Chapter 57 - 57. Grinning...

Meilin saw the shoes he had in his hands and a soft arc formed on her lips but just before she took them into her hands, her left hand was softly taken by him and they made their way to the sofa in front of the changing room.

He smoothly made her sit on it and knelt down, he looked really handsome, really the prince of every girl's dreams.

Watching him like this Meilin suddenly felt herself lost in the beautiful memories of their childhood as she went into a trance.

.........

The first time they met was when he had just turned nine and she was still an eight-year-old kid.

Meilin, as long as she could remember, has always been alone.

She didn't know who her mother was and her father was never there from the start.

She grew up under her paternal grandparents care.

Qin Mo brought her up very strictly, she also had a subconscious thought to always be disciplined, maybe she didn't want to left alone because she did something wrong or against her family's wish or maybe she was just like that from the start.

She had a routine life but that didn't stop her from having dreams of the outside world.

She knew that she had many cousins but they were never close.

Even though they were very close in age since she had to carry this burden of being from the main family and being the heiress, treating them as her subordinate rather than family came very naturally to her.

Was she lonely?

Yes.

Did she want to be close to them?

No.

She was very sensitive to people's feelings.

She knew their feelings for staying close to her were just a facade.

For a girl like her who had to take in consideration of every single move of all the people surrounding her so as not to make a mistake and be abandoned, it was very easy to see past the fake friendliness the parents of her cousins, instigated against her in them.

Back then she didn't know the reasons why, but she knew they were faking it so, she put a wall between her and them.

She wanted someone who will stay true to her, not someone fake.

She didn't want to be left alone....not again.

Mind you, even under the pressure of being raised to become the heir, she learned everything with great vigor and was curious and excited to learn them.

She had a huge liking to the concept of gaining knowledge itself, as it will never leave her and made her want to stay in this world for a little longer, she never thought it as an obligation to do it because of her status, but genuinely liked learning everything, from etiquette to general academics, she liked and grasped everything like a sponge.

She was a diligent and efficient learner, though not a genius, she was a smart and intelligent kid with a strict upbringing and a powerful family backing her up.

Slightly lonely but nothing she couldn't handle, she was a very energetic kid in contrast to what one might think considering her history.

She always had a toothy smile and loved to come in contact with the nature, which of course was limited to when she was with the people she could believe in, which by the way, was only the people inside the mansion.

They were handpicked by Qin Mo and it was a place where everyone treated her like a princess and genuinely cared for the little girl who was lonely but put on a strong front.

Everyone, every living being with a sense of consciousness will prefer to have a parent, it was not a wish, it was a need, but she never asked them for hers.

She has always liked to suppress her desires by putting a small smile, although she had envied her classmates and cousins for this, she knew what she really wanted and wished for was certainly not her parents.

Though strict, her grandparents had done a great job bringing her up. Compared to those gamete donors of her, she was far more grateful and loved this old pair, still, she had an inkling that this was not all, there was someone else who will complete her arc to form a circle, someone who 'will become' and 'complete' her world.

Learning, acquiring knowledge and having an inkling that, 'that' someone will come to her life and make her want to live it made her live peacefully and so...the days passed by, then some months and some years also slipped through.

Just like that, the day that will be the trigger to change many a people life came.

It was just another day for everyone else, but it was the day which will be the initial check-point that will change her path and life forever.

...

She was doing her evening run around the field when their head butler came to inform her about his master's arrival.

She directly didn't go inside but stayed behind a huge pillar to see the proceedings.

Once bitten twice shy.

Though she believed in her grandpa's eyes, we are never enough vigilant.

What she saw was a very beautiful boy brought by her grandfather, grandpa said he would be staying with them from now on.

Meilin being the active person she was, was very curious about this new being who had a given name, Xuan, jade offered to the heavens; he was really a jade-like boy, the picture-perfect type.

Though she didn't come out from behind the pillar she was hiding behind while looking at the cute boy with her big round eyes filled with heavy curiosity in them, it was as if, after years of search a perfect key was finally found to open the lock in her heart.

Watching the boy for the first time made all the walls she created to turn into smithereens.

'We can become close', she thought. She didn't know the reason for the sudden change but both her heart and mind okayed her thought.

The boy was acting very cautiously, his every move were well thought of, it seems he was very nervous or maybe just like her, he matured too early and this nature was deeply ingrained into his body when in front of strangers.

He had a faint smile on his lips but it wasn't hard for a sensitive person like her to find that his eyes were cold and distant, cautious and had a scary glint to it, he was like a sheathed sword, restraining himself in the scabbard of his gentle facade, a wrong move and you'll be dead before you know it.

Meilin was not scared, she thought that he was just like a wounded beast, cautious and using every breath to protect himself and his fragile heart, to her it was his defense mechanism, nothing to be afraid of.

To her, he seemed beautiful, irrespective of his background.

Maybe she felt a sense of camaraderie or maybe his eyes which were very bright and had a twinkling in them, seemed too pure and made you feel like they could see your soul made him look like a ceramic artifact without any blemishes, or maybe...it was that she just knew, like it was a given, that the one person she had been waiting on forever..... was him.

Meilin took it upon her to get close to him.

With her short legs, she ran towards him and directly took his hands in hers without allowing him a chance to repel her.

With a very bright smile she introduced herself, "Xuanxuan, I'm called Meilin. Let's take care of each other from now on, okay?", she tilted her head with a cute grin as her eyes turned into crescents.

He had stiffened up for a second when a stranger touched him but when he laid his eyes on that beautiful smile, just like a ray of sunshine that melted the eternal ice inside him, as if the ice age was thawed down by the first light of hope of this strange grinning species, her eyes and smile so pure, just with a look he knew he could believe in her, this girl grinning with one of her milk-teeth, her canine to be exact fallen, looked stupidly cute and beautiful.

The dots connected, he knew he had been living his life till now for him to meet her...he was glad he persisted, even if he had to live that life where he was drowned in darkness and hatred day in and day out for another hundred years, if his destination was her, it was all worth it.

For the first time since he entered the villa or maybe in quite a long while, a genuine smile blossomed on his face as he said, "hmm...I'll be in your care."