Sun Haowei expected his son to splutter and immediately open the door, gratitude welling up in his eyes as he thanked him and begged for forgiveness for treating his father like an untrained dog, but instead he heard his son's dismissive voice.
"Father, don't try to lie your way out of this!" Jingwei said. "I'm not letting you out until you sign an agreement!"
"I'm your father!" Sun Haowei protested indignantly. "And now I'm giving you what you wanted all this while! Let me out!"
"Exactly! You're not that kind," Jingwei said vehemently. "That's why I'm not letting you out! Father, I know what you are like. I'm not getting fooled."
"What do you know?" Yue Niang asked rhetorically, smirking at the way Sun Haowei was gnashing his teeth in anger. "Straight from the mouth of babes. Maybe your son will actually do a decent job as your successor after all."
"Shut up," he growled out, crossing his arms like a petulant child.
Of course Yue Niang didn't do as he said. "You know, it's perfectly understandable for you to resent Tai Cheng and I for prioritising ourselves and abandoning you. But what about Bi Yu? She supported you when we left! You married her! She birthed you two sons!"
"You know nothing about our marriage, stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong!"
"Trust me, I wouldn't have bothered looking for you if you hadn't done the utterly despicable thing of not even giving her an ancestral tablet in your home." Yue Niang scowled.
"Not only that, there are no pictures of her. Not a single family photo in your ridiculous mansion. Was she such a terrible wife and mother that you had to wipe her very existence from your memory?"
"..."
"You know that we're not going anywhere. So talk."
"Think what you like. I don't have to explain myself to the likes of you," was Sun Haowei's only reply as he settled back on the chair, leaving Yue Niang to stew in her own anger.
"You do realise that the contract they are drafting outside stops you from harming me, and not the other way around?"
"So? I'm not talking about it. You just need to know that it's ALL. YOUR. FAULT." Sun Haowei emphasised the last point.
"How so?" Yue Niang demanded.
Sun Haowei's lips remained determinedly shut, so Yue Niang decided to splash water on his face. How immature of her, but as long as she wasn't waterboarding him, he'll keep his silence.
Everytime he thought about his departed wife, it felt like his heart was thrown into a blender and turned into a repulsive paste of human weakness. They had so many years together, but it shamed him to think about how poorly he treated her in the beginning.
With the original bride fleeing from the engagement, Bi Yu had stepped up and taken her friend's place to spare everyone the social shame - hence a strange union was born from the spares that were left behind.
Honestly, he had never bothered with her before. Why would he? Yue Niang was his supposed fiancee, not her quieter friend that always panicked and cried when things didn't go as planned. He suspected that she was out there to take advantage of the situation - trying to marry into wealth now that opportunity presented itself.
He hated it. He hated her.
Then they actually got married. Guests tittered behind their hands, loving the spectacle and scandal of Sun Haowei needing a replacement bride. She bore it all stoically, but Sun Haowei saw the tear tracks when he lifted her veil away, and it made him irrationally angry.
(He didn't ask her to do this. No one did! If she didn't like him, she was free to run away. So why did he feel so terrible about it!)
A better man would have treated her well. Would have assuage her fears and tried to make her more welcome.
Instead, what Sun Haowei did was to ignore her completely. They slept in separate rooms. He sought companionship elsewhere, and sent hordes of thugs and kidnappers after the runaway couple.
(They had to return! They owed him an explanation! They had to put things right. If they grovelled a bit and begged for forgiveness, he would let it go.
They couldn't just… leave him. Alone. They were supposed to create a new world order together!)
He hated looking at his new wife, he hated everything she represented. Just seeing her reminded him of everything Yue Niang took from him.
She took Tai Cheng and left him with her gold-digging best friend, thinking it a worthwhile trade, as though that would have made up for the way she callously dug two cavernous holes in his heart.
Self-centred as he was, he did not realise that Bi Yu was also in pain, grieving the loss of her friends.
Meanwhile, Bi Yu purposely kept herself out of sight from her new husband. She was a hopeful woman, not a stupid one. If she clung to Sun Haowei like a barnacle, he would hate her even more.
Instead, she worked on the gardens, planting roses and herbs and all varieties of vegetables, hoping that her marriage would bloom like the flowers in spring and bear fruit in future. She then harvested her own vegetables and fruits and made meals out of them, sending plates to Sun Haowei.
The matrons always taught her the way to a man's heart was through his stomach.
But no matter how beautiful or elaborate the dishes, the plates always returned, cold and untouched.
Even the servants couldn't help looking at her with pity in their eyes, weeping at the waste. Their young master seemed to detest his new wife!
Days bled into months and then into years.
Then one day, she simply stopped making his share.
"Young Madame?" The old maidservant asked with uncharacteristic gentleness. "The portion for Young Master isn't here."
"Yes, that's because there isn't one," Bi Yu said, wiping her hands on her apron. "He hasn't eaten any of my cooking since I arrived here. No sense in wasting the food I painstakingly grew on someone that's not appreciative."
"Young Madame! I'm sure Young Master is just…" The servant tried to defend her employer, but Yu Ming Yan snorted next to her.
"A terrible husband?" Ming Yan continued. "So busy that he can't spare more than one kind word to his lawfully wedded wife? Too focused on building a business he can't share the same room as her? Too lost over his friends leaving him that he can't move on and build a new life with what he has?"
"Ming Yan, mind your manners," Bi Yu scolded, even as Ming Yan gave voice to all the unsaid feelings stewing within her. "You can't insult the Master of this house."
"But he's insulting you Madame! That's not right. He's neglecting you for the sake of chasing those ingrates -"
"Sssh." Bi Yu hushed her quickly, giving her a warning glance. She tilted her head to the door, where other servants were milling around, their ears ready for gossip. "You shouldn't mention them here."
Ming Yan reluctantly kept silent, but not without a last resentful glare at the door.
"I'm going to poison him," Ming Yan grumbled under her breath. "Who cares if he's rich and handsome? I'm sure with your capabilities, you can find someone else."
Bi Yu laughed, amused at the very thought. "I'd rather you not end up in prison."
"Only if I get caught," Ming Yan said, a determined light in her eyes.
"Don't bother. I have my own plans." Bi Yu said peacefully. She had given him enough time, and enough was enough.
Since he hadn't even touched her once, it was incredibly easy to have the marriage annulled on the grounds of non-consummation. All she needed was his signature.
========
"I'm not divorcing you." Sun Haowei barked out, when confronted with the divorce agreement. "You just want my money!"
"Well, technically I'm the one initiating the divorce. I'm divorcing you. You just need to accept it." Bi Yu corrected, with a calm that greatly unsettled Sun Haowei.
"I've given us enough time to work things out, and there has been no improvement after a year. Did you forget you made me sign a prenup before I married you? Rest assured, I'll not be making off with half of your fortune."
Her family was rich enough on their own. They might toss her out for bringing shame to them, but she had made contingency plans to live on her own.
Perhaps she might emigrate. Hawaii did look lovely.
Sun Haowei's face purpled as he looked through the document. She was serious about leaving him!
"Please sign the documents. I thought you'd appreciate me letting you know in advance rather than sneaking out into the night like a thief."
Unlike some people they knew.
"I'm not divorcing you anyway." Sun Haowei said, gripping the document so tightly he left creases in the paper. Not content with that, he easily ripped it to shreds.
"If the non-consummation is what bothers you, I can resolve it right now." Sun Haowei said as he got up from the chair, looming over her. She could feel the warmth of his body from where he stood.
Bi Yu thought it was highly ironic that a divorce agreement was what made him pay close attention to her. Even their wedding didn't manage such a feat.
"No thank you," Bi Yu said, looking him straight in the eye. "I'm not fond of playing second fiddle in my own marriage. Who knows whose name you might moan out in the heat of the moment?"
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel