Spoiled Sparrow

She turned her head, her hair falling naturally to her sides, her eyes looking at them without a trace of a smile.

Her eyes seemed to convey her displeasure.

She didn't seem to welcome them.

Ruan Qing glanced at Fu Chen, whose face didn't reveal much of an expression; he simply led her forward.

As she got closer, she realized that the woman's features resembled Fu Chen's, and the fog of confusion immediately dissipated.

Fu Chen knelt down and placed the flowers beside the wheelchair: "Mother."

The woman didn't look at him, nor did she respond.

However, a pair of eyes caught Ruan Qing's curious gaze.

Her face is beautiful in a cool and composed way, and the marks of time have given her a kind of detached beauty.

Ruan Qing sensed her gaze and slowly said, "Auntie."

Fu Chen took her hand and placed it in Lan Yin's hand: "Mother, her name is Ruan Qing."

Lan Yin turned to look at Fu Chen, her gentle gaze instantly turning into disgust.

This similar face made her feel nauseous at just one unintentional glance.

She suddenly became agitated, trembling uncontrollably, and her violin fell to the ground, emitting a mournful sound.

Fu Chen immediately got up and left her sight. Ruan Qing was confused and panicked.

Seeing the growing terror on Lan Yin's face, she instinctively hugged the trembling Lan Yin tightly.

She held Lan Yin tightly with both hands, gently and steadily patting her back.

It was only then that Ruan Qing realized that she was so thin that she was just a skeleton.

After a long while, Lan Yin calmed down, and the maid, Aunt Liu, pushed her back into her room.

Fu Chen sat on the bed, without saying a word.

The once domineering man now concealed all his sharpness, frozen in place.

Silently, tears dripped onto the carpet.

Ruan Qing looked at him in shock, a feeling of heartache she had never experienced before welling up inside her.

After hesitating for a long time, she stepped forward and hugged him.

The crying man felt the warmth on his lower abdomen, and his tears flowed even more freely.

Ruan Qing was at a loss; she had never comforted a crying man before.

She patted his head tentatively: "Don't be sad."

No response.

Not knowing the reason, she didn't know how to comfort him, but if he kept crying like that, her back would give way.

She learned from Fu Chen's way of comforting her and gently kissed his palm.

Fu Chen looked up instantly, his complex gaze making Ruan Qing blush.

I've stopped crying, but it seems like even bigger trouble is on its way.

Ruan Qing immediately pushed him away, preemptively saying, "I'm warning you, don't touch me. We've already broken up."

Fu Chen, unusually, did not pounce on the prey; instead, his broken eyes stared straight at her.

"What...what's wrong with you?"

The eerie castle already made her uneasy, and Fu Chen's unusual behavior made her even more frightened.

Could it be that it has been possessed by something dirty here?

The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she felt. She retreated to the wall, pointed at Fu Chen, and asked, "Are you really Fu Chen? What's my birthday? What's my name?"

It was true at first, but false later.

Fu Chen had only intended to pretend to tease her, but he hadn't expected her to be so scared.

"You have a birthmark on your butt."

Ruan Qing: "...Fu Chen, you son of a bitch!"

Fu Chen grabbed her raised wrist and pulled her into his arms, making her sit on his lap.

I can't get up or move.

"Let me go!" she resisted slightly, but the restraint became tighter and tighter.

Fu Chen pinched her face, forcing her to look up at him: "Little fox, you've been very naughty lately, you should be punished."

Ruan Qing stared at him in terror. "I don't want to! Let me go!"

The castle was deserted; even if she screamed until she was hoarse, no one would pay attention.

.

... (300 words omitted)

As the sun set, Fu Chen helped her put on her coat.

"Didn't you want to know?"

"Come sit here."

*

Back then, the Fu family was at the height of its power, and Old Master Fu took a liking to Lan Yin, who came from a scholarly family.

After much back and forth between the two families, the marriage agreement between Fu Yancheng and Lan Yin was quickly finalized.

At that time, they both had someone they loved. Fu Yancheng chose to compromise when faced with the pros and cons of his family, while Lan Yin refused to comply.

The Lan family threatened to kill their entire family to force Lan Yin to marry, leaving her with no other choice but to marry into the Fu family.

At first, she rejected all of Fu Yancheng's advances, and Fu Yancheng didn't touch her.

However, as they spent more and more time together, Fu Yancheng "fell in love" with his knowledgeable and reasonable wife.

He tried everything to please her, but he could never win even a glance from her.

"Lan Yin! You are my wife, how dare you disobey me!"

"Are you still thinking about that man? Answer me!"

......

On a bright and sunny afternoon, the day they were to elope, Lan Yin looked forward to seeing Chang Zhou, a smile she had never shown before on her face.

We waited from dawn till dusk, from night till daybreak.

"Madam, let's go back."

"No, Changzhou wouldn't lie to me, he will come."

Lan Yin waited tirelessly for three days, and finally the long boat she had been longing for arrived.

A torn letter, a cold corpse.

She succumbed to pain and clung to life in despair.

That night, a furious Fu Yancheng barged into her room...

"You are my wife, it is your duty to carry on the family line!"

"He's dead, and you still dare to think about him? I just wish he'd been dead sooner..."

Lan Yin realized something, picked up the hairpin by the bedside, and plunged it into Fu Yancheng's heart.

It's only 0.3 centimeters off.

Over the next two years, she was forced to give birth to the Fu family's only grandson: Fu Chen.

*

"And then?"

Ruan Qing felt a pang of heartache upon hearing this, "What happened afterward?"

After hesitating for a moment, Fu Chen said, "Later, she loved me very much. She often hugged me and sang nursery rhymes to me."

"It's just that I'm getting older and my health isn't good, so I moved here to live in peace and quiet."

After Fu Chen was born, Lan Yin's health deteriorated further.

Two years after giving birth, she suddenly began to place all her hopes and love on the child, as if seeing him would relieve her pain and make her stop thinking about him.

Until one night when Fu Chen was three years old, Lan Yin woke up from a nightmare, turned to look at the child's face, but saw Fu Yancheng instead.

She screamed in terror and grabbed Fu Chen by the neck.

"I'm going to kill you!"

"I'm going to kill you!"

These were the last words his mother said to him.

Sensing something was wrong, Aunt Liu pried Lan Yin's hands off, and Fu Chen, who had stopped breathing, regained spontaneous breathing thanks to the private doctor's resuscitation efforts.

From that night on, Lan Yin was confined to the old mansion by Grandpa Fu for seven whole years.

......

Fu Chen spoke casually, but the melancholy in his eyes did not escape Ruan Qing's notice.

She turned and hugged him: "It's okay, everything will be alright."

"Um."

But why did he bring her here? Was it because of the unhappiness of the previous generation that he was afraid of marriage?

Ruan Qing wanted to get to the bottom of it.

Why did you bring me here?

Fu Chen buried his face in the crook of her neck: "Do you think she's lonely?"

Living alone in such a large castle must be lonely.

She thought for a moment and said, "Probably."

"Then why don't you stay and keep her company?"