Complex Family Relationships

After my husband cheated on me, I jumped. I threw myself off the twenty-eighth floor.

The wind howled past my ears as I closed my eyes. I had already done the math. Each floor in our complex was three meters high, making the twenty-eighth floor eighty-one meters up. From the moment I leaped until I hit the ground, I would have roughly four seconds.

Minutes earlier, my final conversation with Bai Yan had ended in disaster. I had screamed and ranted hysterically; I had begged and pleaded like a dog wagging its tail for scraps; I had even cursed him with the most vicious words and venomous language in existence. By the final moment, both of us were utterly drained. I sat on the edge of the balcony with my eyes rimmed red and my legs dangling in the air, asking him weakly, “Are you really set on this divorce?”

He looked at me calmly. The first time I had threatened suicide, he had been frantic with panic, but now his face held nothing but exhaustion. He asked me, “Are you quite finished making a scene?”

I said quietly, “If you leave today, I’m jumping.”

He gave me one long, deep look before turning to walk away. The door slammed shut with a deafening bang, and then I heard the sound of him waiting for the elevator.

My sister was beautiful and brilliant, always effortlessly winning people over.

Compared to her, my plain self was like a timid little mouse.

My parents used to say, “How can you even compare yourself to your sister?”

My childhood friend said, “Jiajia and you don’t look like sisters.”

I asked him, “Then what do we look like instead?”

Sniffling, he replied:

“Like a princess and her maid.”

That was until I met Cen Yi.

My parents were clinging to my sister, introducing her to his family and boasting about how exceptional their daughter was.

I stood off to the side, stealing glances at the cookies on the table.

But he bypassed everyone else and pulled me into a tight embrace.

“Mine,”

he said.

I am the most pathetic Marchioness in all of the capital.

Marquis Jing’an married me for one reason only: I was honest, kind, and easy to manipulate.

Before our wedding, he told me quite bluntly, without a shred of hesitation:

“As long as you treat my beloved Concubine Bai well once you enter my home, and as long as you don’t get jealous or pick fights with her, I will grant you the dignity and status you deserve.”

For the sake of my family, I had no choice but to marry him.

From then on, whenever Concubine Bai sat, I stood.

When Concubine Bai ate meat, I drank the broth.

Whenever rewards arrived from the palace, Concubine Bai got first pick; I only received whatever she didn’t want.

I thought Marquis Jing’an was satisfied with my performance over the years, yet when I prepared to leave, he blocked the doorway, his hands trembling.

“You are my wife! You aren’t going anywhere!”

Me: “?”

I’m literally making room for your sweetheart!

When I first started dating Xie Mingchen, he had absolutely nothing to his name.

My friends all told me not to be a fool. They said that with my looks and background, I could find any wealthy man I wanted; there was no need to suffer alongside him.

Now that he’s become the high-flying President Xie, a darling of the venture capital world, those same people say I only won out because I made my move early.

They claim that with his current status, surrounded by women of every shape and beauty, I wouldn’t even stand a chance otherwise.

Even my mother has switched sides. She keeps telling me to lower my guard and learn how to act vulnerable. She warns me not to spend all these years with him only to end up with nothing.

I couldn’t help but snap back, “If he doesn’t bring up marriage, am I supposed to beg him for it?”

“That stubborn streak of yours is going to be your downfall!” My mother sighed, frustrated by my lack of initiative. “What else are you going to do if you don’t play along? Are you really going to let someone else enjoy the shade of the tree you planted yourself?”

I didn’t want to argue; I just felt wronged.

Why was it that in this long-drawn-out relationship, I was the one who did the hoping and the one who felt the disappointment? And now, I was still the one expected to drop hints and nudge him into finally taking action.

When the earthquake struck, Zhou Yan instinctively shielded me with his body, ending up with multiple fractures all over.

In the hospital room, the girl next door said enviously, “Your husband risked his life to save you. He really loves you.”

I forced a smile. “Yes.”

But just last night, after I had fallen asleep,

He slipped into the bathroom and gently comforted the young girl he kept outside.

“I’m fine, don’t cry, be good.”

“As long as I think of you, I’m not afraid of anything.”

Zhou Yan and I grew up together, from each other’s first love to today-it’s been ten years.

We’re the model couple everyone praises.

No one knows he keeps a stand-in outside.

Someone who looks just like me at eighteen, when we first got together.

I died of a sudden asthma attack while being bullied.

My family sent my bruised and battered body straight to the incinerator; no one went to my school to demand justice for me.

Later, my brother started dating the girl who bullied me.

He turned her into the blade he would use to avenge me.

Before we married, my husband had a girl who had spent five years chasing him with everything she had, but he fell for me at first sight.

Three years later, that girl returned to the country, successful and famous. She was now an internationally renowned photographer, dazzling and breathtakingly beautiful.

As for me, I was a stay-at-home mom, weighing over 130 pounds, with nothing to show for myself.

At a gathering, someone teased Lu Huaixu.

“Qin Shuang is still a virgin for your sake…”

He snapped at the person immediately, “Don’t talk nonsense!”

But that night.

He stayed out on the balcony, smoking for the entire night.

During the first year of our marriage, at my birthday banquet, a songstress appeared wearing a silk dress identical to mine.

My husband’s expression turned ice-cold. “Someone, strip that dress off her.”

He was clearly defending my honor, yet I felt not a single spark of warmth in my heart.

For I knew that he was also the man who had once spent a fortune on that very songstress and made a pact to elope with her.

I picked up my boyfriend’s phone by mistake, only to see a message his ex had just sent: “I forgot to take the morning-after pill that night.”

Those few short words left me chilled to the bone.

The night before last, I had a sudden bout of acute gastroenteritis. He was supposedly working overtime at the office, and I called him over a dozen times, but I couldn’t get through.

Enduring the piercing pain, I eventually took a taxi to the hospital alone at three in the morning.

As it turns out, the reason his phone was off and he never came home that night was that he was with his ex-girlfriend.

My five-year unrequited love has come to an end.

It ended because Shen Chen’s “white moonlight,” Su Yue, has returned.

Half a month ago, on the first day of autumn, I made some stewed pear soup to bring to Shen Chen.

Shen Chen smokes constantly and never listens when I tell him to stop, so I’ve made it a habit to prepare stewed pears with fritillary bulbs for him whenever the seasons change.

When I arrived, Shen Chen opened the door shirtless.

As the door swung wide, the air in the room smelled thick and suggestive. The scent of body wash clinging to him was the very one we had bought together.

I looked down and immediately spotted a pair of round-toed, mid-heel shoes. They were cute, yet they felt like an eyesore.

“Who is it?” a sweet, cloying female voice called out from the bedroom.

Shen Chen took the pear soup from my hands. His eyes were filled with guilt, but he prioritized his options in an instant.

“It’s just delivery.”