Congratulations on Your Wedding - Chapter 6
Chapter 6
“I want to kill you where you stand,” I said with a cold laugh.
Even speaking to him made me feel unclean.
“I only have one question.”
Struggling to control myself, I threw Grandma’s phone at him with a shaking hand.
“Why did you answer her video call on the day of our wedding? If she hadn’t discovered you and Chen Qing, she might not have been so distraught. Maybe she wouldn’t have fallen.”
“Song Chenzhi, what did Grandma ever do to deserve that?”
He picked up the phone, stared at it, then pulled out his own as if comparing the two.
“Xixi.” He seemed to force my name through his throat. “I truly didn’t know about this.”
“There’s no record of the call on my phone.”
“Chen Qing must have answered and deleted it afterward.”
“Xixi, believe me.”
His Adam’s apple worked painfully. I had never seen him so flustered or helpless.
“All these years, Grandma was like family to me. I would never deliberately let her see something like that—”
“Does it matter?” I cut in coldly.
“Does it matter which of you pressed the button?”
His face turned ashen.
I studied that face, at once familiar and strange, while hatred pressed down on my chest.
“If you had already fallen for her, why did you get together with me?”
“Everyone said I was your unforgettable first love. They said you waited five years for me. They said you called my name after your car accident.”
“But what was the truth? You spent those five years entangled with Chen Qing. You might not have called yourselves a couple, but you did everything couples do.”
I drew a deep breath.
“You kept saying you loved me, yet every choice you made favored her.”
“You just finished sleeping with her, and now you turn around and threaten her for my sake.”
“Song Chenzhi, you don’t love me. You don’t love her either. The only person you love is yourself.”
He stared at me blankly. His lips moved, but no words came out.
Grief and rage tore through me until I was simply exhausted.
“Meeting you is the greatest regret of my life.”
Song Chenzhi remained silent for a long time.
At last, he said, “Xixi, if you hate me, then hate me.”
“But please give me a chance to atone. Let me take Grandma’s place and care for you from now on—”
I hurled the glass beside me at him.
He did not dodge. It struck his forehead, and blood streamed down his face.
The next day, Song Chenzhi returned to the city and his company.
It wasn’t because he had given up. He had to deal with the scandal involving Chen Qing.
Before going upstairs the previous night, I had activated the security camera on the second floor and started recording audio on my phone.
I sent the video and recording to both of their employers.
The scandal broke during a round of promotion selections. Song Chenzhi’s company quickly awarded the position he had been competing for to a colleague who had always disliked him.
Once promoted, that man found weaknesses in several contracts Song Chenzhi had handled and reported him. Song Chenzhi was placed under audit.
Chen Qing was an online influencer, so her livelihood depended even more heavily on her reputation.
Her followers abandoned her in droves. Every day, people flooded her comments and private messages, calling her a home-wrecker.
Others left negative reviews on products she had advertised.
“What good could anything recommended by a mistress possibly be?”
“Buy this and may your partner find a mistress too.”
Soon, many brands were afraid to work with her.
On the day I returned to my gallery, Song Chenzhi called me from a friend’s phone. He was silent for a long time before speaking.
“Xixi, Chen Qing asked me to tell you she really did answer the video call by accident. She hung up as soon as she realized what she’d done. She knew she had caused trouble, so she deleted the record.”
I found that laughable.
Did calling something an accident mean it caused no harm?
Grandma had lost her life because of Chen Qing’s “accident,” yet the woman who caused it would never spend a day in prison.
The world was profoundly unfair.
Six months later, I traveled to Sanya to paint.
White-crested waves rolled over the blue sea. Sunlight scattered across the water like fragments of colored glass, bright enough to drive away every shadow of grief.
Grandma had always wanted to see Sanya, but she never had the chance.
I carried a little of her ashes in a glass vial. In that way, I had brought her with me.
“Here, He Xi.”
Jiang Li handed me a glass of juice and bent to study my drawing board.
“Is that me?” he asked with a soft laugh.
I nodded and answered honestly. “You’re handsome.”
People who work in art are instinctively drawn to beautiful things. Song Chenzhi had once been one of them. Now Jiang Li was another.
I met Jiang Li on the plane.
I had fallen asleep and accidentally let my head slip onto his shoulder. Rather than wake me, he let me use him as a pillow for the entire flight.
After we landed, we happened to share a taxi. Then we discovered we were staying at the same hotel.
“That is a lot of coincidences,” Jiang Li said with a smile, as if curious to see how far they would go. “I’m in 407.”
I was quiet for a moment. “408.”
Our rooms were directly opposite each other.
When I finished his portrait, I photographed it and posted it to my gallery’s account.
“A sketch. The man himself is even more handsome.”
Jiang Li’s face was striking enough to attract a flood of likes and comments.
“I want to see the handsome model! Please!”
“Help! My fever is forty degrees and I have no ibuprofen. A picture of this man is my only hope.”
I faithfully repeated my followers’ requests to Jiang Li.
“Would posting my picture help you in some way?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe I’d gain more followers, and the gallery would get more commissions. Mostly, they want to see how closely the portrait matches the real person.”
“If it can help you, then I agree,” Jiang Li said earnestly.
The moment I posted his photograph, likes and comments poured in.
As I scrolled through them, one question caught my eye.
“Who is he?”
It was from Song Chenzhi.
