Their Love Stories

Guan Mingchang said, “Take good care of Xia Zi. I’ll go look for your mum!”

Guan Zixuan nodded. “I will!”

Guan Zixuan watched his father leave hurriedly. He sighed inwardly, hoping that Xia Xinsheng would not hurt herself on impulse. Xia Zi is still unconscious and she doesn’t know that Xia Xinsheng is her mother!

He returned to the ward and sat at Xia Zi’s bedside looking sorry.

He kept wondering to himself if this could have been prevented if he had reacted faster. He wondered if he could have actually protected her, and he wondered if he should have gotten rid of Su Xiaoran in the first place.

He reached for Xia Zi’s hand and held it.

He could feel that there were several tiny scars on her hand. Shouldn’t girls be pampered and well taken care of by their parents?

Why did my A’zi have to go through so much pain and suffering? He could only imagine what she had actually been through, from her time in the orphanage up until becoming the famous white rose in Interpol.

Beautiful and strong-willed, she was able to rise up the ranks through sheer ability and determination.

He loved and accepted everything about her, her past and her present.

Guan Zixuan held her hand tight and intertwined his fingers with hers.

“You know what, A’zi? I never thought that I could fall in love so deeply. I can leave everything and even abandon myself for you.”

Overwhelmed by his emotions, he did not notice Xia Zi’s eyelashes fluttering.

Guan Zixuan continued, “A’zi, you’re sleeping so peacefully now. When are you able to wake up? My mum wouldn’t make things difficult for you anymore because she’s your mum too. We’ll be happy after this. Wake up soon, okay?”

He reached out to stroke her cheek. “A’zi, before getting to know you, I thought that liking someone would mean heartbreak, but I never knew that really loving somebody meant that I’d feel like dying without her. I had feelings for your sister, Mo Suqing, in the past, and it might be just fate playing with us, but without your sister, I don’t think we’d have ever met. I’m so grateful to have met you and to have you by my side. Though it looked like I was the one taking care of you for the past five years, you were able to fill the emptiness in my heart. You made my heart feel so full...”

Guan Zixuan was unaware of the movement in Xia Zi’s other hand during his heartfelt confession.

“A’zi, you might be thinking that I’m treating you as a replacement for Suqing.”

He then gave a bitter smile. “I’ve never thought like that at all. Even though you had lost your memories, you’re totally different from Suqing. You were the one I fell in love with! You left without turning back right before we were supposed to get married, and I know you’re probably blaming me for it. Yes, I didn’t give you that sense of security, and I never told you that I went to A City just to look for you. I never had the courage to confess my feelings for you. Xia Zi, you’re the only one in my heart. You’re nobody else’s replacement, you are you, you’re my A’zi, and you’re the only one that I want. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault. Could you just wake up please? A’zi, wake up and look at me. I promise I’ll answer any questions you have, okay?”

Guan Zixuan suddenly stopped talking. He saw Xia Zi looking right at him.

“A’zi, you...”

Xia Zi asked, “What? Didn’t you ask me to wake up and look at you?”

Guan Zixuan deadpanned.

“You heard everything?” He turned red from embarrassment.

Xia Zi nodded. “Mm, I heard it all.”

“Then why didn’t you call out to me?” Guan Zixuan asked her extremely gently, as if afraid that sounding a tiny bit harsher would break her into pieces.

“Why should I do that?” Xia Zi’s expression was so calm it looked like she was talking about the weather.

Guan Zixuan scratched his head. “When did you wake up?”

“I woke up when you started talking.”

Xia Zi answered honestly, causing Guan Zixuan to become even more embarrassed. So she really heard everything I said?

But he recovered quickly from the embarrassment since these were things he had always wanted to tell her.

Well, it’s good I’ve said all that. I might not have the courage to do that in any other situation!

Xia Zi looked at him and said, “It’s not that I listened in on purpose. I wanted to open my eyes when I heard you talking, but my eyelids were just too heavy.”

Guan Zixuan placed a finger gently on her lips. “A’zi, it’s okay. I understand. These are things that I’ve wanted to tell you anyway. I’m going to tell you this now. I like you. No! I love you. You’re the one I love and have always been. You’re my everything, you’re my life. I won’t let you leave me, I won’t let you get hurt. I’ll stay with you even if the entire world is against it!”

There was a ripple of emotion on Xia Zi’s face as she nodded. “Zixuan, me too!”

“What did you just call me?”

Xia Zi was slightly embarrassed at this. “I’ll call you Zixuan from now on!”

Guan Zixuan nodded happily. “Okay, okay!” He then helped raise the bed.

With the bed raised, Xia Zi could talk to him much comfortably while she was sitting up.

He then realized that he forgot to ask how she was feeling. He slapped himself on the forehead and asked, “A’zi, do you feel okay? Are you hurting anywhere? I’ll get the doctor to check on you again, okay?”

Xia Zi shook her head at this. “There’s no need. Zixuan, I know myself. I recover faster than the usual person. I’m fine so there’s no need to get the doctor. I’d know if anything was wrong.”

This made Guan Zixuan think of the Chinese idiom ‘prolonged illness makes one a doctor’. How many times had she been hurt and injured?

Guan Zixuan hugged her.

“A’zi, I’ll protect you in future. I won’t let you get hurt anymore, I promise...”

Xia Zi blinked at this. She understood how he felt and she knew that he would have blamed himself this time. It was usually the man protecting the woman, but she protected him this time.

“Okay! You have to protect me then!”

Guan Zixuan continued hugging her and did not let go.

Xia Zi then remembered what he said earlier. “You mentioned something like your mum was my mum, and that there’d be no one stopping us in future. Is that true?”

“Mm! It’s true!” Guan Zixuan nodded quickly.

Joy appeared on Xia Zi’s face. “Aunty is willing to accept me?”

Guan Zixuan realized then that Xia Zi had misunderstood him. She thought that he meant Xia Xinsheng had accepted her, but she still did not know that Xia Xinsheng was her biological mother.

He then sighed and said, “It’s not like that though. Do you know that your sister is in Emperor City now?”

Xia Zi smiled. “Sis is here? Where is she?”

Guan Zixuan then began telling her what happened in the morning.

“Suqing arrived in the dead of night because she was super worried about you. My mum came to visit in the morning and she met Suqing.”

Before Guan Zixuan could finish, Xia Zi asked, “Did my sister get into a fight with Aunty?”

He shook his head. “No, they didn’t. But Suqing passed out.”

Xia Zi sat up. “Where’s my sister? I want to see her!”

Guan Zixuan stopped her. “Don’t panic. I’ve seen her and she’s fine. She’s pregnant and she passed out because she had an emotional outburst.”

Xia Zi frowned at this. “Why did that happen? Didn’t you say that they didn’t get into a fight?”

Guan Zixuan then said, “They didn’t, but Suqing called her ‘Mum’!”

This confused Xia Zi. “What do you mean?”

Guan Zixuan continued, “My mother, or to be more accurate, my stepmother, is actually Xia Yanran. She’s the biological mother of you and Suqing. Because of what happened nine years ago, she changed her name, got a new identity and moved to Emperor City to start a new life.”