Chapter 3

Chapter 3

After three years of marriage, I had gradually come to understand the Yang family inside and out.

The instinct to worship power ran deep in the Yang clan’s blood. Ever since Yang Jisheng’s father had built his fortune by starting a factory, he had continued to drill into his descendants the principle that people should always climb higher, just as water always flows downward.

He himself had been the best example. After he cleaned out his wife’s premarital assets and saw that she no longer posed any threat to him, he found himself a gentle, agreeable mistress outside. Then, after she gave birth to twin boys, he brazenly brought her into the household.

This happened when Yang Jisheng was eight.

From then on, his mother’s mental state had never been quite right.

She wasn’t completely mad, not really. After all, she still knew to stay in the ancestral hall, burn incense, and pray to Buddha. It was just that she was always turning the prayer beads in her hands, utterly blind to the son standing right in front of her.

Amid the curling incense smoke, Yang Jisheng lit three sticks of incense, then nodded to me. “Zhong Wanying, please.”

I gave a soft hum in acknowledgment.

Afraid that she might be mistreated, he came home once every month. But as her son, he couldn’t personally examine her condition, so he always entrusted that task to me.

This time, however, the moment he stepped outside to give us privacy, a young woman walked out from the inner room.

The instant I saw her, two words popped into my mind.

Buddhist-chic.

Similar in style to Yang Jisheng, the girl was dressed in plain off-white linen. Her long hair was neither dyed nor permed, spilling down her back like ink. She was slim, wore no makeup, and was actually rather pretty.

Then I looked at her wrist. She, too, wore a bright strand of jade beads.

Seeing me undoing Madam Yang’s top, she sounded vaguely hostile. “Who are you?”

Since she was being rude, I naturally saw no need to be polite.

“I should be asking you that.”

Just as our confrontation began, Yang Jisheng pushed the door open and came in. The moment he saw the girl, he froze. “Xiao Mi, when did you come back?”

“…Jisheng.”

The girl looked at him and called his name with such emotion that the air between them seemed as thick and sticky as melted syrup.

It was almost as if I had become the outsider.

Yang Jisheng introduced me to her, and her expression eased slightly. “So it was a misunderstanding.”

“Don’t be angry, sister. I was just worried about Auntie.”

“…It’s fine.”

After apologizing to me, she turned back to Yang Jisheng, her voice gentle and her promise solemn.

“With me here to take care of Auntie, Jisheng, you can rest easy.”

In three years of marriage, I had never once heard of this girl’s existence.

But seeing how simply she dressed, and that she was staying with the Yang family, perhaps she and Yang Jisheng had been childhood sweethearts, locked in some unforgettable, agonizing love affair. One of them was rich, the other poor, and helplessly, they had been unable to be together.

At that thought, I couldn’t quite describe what I felt.

The car slowly drove into the garage. Yang Jisheng got out first. Seeing me curled up alone in the back seat, he came over and opened the car door for me.

By then, my eyes were already brimming with tears, and my voice was choked.

“…It’s fine. I’ll let you two be together.”

Yang Jisheng: “?”