Chapter 143 The ex-husband knelt on one knee in pain.

Yu Yan called Xiang Jingheng to the corridor; she was still wearing Shao Muyan's coat.

It was particularly glaring to Xiang Jingheng.

He moved his lips, about to say something, but Yu Yan spoke first: "What exactly do you want?"

Her voice was cold and hard, and when Xiang Jingheng looked up, Yu Yan's eyes were even colder than her words.

That sharp gaze, as if facing an enemy, made Xiang Jingheng feel very uncomfortable.

This shouldn't be the case between them.

"Yu Yan, don't do this."

Unable to withstand her gaze, Xiang Jingheng softened his tone, saying, "I never intended to hurt you."

"Have you caused little harm?"

Yu Yanqing's sharp words hit him in the face, "I've already hurt everyone I could, and now you're saying this? Don't you find it ironic?"

Xiang Jingheng's expression changed.

really.

He never seemed to bring Yu Yan any happiness. Whether it was during their three years of marriage or three years after their divorce, every time they met, there were constant conflicts. It seemed like they were always solving problems and dealing with various troubles.

Actually, it wasn't just Yu Yan who felt tired; he also felt exhausted.

But... he just didn't want to let go, whether it was a real obsession or not.

Because he knew that once he chose to let go and give way, he and Yu Yan would have no chance left.

He will disappear completely from her world, becoming a stranger who can never get close to her again.

"Tell me, what will it take for you to stop bothering me?"

Yu Yan said coldly, "To be honest, I'm fed up with this kind of life. You come up with a solution. I'll try my best to meet your needs if I can, and if I can't, please don't make things difficult for me."

Xiang Jingheng pursed his lips. She spoke to him without any emotion, as if it were a business negotiation, treating him entirely as a bug to be dealt with.

"I want to make up with you, I want to start over with you."

Yu Yan glanced at him: "That's impossible."

"Why?"

"Because I don't love you."

“But you loved me!” Xiang Jingheng stared straight at her. “Didn’t you?”

His certainty left Yu Yan in a state of confusion.

Did she ever love Xiang Jingheng?

If you loved each other, why did you leave so decisively in the first place?

If you don't love someone, why struggle for so long in a painful marriage, and why torture yourself over the past after the divorce?

Emotions are something that can never be solved by logic and reason.

"I probably just liked you."

Upon hearing Yu Yan's words, Xiang Jingheng's excited expression froze, and he immediately fell into a daze.

"That absurd and unexpected night, you gave me an unprecedented first experience."

When Yu Yan talked about this, it felt like it was something from a past life. She used to feel excited when she thought about it, but later... that feeling was worn away by the trivialities of married life and the pain.

Xiang Jingheng was taken aback again, not expecting her to bring this up suddenly, and his face turned slightly red.

He couldn't forget...that night either.

A figure stood against the wall, listening to the conversation outside, his thin lips pressed tightly together, his nails digging into his palms, suppressing some kind of impulse.

Shao Muyan took a deep breath.

Yu Yan's voice rang out again, tinged with a hint of hoarseness and dampness.

"Perhaps it was a case of 'young bird complex.' Back then, I did develop some feelings for you, and I was also pregnant and wanted to have the baby and have a small family. But I was too young then, I didn't understand the complexities of marriage, nor did I know the hardships of raising a child. I married you without knowing you well. So everything that happened later was my own fault."

Xiang Jingheng's face suddenly turned pale, and he gave a bitter laugh, "What you're saying makes me feel utterly ashamed. Are you trying to say that you misjudged me?"

"We both misjudged each other."

The air was indeed a bit chilly after the rain. Yu Yan tightened her coat, which still carried Shao Muyan's scent, calming her restless heart.

"Xiang Jingheng, when you married me, you probably didn't like me very much. I was just a suitable marriage partner that you chose after weighing the pros and cons. So after we got married, you treated me like a tool to be a wife and mother. You rarely came home during those three years. You were never there when I needed you. And the few times you did come home, you were always helping your family to criticize me. No matter what your intentions were, as your wife, I really didn't feel a single bit of love from you."

At this point, Yu Yan paused, then smiled again, "Besides, after that night, you never touched me again. For those three years, we had a sexless marriage."

Without love, without sex, and without money, Yu Yan didn't even know what she was after back then.

It seems she didn't want anything in the first place, just a small home of her own. But Xiang Jingheng threw her a strange big family and a baby, and then abandoned her.

Xiang Jingheng was speechless. After thinking about it carefully, he also felt that he owed Yu Yan a lot.

"So three years after the divorce, you suddenly started harassing me like a madwoman, constantly saying you wanted to get back together with me. In my eyes, this was just another trap."

Yu Yan looked him straight in the eye. "You want a free, high-class nanny? That's really hard to do, since you're not willing to give anything in return. But I believe you should be able to find one, after all, you have quite a few admirers."

"But I will not play along."

Xiang Jingheng's heart sank. "I didn't mean that! You keep saying I'm treating you like a free maid, but I've never thought that way. If you don't want to do housework, who can force you?"

"You motherfucker..."

Yu Yan's first words were tinged with profanity, so I frowned and changed my approach, "Your mother has pressured me a lot. But I should reflect on myself. I've been too tolerant. I should have flipped the table and yelled back when your mother and sister teamed up to mock me after I got pregnant, and then divorced you. No, I shouldn't have married you. It would probably have been the best arrangement to leave the father and keep the child."

She doesn't regret giving birth to Xiang Chu, after all, the child is innocent, but if she could do it all over again, she might not give birth to a child who hates her.

Why bother?

She is in pain, and the child is probably not feeling any better either.

Unfortunately, there's no going back in life; you can only keep moving forward.

"Leave the father, keep the son?" Xiang Jingheng's eyes reddened. "Do you hate me that much?"

Yu Yan hummed in agreement.

"To be honest, I'm so annoyed. I hate being bothered, I hate that you keep showing up and disrupting my peaceful life, and I hate even more that you're using my blood relationship with Xiang Chu to morally blackmail me. You make me feel like the past few years have been a joke, and you make me hate myself! You terrify me; every time you appear, it feels like a nightmare is about to begin."

"Xiang Jingheng, I really don't want to see you again."

It felt like my heart had been suddenly ripped open.

Xiang Jingheng turned pale with pain. Unable to stand, he clutched his heart and knelt down on one knee.