Chapter 27
Chapter 27
It happened without warning.
Ji Hanyi looked up at Xie Yuheng in surprise. His face was livid and icy, his brows drawn tight. “Divorce isn’t something that happens just because you say so.”
He fixed her with a cold stare. “If I refuse, you’re still my wife.”
“I hope you’ll think this through carefully. This isn’t child’s play.”
With that, Xie Yuheng turned and strode out. His steps were hurried, and he yanked the curtain aside with a loud rustle.
Outside, one of the matrons called after him, only to fall silent moments later.
Ji Hanyi remained expressionless. She had already made herself clear to Xie Yuheng. Though she did not understand why he had reacted so strongly, she had no intention of giving up the outcome she wanted.
Instead of staying in the main room, she returned to the rear room and wrote a letter, instructing that it be delivered to her aunt first thing tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, the moment Xie Yuheng entered his study, he saw the sheet of paper resting quietly on his desk.
Anshun could not read. He hurried over and explained that the Eldest Young Madam had sent it that morning.
Xie Yuheng dismissed everyone, then lowered his gaze to the paper on the desk. The word divorce written starkly across it stabbed at his eyes.
He could not understand what had happened or why Ji Hanyi was so determined to divorce him.
How had he ever wronged her?
Even if she minded Li Mingrou’s presence, he had already said that he would arrange a marriage for Li Mingrou next spring. What else could she possibly be dissatisfied with?
Unable to vent the anger pent up inside him, he crushed the Divorce Agreement into a ball and hurled it to the floor.
She had so few relatives left to rely on. She also knew full well how difficult life would be for her after the divorce, yet she had still placed the Divorce Agreement before him.
What left him most helpless was that she was determined to leave, while he seemed to have nothing he could use to make her stay.
It was not as though he had never resented the marriage arranged for him in childhood. But after meeting her, he had found that he did not dislike her at all.
Why was she doing this?
After a night of wind and snow, everything was blanketed in pure white by morning.
Shen Si sat on the edge of his bed, his head lowered and exhaustion etched across his face.
Under the dim candlelight, his inner robe hung wide open. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw that impossibly seductive body pinned beneath him once more — pale skin showing through drenched clothes, the delicate peaks and lush fullness of her breasts stark before his eyes.
Those soft, icy fingers had slipped unconsciously inside his robe, as though they meant to draw every last fragment of his soul into them.
Shen Si’s body tightened. He drew in a deep breath. Years of austere restraint had left his desires dormant, yet seeing her only once had been enough to make him ache for her.
It was her face in every one of those lush, erotic dreams.
His elegant, aloof face tilted upward as he drew in a strained breath, unable to resist letting the fantasy carry him further — only for Wen’an’s morning greeting to sound from outside.
Shen Si let out a low, muffled groan. A long while passed before he finally allowed the waiting servants to enter.
None of the maids who came in dared raise their heads. Without making a sound, they went about their usual duties.
Shen Si kept a rigid daily routine. The times he rose each morning, paid his respects to his mother, ate his meals, and left the residence almost never varied.
He was almost never even a quarter of an hour late as he was today.
The snow that had accumulated overnight had long since been swept away. When Shen Si arrived at his mother’s quarters and had barely stepped into the warm room, Madam Shen immediately asked, “I heard a young lady came looking for you last night?”
Several senior maids waited upon Madam Shen. Though she had always lived in comfort and taken excellent care of herself, signs of age had inevitably begun to show.
The Former Chief Grand Secretary had only ever had Madam Shen as his wife. Even when Madam Shen reached middle age having borne him only a single daughter, he had never considered taking a concubine.
Madam Shen had been nearly forty when she conceived Shen Si. She doted on him, but she truly could not understand how he had grown up with such a cold, detached temperament.
Could it be that she had prayed so often to the Buddha for a child that the Buddha had given her an aloof young disciple untouched by worldly desires?
Madam Shen sighed. She had long since run out of ideas about what to do with her son. All she hoped was that she might live long enough to hold a grandchild in her arms.
So when the gatekeeper reported that a woman had come looking for her son last night — and that her son had actually let the woman in — she was delighted.
It was a first.
She did not care whether they were carrying on in secret or whether there was something else between them. She would simply go to the woman’s family and propose marriage on her son’s behalf. No matter what it took, she would see the woman married into the family with all due pomp and ceremony.
Shen Si was not surprised that his mother had heard about the matter. If a female cat so much as passed by the front gate, his mother would take an interest.
He kept his explanation terse. “Mother, there’s no need to read into it. I won’t be seeing that woman again.”
Madam Shen’s heart tightened at once. She looked at Shen Si reproachfully and asked, “How can you say such a thing?”
“The young lady came to see you in the middle of the night, and you were willing to receive her. Why would you refuse to see her again?”
“Since you were willing to meet her, you must care about her at least a little. Why won’t you–”
Before Madam Shen could finish, Shen Si interrupted her coldly. “Mother, there is nothing between that woman and me. Please do not mention her again.”
“I still have important matters to attend to, so I’ll take my leave.”
With that, Shen Si walked away without looking back. No matter how Madam Shen called after him, she could not make him stop.
Soon, even his figure had vanished from sight.
Madam Shen sighed and said to the elderly maidservant beside her, “When he was younger, I knew he treated the Ji Family’s Young Lady differently.”
“Unfortunately, she had already been promised to someone else, and I could hardly break apart a match that had been settled long before, could I?”
“Then the Ji Family’s Young Lady fell into the water, and he rushed to save her.”
“I thought that since he’d pulled the young lady out of the water and seen her body in the process, I finally had grounds to bring up marriage on his behalf and have the Ji Family call off their previous arrangement.”
“But he came to me and said he didn’t like the Ji Family’s Young Lady, that he’d only saved her because he happened to be there. I truly can’t understand him.”
“Why save her if he didn’t like her?”
“Is that even like him?”
As she spoke, Madam Shen propped her forehead in one hand, her head beginning to ache. “All these years have passed, and the Ji Family’s Young Lady has been married for years, yet he still acts as if he hasn’t the faintest notion of romance. I truly have no idea what goes on in his head.”
“Or what sort of woman he even likes.”
The elderly maidservant hurriedly bent down to comfort her. “Don’t worry, Madam. Perhaps the Marquis simply hasn’t met anyone he likes yet. Once he does, he may even come to tell you about her himself.”
Madam Shen shook her head and pressed a hand to her forehead. “I’m afraid I won’t live to see that day.”
The elderly maidservant quickly tried again. “The Marquis has always known his own mind. What matters now is that you take good care of your health, Madam. You will surely see the Marquis start a family.”
Madam Shen rubbed her brow and said helplessly, “At this point, I wouldn’t object no matter whom he set his sights on. I’m only afraid that even if I wait another eight or ten years, he still won’t find anyone he likes.”
“He’ll be twenty-four as soon as the New Year passes. Who knows how much longer he intends to delay?”
The elderly maidservant no longer knew how to console her. In the other branches of the family, more than one Master was already holding a grandchild of his own. Yet the Marquis did not have so much as a bedchamber maid, and only a handful of servant girls were allowed to attend him in his courtyard.
Madam Shen had deliberately sent several beautiful maids there before, but not one of them had lasted more than three days. They had wept and begged never to be sent back, claiming that staying there would be the death of them.
There truly was nothing to be done.