Abstinence Pei, don't be too sweet when chasing your wife

The next day, the glass windows of the B&B were covered with a thin layer of mist. Gu Fanxing drew a twisted line on it with her fingertips. The snow was still falling outside the window, dyeing the bare branches white, just like her blank and cold heart at the moment.

She casually threw the suitcase in the corner, with the zipper not closed tightly, revealing the cashmere gloves she had specially brought for Pei Luonan - she had knitted them a few days ago, with a few strands of silver-gray mixed in the navy blue yarn, just like the night that could never be erased from his eyes.

But now, the scarf was like a red-hot iron, and she didn't even have the courage to touch it.

"Fiancée..." She exhaled towards the glass window, and the white mist instantly blurred her reflection.

When Long Weiwei said this, her tone was filled with just the right amount of confusion and vigilance, but the smugness that flashed across her eyes pierced Gu Fanxing's heart like a needle.

She leaned against the cold wall and slowly slid down to sit on the ground. Her lower back hit the wheels of the suitcase. She gasped in pain, but tears welled up in her eyes first.

It was like there was a runaway projector in my mind, repeatedly playing the scenes I had just seen in the hotel room.

Long Weiwei was wearing the black shirt that she had ironed herself, with the collar open, and the red mark on her collarbone was glaring.

Pei Luonan lay on the bed with his eyes closed and his brows furrowed, but his arm was clearly placed on Long Weiwei's waist, and his posture was so intimate that there was no room for a third person.

"Is she really his fiancée?"

Gu Fanxing pulled her hair, trying to pull the thought out of her mind.

She recalled the first time she met Pei Luonan. On that day after her rebirth, she found him with the determination to burn her boats and said she wanted to make a deal - she would help him deal with the pressure from his family to get married, and he would help her get revenge.

"It's a contractual relationship, each party gets what they need." Both of them thought so at the time and happily agreed.

She thought she had made a profit at the time. With Pei Luonan, an ascetic man who was not interested in women, as a reliable person, the road to revenge would not only be easier but also safer.

But when did it all start to change? Was it when he held her in his arms and said, "Don't be afraid, I'm here" when she was in danger? Or when he quietly placed a glass of hot milk on her desk while she was working late into the night organizing documents? Or when he, after avenging her, held her in his arms and said, "It's all over. From now on, I'll be with you"?

Gu Fanxing covered her face with her hands, suppressing sobs leaking out from between her fingers.

The little things that happened over the past year or so, like a frog in boiling water, slowly let her down her guard.

She even began to secretly plan the days after the expiration of the agreement - maybe she could try to tell him that she seemed to like him a little; maybe they could go to a movie or go to the night market like ordinary couples, giving him a chance as he said, and also giving herself a chance.

But the appearance of Long Weiwei was like a heavy hammer, smashing these frivolous fantasies into pieces.

"If she is really his fiancée..." Gu Fanxing's voice was nasal, "then why did he agree to make this deal with me?" She tried hard to recall the details of this year, trying to find evidence to refute it.

Pei Luonan's family has never opposed their relationship. Grandma Pei even held her hand and said, "The girl is good, Luonan should treat her well." Her profile would occasionally appear in Pei Luonan's circle of friends, and the accompanying text was always light, but with unquestionable possessiveness.

Are these all fake?

An even scarier thought flashed through her mind: Could it be that they were having a falling out, and Pei Luonan had deliberately chosen her to piss off Long Weiwei? Just like in those TV dramas, where the hero deliberately gets close to another girl to make the heroine jealous. Then what had her existence been all those years? A mere pawn to provoke his ex-girlfriend?

Gu Fanxing stood up suddenly, staggered to the window, and wiped the fog off the glass.

The snow outside had stopped, and the moon emerged from the clouds, illuminating the bare pomegranate tree in the yard of the B&B.

She remembered last autumn, when Pei Luonan took her to pick pomegranates. He picked the biggest one and handed it to her, saying, "Eat more to replenish your qi and blood." At that time, she laughed at his superstition, but now she felt that the sweetness of the pomegranate was like poison mixed with honey.

"He's so good to me..." Her nails dug deep into her palms, tears streaming down her face in pain. "How could he be acting?"

But the scene in the hotel room came back to him like a curse.

The red mark on Long Weiwei's neck, the scattered clothes, and Pei Luonan's ripped shirt—none of these were fake. Especially when Long Weiwei said, "You know my fiancé," the certainty in her tone didn't seem fake.

Gu Fanxing wanted to ask clearly, but didn't dare.

What to ask? Ask him, "Is Long Weiwei your fiancée?"

If he said yes, then what about her slowly melting heart? If he said no, then how could she explain the scene in the hotel?

She suddenly remembered the message she had sent him: "An emergency has occurred at the site. The excavation will be closed for half a month. We cannot meet or contact each other." This was the message she sent to him after she received the order to close the excavation site, not to meet with outsiders or disclose any information.

And he only replied with one word: "OK."

No questions, no doubts, not even a "be careful".

Gu Fanxing's heart sank completely.

Perhaps, he had been waiting for his fiancée to come back so that he could completely sever ties with her as his "agreement girlfriend."

And she was like a temporary actor in his life script. When her part was over, she should leave tactfully.

"Alright."

She threw the phone back onto the bedside table and smiled to herself.

The betrayal in her previous life had made her afraid to trust anyone anymore. In this life, she only wanted revenge and shouldn't be greedy and hope for love.

Pei Luonan treated her well, perhaps just out of responsibility according to the agreement, or perhaps just out of sympathy for her situation. She was stupid enough to take these as sincerity.

"Gu Fanxing, wake up."

She talked to herself in a dry voice.

"You two were originally in a contractual relationship, each taking what they needed. Now that his fiancée is back, it's time to end it."

The moon outside the window hid in the clouds again, and the homestay fell into darkness again.

The scene in Gu Fanxing's mind was no longer the one in the hotel room, but the warm moments of the past year - Pei Luonan put her hand in his pocket in the snow, Pei Luonan stayed by her bedside all night without closing his eyes when she was sick, and when she got the evidence against her enemy, Pei Luonan said more excitedly than her, "I can finally get justice."

Is this warmth real, or is it just her own filtered fantasy?

Gu Fanxing didn't know the answer.

Perhaps, in a contractual relationship, each party gets what they need, and when the contract ends, turning around and leaving is the most free and easy way. Besides, sealing one's heart and locking away love, no longer easily believing in love is a decision made after rebirth, and there is nothing to be nostalgic about.

"Once this 'closed excavation' is over," she said silently to herself, "I'll ask him to end the agreement."

By then, she would have taken revenge and he would have returned to his fiancée. They would be like two intersecting straight lines, each extending its own way and never meeting again.

Thinking of this, the pain in my heart seemed to ease a little.

At this moment, in the Peninsula Hotel, Pei Luonan was standing in the monitoring room, staring at the lonely back of Gu Fanxing as he left on the screen.

He punched the wall, his knuckles bleeding, and the murderous look in his eyes almost swallowed up the entire room.

"Investigate! Find out everything Long Weiwei has done!" He roared into the phone, his voice filled with unprecedented rage. "Also, find Gu Fanxing's location immediately and don't let anything happen to her!"

In the homestay in the west of the city, Gu Fanxing finally fell asleep from exhaustion, with tears still lingering in the corners of her eyes.

The snow started falling again, gently landing on the roof of the B&B, as if covering the feelings that had not yet been expressed with a layer of cold white cloth.