Chapter 4: Divorce – Part 2
Seeing Yan Jiyue hesitating to press his handprint, Su Mu suddenly felt a little flustered.
Could this guy be regretting and not wanting to divorce like in the previous life?
So she deliberately smiled dismissively to provoke him: “What, Young Master Yan can’t bear to part with me?”
“Who would be reluctant to part with you.” Yan Jiyue was indeed provoked by her words. He closed his eyes, dispelling the messy and fragmented thoughts in his mind, and pressed down forcefully.
The divorce was successful.
Su Mu smiled happily, her smile as brilliant and dazzling as the summer sun, almost blinding.
She quickly put away the divorce papers into her bosom and started packing her already few clothes.
Seeing her so impatient, Yan Jiyue suddenly felt a sense of humiliating loss of face.
He asked, “You don’t even have the intention to spend one more night in the Yan residence? You’re in such a hurry to move out?”
While packing her clothes, Su Mu laughed casually, “Now that I’m no longer the young master’s live-in wife, nor a servant of the Yan family, naturally there’s no reason for me to stay here.”
“Then where are you going? It’s already dark outside, are you going to stay at an inn?” Yan Jiyue frowned and hesitated for a moment before saying, “I won’t be in a hurry to kick you out. You can make do here for one night.”
“The young master doesn’t need to worry. I have my own place to stay.” Su Mu packed her luggage and declined Yan Jiyue’s kind offer.
To be honest, Su Mu did hold some resentment towards Yan Jiyue, not because Yan Jiyue didn’t like her – after all, it was understandable to dislike an arranged marriage wife.
She was just angry that even though they were both victims, she had to bear all the accusations.
While the real perpetrator was protected by him very well.
In the ten years of their marriage, they had so many opportunities to divorce, but he stubbornly clung to her. On one hand, he felt it was a grievance to be married to her and complained in front of her all the time; on the other hand, he wasn’t willing to let her go and even proactively suggested wanting to have children with her.
It was truly baffling.
They wore each other down in this marriage for ten years.
Looking back now, Su Mu couldn’t even think of a single happy memory between her and Yan Jiyue, not a single one, only trivial matters everywhere.
But now, facing the young Yan Jiyue who had only been married to her for half a month, she didn’t want to project that resentment onto him.
After all, at this time, he truly and genuinely wanted to divorce her.
What was his fault? Nothing at all.
He was like a sharp blade, decisively severing their exhausting marriage.
From now on, he could freely go love whoever he wanted to love, whether it was Miss Shen or someone else. They no longer owed each other anything.
That night, Su Mu packed her luggage and left the Yan residence.
Dark clouds pressed against the horizon. The next second, a drizzling rain began to fall, raindrops hitting the green moss-covered tiles of the small town in Jiangnan, landing on her hair, dampening the tips of her hair and eyelashes, lingering on her white and red clothes.
Relying on her memory, she weaved through the grass-scented alleys in the darkness and arrived at the familiar small courtyard.
She pushed the door. It wasn’t bolted from the inside, so she walked in easily.
A faint light was on in the room. Hearing the movement, a figure flashed by the window.
Xie Yi hurriedly ran out, not even having time to put on shoes, his bare feet stepping on the mossy tiles, his emerald eyes even more lush than the ink-painted Jiangnan.
“Su Mu.” He stood still in the misty rain, softly calling her name.
“Why did you run out barefoot? Hurry inside.” Su Mu pulled his hand.
After entering the room, Su Mu took off her outer robe and changed into clean clothes. She tidied her dampened long hair and used a plain hairpin to pin up the long tresses cascading down her back.
When she opened the door, Xie Yi was already waiting at the doorway with a steaming cup of strong tea.
Seeing Su Mu come out, Xie Yi’s eyes curved into a smile, the deep green orbs like a wind-swept rice field with his smile.
He held out the tea and said in the few Central Plains words he had learned, “Drink.”
Su Mu smiled and took the tea, taking a sip. The warm comfort flowed throughout her body.
Outside, the gloomy rain pattered. Inside, it was warm and dry. Crossing over ten years, not having to scheme in the business world, not having to be entangled in a marriage she couldn’t sort out, Su Mu’s heart felt calm for the first time.
She stretched her hand out from under the eaves. Raindrops hit her palm, and the splashing water droplets sprayed into Xie Yi’s eyes, wetting the green rice field. Xie Yi instinctively closed his eyes, his dense foreign eyelashes dripping wet and sticking to the corners of his eyes.
Su Mu chuckled and pointed at the window, saying, “Rain.”
Xie Yi wiped the water from the corners of his eyes, his moist eyes gazing at her.
Su Mu pulled his hand and stretched it out from under the eaves like she had just done. This time, Xie Yi didn’t resist or refuse like before.
Xie Yi quietly felt the wetness of the rainwater, listening to Su Mu’s gentle voice beside his ear, melodious like the misty water vapor: “Rain.”
He suddenly understood that the woman in front of him was teaching him the Central Plains language.
Before, the traffickers who abducted him also tried to teach him in order to please the buyers.
The scholars also tried to teach him in order to put on airs.
Although Xie Yi didn’t understand the Central Plains language, he wasn’t stupid. He could sense from the women’s ambiguous gazes that the words they taught carried the condescending charity of those in power, making him humbly look up to them, flatter them like a lowly dog wagging its tail and begging for mercy, satisfying their lofty sense of self-esteem.
Moreover, they were eager for quick success. If he couldn’t learn quickly, he would definitely suffer to be taught a lesson.
But Su Mu seemed different from them.
Her teaching was aimless, pointing at the lingering fine rain one moment, then at the weeds in the corner, the blooming wildflowers, the falling leaves the next. Those words for flattering women, she didn’t mention a single one.
If he learned, she would smile at him gently as if encouraging and praising him.
If he didn’t learn, she wasn’t annoyed either. Instead, her smile deepened as she unhurriedly repeated it, correcting his pronunciation until he learned it.
She wouldn’t scold him or hit him. She was just like this misty, moist fine rain, gently nourishing the earth.
Xie Yi’s scarred fingers curled slightly, feeling his empty palm. He suddenly really wanted to eat another honey candy.
“It’s getting late. You should rest early.” Su Mu pointed at the small room next door and made a sleeping gesture.
Xie Yi understood her words and went into the room.
Lying on the bed, Xie Yi tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Everything that happened today seemed like a dream.
The previous two masters had such bad temperaments that he was still having some difficulty adapting to suddenly encountering such a gentle person like Su Mu, making it hard to fall asleep.
Suddenly, he laughed at himself mockingly and cursed, “Lowly bones.”
What was there to not adapt to when encountering a kind master? Could it be that he still wanted to encounter a master like Scholar Li, and have another scar branded on his chest?
Xie Yi’s Central Plains language was halting, but thanks to Scholar Li, he had a belly full of dirty words for cursing people, especially men. He could curse for a whole morning without repeating himself.
But he couldn’t say them in front of Su Mu.
This woman was very good to him. Profanity shouldn’t be used towards her. It was too offensive.
And he also found it hard to imagine what Su Mu, who spoke so gently and softly, even softer than the June breeze, would be like when cursing.
Such a Su Mu probably wouldn’t like him cursing either. A man should be soft and gentle in front of a woman, speaking slowly and methodically, even covering his lips with a handkerchief when laughing.
No woman could refuse a weak man. Wasn’t it precisely because Su Mu saw him being tortured by Scholar Li that she took pity and saved him?
Since she liked his weak, naive, and obedient appearance, he would just keep pretending. It wasn’t difficult anyway.
Xie Yi had just set his future persona when he suddenly sat up from the bed because he realized that the light in Su Mu’s room was still on.
He was a slave. How could he sleep before his mistress?
He was truly blinded by Su Mu’s gentle nature, almost forgetting his own identity.
Xie Yi repeatedly reminded himself in his heart that he was now a slave bought by Su Mu. Even if she tore up the deed of sale, if he left her, he wouldn’t be able to survive. He had to please Su Mu in order to live and find an opportunity to save money and escape back to the desert.
After silently chanting three times in his heart to please Su Mu, Xie Yi put on his clothes and came to Su Mu’s room.
When Su Mu left the Yan residence, she took the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone with her.
These were all bought with her own money, so of course she had to take them when she left.
Before transmigrating, Su Mu studied liberal arts. Except for being poor at math, she ranked in the top ten in her grade for everything else, considered to have excellent academic performance.
The female-dominant world also had the concept of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, with merchants ranked at the lowest level.
In her previous life, Su Mu originally wanted to save some money to take the imperial examinations. She didn’t aspire for anything like first or second place, even passing as a scholar would allow her to escape the lowly status and not have to be a servant or maid forever.
Unfortunately, later because the Yan family’s finances were drained, she was forced by Yan Zhujun with the pretext of favors to take the path of business.
In the female-dominant world, no matter how many books merchants read, they couldn’t take the imperial examinations in the future, and the daughters of merchants also couldn’t take the imperial examinations.
Besides that, in the female-dominant world, officials were like the sky. They could openly ask merchants for money. Even if Su Mu eventually became the richest person in Juancheng, she had to spend a lot of money every year to smooth things over.
At the end of the year, the county magistrate wanted to expand and renovate the government office and asked her for a thousand taels of silver. She was short on cash and couldn’t come up with it, so the county magistrate gave her a hard time. This was the top of the food chain in Juancheng.
After being reborn, Su Mu didn’t want to walk the old path of being bullied everywhere again. She planned to pick up her original goal and take the imperial examinations.
Although she hadn’t attended the female-dominant school, she had at least lived in the female-dominant world for ten years in her previous life and was influenced by modern education, insisting on learning as long as she lived. She had some understanding of the ‘Four Books and Five Classics’ of the female-dominant world.
With a new goal to strive for, Su Mu began studying late into the night, suddenly having the illusion of being back in the evening self-study sessions of her second year of high school.
See, even after transmigrating, one still had to study hard.
Sometimes Su Mu even wondered if she transmigrated because she dozed off in math class, so the heavens were punishing her.
Just as Su Mu’s mind was wandering, the candle burned to the end, the flame flickering and dazzling to the eyes.
Su Mu’s eyes were too dazzled to open. Just as she was about to stand up and change the candle, someone beside her had already renewed it for her. The bright candlelight lit up again, illuminating a pair of deep emerald eyes.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Su Mu was a bit surprised. He had suffered abuse from Scholar Li today, so he should have fallen asleep and rested early.
Xie Yi didn’t understand her words. He just smiled at her, his smile having a natural infectiousness, like an obedient and well-behaved younger brother.
Because of his mixed blood, Xie Yi’s bone structure had the depth and dimension of Western people, but his appearance was extremely Oriental in charm. His eyebrows were dark without being drawn, his lips red without being painted, as if the beauty of East and West converged on him alone.
Su Mu pointed at his room and said again, “Go to sleep.”
Xie Yi shook his head. His fingers covered in tiny wounds carefully touched her sleeve. His deep emerald eyes looked at her tentatively. Seeing that she didn’t seem to dislike it, he used his finger to hook her sleeve and uttered two words, “With you.”
Su Mu lowered her eyes and chuckled.
The Xie Yi in front of her seemed to merge with the Xie Yi from her previous life.
In her previous life when she did business, she often had to do accounting late into the night. Xie Yi would keep her company beside her.
In the hot summer weather, he would stand behind her and fan her, driving away the annoying mosquitoes for her. If she was in a bad mood, he would go to the pond and catch fireflies to cheer her up.
The Yan residence was a deep and secluded mansion, feeling like a pair of hands constantly choking her neck, suffocating her.
Xie Yi was the only person she felt warmth from in this strange world.
But even so, Yan Jiyue seemed unwilling to indulge her.
She remembered it was the fifth year after their marriage. That year, her relationship with Yan Jiyue had eased a bit.
The summer weather was terribly hot. Xie Yi went to the pond to pick lotus flowers for her, wanting to let her feel a bit of coolness.
As a result, as soon as he reached the pond, he was pushed into the water by Yan Jiyue. If she hadn’t jumped into the water to save him in time, Xie Yi might have died.
Su Mu was really angry. For the first time, she disregarded his status as a young master and criticized him in front of the servants. This also became the beginning of the rapid deterioration of her relationship with Yan Jiyue.
Yan Jiyue cared about his reputation the most. How could he swallow his anger? He had a big fight with her and spat at Xie Yi, who was fished out of the water, calling him a green tea bitch.
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*Spotlight on Finished Novel Translations*
Daily Life of a Scumbag Man Giving Birth (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The way for a promiscuous scumbag man to atone for his sins is to let him get… pregnant.
Synopsis:
Meng Huan, a scumbag who has dated countless girlfriends, scammed countless women, transmigrates to a female-dominated country.
Day 1: Whether it’s female dominance or not doesn’t matter. The beauties here are passionate and amorous. Isn’t it easier to scam them than in modern times?
Day 2: After a night, Meng Huan discovers the differences in the female-dominated world. Men here actually have chastity locks and menstrual cycles. This hinders his ability to perform, damn it!
Day 3: What’s wrong with sleeping around? I don’t want you to marry me. I’m meant to be a playboy. I don’t care about male virtues… What? You want to drown me in a pig cage? Marry, I’ll marry!
Day N: Meng Huan inexplicably vomits and receives the shocking news of his life… He’s pregnant.
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Eu amo os dois protagonistas