Blossom through the Cloud - Chapter 45

Chapter 45

Only you.

Ruan Sixian stared at those two words for a long time, feeling a scorching sense of expansion bloom within her chest, leaving her feeling tightly constricted inside.

When this man decides to be blunt, he really doesn't bat an eye.

Of course, Ruan Sixian had no way of knowing whether he had been completely devoid of emotional fluctuation while typing them out.

She stood in place for a while. The rest of the flight crew had already walked far away, leaving her all alone in the vast terminal hall.

Tapping her fingers lightly against the screen for a moment, Ruan Sixian typed out a few words.

[Ruan Sixian]: Have you eaten dinner yet?

The instant she hit send, Ruan Sixian felt a tiny ripple of nervous anticipation.

Over the past two days, she and Fu Mingyu hadn't seen each other or spoken a single word, leaving a subtle, lingering atmosphere akin to a "cold war" hanging between them.

Yet by doing this, she was basically taking the initiative to sue for peace, right?

Ruan Sixian waited for half a minute before sending another message over.

[Ruan Sixian]: President Fu?

Instead of waiting for a response from Fu Mingyu, she received a text message from Dong Xian: Ruan Ruan, answer your phone. It's an emergency.

Less than a minute after receiving the text, Dong Xian called.

Seeing that the caller ID wasn't Fu Mingyu, a fleeting wave of disappointment washed over her. When she finally slid to answer, her tone carried a heavy trace of resignation.

"What's wrong?"

Dong Xian replied, "Your aunt is sick and just got out of surgery. Can you come take a look?"

Ruan Sixian raised her hand to check the time. "Where are you?"

"Third Municipal Hospital."

Ruan Sixian's aunt was Dong Xian's biological elder sister, named Dong Jing.

She used to serve as the head of admissions for an elementary school. Later, after Dong Xian remarried, Dong Jing also resigned from her position at the school to head the marketing department at the Zheng family's hotel conglomerate.

Dong Jing had always been slick and capable back in her school admissions days, but the institution was simply too small. It wasn't until she stepped onto a much grander platform that her true abilities finally shone, allowing her career to take off in a massive way.

By the time Ruan Sixian arrived at the Third Municipal Hospital, it was already seven o'clock in the evening. Autumn nights descended early, making the bustling noise of the hospital feel utterly out of place against the quiet backdrop of the night.

Guided by the directional signs, she reached the cardiothoracic surgery inpatient ward, where Dong Xian was waiting for her outside the ward doors.

Come to think of it, the two of them hadn't seen each other in years. The moment Dong Xian saw Ruan Sixian walking toward her in her uniform, a sudden sting of emotion smarted in her eyes.

As she moved to greet her, her footsteps felt somewhat light and unsteady.

"Ruan Ruan..."

She wanted to say more, but Ruan Sixian cut straight to the chase.

"How is my aunt?"

The words Dong Xian had prepared caught in her throat for a second before she gestured toward the room.

"She hasn't woken up yet."

"Mm."

Ruan Sixian bypassed her and walked into the hospital room, finding Dong Jing lying quietly on the bed with an IV drip taped to the back of her hand, while a hired caregiver bustled about tending to various chores.

Whether it was some sort of telepathic connection or mere coincidence, the moment Ruan Sixian walked up to the bedside, Dong Jing opened her eyes.

Blinking sleepily, she looked somewhat dazed the instant she recognized Ruan Sixian.

"Aunty," Ruan Sixian leaned in close, "do you feel better?"

Dong Jing had been rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night due to cardiac tamponade and was immediately prepped for surgery. Having already woken up once that morning, she had recovered a fraction of her energy by now.

"Is Ruan Ruan here?"

She smiled faintly, taking in Ruan Sixian's uniform with a look of admiration. "I heard from your mother that you're a pilot now. And you really are."

During her childhood, Ruan Sixian had spent plenty of time playing at Dong Jing's home. Back then, Dong Jing wasn't married yet and had no children of her own, treating Ruan Sixian practically like her own flesh and blood.

Later, after Dong Xian divorced, Ruan Sixian chose to live exclusively with her father, and her contact with Dong Jing naturally began to fade.

After all, since Ruan Sixian was reluctant to visit, Dong Jing couldn't constantly force her way over to their house either.

By the time Dong Jing joined the Zheng Corporation's marketing division and began spending year-round stints stationed overseas, the two of them essentially stopped seeing each other altogether.

"How on earth did you end up in the hospital?" Ruan Sixian asked.

"What do you mean, how?" Dong Jing waved a hand dismissively, motioning for Ruan Sixian to lean in closer. "Running business accounts day and night for all these years has wrecked my body long ago. And you—you never even thought to find some time to visit your aunt."

While Ruan Sixian chatted with Dong Jing, Dong Xian stood quietly right behind them, keeping silent and watching the pair with quiet eyes.

After ten minutes or so, sensing that Dong Jing was growing breathless from talking, Ruan Sixian prepared to leave.

Sensing her intention, Dong Jing hurriedly grabbed her hand. "Ruan Ruan, let Aunty say a few more things to you."

"Hm?"

Dong Jing glanced back at her sister, letting out a heavy sigh. "Look, back when your mother and father divorced, you refused to go with your mother. Later, after your father passed away, your mother asked you to come live with her, and you still refused. Aunty understands that a parental divorce leaves psychological scars on a child, but so many years have passed now. You're all grown up; you should be able to understand your mother's choices back then. Sometimes marriage is simply out of our control—when love is gone, it's gone, and dragging it out only results in mutual torture. But parents always love their children. Stop holding onto this stubborn grudge. You only have one mother—where on earth are you going to find another?"

Hearing those words, Ruan Sixian glanced back at Dong Xian. Dong Xian's brows were tightly knitted and her eyes were rimmed with red. The moment their gazes locked, Ruan Sixian felt a sharp sting in her own nose, and her eyes welled up instantly.

Ruan Sixian turned her gaze back to resume listening to Dong Jing.

The old woman was essentially trying to persuade her to stop fighting with Dong Xian. Even if she wanted to hold a grudge, all these years should have been more than enough. With so many broken families nowadays, she had never seen anyone like Ruan Sixian who chose absolute estrangement from her own mother.

Ruan Sixian nodded along to every sentence, agreeing with everything her aunt said regardless of what it was.

It wasn't until Dong Jing grew exhausted again, her eyelids fluttering shut, that Ruan Sixian finally made a move to leave.

"Aunty, get some rest. I'll come visit you another day."

Dong Jing was already fast asleep and offered no reply. Ruan Sixian gathered her things and stepped out of the room, with Dong Xian trailing right behind her.

"Ruan Ruan," Dong Xian called out to her right outside the doorway, "I'll drive you home."

"No need, I'll hail a cab." Ruan Sixian turned to face her. "And by the way, don't ever come wait outside my apartment building again. It's really annoying."

Hearing that particular word—"annoying"—Dong Xian finally realized that all those agreeable nods inside just now had simply been an act to humor her dying sister.

The fragile, softening expression on her face shattered piece by piece.

Ruan Sixian pulled a bank card out of her bag and shoved it straight into Dong Xian's hand.

"This is all the money you transferred to me over the years. I haven't touched a single cent. Keep it for yourself."

Dong Xian refused to take it, letting the card slip from her fingers to clatter against the floor. Neither of them bothered to pick it up.

Staring fixedly at the weathered old card lying on the ground, more than a decade of pent-up incomprehension and helplessness erupted all at once.

Back when the divorce happened, it wasn't as though she hadn't considered the toll it would take on the child, but a marriage reaching its bitter end wasn't entirely her fault. Ruan Sixian had been young and ignorant back then, so she could tolerate the backlash. But now that Ruan Sixian was in her twenties and still acting like this, she simply couldn't comprehend it.

"Ruan Ruan, why can't you just accept the fact that your father and I got divorced? I admit, back then to protect your feelings, your father and I never once fought or raised our voices in front of you. You might have found it impossible to accept the suddenness of it all, but surely you couldn't have been completely blind to the changes happening between us during that time?"

The tip of Ruan Sixian's tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek as she remained silent.

Of course she didn't believe that divorce was inherently wrong, but how could Dong Xian speak with such righteous confidence, assuming Ruan Sixian had been completely oblivious to everything?

They had divorced when Ruan Sixian was fourteen, right during her third year of junior high.

Third-year students had one extra class compared to first and second years, releasing them at six o'clock every evening. The walk from school to home took twenty minutes, though there was a shortcut that cut the commute down to ten minutes, provided one was willing to scale a low brick wall.

Ruan Sixian had been quite mischievous back then. The other girl she usually walked home with refused to climb the wall, so she took the shortcut alone every single day.

Her home was located inside an old alleyway, flanked by the main road to the north and a small, secluded pathway to the south. That southern path rarely saw any foot traffic; once you climbed over the low wall and crossed an abandoned construction site, you'd hit that very path.

She couldn't remember the exact date, but one afternoon Ruan Sixian hopped down the low wall with her school bag slung over her shoulder, and no sooner had she crossed the construction site than she spotted her mother stepping out of a Mercedes-Benz.

She ducked behind an abandoned worksite shack, watching from afar until Dong Xian turned into the pathway before finally stepping out.

For a long stretch of time afterward, Ruan Sixian caught glimpses of that exact same Mercedes-Benz on multiple occasions.

Sometimes they would park there for ages, the two of them sitting inside the car discussing God knows what.

Sometimes the man would get out, pop open the trunk, and hand various items over to Dong Xian.

Ruan Sixian had never managed to catch a clear look at the man's face, only ever perceiving him as a somewhat chubby, slightly aged individual.

On another occasion, she saw the man hand Dong Xian a small box. Dong Xian accepted it, slipped it into her bag, and walked home.

Ruan Sixian arrived home shortly after and took advantage of the moment Dong Xian was busy cooking to rifle through her bag, discovering a jewelry box containing a necklace.

Their family was poor; Ruan Sixian had never laid eyes on genuine jewelry before, but by her own estimation, that item must have been worth a small fortune.

So Dong Xian didn't realize it—the divorce itself wasn't the core knot in Ruan Sixian's heart. This was.

Barely a few months later, Dong Xian brought up the subject of divorce to Ruan Sixian's father.

The bitter custody tug-of-war dragged on for months, during which Dong Xian moved out. Ruan Sixian had no idea where she was staying—perhaps at that man's house.

Eventually, Ruan Sixian's father finally relented to the divorce and asked Ruan Sixian who she wanted to live with.

Without a moment's hesitation, Ruan Sixian declared she wanted to stay with her dad.

The two adults sat across from each other in silence for a long time.

Finally, Dong Xian stood up and said, "Fine."

Ruan Sixian couldn't pin down what she had felt inside at that moment. She had half-expected Dong Xian to argue with her, to try and persuade her to come along, but instead she had simply agreed with a single word.

Several days later, after every last trace of Dong Xian's belongings had vanished from the house, the realization finally dawned on Ruan Sixian in delayed shock.

Ah, I really was abandoned after all.

Ruan Sixian remained lost in a deep, prolonged trance until Dong Xian's voice abruptly yanked her back to reality.

"Ruan Ruan, my divorce from your father wasn't my fault alone. It's unfair of you to treat me like this."

"My dad was poor and lacked ambition, but at least my dad was completely devoted to you."

Dropping those words behind her, Ruan Sixian turned on her heel and walked away.

Dong Xian stood frozen, unable to process what Ruan Sixian meant by that remark. How did devotion even factor into this?

By the time she snapped out of it, Ruan Sixian's figure had already vanished inside the elevator.

Stepping out of the inpatient building, the night had grown pitch black.

Ruan Sixian stood by the curb waiting for a cab, staring blankly into the streaming flow of traffic without noticing a sleek black sedan pulling up quietly right in front of her.

Zheng You'an rolled down the passenger window, adjusted her dark sunglasses, and after confirming it was indeed Ruan Sixian, asked, "What are you doing here?"

Ruan Sixian snapped back to her senses, glanced at her briefly, and Zheng You'an asked again, "Are you sick?"

"No," Ruan Sixian answered. "I'm just visiting a relative."

"Oh, me too." Zheng You'an asked, "How are things on your end? Everything okay?"

Ruan Sixian looked at Zheng You'an, completely unsure of what to say.

She figured that if she hadn't seen that car back then, or if Dong Xian had put up a bit more of a fight, she might have ended up following Dong Xian, and by now she and Zheng You'an might actually be close girlfriends.

"I'm fine, you should head on inside," Ruan Sixian said. "There's a car coming up behind us."

After Zheng You'an left, Ruan Sixian flagged down a taxi. When the driver asked for her destination, she paused before giving the address of Bian Xuan's bar.

Upon arriving, she found out it was the weekend; the place was packed to the gills with patrons, and Bian Xuan was working himself to the bone.

After sitting inside for a short while, Ruan Sixian headed back home.

Her phone had been buzzing constantly along the way. Annoyed, she switched it to silent, vaguely wondering when she should just swap out her SIM card entirely.

It was still shy of ten o'clock when she reached Mingchen Residence. Walking at a sluggish pace, she crossed paths with an elderly woman walking a dog along the path.

The Chihuahua was fiercely aggressive, barking wildly at Ruan Sixian and startling her into taking several rapid steps backward.

Noticing that Ruan Sixian's eyes were actually red, the old lady immediately scooped up the dog and offered an apology: "Oh, young lady, I'm so sorry. My dog just has a temper, it doesn't bite, please don't be scared."

Ruan Sixian didn't say a word, breaking into a light jog toward the elevator.

During the ten-odd seconds it took the elevator to rise, Ruan Sixian failed to wipe away the emotional wreckage lingering across her face before the doors chimed open.

Dragging her flight case, she walked toward her front door while frantically rubbing at her eyes.

The voice-activated lights snapped on in response. Looking up, she found Fu Mingyu standing right outside her doorway.

"Where did you go?"

"Why are you here?"

They spoke in simultaneous unison. The moment Fu Mingyu finished his question, he noticed that Ruan Sixian's expression looked completely off.

He slowly stepped forward, leaned in close to Ruan Sixian's face, and gave a light sniff. "Have you been drinking again?"

This time Ruan Sixian didn't deny it, offering a low murmur of assent before brushing past Fu Mingyu to unlock her door.

She stepped into the living room and dropped her flight case. Fu Mingyu followed right behind her, stopping near the television set.

"I saw your messages after I finished up, but when I called you back, nobody answered."

"Oh, I wasn't looking at my phone. Sorry."

Ruan Sixian turned around to face Fu Mingyu, feeling a sudden, strange itch in her throat.

Earlier, she had only casually flipped on the entryway light, whose dim, ambient glow cast shadows over Fu Mingyu, making him look almost surreal, as if he weren't entirely real.

Yet despite that, the simple presence of him standing right there stirred a sudden, potent urge within Ruan Sixian to throw her arms around him.

Ruan Sixian reached down to press a hand against her lower abdomen.

Perhaps she was in her ovulation window right now, causing her oxytocin levels to spike and triggering this kind of craving.

Drinking a bunch of water to speed up her metabolism should fix it.

She looked up at Fu Mingyu and spoke up, "President Fu, I want some water."

Fu Mingyu met her eyes, trying to read something beneath her gaze.

A few seconds later, he gave up, turned around, and headed into the kitchen to pour a glass of warm water.

When he came back out, Ruan Sixian had already kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa with her knees pulled tightly to her chest.

Fu Mingyu handed her the cup.

Ruan Sixian took it, chugged the entire glass in one go, and promptly choked on the last sip.

Fu Mingyu sat down beside her to pat her back, the space between them closing to less than a single fist's width.

When he reached out to pat Ruan Sixian's back, his arm formed a protective circle around her frame.

As his palm rested gently against her, it felt almost as though he were embracing her.

Yet the very next second he lifted his hand away, the encircling sensation vanishing instantly, leaving behind a sudden hollow emptiness in her chest.

Every single second, Ruan Sixian found herself wishing she could hold onto that fleeting embrace, silently pleading for him not to lift his hand, just leaving it resting there against her back.

"What's wrong?"

Receiving no answer, Fu Mingyu lowered his head to peer at her. Instead of replying, she buried her face entirely against her knees, curling up tightly like a fetus inside the womb. "Do you want a hug?"

Ruan Sixian: "..."

Before she could figure out how to respond, Fu Mingyu suddenly reached out, pulled her into his arms, and pressed her head firmly against his chest.

"Since you're not saying anything, I'll take that as a yes."

Ruan Sixian naturally had nothing more to say.

Right now, she lacked any sense of security, desperately craving a warm embrace to surrender and lean upon.

And his embrace was at the exact right temperature, carrying a crisp, clean, comforting scent.

Ruan Sixian breathed it in greedily a couple of times, pressing her face tightly against his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall brush against her skin with a pleasant tickle.

The apartment remained dead silent. Outside the window, a gentle drizzle began to fall once more.

Autumn rain is always more lingering and sentimental than spring showers, pattering softly against the leaves outside to weave a delicate, intimate soundscape that intertwined seamlessly with Fu Mingyu's breathing, making the two indistinguishable.

Who knows how much time passed before the rain tapered off and the distant lights of the city gradually winked out one by one.

Ruan Sixian felt a few stray strands of hair brushed gently against her cheek by Fu Mingyu's breath, tickling her skin, so she shifted her position slightly.

A voice suddenly rumbled directly above her head.

"Stop rubbing against me, or I'll start collecting interest."

?

Ruan Sixian snapped her head up in an instant. "What interest?"

As she straightened her posture to look at him, his hand naturally slid down to rest upon her waist.

Fu Mingyu tilted his head slightly, looking down at her from above. "For instance... a kiss?"