Chapter 1

I hadn’t expected Ji Liang’an to find someone new so fast.

Only the night before last, he’d picked me up after a drinking session and taken me home, where I’d enjoyed quite a feast while I was tipsy.

When I woke up, he was standing beside the bed, my little marks of ownership still visible on his neck.

“I’ll find time to cancel the divorce appointment.”

“Why cancel it?”

I stretched, propped my chin on my hand, and looked at him. “Everything stays as it is.”

“We’re adults. It was just sex. You’re not going to make me take responsibility, are you?”

I admit it.

I was taking a gamble.

And Ji Liang’an made sure I lost.

He bent down and tucked the quilt around me, covering the skin my nightdress had left exposed.

“Whatever you say.”

There it was again.

His unruffled attitude toward absolutely everything was precisely why I’d tried to shake him up with a divorce.

But he hadn’t resisted at all.

He’d simply gone along with it.

I couldn’t help asking, “Ji Liang’an, have you wanted to divorce me for a long time?”

Before he could answer, I covered my ears. “Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.”

There was no point asking.

He’d only married me to repay a debt of gratitude.

He had been my father’s most cherished student, after all. Dad’s only dying wish was for him to take good care of me for the rest of my life.

Just after the seventh-day mourning observance, Ji Liang’an arrived with his household registration booklet.

“I’ve thought it over. Apart from adopting you, I can’t think of a way to look after you for life. But now that my teacher is gone…”

Smiling, I took the booklet from him.

“Did you know there’s another relationship, besides being relatives, that would keep us in the same household register forever?”

He paused, then asked, “What?”

I smiled and handed over my own booklet. “Marriage!”

“Would that… be appropriate?”

More than appropriate!

I threw my arms around him, grinning, barely able to wait. “I do!”

He was the only man I’d ever had a crush on, ever since I’d first discovered what a crush was.

Of course I wanted to marry him.

So we chose an auspicious day and registered our marriage.

Only after marrying him did I realize he didn’t like me at all. We weren’t even politely distant.

He practically avoided me like the plague!

If I hadn’t kept throwing myself at him despite his cold shoulder, we probably would’ve divorced long ago.

Once again.

He pushed me away when I approached him.

I was exhausted. I flung our marriage certificate at him and said, “Ji Liang’an, let’s get divorced.”