So, You’re the Henpecked One? 53

Chapter 53

The atmosphere in the main hall was strangely quiet for a moment. The only sound left was the whimpering of the child in the walker.

Chu Xihuan took a deep breath and turned to look at her daughter, who was calling for her. After checking that she hadn’t wet herself, she guessed that she might be hungry. “I’ll go and make her some porridge. Are you hungry? What do you want to eat later?”

Seeing her change the subject so naturally, Lin Zhao’s eyes grew even redder. She gritted her teeth and squeezed out a few words. “I’m not eating!”

At her words, Chu Xihuan glanced at her and finally said, “Then you can watch her for me. I’m going to the kitchen.” With that, she stood up and left.

Lin Zhao was a little stunned by Chu Xihuan’s action. She stared blankly at the doorway, then turned to look at the child, who was clearly a little timid and afraid of her.

“…”

Lin Zhao took a deep breath, trying to suppress her anger and turmoil. She glanced at the doorway, then quickly came to the child’s side and squatted down, cupping her face and examining her carefully. The more she looked, the tighter her brow furrowed. She couldn’t help but mutter, “Isn’t she a little similar?”

Look at those little eyebrows and that little mouth. So pretty. Isn’t she just a carbon copy of Chu Xihuan!

The child stared at Lin Zhao blankly. Perhaps she was scared by her action. Her little eyebrows furrowed, her mouth opened, and she started to cry with a “wah.” She struggled, wanting to find someone who could comfort her. She looked around but didn’t see Chu Xihuan, and her crying grew even louder.

Lin Zhao’s eyes widened, and she panicked. She quickly let go of her hands and said, “Don’t cry! I didn’t bully you!”

She had just been cupping her face. She hadn’t pinched her hard!

Chu Xihuan, who was in the kitchen, heard her daughter’s cries and quickly ran over. She saw her daughter’s little face flushed from crying, and Lin Zhao standing to the side, at a loss. Seeing her come over, she immediately said, “I didn’t hit her! She started crying on her own!”

She hadn’t even said that she was scared by the crying.

Chu Xihuan didn’t speak. She went over and picked up the child. The child immediately wrapped her arms around her neck, and her crying gradually subsided. But her eyes, which were even clearer after crying, were full of dependence as she looked at Chu Xihuan, whimpering and calling out.

Lin Zhao was speechless.

With her like this, how could Chu Xihuan believe that she hadn’t bullied her?

“There, there. Don’t cry, don’t cry,” Chu Xihuan said, holding the child and cooing softly. She then looked up at Lin Zhao. “The child can’t be left alone right now. Can you go to the kitchen and help make some rice porridge?”

Lin Zhao’s anger immediately flared. Why should she go and make her rice porridge? She was cold and hungry from her journey back.

But looking at Chu Xihuan’s slightly pleading expression, and then at the pitiful little thing whose face was still red from crying, she finally turned and went to the kitchen with a cold face.

After so many years, apart from a few new things, the layout of the house was basically the same. She went into the kitchen and could almost see the image of her and Chu Xihuan cooking together in the past.

Lin Zhao only felt her heart ache even more.

Chu Xihuan, who was still in the main hall, sat down and placed the child on her lap. She looked into her eyes and said warmly, “That’s your mother. You shouldn’t be afraid of her.”

However, the child just stared at her with her big, round eyes, as if she couldn’t understand what she was saying.

Chu Xihuan sighed softly in her heart and gave her a kiss on the forehead, but she also knew that such things couldn’t be rushed.

Lin Zhao was still unwilling to accept and forgive her, and the child was still too young to understand much. With the two of them together, it would be good enough if they could just stay quiet.

Lin Zhao came in with a bowl of rice porridge and slammed it down in front of Chu Xihuan. “Here,” her voice was cold and hard, with a hint of impatience.

Chu Xihuan lowered her gaze slightly and took the bowl. It was hard to imagine that this was how Lin Zhao would treat her in the past.

Seeing Chu Xihuan carefully feeding the child, Lin Zhao snorted coldly and turned to walk out.

“Lin Zhao!” Seeing her like this, Chu Xihuan quickly called out to her. “Where are you going?”

“To an inn.”

“This is your home!” Chu Xihuan’s voice rose.

Lin Zhao looked back at her, then at the child in her arms. The resentment in her chest was so overwhelming that she said, word for word, “I don’t feel like this is my home.”

In fact, she felt like she was the one who had intruded at an inappropriate time, the outsider who was disrupting their loving family!

Chu Xihuan suppressed the sudden pang in her heart, unwilling to face Lin Zhao’s piercing gaze at this moment. “We haven’t had a good talk yet.”

Lin Zhao’s hands, hanging at her sides, were clenched into fists. The wound on her arm, which had just healed not long ago, throbbed faintly. She forced a smile. “We have nothing to talk about. If you insist on living here, that’s fine. I’ll buy another house. We won’t bother each other.”

With that, she strode out, her steps even quickening, without any further hesitation.

Chu Xihuan, who was holding the child and couldn’t get up to chase after her, sat there frozen, her fingers gripping the spoon tightly. But the unbearable pang in her heart was still spreading in waves.

She had thought that when Lin Zhao returned, they could sit down and have a good talk. But Lin Zhao’s reaction was completely beyond her expectations.

She was even more angry and resentful than she had imagined.

Meanwhile, Lin Zhao, who had run out of the house, quickly found a deserted place, bent over, and bit down hard on the clothes on her arm, whimpering softly. She cried until her eyes were red and her nose was running, feeling a sharp pain in her heart.

She hadn’t expected Chu Xihuan to still be here, let alone with a child of unknown origin. But even though she saw that Chu Xihuan was still here and seemed not to have reconciled with her old flame, everything she had experienced after she returned home still made her feel a deep sense of frustration and grievance.

She hadn’t been able to feel much of Chu Xihuan’s surprise at her return. Almost all of her attention was on that child of unknown origin. Every conversation with her would eventually be interrupted because of that child.

She hated that child!

She hated that she could so easily get the Chu Xihuan she had never had!

The bitterness in her chest spread, and Lin Zhao couldn’t even feel the cold around her. She just felt suffocated and wronged, a kind of grievance that had nowhere to be vented.

She had thought that she could be indifferent to Chu Xihuan, but the moment she faced her, she found that she still cared very much, even to the point of being angry.

Angry at herself, angry at why she still cared about her.

It would have been best if she had never come back. Why did she have to come back and go through this?

She bit herself hard to force herself to calm down. Lin Zhao wiped the tears from her face and walked quickly toward an inn in the city.

She was no longer the Lin Zhao of the past, the one who could only sleep on the streets if she couldn’t go home. She now had the ability to find a place for herself.

After booking a room, not long after she entered, the waiter brought her hot food and even asked her when she would need hot water.

Lin Zhao ate the food in large mouthfuls, but tears kept falling into her rice, and she tasted a mouthful of bitterness.

She didn’t need to cry. She now had a warm room with a charcoal fire and hot, delicious food, much more comfortable than when she was at home. Was she so masochistic that she couldn’t enjoy it?

After finishing the food, Lin Zhao’s stomach was uncomfortably full. She took off her outer clothes, which had long been soaked by the snow, and opened the door, intending to ask the waiter to run an errand for her to buy some thick clothes, but she froze.

She looked at Chu Xihuan, who was standing at her door with a package, her expression changing again and again. Finally, she took a step back and slammed the door shut, leaning against it, her heart beating too fast.

The food she had just eaten felt like it was about to come up her throat.

“Lin Zhao, I’ve brought you some clothes,” Chu Xihuan’s voice came from outside the door.

She had noticed earlier that Lin Zhao didn’t even have a bundle with her, and it was snowing lightly outside. If she didn’t change into a dry set of clothes in time, she would probably catch a cold.

Lin Zhao could no longer hold it back. She covered her mouth and ran to the wooden basin used for washing her face, and threw up.

The heart-wrenching sounds of vomiting made Chu Xihuan, who was outside the door, anxious. She quickly pushed open the door and came in, only to see Lin Zhao bent over, her hands on the edge of the wooden basin, her face pale.

“Lin Zhao!” Chu Xihuan didn’t understand why Lin Zhao would suddenly vomit, but she still quickly poured her a cup of warm water.

“Get out,” Lin Zhao said before she could reach her.

Chu Xihuan’s brow furrowed tightly. She didn’t understand why, even at a time like this, she was still asking her to leave.

Seeing that she was not moving and was even about to walk toward her, Lin Zhao raised her voice and shouted angrily, “I told you to get out! Didn’t you hear me!”

She didn’t want to be seen in such a pathetic and disgusting state, especially not by Chu Xihuan!

Chu Xihuan bit her lip and looked at her, but her feet still did not move.

“Get out!” Lin Zhao turned her head and roared.

Chu Xihuan slowly closed her eyes, feeling a little embarrassed. But in the end, seeing Lin Zhao’s angry gaze, she took a deep breath, placed the water cup a short distance from her, and turned to leave the room, even helping her close the door.

After Chu Xihuan left, Lin Zhao lowered her head, smelling the unpleasant smell in the air, and large tears fell. It wasn’t until her stomach finally felt a little better that she took some tea to rinse her mouth, then brushed her teeth and washed her face, trying to wash away all the smells on her.

However, not long after, the inn’s waiter came to knock on the door, saying that he was bringing her hot water.

Lin Zhao was taken aback. This was not the time she had asked the waiter to bring hot water. Then there was only one possibility…

She pressed her lips together, her face darkening. She watched as the waiter brought in the hot water and then cleaned up the mess she had made, his attitude good throughout.

“Where is that person?” Lin Zhao asked the waiter.

The waiter clearly understood who she was referring to. “She’s in the room next to yours.”

Lin Zhao was speechless.

She let out a “heh,” and after the waiter left, she opened the bundle Chu Xihuan had brought. Inside was a set of clothes she had never seen before, but from the color of the fabric, it looked new and had probably never been worn.

The familiar bitterness in her chest spread again. Lin Zhao quickly came to the partition between the two rooms and banged on it with her hand.

As she banged on the wall, she heard the sound of the door opening next door, and then her own door was also pushed open.

Lin Zhao turned to look at her and said with a sneer, “What are you doing here? Are you so at ease leaving your daughter at home alone?”

Chu Xihuan ignored her piercing gaze and walked closer, step by step.

“She is your daughter, too.”

**

Author’s Note:

Zhaozhao now: Pah! She’s a ghost’s daughter before she’s mine