Chapter 46
The week that Chen Huan was in Hancheng, Meng Zixian asked Sylvia out for coffee, and he planned to make things clear.
The two of them sat side by side at the bar facing the window. Sylvia said she hadn't had lunch yet and ordered a sandwich at the coffee shop. Meng Zixuan asked for a glass of water.
Sylvia said she had found a place to live and would be moving out of the VE Apartments this week. The waiter brought cold sandwiches. She moved to the left, leaning towards him, her long hair brushing his right shoulder. Meng Zixian put his right elbow away from the table and leaned slightly aside to give her room. When she sat upright, he nodded and apologized for not being able to go to the concert.
Sylvia said it doesn't matter, it's good to be friends with you. Meng Zixuan looked at the traffic outside the glass wall. After a while, he said: "We can't be friends. I hope you understand."
After a long silence, she smiled and said, "I won't bother you. You don't have to worry about this."
"Of course." Meng Zixuan said.
The mayonnaise in the sandwich slowly dripped down, like Sylvia's gradually softening shell. The first drop of sauce fell on the porcelain plate, and she asked Meng Zixuan: "Can you give me a reason?"
Meng Zixuan's hands rested on the table, the skin on the raised joints of his fingers almost transparent. After a moment, he said, "Between you and me, we don't need each other."
Sylvia paused for a moment, then picked it up. She took a bite of the bread and wiped the corner of her mouth with her ring finger. After swallowing the food, she smiled and said, "Because I've been accustomed to becoming more independent and outstanding since I was a child, to fight for what I want. But you want a woman who can't live without you, and she'll tell you this in a different way every day."
Meng Zixian thought for a while and asked if independence and needing others were opposites.
Sylvia asked in return: "Can you call it independence if you open your palms and ask others for what you need to survive?"
Meng Zixuan took a sip of water and put down his cup. "I'm barely an independent person," he said, "but on the battlefield, I'll put my life in the hands of my comrades."
"You're changing the subject. Life isn't a battlefield." She frowned and put the sandwich back on her plate. "You want a woman who has to call you to Brooklyn to fix a lightbulb. I can't do that, so you've concluded that we don't need each other."
Meng Zixuan replied indifferently: "The reason we can't be together is not because you can fix light bulbs."
Sylvia was so angry that she almost laughed. "Miles, can you please answer my question seriously? I've really tried everything. Apart from business, you're difficult to get along with. You have extreme likes and dislikes in your world. If you don't like someone within two minutes, you don't want to talk to them anymore. That's not fair to me, is it? You were the one who said you wanted to try to get along with her in the first place."
"I've already answered, but you want to tamper with it." Meng Zixuan said coldly: "You want me to admit that I broke up with you because I'm pathetic, that I can only love a poor, incompetent woman who is completely dependent on men. Such lies can please your self-esteem. I don't understand why an independent person, according to your definition, needs others to hold up their self-esteem."
The color drained from Sylvia's face. She stared at him blankly, her right fingers groping for something along the edge of the porcelain plate. She stared down at the plate, took a few breaths, and slowly calmed down. She spoke clearly, "If you feel like I'm devaluing her, then I apologize. That wasn't my intention. You said we didn't need each other. But you do need her, isn't that right?"
Meng Zixuan drank the water in one gulp, "I won't discuss her with you."
"What do you need? Answer me." Sylvia looked at him, her eyes gradually becoming urgent, as if she wanted to tear an answer from his face.
Meng Zixuan stood up and took a few twenty-dollar bills from his wallet and placed them on the bar. "I need you to stop self-righteously psychoanalyzing me."
That evening Sylvia moved her things and left her keys at the VE front desk.
Later, Meng Zixuan asked himself the same question, what did he need Shen Huan to give him.
For a long time, he resented Chen Huan's selfishness. Like a cat, she was clingy but untamable. He feared she'd run out the next moment if the door wasn't closed properly, like those unfinished dreams. Then she actually left him, and he woke from the dream with a start, remembering only that Chen Huan's love was genuine and uninhibited.
When he was with her, he felt a long-awaited release, a break from duty and military discipline. Like a cool breeze blowing away a tight collar, her selfishness always allowed him to briefly unburden himself from the expectations and constraints he had carried for more than a decade. She didn't want to be the tightly bound wife of the old era or the woman of the new era, so he didn't have to submit to this world locked in by responsibility and discipline.
But Shen Huan is ultimately untameable. Once things become difficult, she will betray him without hesitation.
For example, she transferred her equity to Chang Yueqing as soon as she returned to Hancheng. Her divorce lawsuit with Li Ting had become a chess move for Li Ting to win her back. If Meng Zixian didn't force her to return to New York, she would be picked up by Chang Yueqing and brought back to Yunjingli like a maid.
For example, she and Li Ting pinned the accusation of embezzlement on him. Shen Huan claimed to know nothing. Perhaps she didn't understand the Lotus Sect contract, but she knew Li Ting well. She had seen how he eliminated dissidents, so instinctively she went to him with the account book.
For example, after Henry died, she contacted an abortion clinic for Emma. Meng Zixuan drove to intercept them halfway. Chen Huan was standing by the gas station in the highway service area and told him without warning, "Let's break up."
This sudden and decisive act shocked Meng Zixian. He couldn't understand why such a timid and spineless woman could suddenly be so cruel. Like a cat torturing its prey, she took his internal organs, crushed them with her claws, and discarded them when she was tired of playing with them. Standing by the study window, Meng Zixian gradually calmed down. The anger that had surged in his veins faded, and he began to doubt Shen Huan's motives for concealing her pregnancy.
He looked out the window at the crowd in the yard, turned his back to Li Ting, and asked him how he got the test report. Li Ting said that Shen Huan's account was logged into the backup phone, and he received a reminder message from the hospital.
Meng Zixuan thought, she'd been in New York for a week already, and could have just told him at any time, "I'm pregnant." Four words, in less than a second. Either Chen Huan didn't want the child, or she didn't want it to be a hoop that locked her to him. Whatever the reason, she wanted to make the decision herself, and Meng Zixuan wouldn't give her the chance.
He turned around and told Li Ting to lock all her bank and fund accounts and not to touch the company's money.
Li Ting's eyes were cunning, "Then what about the chairman's term..."
Meng Zixuan took out his phone and answered absentmindedly, "Let's talk about it after the New Year."
The corners of Li Ting's mouth curled up slightly, forming an asymmetrical smile. This was his goal tonight; he wanted Meng Zixian to back down at this critical juncture. Having gotten what he wanted, Li Ting opened the study door and turned back before leaving, smiling, "Look how good this is, Old Meng. We could have done this a long time ago."
Meng Zixian called lawyer Scott Greenwood and entrusted him with Shen Huan's divorce case.
Before he could finish his sentence, he saw Chen Huan standing at the open doorway of the study. She was barefoot, her high heels dangling by her legs. She said in frustration, "I've been waiting downstairs for a long time."
Chen Huan's hair was scattered on her left shoulder. For some reason, her scattered long hair made the anger that had subsided earlier surge up again.
Chen Huan seemed not to notice. After entering the room, she closed the door behind her and plopped down on the single sofa by the fireplace. She dropped her high heels to the side, and the heels landed on the brass base of the floor lamp beside the sofa, making two muffled thuds. She sat sideways on the sofa, her back resting on the curved armrest.
Meng Zixuan stood by the window without moving. He stared at her in silence.
Chen Huan crossed her legs over the armrest on the other side. Her calves were smooth, the skin taut against the dark green wool fabric. If he had asked her what she was doing, she would have replied with a carefree sigh, "My feet are sore." But she knew what she was doing. She half-tilted her head to look at him, the haziness in her eyes like steam emanating from a half-open bathroom door.
Meng Zixian said you need to pay Scott Greenwood a deposit, and he will help you get a divorce as soon as possible. Chen Huan leaned on the sofa and looked at him for a while. She asked, "You are angry with me, why?" Meng Zixian turned off the only table lamp in the room and walked towards the door. As he passed her, she grabbed his sleeve. He stopped by the sofa.
As soon as her eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, Chen Huan stood up as well. She asked, "Are you going home? I'll go with you." She bent down to pick up the shoes next to the floor lamp, but before her fingertips could hook the heels, she was lifted off the ground by him. Chen Huan's scream was suppressed in her throat. Meng Zixuan had already put her on his right shoulder, turned around and took two steps, as if to throw her onto the sofa. Chen Huan struggled and kicked him, but his arms clamped her legs. She struggled a few times like a salted fish and then ran out of strength, shouting, "I have something to say, let me say it."
Meng Zixian hesitated for a moment, then walked to the long sofa and slowly put her down. Before she could even sit down, Chen Huan grabbed his tie, curled up her legs, and kicked him on the shoulders and chest. She said, "I hate you so much." Meng Zixian was afraid she would fall to the ground, so he had to let her pull him closer, and his shoulders were kicked twice.
Chen Huan closed her eyes, kicked around, and yelled, "Don't even think about touching me again." Meng Zixian was annoyed. He clasped her ankles with one hand, leaned over, and pressed her knees to his chest. With his other hand, he pulled at her tightly clenched tie. As he pulled the tie out of her palm, his forehead almost touched the tip of her nose. Meng Zixian lowered his voice, his palm against her thigh, and asked, "What are you going to say?"
Chen Huan started to act like a spoiled child. She said she wanted to turn on the lights to talk. Meng Zixuan said no in a cold voice. She asked him to close the curtains, but he said no. She asked him to go upstairs. He said no and bent down to kiss her. He was very familiar with her body, but after a few minutes, the requests from her mouth became fragmented, but he seemed to have just begun. Chen Huan raised her head and said I'm almost there, but he still said no. Chen Huan closed her eyes and said please, hurry up. He panted and asked what you were going to say. Chen Huan opened her eyes and looked at him, and said in a trembling voice I'm pregnant. She reached the climax when she said this.
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