Chapter 22: Honeymoon (1)
While the sun descended slowly into the horizon, the passengers in the cabin had already put on their eye masks to prepare for sleep. Aside from the whooshing noise of the aeroplane, only light breathing sounds could be heard.
On a plane to the Maldives, Fu Bainian looked through the window at the sky and the clouds. He thought back to many years ago...a woman had been sitting in front of him, slowly sipping a glass of red wine, or maybe, she was just quietly observing the scenery outside the window. He was sitting behind her, silently watching her while contemplating about the day that he could sit beside her.
When Fu Bainian turned his head and looked beside him, all he could see was a plump face. Even though the face now looked somewhat slimmer after all the training, it was still round and chubby.
However, what was imprinted in his memories was a thin, petite face. The expressions revealed were always few and far between, but they still caught his attention.
Currently, Lan Jinyao felt a little nervous. The plane was flying at a very high altitude, which reminded her of that night when she’d fallen from that tall building. That fall had seemed like it was never-ending. With her body being blown about like a broken kite, she uncontrollably hit the ground. When she recalled this, she tightly clung to the armrest with a thin layer of sweat gathering on her face. What she was experiencing during this flight, compared to past trips, was totally different.
She’d developed the slightest acrophobia.
Fu Bainian was so immersed in his train of thoughts, that he only snapped out of it when the stewardess spoke.
“Excuse me, Miss, are you not feeling well?”
Lan Jinyao shook her head with her eyes tightly closed. “No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s just that I haven’t slept well!”
Only then did Fu Bainian notice that her face was somewhat pale. The temperature wasn’t high, so it wasn’t hot at all, but a thin layer of sweat had formed on her forehead. Even her plump face seemed to have tightened a lot.
“Chen Meimei, what's wrong?”
Lan Jinyao suddenly grasped his palm tightly and said in a trembling voice, “Fu Bainian, I'm just a little scared. Do you think we’ll arrive safely at the Maldives?”
Sometimes, fear was an uncontrollable emotion. Even though she knew that the plane wouldn’t meet with any mishap and that she’d arrive safely at her destination, she still felt frightened; to the point that her body had started trembling with fear. The feeling of falling from a high altitude was magnified immensely in her mind, and it seemed as if she could foresee and sense the kind of pain her body would feel as it crashed to the ground.
“That goes without saying! Chen Meimei, I don't recall you having acrophobia!”
Lan Jinyao looked at him weakly, cold sweat dripping down her face.
“If you weren’t aware of this, then that’s because you don't know me well enough!”
This man was unaware of how she’d felt when she fell from that building at such a high altitude. He also didn’t know that she was someone else and that she’d been reincarnated into the present Chen Meimei. He couldn’t sympathise because he didn’t know any of these things!
At this very moment, she didn’t want to argue with him; she just wanted to hold his hand tightly. His palm was dry and warm, and it seemed as if she could feel at ease only by holding it.
Fu Bainian could never understand this woman's thoughts. As far as he knew, Chen Meimei wasn’t afraid of heights at all, and she was hopelessly in love with him. Chen Meimei also loved meat more than vegetables. Chen Meimei would rather stay fat and die as a fatty than go on a diet to lose weight. Even if she were scared to death, she would still face everything with loftiness, instead of exposing her weak side in front of others. However, the Chen Meimei that he was familiar with had disappeared. This woman in front of him now had overturned all his previous understandings of Chen Meimei.
She was strong-willed, but she also periodically showed her weak side. She wasn’t complacent after she was able to marry him; instead, she negotiated conditions with him.
Whether she liked a person or not, would everything change accordingly to that? The moment this thought appeared in Fu Bainian's mind, he instantly dismissed it.
He comforted her and spoke gently, “Don't be afraid, I'm by your side so we'll arrive there safely. Don’t worry.”
Lan Jinyao nodded and then leaned her head on his shoulder. She could feel that Fu Bainian’s body had stiffened when she did that, but she didn't think much into it and sank into a deep sleep.
When Lan Jinyao and Fu Bainian arrived in the Maldives, it was already around 1 AM. After they’d disembarked from the plane, they went straight to check-in at a local hotel. As soon as they were done, Lan Jinyao lay down on the bed and immediately fell asleep; ignoring everything else around her. When she woke up the next morning, she opened her eyes to see Fu Bainian's face right in front of her. This sight terrified her so much that she fell from the bed and landed on the ground.
In the early morning, the scream of a Chinese woman echoed throughout the hotel!
Before long, the siren of a police car could be heard coming from downstairs.
Fu Bainian had just woken up and was still half-asleep when he heard the continuous knocking on the door. Before he’d even reached the door to open it, someone had already forcefully knocked the door open. Three to four black guns were then directly pointed at Fu Bainian. When Lan Jinyao saw those weapons and the troop of people, she was scared witless.
“Fu Bainian, what's happening? We're not illegal immigrants here!”
Who could be in a good mood after being woken so early in the morning, and then have a group of police point guns at them?
Fu Bainian slowly got out of the bed and said to the police in English, “What's going on?”
Very soon, Lan Jinyao understood that it was just a misunderstanding. Those people had thought that she was kidnapped or being abused in here, so they’d rushed in with guns to save her. However, in reality, no such thing had happened!!
Fu Bainian sent the group away with a darkened expression, and then returned to the room. With his hands crossed over his chest, he stared sternly at Lan Jinyao.
“It's really not my fault!” Lan Jinyao innocently emphasised.
“Who was the one that was wailing like a ghost so early in the morning? This is a hotel, not a piggery!”
Lan Jinyao became angry, because, after her rebirth, being fat was one of her sore spots. Although she’d tried hard to change this by dieting, the effects had been minimal, and now Fu Bainian, this hateful man, went so far as to pour salt on her wounds! This was unforgivable! Wasn’t that so?
“Who’re you calling a pig?! If it wasn’t for the fact that when I opened my eyes so early in the morning to see a man lying in my bed, would I have shrieked? If that hadn’t happened, would that have led the police over?” she pointed to his nose and argued. She didn’t even notice that she was behaving less and less like her former self.
Fu Bainian lightly slapped Lan Jinyao's hand away that was pointing at his nose.
Lan Jinyao rubbed her hand and glared at Fu Bainian. After a while, when her anger still didn’t subside, she pushed him towards the bed.
Fu Bainian supported himself by propping his hands on the bed and said carefully, “Don't forget; I'm your husband now! If you treat your husband like this, aren’t you afraid that the police will come back and arrest you?!”
Lan Jinyao answered disdainfully, “If they’re going to catch someone, then it would be you! It would be for kidnapping and selling an innocent lady like myself!”
The first morning for a honeymoon in the Maldives certainly didn’t start so sweet...
When Lan Jinyao went downstairs to have breakfast, she felt that something was off. She kept sensing that someone was following her. But, when she quickly turned around and looked behind her, she didn’t see anything out of place. When she told Fu Bainian about this, he just said in his usual arrogant tone, “I think your imagination must be running wild! You’re overthinking things!”