After she died, Mr. Bo knelt in front of the tombstone and cried like a dog.

"Is it Miss Ye?"

A middle-aged man's unhurried voice came from the other end of the phone. It was Uncle Fei.

"Uncle Fei? What's the matter?"

Did something happen to Xiao Yan?

Uncle Fei said, "It's like this. Vincenzo is out doing business now. I'll be answering all the calls on his number temporarily. Have you not paid the property tax for the residence at One57 in New York? The property tax and property collection agents are calling the deputy."

Just for this matter.

I thought... it would be good to be alive.

She exhaled and said, "Oh, I've been very busy since I returned to South City, and I didn't know where to hand it in, so I delayed it a bit..."

Compared to her embarrassment, Uncle Fei smiled and patiently told her: "For property taxes, you can pay online on the official website of the New York City Department of Finance. You should pay it in December every year, but if you are late, it is too late. It is okay to pay the second installment before April of the following year. If you pay late, you will be fined."

Yan Haoyue's heart fell back silently, "Thank you, Uncle Fei. I will hand it in when I get back."

Uncle Fei asked kindly, "Do you have enough money? The annual miscellaneous holding costs of that house are not low. It is indeed an expense."

Of course she can afford it, it just hurts.

After a few seconds of silence, she asked tentatively: "Uncle Fei, did Xiao Yan ask you to ask me...?"

"That's not the case. I usually handle these small matters. He doesn't have the energy to take care of house taxes and other trivial matters. If you have something to ask him, I can pass it on for you."

"Nothing, I just wanted to ask where he went?"

Uncle Fei smiled in a cryptic way: "I don't know Vincenzo's whereabouts. He is always erratic. Sometimes we don't see each other for a year. He has no home, so he naturally wanders around."

"But... before he left this time, we met and he handed me a will. You are the heir. Did you know about this before?"

She was stunned for a moment.

When they went to California for New Year's Eve, at the Los Angeles airport, Xiao Yan asked her to add the financial advisor Alex.

I knew it, but I didn't take it seriously at the time. I just thought it was a sweet joke and forgot about it afterwards.

I didn’t expect... that he actually made a will.

Not sure what emotion she was feeling, she hummed.

Uncle Fei couldn't help but say: "Miss Ye, although Vincenzo and I are in charge, privately, I treat him as my son."

"When I met Ayan, he was only 14 years old. I was 40 years old at the time. I was doing a thriving business in the Monte Carlo Casino on the border between Italy and France. I thought I had met all kinds of people. But a 14-year-old boy like him, covered in wounds and unusually calm, didn't look like a human being. To put it bluntly, he looked like a monster."

"I've worked with him for so many years, and I've only seen him get really emotional twice. One time was in Naples, Italy. I drove to pick you up, and you two were sitting in the back seat. I asked him who you were, and he said you were his wife. Maybe you didn't realize, but his eyes were on you at that time."

"Another time was a year ago when I went to New York to take care of you. You beat the child without telling him. You slept in the bedroom with the door closed. That night, he sat on the sofa in the living room all night. Do you know what he asked me?"

Of course she didn't know.

Uncle Fei only said: "He asked me if a bad man like him really didn't deserve to have children?"

Why would he ask that?

I remember that at home in New York, she threw away her Buddhist beads, and every word she said was like a curse, she said:

"Xiao Yan, someone like you doesn't deserve to have children."

It was as if a sharp arrow had pierced through time and memory and stabbed her hard.

She covered her mouth with her hands, the sob in her throat blocked, but her emotions burst out and her tears silently hit the steering wheel.

Uncle Fei sighed, "He had never cried even though he was seriously injured, but he surprisingly shed tears that night. I was shocked at first, but then I thought about it and it didn't seem strange anymore."

"You could say I've known him since he was a kid. At first I wondered how such a young kid could become a mercenary. At his age, he should be studying hard in school. He told me that he had never been to school and that he learned multiple languages ​​by himself in order to survive."

"Later, when we got to know each other, I learned that he was taken away at birth and never had a good day. He was always wandering around. When he was 10, he was forced to join the Leviathan organization and endured all kinds of inhumane and high-intensity training. When he was 12, he was exiled to the Misty Forest to undergo the most brutal test of humanity. All his companions died, and he almost died too. He barely survived by eating wolf meat."

"He didn't choose his own life. The world has never been kind to him, and no one has ever loved him. His humanity has long been forcibly wiped out in one life-and-death trial after another. He is indeed an out-and-out bad guy."

"But the time he spent with you was probably one of the few moments of warmth and happiness in his entire damp and gloomy life, even though it was forced upon him by his own will. He was so happy to have this child with you, and so sad to lose it, that he cried that night."

"Ms. Ye, I don't know if you have feelings for A Yan. His self-righteous lover's methods are paranoid and extreme, and he may have hurt you. But he really loves you."

"I'm not saying this to ask you to go find him. What I'm saying is that since your relationship is over now, if you don't have feelings for him, don't provoke him anymore, lest he does it again... that won't be good for both you and him."

Yan Haoyue sat in the car, biting her lips tightly to suppress the sobs.

She didn't know what to say, she just felt her heart was very wet, as if it was raining heavily.

Finally, she calmed down and said hoarsely to the other end of the phone: "Uncle Fei, if he contacts you, please tell him... I'm waiting for him in New York."

……

After Uncle Fei's phone call, life returned to normal.

She gradually transferred her business to other places and submitted her doctoral application materials to NYU.

Two weeks later, NYU notified her of an interview. Coincidentally, she was free, so she flew to New York for a face-to-face interview.

On the night she flew over, she stood in front of the One57 apartment with her suitcase, entered her fingerprint and successfully opened the door.

There was a dull smell. It seemed that no one had lived there for a long time. The big, cold house was devoid of any human habitation.

As soon as she entered the door, she started rummaging through the drawers and cabinets looking for slippers.

Strange, where are her shoes?

After sitting on the plane for more than ten hours, she was exhausted and didn't care about anything else. She took off her shoes and walked barefoot on the floor. After washing her hands, she took off her underwear, sat on the sofa, and prepared to order something to eat and drink.

With a quick glance, I found that the money tree in the corner was still alive and well.

No, she had been gone for a year and the plant should have died, but the soil in the pot was not dry. Someone must have watered it in the meantime.

Has that guy been here recently?

I was squatting there thinking, when I caught a glimpse of pink under the edge of the sofa.

She got down on her hands and knees and reached out.

Damn, who kicked her slippers here? How immoral.

Well...that bad guy has no morals.

One57 Apartments is located in Midtown Manhattan, overlooking the magnificent Central Park and the panoramic night view of the Manhattan skyline.

When I went to the balcony in my slippers to open the window, the cold wind from the high-rise building blew in.

It was still a bit cold in New York in early April, with only a few degrees at night.

She leaned her arms on the terrace railing, the cold wind blowing on her face, and looked at the night view outside for a long time, not feeling cold at all.

This is the New York that Ye Xiaowu likes.

Stories come alive here, wither here, and bear fruit here.