wearing this fear ridicule? Besides, he was no longer a child and was a person of authority instead.
Her eyes began to sting.
“This is the jade pendant Nuo Nuo gave me.”
She suddenly let go and looked away. Mistakenly assuming that she was jealous, Ye Ningyuan felt uncomfortable and did not say another word. Nobody would allow the person whom they liked to have somebody else in their heart.
He knew that very well, and he was ashamed to face her.
Regardless of whomever else he loved, Nuo Nuo was the only one in his heart.
“I’ll return to Silver Cloud’s mansion to sleep,” Xu Nuo said. She was suddenly afraid of being in the same room with him. She was afraid she would reveal her identity. “Just remain here. I’ll not do anything to you.” Ye Ningyuan smiled instead.
Although that was said, he really wanted to have his way with her.
In the end, he got her clothes from Silver Cloud’s place so that she could wash up at his place. Failed to convince him, Xu Nuo could only enter the bathroom. Ye Ningyuan gently smiled. His mommy was right on how Paradise Island was a therapeutic place for him.
The person who could heal his pain was no longer his beloved mommy but somebody else. However, he still deeply remembered Hailan and felt very guilty about it.
When he saw her, he felt so much happier and the pain in him seemed to have alleviated. On the other hand, he was wondering what his future with her would be like.
Would he let go?
He didn’t know.
Whenever he faced her, he would recall Hailan, and his heart would slightly ache whenever he recalled Hailan. But if she weren’t by his side, he was afraid that nobody else could alleviate that pain. Ye Ningyuan heard the sound of water in the bathroom and smiled. That would do for now.
He did not think about what would happen in the future.
So be it then.
As Xu Nuo had wrongly arranged her books in a panic, he arranged her bookshelf and books. A book fell from the bookshelf, and Ye Ningyuan bent down to pick it up. The book was a medical book that Nuo Nuo often read back then. Although she said she had completed reading the book and took notes, she would read the book repeatedly every day. “Every revisiting of what you know gives you quite some new learning,” she said.
As he randomly flipped the book, his face suddenly changed and he dropped the book onto the ground…
Xu Nuo took her shower and dried her hair in the bathroom before looking at herself in the mirror. She tucked her lips. She would be leaving tomorrow. Once she left this place, she would no longer see Ye Ningyuan.
To cut ties and still have lingering feelings for the other person was not good for them. As for her, she would just let her Stone think she was dead. He was still young and still as capable of loving. In a few years’ time, he could have forgotten about her and would perhaps fall in love with another woman. She was boring, passionless, cold, and not likable, and she must not be the reason he was hurt anymore. He remembered her for so many years, and it was perhaps their short time together and death that he did not realize how terrible she was.
She did not want him to dislike her someday.
When she came out of the bathroom, she saw him kneeling on the floor with his back to her. He remained as stationary as a statue. She was slightly taken aback and felt as though she had returned to many years ago. She almost called out ‘Stone…’
“What are you doing?”
He turned around tensely, and she saw the medical book by his feet. The ‘Stone’ she freshly wrote was on the first page of the book.