chapter 14

My relationship with Qi Sinian dropped to freezing point.

Honestly, I didn’t even need to do anything. Old Master wasn’t going to let him off.

He was punished-made to kneel, then beaten.

Old Master couldn’t wrap his head around it. “How are you just like your mother-so hopelessly muddleheaded?”

To Qi Sinian, that line hit about as hard as being forced to streak naked in public.

There were some things-some people-that could never be mentioned in front of him.

He avoided it so thoroughly that he wouldn’t even go back to sweep my mom’s grave anymore.

Even though that woman had saved him and raised him.

I asked Yanyan what had really happened that day.

Yanyan said, “She was wearing the protective charm Mom gave Dad. I told her to give it back to me, but she wouldn’t. She even said that from now on, everything that belonged to Mom would be hers.”

Then he asked softly, “Mom… are you going to divorce Dad?”

A child’s fragility could always shatter a mother’s defenses with terrifying ease.

All this time, he’d been obedient, sensible, and well-behaved.

To the point that I almost forgot-he had only just turned six.

A suffocating pressure wrapped around my heart. My temples swelled and throbbed with pain, and a buzzing filled my ears.

It was only a few seconds, but it felt like I was about to die.

Until Yanyan burrowed into my arms and hugged me.

“Uncle said Ning Yan will always be Mom, and Qi Sinian will always be Dad. But what kind of relationship Mom and Dad have-that’s between you two. I’m still a little sad, though. Just a little. Mom, I want to cry for a while.”

He lay against my shoulder, his soft little cheek pressed to me.

The enormous wave that had nearly drowned me receded in an instant. I let out a long, heavy breath.

“Okay. We’ll cry for a while. Mom will stay with you.”

On the third day, Qi Sinian handed me the divorce agreement.

He didn’t look well. Gauze was taped to his head. His face was blank.

I read the terms carefully.

He was offering a lot-enough to leave me satisfied.

I didn’t drag it out. I signed my name without hesitation.

After that, everything moved quickly.

The day we got the papers, when we walked out of the Civil Affairs Bureau, Qi Sinian didn’t say a single word. He put on his sunglasses and left.

It was me who stood there, staring at his back for a long time.

From childhood to now, I’d never really dug into what I felt for Qi Sinian.

Was it family? Love? Friendship?

In the end, it didn’t matter.

Do you know what a symbiotic relationship is?

Our lives and fates had been intertwined-nourishing each other, seeping into each other, growing upward together.

When one of us tried to peel away, it hurt like tendons being ripped and bones being carved-whether for the one leaving or the one left behind.

And worse… maybe neither of us would survive it.