Volume 1, Chapter 48: Zhou Jinghuai, Do You Love Me?

Morning light pierced through the thin mist and spilled into the bedroom.

Ye Wu was packing her things. Aside from a few changes of clothes, there was only little Bai. In just a few moments, she finished packing and prepared to leave the Zhou family estate.

The bedroom door was pushed open, and Zhou Jinghuai walked in.

A moment ago, he had been engaged in a fierce argument with his mother. His mother blamed him for keeping Ye Wu’s condition a secret, while he felt his mother was devoid of human warmth.

As soon as he stepped inside, he saw Ye Wu bending over to make the bed. The sheets from the previous night had not yet cooled, still retaining the warmth of their embrace. Zhou Jinghuai stepped forward and gently wrapped his arms around Ye Wu’s slender waist.

He did not speak, but Ye Wu understood his meaning: he did not want a divorce.

She found it absurd, yet she was still willing to speak in a calm and even tone: "Look at this, Zhou Jinghuai. Just how humiliating this marriage is for me. Today, everyone heard that I cannot bear children. I cannot stay here after suffering such humiliation, and I simply cannot endure the stares of others."

Zhou Jinghuai’s voice was hoarse. "And after you leave?"

Ye Wu thought for a moment and replied, "I will live as an ordinary woman. Perhaps I will remarry, perhaps not. In any case, I will no longer be Mrs. Zhou."

Zhou Jinghuai’s voice grew even hoarser than before. "What if I don't care? What if I don't care whether we have children?"

Ye Wu was stunned at first, and then disbelief followed.

Zhou Jinghuai was the president of Rone Group; he needed an heir. Furthermore, he was never a man who placed love above all else, and besides, there was no love between them.

Words spoken by a man in a moment of impulse could not be taken seriously.

Ye Wu merely offered a faint smile.

Zhou Jinghuai held her tighter, a bitter and aching sensation caught in his throat. "Awu, that night hurt you very much, didn't it?"

Held in his embrace, she felt the warmth of his body, which smoothed away a fraction of the pain brought by the past. Yet Ye Wu did not linger on this warmth; the rift between her and Zhou Jinghuai ran deep and was not frozen in a single day.

After a long pause, her expression turned sparse and distant—

"It hasn't hurt in a long time."

"Zhou Jinghuai, now that everything has been laid out in the open, I actually feel very relaxed and at ease. I finally no longer need to hide, nor do I need to worry about others discovering my secret."

"Let go, Zhou Jinghuai. I have to go."

……

Zhou Jinghuai refused to agree to a divorce, but he said he would give Ye Wu space.

Ye Wu had originally planned to have a driver take her, but Zhou Jinghuai insisted on driving her himself. He said they were still husband and wife, and it made no sense to let her walk out of the estate alone; that would be far too cold and heartless.

Ye Wu did not refuse any further.

Since they had been husband and wife once, she was willing to part ways amicably. Just as her grandmother used to say, people do not come into this world to hate anyone.

Forgetfulness is the best healing.

……

Ye Wu’s luggage was minimal: a small suitcase and a little dog.

As she walked downstairs, the household servants looked at her with tearful eyes, deeply reluctant to see her leave. Ye Wu paused her steps and said softly, "Everyone's New Year red envelopes are with housekeeper Lin. They will be handed out to you one by one during lunch."

Several servants could not hold back their tears, feeling that Ye Wu was being treated unjustly.

Yet Ye Wu had already let it go. She carried her things away, and her peripheral vision caught sight of Zhou Jinghuai’s mother.

Zhou Jinghuai’s mother stood at the stairway with a stern expression and said to Ye Wu, "To be honest, I never disliked you. But Jinghuai does not love you, and I want my son to be happy."

Ye Wu smiled faintly. "You never received your husband's affection either. Therefore, I will not hold a grudge against you."

Madame Zhou’s face turned ashen.

Having delivered her retort, Ye Wu felt a sense of relief and strolled leisurely toward the parking platform.

In the distance, Zhou Jingyao quietly watched Ye Wu. Even now, he found it hard to believe that Ye Wu could bear to leave the Zhou family and abandon this intoxicating vanity fair.

Yet Ye Wu really had left.

Zhou Jinghuai was waiting for her downstairs, standing beside his usual Phantom.

He stood by the car smoking a cigarette, a stray ray of morning light illuminating the smoke, making it transparent and blurring the surrounding scenery, as well as the man's handsome features.

Seeing Ye Wu approach, Zhou Jinghuai tossed away the cigarette butt and extinguished it with his calfskin shoe.

He walked over and reached out to take her luggage. "Let me."

As their fingers brushed, Ye Wu’s fingers felt icy cold...

Zhou Jinghuai could not help but gently enclose them in his hand, his dark eyes gazing into her fair face as he spoke in a low, gentle voice, "Spring is chilly, a woman must take care to keep warm."

Ye Wu felt this was far too clingy. They were getting a divorce; there was no need for such intimacy.

She withdrew her hand, climbed into the car, and said indifferently, "Take me to the apartment."

She did not want her grandmother to find out about today's events just yet, so as not to cause her worry.

Guressing her thoughts, Zhou Jinghuai did not ask any further and gently pressed the accelerator.

He deliberately drove slowly. A thirty-minute drive was stretched out by him to fifty minutes.

At ten in the morning, the car stopped downstairs at the apartment building.

Holding the puppy and the luggage made it inconvenient for Ye Wu, so Zhou Jinghuai patted little Bai, his gaze deep and intense. "I'll carry it up for you."

Two minutes later, Ye Wu unlocked the apartment door. "Just leave the luggage in the foyer."

She walked straight to the kitchen herself to turn on the main water valve.

Zhou Jinghuai set down the luggage and quietly slipped into the kitchen. Just as Ye Wu turned on the valve and straightened up, she was embraced from behind by the man.

In broad daylight, and with so much having happened today, Zhou Jinghuai actually had no intentions of that sort.

He simply wanted to hold Ye Wu.

Holding her quietly like this, the entire world consisted of only the two of them.

In such moments of solitude, a man could utter any kind of soft persuasion. Pressing his lips against the nape of Ye Wu’s neck, he murmured with a low, seductive voice, "Awu, let's start over."

Start over?

Ye Wu felt she shouldn't have let him in at all.

She had forgotten that Zhou Jinghuai was never a man easy to dismiss.

She did not struggle, nor did she say she agreed or disagreed. She merely pondered for a moment, then asked softly, "Zhou Jinghuai, do you love me?"

Behind her came a very long silence.

Zhou Jinghuai did not speak.

Ye Wu gave a faint smile. Sometimes, a man's silence is equivalent to a denial.

She did not mind, her tone light and casual—

"Look, you don't love me."

"If anything happens in the future, I will still be pushed aside. Zhou Jinghuai, perhaps you are somewhat fond of me, but that is merely a choice based on weighing pros and cons, having nothing to do with true romance."

As Ye Wu spoke these words, her expression was serene, as if she had grown indifferent to romance and affection.

Zhou Jinghuai’s Adam's apple bobbed. He cupped her face, leaning in to kiss her.

Yet Ye Wu turned her face away. "Go back. The family is still waiting for you to celebrate the New Year."

Zhou Jinghuai pursued her, still wanting to entangle further—

With sudden force, Ye Wu pushed him away.

Raising her voice, tinged with a trace of grief and indignation, she said, "Zhou Jinghuai, I told you to leave. Are you incapable of understanding human speech? Or do you feel that you haven't caused me enough misery and humiliation yet?"