Chapter 249: Trust
Such an ordinary Jade hairpin, yet it still caught his eye in an instant. “How much is this?” As if guided by some unseen force, he picked up the Jade hairpin.
The old man at the stall chuckled. “You have a good eye, young man. It would be a perfect match for your lady. Only five cents.”
A faint blush crept up Hu Feng’s handsome face. Without bothering to explain, he pulled his money bag from his robes, took out five cents, and handed them to the stall owner.
He slipped the hairpin into his robes and caught up to Bai Zhi, who was buying cotton.
Bai Zhi had already settled on a price with the seller. When she saw him coming over, she asked, “Where did you go? What took you so long?”
Hu Feng clasped his hands behind his back and looked up at the sky. “Nowhere. Just looking around.”
Bai Zhi didn’t press him. After paying, she had Hu Feng hoist the bag of cotton onto his shoulder. There happened to be a fabric shop right next door, so they went in and bought two bolts of cloth.
The bolts of cloth weren’t heavy, but they were long. It was very inconvenient for Bai Zhi to carry them as she navigated the especially bustling market street.
Seeing this, Hu Feng simply took the two bolts of cloth from her arms. “Let me get those. The vegetable sellers are up ahead. Go buy what you need, and then we’ll head back.”
The load in Bai Zhi’s arms suddenly lightened. She looked at Hu Feng, a large bag of cotton slung over his left shoulder and two bolts of cloth tucked under his right arm, while she herself was carrying nothing. The scene reminded her of her time in the modern world—of the girls she used to see in shopping malls, their faces alight with blissful smiles. Beside each of those girls, there was always a man with his hands full of shopping bags.
‘Just like Hu Feng and I are now!’
She had never been in a relationship, and she never dared to readily accept a man’s kindness, preferring to handle everything herself. Having grown up in an orphanage, she was plagued by a deep-seated sense of insecurity. She couldn’t bring herself to trust people easily, especially not the kind of man who was full of sweet talk and knew exactly how to charm a girl.
But ever since arriving in this world, her personality had been slowly changing.
She was starting to trust others.
Trusting Zhao Lan, Hu Changlin, Meng Nan, Jin Xiao’an, and Hu Feng.
‘The person I trust the most, besides Zhao Lan, is probably Hu Feng!’
Hu Feng was different from the men she knew in the modern world. He was a man of few words and many deeds, always quietly protecting her, always appearing right when she needed him most.
She didn’t know when it had started, but she had let down all her defenses around Hu Feng. She trusted him even more than she had trusted Lin Yang.
Lin Yang. The boy who had been in her classes since freshman year of college. He had liked her but never said a word, always following in her footsteps, never straying far.
When she chose to work at Mingxing Hospital after graduation, Lin Yang went to Mingxing Hospital with her. When she became an attending physician, he became one too.
Later, through her own relentless efforts, she became Mingxing Hospital’s most brilliant top-tier general practitioner. And Lin Yang, for his part, became its most outstanding chief of surgery.
Lin Yang loved her but never said it, simply staying by her side. He cared for her as a friend, a classmate, and a colleague, quietly standing behind her and watching over her.
‘I always thought that, in the end, Lin Yang and I would end up together. But that day never came. Perhaps it was because something was still missing… But what was it?’
“What are you spacing out for? Hurry up and go. Do you see what hour it is?” Hu Feng said, seeing her lost in a daze again. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking; the expression on her little face was inscrutable.
“Oh, I’m going.” She snapped out of it and hurried over to the vegetable section, where she picked out a few things Hu Feng liked to eat.