Chapter 3: Does It Hurt?
Ji Songting ripped down the drawing. A cold fury flickered in his eyes as he turned to question the person behind him.
“Do you enjoy voyeurism that much?”
Jian An looked down, clutching the back of his hand which throbbed with pain. His eyes were filled with nervousness and unease.
“I…”
The next moment, the man tore the portrait into shreds right in front of his face, then tossed them over him.
Pale moonlight scattered across the floor, casting a cold light over the fragments that had been meticulously sketched stroke by stroke.
Just like this marriage, they held no warmth.
Jian Anās pupils shrank. His eyes burned with a fierce ache as he knelt to pick up the pieces with trembling hands.
Ji Songting didn’t notice his emotions. A chill settled in his deep eyes, and his voice remained flat. “I came back because I want you to sign the divorce papers.”
Hearing this, Jian An froze. Then, like a bolt from the blue, his face turned deathly pale, and the fragments in his hand slipped away.
He stood up abruptly, backing away step by step. He shook his head, choking out, “No… I don’t want to divorce you!”
Ji Songtingās face twisted with suppressed rage. The hatred accumulated over three years finally erupted. He grabbed Jian An by the collar and shoved him, sending him crashing to the floor. He roared:
“You killed my mother, and you shamelessly took Xiao Yan’s place. Jian An, you truly disgust me!”
Jian An lay on the ground like a stray dog. A thin trickle of blood seeped from his forehead where it had struck the cabinet.
His throat felt as if it were blocked; he couldn’t utter a single word. New injuries piled onto old pain, hurting so much he only wanted to curl into a ball.
Ji Songting sat on the sofa with his long legs crossed. He turned his head to light a cigarette, the scarlet ember glowing brightly in the darkness.
His long, fair fingers lightly tapped his knee. His dark eyes were half-lidded, his gaze blurred and lazy. His cold voice carried a faint, husky magnetism.
“I’ll give you one more chance to answer.”
Jian An propped himself up with both hands. With his head slightly tilted, his cold, jade-white face was stained with a bit of blood. A few stray hairs hung over his forehead, making him look lonely and fragile. He said:
“It doesn’t matter how many times you ask. I don’t want… to divorce you!”
This answer was within Ji Songting’s expectations. He was long accustomed to Jian Anās pretentious methods.
“Sometimes I really wonder what your mouth is made of. You coaxed my father into letting you into the Ji family, and you always put on this pitiful act of a victim in front of me. Don’t you get tired?”
Jian An raised his eyes to gaze at him. His eyes, like black obsidian submerged in a pool of water, shimmered with a sorrowful light and fine, broken tears.
The overflowing admiration and love that used to be there were gone, replaced only by dimness and desolation.
He also wanted to ask Ji Songting what his heart was made of. Why was it that no matter how hard he tried to warm it for three years, he couldn’t, and it only grew colder?
He was tired. Truly tired.
Ji Songting hated his “pitiful” look most of all. He forcefully pulled Jian Anās arm toward him and pressed the unextinguished cigarette butt into the burn on the back of his hand.
“Hiss…”
The pain of the cigarette on top of the soup burn forced Jian An to flinch instinctively, but he was held even tighter. He could only bite his lip and endure it; all struggle was futile.
A cruel and excited smile curled the corners of Ji Songtingās lips. His eyes gradually turned bloodshot, and his previously cool aura suddenly became sinister.
“Does it hurt?”
He leaned in close to Jian Anās ear, his tone extremely soft.
Jian An closed his eyes in fear. The corners of his eyes were flushed red, like dancing flames or flowing blood.
Ji Songting shoved his hand away in disgust. He raised an eyebrow and gently blew the cigarette ash off the wound.
Suddenly, he noticed the wedding ring on Jian Anās skeletal finger.
He had thrown his own away on the day of the wedding.
Back then, to make things difficult for Jian An, he had intentionally ordered the wedding ring one size too small. He hadn’t expected this person to be so enduring, actually wearing the ill-fitting ring until it became loose.
Then again, if he didn’t know how to endure, how could he have shamelessly stayed in the Ji family for so long?
The more Ji Songting looked at that ring, the more of an eyesore it became. He yanked it off and threw it into the trash can. Then, he pinched Jian Anās thin jaw and said word by word:
“Tomorrow is the anniversary of my mother’s death. I hope you will come to her tombstone as her killer to repent.”
Jian An was dazed from the pain, his ears ringing. His finger suddenly felt empty.
He snapped his eyes open and grabbed the man’s sleeve with his scarred hand, pleading bitterly:
“Where… where is the ring? You can take anything, but not this. I beg of you, give it back to me… It’s all I have left.”
Ji Songting coldly withdrew his hand. His long, narrow eyes were filled with gloom. He said flatly, “Madman.”
Seeing the man remain unmoved, Jian An knelt on the floor to search. Finally, he found the wedding ring in the trash can.
He clutched the ring tightly to his chest, like a reclaimed treasure, like he was afraid of losing it again.
It was true. After all this time, even the ring finally fit. Why couldn’t the two of them?
In his daze, the word “killer” hovered in Jian Anās mind, refusing to dissipate.
In these three years, every time his mother’s death anniversary came around, Ji Songting never let him near the cemetery. Nor did he let Shen Chuyan.
Jian An knew that to the cold-blooded Ji Songting, those two were more important than life itself.
What did he want to do now? Did he want him to die before Mother Ji’s tombstone to pay with his life…?
After torturing and humiliating him for three years, was he finally going to give him a clean ending…?
But how could he be worthy?
How could his filthy blood be worthy of staining his mother’s grave?
Ji Songting looked down and rubbed the blood that had accidentally stained his fingertip, immediately wiping it onto Jian Anās clothes with loathing.
He stood up and slapped the long-prepared divorce agreement in front of Jian An. He glanced at the festering scar on the other man’s hand from the corner of his eye but felt no guilt. He merely curled his lips maliciously and spoke in a slow, deliberate manner:
“The one who was supposed to marry into the Ji family was the daughter of the Jian family, right? Is our family really that good? Good enough to make a ‘young master’ like you beg on your knees to marry me?”
At this point, Ji Songting paused intentionally and let out a disdainful snort from his throat. He continued:
“Oh, I almost forgot. It’s because of your status as an il-le-git-i-mate son that you came crawling to us, isn’t it?”
These light words seemed casual, but they struck Jian Anās heart like a heavy hammer.
No matter how much the people in the Ji household insulted him, he would never feel as much pain as he did now.
Especially since the person saying these words was the man he had loved for ten years, the man he had risked half his life for.
The bedroom door was slammed shut. The vast space became terrifyingly quiet, leaving only the whistling of the cold wind outside the window.
Jian An curled his body in pain, his muscles cramping. His paper-white face looked even more gaunt.
His depressive symptoms were starting to flare up again.
He crawled slowly toward the bedside table, his hand blindly grabbing the medicine bottle. He swallowed the pills with the cold water left in his glass.
Translator’s Note: Ji Songting is absolutely unhinged! Putting out a cigarette on someone’s hand is beyond cruel. Also, for those curious, the “diamond ring not fitting” in the synopsis is finally explained hereāhe did it on purpose to hurt him from day one. I really want to give Jian An a hug and a bowl of warm soup (that isn’t spilled on him).
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