My Alleged Husband

Chapter 2366: Chapter 2199: Happiness?

Do you think I’m happy?

After Zhang Yichen dragged Ran Zhihan out of Old Master Zhang’s ward, she just felt her heart getting more and more uncomfortable, more and more aggrieved. All these days her husband had never once come to look for her—deep down in his heart, was she really still his wife? Was it normal, in a man’s mind, to neglect her like this? Why did he have to treat her this way? She was just a weak woman who needed his love and tenderness, that was all.

”What exactly do you want by dragging me out like this? Haven’t we already made everything between us very clear? Since from beginning to end you’ve suspected that I’m only with you because of your family’s money, then why bother treating me like this today? This only makes my heart more tangled, more painful. I also know that what’s in your heart is different from mine—maybe every decision I make makes you resist me inside. But do you have any idea that everything I’ve done is for you? It’s all just so I can spend my whole life with you, never leave you for as long as I live. Yet in the end, what I got in return was being torn to pieces all over, wounded everywhere.

Yichen, I’m begging you, give me a little time, let me calm down properly. Don’t keep pestering me like this. Let us each have some quiet to think about whether we really still want to go on living together from here, and also let us both seriously reflect on ourselves—have we actually done something wrong? I know sometimes I really don’t know how to talk, don’t know how to handle things very well, but please don’t despise me, don’t decide every single thing is my fault alone, can you?”

I also know that because of me, my parents have enjoyed so much happiness and joy abroad over these years. Maybe it’s a kind of blessing I can never give them in this lifetime, but I’m very grateful to you, because you let my parents taste the joy of family, you repaid, on my behalf, the kindness of all those years they spent raising me. I’m sincerely grateful to you in my heart. But I can’t indulge myself in being wronged by you again and again. You can misjudge me, and I can swallow it, but I am not some soft persimmon that anyone can pinch however they like. I’m a living, breathing person, I can feel pain. When I’m doubted by my own husband, my heart still feels like it’s being torn apart. But who has ever really felt that kind of pain?”

Zhang Yichen stopped in his tracks. In that moment he suddenly felt that he had no words with which to refute his wife. Every word she said made so much sense, and what, as a husband, had he actually done to hurt her?

Thinking back on how he’d been suspicious of his own wife—was that really the kind of suspicion a husband should have? He knew perfectly well how much his wife cared about him, and yet he insisted on acting indifferent. Everyone was hurt by what he’d done, and himself as well—was this really the outcome he wanted to see? Or was it that he simply had no way to understand the deepest longing inside his own heart for that one genuine moment of being moved?

”Ran Zhihan, I’m asking you, every time something happens, can you stop always lowering yourself and swallowing all this grievance just to keep the peace? If you have something to say to me, just say it openly and straightforwardly, why do you constantly have to wrong yourself like this? Do you know that seeing you like this makes me really look down on you? What you’re doing pains me deeply inside. I never once imagined what kind of state you would end up in, and I never imagined what state our marriage would turn into. Do you know? At the moment I married you, how excited I was, how lucky I felt—lucky that I still had enough time to marry the woman I love most in this life. At that moment I was really grateful that heaven had given me that chance. Please don’t make me regret it, okay?”

After hearing her husband’s words, Ran Zhihan felt even worse inside. What had this whole life of hers been for? For a man who had been doubting her from the very beginning? Why did she have to make such a huge sacrifice?

Everything in this world is supposed to be equal, and she was very clear on that. But she had still stupidly jumped into a pit of fire, and for this lifetime she would have no way to climb back out again. All she wanted was just a steady, ordinary life between husband and wife. Why did that have to be so hard for her? Why was there not a single person willing to give her that kind of life? In their eyes, was she really that unworthy of a happy life?

”You really don’t need to say these things to me. In my heart I’m very grateful to you, and I love you—love you so much that even I can hardly believe it myself, that I would make the choices I’ve made. Back when I first got together with you, I truly didn’t know what love was. At that time I only knew that my heart would beat because of you, would ache even more because of your sadness. I only knew that as long as you were by my side, I’d be so happy. Gradually, I came to understand—that was my love for you. And this love doesn’t change just because conflicts arise between us. On the contrary, I’m grateful to you for staying by my side again and again, regardless of all the hardship, accompanying me. That, to me, is the happiest thing in my whole life. I have no way to just stand there and watch you suffer!

There’s not a single person who can explain clearly the relationship between us. So many things are the result of our own choices—who can we blame? Clearly we know that certain decisions will make us weep and grieve for the rest of our lives, yet we still jump in without hesitation, until we’re covered in wounds from head to toe, cut to the bone. And still, we foolishly wait alone, wait for that one person who will come to stay by our side.”

”Let’s both take a step back. After all, we still have our young son at home. I’ve thought about this so many times—I should let my son have a happy childhood, instead of letting him be like me, immersed in training all through those years. In the end I did gain the whole world, but my heart was ultimately empty. I want my child to live the childhood you talked about, joyfully and freely, instead of proving over and over again to those people who don’t care about him how capable he is. That kind of life leaves you exhausted and passive, no one understands that kind of heartache. And I don’t want my son to walk every step of the road I once walked—that would be far too cruel for him!”

Happiness belongs to me.