Sun Haowei's face purpled. "How dare you - "
Bi Yu only scoffed. "Don't worry, I'm not going to leak news of your intimate behaviour. I've already been humiliated enough by your disdain for me."
By now, she had grown used to his methods of intimidation and only returned his look with an unbothered expression. She immediately gave Sun Haowei another copy of the divorce agreement, laughing at the surprised look on his face.
"You printed extras?" He demanded incredulously, glancing down at the papers and then back to her face, as though actually seeing her for the first time.
"Of course." Bi Yu replied, bemused. "Did you think I was dumb enough to not make copies just in case you crushed them with those bear paws of yours? It's not hard to see the shredded newspapers in the living room. Visitors might think we're raising a badly behaved dog."
"Bear paws - I do not have 'bear paws', and I'm not a dog - "
"And here's hoping you pay more attention to the documents than all the extra plates I left you. Do you know how much food you've wasted so far?" Bi Yu continued, interrupting his tirade.
Since they were getting divorced, she might as well give him a piece of her mind. Maybe she'll piss him off so much, he'd sign the document more quickly.
"It took me four months for one successful harvest, and you tossed it aside like it was worth nothing! People in Africa are starving, and you're so ungrateful. You should be ashamed of yourself. And don't even mention the potatoes - "
Sun Haowei spluttered - how dare she cut him off! She had never done this before! She had never talked so much in his presence, but now she was ranting about the produce that he apparently wasted by not eating her meals.
This was making him feel strangely guilty. That was unusual.
Then again, she had never asked for divorce before.
Now when he was looking at her, actually, properly, looking at her as herself without the shadow casted by her best friend, she was actually… quite lovely, her cheeks red with exertion as she continued to lecture him about food wastage.
"You can cook for me then, if you're complaining so much about it. I won't waste it this time."
Bi Yu stared back at her husband, and wondered if she was hallucinating. Did she accidentally plant some drugs in her garden? She pinched herself on her arm harshly and winced.
"What did you do that for?" Sun Haowei demanded, grabbing his wife to stop her from hurting herself. He found himself strangely wrong-footed.
Bi Yu shrugged out of his hold. Okay. She wasn't hallucinating. So that meant that this man was an imbecile!
Either that, or he suffered some permanent head injury. She touched his head and he froze like a deer in the headlights at the sudden touch of her hands on him. He could feel the calluses on her fingertips, most likely from her time in the garden.
"What… are you doing?" He choked out hesitantly.
"Checking for brain damage," Bi Yu said, looking him over for suspicious bumps.
"I'm not - what - "
"Why else would you be acting so strangely?" Bi Yu questioned. "You never liked me, and now I'm setting you free. We. Are. Getting. A. Divorce." She spoke slowly to him, enunciating every word crisply as though he was a particularly dim-witted chicken that wandered into a chicken rice store, begging to be served up for dinner.
"So I'm not cooking for you anymore. Sign this form, and eat your cup noodles. I'll pack up and leave within the week."
"You're not serious."
"I am." Bi Yu said, and then turned away to leave. "Have a good day. Let me know when you've signed it."
"You can't just - " Sun Haowei grabbed at her hand instinctively, enveloping his much larger hand over hers.
Both of them paused at that unfamiliar sensation. Bi Yu's heart raced, hoping it was a time for change, but her mind remembered the dismal truth.
This was sadly the first time their hands touched after the wedding. Bi Yu remembers him jabbing the wedding ring on her finger as though it was an absolute chore, and there was certainly no sweet hand-holding customary of happy unions after.
Another reason they should get divorced. She had never heard of a couple so estranged they never held hands. He most likely grabbed her by instinct. Men like Sun Haowei never liked losing what they believed was theirs, even if they didn't care for it.
She tugged her hand away harshly, as though he burnt her, and he flinched as though she burnt him.
"Sign the form. I'm tired of this farce of a marriage. My lawyer will be in contact. I bid you good day."
Bi Yu then whirled around and left the room, her heart jack-rabbiting in her chest.
She didn't want to think about how at that very moment, Sun Haowei had looked at her with something other than disdain.
This was the right decision.
=======
"What's this I hear about you abandoning your wife and duties?"
"Father, it's not like that - my wife wants to divorce me," Sun Haowei began, and a shot glass came flying towards his head. He fought his instincts to duck - because a real man never shied away from danger. In the end the glass smashed into his head, causing glass shards to litter the floor.
He could only blink away the whiskey that burned in his eyes, causing tears to form. When his vision finally cleared, he was greeted by his father's furious face.
"You colossal idiot!" Sun Long roared at his son, his face a ruddy red. It didn't take a genius to know that he had been drinking too much again. If the smell of whiskey in the air wasn't a big enough indicator, his bleary, bloodshot eyes were a dead giveaway.
Sun Haowei flinched minutely at the anger in his father's eyes. Another shot glass flew in his direction, but his father's rage made his aim more erratic, and it narrowly missed hitting him.
"Father - " He tried to plead his case, but his father steamrolled over his words.
"A whole year! What have you been doing?! How hard can it be to fuck your wife?!" He yelled. "You don't need to love her, you just need to produce an heir! I thought you were delivering good news, so I let you visit - but now you dare to tell me your wife wants a divorce?"
Sun Haowei could only stare at the floor, helpless before his father's rage. In the past, he at least had Tai Cheng watching his back. But now he was depressingly alone.
His father continued to rant.
"Are you still so hung up on Nangong Yue Niang that you can't move on? What kind of man are you, to cave in the absence of one woman? I didn't raise such a weakling!"
"..."
"Do you know what the others are saying about us? They're calling us weak. Pathetic. Because you couldn't even hold onto your fiancee and she ran off with our own man. We invited a cuckold into our household!"
"I - Tai Cheng isn't - " Sun Haowei wanted to defend Tai Cheng, if not Yue Niang. Even when he hated them for stabbing him in the back, he could not bear for them to be slandered by anyone else. He rationalised to himself that they were his to destroy.
It was better than facing the alternative - that he missed them. That he wanted to see them again.
His father didn't give a shit about his objections. He continued to rant and rave like a lunatic.
"We narrowly avoided being made a bigger laughing stock, because that girl Bi Yu was willing to be a last minute stand-in bride. A nice girl from a good family. She looked fertile."
"Instead of doing your goddamn duty and getting her with a child, you spend all your time trying to chase down a woman that ditched you! What nonsense! Where is your pride?"
"Nangong Yue Niang is long gone with your supposed best friend! They will never come back! Even a blind man knows this, but you're still trying to hang onto them like a child without a blanket. Foolish. Idiotic. Moronic. I sometimes wonder if you're indeed my son."
Sun Haowei could only stand there silently as his father rained insults on him.
"And now your wife wants a divorce? Ridiculous. Chain her down to your bed and fuck a baby into her repeatedly. Hit her if she doesn't obey you. See if she dares to leave you then!"
Sun Haowei couldn't help the look of disgust that crossed his face. His father saw, and scoffed. His son was weak. He clearly didn't beat him enough as a child.
"I will not tolerate such nonsense in my family. You are the man of the house now, pathetic as you are. Be a man and make her submit to your will, or I'll disown you as my son!"