Xie Yuping’s words instantly dragged Zou Weijun’s memory back to three years ago.
Three years ago, the summer after Xie Qian’s senior-high entrance exam, was also the lowest point of Zou Weijun’s life.
If Xie Yuping had not mentioned it, Zou Weijun would never have deliberately recalled that period.
The past was past. All the pain and torment had been left behind by her.
Right now her mind was filled only with her son lying in the hospital bed. She just wanted Xie Qian to recover quickly!
When Xie Yuping suddenly brought up old matters, Zou Weijun did not blame him. She trusted he would not ask without reason.
“Big Brother, give me a moment to think.”
Zou Weijun tried to leaf through that dark stretch of memory.
Whether it was the brain’s self-protection mechanism or the drugs she had taken for depression, some sections of her memory had simply vanished.
The fragments she could still recall were jumbled, out of order.
She could no longer be certain which events came first and which came later.
She only remembered how much it had hurt.
She and Xie Jinghu had argued nonstop.
She had received well-meaning advice from many people.
Everyone said this kind of thing was common, that even if love was gone there was still money, that she must hold on tight and never let the Xie family acknowledge that brother-sister pair. Actually, Zou Weijun had never cared about those things. From the moment Xie Jinghu’s affair was exposed, both Xie Jinghu’s mother and his elder brother Xie Yuping had made it clear: the Xie family would absolutely never recognise those two children.
So what hurt Zou Weijun the most was never material loss. It was Xie Jinghu’s betrayal itself.
If he loved her, why did he have to cheat?
If he did not love her, then why had he pretended to be deeply devoted all these years?
If only Xie Jinghu had admitted earlier that their marriage had never been about love, she would not have fallen so deeply.
She had thought the scars had vanished, but now that the scab was torn off, the negative emotions instantly flooded back and overwhelmed her.
There is no shore to the sea of suffering; only you can ferry yourself across.
Zou Weijun suppressed the surge of darkness and struggled to remember. “I don’t even know what came over me then. I just wanted release… Before that, Jinghu and I had a huge fight. I asked him why he had lied to me… He said he had never lied, that what he felt for me was only duty.”
Duty in marriage.
Zou Weijun had found it laughable and had pressed him.
“I said the marriage had shackled him, blocked him from pursuing true love, that we should never have married in the first place.”
“He said he had never wanted to marry either, but if he hadn’t married me, my father would never have helped him solve those technical problems.”
“He said my father had indeed helped enormously in the early days of the business, but he had repaid that help a thousand-, ten-thousand-fold.”
“After my father died, he sold the factory and pivoted the company. Everything Jinlake is today he built with his own hands, yet people still whispered behind his back that he had risen by living off his wife. He was sick of it.”
Zou Weijun had thought she had forgotten.
But once the wound was truly reopened, she discovered she remembered every word.
On the other end of the line, Xie Yuping’s brows knitted tightly.
He had long known Xie Jinghu was trash, yet hearing the details still made him want to beat the man to death.
“So that was why you…”
“That was why I did something stupid. Looking back now, those words weren’t actually that devastating. He was just finally voicing the resentment he had bottled up for years. But at the time, in that state, I simply couldn’t accept it.”
She could not accept that her husband did not love her.
She could not accept that their ten-plus years of marriage had, from the very start, been purchased with her father’s “technical support”.
Now she could accept it, because she no longer loved Xie Jinghu and would no longer suffer for his sake.
Love? Love cannot be eaten!
Was her worth as a person, whether she deserved to be loved, really to be graded solely by Xie Jinghu?
Pah!
Zou Weijun gave a self-mocking laugh. “I just couldn’t accept it at the time. Thinking about it now, I was so stupid.”
Xie Yuping could not bring himself to agree she had been stupid. “You weren’t stupid. You loved deeply and sincerely. So according to you, the long-term emotional strain was the main cause, and the row with Jinghu simply amplified it?”
“That must be it. The doctors said many depression patients have suicidal tendencies.”
Xie Yuping fell into thought. “Apart from that, was there anyone else who provoked you? For example, that woman surnamed Zhuo…”
Xie Yuping had not paid attention to such things before, but in the last couple of days he had looked into it. Mistresses trying to take the wife’s place really had endless tricks.
Calling the wife in the middle of the night to harass her, cursing her, wearing her down mentally.
Deliberately leaving lipstick and hickeys on the husband, spraying perfume so the wife would grow paranoid.
Some even mailed the wife explicit photos or pregnancy test reports.
Whatever would disgust the legal wife most, that is what they would do.
These provocations could become the final straw that crushed the wife’s psyche.
The police had preliminarily ruled Lu Meishu’s death a suicide, so Xie Yuping’s suspicions naturally went in that direction. To his surprise, Zou Weijun denied it immediately. “No. From the moment I discovered Xie Jinghu’s affair until our divorce several years later, that woman never once appeared in front of me to flaunt her existence. She was like an invisible person. I knew she was everywhere, yet I never saw her.”
Thinking about it now, that was probably Sara Zhuo’s strategy too.
Why would she show her face when Xie Jinghu fought all her battles for her?
Even though they were now divorced and she had received a larger settlement, Zou Weijun did not feel she had won.
Xie Jinghu had agreed to those divorce terms only because of Xie Qian’s accident and because the paternity test proved Zhuo Yue was not his biological daughter, which had created a huge rift between him and Sara Zhuo.
If both Zhuo Yue and Zhuo Chen had been his, Zou Weijun believed Xie Jinghu would never have agreed so readily.
So she had not won at all. The opponent had simply collapsed at the crucial moment.
Remembering how that woman had hidden behind Xie Jinghu and torn her family apart, remembering her son still lying in a hospital bed, a trace of lingering fear remained in the depths of Zou Weijun’s heart.
Fortunately, the divorce was final.
And there were those four additional conditions.
Zou Weijun now felt very safe because of them.
They wanted the assets?
Then, to prevent the Jinlake shares from being donated, none of them would dare touch Xie Qian again!
Zou Weijun’s account did not quite match Xie Yuping’s suspicions.
It was also the first time he learned that the woman surnamed Zhuo had never actually appeared before Zou Weijun.
“What about Zhang Zhijun? Did he ever say anything to you?”
“No. He has always been extremely cautious. In public he would only condemn Xie Jinghu for cheating, but he would never contact me privately when no third party was present. After all, I was his good friend’s wife. He was always careful to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Precisely because he was so proper in everything, when Qian first said he wanted to investigate him, I even tried to stop Qian.”
Yet in the end Zhuo Yue really was Zhang Zhijun’s daughter!
And Zhang Zhijun had voluntarily confessed.
Zou Weijun regretted deeply. If she had supported Xie Qian earlier, if he had not investigated in secret, perhaps the accident would never have happened.
She did not dwell on the self-blame for long. She suddenly realised Xie Yuping would not bring all this up for no reason.
“Big Brother, what exactly has happened?”
Xie Yuping sighed. “Zhang Zhijun’s wife, Lu Meishu, is dead. Preliminary verdict is suicide. Her son Zhang Hua rushed back from abroad and negotiated divorce terms on her behalf with Zhang Zhijun. A few hours later, Lu Meishu hanged herself in the bathroom.”
Old Master Zhang had been decent enough to award Lu Meishu seventy percent of the family assets.
Then Lu Meishu died.
Lu Meishu and Zou Weijun were very different, yet also shared many similarities.
Zou Weijun had been in a long-term emotional trough and could not withstand any further stimulus.
Lu Meishu had been physically unwell for the past two years. How could a chronically ill woman be mentally strong?
Xie Yuping’s words made Zou Weijun’s teeth chatter. “…Lu Meishu committed suicide?”
“The police say suicide, but I personally have doubts. I don’t know how other mothers would feel, but if I ever had suicidal thoughts, I would never do it in front of Xie Tang. I’d be afraid of traumatising the child.”
This was what baffled Xie Yuping most.
Lu Meishu had had plenty of opportunities to take her own life.
She had not done it when she first learned of Zhang Zhijun’s affair.
She had not done it after accompanying him to the Xie family to apologise.
She had avoided all those earlier moments, yet waited until Zhang Hua flew back from abroad. Was it so she could see her son one last time before dying?
Zou Weijun fell silent.
Lu Meishu’s death had not carried away all the love, hate, and resentment.
What would happen to Zhang Hua now?
That poor boy had hurried back from overseas, full of filial devotion, standing up for his mother.
And then his mother killed herself.
How could she do that?
What was the child supposed to do?
Zhang Hua would probably carry psychological scars for the rest of his life, living in self-blame forever, just like Xie Qian once had.
Zou Weijun clenched her teeth. She still hated Xie Jinghu, but the hatred was no longer because she had been betrayed. It was because his destruction of their marriage had nearly cost their son his life.
“I don’t know what other mothers would do,” she said, “but at the time… I deliberately waited until Xie Qian was in Rongcheng.”
Even though she had not done it in front of him, she had still terrified her son.
That was why Xie Qian had insisted on taking her away from Beijing.
Zou Weijun asked, “Big Brother, should I tell Qian about Lu Meishu?”
Xie Yuping answered without hesitation, “Of course you should. Little Wen is still young, but she has already taught me a vital lesson. If we share critical information earlier, many tragedies can actually be prevented!”
