Chapter 15 Two Widths
In the early morning, when most people were still asleep, Li Yuan had already changed into women's clothes. With the help of his bride, he helped the drunk Gu Wan into the carriage. He turned around and looked at his wife apologetically, "Zi Yan, don't worry. Brother Gu and I will be back when we get to the capital. You just wait for ten days. I... I..." Li Yuan hesitated for a while and didn't know what to say. Three days later, how would she deal with relatives and friends if she was left alone? Alas!
"Sir, no, my husband, go without worry. I will wait for you to come back." Although she said this, Hu Ziyan's face turned dark. She couldn't smile at all when her wedding turned out like this.
After sending Gu Wan and the other two to find their uncle and return to Beijing, it was around breakfast time. Hu Ziyan then remembered what Gu Wan had asked her to do before drinking last night, and ordered the servants to prepare the carriage. She walked to the outside of the guest room with the silver bag and two letters in her hand.
The door was not closed. Hu Ziyan gently opened the door and walked in. She called out "Sister-in-law" and went to the bed. She found something strange. The person on the bed seemed to be shaking and sobbing faintly. "Sister-in-law, sister-in-law, what's wrong with you? Are you feeling uncomfortable?"
The person on the bed didn't respond, only her body was still twitching. Turning over, she saw her eyes were red and swollen. Hu Ziyan touched her forehead, which was terribly hot. Her hand accidentally touched the quilt, and the large area around her neck was wet. Could it be tears? How long had she been crying? Suddenly, she thought of Brother Gu who had been trying so hard to get drunk last night. These people were so worrying. Without time to think, she quickly ordered the maid to find a doctor.
"This lady was just frightened and caught a cold. I will prescribe some medicine for her and she will be well in three days. But this..." The old doctor stroked his beard and stopped predicting.
"Doctor Liu, if there is anything wrong with my sister-in-law, please feel free to tell me," Hu Ziyan said anxiously. Could it be that my sister-in-law has some other disease?
"There's nothing wrong with him for now, but when I took his pulse, I found that he seemed to have a stuffy heart. This is probably caused by excessive worrying. If this continues, it will be harmful to his body and mind, and I'm afraid he will develop a serious illness." Doctor Liu answered carefully.
"Then what should we do? Doctor, please do your best to treat the patient. My Hu family will reward you handsomely." Hu Ziyan bowed solemnly to the old doctor and answered anxiously.
Doctor Liu frowned upon hearing this and said, "Madam, you are too kind. Saving the dying and healing the wounded is the purpose of our generation. I will definitely do my best. However, this kind of heart disease needs to be treated with heart medicine. It is better to persuade the patient more."
After sending the doctor out of the house and ordering the kitchen to boil some medicine, Hu Ziyan was confused and didn't know what to do. Gu Wan and his wife had always seemed to be in love. The problem must have happened yesterday. The key was what happened yesterday. Thinking of the letters Gu Wan left behind, she thought, "Alas, the master always taught her to respect others and not touch other people's things. This idiot, if only he could come back now."
Late at night, in the side yard of the Hu Mansion, Liu Yiner opened her eyes with difficulty. In her blurred vision, she saw the person sitting in front of the bed, "husband". She felt something was wrong and blinked hard before she could see clearly. It turned out that it was not him.
A soft call brought Hu Ziyan back to her senses. It turned out that the person on the bed had woken up. "Sister-in-law, you're awake!"
"Yes, it's my sister-in-law. Where's my husband?" Liu Yin'er, who hadn't recovered yet, was subconsciously looking for Gu Wan based on her instinct.
"Brother Gu and Mr. Li Yuan, oh, my husband and I have returned to the capital. It will probably take more than ten days to return. By the way, Brother Gu asked me to give this to you." Although they had already gotten married, Hu Ziyan was still used to calling Li Yuan Mr. Li Yuan. Fortunately, she had not forgotten the business. After she finished speaking, she put the letter and purse on the bedside of Liu Yiner.
"What... is this?" Liu Yin'er stared at the thing in front of her in a daze, and then she remembered what happened last night. The details flooded into her mind in an instant. It turned out that it was not a dream.
Hu Ziyan waited for her to open the letter with a curious look on her face. After a long time, she saw that she didn't want to face it, so she had no choice but to tell the maid to wait on her and went back first. She hadn't had a good rest in the past two days because of the wedding. She slept until noon the next day and woke up after hearing the servants' report. She learned that Liu Yin'er had left the house early in the morning to return to Liujia Village. "Ah," sighed Hu Ziyan, concentrating on being a husband-waiting stone. It had only been two days since they were apart, and she couldn't stop missing her husband.
The carriage swayed all the way, but the people in the car seemed to have lost their souls, sitting there stupidly with unfocused eyes, their thoughts still lingering on the contents of the letters. She was not very literate, so Gu Wan wrote even less. When she opened a letter, she saw two big words: Divorce letter. In the content, Gu Wan, in order to prove Liu Yiner's chastity, actually stated directly that she was a woman, and had to pretend to be a fake couple with Liu Yiner for so long. Does this mean she is not going to come back?
There was another letter, but the content was even shorter: "Yin'er, I'm sorry. All the mistakes are my fault. From now on, find a good man to marry! Also, please accept the money in the bag. Just take it as a token of my reassurance, okay?" In just a few short sentences, the past was cut off, but can the past really be let go like this?
But what could she do if she didn't go? My husband was a woman, and she was so gentle. It wasn't that he disliked me, but that he simply couldn't like me. If she was a woman, why did he marry me in the first place? And why did he betray her after they got married? Where was his ex-wife? Was the woman who left hand in hand with her that night the so-called legal wife? They returned to the capital together, right? What about me?
Liu Yin'er's heart was in turmoil, she couldn't sort it out, and it was a mess. It seemed that this outcome was the most normal, a breakup, each happy. This development was the best, right? She could go back and find a good man to marry, forget her husband, and then find another man to live with.
Even though she thought this way, and felt that this was the way it should be, why? Her heart tightened. Liu Yiner reached out to touch her chest, pressing hard against her heart. It felt like there was a hole there, and a cold wind blew in from nowhere, rushing in. Her heart felt heavy and cold, making it hard for her to breathe. This was the only way, what else could she do?
The carriage slowly stopped, and the driver's voice came from outside, "Madam, we have arrived at Liujia Village. Are you getting off here?"
Liu Yiner quickly wiped the tears from her face and lifted the curtain of the car. It turned out that they had arrived at the village entrance. Her father's house was in front of her, but she had no intention of stopping. She directly told the driver to drive back home, her and her husband's home. Then she smiled bitterly. There was no husband. She had always been alone. But what about those days they spent together? Didn't they count?
When Gu Wan regained consciousness, she and Li Yuan had already been on the road to the capital for two days. She recalled that night, although her uncle had reluctantly accepted their decision to get married and live away from the capital, he still insisted that they return to the capital in person to apologize to their respective fathers, and that they had to obtain the consent of their relatives before making such a plan.
Gu Wan had no objection. After all, they also wanted to spend the rest of their lives in peace. It was just that she was a woman, and like Li Yuan, she disguised herself as a man and married a woman, so she had to hide the fact. Besides, she didn't feel the need to get anyone's approval. The life she chose was like drinking water, and only she knew whether it was hot or cold. Why bother about others?
In fact, she knew in her heart that the main reason for doing this was because of what she saw and heard in her previous life. Although many modern countries have legalized same-sex marriage, in her own country, such love still suffers a lot of criticism.
In his previous life, Gu Wan spent his college life in the relatively culturally diverse south. It was common to see same-sex couples on campus, and there was already such a couple in his own dormitory.
At that time, I held the principle of "not agreeing, not criticizing," so I neither accepted nor rejected homosexuality. However, this did not mean that everyone could be like her. Moreover, in this ancient time where people's thinking was backward for who knows how many years, as the saying goes, the ignorant are fearless, the foolish are terrifying. They never considered the harm their words could cause to others. Even if others did not interfere with their lives, there were still many people who stood on the moral high ground, pointing fingers at others' lifestyles, and even going so far as to slander and persecute them.
In her previous life, she had no feelings for either man or woman, and was always labeled as frigid among her friends. The reason was that although she had several boyfriends during college, there was never any substantial development with them. Every relationship she had later ended for this reason. For a while, she even suspected that she had a disability in physical contact.
Now, at this age, she finally realized that she was in love with a girl. Perhaps it had nothing to do with gender, she simply fell in love with Liu Yin'er. Although Gu Wan wanted to give her open and honest love, there were too many ignorant and arrogant people in the world. If exposing her feelings would bring hurt and criticism, she would rather choose silence. Sometimes, this might also be a form of protection!
Thinking of this, Gu Wan found it a little funny. What a mess of things was he thinking about? It was over, wasn't it? That silly girl liked him as a man.
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The author has something to say:
Writing this, I suddenly have a new feeling: love and family~
How can I choose between the life I want and the happiness my parents think I want? How can I have both?
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