My Alleged Husband

Zhang Yichen saw how upset his grandfather was at Zhang Zhentian and said to Old Master Zhang, ”Grandfather, please don’t be angry, why make such a big fuss over this and let yourself be this unhappy? Your body can’t handle all of this stress. Don’t get worked up over some irrelevant people and cause yourself serious upset—that’s not worth it at all. From now on, it’s enough for our family to live happily together. As for what they really think, whether they’re willing to come back, or whether they regard us as family, it doesn’t matter to me at all anymore. What matters to me is that I just hope you, my grandfather, can stay by my side and never leave me for the rest of my life. In fact, the person I’m most grateful to in my life isn’t my father or mother. Although they brought me into this world and gave me life, allowing me the chance to experience all sorts of human relationships and the realities of life and death, I still hope my parents won’t come back. The person I’m most grateful to is you because you’re my grandfather, you’ve worked hard to raise me, and it’s you who gave me life, allowing me to achieve what I have today. Although every step was hard, the process was fulfilling, and the outcome was satisfying, it allowed me to live happily. I never thought that I could be so happy doing every single thing I do, because behind it all was your support. You gave me endless support, and you taught me that one should never quit halfway, that one should be persistent, that whatever task I set out to do, I must complete it diligently and successfully reach the desired goal and value!”

Old Master Zhang, hearing these words from his grandson, felt deeply moved. These past few days, maybe he hadn’t lived his life in vain after all. Having such a considerate grandson, his own flesh and blood, allowed him to enjoy the pleasure of familial bonds. How happy he must be! This was the happiest thing in his life, having the grandson he raised with his own hands, nurtured painstakingly from the ground up—truly an incomparable feeling.

”My child, you’ve suffered so much over the years. It was the grandfather’s obstinacy in driving your parents out of the house that made you miss out on the feelings of maternal and paternal love all these years. It was my stubbornness that prevented everyone from living happily. It’s my fault. Can you forgive your grandfather?”

”Grandfather, don’t say that, whether it was because of whoever my parents left me, it doesn’t matter to me anymore. If in their hearts my parents don’t feel about me as you do, then no one could’ve driven them away, but because of a single rebuff from you, they left, proving they’d thought about leaving me behind long ago, never planning to stay by my side and accompany my growth. That’s not your fault. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s only myself, for being too useless, for making everyone disdain me, prompting my parents to find every excuse to leave me, to make themselves believe that leaving was the best outcome. But they don’t realize that their abandoning me is the reason I’ve become who I am today, and it’s their abandonment that has let me climb step by step to where I am, enduring all hardships!”

”Maybe you value everything in this world so much, but to your biological father, he doesn’t care, he feels indifferent to all these things. The only thing he cares about is your biological mother. I don’t know how to persuade him. The same incidents keep happening and time keeps slipping by, but he never considers where he went wrong, never pondered his mistakes, never anticipated the day he would want us to forgive him repeatedly. And every time, we’ve been hurt because of her; our hearts have long been scarred, and now we have to face him again.”

Zhang Yichen knew that his grandfather’s heart was still struggling to accept this situation, for who could accept that their own child, whom they had painstakingly raised, would only harbor hate and not a shred of love for them as a parent? Who wouldn’t be heartbroken?

”Grandfather, no matter what happens, no matter how difficult it is, I hope you can share it, so we can shoulder the blame together. You shouldn’t have to bear it alone, there’s no need to admit fault where there is none. What’s done is done, and what isn’t isn’t. Why should we change ourselves because of what someone else has done? No matter how much one gives to a person, if they’re never grateful, it just means they’re ungrateful. We’ve all sacrificed too much for those we care about. You’ve given so much for my father, and I’ve lost a lot because of him, yet in the end, he still believes it’s all of us who owe him. He has never considered his own wrongdoings. His heart only has my mother, and without her, it’s like he’s lost the whole world. But what he doesn’t know is that his actions have deeply hurt those who care about her.”

”If only your father was as sensible as you. He’s the child I worked hard to raise, and I had hoped he would take over my company, but in the end, he abandoned me for your biological mother. Now I realize, everything is just the same as before, he’s forever selfish, never considering those who love him and how they’ve coped. I’ve given up a lot for him, even thought about giving up all my wealth for him, but I’ve come to see that no matter what I do, it’s insignificant in your father’s eyes. He can despise and do whatever he pleases, believing that whatever we’ve done is negligible to him. He can be indifferent, but we can’t, because my business was built from scratch, a hard-won establishment. I can’t let the business I’ve worked to build up just disappear, it would cause me so much pain. Ultimately, it was you who kept your grandfather’s dream from shattering...”