In the living room.
Nan Yu stared at the thick stack of documents, speechless for a long while.
The five big characters "Divorce Agreement" made her doubt if she was illiterate.
She felt a pang in her chest, as if she was short of oxygen.
"What does this mean?" Nan Yu forced a smile, her voice tinged with a hint of dampness.
After a long silence, Tan Linyuan spoke again, "Inside are half of all my assets. Apart from these, there are also shares in some enterprises and several properties... They're all yours."
His gaze skimmed over her increasingly pale face. "If you have other conditions, you can add them."
His tone was extremely cold, without a single unnecessary word.
"… You haven't even asked me how I've been all this time."
Tan Linyuan looked at her. "That doesn't matter."
She knew clearly that he was saying the opposite of what he truly felt, but her heart still ached uncontrollably.
She stubbornly raised her head and asked unwillingly, "So, you've been doing all this for the past month?"
Taking inventory of his assets, notarizing his property, and preparing such a divorce agreement...
"Yes. I have too many assets under my name. Taking inventory and notarizing indeed takes some time." His expression remained unchanged. "Look through the content. If there's something you want, tell me and I'll have someone add it."
"I don't want anything."
"If there are no objections, then sign." Tan Linyuan reached out his hand towards her, with a fountain pen resting in his palm.
Everything was already ready.
"I do." Nan Yu's voice trembled slightly. "I have objections."
"Did you ask for my opinion when you proposed divorce?" Nan Yu's voice quivered at the end. "As my husband, you disappeared for a month after I lost our child, just to prepare such a divorce agreement? You haven't fulfilled your responsibilities as a husband."
"If you want to hold me accountable, you can directly sue me." Tan Linyuan breathed slowly. "The end result will be the same."
"I don't agree."
Tan Linyuan was silent for a moment. He wasn't surprised by her reaction. He just said calmly, "I'll convert to Buddhism next week and never step out of Changuang Temple again. If you're unwilling to divorce, it'll be no different from being a widow."
"Yuyu, it's for your own good to divorce now."
This time, he was going to cut the weeds and dig out the roots.
Cut his desires and remove his love.
The room was completely silent.
Tan Linyuan had said everything he wanted to say. Now he was just waiting for Nan Yu's reply.
"Is there nothing else you want to say?" Nan Yu asked softly.
"Yes, there's nothing else." He answered straightforwardly.
His face remained calm as ever. There was no trace of passion in his eyes. His look towards her no longer held any love or tenderness.
It made people can't help but wonder who had given him the love - erasing potion in this past month.
How could he be so heartless and cold?
Nan Yu staggered towards Tan Linyuan and tightly wrapped her arms around him.
The faintly bitter fragrance of sandalwood lingered at the tip of her nose. This familiar scent could no longer bring her peace.
The man's body stiffened slightly, but he didn't push her away.
The moment she touched him, Nan Yu's tears rolled down one by one.
The only sound in the room was her sobbing.
She had already guessed Tan Linyuan's intention, but the pain was too much for her to bear.
She tightly grasped the corner of his sleeve, trying not to cry too embarrassedly.
"Tan Linyuan, you're so heartless!" She cried louder and louder in his arms. "How could you, how could you..."
Her words were drowned in her throat.
"Will you abandon me...?"
Despite all her grievances, in the end, it all turned into this one sentence.
Will you abandon me?
Finally, the man sighed.
He hugged her, but only gently.
Her crying was heart - wrenching. He wished he could kiss away all her tears, smooth out the corners of her lips, and kneel down to apologize to her, begging her to stop crying.
But he couldn't.
Even this hug, he thought in his heart: This is the last time.
"Every day, every moment, every minute I was in Jingbei, I was thinking about you. I wondered why you didn't call me, why you weren't with me, and if you still needed time to digest things..."
She gasped for breath because of her intense crying. "… But I never thought that you were actually planning to leave me."
His heart almost bled along with her tears.
"You promised that you wouldn't let me shed tears again and wouldn't let me be wronged again. You broke your promise. You're a man without credibility..."
Her tears soaked his robe, darkening the deep - brown color.
The man remained unmoved.
Finally, she said those words: "I hate you."
The deeper the love, the stronger the hatred.
"I hate you..."
She tightly grabbed the collar of his robe. Her tears were like a flood, flowing down the corners of her eyes into her lips and neck.
"… We can have another child if we lose this one. We can solve any problems we encounter..."
She sobbed and still made one last attempt to persuade him. "Can't we not do this..."
She put down her last bit of self - esteem. Her voice was almost hoarse from crying. "You said you loved me. You said you loved me..."
"Say it one more time..."
Tan Linyuan's gaze never landed on her face. Instead, it was fixed on a distant place.
It turned out that in this world, there was something he didn't dare to look directly at.
It was called true love.
Tan Linyuan straightened his body, but his hands didn't leave her.
He said, "Yuyu, this is the best choice."
Nan Yu shook her head desperately and stubbornly replied, "I don't understand."
"The moment I was born, I caused my mother to die in childbirth. My eldest brother also died in a car accident on his way to my birthday party. I thought that as long as I kept you by my side, everything would be fine."
"But a month ago, you were sitting in my car. You had a car accident right beside me, and our child..."
At this point, there was finally a hint of tremor in his calm voice.
"Do I have to wait until one day, watching you die right in front of me with my own eyes, for my life to be complete?"
His voice was gentle as he whispered, "I don't ask for anything now. I just want you to live."
"Live well, no matter where you are." He took a deep breath, and the light in his pupils had become fragmented.
"Whether it's Jiangcheng or Jingbei, it's okay." He suppressed the same dull pain in his chest. "Don't show up in front of me anymore."
"From now on, the farther away from me, the better." Suddenly, he let go of her. He couldn't bear to push her away, so he took a step back himself.
At that moment, he only felt that his embrace was empty.
His heart was empty too.
"Don't go to Changuang Temple, and don't come back here... Don't see me again, and I won't see you either."
Nan Yu stood there, stunned.
She had cried all her tears out, and her reaction had become very slow.
She opened her mouth dryly and finally said, "You're driving me away."
"Yes, I'm driving you away." Tan Linyuan repeated. "Go back to Yenanwan or Jingbei? Someone will take you there."
Nan Yu shook her head, mumbling as if talking to herself or to him, "But you didn't say so before."
"You said 'Take me away' before. Does that not count anymore?" Her shoulders trembled.
She was about to cry again.
But he just couldn't bear to see her cry.
Although his heart was already in pieces, at this moment, he had to harden it and sink his face.
His tone was extremely cold, as if emphasizing, "Nan Yu, do you understand what I mean when I tell you to go?"
Nan Yu choked with sobs. "I don't understand. I don't understand..."
With tear - blurred eyes, she caught a glimpse of the signet ring on his finger. Suddenly, she seemed to grab a straw.
"If you're really that heartless, give the ring back to me."
She thought he would be reluctant.
But he didn't hesitate to take off the ring and placed it on the table, just one step away from her.
Along with the divorce agreement.
"Take it."