To say the least, Zhao Lifei was stunned. Her face was frozen with disbelief. She stared at him like he was a stranger, her lips opening and closing. Her brain was messier than strings of tangled yarns. "What...but...how...that's impossible, h-huh?" Was the only thing she could say after a few seconds of awkward silence.
Yang Feng was glad to see this reaction instead of something filled with violence and screaming. Seeing as she couldn't form proper sentences to voice her thoughts, he changed the subject. "How much do you remember?"
"Not much." Zhao Lifei curtly replied, her lips pressing together. She averted her gaze. She remembered him up to the part where he told her to meet up in the garden, but he never showed up that day. She was mauled through the lawn by her mother and spent the rest of the day in her room, wondering why her "Fengfeng" never showed up.
"You're lying." Yang Feng reached his hand out and gripped her small chin, forcing her to look at him. She stared at his shoulders with a blank and dull expression. He didn't like that.
"What else are you not telling me?" His voice was angrier than expected. He didn't like it when people kept secrets from him. She was his wife now. There shouldn't be a boundary between them.
Yang Feng sighed inside of his head. He had no right to talk about boundaries when he, himself, was keeping many things from her, beginning with her father and uncle who were rotting in jail.
During her coma, he received word that the "foreign" man seeking to buy Zhao Lifei was none other than Jiang Zihui. This only triggered him more and in no less than an hour, a mass search was sent out for the General. It was too dangerous for her to remain in this city and if he could have it his way, he would move her out of it as soon as possible. However, Shenbei was large and the surrounding city would take two to three hours by car.
"You left me." Zhao Lifei tore her eyes away from his navy suit. She could see his expression perfectly and realized how haggard he looked. There were bags under his eyes and when she peered closer, she saw the exhaustion buried beneath the bitter displeasure. When was the last time he had a proper sleep?
"You stood me up." Zhao Lifei glared at him, "Even as a child, you had player tendencies." She harshly poked him with her finger, jabbing it at his chest. "Why did you do it? Why did you tell me to come to the garden if you weren't going to show up!"
Yang Feng winced at her blow. The pokes didn't hurt him, but her words did. He grabbed her fingers and press a kiss to the delicate flesh. "I didn't mean to." He muttered, holding both of her hands in case she wanted to attack him. "The Elder summoned me for a supposed 'quick chat' that would not take longer than five minutes. The next thing I knew, I was stripped of my hidden weapons and tossed onto a plane heading straight overseas."
Zhao Lifei opened her mouth but he squished her cheek together, forcing her mouth to pucker out.
"Let me finish, my love." He wanted to laugh at how ridiculous and hilarious she looked. He breathed in deeply and told her the truth of what happened that day.
He told her about the day he stopped before the doors of his grandfather's study and was instructed to place all of his concealed weapons onto a tray. It was strange to him, but he figured it was just his paranoid grandfather taking safety measures.
He remembered walking into the study where the windows were all shut. His grandfather was sitting behind a desk with a gas mask on and the next thing Yang Feng knew, gas-filled the room.
He woke up in a foreign land with a letter that revoked all of his rights back into the country. His passport was seized and his bank account had enough money to survive, but never enough to buy a helicopter back into the country. He could not return home until the two years abroad were up.
Zhao Lifei was quiet as she absorbed the information bomb that was dropped on top of her. Two years… She tried to remember what happened in the two years that he was gone. Nothing came to mind and when she tried to think about it more, her head began to ache again.
"I told you the truth. Now, will you tell me what else you remember?" Yang Feng's voice was alluring and beckoningly sweet. He was very good at convincing her. The sincere look on his face wasn't helping her in resisting him.
"I was planning on telling you the truth regardless." Zhao Lifei truthfully said. She didn't break away from his intense stare. He could tell she was not lying.
"I remember the day we met, how much of a meanie you were." Zhao Lifei really wanted to give the young Yang Feng a good kick to the shin. The first day they met was when she was exploring the house and got lost in the maze that led to the garden. When she saw him, the wind was knocked out of her. She had never seen a boy more handsome than the person reading a book under a parasol. If only his behavior matched his face.
Yang Feng awkwardly scratched the back of his head, an apologetic expression on his face. He, too, remembered giving her his most menacing expression because he was experiencing a horrendous day after receiving a thorough scolding from the Elder after incorrectly answering one question on the homework. He didn't have the patience to deal with a lost bunny, nor did he know how to handle something as naive as her.
"I remember it all until you stood me up. Whatever happened after that, it's all a blur. Nothing comes up. I know there should be something there." She dropped her head and sighed. "I'll try harder to remember."
"Don't!" Yang Feng shouted, panicked that she would push herself. What if she fainted like this again?! He could not risk that.
She jumped at the unanticipatedly loud voice, her head snapping up. She met his frantic expression, the dread, and hysteria in his eyes.
"You can try to, but the second your head hurts, I want you to stop it. Even if the pain is subtle, I still want you to stop. Do you understand?" Yang Feng gripped her shoulders, shaking it when she did not respond to him. She was looking at him like a befuddled little bunny.
"Do you understand?" He exasperated, his shoulders and body tensing up with dismay. She slowly nodded her head.
"I do." Zhao Lifei lifted her hand and with two fingers, she smoothed out the crease lines on his forehead. She grabbed his face, cupping it in her hand and brought his head down so that she could press a light kiss that made his stomach feel odd.
"Now, relax. You're stressing yourself out." Zhao Lifei gave his cheek a quick peck. He tried to turn his head so that her lips landed elsewhere, but she was faster than him.
"I already knew you were going to do that." She pinched his face, hating how there was only skin for her to grab. Where was the fat? She was jealous.
"It's better to try than give up on the finish line." He tried to keep her in place so that he could engage her in a lengthy kiss. Too late. She already sat down and was keeping her hands to herself.
"How long was I asleep for?" She asked him, her eyes sweeping over the hospital room. She was surprised to see the dying bouquets on the nightstand beside her. She wanted to grab the white card in each of the bouquets, but a certain block of rock was in her way.
Yang Feng was greedy and he wanted all of her attention on him. He blocked her line of sight and reached his hand out to hug her but she slapped it away. She scooted back and said, "Give me some distance and answer my question. You've hugged and touched me for long enough."
He was a disobedient dog who knew how to get under his master's skin. Right after she finished speaking, he poked her cheek, testing her patience. Her brow ticked. This kid deserves a good pinch.
"You were asleep for four days."
"It was only four days? You were hugging me as if I slept for four decades or something."
"That's because it felt like four decades." Yang Feng huffed under his breath. His words were air to her ears because she was not paying attention to him. She was lost in her own thoughts.
Zhao Lifei let out a sigh of relief. Four days. That's not bad—wait a minute! Feili! She was so screwed. Huo Qiudong is going to kill her!