Chapter 90

Since Fei Du had started to be able to eat some ordinary food, his troublesome nature had immediately been revealed beyond doubt. He'd turned up his nose at the hospital's tasteless, watery fare. In fact, President Fei's original idea had been to move to a private hospital with fine scenery and hire a cook, bringing his crowd of beautiful assistants over to chat and making them run any necessary errands as he recovered. At any rate, it didn't matter to him whether he would be reimbursed for medical expenses.

Unfortunately, Fei Du's energy reserves had been void at the time, and it had been hard to speak. Before he'd finished stating this perfect plan, Luo Wenzhou had already decided on an idea for him.

Luo Wenzhou said, "You don't like eating this? All right, I'll cook for you and bring it over.—So many problems. How come you're so hard to support?"

Fei Du could only tactfully express that shixiong was wounded himself; he didn't want to trouble an injured person.

Having heard this, Luo Wenzhou nodded, then rejected his objection, having the final word: "No need for you to worry. It's settled."

While Luo Wenzhou's handiwork was admittedly pretty good, it certainly didn't rise to the level of being able to go on the "Celebrity Cook-off" program. He could only make plain home cooking. But somehow, for the sake of these plain home-cooked meals, Fei Du obediently held his nose and stayed at the public hospital; when he thought of it afterwards, he couldn't understand it himself.

He could only ascribe it to the fact that he'd never eaten a "free lunch" in his life.

For the Criminal Investigation Team, the Zhou Clan case had temporarily come to a close, but the economic investigation was far from reaching a conclusion, and the follow-up work was very complicated. Luo Wenzhou had been very busy ever since returning to the City Bureau, and today he had one meeting after another and really couldn't get away. He could only delegate Madam Mu Xiaoqing to go to his house to watch the stewpot and Luo Yiguo, and trouble her to go to the hospital.

Before leaving, Luo Wenzhou had directed Tao Ran to tell Fei Du about it.

He hadn't expected that as soon as Tao Ran called, Fei Du would greet him with the sentence, "Ge, you're on speaker, President Zhou is here, and he wants to hear something of what's going on from you."

Tao Ran, with his compass needle-like attention, had heard this and immediately changed direction, entering work mode and casting all matters about moms and delivering food far, far away. When he'd hung up the phone, there had been some doubt in Tao Ran's mind; he'd thought he'd forgotten something. He'd turned it over in his mind, determined that he'd said everything he ought to have said, hadn't said anything he oughtn't to have said, and thereupon had relaxed and concentrated his attention on writing a report.

This had produced the current calamity—

Looking at the living Fei Du in front of her, there were a few seconds where Mu Xiaoqing really did think she'd gone to the wrong room.

The last time she'd seen Fei Du, he'd just been brought out of the ICU. He'd been unconscious at the time, his face entirely bloodless, his IV-bearing arm so thin you could see the bones; there'd been hardly any skin showing not covered in bandages. He'd looked like a piece of porcelain that would shatter at a touch. Despite being out cold, his brow had been furrowed, as if he'd been enduring some agony that couldn't be covered up even by deep sleep. He'd looked as pitiful as could be.

Mu Xiaoqing had later heard that he could have ducked behind his car and made it out with a scratch at most and had only been injured like this for the sake of protecting her unfortunate son, and had thereupon, in connection with Fei Du's delicate-featured face, imagined a story of an infatuated youth being carried off by a rotten scoundrel; every time she'd come by his hospital room, her maternal love had nearly overflown.

So afterwards, when Fei Du had woken up and Luo Wenzhou had kept his parents from coming to visit with lies like, "I still haven't talked to him about going public, and we haven't gotten to the point of meeting the parents, so if you guys go over in too much ceremony I'm worried he'll be stressed," Mu Xiaoqing had actually believed it!

Seeing him in the flesh now, she finally realized that her imagination had run too far off course.

Being half-incapacitated didn't hold up Fei Du's ability to flirt. He had a dark gray jacket on over his hospital gown, his hair was perfectly styled, and he was wearing a pair of rimless glasses. Before he'd spoken, there was already part of a smile in his peach blossom eyes, reflecting from his cold glasses with a powerful and mysterious aura. He was simply rather demonic—simply a different person from the "poor child" in the hospital bed.

How come this wasn't at all like what Luo Wenzhou had said?

"Oh, thank you, the inpatient department is a little confusing." Mu Xiaoqing looked him up and down, looked up at the number plate at the hospital room's door, verified it was the right one three times over, then asked, "Do you know a Luo Wenzhou?"

Fei Du's originally unassailable smile froze as he dimly sensed that something was off. Then he answered very cautiously, "Oh? He's my colleague—excuse me, you are…"

Mu Xiaoqing took the words "he's my colleague" and chewed them over in her mind. According to her seasoned sense of taste, she couldn't sense any other meaning behind these words.

Were all young people so calm and unblushing about their romances now?

Mu Xiaoqing gave an "oh" and nodded understandingly, thinking that it was no wonder that that brat Luo Wenzhou, for once sending her to bring food today, had first exhorted her, telling her not to say this and not to say that, as if Fei Du had been of an uncommon easily embarrassed breed in the present age.

After all this fuss, what Luo Wenzhou had said outside of the ICU that day had been entirely unilateral bluster!

Mu Xiaoqing realized what was happening and was immediately overjoyed, knowing she had Luo Wenzhou by the pigtails. She familiarly handed over the food and the flowers, sitting in the chair in front of the hospital bed, very warmly saying to Fei Du, "Me? I'm his neighbor. He said he had something to do today that he couldn't get out of, and my husband just happens to be in the hospital for a few days, so he entrusted me with bringing you food while I was here—your colleague brings you food every day? He's very good to you!"

Fei Du was extremely sensitive to others' expressions. More and more, he thought there was something off about this middle-aged "beauty," so he avoided the serious question and simply agreed, endorsing the fact that Luo Wenzhou was very good to him, then changing the subject. "Thank you, but are you really already married?"

Mu Xiaoqing knew perfectly well that this was wholly insincere flattery, but looking at Fei Du's face, the flattery still put her entirely at her ease. Beaming, she said, "You're a very well-spoken child. My son is already as tall as an electricity pole!"

Fei Du: "…"

That description…really sounded very robust.

Madam Mu Xiaoqing's heart was as big the Pacific Ocean, able to swallow Asia in one go. While she'd been temporarily astonished by the great change in Fei Du, she recovered very quickly, hastily pulling back her imagination, which had wandered out of the solar system, adjusting to reality at the speed of light—after all, removing everything else, Fei Du truly had saved her son under those circumstances, and Luo Wenzhou's fluctuating emotions outside the ICU had been real.

So she very happily started asking after Fei Du's family.

Fei Du didn't know whether today's "good Chinese neighbors" were all so immediately familiar. While he wasn't unable to hold his own, he was still entirely unprepared to meet this mother-in-law-style cross-examination. He hadn't had a chance to rest his body and mind after his contest of wits with Zhou Huaijin, and now he was meeting with these "heavy losses." And most importantly, he felt he'd just made a blunder—

Finally getting Mu Xiaoqing to get up and bid him farewell, Fei Du hurriedly sent a message to Luo Wenzhou while her back was turned: "Who came to deliver food?"

Then, as if nothing were the matter, he maintained his smile and went over in his wheelchair to open the door for Mu Xiaoqing. "Where is your family member's hospital room? I'll take you to the nearest door."

Mu Xiaoqing was happy after their chat and had already forgotten her initial nonsense. As soon as she heard the question, she casually answered, "The leg department."

Fei Du looked at her blankly. "…what?"

Mu Xiaoqing said, "No, that's wrong, there's no such thing as a leg department. What is it? Limb department? Lower limb department? Where do people normally go with athlete's foot?"

Fei Du: "…"

Her mouthful of nonsense absolutely had to come from genes very similar to Luo Wenzhou's.

"Come this way with me." Without demur, Fei Du took her towards the main doors. Before parting, he attempted to make a "temperate and gentle" impression to wipe away his earlier revolting behavior from this lady's mind. He persisted in going down in the elevator with Mu Xiaoqing, accompanying her to the inpatient department's main doors as if he were respectfully delivering the Empress Dowager. "You can just continue on ahead."

All smiles, Mu Xiaoqing said, "Don't take me any further. Hey, how come you're suddenly all polite again after we've been talking?"

Fei Du gave her a very measured smile. "As it should be."

Just then, the phone on his knee vibrated. Fei Du glanced down and saw that in his haste Luo Wenzhou had answered with two words: "My mom."

In the biting cold wind of early winter, Fei Du quietly broke out in sweat. "Goodbye, auntie. Take care."

Mu Xiaoqing sighed. "Ah, I've been a 'young lady' for less than half an hour, and now I've become an 'auntie.'"

With great difficulty, Fei Du maintained his unwavering expression. He said elegantly and "bashfully," "It's that…you really are too young. I made a mistake at first. I'm really sorry…"

Mu Xiaoqing only wanted to hear the first part of what he'd said and happily ignored his earnest apology. "I really love talking to you. It's been years since I've received flowers from a handsome young man. I suppose even Luo Wenzhou hasn't?"

Fei Du's eyes instantly opened wide—wait, what did she mean, "even Luo Wenzhou hasn't?"

These words seemed to have some rather profound significance.

But before he could react, Mu Xiaoqing produced an even more ruthless sentence.

She said, "Haha, I'll have to take this home and show it off to my old man."

Then, holding the flower, Madam Mu Xiaoqing skipped lightly away, entirely carefree.

Fei Du: "…"

If he'd been able to move a little more freely, he'd probably have knelt down before her.

During a gap between his meetings, Luo Wenzhou remembered Fei Du's message just now and was very surprised that Tao Ran hadn't explained things clearly to him. He was a little worried Mu Xiaoqing hadn't been able to control her mouth and had talked some nonsense, so he called back. "What's the matter?"

In a somewhat strange voice, Fei Du said, "Nothing. I love you, shixiong."

Luo Wenzhou knew perfectly well that the words "I love you" coming out of Fei Du's mouth were about the same as "Have you eaten?" but he still accidentally bumped into a drinking fountain in the hall.

Then, that evening, he received a frank and ardent bouquet of roses. The sweet fragrance assaulting his nose made Luo Wenzhou think for a moment that Fei Du had done something to let him down, but recalling Fei Du's condition, even if he'd wanted to do something, it would have been a case of "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak," so he calmed down at once and cheerfully took the flowers home and put them in his study, and when Luo Yiguo came to investigate, he ruthlessly locked it out, whistling happily.

Madam Mu Xiaoqing now had unspeakable handles on both of them, but their daily peaceful coexistence as each harbored his own intentions was now a good deal more harmonious than before.

Finally, after another month and more, during the first snow of midwinter, Luo Wenzhou was no longer limping, and Fei Du had recovered enough to leave the hospital.

The heating inside the car was too strong. Fei Du accidentally dozed off. When Luo Wenzhou poked him awake, he opened his eyes and looked around, finding that the surroundings weren't at all familiar.

"It's five minutes to my house," Luo Wenzhou said. "Wake up, or you'll get chilled and catch a cold."

Fei Du quietly repeated, "Your house?"

Luo Wenzhou, remaining calm, kept his attention fixed on the road ahead and forced out a "matter-of-fact" expression. "Right. I've prepared all the usual daily necessities. I'll drop you off and you can see what's missing and make a list for me."

Fei Du perhaps got the wrong idea. He silently accepted this arrangement, at the same time subconsciously licking his lips.

Fei Du had been to Luo Wenzhou's house twice. It was about a hundred meters square, with an additional complimentary basement. It was a little too big for a bachelor, though a cat could gambol around inside to its heart's content.

They went inside. The heating was turned up warm, and the scent of cooking meat floated out from the kitchen to greet them, a smell of home uncompromisingly wrapping around the people who'd come in from the frozen, snowy day as if it could melt them.

Because Comrade Luo Yiguo's revolutionary integrity was insufficient to win others' trust, and there was chicken cooking in the kitchen, Luo Wenzhou had locked the cat in the bathroom before leaving. Luo Yiguo was beside itself with rage over this arrangement. Hearing the front door, it scratched the door even more furiously, yowling. As soon as the door opened, it threw itself forward to scratch up its litter box attendant's face.

But before it could put this plan into practice, Luo Yiguo smelled a stranger's scent, came to a halt two meters from Fei Du's feet, opened its eyes into circles, then, terror-stricken, fled back to its provisional jail, noiselessly hiding behind the door.

Fei Du was like a household guardian. As soon as he came, there was no need to guard against the cat jumping on the dining table. Luo Wenzhou for once ate a meal without having to keep his eyes and ears peeled; it was so tranquil he was nearly moved.

He was even more moved by the fact that Fei Du actually didn't get up to any tricks. Not only did he not raise any objections to Luo Wenzhou deciding on his own initiative to bring him home, his temper was also very good; no matter what you said to him, he would always answer "fine," and he was temporarily keeping down his troublesome nature, not being picky at all about the daily necessities Luo Wenzhou had prepared… Of course, at nightfall, Luo Wenzhou found out that he had been moved too soon.

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