Attention Sir, I Have Your Heart Handcuffed!-Chapter 318 - 211: Four Years Ago, Owe You a Lifetime (Second Update)

"Is that so?" Shi Nian had no choice but to blush and lower her head again, turning to look at Xiong Jie, who couldn’t help but frown even in her sleep: "How should I put it, I really hated her, especially after she wrote that article. However she fought with me, I was never afraid of her; I just really disliked her using me to insinuate against others, causing others to be harmed because of me... But at this moment, she wasn’t herself anymore; in my eyes, she became myself."

She lifted her eyes to look at him: "The former me."

She spoke, trying to smile: "...Back then, how I wished that in such desperation, there could be someone as gentle as my mother to accompany me, to take care of me." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Between the single and double sofas lay a carpet with a glorious pattern of peacock feathers, topped by a tea table about a meter square. The distance between him and her was thus just a step away, yet distinctly separated into two worlds by these clear lines.

He interlaced his fingers, squinting at her, "Did you remember something?"

She herself felt awkward, smiled and shook her head: "It’s all my old past, events that happened across the ocean, why did I bring it up to tell you, sir. Sorry, please forget it, sir."

"Tell me, did you remember something?"

He suddenly stood up, his tall figure crossing the barrier of the tea table in one step, kneeling on one knee on the carpet, grabbing her wrist, staring straight into her eyes.

Shi Nian quietly inhaled: "... Writing on the palm. Also, warm companionship." She closed her eyes, trying hard to capture those fragmented memories: "Someone used to pat me to sleep; when I cried with tears, someone held me in their arms."

"What else?"

The sunlight in the winter mountains was particularly bright, transparently flowing in through the window, enveloping her whole body. She stood in the center of the light, her face glowing with a gentle shimmer.

He stared at her intensely, his gaze moving across her features, finally resting on her tightly shut eyes.

His hand unconsciously applied more pressure, gripping her wrist tightly.

.

Shi Nian closed her eyes, took a deep breath: "I still can’t piece everything together, but I’m increasingly certain that indeed there was that person in the darkness." Her delicate brows furrowed, shaking her head: "He wrote in my palm... Over and over, he told me not to be afraid, saying he wouldn’t harm me, he would protect me."

She opened her eyes, tears already shimmering in them.

"Sir, why did you also write in my palm back then?"

Huangfu Huazhang let out a long sigh, his long eyes locking onto hers.

"You already have the answer in your heart, don’t you?"

Shi Nian trembled slightly, grabbing his arm: "You know about my past experiences, don’t you, sir? What do you know? Tell me, won’t you?"

But Huangfu Huazhang closed his eyes: "...I’m afraid you’ll blame me."

"What do you mean?" Shi Nian was stunned: "That’s my experience, related to my dad’s profession, why would I blame you?"

Huangfu Huazhang didn’t care about the dirt on the carpet and sat down, his long legs folded.

"...I came to M Country at twenty to inherit the Fude Group. To help the company through tough times and to earn my family’s approval, I fought fiercely for the first three years, almost without sleep. The leg problem I had in childhood had been rehabilitated well, almost as if it was cured, but during those three years, it relapsed. Western medicine at the time suggested surgery, and some doctors even considered ’amputation,’ which I couldn’t accept, so I returned to China to seek traditional medicine therapy."

He quietly lifted his eyes, his gaze shimmering with a gentle mist: "To hide my identity, I stayed in a property that wasn’t under my name, secluded in a quiet alley. It was that year, there, that I encountered you."

He smiled, his long lashes quivering gently: "After those three hellish years of struggle, and the nightmare of my leg relapsing, I met you... I felt it was fate, a reward, a compensation from heaven for all I had given."

Shi Nian nodded: "But that was around when I was thirteen, and my kidnapping happened four years ago, when I was twenty-one. There’s an eight-year gap, sir, why are you starting from so long ago?"

His gaze gently fell: "Eight years? Does it seem long to you? It doesn’t, for someone determined to wait a lifetime, eight years are just a few moments."

"Moreover, Nian, you miscalculated. There wasn’t an eight-year gap, but only a short three years. Because I encountered you when you were thirteen, but my attention to you extended for a full six years. Do you still remember those photos? They are records of those subsequent six years."