“Hello there, I'm Mary.”
“I'm at your front door.”
The distorted female voice sounded as if it were speaking right against her eardrums. A chilling breath crept down the receiver and into her ear canal, causing Bai Ci to shudder.
Before she could collect her thoughts, the voice from the receiver suddenly took on a child-like resentment and malice.
“Why aren't you home?”
“I've come to find you.”
The last five words were spoken softly, yet they struck Bai Ci's heart like a heavy hammer. The call was disconnected immediately, just like the previous times, leaving her no chance to respond.
Before Bai Ci could recover from her shock, her wrist was suddenly gripped gently. The icy sensation made her instinctively want to pull away, but looking up, her gaze collided with Lin's pale gray eyes.
Unbeknownst to her, Lin had walked over to her side. His pale gray eyes were shrouded in a layer of mist as his gaze landed on her face. “Who was on the phone? Is it a friend of yours?”
A friend? That was a deadly kind of friend.
Bai Ci steadied herself and quickly organized her words, mixing truth with lies. “No, I don't know who it is. I've been getting these spam calls lately, saying all sorts of bizarre things. It's been giving me a real headache.”
She reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, deliberately softening her tone to inject a hint of genuine annoyance and helplessness, acting as though she were truly complaining.
Yet, Lin did not let go of her hand immediately. Instead, he leaned in slightly, his nose almost touching her forehead, and that cold scent of decaying leaves grew stronger.
Was he smelling her? Was he assessing whether she was telling the truth?
Bai Ci froze on the spot, not daring to make a single movement.
Lin's gaze swept across her tense jawline and then fell to the back of her hand gripping the phone. After a few seconds, he slowly released his grip. “It's not a spam call. That thing is very dangerous.”
“Thing?” Bai Ci caught the keyword. “Do you know what it is?”
Lin shook his head. He reached up to pull aside the collar of his knit sweater, revealing a thin silver chain. Hanging at the end of the chain was a plain band ring—old in style, but polished to a bright shine.
He unclasped the silver chain, took off the ring, and held it between his fingertips. “Put this on. It can ward off danger.”
Bai Ci stared at the ring. After a half-second of hesitation, she reached out her right hand.
She didn't know if this was another trap, but with Mary liable to catch up to her at any moment, she had no room to choose.
Lin, however, took her left hand. His fingertips were slightly calloused, and his movements were somewhat clumsy as he held the ring and slipped it onto her ring finger. The ring's band was neither too big nor too small, fitting perfectly against the base of her finger as if it had been custom-made for her.
The moment she put it on, a gentle, warm current spread from the ring. The chilling sensation brought on by Mary's call instantly dissipated, and even the goosebumps on her back smoothed over.
This sense of security was only temporary; her unease wound tighter around her like creeping vines.
Bai Ci rubbed the ring at the base of her finger. The cold metallic feel was exceptionally real. She forced herself to calm down. Now was not the time to probe into Lin's identity; staying in the florist and using Lin's strength to avoid Mary was her safest bet.
As for what came after, she would deal with it once she survived this crisis.
“Thank you, Lin.” She looked up and offered a sincere smile. “Is there anything else that needs to be done in the shop?”
Lin's eyes lit up. He immediately turned around and led her back to the front shop, pointing to a pile of unprocessed floral materials next to the checkout counter. “A customer ordered a wedding bouquet and requested the 'sweetness of love,' but I don't know what flowers to use.”
Thinking of the many love-themed scripts she had run, Bai Ci was fairly knowledgeable about the meanings of flowers. Just as she was about to offer a suggestion, she heard Lin continue, “I tried pairing roses with lilies, and daisies with baby's breath, but the customer wasn't satisfied with any of them. They said it didn't capture the feeling.”
He picked up a pink rose, his tone carrying a hint of frustration as his fingertips absentmindedly poked at the wrapping paper.
Seeing his earnest expression, Bai Ci almost burst into laughter despite the inappropriate timing. How could this guy, who couldn't even tell the difference between a job recruitment and a marriage proposal, understand the "sweetness of love"?
But she didn't dare say it aloud. Instead, she followed his lead and asked, “Then what do you plan to do?”
A soft light rippled in Lin's pale gray eyes, and his cheeks began to flush slightly again. “I couldn't figure it out on my own before, but now that I have you, we can do it together. We'll definitely do a good job.”
Bai Ci's heart stirred. “Is it because of this order that you wanted to hire a...” She paused, avoiding the word 'proprietress,' and finished with, “...hire an assistant?”
Lin nodded without hesitation, his pale gray eyes filled with absolute certainty. “Yes. A neighbor said that once you have a partner, you'll understand what love feels like, so I wrote it down. I didn't expect to find you so quickly.”
So that was it. It wasn't a simple, eerie marriage proposal; he had been triggered by a customer's words, which became an obsession.
Seizing the breakthrough, Bai Ci began tidying up the scattered eucalyptus leaves while speaking in a seemingly casual tone, “But a motive like that isn't very pure, you know.”
“You're not happy?” Lin's movements froze abruptly. He looked up, his pale gray eyes clouding over with a layer of mist. “You don't want to be my wife?”
Knowing she had to find a way to sidestep this topic, Bai Ci immediately put on a gentle smile. She softly grasped Lin's hand, which was holding the rose, as if coaxing a child. “It's not that I'm unhappy. I just feel like doing it this way is too half-hearted toward you.”
“Half-hearted toward me?” Lin frowned, his back tensing slightly. His originally soft features seemed to sharpen, and a faint, subtle hint of hostility seeped into the cold scent of decaying leaves.
Bai Ci slowed her tone, trying her best to make her words sound logical and reasonable. “Love doesn't start just to complete an order, much like a flower doesn't bloom just to be sold for money. Look at these sunflowers—they bloom because of the sunlight, not because someone wants to buy them, right?”
She pointed to the sunflowers by the door, her voice sincere. In her mind, however, she was calculating rapidly. She had to break his deep-seated notion of "hiring equals marriage" first. Otherwise, she would eventually be trapped by this suspected non-human entity with his bizarre way of thinking.
Striking while the iron was hot, Bai Ci continued speaking while discreetly moving the ring from her ring finger to her middle finger. The middle finger represented engagement, while the ring finger represented marriage. This detail should help him understand.
“What we have right now is, at most, an engagement. You see, many people get engaged first, then take their time to get to know each other. Once their relationship is stable and bears fruit, they hold a wedding. Only then are they truly husband and wife.”
“We've only just met for the first time. Love is like a newly sprouted seed. How can we rush it to bloom?”
Lin's gaze fell upon the ring on her middle finger, then shifted to her face. His brow furrowed slightly, as if he were digesting this information.
After a long moment, he slowly nodded, his tone carrying a hint of naive comprehension. “Sprout... after blooming, then we become husband and wife?”
“Exactly!” Bai Ci nodded immediately, letting out a massive sigh of relief in her heart.
“Then let us first learn how to arrange bouquets, and wait for the flowers to bloom,” Lin said, his tone carrying a touch of sudden realization.
Bai Ci quietly breathed a sigh of relief. She knew this was only a temporary placation. Lin's logic was, after all, different from a human's, and no one knew when the next crisis would erupt.
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