The wealthy military officer spoils his wife excessively

"You mean... Lu Zheng went back to argue with the old man about me, and that's why..."

She struggled to sort out her thoughts and managed to utter those few words with great difficulty.

Xiao Rong narrowed his eyes and showed an approving look, as if to tell her: You got it right.

Her body went limp, and she leaned heavily back into the chair.

Her mind was a jumble of thoughts, all separated by a single thread. She felt as if she had grasped something, only to have it slip away again in the blink of an eye. She felt colder and colder, more and more afraid. The abdominal pain that had long since healed suddenly returned, throbbing back with a neurotic, stabbing pain, like needles pricking her.

She bent over, gritting her teeth and pressing her lower abdomen.

The lane ahead was clear, and Xiao Rong didn't say another word after that. The long drive passed in the gray sky outside the window until the car came to a steady stop on Four Seasons Star River Road.

Nie Suwen sat there, showing no intention of getting out of the carriage.

Xiao Rong wasn't in a hurry. He lit another cigarette and waited patiently.

"So, you made me leave the child... just to wait for this day?" After such a long journey, she finally grasped that key point. She had always felt that Xiao Rong was a strange person, always asking her to do things inexplicably without giving a reason, and seemingly without causing her any harm.

Indeed, the person he wanted to hurt was never her.

He himself was merely a tool for Lu Zheng to use!

In the rearview mirror, Xiao Rong's eyebrows twitched, but he neither replied nor refuted. He simply put a cigarette in his mouth and smoked it silently.

"I'm afraid you were the one who told Grandpa Lu I was pregnant. No wonder your expression was so enigmatic when you changed your mind and wanted me to have the baby. You planned all of this back then, didn't you? As long as I'm pregnant, Lu Zheng will have to take responsibility for me, and the conflict between him and Grandpa Lu will immediately escalate. This is the day you've been waiting for, isn't it? Who are you targeting, Grandpa Lu or Lu Zheng? Perhaps... the entire Lu family?"

She rattled off her doubts, her voice trembling with disbelief as she spoke, "But I don't understand... why are you targeting Lu Zheng? Aren't you brothers?"

She had heard Lu Zheng say that their brotherhood spanned twenty years, and that he would get involved in almost any bad thing that happened to Xiao Rong. She understood that kind of relationship, so she couldn't understand Xiao Rong's reasons at all.

Upon hearing this, Xiao Rong merely took out the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it lightly. He seemed to smile slightly, his expression tacitly agreeing: "What good does knowing so much do for you? You're just an actor; all you need to do is act well. I'm only using your acting skills."

Ren Nie Suwen never understood his expression, no matter how hard he tried throughout his life.

Xiao Rong was a mystery to her. Everything about him, everything, was ultimately taken away by him to that dark and shadowy place.

He never told anyone about it, or perhaps, no one in the world ever truly understood him.

But at this moment, Nie Suwen only knew that he was an extremely shrewd man. What he called using her acting skills was actually her most genuine reaction in that situation. He knew what an actor's best performance was: to act from the heart and empathize with others. So he told her nothing, letting her personally experience that pain, that excruciating pain.

He was like a director behind the scenes, silently orchestrating everything. Everyone was a character in his play, following the script he had written...

Nie Suwen suddenly felt scared, glared at him fiercely, opened the car door and ran out of the car.

The person delivering the wedding dress was waiting for her downstairs. Seeing that Suwen looked pale and distracted, the person kindly asked her a few questions. Suwen answered reluctantly, her mind elsewhere. When the person learned that she was ill, he offered to deliver the photo frame to her home. She signed the form, and only then did the person leave.

She put down what she was holding and turned on the air conditioner and underfloor heating. The house had only been unoccupied for a few days, yet it already felt cold and desolate. Over 300 square meters was too big; it felt empty for two people, but more than enough for a family of three. Now, with only her standing alone in the living room of over 100 square meters, she felt even more lonely.

It's as if your voice echoes.

The room was large, so the heating came on slowly. She wrapped herself in a down jacket and sat down on the sofa. A huge wedding photo that had just been taken down stood on the floor. It was the one she and Lu Zheng had chosen together, the one that had required her to climb a tree through hardship to have it taken. The photo showed a handsome man and a beautiful woman, one looking up and the other looking down, their expressions focused, as if their world consisted only of each other.

Lu Zheng said, "We want to put this picture big and hang it in the living room so that everyone who comes over can see how loving we are and they'll be so envious."

Suwen also liked this photo very much. The frame was placed horizontally on the ground. Suwen adjusted the angle and stared at the man in the photo. As she looked at him, her eyes welled up with tears.

If she hadn't met him, perhaps she would still be in the city, working hard to earn tuition fees, and after graduation, fighting tooth and nail with countless other recent graduates for a meal. Life would be very simple, very ordinary, and very hard.

If it weren't for him, she wouldn't have insisted on coming to Beijing back then, wouldn't have run into so many problems, and wouldn't have met Hao Haiyun, forcing her to stay in Beijing.

Of course, without him, she wouldn't have been able to turn her life around overnight, from an unknown film school student struggling to make ends meet to a rising international star.

She remembered what Xiao Rong had said in the car.

She indirectly caused the death of Old Master Lu.

Lu Zheng was her benefactor, but she was his nemesis. As Xiao Rong said, her Achilles' heel.

But she was completely unaware that Xiao Rong had her lifeline in his grasp, and she even happily agreed to his conditions, unknowingly putting him in danger.

She looked at the man in the photo and silently shed tears. The sky grew darker and darker, and the wind picked up in the evening. The wind rattled against the windowpanes, and in the distance, tall poplar trees danced wildly in the wind, their gnarled branches like claws reaching out from the darkness, as if trying to seize someone.

Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep on the sofa.

The heating was on, blowing the soft, downy hair around her forehead. She'd forgotten to take off her down jacket, and soon her back felt hot and dry. She shifted uncomfortably, the sleeves of her down jacket slipping down her arms. Then someone took her arm, removed the heavy down jacket, and covered her with a thin blanket. Warm fingers brushed her face, and she felt comfortable, a familiar sense of peace. She drowsily snuggled closer to them. The fresh scent of grass, detergent, and a faint tobacco fragrance filled the air. She murmured, "Lu Zheng, you're back..." The fingers abruptly stopped on her face. A moment later, an arm finally encircled her, pulling her into a warm embrace.

Half-asleep, Nie Suwen felt it was perfectly natural, just like countless mornings when she would wake up in Lu Zheng's arms, always reluctant to open her eyes. Confused and disoriented, Nie Suwen never considered that Lu Zheng would be here at the Lu family funeral.

She drifted off to sleep for a while, then felt a flickering light on her eyelids. She rolled her eyes and slowly opened them. The living room was dark; the lights were off. What time was it?

It was completely dark when she realized she had fallen asleep on the sofa. Only then did she realize she was sleeping in someone's arms. The man's familiar scent and the same touch she had felt in her dream... it really was Lu Zheng...

Lu Zheng embraced her from behind, letting her rest her head on his arm for a more comfortable sleep, his other hand wrapped around her waist. Seemingly unaware that she was awake, the room was very quiet, save for the flickering light on the television screen. He was watching a movie, but with no sound and no subtitles, like a silent film. Su Wen watched for a while before recognizing it as the classic American film, *Gone with the Wind*, also known as *The Wind*.

She had seen this film when she was very young, and later, after attending film school, she watched it repeatedly. But she had never watched it so silently, nor had she heard that Lu Zheng liked it. The beautiful woman on the screen smiled, hesitated, wavered, sighed, suffered, and struggled. She watched with her eyes open, somewhat bewildered, for a while, and when she saw the scene where Scarlett fell down the stairs and miscarried, her heart tightened for no reason.

Scarlett had the purest pale green eyes, her smile was captivating, and she had the most lovers. Despite how adorable she was, Rhett still left her in the end.

The film played a scene she was most familiar with. The characters on the screen moved their lips, but there was no sound, only blurry shapes. Yet Suwen remembered the line clearly: "Scarlett, I've never been that kind of person. I can't patiently pick up the pieces, glue them back together, and tell myself that the repaired thing is exactly the same as new. Something is broken—I'd rather remember what it looked like at its best than repair it and spend my whole life looking at the broken parts."

The man who loved her most ultimately made up his mind to leave her.

Suwen felt a coolness on her scalp, as if a drop of liquid had slid into her hair.

She jolted and looked up at Lu Zheng. The moment she moved, Lu Zheng immediately realized she was awake and hurriedly let go of her, as if trying to cover something up.

His entire face was hidden in the shadows, his expression inscrutable. Su Wen wasn't sure what the dampness that had dripped into her hair was, but she noticed a hint of hoarseness in Lu Zheng's voice: "You're awake?...Did I disturb you?"

She coughed, feeling a little embarrassed for some reason: "No, I slept too much at the hospital, and now I can't sleep."

In truth, he couldn't see her expression, and she couldn't see his either. Both of them were blended into the darkness, with only occasional flashes of light indicating a change in the scene on the screen.

He got up to pour her a cup of hot water and placed it in her hand: "I heard from the hospital that you ran away, so I was a little worried and came home to check on you. I didn't expect you to actually be here."