Nan Yu fell silent all of a sudden.
It was precisely this silence that made Tan Linyuan sense something was amiss.
Nan Yu suddenly asked, "Did you entrust me to Zhou Yu because you thought he could take care of me in your place?"
Tan Linyuan hadn't expected her to ask this.
Nan Yu tightened her lips. The slap she'd just given him had made her palm go numb. "Tan Linyuan, how arrogant and conceited are you to think that you should guide the rest of my life?"
That slap was for his self - righteousness!
"You don't have to choose," Tan Linyuan said in a tone devoid of emotion. "The decision has always been yours."
"But you said such things and did such things. You had this place decorated in my favorite style, specially transferred Sister Min to Jingbei, and specifically told Zhou Yu to take good care of me. Have you ever thought that I don't need any of this?"
She really didn't need any of these.
The room was completely quiet. The window wasn't closed tightly, and a gentle breeze blew in, making the wind chimes in the room jingle.
After a long silence, Tan Linyuan said, "Then what do you need? I'll try to make amends."
Amends...
Nan Yu clenched her fingers tightly.
So even now, all he wanted to do for her was to make amends.
She took a light breath and said with difficulty, "Don't come to me anymore."
Don't bother her with his pity either.
"Didn't you propose the divorce? Then why are you here now? To see if I'm doing well? Well, your wish has come true. I'm doing very..."
"I miss you," he said casually.
Just three words, but they hit Nan Yu like a sledgehammer.
How unfair. She had said so much, but his one sentence made all her defenses crumble.
"I heard you're getting married today. I thought I should at least see you at your most beautiful," Tan Linyuan took a deep breath, with a somewhat helpless smile. "I saw you today, but it wasn't as good as I'd imagined."
Nan Yu's throat tightened. "What do you mean?"
Did he mean she wasn't beautiful anymore?
"I found that I'm far less magnanimous than I thought," Tan Linyuan decided to face his feelings directly. "Seeing you about to marry someone else, I'm insanely jealous. I want to drag you out of the wedding hall, lock you in a room, tear off this wedding dress that's not for me, and... fuck you in the bedroom we originally planned."
Nan Yu's breath caught, and her body trembled.
It turned out that he wasn't the noble and aloof Tan who talked about Buddhism.
He was the Yama who could drag her into the abyss of desire at any time.
"Do you know why I'm wearing this suit today?" Tan Linyuan said as he reached up to tug at his tie. There was a hint of gloom between his eyebrows. "I've thought about whether I should crash the wedding."
Nan Yu thought she'd misheard.
Crash the wedding?
Nan Yu was momentarily speechless. After being stiff for a long time, she finally said, "What makes you think I'll go with you?"
"I don't think so, so I didn't do it," he replied calmly. "But now there are only the two of us in the room."
Nan Yu sneered. "The answer won't be much different. I won't go with you. We're already divorced. You're just my ex - husband. A good horse doesn't eat the grass behind... "
Before she could finish, he strode towards her, pressed his fingers on her chin, and kissed her forcefully.
His fingers were cold, and his lips and tongue were even colder.
Nan Yu struggled, but the man was obviously stronger. He was unreasonable and unruly. He directly tore her wedding dress from the thigh, throwing the cumbersome skirt to the ground.
There was a desk behind her. Nan Yu was forced to sit on it. The man squeezed between her legs.
While kissing her, one of his hands supported her waist for fear that she would fall, and the other hand slipped into her skirt, into the wet swamp.
Nan Yu's heart was pounding, and her breathing became hot.
Tan Linyuan's fingers slipped out of her skirt again. His voice was heavy, but his tone was very vulgar. "Yuyu, admit it. You miss me too..."
Nan Yu closed her eyes in shame and anger and bit down on his neck.
She bit hard, and her teeth easily broke his skin. Blood oozed out instantly.
The man remained unmoved and continued to kiss her cheek. He whispered, "You'd better bite harder and kill me directly so that I can stop."
Her body trembled, and her heart was in great pain. Finally, she loosened her bite and let out a sob with her eyes tightly closed.
Seeing that she was really crying and her voice was choked with sobs, Tan Linyuan immediately stopped and pulled her into his arms.
"Yuyu, don't cry."
Nan Yu felt very tired. She gave up resisting and leaned against his chest.
How could she let go?
Whether to make up or break up was all in his control.
It was just a matter of his words.
"Give me one chance," Tan Linyuan reached out to wipe the tears rolling down from the corner of her eyes. "Let me atone for you and our child."
She of course knew what Tan Linyuan was talking about.
But who could give her a chance back then? Who could give her child, who had been through so much, a chance?
She loved him.
But she hated his cowardice, his evasion, and his self - righteousness even more.
Who allowed him to claim her whole life just with a single declaration of love?
What he thought was taking care of her was just making her live under his protection and in his shadow for the rest of her life.
It was simply too selfish.
"Yuyu, the divorce agreement you signed, I haven't taken it to the Civil Affairs Bureau yet," Tan Linyuan said stubbornly. "We're not officially divorced yet. Legally, you're still my wife."
"You haven't registered your marriage with Zhou Yu yet. There's a household registration policy in Jingbei. Even if there wasn't such a policy, you can't marry someone else. Otherwise, you'll be committing bigamy."
He looked into her eyes and said word by word, "The Tan family has fallen. Now I don't care about those gossips, and I don't mind that prophecy..."
"But I do," Nan Yu blurted out in a hurry. "I'm afraid you'll kill me. Please, I just want to live a few more years."
The moment she said it, both of them fell silent.
Nan Yu never expected herself to say such a thing. She clearly knew it was just an angry remark.
But no one knew better than her how hurtful this sentence was.
Tan Linyuan's pupils constricted slightly, and the rest of his words were swallowed back into his throat.
She said she was afraid of him.
She used to say she didn't believe those baseless prophecies, but now she was standing in front of him, saying she wanted to live a few more years.
Tan Linyuan fell silent for a moment.
Now he was the brave one, but had she retreated?
Maybe so.
Liang Yi had once told him, "You, the great Buddha Tan, have quite a nerve to expect that little girl to wait for you forever? It doesn't even take ten or twenty years. In just a few months, you'll be like strangers."
It really was so.
Nan Yu was at a loss and wanted to explain. "I didn't mean that..."
"I understand," Tan Linyuan nodded understandingly. He rubbed his thumb across his neck.
The place that had been bitten was no longer bleeding. The dried blood had coagulated on his skin, looking a bit terrifying.
His voice was very quiet, colder and more distant than usual. "This is my last act of recklessness. I won't bother you again."
"May you live a long and healthy life."