Chapter 24 – Confession
Fu Xingyan lowered his eyes. His long lashes veiled them, making it impossible to read his emotions.
After finishing his words, Fu Xingchen didn’t bother to care what Fu Xingyan thought. He pried open, finger by finger, the hand that was tightly gripping Shao Leyan’s wrist and gently rubbed the reddened mark he had left behind.
“Xingyan, don’t be so disrespectful to your sister-in-law. What happened today will not be allowed to happen a second time.”
Fu Xingyan suddenly raised his head. His pupils trembled violently, and he curled his lips in disbelief.
“Brother, this is the apocalypse where everyone lives in fear, not a peaceful, harmonious era. No matter how much you like Yanyan, you can use your power and status to force her, but you can’t use the law to tie her to you. She is free.”
Fu Xingchen laughed too, and his smile was dazzlingly bright. His handsome face seemed to shine.
“Free?”
“Do you think you have freedom, or I do? Being able to stay alive is already the greatest luck. Compared to life, freedom is worthless.”
Shao Leyan’s heart swayed. She realized that her thoughts aligned perfectly with Fu Xingchen’s. Her gaze softened as she looked at his brows and eyes, allowing him to wrap his long arm around her slender waist, enclosing her in his arms in a posture that was both protective and possessive.
“I can protect Yanyan. I can give her a stable and relatively free life in this dangerous apocalypse. That means I’m qualified to form a family with her.”
An invisible, suffocating heaviness spread through the air. The two brothers faced off, neither willing to yield an inch.
Listening to their exchange, Shao Leyan felt unexpectedly calm.
Le’an had given her a chance to be reborn so she wouldn’t repeat her past mistakes and could finally obtain the things she had desperately pursued but never gained in her previous life.
A warm family.
A reliable husband.
Healthy children.
That was her wish.
So even though she had known Fu Xingchen for less than half a month, in this harsh apocalypse, he was the best partner she could choose.
It wasn’t about love, but he was the most suitable for marriage.
Even if she still missed her ex-husband, Fu Xingchen was a good man who would protect her, care for her, and think of her in everything.
“You should ask Shao Leyan,” Fu Xingyan said, his eyes bloodshot. The anger in his heart had reached its limit, and his speaking speed grew faster and faster. “Is she willing?”
Both men lowered their heads at the same time and looked at Shao Leyan with anticipation.
It was as if she had to choose between them today, or she wouldn’t be allowed to leave.
Shao Leyan steadied her mind. Her fingers lightly tugged at Fu Xingchen’s clothes. Her beautiful eyes were shy, and her voice was soft and gentle as she coaxed him.
“Let’s go back and talk.”
Fu Xingchen’s face lit up instantly. The tension between his brows completely relaxed, and the hand around her waist tightened slightly.
“Mm. Let’s go home.”
After speaking, Fu Xingchen cast an imperceptible glance at Fu Xingyan’s gloomy expression.
Although he felt a little heartache for his younger brother, Shao Leyan’s simple sentence had already filled him with so much happiness that it clouded his reason. All he wanted now was to pull her back to the room and finish what they hadn’t finished that morning, whispering those love words into her ear that he never got tired of saying.
Before leaving, Shao Leyan turned her head and glanced at Fu Xingyan, who stood motionless. When their eyes met, she blinked at him in a comforting way, giving him a reassuring signal.
Although she would eventually give in to Le’an and Fu Xingchen’s wishes and become the City Lord’s wife, Fu Xingyan was one of the male leads in the original story—and also her future brother‑in‑law. She would absolutely not offend him.
In the warm family she imagined, not only would the small family be harmonious, but even the relationships among blood relatives had to be harmonious as well.
In her previous life, because Xiao Yi didn’t care about her, Shao Leyan, to the Shao family, was like water that had been poured out after marriage. She had already completed her mission of exchanging herself for the Xiao family’s benefits and repaid the debt of upbringing.
So she wasn’t close to her biological brother at all and barely contacted him.
After marrying into the Xiao family, her sister-in-law and brother-in-law, because of Fu Yue, didn’t regard her—an outsider who had usurped the place by relying on her prestigious background—as a human being. Even though they had known each other since childhood, even though Shao Leyan had tried everything to ingratiate herself and fit into the new family, it was useless.
When even her own brother looked down on his wife, the younger siblings naturally followed suit.
Shao Leyan didn’t know how she had survived those eight years.
In the end, she had endured until she had nothing left—not even her heart. She had given everything she had, only to receive one sentence from Xiao Yi: that he had never loved her.
She pressed her lips together and tightened her grip on Fu Xingchen’s hand, earning a gentle smile and a firm, reassuring squeeze in return.
This life, she would absolutely not repeat the same mistakes.
City Lord’s Palace
Shao Leyan looked at Fu Xingchen standing in front of her, his whole body tense. Her gaze grew gentler, and a faint smile hung on her lips.
Fu Xingchen was full of anticipation and asked tentatively, “Yanyan, you… what do you want to tell me?”
Shao Leyan stepped forward of her own accord. If she raised her head, she could kiss his full lips.
She took the initiative to hug his lean, narrow waist, her arms tightly fastening around him like a belt.
Her delicate little face tilted up to look at him, and as her gorgeous brows and eyes moved, a trace of bewitching charm unintentionally flowed out.
“Xingchen, you want to be with me, right?”
The moment she hugged him, half of Fu Xingchen’s strong body went numb. His heart and eyes were filled only with the soft body pressed against him and that beautiful, moving face.
Was there, in this world, a woman more beautiful and more lovable than his Yanyan?
Impossible.
There was only one Yanyan—this woman standing in front of him.
She was a unique treasure in the apocalypse, and also the exclusive angel sent by heaven to save his life.
Unable to help himself, he hugged her back, wishing he could rub her into his bones. He lowered his head and pressed a forceful, crushing kiss onto Shao Leyan’s full, tempting red lips.
Their lips fit together as if they were made for each other—equally full, soft, and perfectly shaped. When they kissed, there was no inch of sweetness left untouched.
When their lips separated, a soft, embarrassing “pop” sound filled the air.
Shao Leyan had already melted into water in Fu Xingchen’s arms. The belated sense of emptiness tugged at her reason. In her hazy state, she heard his reply.
“We’re not just going to be simply together. Yanyan, although the world has changed a lot, everyone is struggling just to stay alive, love has become a luxury, and the marriage system has been abolished, I’m very clear about my feelings. I don’t just want to be your boyfriend. I want to be your husband, to run the underground city with you, to have children, and to grow old together.”
Fu Xingchen held her gaze tightly, never letting go. The light of expectation in his eyes was so intense it almost seemed to burn her skin.
“Can you give me this chance?”
Shao Leyan’s whole body trembled. Her heart softened again and again, so moved that she was almost in tears.
She had heard words like these in countless lonely nights in her previous life, dreaming that Xiao Yi would confess to her just as sincerely.
