She did not open her eyes, but she could feel someone sit down at the edge of the bed.
A hand came to rest gently on top of her head, making her stiffen slightly.
“It’s ready. Get up and eat.”
Lin Wangxi knew she could not keep pretending anymore. She slowly lifted her head from the crook of her arm and casually wiped away her tears.
Zhou Jinyuan looked at her for a couple of seconds, then stood up and walked out.
Not long after, he brought in a plastic stool and placed it in front of the bed. Then he carried the food into the room and set it on top of the stool.
Everything around her looked terrible.
Everywhere she looked, there was decay and cheapness.
Yet compared to the villa Lin Tanyu had mentioned, she wanted to stay here even more.
No matter how nice the villa at Crescent Bay was, it was no longer a place where she naturally belonged.
“Zhou Jinyuan, now that I have nothing left, will you despise me?”
Before Zhou Jinyuan could answer, she continued on her own, “Forget it, don’t answer. Pretend I never asked.”
Zhou Jinyuan had never liked her in the first place. The answer was obvious even without thinking.
Right now, she did not want to hear anything she did not want to hear.
Zhou Jinyuan did not insist on answering. Instead, he handed her the bowl of rice and chopsticks he had already prepared.
“Eat first.”
Lin Wangxi took the bowl and mechanically picked at the rice, unable to taste anything.
It was probably his first time making this dish. His cooking skills were still lacking, and the taste was not particularly good.
On top of that, her heart was in turmoil, so she had even less appetite. She chewed one mouthful of rice for a long time before swallowing it.
“Lin Wangxi.”
Zhou Jinyuan suddenly called her name.
She instinctively looked up at him in confusion.
“When I agreed to date you back then,” he said slowly, “it wasn’t because of what you had, or what you didn’t have.”
Lin Wangxi’s grip on the chopsticks tightened.
“It was because you threatened Yue’an’s life.”
He continued without avoiding the ugly truth of how their relationship had begun.
“So whether you have something now, or have nothing at all, makes no difference to me.”
His words pressed down on her heart like a heavy stone, making it hard for her to breathe.
She lowered her head and stared silently at the tendon in her bowl.
“But…”
He paused, and his tone shifted.
“I promised you something, and I will keep my word. As long as you stay here, I will do my best to take care of you.”
“…Oh.”
She responded in a muffled voice.
She did not want to ask what would happen after six months.
Perhaps she did not even have a future after that.
Even though she felt guilty toward him, she still wanted to sleep with him.
Sleeping with him once before breaking up was not too much to ask, right?
He would be getting something out of it too.
After saying that, Zhou Jinyuan stood up and walked out.
Lin Wangxi held the bowl absentmindedly and continued shoveling rice into her mouth.
She actually could not eat anymore, but Zhou Jinyuan had spent so much time cooking, and the ingredients must have cost a fair amount of money.
She did not want to waste the effort he had put into it.
So she forced herself to finish a whole big bowl until she was stuffed.
After she was done, Zhou Jinyuan came back in and cleaned up the dishes.
Just as Lin Wangxi was about to sleep, something suddenly crossed her mind.
She grabbed the crutch and got out of bed.
When she reached the bathroom, she saw Zhou Jinyuan squatting there, washing something in a basin.
When she looked closely, her face instantly turned bright red.
“Y-you… what are you washing?”
Without turning around, Zhou Jinyuan continued scrubbing the item in his hands.
“Your clothes. The ones you wear underneath need to be washed before you can use them.”
Lin Wangxi had actually come to wash them herself.
She had not expected him to have already done it.
Embarrassed, she said, “I’ll do it myself. You don’t need to wash them.”
“It’s already done.”
He wrung out the bra and underwear and tossed them into another basin before standing up with it in his hands.
Turning around, he glanced at her.
“Don’t worry. It’s a new basin. I washed them separately.”
He said it so seriously that it only made her feel more embarrassed.
Lin Wangxi found this man rather strange.
When it came to kissing, he was awkward to the point of death.
Yet when it came to doing things like this, he was perfectly calm.
Of course, she seemed to be the same.
She was always thinking about sleeping with Zhou Jinyuan, yet when it came to these little daily matters, she felt uncomfortable all over.
She did not understand her own feelings either.
She watched as Zhou Jinyuan went out to the balcony and hung up her clothes to dry.
Lin Wangxi really could not bear to keep watching.
Awkwardly, she hobbled back to the bedroom on her crutch.
That night.
Lin Wangxi lay on the hard wooden bed, the stiffness making her whole body ache.
Her waist hurt, her back hurt, and her leg hurt even more.
She barely slept at all that night.
The next morning, Zhou Jinyuan prepared breakfast and brought it to her room.
He found her leaning against the headboard with two huge dark circles under her eyes, staring lifelessly at the doorway.
Zhou Jinyuan looked a little surprised.
“You didn’t sleep?”
Lin Wangxi looked at him resentfully.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Zhou Jinyuan pressed his lips together and glanced at the bed.
There really was only a bare wooden board underneath, with just a sheet spread over it.
He could more or less guess what the problem was.
He set the breakfast on the plastic stool and said after a moment of thought, “Eat breakfast first.”
Lin Wangxi picked up a peeled egg and ate a few absentminded bites.
After cleaning up, Zhou Jinyuan carried her to the bathroom so she could wash up and use the toilet.
Originally, he had wanted to take Lin Wangxi to the hospital for a checkup because of her fall the day before.
But Lin Wangxi did not want the trouble and refused.
Left with no choice, Zhou Jinyuan had to go out to work first.
He now had to support two people while carrying debt.
There was no way he could stay home with her all the time.
Left alone at home, Lin Wangxi lay around with nothing to do.
She could not go anywhere, and she was terribly bored.
She moved from the bed to the sofa and discovered that compared to the rock-hard bed, she could actually fall asleep on the sofa.
Zhou Jinyuan drove his beat-up old BYD and stopped by the roadside outside an upscale residential complex.
Before long, a man in a suit walked out from inside the complex.
The man headed straight for the car and got into the front passenger seat.
Zhou Jinyuan’s brows furrowed slightly, but he said nothing.
“Is it ending in 0563?”
The man smiled faintly.
“Yes, but don’t start driving yet. I just want to talk to you about something.”
Zhou Jinyuan turned to look at him.
“And you are?”
The man looked back at him with a polite smile.
“Hello, my name is Lin Tanyu. I’m Xixi’s elder brother.”
Zhou Jinyuan’s face remained expressionless, but the fingers gripping the steering wheel tightened.
“So it’s Mr. Lin. May I ask what you want with me?”
Lin Tanyu glanced around the inside of the car.
A trace of barely concealed disdain flashed through his eyes, though the polite smile on his face remained.
“Xixi is staying with you right now, isn’t she?”
Zhou Jinyuan said nothing, which was as good as an admission.
Lin Tanyu did not mind and continued speaking on his own.
“I assume you already know what happened with our family. Xixi is stubborn and spoiled. Although she isn’t my biological younger sister, we’ve lived together for so many years. The bond is real.”
“It’s not as if the Lin family can’t afford to support one more person. It’s just that we have to consider Lin Lin as well. If the two of them live together, both sides may end up feeling things are unfair.”
As he spoke, he sighed helplessly and took a bank card out from his pocket, handing it over.
“Since she likes you so much and is willing to stay with you, I’ll have to trouble you to take good care of her. Perhaps this is the best solution for now.”
“There’s one million in this card. It should be enough for the two of you to live on for a while. If it isn’t enough, you can contact me again.”