She hurriedly wiped away her tears. Her voice, usually soft, carried a slight raspiness now as she looked at Lu Mingye seriously.
“Lu Mingye, I’m sorry. I’ve caused you so much trouble these past two days. You must already be so annoyed with me. It was all just wishful thinking on my part. I thought you were willing to marry me.”
“I saw the sunflower hair tie beside your pillow. You don’t want to bring me to meet your family, so I guess it’s because there’s someone else in your heart, right? Even though I don’t know why you agreed to marry me, it’s still not too late.”
“I’ll cover all the expenses from today myself, and your money too—”
Before she could finish, Lu Mingye couldn’t listen anymore.
“Wait.”
“Who said I’m unwilling to bring you to meet my family? Who said there’s someone else in my heart? And Shen Ruanruan, don’t you know whose sunflower hair tie that is?”
Should she know?
Shen Ruanruan had just been crying, so her eyes looked freshly washed by water, clear and bright.
Lu Mingye suddenly let out a sigh.
It was his fault.
For all these years, he had treated their encounter as the sole pillar supporting his spirit. He remembered almost every detail of the time they spent together.
But Shen Ruanruan was different.
Her life had been filled with many people.
He was probably just an insignificant passerby in her life.
In the end, they were actually strangers.
He thought he understood her, but he didn’t.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made her cry like this.
As for her…
After all these years apart, she probably didn’t even remember who he was anymore…
Thinking back on how he’d acted these past two days, he felt like a complete idiot.
…
Suddenly, Lu Mingye scooped up the girl crouched on the floor and placed her onto the newly bought square dining table in the kitchen.
Leaning slightly forward, he braced both arms on either side of her, trapping her entirely within his embrace.
“The sunflower hair tie is yours. There’s no one else.”
He gently wiped the tear stains from her face.
The man’s fingers were rough. It didn’t hurt her skin, but it tickled a little.
But Shen Ruanruan couldn’t focus on that right now.
Her brain had practically stopped working.
What did he mean the hair tie was hers?
“Y-you’re lying to me, right? H-how could I use such a childish hair tie?”
“Childish?”
Lu Mingye was so exasperated he laughed.
“Shen Ruanruan, your memory really is…”
“When you were eight years old, you saw another little girl in the county town wearing a sunflower hair tie and insisted on having one too. The county didn’t even sell them, and you squatted on the ground crying and refusing to leave.”
“It was a twenty-kilometer walk back, and I carried you the whole way!”
At the time, he himself had only been ten years old.
Of course, he conveniently left out the part about collapsing from exhaustion afterward.
Shen Ruanruan desperately wanted to deny it.
But then she remembered that as a child, she really had been difficult sometimes. If she couldn’t get something she liked, she absolutely would cry and refuse to leave.
Instantly, she felt guilty.
“T-then what happened? How did you buy the hair tie?”
“After that, I went to the provincial capital with Uncle and Auntie. We searched all over before finally finding the exact same hair tie.”
Even Lu Mingye couldn’t believe it himself.
Back then, after that incident happened, he had been in a terrible state mentally.
Yet somehow, he had still cared about her so deeply.
Maybe his words triggered some hidden memories, because Shen Ruanruan actually started recalling faint fragments of the past.
So it really was hers.
Which meant he had kept it all this time.
And even placed it beside his pillow…
His feelings were painfully obvious.
“Then if it wasn’t because of that, why won’t you bring me to meet your parents?”
Lowering her head, she poked at her fingers awkwardly.
“My parents met you when you were little. They already know about our marriage, so there’s no need for some formal introduction. Besides, my hometown is pretty far from here.”
Suddenly, Lu Mingye lowered his head near her ear and growled viciously:
“Do you really need me to admit it’s because I wanted to marry you as soon as possible and didn’t want to waste time?!”
Shen Ruanruan truly hadn’t expected that reason.
Who would’ve thought beneath that fierce-looking face hid such pure-hearted devotion?
That was what she thought in her heart, but the corners of her lips still lifted uncontrollably.
Unlike Lu Mingye, she couldn’t hide her emotions on her face at all.
“Feeling happier now?”
“So, Miss Ruanruan, you’re not a burden, and this wasn’t one-sided. If I really thought you were troublesome, I would’ve stopped bothering with you when we were kids. And I definitely wouldn’t have agreed to marry you. Understand?”
“Understood.”
Shen Ruanruan nodded obediently.
Lu Mingye stared at her.
“So this was why you cried like that?”
Now that they had finally opened their hearts to each other, Shen Ruanruan shook her head.
“Not entirely. I’m worried about my parents too. And I came to a completely unfamiliar place to get married. I don’t really know you either, so I was scared.”
“Then I saw the hair tie and thought you liked someone else. But I was still going to marry you anyway… I just didn’t know what to do anymore…”
Suddenly, Lu Mingye pulled her tightly into his arms.
He was tall, and with Shen Ruanruan sitting on the table, her head rested perfectly against his chest.
He gently stroked her hair.
“I’m sorry. This is my fault.”
“You don’t need to worry too much about Uncle and Auntie. The village they were sent down to happens to have one of my retired comrades there. He’ll find ways to help them.”
Shen Ruanruan had been quietly leaning against him, but upon hearing this, she immediately looked up at him.
“How do you know that?”
Of course he knew.
Over all these years, he had never really missed anything about her.
Sometimes he felt like a creep secretly peeking into someone else’s life.
That was why, after meeting her again, he barely dared show anything. He was afraid she would find him disgusting.
When he didn’t answer, Shen Ruanruan didn’t press further.
Instead, she suddenly remembered something.
In her previous life, after her parents returned, they looked worn down but were still physically alright. At the time, they had said someone secretly brought them food, and she thought they were only trying to comfort her.
Now that she thought about it…
Could it have been him all along?
In places she never knew about, just how much had this man done for her?
…
“Feeling better now?”
He had been careless.
She was already delicate to begin with, timid enough to cry when frightened. Then her family suddenly fell apart.
After breaking off her engagement with that pretty-boy bastard, she had traveled all this way alone just to marry him.
Who knew how much she had been carrying inside?
In Lu Mingye’s mind appeared the image of her looking pitiful and helpless, and his heart ached unbearably.
He should’ve been the one staying by her side all along.
But he had been away on missions recently…
In the end, it was all his fault.
Remembering her sudden breakdown, Shen Ruanruan finally regained her senses and immediately felt embarrassed.
Not only had she misunderstood so many things, she had even cried like that.
Pushing the man away, she jumped down from the table and ran outside.
“It’s getting late. I’m going to sleep now!”
Lu Mingye smiled as he watched her retreating figure.
Then his eyes suddenly landed on the dirty clothes she had dropped earlier.
Walking over, he picked them up.
Following her outside, he lifted the clothes slightly toward her.
“Miss Ruanruan, do you still mind letting me wash your clothes now?”
Shen Ruanruan froze mid-step.
She had almost forgotten about the laundry.
Quickly running back, she blushed furiously and tugged his hand downward before pulling two tiny pieces of fabric out from among the clothes and hiding them behind her back.
“I don’t mind anymore.”
Lu Mingye had already seen what she did.
Even the tips of his ears turned bright red.
Those were her…
And just now, hadn’t he touched them?