Blossom through the Cloud - Chapter 49

Chapter 49

The feeling was entirely surreal.

After returning home, Ruan Sixian stood leaning against her front door, lost in a daze for a long, long time.

She had actually kissed Fu Mingyu.

Even now, she felt as though her entire person was still enveloped in his scent, with the echoes of that encounter seemingly lingering right beside her ears.

Her brain felt completely uncontrollable, driven entirely by raw, primitive hormones.

When the elevator doors had opened, although Fu Mingyu had shielded her from view completely, she could still vividly imagine the classic, bewildered expression of the old woman outside as she stared at them like an internet meme come to life.

Recalling this, Ruan Sixian's legs turned to jelly, and she nearly collapsed right onto her own floor.

It was simply too lethal. What kind of spell had Fu Mingyu cast on her anyway? When it came to kissing, he had tricks up his sleeve that left her utterly defenseless. Had she not landed a kick on his shin at the very end, he probably never would have thought about stopping.

It must have been the alcohol talking.

She had no idea whether he was thoroughly drunk or completely sober tonight.

Walking sluggishly into the living room, she passed a mirrored cabinet and caught sight of her reflection: her lipstick was nearly all gone, the original vibrant red smeared into a faint, messy orange-red smudged around the edges of her lips.

It felt like a silent reminder of what she had just been doing with Fu Mingyu.

Ruan Sixian changed her clothes, climbed into the bathtub, and soaked for a long while. Her phone, however, kept buzzing incessantly, pinging away with maddening persistence.

She lazily reached out to grab it and took a quick glance—it was just Si Xiaozhen and Bian Xuan chatting idly in their group chat.

Si Xiaozhen had posted a few screenshots from a Korean drama.

[Si Xiaozhen]: Sob, sob, sob, this elevator kiss just completely stole my heart.

Ruan Sixian: "......"

She tossed the phone aside, stared at the ceiling for a while, and, feeling it continue to vibrate against the surface, picked it up once more.

Now that she looked closer, the pose in that screenshot really did bear a striking resemblance to what had happened today.

The male lead was also dressed in a suit, pinning the female lead into the corner and burying his head in a deep kiss.

Even their backs looked a bit like Fu Mingyu.

[Si Xiaozhen]: Sob, sob, sob, when will it ever be my turn for such a sweet, affectionate embrace? I've even got the pose all practiced.

Ruan Sixian: "......"

[Si Xiaozhen]: Sob, sob, sob, I want a man who will pin me against an elevator wall and give me a deep, breathless kiss.

Ruan Sixian: "......"

Ruan Sixian had been lurking silently in the chat the entire time without bubbling up. Lying in the bathtub, her heart rate still hadn't fully calmed down; with the steam curling around her, she felt utterly dizzy and lightheaded.

She felt as though she had been kissed completely out of her right mind by Fu Mingyu today.

The weather earlier that day had been gloomy, with layers of heavy storm clouds hanging low and threatening an unreleased downpour, but by nightfall, the moonlight sliced through the thick fog, revealing a crisp, hooked silver crescent.

Fu Mingyu walked down to the ground level, his thumb brushing lightly across the corner of his lips. Under the moonlight, a faint pearlescent sheen of leftover lipstick lingered on his fingertip.

His driver was still waiting by the roadside. Once inside the car, Fu Mingyu pulled out a tissue and carefully wiped the remaining traces of lipstick from his mouth.

The lingering pigment transferred onto the white tissue as a pale swath of red. The visual stimulus instantly triggered a flood of sensory memories, prompting Fu Mingyu to massage the back of his neck as he recalled the scene from moments ago.

Just as the elevator doors were about to close for the second time, Ruan Sixian had suddenly snapped out of her daze and instinctively bitten down on his lip. She hadn't held back either, leaving a dull ache at the corner of his mouth that lingered even now.

With both hands braced against his chest, panting heavily in a daze while her face burned a blazing red right down to her collarbone, she had blurted out: "Someone in your family is sick and you're not even rushing back, you still want to pull this kind of stunt—Fu Mingyu, are you even human?!"

Unsure whether to be furious or amused, Fu Mingyu crumpled the tissue in his hand, a soft, faint smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"Drive to Lake View Mansion."

Earlier that evening, Helan Xiang had suddenly called to announce that Doudou was sick—partially paralyzed and on the verge of death—and demanded he rush back immediately to check on his dog.

Her tone had been impatient, her sharp voice dripping with a caustic edge that made it sound less like she was talking about a pet and more like she was condemning Fu Mingyu for abandoning his own flesh and blood.

Knowing Helan Xiang as well as he did, Fu Mingyu could easily predict that tonight was going to be an uphill battle.

Half an hour later, the car pulled up smoothly in front of the villa's entrance.

The moment Fu Mingyu pushed open the front door on the ground floor, Doudou came bounding over full of life and vigor.

He bent down to pat Doudou on the head, then strolled leisurely into the living room, but Helan Xiang was nowhere in sight.

Aunt Luo hurried over to take his discarded coat, gesturing quietly toward the second floor.

Unbothered, Fu Mingyu first poured himself a glass of water, standing by the window to sip it slowly.

Before he had even finished half the glass, that familiar, piercing voice echoed down from the staircase.

"So you still remember how to come back? Do you still remember you even have a home?"

Fu Mingyu turned around and remarked, "That outfit looks nice on you."

Helan Xiang refused to be placated. Standing on the stairs with her arms crossed, the elevation gave her an immediate psychological advantage.

"I originally figured you were busy, so missing you day in and day out was one thing. But what on earth did you mean by having people haul all your aviation models away? Are you planning to move out permanently?"

Fu Mingyu lifted his gaze and offered no denial.

He did, in fact, seem to have that exact idea in mind.

Right at that moment, Aunt Luo happened to be walking upstairs carrying Fu Mingyu's coat to clean it in the studio. As she passed by Helan Xiang, a faint, distinctly feminine trace of perfume drifted subtly through the air.

Helan Xiang let out a cold laugh. "I knew it. Not showing your face for half a month straight can only mean one thing—you've got a girlfriend. If I hadn't called you today, you probably wouldn't even remember the way back home, would you?"

Recalling the unrejected kiss from earlier tonight, Fu Mingyu remained noncommittal about the label of "girlfriend."

Helan Xiang glided down the stairs, stopping about a meter away from him, her gaze sweeping over him slowly from head to toe.

"Well, normally that wouldn't be an issue, but not long ago, that fingerprint mark on your face..."

Fu Mingyu raised an eyebrow. "Boyang told you?"

"Do I need Boyang to tell me?" Helan Xiang's voice instantly spiked by two octaves. "You're my son, don't you think I know you? You really think wearing a face mask meant I wouldn't notice? Why don't you have the guts to wear it twenty-four hours a day, or keep it on while you eat?"

Fu Mingyu felt a dull weight pressing behind his temples and had zero desire to prolong the topic. He turned to head upstairs for a shower, but Helan Xiang grabbed his arm.

"Aren't you going to explain who hit you? It was a woman, right?" Figuring no man would ever resort to a direct open-handed slap, she pointed to her own cheek and pressed on, "And now you suddenly have a girlfriend... Don't tell me you're... messing around with multiple women?!"

Helan Xiang was thoroughly convinced her deduction was spot on.

Planning to move out, staying away from home all day long, smelling of perfume on top of sporting a slap mark—there was simply no other explanation outside of a chaotic personal life.

"Fu Mingyu, let me tell you right now, you cannot pull stunts like that. I, Helan Xiang, cannot afford to lose face over something so disgraceful."

Fu Mingyu pinched the bridge of his nose, utterly at a loss for how to communicate with a mother whose imagination occasionally detoured all the way to Siberia.

"It's just couple's playfulness. Drop it."

Helan Xiang froze, taking a solid few seconds to process what Fu Mingyu had actually meant.

"Ah."

Well, you young people certainly know how to keep things interesting.

The night was as cool as water, and the pristine autumn moon shone brightly through the curtains, casting a hazy, dappled interplay of light and shadow across the bedroom—quiet and soft.

Yet Fu Mingyu's dreams possessed none of the gentle tranquility of the night outside, reenacting the scenes from earlier in the evening once more.

He saw Ruan Sixian's eyes brimming with a misty, humid haze, even more dreamlike than the moonlight outside, vaguely reflecting his own silhouette.

With both arms wrapped securely around his neck, she rubbed her chin softly against his jawline, every motion slowed down to a lingering pace.

He lowered his gaze, tracing the shoulder epaulets and buttons on her uniform before his eyes drifted inch by inch down to her waist...

Waking up in the dead of night, Fu Mingyu stared out the window at the bright, clear moonlight, its curved crescent mimicking the smile at the corner of Ruan Sixian's mouth.

Letting out a long sigh, he got up to take the second shower of his evening.

At five in the morning, the alarm rang right on schedule.

Ruan Sixian fluttered her eyes open, stared blankly at the ceiling, and blinked a few times before slowly gathering her wits.

Her body still hummed with a residual heat. Pressing a hand against her chest, she immediately hopped out of bed to wash up.

Regardless of whether she had a scheduled flight that day, her morning run remained an unbreakable routine. Aside from keeping her physical stamina sharp, it served as an effective way to steady her mind.

An hour and a half later, Ruan Sixian arrived at the Air Everbright headquarters.

Every morning was inevitably the busiest stretch of the day. Flight crews hauling their gear streamed in from every direction, the rolling luggage wheels creating a chaotic, overlapping clatter. The dispatch department was knee-deep in paperwork, while the non-stop ringing of phones in the flight planning office never ceased.

Ruan Sixian crossed paths with her fellow flight crew members along the way and headed with them toward the conference room. Amidst the surrounding chorus of yawns, casual banter, and ambient noise, every single sound instantly evaporated into a vacuum the moment she caught sight of Fu Mingyu's figure.

Seemingly sensing her presence, Fu Mingyu was standing at the far end of the glass corridor, turning his head for a brief, calm glance before continuing toward the elevators.

A crowd of people trailed closely behind him, entirely unaware of his subtle gesture.

Yet Ruan Sixian knew—he was looking at her.

Perhaps because of what transpired last night, even exchanging a single distant glance across a crowded room now felt infinitely more complicated.

The temperature of her cheeks began its erratic climb once again.

What are you even doing?

Can you please keep your composure?

So what if you kissed?

So what if your tongues had a brief sparring match?

What is there to blush about?

He managed to keep a completely straight face and act like nothing happened, so why are you blushing?!

She gave a soft, feigned cough and strode forward toward the conference room.

The very next second, her phone buzzed.

As if fueled by some infallible sixth sense, she pulled out her phone, and sure enough, a message awaited her from Fu Mingyu.

[Fu Mingyu]: Send me a message once you land on your return flight.

Look at that—how effortlessly composed the man was.

The captain had arrived early, signed off on the flight manifest, and topped off the fuel in advance, allowing everyone to dive straight into business the moment they assembled.

With clear weather, a familiar route, and no VIP passengers to accommodate, the briefing was exceptionally brief. Once wrapped up, the team prepared to head out for boarding.

Since they still had plenty of time to spare, one of the flight attendants dragged Ruan Sixian along with her toward the terminal's concourse shops to grab some food.

Being the weekend, the terminal was packed to the brim. Zheng You'an and Dong Xian strolled gracefully toward the first-class lounge, their running commentary on last night's frustrations still going strong ten minutes in.

"My dislike for Fu Mingyu was only at a seven out of ten originally, but after drinking with her that night and hearing her tear him down with even more surgical precision than I could manage, my hatred skyrocketed straight to a ten. Yet she turns around and instantly hooks up with him—what kind of angle is that? Was she doing it on purpose? Am I just that unlettered in the ways of the world? You can actually use tactics like that to fend off romantic rivals?!"

Listening to Zheng You'an vent the entire way, Dong Xian had no idea who she was talking about, but figured it was just petty high-society drama and chose not to dwell on it.

"What's done is done. Why keep torturing yourself over it?"

"No, I just can't wrap my head around it. I feel like I got played for a fool."

Dong Xian slowed her pace, casting a lazy, sideways look at her. "Do you still have feelings for Fu Mingyu?"

"Are you kidding me?" Zheng You'an rolled her eyes. "Right now, I honestly think Brother Yan An is a better catch than him."

Dong Xian chuckled softly. "Aren't they cut from the exact same cloth? Has Yan An's list of scandals been any shorter? It's just that one got dragged out into the open while the other keeps his dirt hidden better. Neither of them is a good guy."

Hearing this, Zheng You'an snapped her mouth shut with a guilty conscience.

Back when Fu Mingyu had infuriated her, she had sworn eternal enmity against him. However, her father failed to view it as a catastrophe, genuinely believing Fu Mingyu's actions were entirely forgivable. Compared to the massive financial interests linking their two families, it was nothing more than a minor lovers' squabble, and he practically forced her to keep socializing with Fu Mingyu.

Zheng You'an felt that regardless of how charming older generations found Fu Mingyu, his sheer audacity in insulting her artistic endeavors was a fundamental breach of their core values. It was downright impossible for two people with such irreconcilable worldviews to ever end up together.

Yet her father kept nagging her in her ear to swallow her pride, insisting Fu Mingyu had virtually zero flaws and that letting him slip through her fingers meant losing out for good.

Driven to her wit's end, she had spun up a few... minor rumors to precisely assassinate Fu Mingyu's reputation in her father's eyes.

For instance, she claimed that during their trip to Spain, Fu Mingyu couldn't take his eyes off the Samba dancers, flirting openly with them before refusing to share a ride back in the same car—who knew what kind of shady business happened inside?

At the same time, she hinted that his relationships with female employees at his company were far from professional, claiming she had witnessed it firsthand when she went to Air Everbright for a shoot.

Spreading ambiguous, half-baked stories like that carried enough weight, and since Zheng You'an played the role of the obedient good girl, her father never doubted she was lying. Giving it some thought, he figured that for a man of Fu Mingyu's status and appearance, that sort of behavior was probably par for the course.

Affection could always be cultivated over time, but her father had zero faith in prodigal sons returning to the fold. No matter how massive the financial gains of a strategic marriage might be, he refused to let his daughter marry such a loose cannon, and the matchmaking pressure finally ceased.

Yet Zheng You'an's father was an airtight, discreet man who never gossiped about other families—at most mentioning things to Dong Xian. And since Dong Xian wasn't one to spread rumors either, this gossip was never meant to leave their inner circle, which was the only reason Zheng You'an had dared to pull such a stunt.

"Anyway, I just think it's too much," Zheng You'an steered the topic back. "I trusted her so much back then, opening my heart out to her when we'd barely met a few times, and look how she repaid me."

Arriving at the entrance of the first-class lounge, the receptionist greeted them warmly. Zheng You'an clamped her mouth shut, glanced around casually, and froze in her tracks the instant she spotted a familiar figure stationed near the beverage bar.

"Ah! Talk about the devil."

Dong Xian looked back. "What?"

"It's her. The person I was just talking about."

Because of Fu Mingyu's intervention, Ruan Sixian hadn't had to endure long wait times for air traffic flow control in a very long time; typically, passengers boarded and the aircraft pushed back almost immediately. True to form, the moment she stepped into the flight deck today, she powered down her phone.

By the time they landed on the return flight that afternoon, day had turned to night, and a fresh drizzle threatened to break out at any moment.

The instant she switched her phone back on, a flood of WeChat notifications poured in. After reviewing and replying to them one by one, she scrolled down to the bottom to find the message Fu Mingyu had sent her that morning.

After a moment of hesitation, Ruan Sixian replied with a simple "Beep."

Fu Mingyu instructed her to wait for him down in the underground parking garage for a few minutes, promising he'd be right over.

Glancing at the brewing weather, Ruan Sixian figured it was going to start pouring within the next twenty minutes.

Having grown accustomed to Fu Mingyu's chauffeuring over this past period, she turned on her heel and headed down to the garage.

Air Everbright's executive parking zone had a dedicated section carved out, keeping it quiet and relatively deserted most of the time.

After taking the elevator down to the basement, Ruan Sixian had no clue where Fu Mingyu's specific parking spot was located, so she simply stood near the elevator lobby scrolling through her phone.

While browsing Weibo, a text message popped up, displaying a direct preview of the text in the notification bar.

Dong Xian: Need to talk to you about something. Pick up your phone.

Normally, whether Ruan Sixian answered Dong Xian's calls depended entirely on her mood, but when it came to genuine matters, she wasn't deliberately stubborn. For instance, when her aunt fell ill last time, if she had ignored the call, she might still be in the dark today.

A few seconds later, Dong Xian's call came through just as predicted.

Ruan Sixian swiped to answer and asked directly, "I'm going to visit my aunt in a couple of days."

"That's not what I'm calling about." Dong Xian had just stepped off a plane and deliberately ducked into the restroom to make the call away from Zheng You'an.

"Then what is it?"

Dong Xian hesitated for a beat.

Maintaining even the most basic daily communication with Ruan Sixian was already an uphill battle for her; springing a topic like this out of nowhere left her momentarily unsure of how to break the ice.

However, after hearing Zheng You'an recount Ruan Sixian's relationship with Fu Mingyu earlier, she had spent a good portion of the flight pondering it and ultimately decided she needed to talk to Ruan Sixian about the situation.

"Are you and Fu Mingyu... together?"

Ruan Sixian froze at the question, her free hand tightening its grip on the handle of her flight case.

"Did Zheng You'an tell you that?"

"You know her?"

"If she's already talking to you about this, how could we not know each other?"

Dong Xian drew in a breath, her tone softening into a gentle concern. "Do you actually know Fu Mingyu? I mean, his background and conditions are naturally magnetic to women, but there are certain sides to him you might not fully grasp. He might not be the most suitable match for you—"

"Do you know me very well? How would you know we aren't a good match?" Ruan Sixian flared up instantly upon hearing those words, losing any remaining desire to entertain the conversation. "I'm in my twenties, I have my own judgment. You don't need to lecture me on this."

Dong Xian paused slightly. "Just listen to me for a second—"

"I don't need to hear anything. We are together, and I have zero interest in learning about my boyfriend from someone else's mouth. That's it."

Ruan Sixian hung up the phone straight away.

Yet the emotional turbulence stirred up by the phone call hadn't even begun to settle before a secondary wave crashed over her.

—Reflected across the polished marble wall directly in front of her, she caught the silhouette of someone standing right behind her.

She didn't even need to turn around to know who it was.

Recalling every single word she had just boldly declared into the phone, Ruan Sixian felt her brain let out a sharp, deafening buzz, accompanied by an overwhelming urge to spontaneously dissolve into dust right on the spot.

She stood frozen in place, utterly rigid, while the figure behind her remained equally still.

Her phone chimed with a fresh notification.

[Fu Mingyu]: I accidentally eavesdropped on a conversation down in the parking garage.

Ruan Sixian: "......"

[Fu Mingyu]: That person seemed to think I'm her boyfriend.

Ruan Sixian: "......"

[Fu Mingyu]: Judging by that silhouette, it appears to be you.

Ruan Sixian: "......"

Operating entirely on the absolute final shred of her remaining stubborn pride, Ruan Sixian stiffened her neck and typed out a single desperate sentence, pathetically hoping to salvage the mortifying deadlock.

[Ruan Sixian]: You could tell it was me just from a silhouette? Ah, paternal love runs truly deep.

The message sent, silence hung heavy on the other end. Instead of a text reply, she sensed him closing the distance behind her, leaning in close until his familiar, clean scent of cedarwood wrapped around her ears.

"Whether what you said was spoken in anger or not, I'm taking it as the absolute truth."

Ruan Sixian: "......"

She kept her back turned to Fu Mingyu, refusing to rotate her neck even an inch.

His breath brushed gently against her cheek.

Just like last night, it lingered close and soft, carrying his signature trace—slightly ticklish, yet laced with an undeniable, hypnotic pull.

After a long silence, Ruan Sixian finally whispered, "It wasn't... spoken in anger."