Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Mo Jingshen didn’t speak, nor did Ji Nuan.
But they couldn’t just go on like this.
Ji Nuan just came back. She filled up her schedule today because she wanted to finish all the social meetings in two or three days, and then return to Hai City early. Now, she was a little tired, having no energy to deal with him.
She said indifferently, “I will finish my work in Beijing in the next few days as planned, and no work will be delayed. As for the several meetings that I have to do with you, I have already told Xiao Hu that I will go if I have time. If not, let’s do our jobs separately…”
She looked at the man who remained calm and expressionless, saying with a smile, “Your company invested in Sheng Tang Hotel, and many partners live there, so it’s suitable for you to stay there, but I am different. I’ve been staying with you these days in Beijing and have met all kinds of bigwigs in the high society of Beijing, and it’s time to get back to my old job. It doesn’t matter where I live. I’ll go back to Hai City after I finish my work.”
“Ji Nuan.”
She smiled. “En?”
Mo Jingshen looked straight into her eyes as if he was looking in the depth of her heart, and his tone was deep and low yet clear and cold. “You really don’t love me anymore?”
Ji Nuan paused and then slowly cracked a smile.
However, the man on the sofa kept looking silently at her, and she stopped smiling and curved the corners of her mouth.
She really loved him when they went through fire and water together in Cambodia. When Mo Jingshen wanted to divorce her, she clung to him shamelessly and didn’t leave even when he said she was so cheap. At that time, she really loved him and was willing to give him her life.
But she also remembered how desperate she was when she agreed to divorce and how hard the last three years were.
She remembered the day she had drunk all night, then spent the night on the balcony of the hotel, and cut her hair short after waking up.
Although she was unhappy to see Mo Jingshen having an affair with other women, it was human instinct to be unhappy when what she once owned was taken by others, but she wasn’t sure whether it was still love.
Mo Jingshen asked her whether she didn’t love him anymore, perhaps because she seemed not to care about him anymore or have no desire to take him back. She didn’t deliberately escape or get close to him, nor bothered to spend any energy on him, so he would say she did not love him now.
Then maybe she really didn’t love him anymore.
“Perhaps,” Ji Nuan answered after a long pause.
“Why?”
Ji Nuan looked at him and fell into a daze. Then she looked away, placed her hand gently on the lever of the suitcase, and said lightly, “About three years ago, the baby who lived in my belly for over two months and whose fetal heart could barely be heard was miscarried. When the man I loved most finally woke up, the first thing he said was that he wanted to divorce me. My broken heart froze overnight. Although you said later that you did it for my own good, the blood and flesh inside my heart are still numb and cold even if the ice on the surface of my heart has been broken.”
Seeing the man’s eyes turned gloomy, she knew he was missing that baby too. The death of that baby was Ji Nuan’s sore spot, as well as Mo Jingshen’s, so he usually avoided talking about it and never mentioned it.
There were passing cars outside the hotel, and a few feet away from the lounge, the conversation of passersby could be vaguely heard. All of these seemed like an illusory background behind her. Looking at this cold-faced woman, he seemed to glimpse at the pale woman sitting outside his ward and waiting for him that he saw through the crack of the door of the ward when he just woke up three years ago.
For three years, she silently endured all that she could and could not bear. During these three years, she repressed everything in her heart and grew strong in pain, but at the same time, she closed off many soft things in her heart in order to be strong.
She learned to choose and lose, to bow under the eaves, and to find a way out of the cage. It looked as if she had given in to life, but the high walls in her heart had not been broken at all.
Ji Nuan said calmly, “Or maybe because I have lived two lives. After loving crazily, trying my best and finally knowing all the truth, I finally let go of something that I used to persistently pursue. Mo Jingshen, in the last three years, I figured out one thing, that is… humans won’t die even without love. Although it destroyed my original faith, it has built a new faith in me. It makes the past Ji Nuan sleep and makes the present me become a new Ji Nuan.”
“So since even you asked me this question, maybe I really don’t love you anymore.” Ji Nuan reached a conclusion calmly.
Hearing Ji Nuan calmly said that she didn’t love him anymore, Mo Jingshen remembered the dozens of messages she had sent him three years ago, one of which read “Mo Jingshen, I love you.”
But he just coldly read and deleted the messages one by one.
——
Mo Jingshen didn’t force Ji Nuan to go back to Sheng Tang Hotel. In fact, even if she went back, she would have no time to rest but take a quick nap.
She didn’t mind where she lived since she would finish her job soon.
In the end, she stayed in the present hotel and began to be busy with her work.
After Ji Nuan spoke her mind to him, she became cold and unapproachable to him again, just as she had been when she went back to China.
Sometimes, Mo Jingshen’s car stopped in front of Ji Nuan’s hotel, but Ji Nuan never got into his car when she saw it but went straight to the subway or got into her business partner’s car.
It was already autumn in Beijing, and the weather had turned cold these two days. After finishing her work at noon, Ji Nuan decided to have a rest in the afternoon, but she suddenly got a phone call.
It was Secretary Yang, who said that Mr. Vinse had a sudden attack of acute gastritis. When he was sent to the hospital yesterday, he was found to have had a continuous fever for several days and was too feverish to be conscious.
They were still in Beijing. Ji Nuan asked for the location of the hospital, immediately took a taxi, and hurried over.
