Chapter 2

Chapter 2

What is a loveless marriage like?

Honestly? It feels pretty great.

My mother often hinted that I should keep my husband in line and not repeat her mistakes, letting some woman outside the marriage reap all the benefits.

She managed to egg me on once. I actually did sneak a look through his phone. His messages were full of flirty, even bold texts from minor internet celebrities and female CEOs, but the moment anything crossed the line, he simply stopped replying and left them hanging.

After a while, I stopped bothering.

The two of us were usually busy. He had a tech-finance company valued at over a hundred million, while I had a modest marketing business and two galleries of my own. We barely had any spare time as it was, let alone the energy to supervise each other.

And so, after three years of marriage, our life had remained perfectly peaceful.

Compared with the endless dramas in our circle, where legitimate wives and mistresses tore each other apart in spectacular fashion, my life was so quiet it was almost boring. We rarely even argued or flushed with anger.

But perhaps it was the three-year itch. Yang Jisheng had not come home for several nights in a row, and I had no idea what he was busy with.

That night, I was asleep when I was suddenly awakened by a large hand slipping under the covers.

“I’m a little tired today.”

After I mumbled my refusal, he withdrew.

A moment later, the sound of running water came from the bathroom next door. I closed my eyes and curled deeper into the goose-down comforter.

When I woke again,

I was being held tightly from behind. My bones felt overheated from his warmth, so hot they seemed to soften. Behind me, I could feel the tension in his muscles and his gentle, yet undeniable caress.

“You really don’t want to?”

There was a fresh, damp scent on his breath. His heavy, heated breathing brushed against the nape of my neck.

After marriage, we had refused to fall in love, yet inevitably sank together into desire.

It was just that he rarely expressed such intense need.

After hesitating, I turned around helplessly.

Three years had passed, and the complex aura around him had only grown more mature. In the dim morning light, his face was beautiful, his entire eye sockets swallowed by shadow.

Deep, dangerous, and captivating.

There was no kiss,

and no eye contact.

As always, we went straight to the point.

After it was over, I wrapped myself in the covers, wanting to catch a little more sleep, but the man behind me sat up. With my eyes closed, I asked, “Why don’t you sleep a little longer?”

He was silent for a while, then, as usual, called me by my full name. “Zhong Wanying.”

Drowsy, I gave a vague response.

“Let’s get divorced.”

I did not understand.

We got along perfectly well. Why would Yang Jisheng suddenly ask for a divorce?

Our temperaments suited each other, and our family backgrounds could be considered a good match.

By the time he was twenty-nine, his tech-finance company had been valued at nearly a hundred million. Because of that, my mother had received no shortage of flattery at the card table, with everyone praising her for having such a sharp and capable son-in-law.

Besides, he had always been generous to me. Never mind the luxury gifts he regularly ordered for me; in the first year after our marriage, when my industry was in a slump, it was thanks to him continuously pouring money into my mess of a business that my shabby little company did not go bankrupt.

There was no reason for him to go our separate ways now that the market was recovering.

I sat at the head of the bed for a long while, and the more I thought about it, the more wrong it seemed. “No, wait. You’ve already decided to divorce me, but before leaving, you still had to sleep with me one more time?”

Not far away, Yang Jisheng’s figure stiffened for an instant.

I wiped a hand over my face. “Give me a reason.”

“I don’t want to drag you down.”

“Drag me down? What do you mean, drag me down?”

I flung off the covers and stood barefoot on the floor, like a madwoman who had been loved and discarded. “I asked you for a reason, not an excuse!”

“It isn’t an excuse.”

He stood in front of the full-length mirror, speaking slowly and pleasantly, still as gentle and refined as a gentleman. “I can leave you the two properties I have in Shanghai, as well as the villa in Sydney. We can handle the transfers tomorrow.”

“Yang Jisheng!”

I roared, “Did I ask you about money?!”

Perhaps startled by my sudden outburst, his hand trembled as he tied his tie.

“…Then we won’t discuss that for now.”

Meeting my glare, he gave a light cough and looked away. “Contact me whenever you’ve thought it through.”

Seeing him leave the room neatly dressed, I hurried after him. “Where are you going? Are you going out to meet some little vixen?”

“…I’m going to see my mother.”

The breath caught in my throat.

“Wait. I’m going too.”