Chapter 47: The Resentful Husband

Wang Zhao took a step or two to the side, shielding Li Zhenguan behind her, before turning her head to look at the woman standing beside her.

The woman was wearing a baseball cap and a casual outfit. There were some gray marks on the cuffs of her pants, likely stained from being at a construction site.

Meeting Wang Zhao’s calm gaze, the woman awkwardly averted her eyes and casually started talking to someone nearby, asking when they could enter the construction site. She said she could come by in a few days to take a look and asked them to send her the construction schedule.

Wang Zhao then withdrew her gaze and looked at Li Zhenguan in front of her. He seemed to have been watching her the whole time. When their eyes met, he just smiled with pressed lips, not minding what had just happened at all. Instead, he seemed quite pleased with Wang Zhao’s protective behavior towards him.

He tugged at Wang Zhao’s sleeve, subtly intertwining his fingers with hers, then fully holding hands.

Wang Zhao didn’t refuse. She just looked at Li Zhenguan impassively, holding his hand, letting their hands hang by their sides, then looked away.

The group exited the elevator. Wang Zhao made arrangements with the designer’s assistant for the next visit and also made a phone call to the designer before preparing to leave.

However, when they left the lobby, they found that the strange woman they had encountered in the elevator hadn’t left either. She was standing outside talking on the phone. When she saw Wang Zhao and Li Zhenguan coming out, her voice paused for a moment, then she casually hung up the phone.

After hesitating for a few moments, she still walked up to greet Wang Zhao and Li Zhenguan. She raised the blueprints in her hand and said, “I’m from upstairs. This is my friend’s house. He couldn’t come, so I’m helping him oversee the renovation progress.”

Wang Zhao smiled slightly, not really caring who this person was. But considering they would be future neighbors, she slightly endured the woman’s rudeness in the elevator and said hello with a smile on her face.

The woman touched her face, also aware that she had been somewhat offensive in the elevator earlier, and couldn’t help but explain, “I’m sorry, in the elevator just now, I thought you looked familiar, so I couldn’t help but look a few times.”

Regarding this explanation, Wang Zhao just smiled, not offering any further opinion. In fact, she didn’t quite believe what the woman said. At that time, the woman’s gaze had mostly been on Li Zhenguan, not on her. That look didn’t seem like she found her familiar, but rather that she recognized Li Zhenguan.

So she waited until the woman really had nothing more to say, then pretended to look at her watch.

“I’m sorry, we have something else to attend to, so we need to leave now,” she said with a smile.

The woman couldn’t say anything more and could only watch the two leave. After Wang Zhao and Li Zhenguan left, she made a phone call and said to the person on the other end, “Chen Lixue, guess who I just saw?”

The person on the other end didn’t want to know who she had seen and couldn’t be bothered about who she had seen. They directly asked, “Weren’t you supposed to be helping Fangli oversee his house renovation today?”

“How could I dare not take seriously what you’ve entrusted me with?” the woman said as she walked towards the parking lot. “There’s no big problem with the renovation over there. I’ll come once a week from now on, and I guarantee there won’t be any issues. I’ll try to have it renovated for you within three months.”

After discussing business, she still couldn’t help but mention, “I just happened to run into an acquaintance here, your Fangli’s ex-girlfriend. But she probably didn’t recognize me. Well, it’s understandable, after all, we only met once or twice several years ago, and now so much time has passed, it’s normal not to recognize me.”

Saying this, the woman touched her face, somewhat doubting if she had really changed that much. It had only been about five years, surely she hadn’t completely changed her face?

The person on the other end was silent for a moment after hearing this: “Where did you see her?”

“In the elevator,” the woman said as she opened the door and got into the car. Sitting in the driver’s seat, she complained, “What a coincidence, right? Fangli’s ex-girlfriend’s place is just downstairs. When the elevator door opened, I met that woman’s gaze, and her husband was also by her side. They’re probably here to check on their old house. I heard from the designer that the renovation downstairs is almost done, probably ready to move in by the second half of next year.”

“But that woman probably didn’t recognize me. I stared at her for so long, and there was no reaction. Don’t you think it’s too much of a coincidence? How come the house Fangli bought is right above Wang Zhao’s? Is it possible he still hasn’t given up?”

She started the car and drove out of the underground parking lot. Chen Lixue on the other end was still quiet, causing the woman’s voice to pause. Afraid she had said something wrong, she couldn’t help but ask, “Did I say something wrong?”

After a while, a voice came from the other end of the phone, sounding somewhat tired. The person seemed to have taken a sip of water before continuing, “Don’t worry about this matter. I’ll ask Fangli privately. You still need to take care of the house renovation. Fangli doesn’t know much about this, and I can’t spare the time.”

The woman laughed, turned the steering wheel, and made a turn. Coincidentally, she encountered Wang Zhao again at the intersection. This coincidence surprised her so much that she felt it was like winning a 5,000 yuan lottery.

The other car stopped next to hers. As she rolled down the window, she turned her head and met Li Zhenguan’s fair face.

She couldn’t help but admit, this man was truly handsome.

She thought of Chen Lixue’s cousin’s face and couldn’t help but shake her head. This was the difference between a first love and a lifelong partner. However, Li Zhenguan’s appearance was slightly more ethereal than the lifelong partner, giving off a snowdrop flower vibe.

She smiled politely at Li Zhenguan in the car, then looked away and said to the person on the headset, “You’re not refusing to pay. The land in Fengxi District was acquired by our company thanks to your help.”

When the green light came on, she stepped on the gas and left first. She didn’t want to leave any more strange impressions on these two people.

Meanwhile, Li Zhenguan, sitting in the passenger seat, also spoke about the woman: “Wang Zhao, do you know her?”

The woman gave him the feeling that she knew them, but Li Zhenguan thought for a moment and had no impression. In his memory, he had never seen this woman before. If he had met her, it would be impossible to have no impression at all.

Wang Zhao’s fingertips slid over the leather of the steering wheel, seemingly recalling for a moment, then shook her head: “I can’t remember clearly. Maybe I met her a long time ago. She probably isn’t someone I know well.”

Otherwise, the woman would have come up to chat earlier, and wouldn’t have said just a word or two.

Li Zhenguan made a sound of acknowledgment and didn’t care much anymore. He was in a very good mood now, turning his head to look at the person in the driver’s seat as if his eyes were filled with stars.

Wang Zhao turned her head slightly, glancing at him with her peripheral vision, and chuckled: “What are you smiling about?”

Li Zhenguan’s smile slightly faded: “Nothing.”

But after saying this, he still felt happy, so he couldn’t help but let his eyes curve up slightly, looking very much like a crescent moon.

“So our place has two bedrooms and two living rooms?” Li Zhenguan remembered the layout of his previous old house and asked with some confusion.

Wang Zhao made a sound of agreement. When she spoke with the designer at the time, she said she hoped for the living space to be as large as possible, especially the living room, so they finally decided on this two-bedroom, two-living room layout.

“That’s how it was designed at the time. Our room will also have a huge walk-in closet, both rooms will have en-suite bathrooms, and as for the study, I had the designer create an open study with two walls of bookshelves surrounding it, and the other wall is floor-to-ceiling glass for better lighting,” Wang Zhao said.

In fact, more importantly, she liked private spaces. So when designing the room layout, she didn’t consider what to do if guests were to come and stay. That would be simple enough – they could stay at a nearby hotel. There were quite a few brand hotels on Golden Avenue.

“If you have any ideas, you can say them now. We can ask the designer together to see if they can be implemented. After all, this is your home too,” Wang Zhao said matter-of-factly, without any other emotion. Her tone was too calm, but it was precisely this calmness that always gave Li Zhenguan a huge sense of shock.

He always unreservedly loved this calmness of Wang Zhao’s.

The two returned home.

The next two months were much calmer. Wang Zhao went to her friend’s law firm, going to work and coming home every day, occasionally working overtime until late at night before returning home. At these times, she would habitually call Li Zhenguan, otherwise, he definitely wouldn’t go to sleep early, insisting on seeing her in person.

It seemed that as the pregnancy progressed, Li Zhenguan became increasingly fragile, his dependence on her increasing without limit. Sometimes he even became a bit paranoid. Once, when he saw a short hair on her shoulder, he cried in the middle of the night. If she hadn’t gotten up to use the bathroom, she might not have noticed.

A man in his twenties, lying on his side in bed, half the pillow was wet, his eyes red, making Wang Zhao feel both amused and helpless.

Wang Zhao squatted beside him, pulled out two tissues, and wiped the tears from Li Zhenguan’s face. He had cried for so long that his skin had turned a bit reddish white.

As the months passed, his lower abdomen had become noticeably protruding and swollen, his waist had clearly thickened, and he even had difficulty walking. Sometimes his legs would swell, and because of these changes, Li Zhenguan couldn’t even turn over in bed at night. So Wang Zhao could only help massage his sore and swollen legs.

However, daily exercise still needed to be done. According to the doctor’s instructions, they would elevate his lower limbs to relieve the swelling in his feet.

“Why are you crying, Zhenguan?” Having dealt with this many times, Wang Zhao had developed a set of familiar phrases. She stroked his face, then placed her hand on the young man’s back to feel it. His cotton and linen pajamas were somewhat damp. Even on such a cold day, he had managed to work up a sweat. Wang Zhao felt a bit helpless.

Li Zhenguan actually didn’t really want to cry, but lying in bed at night, he woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep. He thought of the short hair on Wang Zhao’s shoulder, which was clearly a man’s. This inevitably reminded him of the two short hairs he had found on Wang Zhao at the wedding two months ago. So he felt increasingly bitter and depressed in his heart, especially when the person beside him was sleeping quietly without a sound. The more he thought about it, the more angry and aggrieved he felt, and he couldn’t help but cry.

Now, being stared at by Wang Zhao, he felt a bit embarrassed, but he just couldn’t stop. He met Wang Zhao’s gaze, not knowing how to express himself, feeling somewhat ashamed. Moreover, he didn’t want Wang Zhao to think he was a jealous husband.

So he just lowered his head and didn’t say anything.

At this moment, he began to blame himself again in his heart for waking Wang Zhao up in the middle of the night when she had to get up at seven in the morning to go to work.

For a moment, he became self-pitying again.

Wang Zhao sighed, changing from squatting on the ground to sitting on the bed. She pinched Li Zhenguan’s calves and thighs, letting his tense muscles relax. In this quiet atmosphere, Li Zhenguan’s crying subsided, and after a while, he finally calmed down.

A low, slightly hesitant voice sounded: “Wang Zhao, are there many male colleagues in your law firm?”

At this, Wang Zhao finally understood the root of the problem.

This time she really laughed, somewhat helplessly: “Zhenguan, is this why you couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night, silently shedding tears like a resentful husband?”

Li Zhenguan remained silent.

At the same time, because of these words, he began to blame himself again in his heart. However, countless thoughts couldn’t be dispelled. He always felt that many people would snatch his Wang Zhao, his wife, away from him.

Their beginning stemmed from his scheming, so he was particularly wary of other people of the opposite sex who tried to approach Wang Zhao. If he had succeeded, why wouldn’t the next person succeed?

Perhaps the other person was more handsome than him, had higher education than him, or had a better personality than him. Under such comparisons, would Wang Zhao choose someone else?