Too Proud to Admit It

"Why did you come out?"

Luo Xiyun turned and saw Chen Xu coming out. Anxiously, she said, "Hurry back and get some rest."

She really did care about me.

From her instant reaction, Chen Xu was already completely certain.

After entering society and suffering a few setbacks, he had come to understand a principle for dealing with people: don't listen to what others say; watch what they do.

What others said was just talk. Don't take it seriously. Watch their actions, and you would know how they truly felt about you.

And as his experience grew, he had vaguely come to understand that sometimes, what a person said could be the complete opposite of what they did. Perhaps it was not because they deliberately wanted to deceive anyone. Rather, they themselves did not know what they truly wanted.

People were full of contradictions. Women, even more so, were contradictions incarnate.

He felt that he had grasped Luo Xiyun's state of mind. In high spirits, he smiled and said, "It's too stuffy in the room, so I came out for some air. Don't worry, I'm already fine. Look, I can—ow!"

As Chen Xu spoke, he hopped twice. Suddenly, his legs gave out beneath him. He staggered, knocking his shin against a nearby stool, and sucked in a sharp breath from the pain.

"Chen Xu—"

Seeing him fall, Luo Xiyun tossed aside the pot in her hands and rushed over. She helped him up and asked anxiously, "How are you? You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

"I'm fine."

Chen Xu stubbornly shook his head and slowly stood up, his left arm around her waist.

Luo Xiyun noticed something in his expression and asked, "Did you hurt somewhere?"

Chen Xu had recovered by then and said awkwardly, "I bumped my shin."

"Let me see."

She bent down and carefully pulled up his pant leg. Seeing that it was only a small bruise and not a serious injury, she finally relaxed. "Stop forcing yourself. I'll help you back to your room."

Chen Xu said nothing. He placed his left hand around her waist again and headed toward the room.

As they walked, he kept turning to look at her face. There was nothing unusual in her expression, as though she had not noticed at all how intimate their current posture was.

Once inside, Luo Xiyun helped him to the bedside and had him sit down. She took out a medical kit, applied some medicated oil to the bruise, then said, "Rest properly here."

After she left, Chen Xu recalled her various contradictory attitudes toward him, and an idea gradually formed in his mind.

During dinner, Chen Xu kept staring at Luo Xiyun.

"Is there something on my face?" Unable to bear it any longer, Luo Xiyun put down her chopsticks and touched her face.

Chen Xu shook his head and said in a low voice, "It's wonderful to be able to sit here and eat with you again. I thought I would never see you again."

Luo Xiyun's lips moved twice before she asked, "Y-you... how did you faint there?"

"The car broke down, so I could only walk. When I reached that slope, I tripped by accident, then hit my head in a particularly unlucky way. That's why I passed out," Chen Xu said lightly.

"Why didn't you stay in the car?"

Luo Xiyun took a deep breath. "It snowed so heavily yesterday. How dangerous was it to walk? If I hadn't happened to pass by there, maybe you... you..." Her tone grew agitated toward the end.

Listening to her reproach, Chen Xu did not feel impatient in the slightest. Instead, joy rose in his heart. He explained softly, "The car was parked too far away."

Luo Xiyun frowned at that. The place where she had found Chen Xu was already the farthest area. Beyond that lay the Ice Surface Area, stretching endlessly beyond sight.

Suddenly, she realized something. Her eyes widened in alarm. "You went beyond the Ice Surface Area?"

The so-called Ice Surface Area was a vast, low-lying region that had been flooded by rainwater and then frozen into a thick layer of ice after the temperature dropped.

She occasionally went out with Chen Xu, so she knew something about the surrounding environment.

Within several kilometers around the villa, the land was like an isolated island, surrounded by the Ice Surface Area. No matter which direction they looked, they could not see the end of the ice.

As far as she knew, Chen Xu had always stayed within the "island area" and had never gone onto the Ice Surface Area, so she had not considered that possibility at first.

"Yes." Chen Xu nodded.

"You..." Luo Xiyun bit her lower lip and asked, "Was it because there wasn't enough gasoline?"

"The supplies will last another half month. This time, I only wanted to scout out the route first. I didn't expect an accident to happen on the way back."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Chen Xu said, "We agreed from the start that I would handle matters outside, while you handled things at home. This was my responsibility."

"You're such a male chauvinist," Luo Xiyun said irritably.

After a while, she poked at the rice with her chopsticks and asked, "You... how long did you walk through the snow?"

Chen Xu said, "Just a few hours."

A few hours?

Luo Xiyun recalled the blizzard when she had driven out to find him yesterday. Visibility had been less than ten meters. As the snow on the ground deepened, she had been forced to slow down. Even so, the wheels still slipped from time to time. Sometimes they sank into soft snow and could not move forward, forcing her to get out and deal with it.

Driving had already been so difficult for her. How much harder would it have been on foot?

She could not imagine what kind of willpower it would take to keep going for several hours in such terrible weather.

"You..."

"Actually, I had no choice," Chen Xu said. "There was too little food in the car. I thought the snowstorm would last for several days, and staying in the car would have been a dead end too."

Luo Xiyun parted her lips slightly and glanced at him, but she still did not expose his lie.

After rescuing Chen Xu, she had opened the backpack he was carrying. Half of it had been filled with chocolate, compressed biscuits, and canned food.

It was enough to last him a week.

Even now, this man was still so stubbornly tight-lipped.

So obsessed with saving face.

After washing the dishes, Luo Xiyun pushed open the bedroom door and saw Chen Xu just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. He had obviously just taken a shower.

"Your turn," he said.

She walked over to the wardrobe and picked out a set of clothes, looking somewhat hesitant.

Chen Xu seemed to know what she was worried about. "Don't worry. I won't peek."

She said nothing. Carrying her clothes, she entered the bathroom and closed the door. Thinking that Chen Xu had just showered in there, she could not help feeling a little strange, yet she did not feel repulsed.

She remembered that when she and Chen Xu had still been giving each other the cold shoulder, even when hanging laundry, she had kept their clothes several meters apart.

Now, even sharing a bathroom did not disgust her anymore.

There was no helping it. Gasoline was scarce now, so they had to conserve it. Thinking that, she began taking off her clothes.