Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 151: I Want Her as Your Wife

Warmth waved into the mansion, followed by footsteps that echoed from the other side of the door.

Min-seo moved toward the door, her face gleaming with a smile, her hands at her back.

Lily ran ahead, her cheeks reddening as giggling sounds escaped from her.

Leon’s eyes remained locked on the space where the rushing wind waved from.

Zoe entered, wearing a lighter, easy layman’s outfit. Yet the sight of her settled over the room with a deep certainty of something returning to where it already belonged.

Min-seo bowed, but Zoe made her raise her head in an instant.

From a distance, Min-ji stood, bloodlines spreading across her eyes as she saw the gift box in Zoe’s hands.

Without hesitation, Lily crashed into Zoe before she could even cross the mat. "You came!"

A faint laugh escaped Zoe as she caught both herself and the little girl. "I can see that you’re longing to see me."

Lily raised her smiling face at her, then nodded. "Where is Uncle Darian?" She peeked behind Zoe, then glanced at her face once more.

"He had something to handle."

Min-seo followed Zoe like a bridesmaid, and Lily walked by Zoe’s side as if she were a child Zoe had forgotten she had given birth to.

Zoe stopped, bowed down before Li Mei, then greeted, "Auntie."

Joy ignited in Li Mei’s blind eyes as her face turned warmer. "You came." She brushed her fingers through Zoe’s white hair, her face, then back on her arms.

"Yes, Auntie."

Zoe turned toward Leon. There was no dramatic expression on her face as she neared the birthday boy. She gave him that one look.

"Happy birthday, Leon."

Leon held her gaze for a minute. "Thank you."

All four of them went and sat by the dining table, Zoe sitting opposite Leon, Lily by Leon’s left side, Li Mei by his right.

Just as Min-ji came by, holding the jollof rice with chicken she and Min-seo had made, she lowered her gaze to the tray at Zoe’s front, then chuckled inwardly.

She turned away, her forehead burning with rage before her bad expression could settle in anyone’s mind.

For hours, laughter, gossip between Lily and Zoe, and loving words from Li Mei to Leon filled the room.

Zoe entered every room in the house with a grace that seemed too real to be for Leon alone. Her movements were so swift they looked as if she had memorized them.

She helped Lily arrange the ribbons every time Lily said it was wrong and needed fixing.

She sat beside Li Mei and described the flowers in the bowl when Li Mei asked how Min-ji arranged them.

Zoe joined Min-seo in the kitchen and came back carrying cups, not a guest, but as someone who had long ago been given permission.

With every movement she made, Leon’s eyes remained on her, not blinking and not faltering.

Lily noticed him and began teasing him. "Brother, I’ve caught you looking at Auntie Zoe."

Both of them burst into laughter. Leon brushed his fingers through Lily’s hair, then bribed her with a jade coin.

"I will stop watching you. But..." Lily gave Leon a secret smile.

"But what?" Leon asked, smiling. Deep down, he could tell from the way her eyes moved between faces and kept secrets she had no right to understand at her age.

In the late afternoon, Min-seo brought the cake to the table. By that time, Zoe and Min-ji had changed the red ribbons to golden ones. Min-ji’s own looked crooked compared to that of Lily and Zoe, almost as if she did it out of anger.

Lily folded her arms across her chest, a dawning sadness filling her eyes. "Brother, I want to stand beside you while you cut it."

Before anyone could start speaking on the cake, Li Mei pulled herself forward. "Wait."

Everyone turned their gazes to her, their eyes longing for her reaction.

Zoe neared Leon. "I think she wants to speak to you." She moved toward Lily, then watched as Leon bent down before his mother.

Li Mei rested her hand against Leon’s cheeks and gave him a slight kiss on the forehead. Her eyes closed as she pulled her head back and inhaled deeply.

Just as she cracked her eyes open, she stretched her arms toward Leon’s shoulders. "May the years ahead of you be kinder than the ones you’ve lived."

Silence ruled as they all watched and listened to Li Mei’s blessing.

"I will cut mine first!" Lily cried out the moment Li Mei’s words ended. She laughed when she saw Zoe winking at her.

Min-seo hid a smile while cleaning the table, where Lily had unintentionally dropped the first slice she took.

Zoe sliced Leon’s own for him, then took her own. She sat near Li Mei, listening to her loving memories of Leon, which she could still remember before she lost her sight.

Min-ji moved around, smiling. But the tightness in her shoulders betrayed her more than her face did.

Lily tugged at Leon’s shoulder when everyone remained quiet, enjoying the sweetness of the cake. "Brother, come with me."

Leon followed her, then stopped near the wall, where Zoe’s face was as clear as an unstilled river.

"What is it, little Athena?" Leon teased.

"Don’t call me that. I’m older now." Lily frowned. "Call me Madam Athena."

Just as Leon nodded, bringing an end to the tease, Lily rose on her toes. She pulled Leon’s sleeve, forcing his head to follow.

She kept one eye on Zoe and the other on Min-ji, who kept staring at them with an unstable expression.

"Brother, I want her as your wife."

Leon straightened, then stared at her big eyes for a moment. "Lily?!" His voice echoed louder than he wanted.

"Lower your voice. I don’t want anyone to know about this." Lily gave Leon a sharp stare, then pulled his sleeve again. "I’m serious."

"You say dangerous things too easily. Do you know that?" Leon squinted at her.

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I say true things." Lily shifted her gaze from him to Zoe, then back at him. "She is the only person who fits."

Leon lifted his gaze, the words looping in his head.

On the couch, Zoe had her head bent slightly toward Li Mei, listening. One hand rested lightly over Li Mei’s folded fingers.

When Leon shifted his gaze back to Lily, she looked entirely satisfied with the damage she had caused in his head.

In the evening, after the last dish had been cleared and the house had regained its quietness, Leon stood at the front of the mansion, watching Zoe drive off.

As if in response, Lily opened the door and joined Leon outside the moment Zoe’s BMW vanished from sight.

"Did you tell her?" she whispered, her face gleaming with an unstoppable smile as she drew near.

Leon looked at her with a still gaze. "Where did you learn that from?"

Lily flaunted, dancing. "From you... Don’t you remember?" She giggled, then dashed back toward the mansion’s door when Leon tried to grab her by the hand.

"I will tell her if you don’t."

Her last words rang in Leon’s head as he moved from the pavement to the front of the fountain. The lamps by the side of the garden burned low as he moved by its entrance.

Cool air moved through the leaves, sending them to dance with its current.

Behind Leon, through the glass, Min-ji stood there, blood dripping from her clenched right fist.

’Twenty-two.’ The age ramped through his mind as he stopped by the iron gate. The frozen gate sent chills down his spine as he placed his palm on it.

Leon looked at the road that stretched along, the buildings opposite him. The hookers who worked at night waved at him as they moved past the road in front of him. "Hello, handsome."

Leon looked at them with an emotionless expression, their oily skin shimmering under the moon’s rays. He giggled the moment they vanished from his sight.

As he trod back into the mansion and into his room, the memory of the party lived rent-free in his head.

The smiling face of Lily whenever she caught him staring at Zoe. Zoe’s reaction whenever Li Mei’s arm pointed toward something. And Min-ji’s angry expression.

"What a night." He threw himself on the bed, then exhaled sharply, but slowly.

Just as his eyelids closed, Longwei’s sacrifice lanced through his head, followed by the last minutes the Abyssal Maw Lord escaped into the Basalt Mountain.

Outside his window and into the night’s sky, dark clouds began to take shape. Thunder rumbled through the sky as the clouds filled it, hiding the stars.

Drops of rain fell and struck the top of the wall surrounding Storm’s mansion. And in a flash, more drops began falling, hitting the ground with sounds like a thousand swords.

The hookers’ screams filled the streets as their skin burned every time a drop of rain landed on them.

"Is that rain or acid?" a lady with silver eyes screamed, then dashed toward the concrete canopy, brushing her palms hastily over her reddened elbow.