Zhuang Yan frowned slightly, his eyes sharp, his thin lips pressed tightly together, and his gaze dark and deep, filled with a dangerous aura.
As Xia Wan spoke, she observed Zhuang Yan and Lu Yan's expressions, especially when he mentioned his adopted son's name.
"That child's name is Zhuang Zixin..."
She clearly saw Zhuang Yan's pupils flicker, no longer as calm as before. She found the answer from Zhuang Yan: in another parallel world, she and Zhuang Yan really did get married.
Zhuang Yan did not call off the engagement. On the day of the engagement banquet, he single-handedly controlled the entire event, bearing all the humiliation and scolding. He did not fight or compete, nor did he make a fuss.
Her memories were fragmented; she only had a few intermittent dreams that were not connected, like slides stuck in her mind.
Lu Yan suddenly interjected, "Forget it, you two talk alone. I'm not interested in hearing about dreams." She secretly squeezed Zhuang Yan's hand and said, "I want to eat mutton hot pot today. I'll go to that restaurant and wait for you. You have about twenty minutes to get there."
"Okay, you go order, I'll be right there."
The mutton hotpot restaurant wasn't far; it was just a few minutes' walk across the street, so there was no need to take a taxi. Zhuang Yan watched Lu Yan cross the street before turning to look at Xia Wan.
If we're only chatting for ten minutes, there's no need to find a special place to sit.
Zhuang Yan decided to test Xia Wan first to see how much she knew. If she was also a reincarnated person like him, then he would have to rethink his plans and nip any potential problems in the bud.
"What else did you dream about?"
Xia Wan suddenly couldn't see through the man in front of her. After a long silence, she continued in a hoarse voice.
“I dreamt that on the day we got engaged, I went to see Gu Qian. You didn’t call off the engagement. You left me a ring that you made yourself, with the initials of our names engraved on the inner band.”
The ring was lost. She searched everywhere, from her home to hotels, turning every train carriage upside down, and making phone calls, but no one had seen it...
The lost ring was like her relationship with Zhuang Yan; it suddenly disappeared, and no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find it.
Unwilling to give up, she secretly made another one from memory. From selecting materials to polishing and engraving, making a ring is not an easy task. Because she was unfamiliar with the craft, she even wore her fingers raw.
The ring she made looked very similar, but it wasn't the exact one. She was afraid to wear it around her neck for fear of losing it, so she kept it in a safe. Today, she brought it with her.
She took it out and showed it to Zhuang Yan, trying to evoke his memory. "Just like this one, you made the ring. You always wore it. We got married a few months after our engagement. We adopted Zhuang Zixin from the orphanage. You even gave him that name..."
Zhuang Yan remained unmoved and listened calmly to her.
"You were always so good to me, accepting my bad habits and tolerating my bad temper. From being touched at the beginning to taking it for granted later, I took your kindness for granted, like a glass of warm water, seemingly bland and tasteless, which I always overlooked. It wasn't until you left that I realized how important you were to me."
“It was wrong of me to run away from the wedding back then. It was my fault for always ignoring your feelings. It was my problem for not letting you know how much I love you. I don’t like Gu Qian. I only feel guilty towards him. We grew up together and are like family. When I was little, I almost got lost and he carried me back home. And when he went abroad, it was because of me that my dad forced him to go. To me, he is a friend, a family member, a benefactor… but definitely not a lover. The person I love has always been you. I loved you without realizing it and took everything for granted. I was spoiled by my dad. From childhood to adulthood, I was always surrounded by a group of people who fawned over me, which made me unable to distinguish what true love is.”
Zhuang Yan found it amusing: "You said you love me?"
Xia Wan's eyes were red: "Yes, I love you, I love you very much."
Zhuang Yan then asked, "When did you realize that you loved me?"
Xia Wan replied without hesitation: "Since you left."
Zhuang Yan scoffed: "You're just being resentful. Is your way of loving someone to see them suffer, to spread rumors about them, to smear them, to cyberbully them? If that's how you love someone, then you should go to prison and date some inmates, because you'll have common topics to discuss."
Xia Wan quickly explained, "I was wrong at the time, but I just wanted you to come back to me and prove that you have me in your heart."
"Have you ever considered that I might choose to commit suicide because of cyberbullying?"
Xia Wan subconsciously said, "No way..." She hadn't thought about this question at all. Zhuang Yan had depression, but he was cured. In the three years they had been together, he hadn't had a relapse or taken any medication. No one knew better than her how strong Zhuang Yan's ability to withstand pressure was.
Zhuang Yan: "Look at you, always so self-righteous. Gu Qian can call you away with just a phone call. You are so considerate to him, giving him all your tenderness. And you still say you don't like him. If you didn't like him, would you have gotten engaged and married to him? Would you have sacrificed so much for him? Xia Wan, admit it, you are greedy, selfish, and want everything. You have invested too much in Gu Qian, and because you didn't get the feedback you wanted, you thought of me again. I'm not even a backup option for you, at most I'm just a jack."
In her previous life, Gu Qian had always been a thorn in their side, interfering for thirty years. It was impossible for Xia Wan to say that she had no feelings for him at all.
Does infidelity necessarily have to involve physical infidelity to be considered cheating? Using Gu Qian to test him once or twice is considered testing, but if it happens repeatedly, it becomes a habit.
She made a tentative mistake, knowing full well that it would hurt the other person, but she still did it, simply because she was taking advantage of the fact that you wouldn't leave her.
How old are you to still not know what you want in your heart? A person in their twenties is called an naive young girl, but what do you call a person in their thirties or fifties who is still naive? You call it pretending to be ignorant when you know the truth.
"I've been too good to you, so you've taken advantage of me. You want me to keep being good to you, but you also enjoy the thrill that Gu Qian brings you." He really lived a pathetic life in his past life. He could have pulled himself out in time, but because he tolerated it for a while, he became more and more deeply involved.
Xia Wan would have been better off not saying these things, the more he talked about them, the angrier he became. In this life, he severed ties with the Zhuang family ahead of time, broke off the engagement, and escaped from the cage.
He had truly loved, and he also truly didn't love. He originally planned to be reborn and live a simple, ordinary life, severing all grudges and affections, and living as strangers without ever disturbing each other.
Zhuang Yan looked dazed for a moment, then revealed an extremely cruel smile: "Xia Wan, the me in your dream must have had a terrible time, right? Did I die young, and in a particularly gruesome way?"
Xia Wan recalled the last scene in her dream: Zhuang Yan was covered with a white sheet, and his body underneath was covered in wounds. He was so thin that even his ring had become loose and slipped off his ring finger.
"If I marry you, I'll be a short-lived ghost."
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