"Daddy Lu, Youyou is all dressed! Let's go~" Zhao Youyou's small hand wrapped around one of Lu Yunzheng's fingers as she tilted her little face up, looking at him with perfect obedience.
Lu Yunzheng stared at Zhao Youyou's little face for a long moment. The child's gaze was clear and limpid, tinged with a trace of timidity.
Those timid eyes slowly overlapped in his mind with a thin, dirty little boy.
In an instant, Lu Yunzheng's heart softened. How could he suspect a child? He must have been seeing things—sleep-deprived and distracted after everything with Xu Wantang last night. He needed to trust Youyou more, not let her become the child he himself had once been.
He had grown up living under someone else's roof, rarely welcomed, and had even been falsely accused by adults many times of stealing money and pilfering things. For that, he had taken beatings he never deserved. He didn't want to become the kind of adult he despised.
Lu Yunzheng lowered his lashes and gently took Zhao Youyou's hand. "Let's go."
He walked forward without paying attention to the child whose hand he held.
Zhao Youyou didn't want to go out to eat at all. They'd eaten out just last night, and she had long grown used to the food the bad woman made—everything else tasted absolutely terrible!
Though unwilling, she couldn't say anything. She lowered her head and secretly rolled her eyes, following Lu Yunzheng with an impatient look on her face.
At the gate, the big one and the little one happened to run into Auntie Li, the next-door neighbor, hanging laundry in her yard.
"Yunzheng, when did you get back? How many days are you home this time?"
Auntie Li shook out the clothes as she looked at this young man with such striking looks and bearing, asking warmly.
"I got back yesterday afternoon. I'll leave in a few days." Lu Yunzheng replied politely, holding Zhao Youyou's hand.
Auntie Li's smiling face froze for a moment the instant she saw Zhao Youyou. She always felt there was something wolfish in the eyes of this little girl the Lu family had adopted, but as an outsider, she couldn't very well say anything.
Her gaze returned to Lu Yunzheng, and she suggested heartily, "You should stay a couple more days! You and Xiaotang just got married—you two need time to build up your feelings for each other."
Lu Yunzheng's eyes drifted elsewhere, and he nodded absently. He was hesitating over how to bring up to Auntie Li the news that Xu Wantang would be following him to his military posting.
His relationship with Xu Wantang wasn't good. If he said it like that, it would sound as though he and Xu Wantang were deeply in love, which made him uncomfortable.
But in Auntie Li's eyes, his expression took on a completely different meaning. Seeing Lu Yunzheng's cold, expressionless demeanor, she couldn't help feeling indignant on Xu Wantang's behalf.
A newlywed wife pouring her heart into a one-sided effort—living apart from her husband, no less, while he paid her no mind at all. The little wife toiled away day after day like an old ox, and couldn't even get a single warm word in return.
Even as a neighbor, she could hardly bear to watch anymore. She sighed, and after some thought, decided that some things this boy Yunzheng simply needed to know. So Auntie Li spoke up, "Yunzheng, there are some things that, as an outsider, I really shouldn't say."
"But with your family's situation, if outsiders don't speak up, no one ever will. I don't know what kind of trouble you and Xiaotang have run into as a couple, but a person's heart, when neglected for too long—well, it goes cold…"
Lu Yunzheng froze, confusion surfacing in his dark, bright eyes as he looked at Auntie Li, puzzled.
Auntie Li continued, "Anyone with eyes can see that Xiaotang has feelings for you. Not only does she get gossiped about by the neighbors every day for keeping an empty house and failing to hold onto her man's heart, she doesn't even have any peace at home. Yet whenever she mentions you, she doesn't say a single word of complaint—she just smiles."
"When the young women and young wives around here go shopping at the department store together, she's never once bought herself a piece of clothing or a jar of face cream. Everything she buys is either for you and the child or for her mother-in-law. A few days ago I noticed her blouse had been washed so many times the edges were fraying, and she still hasn't replaced it. A daughter-in-law this good—you'd better cherish her."
Lu Yunzheng's lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes full of astonishment.
Though he had been cold to Xu Wantang because of what she'd done before, it had never occurred to him that she would suffer the neighbors' mockery because of it…
Why had Xu Wantang never told him any of this…
Lu Yunzheng resolved that from now on, at the very least, he would keep up appearances in front of outsiders. Things were to be kept separate—his displeasure with Xu Wantang's behavior was his own business, no one else's, and no one else had any right to comment.
As for Auntie Li's remark about Xu Wantang wearing old clothes, Lu Yunzheng was utterly baffled.
He believed that aside from companionship, he had never shortchanged Xu Wantang materially. Every month when his allowance came, he mailed nearly all of it home, addressed to Xu Wantang by name. Each time, he even included a letter specifically instructing that the money be given to Xu Wantang. How could she have no money?
Suddenly, he recalled his mother dismissing the servant yesterday, and a suspicion formed in his mind.
After thanking Auntie Li, Lu Yunzheng took Zhao Youyou by the hand and left.
The whole way, he was distracted.
His memory was like a floodgate suddenly opened, and all the details he'd never noticed came pouring out: it seemed that every time he met with Xu Wantang, she really was wearing old, washed-out clothes—it was just that she was so pretty that people naturally overlooked what she wore.
Come to think of it, that bag Xu Wantang carried when she left really might have contained all her belongings…
At this thought, for some reason, Lu Yunzheng felt an inexplicable tightness in his chest that no amount of deep breathing could relieve.
This matter was his oversight. He would compensate her financially.
After eating a meal he couldn't taste, he first dropped Zhao Youyou off at kindergarten, then returned home to get his bankbook. The money in it was what he had saved before marriage; part had been spent at the wedding, but there was still some left—not a great deal, but no less than what Xu Wantang hadn't received these past few months.
As he passed Zhang Xiuju's room, as if guided by some unseen force, Lu Yunzheng pushed open the door. Looking up, he saw, sitting prominently on the wooden chest beside the bed, the letters he had mailed home these past few months.
Lu Yunzheng froze. Sure enough, things were exactly as he had suspected—the money mailed to Xu Wantang had all been taken by Zhang Xiuju first.
Lu Yunzheng sighed in disappointment. He had previously reached an agreement with his mother, Zhang Xiuju: he would give her a living allowance once a year, enough to last her the whole year, on the condition that she stop asking Xu Wantang for money. She had agreed readily enough at the time, but who knew she would turn around and pocket the money instead.
Lu Yunzheng entered the room and took out all the money left in the envelope, counting it. He and Xu Wantang had now been married for exactly three months, and over these three months he had mailed her 100 yuan each month. Now, of the 300 yuan, only a little over 100 remained. He pocketed the money and went out the door. This money was meant for Xu Wantang in the first place, so he wasn't wrong to take it.
After leaving home, he went to the bank. There was still over 3,000 yuan in his passbook, and he withdrew it all.
He had no use for the money—it would just sit in the bank anyway. Better to give it to Xu Wantang so she could buy whatever she wanted. Although their marriage had begun with Xu Wantang's scheming, he was, after all, her husband, and spending his money was only natural.
With the money made up, he would soon be taking Xu Wantang to the island. Surely she wouldn't make a fuss anymore after that.
Lu Yunzheng thought that as long as Xu Wantang treated Zhao Youyou well and stopped treating their marriage like a game, he wouldn't hold her antics from the past two days against her, and he would ensure she never wanted for food or clothing for the rest of her life.
He thought this all the way there, never even noticing that his expression had softened considerably.
Before he knew it, he had arrived near the guesthouse. He asked at the front desk, only to learn that she wasn't there.
Lu Yunzheng had no choice but to clutch the money in his hand and sit by the entrance waiting.
As dusk fell, his face gradually darkened as well.
The next second, his expression froze, and his eyes suddenly turned gloomy.
Directly ahead of him, Xu Wantang was walking side by side with a plainly dressed man…