The snow grew heavier.
It was Northern State’s first snowfall of the winter.
Down the mountain, the sea and the isolated islands were all capped in white.
At the mountaintop, Lu Manor blended into the sky, an expanse of white, hazy and indistinct.
In front of the main entrance, Fu Jinglan, draped in a black overcoat, watched the departing guests get into their cars and leave.
Then he gestured to the security team behind him.
Everyone retreated and withdrew.
Mu Suizhou opened a black umbrella over Fu Jinglan.
“A marriage alliance between the two states isn’t a small matter. Are you really willing to accept the Central Government’s proposal?”
Beneath the black umbrella, Fu Jinglan watched the snow filling his vision as it drifted down in soft, endless flakes.
When he reached out to catch one, the snowflake instantly melted into a drop of water on his fingertip.
Against the curtain of snow, Fu Jinglan drew his hand back.
“A lifetime is long. Wind and rain, firewood, rice, oil, and salt—two people can easily share a bed, but sharing hardship is too difficult.”
“If they don’t love each other, one argument and they go their separate ways. What’s the point?”
Just like his father, Fu Chonghuai, who was forever surrounded by one flirtatious woman after another.
In Fu Jinglan’s eyes, they all seemed to share the same face. He hadn’t remembered a single one of them—not even his own mother, whom he had never met.
Then Mu Suizhou heard Fu Jinglan ask:
“Do you remember how, when we were little, if we wanted to eat a piece of meat, the big boss would smash the backs of our hands bloody with his chopsticks?”
The fighting arena had been a purgatory.
Before they made a name for themselves, they could forget about eating even a piece of meat.
The muscles in Mu Suizhou’s cheek tightened faintly.
Unforgettable. Damn it.
Damn it!
“So, Jinglan, it wasn’t easy for us to get where we are today. As for this marriage alliance, whether it brings fortune or disaster is still unknown.”
Those standing at the top might appear imposing, but in reality, they were watched and schemed against by countless people.
Fu Jinglan’s back was ramrod straight.
He raised a hand and took a matchbox from inside his overcoat.
The entire box was white gold, its exterior set with sapphires—luxurious and elegant.
Then a white poplar match slid across the striking surface between the man’s long fingers, and a flame instantly flared to life.
Fu Jinglan cupped his hand around it to light a slender cigarette, then neatly shook out the match’s flowerlike flame.
He was a man who liked to light his cigarettes with matches.
In these twenty seconds of slowing down and calm, he could think about many things.
“Let Jiang Qingyan stay at the manor for now. We have to figure out the Central Government’s and Southern State’s intentions. I also need to hear my father’s opinion and weigh it carefully.”
There were very few people Fu Jinglan was willing to trust.
Whoever caused him pain, no matter who they were, he would never show mercy.
Fu Jinglan turned his head slightly, letting the smoke drift into the wind and snow. “I won’t discuss marriage within the next year.”
Because Shen Lingxi, all milky and babyish, had been added to his room.
She was timid and loved to cry.
He couldn’t exactly keep one in his bed and marry another to lie beside him.
At that moment, “Creak, creak…”
The sound of tires pressing over snow came from behind them.
The two men turned around together, and Aunt Hui ran down from one of the manor’s internal vehicles.
Her feet kept slipping in her haste.
“Governor, this is bad. Miss Shen and Miss Jiang have gotten into a fight.”
Fu Jinglan’s face was as cold as snow, and his tone was equally icy.
He asked in a flat, declarative tone, “What happened?”
Aunt Hui had heard Jiang Qingyan crying and shouting, so she had hurried to the villa.
Shen Lingxi had been at a disadvantage. “Miss Jiang’s servant is very strong. She ran over halfway through and dragged Miss Shen into the snow, making her kneel and refusing to let her get up.”
Fu Jinglan showed no expression after hearing this.
“She’s quite obedient.”
“Then let her kneel a little longer and see whether she can withstand the wind and snow at the mountaintop.”
If anyone was going to make her kneel, it ought to be by his command.
Who did anyone else think they were?
He really wanted to haul Shen Lingxi out of the snow and throw her away.
She was making him unhappy.
Sure enough, women were difficult to raise.
No wonder Shen Lanting had desperately refused to raise her and had dumped her on him even when it meant ruining his own knees from kneeling.
The more Fu Jinglan thought about it, the angrier he became. He crushed out his cigarette and turned around, the hem of his overcoat lifting and catching several flakes of snow.
“Go back.”
Mu Suizhou closed the umbrella and followed Fu Jinglan into the car.
Hadn’t he just said to let Shen Lingxi kneel a little longer?
Yet they were going back in less than a minute?
The car started at once, its wheels sending snow flying.
But Aunt Hui had not even gotten into the car yet. She stood there alone, forgotten amid the curtain of snow.
In the snowfield.
White covered Shen Lingxi’s shoulders.
She tilted her neck back and allowed the goose-feather snow to fall chaotically into her eyes.
Behind her came the sound of tires, then a door closing, and then footsteps growing closer and closer.
Shen Lingxi turned her head and looked toward the direction from which Fu Jinglan was approaching.
Amid the vast, rustling whiteness, the man’s figure was tall and imposing. His cold, austere bearing blended with the heavy snow, while the hem of his black overcoat fluttered in the wind.
Mu Suizhou followed at his side.
He was a handsome man who looked refined, yet had a spirited, cocky edge in his bones.
Unlike Fu Jinglan, whose coldness was thinly spread from his skin all the way to his bones.
By then, Fu Jinglan had drawn closer.
Shen Lingxi could vaguely make out the contours of his face.
She parted her frozen lips and cried out, full of grievance, “Governor, save Lingxi.”
Jiang Qingyan’s servant, Pangpang, was possessed of brute strength from head to toe.
Like driving in a nail, he had hammered Shen Lingxi into the snow and kept her there.
Thus, that slender figure, swaying beneath the falling snow, entered Fu Jinglan’s eyes.
In the wind and snow, the man narrowed his eyes slightly.
Shen Lingxi’s figure was frail. She knelt dejectedly in the snow, her face turned aside, two trails of tears sliding down to hang from her delicate chin.
On the verge of falling, she looked pitiful and heart-rending.
Fu Jinglan frowned in disdain. “What a useless appearance.”
An inexplicable anger rose in his heart at the sight.
Next time, he might as well put her in a rear cross armlock, seize her by the neck, and *choke her to death.
Shen Lingxi also fell into Mu Suizhou’s eyes.
It was strange.
Shen Lingxi’s lips had been bleeding earlier, yet now there wasn’t even a trace of injury. They were perfectly unharmed.
It wasn’t as though she knew some kind of sorcery.
Then whose blood had it been?
The Secretary-General of Northern State was no mere figurehead. He was sufficiently resourceful and capable.
Therefore, the blood had been Fu Jinglan’s.
Mu Suizhou immediately turned his head to inspect Fu Jinglan.
His handsome, cold, model-like face was completely exposed. His features were striking and well-defined, his lines smooth, and there wasn’t a wound anywhere.
“The blood at the corner of Miss Shen’s mouth was yours?” Mu Suizhou asked Fu Jinglan in a low voice. “Where are you hurt?”
Where was he hurt…
“Secretary-General Mu—”
Fu Jinglan hesitated. His long legs stepped through the snow, and after a few seconds of silence, he spoke again:
“Mu Suizhou, you should get yourself a wife.”
Mu Suizhou refused at once.
“No. I don’t want to have ^^sex. I don’t have the desire or the time.”
At present, he was solely focused on helping Fu Jinglan conquer the world, busy to the point that his feet barely touched the ground. His mind was not on this at all.
He had even prepared himself to remain a virgin until death.
“Besides, what does my marrying a wife have to do with your being injured?”
Mu Suizhou thought about it again, then understood.
“Governor Fu wants me to marry a doctor?”
“…” Fu Jinglan said, “Suit yourself.”
Marry whoever you want.
As long as Mu Suizhou had the stamina, Fu Jinglan couldn’t stop him from marrying ten doctors.
At most, he would curse him a few times and have to take out nine more wedding gifts.
At that point, the sound of footsteps in the snow stopped.
Fu Jinglan and Mu Suizhou had already come to a halt in front of Shen Lingxi.
“Governor.”
Shen Lingxi looked pitiful. “It’s so cold. I want a hug.”
Fu Jinglan stood over her, looking down from above like a towering, unyielding snow-covered pine.
A faint, cool fragrance drifted from him.
No one had expected him to slowly lower himself, bend one knee, and squat down until he was almost eye to eye with Shen Lingxi.
“No hug.”
“First, tell me why you were kneeling.”