Chapter 2

Chapter 2

She was only a mistress. Only a pitiful woman.

Jiang Chengning could not understand why I cared so much. He thought he had treated me well enough, that I ought to be a little more content. If I could forgive him the first time, why couldn’t I keep compromising?

At the time, my mind seemed to have gone numb. I asked for a divorce outright.

Jiang Chengning stared at me for a long time, then agreed.

When I left Jiang Manor, he said to me, “Jixue, you will regret this decision. No one in this world loves you more than I do.”

Jiang Chengning did not shortchange me when it came to money.

My eldest uncle and aunt did not say anything to me either.

But the occasional sighs, and the troubled looks on my female cousins’ faces, made me realize I should not stay.

I wanted to go somewhere else and live in peace.

After staying at an inn for a few days, I chose a house. It was only on the first night after moving in that I learned I had been targeted the moment I set foot in that town.

There were too many people at the inn, so he could not act. He had patiently waited for the right moment.

And he had waited until I fought him to the bitter end.

I was not physically tortured in prison.

The food was simply bad, the sleep was poor, and I could not see the sun.

At any moment, rats and bedbugs might crawl over my body.

At first, I was afraid. But after staying in the dark for long enough, I began to feel that I was no different from those rats.

With nothing to do in my idle hours, all I could do was remember.

I remembered every experience I had lived through, trying to find which step had gone wrong and led me to such a state.

A month was enough time to turn my memories over and over countless times.

Just as Jiang Chengning had said, I truly did regret it.

I regretted striking too hard and smashing that lecher to death.

I regretted coming to this small town after the divorce and renting this house.

Going back a little further, I regretted divorcing Jiang Chengning. I regretted discovering his mistress.

I began to feel lost. Had I truly been too petty? She was only a mistress, and Jiang Chengning had promised me that no one would ever shake my position.

The instant that thought arose, another voice in my mind rose up to refute it.

Jiang Chengning had sworn to me since childhood that he would have only me in this life. Hadn’t he still gone back on his word in the very first year after our marriage?

His promises were worth nothing.

So I began to regret marrying him. I regretted saving his life from the water when we were young. Otherwise, with an ordinary family like mine, I would never have had anything to do with Jiang Chengning.

All the time I spent in prison, two voices battled inside my mind.

One told me to endure it. Staying alive mattered most. It was only bowing my head.

The other told me to have some backbone. Once I swallowed the first thorn, countless more thorns would be waiting for me to force down.

I tossed and turned, unable to sleep at night. Day and night, my heart simmered like oil over a flame. My short half a life repeated over and over in my mind, and I tasted all its bitterness, sorrow, sweetness, and pain several times through.

When the jailer released me, I was in a daze.

The sunlight was too bright, making me dizzy. For a moment, I even felt the urge to burst into tears.

But Jiang Chengning misunderstood. The ice in his expression melted, and he said helplessly, “Do you know you were wrong?”

He brought up his mistress, Jiang Ying, telling me how difficult her life had been. He said he merely pitied a lone orphan girl, and again and again, he assured me of his true feelings for me.

I pulled myself away, staring blankly at the street scenes swaying outside the carriage, unable to take in a single word he said.

It felt so good to have the sun shining on me.

I looked at the maid who was thinking for my sake and smiled sincerely. “You’re right.”

It was not worth making things hard for myself.

What did Jiang Ying amount to? And what did Jiang Chengning amount to?

My life before had still been too easy. I had known nothing of the suffering in this world, only love and longing, living and dying over a little affection.

To suffer for others and torment myself for their sake-that was truly something I should never have done.