Chapter 70: Cliff-like Divorce
After New Year's Day, client Meng Weishen personally visited Li Yingxuan's law firm. The receptionist led him to a private meeting room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Louvre's historic Parkview Green. Within half an hour, the receptionist, accompanied by Li Yingxuan, arrived for their appointment, along with a hot latte.
Meng Weishen also deserved such a grand welcome ceremony. He sat down at the conference table and gave the divorce lawyer a big project to start the year:
"Li Lu, I want to divorce Jiang Ranxu."
Li Yingxuan's anti-fraud awareness was extraordinary. He was constantly urged to divorce his ex, but when the day finally came, his ex became wary: "You're deceiving me! You were so completely deceived, how could you suddenly come to your senses?"
"It was Jiang Ranxu who asked for a divorce. What's the point of me trying to let it go?"
Li Yingxuan remained skeptical. "Jiang Ranxu has gone crazy. He looks like he's about to eat you alive. How could he bear to let you go?"
"If I knew whether he was crazy or not, I wouldn't have come to you. I only know that he said he didn't want to renew the engagement with me and that he would get a divorce when the agreement expired in two months."
The receptionist had just enthusiastically explained the secrets of this cup of coffee to him, explaining that the law firm had recently switched to Ethiopian Gouda coffee beans, which tasted rich with citrus and floral aromas, and urged him to savor it carefully. Meng Wei sipped it for a long time, but only tasted the sour taste of hot pot water, and his nose and brow furrowed.
The incident happened suddenly, and Li Yingxuan fell into deep thought. After a pause, he asked him about the whole process: "What happened when he filed for divorce? Think back. What happened that day? Did you say anything?"
Meng Weishen still didn't give up. He drank half a cup of coffee in one go, trying to taste the legendary floral and fruity aroma, but his throat was locked with a sour and bitter lock, and he almost choked again.
He threw away the remaining half cup of coffee. The bitter taste still soaked his lips, teeth, throat, and lungs. In this taste, he tried to recall the scene of their separation. He thought, he needed to start with a strange woman.
——
During the New Year's Day holiday, Meng Weishen turned down the company's team-building arrangement and returned to Haidian to find Jiang Ranxu.
He was still optimistic. He liked Jiang Ranxu, and he was sure that Jiang Ranxu liked him. As long as they liked each other, there was no conflict that couldn't be resolved by having one meal. If that didn't work, then he would have to have two meals.
According to his plan, he would shamelessly stay at Jiang Ranxu's house for a few days during the holiday. After all, it was already vacation, and Jiang Ranxu couldn't find a reason to send him back to Chaoyang.
As for the things that Jiang Ranxu didn't want to hear, such as mental illness... he didn't mention them for now.
To show his sincerity in seeking reconciliation, Meng Weishen channeled his romantic instincts and prepared a bottle of expensive whiskey, a four-inch chestnut cake, two boxes of ultra-thin condoms, and a bottle of citrus-flavored lubricant (he didn't understand why both coffee and lubricant had to be citrus-flavored. Did he pay the orange for the copyright?). With everything ready, he carried it from the East Third Ring Road to the North Fifth Ring Road.
The heavy weight in his hand made him feel much more at peace. Meng Weishen walked to the gate of the community, his steps were still steady, until a figure flashed in front of him and blocked his way.
The woman before me was unfamiliar, perhaps in her fifties or sixties. Her cheeks had lost so much collagen that they couldn't support the weight of her cheekbones or eye sockets. One could only guess from her dark pupils that she might once have had beautiful eyes.
The woman's voice was so light and vague that he strained his ears and asked her to repeat herself before he could understand what she was saying.
The woman was asking him about the location of Unit 3, Building 15. She didn't know how to use the navigation system on her phone and got lost in the neighborhood.
Meng Weishen said, "What a coincidence, we live in the same building. I want to go home too, just follow me."
The woman nodded slightly and thanked him.
The two of them were walking the same way. Meng Weishen was afraid of embarrassment, so he had to count on his fingers to find a topic: "You look unfamiliar, did you just move here?"
The woman whispered, "This is where my son lives. I don't usually live here. I came here to look for my son."
Meng Weishen's mind never turned around, so he suggested, "Is your son home? You can call him and ask him to come pick you up."
The woman pursed her lips, her smile shy and ashamed. She followed him to the bottom of the apartment building and waited for him to open the door before answering:
"I can't call him. He doesn't want to see me and will blame me for disturbing him."
It sounds like this mother is also a pitiful person. Meng Weishen muttered in his heart and pressed the elevator up button.
The two walked into the elevator together. Meng Weishen pressed the button for the 7th floor.
The elevator slowly ascended to the second floor. The woman remained huddled in the corner behind him, stunned, without pressing a button. She seemed a ghost wandering the human world, unable to interact with real objects.
Meng Weishen thought she had forgotten to choose a floor, so he proactively prompted her: "Which floor do you want to go to? I'll help you."
The woman opened her mouth and seemed to say a number, but her voice was completely drowned out by the advertisement for a used car platform that was playing on repeat in the elevator.
Meng Weishen didn't hear clearly and was about to ask again when his shoe suddenly missed a step during the bumpy ride. Half of his body fell against the elevator wall, hitting the buttons for half of the floors at once.
But the elevator did the opposite and continued to bump down... After a brief feeling of weightlessness, the elevator choked with a violent cough like a tuberculosis patient, and finally hovered tremblingly on an unknown floor.
Meng Weishen's heart was about to leap to his tongue. He made sure the elevator had completely stopped moving, and even the display screen was showing a steady stream of garbled characters. Only then did he swallow his heart back into his stomach, holding onto the wall to stand up, and reach for the emergency call button at the top.
Fortunately, the community property also arranged for duty during holidays and promised to arrive within ten minutes, telling them not to panic and move around to avoid causing the elevator to fall again.
Meng Weishen retreated into a corner, took out his phone, and tried to send a message to Jiang Ranxu. However, the signal was so weak that he couldn't send anything.
He stared at the loading screen for a moment, feeling increasingly uneasy, a bad omen. He would rather put his phone away and wait for help.
The suspended, malfunctioning elevator became a different dimension, where time passed several times slower than in the outside world. How long would it take them to get out? Ten minutes? Ten hours? He didn't know.
"Be at ease. You are a good child, and God will bless you."
The woman pulled the cloth bag on her shoulder to her chest, took out an old and thick scripture, turned to one of the pages, placed her fingertips on the words, and recited in a low voice.
Unlike her usual speech, every word she uttered was especially clear. Her voice echoed in the small space, gathering a solemn and profound power.
Meng Weishen also found the waiting time boring, so he started talking to the other party: "Are you a Catholic?"
The woman paused and whispered, "If you're particularly resistant to hearing this, I won't read it for now."
Meng Weishen quickly explained: "No, it's okay. My grandma used to believe in these things too. But she believed in a variety of things. She worshipped God, Buddha, Wong Tai Sin, and the Earth God."
“Are there any church members in your family?”
"Not anymore. Ever since my grandfather passed away, she hasn't delved into these things much."
"That's a pity."
"It's nothing. When my grandfather was alive, her life was so frustrating that she had to find ways to comfort her soul. Now that she's gone, her life is easier, so naturally she doesn't believe it." Meng Weishen always speaks without thinking, and only realizes it's inappropriate after he says it. He hurriedly slams on the brakes, "...My grandma never told me this, I'm just guessing. Please continue reading."
The woman smiled at him and put away the scripture.
I don’t know if it was the woman’s piety that moved God, but within half an hour, the property management successfully pried open the elevator door.
Meng Weishen was still afraid of elevators and would rather go up the stairs.
"I'm going to the 7th floor too."
The woman followed closely behind him.
Meng Weishen heard it clearly this time: "What a coincidence? You live next door?"
Even after he unlocked the door's combination lock, the other party was still following him. Meng Weishen's brain couldn't connect the correct circuit, and he called Jiang Ranxu's name as usual.
Jiang Ranxu walked to the entrance, and Meng Weishen naturally put his arms around his neck. But as soon as he touched Jiang Ranxu's cold cheek, Jiang Ranxu suddenly pushed him away.
Jiang Ranxu's gaze pierced through him and went to the position behind him. Meng Weishen turned back, following the other person's gaze. Before he could clearly see the woman's face, Jiang Ranxu got there first and dragged the woman into the house.
"Meng Weishen, go to the first floor and wait for me."
The door slammed shut, abandoning Meng Weishen in the hallway. Meng Weishen was still in a daze, his ears occasionally brushing against the sounds of arguments from inside the house. He could only clearly hear some fragmented words, "Dad," "Hospital," "Damn it," "Get out," "Divorce"...unable to form a coherent sentence.
The sound was getting farther and farther away from him, until he could no longer hear anything. Meng Weishen gradually thawed, stretched his stiff legs, and walked slowly downstairs.
No matter how badly he gets along outside, the puppy will always welcome him home.
As soon as he touched the lock on the first floor door, he heard Qin Shi Huang's excited shout from inside the house. When they met, it was even more outrageous. Qin Shi Huang stood up, pulled up his trouser legs, and circled around him, his ears swinging like propellers.
Meng Weishen tore open a bag of air-dried duck breast, half-knelt down, and fed it to Qin Shi Huang. But the dog, who usually ate too well, was not particularly fond of duck meat. Instead, it nuzzled the paper bag he had brought home, as if it had smelled the food.
Meng Weishen then remembered to check the items he had transported. He opened the bag and was shocked to find that the cake had been broken in the elevator accident, and the cream had leaked out from the gap in the packaging.
No wonder Qin Shi Huang was so excited. After exploring all this time, his nose was covered with light brown chestnut cream.
There were two boxes of condoms in the bag... Meng Weishen was a little embarrassed. He pushed away the dog's wet nose and carried the dog to the yard to play a ball throwing game.
The temperature outside had plummeted below zero, and the ball-throwing game became a torture, like a blunt knife slashing his face. Meng Wei was so frozen that his entire nose lost all feeling, so he had to call it a day.
Jiang Ranxu had quietly appeared behind him, leaning against the door leading to the living room. His hair was a mess, the ends of which had grown to his eyelashes. Without care, he looked languid.
Whenever Meng Weishen noticed something odd in the atmosphere, he would always try to find something to say: "That girl just now, she's your mother, right? If you look closely, you actually look a bit like her."
Jiang Ranxu was silent.
"I've never heard you talk about your mother before. Why did she come to see you? Did something happen at home?"
Jiang Ranxu was silent.
Meng Weishen felt a chill down his spine, and he realized that he couldn't continue this topic.
He flew into the house, found the paper bag, and took out the expensive bottle of whiskey: "By the way, I brought you cake and wine. But the elevator broke down today, so the cake was broken, but the wine was fine. You like drinking, right?"
Jiang Ranxu was silent.
Is this topic not an option? Meng Weishen was a little overwhelmed. Somewhat overwhelmed. Qin Shihuang was biting his trouser legs again, trying to drag him into the warm room. He blurted out: "Jiang Ranxu, let's make peace."
Jiang Ranxu raised his eyes, bloodshot from the wind: "Meng Weishen, let's separate."
——
After hearing about Meng Weishen's sudden divorce request, Li Yingxuan didn't expect him to achieve much. He said coldly, "So what are you going to do? You won't tell me that you don't want a divorce and ask me to help you keep the other person. Then you can leave now."
"Of course not. I hate Jiang Ranxu so much now. I used to like him so much, why did he ask for a divorce?" Meng Weishen slammed the conference table, "Lawyer Li, you must help me collect evidence and make him leave the house with nothing and his family destroyed!"
The more impulsive he seemed, the more cautious Li Yingxuan became. Pulling him back, he said, "Destroying your family... that's going to be difficult, I can't guarantee that. However, if you can prove that Jiang Ranxu was at fault, you can get a larger share of the property."
Meng Weishen insisted, "You said he deceived me into marriage, concealed his mental illness from me, and cheated on me with someone else. I want to investigate all of this. You can charge me any amount for the lawyer's fees, and I'll even borrow money from a loan shark to pay you."
"First, we charge normal fees as part of a legitimate industry, so we won't resort to loan sharking," Li Yingxuan hastened to clarify. "Second, lawyers are not private detectives. I can only use the channels I know to gather information for you. Furthermore, some of the investigations will require your cooperation."
"If you need any cooperation from me, just let me know."
"Let's investigate chronologically, starting with your blind date. How did you get together? A matchmaker introduced you, right? Then take me to meet your matchmaker."
Li Yingxuan seemed to have a plan in place and without much thought, he pointed out the solution for Meng Weishen.
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