After Su Xianyu teased him, she burst out laughing first.
"Seems like not only you, but I'm starting to get disoriented too."
Feng Lin took her hand, and the warmth of her fingertips spread through his.
"Actually, the wet market is quite nice. I heard the vegetables there are really fresh. We can buy the vegetables first and then go for the flowers."
"Sure. Then we..."
The next day when they went to the flower market, Feng Lin pushed the shopping cart while Su Xianyu picked out flowers in front.
She picked up a bunch of daisies and asked, "Ugly, right?"
Feng Lin smiled and put the flowers into the cart. "Ugly, but I like them."
He deliberately said the opposite at first, and the second half of the sentence indeed revealed his true feelings.
When they got to the sunflowers, Su Xianyu suddenly asked, "What you said yesterday, 'I don't love you', you actually meant 'I love you so much that I don't know how to say it', right?"
The tips of Feng Lin's ears turned a bit red. Just as he was about to admit it, he heard himself say "No".
But his hand stuffed the sunflower into her arms. The flower head just touched her cheek, like an awkward kiss.
The vendor beside them couldn't help laughing. "You two young lovebirds are really interesting. One says the opposite, and the other catches it right. It's sweeter than sweet talk."
Su Xianyu's cheeks flushed, but she hugged the sunflower even tighter.
In front of two people who truly love each other, those little barriers of saying the opposite of what they mean don't seem that significant.
Next to the sign of Su Xianyu's flower shop, a small line of words appeared.
[Some words may go astray, but true feelings never will.]
Regular customers could always see the man who said "the flowers are ugly" helping the boss carry the flower buckets after the shop closed.
The carefulness in his actions was more touching than any sweet talk.
---
When Feng Lin put the sunflower into the vase in his office, his hand suddenly moved uncontrollably and twisted the flower stem half a turn to the left.
He clearly wanted the flower head to face him, but his fingertips seemed to be attracted by a magnet and veered towards the filing cabinet.
This was already the third time today that his limbs had slightly malfunctioned.
"Mr. Feng, these are the newly organized contracts."
Assistant Zhang put the folder on the corner of the desk. His eyes lingered on the crooked sunflower for a moment.
"Madam's flower shop seems to have newly arrived tulips. I passed by yesterday and saw they were beautifully arranged in the window."
Feng Lin wanted to say "She mentioned it this morning", but his tongue seemed glued. It took him a while to squeeze out "I haven't heard about it."
What was going on? Had the two of them had a fight?
Normally, as long as Madam was mentioned, the passing rate of his proposals would greatly increase!
Seeing his attempt at flattery go wrong, the assistant gave an awkward smile. "I must have been mistaken."
"Maybe." Feng Lin pressed his still slightly twitching right hand, his knuckles turning white.
The joy he felt when he confirmed the rule of saying the opposite before was now replaced by an equally intense panic.
If even his hands and feet started to betray his will, how could he make Xiaoyu believe his unspoken true feelings?
During lunch break, his phone vibrated. It was a photo sent by Su Xianyu.
On the chopping board were slices of lemon duck, and beside it was a bag of sour plums.
The caption read "The sour plums are sour enough to whet your appetite for sure."
Feng Lin was about to reply "Wait for me to get home", but his left hand suddenly snatched the phone. His fingertips tapped on the screen quickly, and he pressed the send button hard.
By the time he regained control, there was a message in the chat box that said "I have a business dinner tonight."
He almost immediately dialed her number. The sound of chopping meat came from the receiver. "A business dinner? But the lemon duck has already been marinated..."
"No, I meant to say..." Feng Lin was eager to explain, but his throat felt constricted.
"...I really can't cancel it." Before he finished speaking, his right foot suddenly took a half - step forward, and his knee hit the table leg hard.
He gasped in pain and heard Su Xianyu give a soft "oh" on the other end. The sound of chopping meat slowed down for a moment.
"Then should I put the duck pieces in the fridge?"
Her voice showed no sign of emotion, but Feng Lin was too familiar with Xiaoyu's deliberately calm tone.
Once before, when he had done a night - long surgery on a patient, Xiaoyu had responded like this too, but still waited up for him to have dinner in the early morning.
"No, you eat it by yourself." Feng Lin gritted his teeth and said. Suddenly, he realized he was nodding into the phone and then forcibly hung up.
He stared at the message "I have a business dinner tonight" on the phone screen for a long time. Then he suddenly grabbed his coat and walked out.
The assistant bumped into him in the corridor and was a bit surprised. "Mr. Feng, you're supposed to inspect the branch company at 2 p.m..."
"Postpone it."
As soon as the car turned into the alley where the flower shop was located, he saw Su Xianyu standing at the door carrying a flower bucket.
Recently, all the shop assistants had family matters, and she hadn't had time to hire new ones yet, so she had to do a lot of the work herself.
She wanted to move the pink peonies under the eaves to avoid the sun, but because they were too heavy, her foot took a half - step back, and the bottom of the bucket made a dull thud on the steps.
Feng Lin suddenly opened the car door and got out. He ran over and was about to help, but his hand moved in the opposite direction, and the flowers almost fell over.
"Why are you here?" Su Xianyu steadied the flower bucket with all her might. "Aren't you supposed to have a business dinner?"
Feng Lin grabbed her wrist. "I meant to say, I don't have a business dinner at all."
This sentence came out unusually smoothly. He could even feel the familiar blockage on his tongue suddenly disappear.
But when he tried to tell her about his new strange condition, he still couldn't succeed.
Su Xianyu's eyes lit up, and she reached out to brush the dust off his shoulder.
"Did the meeting get canceled? Great. I bought some fresh perilla leaves. They'll be really fragrant when added to the lemon duck."
She was completely unaware of Feng Lin's strange behavior just now. She even hummed a song as she turned around and walked into the shop, her steps light.
Feng Lin's actions were being tampered with, but Su Xianyu clearly didn't notice at all.
Even with her knowledge of the barrage, she still thought that the protagonist's physical actions couldn't be directly controlled.
She didn't expect that in the assessment of other protagonists' upgrades, this permission would be temporarily opened. As long as it didn't involve direct harm, slight changes could be made.
Feng Lin looked at Xiaoyu's back, cold sweat breaking out on his palms.
Xiaoyu didn't notice the struggle in his actions!
The panic of having his limbs controlled made him feel suffocated.
He was afraid that he would say something that would hurt Xiaoyu because he couldn't speak his mind.
Now he was even more afraid that one day he would do something to hurt Xiaoyu with his own hands, and she would still smile and say "It's okay".
What on earth could he do to make Xiaoyu realize that the scope of tampering had expanded...
Feng Lin's eyes fell on the bunch of freshly - arrived lisianthus on the counter. The blue - purple petals were still covered in dew, Xiaoyu's favorite color.
He took a deep breath, first firmly pinched one with his right hand.
"Xiaoyu, look at this flower."
Feng Lin's voice was slightly hoarse as he held out the lisianthus in his right hand in front of Su Xianyu. The petals gently brushed against the tip of her nose.
She was about to take it with a smile when she saw Feng Lin suddenly withdraw his hand and use his left hand to reach for another one.
Just as Su Xianyu's fingertips were about to touch the petals, his wrist suddenly flipped outward.
The lisianthus "slapped" to the ground, and the flower stem broke into two on the tile.
"What's going on?" Su Xianyu bent down to pick it up, but was suddenly grabbed by the wrist.
He didn't say a word, just repeated the action just now.
The whole bunch of lisianthus was ruined and scattered all over the floor. The smile on Su Xianyu's face completely froze.
"A Lin..."