Chapter 139 Epilogue
“What do you mean by that, Fu Sinian? Are you just going back to your old ways now? If you aren’t planning to take me to such an important business banquet, then which beautiful assistant will you be taking instead?”
“It’s a business banquet, and there will inevitably be drinking involved. It’s so soon after you gave birth, so…”
“What’s wrong with that? Is there some reason I can’t drink? Did the doctor say I couldn’t drink? I understand everything, back while I was pregnant you were willing to make all sorts of promises and guarantees, but now that the baby has been born you’ve flipped your face and won’t recognize anything you said before, right? These past three years, you’ve never taken me to any of your cocktail parties or business banquets, and I only ever went to your company one time. It turns out that you just don’t want to admit our relationship in front of outsiders, right? Before you were always going around with that Qiao Jiao, so who has it changed to now? Tell me!”
“Don’t mess around. You know that’s not what I meant!”
“Mess around? If I’m the one messing around, what do you call all those times you had other women accompany you to parties?” Yu Duo continued tearfully, “In the past, I used to spend every day waiting for you to come home, to the point that my whole life solely revolved around you, and even on the nights when you didn’t come home at all, I never said a word of complaint. But now you just think I’m messing around? It’s because you already dislike me, right?”
Seeing that she was about to dig up all these old scores again, Fu Sinian felt his head swelling painfully, and he quickly interjected, “Don’t be paranoid. When did I say I was going to take another woman to the party?”
As their quarrel was heating up, Aunt Lian couldn’t help but try to persuade them from the side: “Sir, madam, you shouldn’t quarrel. Try to calm down.”
Actually, Aunt Lian wasn’t too worried about the madam, rather, she was more worried for the sir.
After all, a little over a month ago when Yu Duo had given birth, Fu Sinian had rushed into the delivery room and held her hand to accompany her throughout the whole process. As a result, when the baby was finally born and Fu Sinian came out of the delivery room, he had several red marks on his face and his hands, and one entire arm had been bruised black and blue from all Yu Duo’s pinching.
Fu Sinian heaved a deep breath and reached up to massage the throbbing veins in his forehead. “Auntie Lian, you can go first.”
“Ah, understood.”
Once Aunt Lian was gone, Fu Sinian spoke to Yu Duo calmly: “First of all, I have no plans to take another woman to the banquet this evening. Second, I didn’t want to take you along because there will definitely be drinking at tonight’s banquet, and you haven’t been in good health ever since you gave birth, so right now, you should avoid drinking as much as you can. Third, didn’t we agree that we wouldn’t mention about the past anymore?”
“Don’t mention it anymore? Sure, now that the child has been born, we should just forget all about it, right? We should just pretend it all never happened, right?” Yu Duo spat sarcastically.
Fu Sinian suddenly felt that he had made a mistake.
He should never have tried to reason with a woman, let alone a woman who had just given birth.
“Okay, I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
He spoke as if he were making a great concession.
“Huh, so you know that you’re wrong too? Then where did you go wrong? You tell me! What did you do wrong, and what are you going to do to fix it?”
“…I’ll take you to the banquet this evening.”
Yu Duo snorted, “That’s more like it.”
—————————
That night’s banquet, as Fu Sinian had said, was a banquet with a strong atmosphere of business and commerce. The attendees all gathered into small groups of twos and threes, talking about either the development of their respective companies or the recent performance of the stock market. Yu Duo stood silently on Fu Sinian’s arm, and the red wine she picked up was taken away and replaced with grape juice. After about half an hour, she finally lost all of her patience.
She was bored and tired.
“I’m going to go sit down and rest.”
Fu Sinian nodded.
Yu Duo wandered away and found a rest area where she could sit down. After sitting, she began to rub her sore feet while regretting tonight’s self-inflicted hardship.
She had thought that all of her physical fatigue was already enough ‘retribution’ for her ill-conceived plan, but she never expected that the true ‘retribution’ was still on the way.
“Yu Duo?”
The Chinese words were blunt and choppy, with a thick western accent. The surprised voice then continued on in English: “Is that really you?”
As she looked up and saw the French man in a suit in front of her, Yu Duo felt as if she had been struck by lightning.
This person in front of her seemed to be Alex, the French man she had met and exchanged a few words with back when she was traveling during Fu Sinian’s disappearance.
This free-spirited and romantic French man had launched a fierce pursuit after her the day after they had shared a dance, and Yu Duo had been so frightened that she immediately left the country without saying good-bye.
It had been almost a year since then and, in truth, she had long forgotten about Alex. She really didn’t expect to meet him at this party today!
“You are…?” Yu Duo decided to pretend not to recognize him, “Sir, you must be mistaking me for someone else.”
In truth, Yu Duo felt that many foreign men looked mostly the same and she expected it was probably the same the other way around, and that foreign men probably couldn’t really distinguish between Chinese women.
However, Alex looked very serious as he responded. “Miss, have you really forgotten me? We met in France, remember? It was a romantic night, and we danced together on the middle of the dance floor, and then…”
He carefully took a small piece of brocade out of his pocket, and unwrapped it to reveal a single earring. “You lost your earring. I’ve been looking for a chance to give it back to you.”
Yu Duo’s eye was twitching. Looking at it, that earring really did look a bit familiar, and she suddenly felt terribly restless. However, she quickly regained herself, thinking it was better to stay calm and not to panic. In this situation, it would definitely be better for her to stay calm and composed than to futilely try to cover things up.
“Oh, it’s been a long time since I last saw you Alex. Back then, there was an emergency at home and I had to leave France in a hurry. This earring… thank you very much for holding on to it for me.”
“You’re welcome. It’s what a gentleman is supposed to do,” Alex looked around. “I wonder if I could buy Miss Yu a drink after the banquet.”
Yu Duo unconsciously rubbed the ring on her ring finger and was internally debating how to ‘casually’ show it to him when–
“What’s going on here?” From across the banquet, Fu Sinian had seen Yu Duo talking to a foreign man so he had moved in that direction. When he walked up, he suddenly realized that he recognized this man. It was Alex.
Alex was someone he was very familiar with. Back then, he had no choice but to watch this man and Yu Duo dance intimately together.
Yu Duo was surprised by Fu Sinian’s sudden appearance, and she hurriedly stood up and blurted out. “Everything’s fine, he’s just… a friend from a long time ago. “
Alex smiled: “And who might you be?”
“I’m the lady’s husband.”
Alex looked back and forth between Yu Duo and Fu Sinian a few times. After a moment he seemed to come to a realization, and sighed quietly before saying, “I see. I’m sorry about the death of the lady’s husband, but I’m also happy that the lady has found true love again so quickly. Anyway, the earring has been returned Miss Yu, I wish you happiness in the future.”
Yu Duo took the earring with trembling hands, somehow feeling a chilly gaze on her back that she didn’t dare to turn and face.
———–
During the second half of the banquet and on the way home Yu Duo wanted nothing more than for every minute to stretch into an hour but, unfortunately, it all seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye.
“Sir, madam, are you back? Do you want me to prepare some midnight snacks?”
Fu Sinian didn’t break stride as he replied, “No, we’ll go up to rest now.”
“Auntie Lian, where’s the baby? I want to go to see the baby.”
Fu Sinian looked over at Yu Duo, who was trying to use her child as a shield, and said. “The baby has many nannies looking after him, so don’t disturb his sleep. Come on up with me.”
Yu Duo sighed and followed him upstairs, the whole time thinking about how to explain this situation. All of her arrogance from earlier in the day and withered away, like green buds exposed to late-spring frost.
“Tell me.”
“About what?”
“That French man.”
“He…” Yu Duo’s brows furrowed as she racked her brains. “He’s just someone that I met once in France, but I don’t know him very well.”
“But then, why did he have your earring in his hands?”
“I must have dropped it by accident.”
“I see, you accidentally dropped it, and he kept it with him for a year, carrying it with him all the time?”
“He must be the type who likes to help others.”
Fu Sinian laughed, “You know, when we were together the past few years I always thought that I knew what you were thinking. But then one day you brought up divorce to me with seemingly no prompting, and I realized that you didn’t love me nearly as much as you pretended to on the surface. Now there’s suddenly a French man…” He put a hand on his forehead, as if he were having a great headache. “I’m really starting to wonder if maybe an American man will emerge the next day.”
“Didn’t we agree that we wouldn’t mention about the past anymore?”
“If I don’t mention it, will that French man suddenly stop existing?”
Yu Duo was regretting to the point that her intestines were blue. If she had known things would turn out like this she definitely wouldn’t have quarreled with Fu Sinian earlier in the day. She should have just let him take whoever he liked to the banquet, why did she have to open her big mouth?!
She uncomfortably fidgeted in front of Fu Sinian for a few moments, before leaning forward to hug him. “Don’t be angry, okay? I really didn’t mean for things to turn out like this. Back then, I really dropped my earring by accident. Also, it’s true that he did have some ideas about me, but… as soon as I realized what he was thinking, I left the very next day. Husband, believe me, there will be no more French men or American men popping out. What happened today won’t happen again, so let’s just pretend that he doesn’t exist, okay?”
Fu Sinian was silent.
“Husband, I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
“So you know that you’re wrong too? Then where did you go wrong?”
Yu Duo: Why does this sound so familiar?
“If there’s anything like this in the future, I will definitely tell you about it, and I also will never take the initiative to talk to other men anymore,” In order to show how serious she was, Yu Duo put a hand over her heart and said solemnly. “I swear!”
Fu Sinian looked at her in silence.
Yu Duo blinked nervously.
“Well, it’s something in the past, so let’s not talk about it anymore.”
“I agree! The past will never be mentioned again!”
Fu Sinian’s face softened a little. “Then this matter is over.”
Yu Duo smiled and drilled into his arms, “En, it’s over.”
However, what Yu Duo didn’t notice was that her crafty husband was showing a cunning smile in a place she couldn’t see.