"Hmm?" Fu Zhen squinted her eyes. "Cousin, why aren't you saying anything?"
Chen Tingfeng lowered his eyes to look at her. The hand across her waist moved slightly, as if he felt a bit guilty. "If I tell you, cousin, please don't get angry."
Fu Zhen gave him a half - smiling look. "Okay, I won't get angry."
Chen Tingfeng coughed softly. Seeing her like this, he already guessed his miserable fate after he said it. To prevent Fu Zhen from pushing him away, he hugged her tighter and murmured, "Do you still remember that hunter who helped you in the countryside?"
Fu Zhen frowned and thought for a moment before she remembered. "Ah... I remember. What about him?"
Chen Tingfeng tightened his hold on her again. "I thought... you were leading him on like you were fishing, and that's why you managed to live well in the countryside."
He put it rather euphemistically. Back then, he clearly thought that Fu Zhen was very calculating. Since she was all alone, she had seduced the hunter and had a close relationship with him, so she could get a lot of help from him. But when the people from the Marquis Mansion went to find her, she had resolutely left the hunter who had feelings for her and come to the capital. She was simply ungrateful, heartless, and vain.
Fu Zhen was stunned for a moment and then flew into a rage. "You thought I had an improper relationship with him!"
Chen Tingfeng quickly pressed her into his arms. There was a hint of panic on his face. "Zhenzhen, please listen to my explanation. I admit that I was biased back then. I was overly suspicious and sensitive, which made you suffer a lot. But please believe me. After I learned the truth, I never doubted you again!"
Fu Zhen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried hard to hold back her anger, but still felt like her heart was on fire. She angrily pinched Chen Tingfeng's waist and twisted it hard. "You really judge a gentleman's heart with a petty man's mind! You're so可恶 (detestable)!"
Chen Tingfeng couldn't defend himself. He secretly hated himself for being so stupid back then. A girl who had lost her mother and wasn't loved by her father managed to survive on her own. Even if she had a relationship with the hunter, so what? Didn't that just prove that she was smart! As for her leaving them and returning to the capital... She was originally a noble young lady. How could she be delayed by a commoner and spend her whole life in vain!
As he thought about how to say this, his affection for Fu Zhen deepened. He didn't even remember how much he had disliked such behavior back then.
Fu Zhen pinched him for a long time but didn't see any reaction from him. She couldn't help but curse in her heart that a brute was really thick - skinned.
"I had nothing to do with him at all. He had someone he liked!" Fu Zhen emphasized. "He just regarded me as an unimportant younger sister because of his mother, so he took a bit more care of me. But the kindness he showed me was not even as much as his mother's. At least his mother treated me sincerely and taught me embroidery skills. That's how I could earn some money to survive and not freeze to death quietly in the winter wind."
As she spoke, she couldn't help but feel a bit melancholy. "You don't know how hard it is for poor people in winter."
Without money, they couldn't buy food for the winter. Fu Mingde had a dry field and a paddy field. He had already sold the paddy field to buy drinks and have fun with women. The dry field was in a remote place and no one wanted it. She was too weak to farm the land, so she had to ask the hunter's family to take care of it in their spare time so that she could exchange for some grains like beans and sorghum to survive.
In winter, the house always leaked water and wind. The temperature inside was the same as outside. She had no choice but to burn some firewood to warm the house a bit. But in this way, the firewood was used up very quickly. She could only go into the mountains to pick up some dead branches when the weather was good. Her hands were full of wounds from the sharp thorns.
Not to mention that in order to save firewood, she washed clothes in cold water in winter. After a winter, her hands were full of chilblains, and her fingers were swollen like radishes, looking extremely ugly.
She had lived such a life for more than ten years. If she hadn't pretended to be pitiful and clung to that widow and learned embroidery skills, she might not even know where she was buried now.
The more Chen Tingfeng listened, the more his heart ached.
"... I'm sorry." This apology was what he should have said to her for his prejudice and coldness back then.
He lowered his head and gently kissed the top of her head, with indescribable guilt and affection. "If you had grown up in the mansion since childhood..."
If Fu Zhen had really grown up as the young cousin in the Marquis Mansion, he would have cherished and loved her since childhood and would never have let her suffer a single bit.
No one could not like her.
Fu Zhen felt his surging love, and the anger and melancholy in her heart gradually disappeared.
After a while, she let out a soft laugh. "If I had grown up in the mansion, maybe we wouldn't be hugging each other like this now."
"No," Chen Tingfeng said firmly. "We have come from disliking each other to where we are now. If we had known each other since childhood, we might have been together even earlier."
What he didn't say was that on the first day she came to the Marquis Mansion, she was sitting beside his mother, and he walked in from outside. As soon as he looked up, he saw her timid figure.
Maybe she had just cried. Her eyes were still red. He saw her secretly looking up at him. Although he followed the etiquette of keeping a proper distance between men and women and greeted his mother without looking at her directly, out of the corner of his eye, he could only see her.
At that time, he thought, how could someone be as cute as a rabbit, and even have a similar personality.
Later, he found out that she also had claws. The timid rabbit was actually a well - hidden fox.
She suited his taste even more.
"As long as you are you, I will always fall in love with you," Chen Tingfeng whispered. "If you think it won't be like this, it must be because I love you without realizing it."
Fu Zhen was suddenly stunned. She suddenly remembered the rainy night when she died in the previous life and the look Chen Tingfeng gave her from afar.
Could it be...
Chen Tingfeng lowered his eyes to look at her. "At this moment, shouldn't you also say that you like me?"
Fu Zhen came back to her senses. Hearing his words, she was both amused and annoyed. Seeing him looking at her with a pensive look, she couldn't help but laugh in his arms. "Do you have to be so picky about such a small thing? My lord is really stingy."
Chen Tingfeng snorted and reached out to pinch her small nose. He squinted his eyes and threatened, "Say it or not?"
Maybe because they had cleared up the old grudges and their hearts were in harmony, Fu Zhen was more tolerant of him. She seemed helpless. She looked up and kissed him. "Okay, okay, I like you, I like you. Are you satisfied now?"
Only then did Chen Tingfeng let go, looking extremely happy. "You have to say it like this in the future."
Fu Zhen was too lazy to pay attention to him.
After they hugged for a while, Fu Zhen suddenly remembered. "Why did you mention Fu Mingde just now?"
Just now, he had distracted her, and the topic had completely gone off track.
Chen Tingfeng suddenly realized. He couldn't help but touch his nose. He was always a very efficient person. It was the first time he had chatted so casually and gone so far off - topic.
He pursed his lips. "Was Fu Mingde like this when you were a child?"
Fu Zhen frowned. "Of course. Since I can remember, he has been a good - for - nothing who never stayed at home. The money in the family came from my mother pawning her jewelry."
Chen Tingfeng suddenly had a feeling that everything had finally fallen into place. He took a deep breath and said his speculation. "Maybe... your father is someone else."
Fu Zhen suddenly looked up.