Undesirable Marriage - CH 6.3

Feeling her mother’s loving care, Mo Chuan Ya’s body shook to the core. Her eyes filled with tears, and the resentment that had been dormant for so many days flared up again. “Mom, he should have discussed it with me, and not made the decision on his own! Has he really ever thought about me?!”

“He did it for your own good.” Mo Li Yi’s expression was calm. “You were in a perilous situation at that time. Doctor Wang and Doctor Zhang both said so. They thought it would be for the best to operate right away.”

“The baby’s mother is me, so who are they to make decisions for me?” Mo Chuan Ya retorted somberly. “And Xingren, how could he not even afford me a few minutes of his time?”

“He couldn’t go see you because he was operating on a patient.”

“I know, he is always busy!” Mo Chuan Ya grunted softly.

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Mo Li Yi observed her daughter’s sorrowful expression. “Do you resent him?”

Mo Chuan Ya bit her lip in self-deprecation. “I don’t want to nag…” She couldn’t help but avert her eyes. “But I don’t think he… loves me that much.”

“Didn’t you say that you were willing to protect his ideals, whether he was in love or not?” Mo Li Yi’s tone was calm, without any praise or criticism. To Mo Chuan Ya’s ears, however, it sounded like the sharpest mockery she had ever heard. She knitted her brows bitterly, and after a long moment, sighed. “People say: ‘There is no complaint in the depths of true love’, but it seems that I still can’t do it. I’m just an ordinary woman.”

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“Ebyv?” Fbl oyp pbsnjle. “Zsw xlyd bl zlqv xl qsa y elyvb aso rakpsdla…?”

“R blyae vbyv vbl nszzlytwlp obs oldv kdvs vbl srlayvkdt assx okvb bkx nswzed’v wdelapvyde bkx, pyukdt vbyv bl zlqv bkp okql qsa yd wdqsatkhyczl pnwx. Mbyv bl xwpv dsv zshl usw yv yzz.” Ys Nk Zk obkprlale xlydkdtqwzzu. “Ps usw vbkdj ps vss?”

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“Tl vsze xl vbyv bkp qyvbla oyp y asccla—”

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He was taken to the hospital for emergency treatment, but when the doctor on duty heard that he was a robber, he ignored him and even left him to operate on another patient who arrived later on.

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A short delay of just a few minutes was all it took for his father’s life.

Dai Xingren clenched his palm tightly, wrapping his remorse in his fist. The moment he found out that his father had died, his young fist had been bloodied by the wall. Finding out that his father was still holding a few hundred yuan bills in his hands before passing, his heart bled too. Perhaps to others it was only a few hundred dollars, not worth losing a life over, but he understood that to his father it was the only hope he had, the one he had managed to get. So he would not give it up, even if he was scorned by the world. For that was the only hope he could leave behind to his son.

A wave of sourness suddenly hit Dai Xingren’s throat, and he gritted his teeth shut, tasting the bitterness, not allowing himself to shed a single tear.

Later, the few hundred dollars naturally had to be returned to the supermarket, and he did not receive any inheritance from his father. Only hard to bear feelings of regret remained.

He hated himself for not returning his father’s kindness. He could not have been considered a filial son, often talking back to his father and even secretly complaining about his father’s weakness and incompetence.

He knew that his father had done wrong, and that wrongdoers should be punished, but it wasn’t so bad that he had to pay with his life, was it? Just because he was a robber, he wasn’t worth being saved? At that time, no one was helping his father, who was dying. There he made a solemn vow, that if no one would save him, then it would be him, the son, who would save him.

That was his motivation for becoming a doctor.

Could she understand that? It wasn’t that he had chosen her over a prisoner, but that he couldn’t give up on his ideals for love…

“She still refuses to see you.” On that day, Mo Li Yi called Dai Xingren to the Chairman’s Office of the hospital to convey her daughter’s wish. He stood there, frozen like a statue, with nary a trace of life to be found.

“Her father and I have tried to persuade her a few times but she won’t give in. She’s very stubborn, so we don’t dare to push her too hard.” Mo Li Yi paused, a bitter smile scrunching her lips. “Did you know that she used to rebel? Then, we pushed her too hard, and as a result, she ended up forced to go with a group of friends to drink and into a car race, almost losing her life.”

Dai Xingren was horrified to hear that.

“Chuan Ya’s personality has always been like this. She is very hard headed, and no one can stop her from doing what she wants to do. No one can force her to do what she doesn’t want to do.”

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He could understand that his wife seemed to possess a certain quality similar to that of a War Goddess, awe-inspiring and unassailable.

“So, you can go to the United States for the time being!” Mo Li Yi suggested quietly.

“What?” He stared at his mother-in-law in shock.

“You have taken the U.S. Medical License Examination, right?” She smiled at him warmly and handed him a copy of the information. “This hospital in Washington, D.C., has a very good relationship with us. You should go there for training! There are several university medical centers nearby and you can communicate with the doctors and professors alike. You will definitely benefit from it a lot.”

She wanted him to go to… to America? Dai Xingren was terrified, his heart beating wildly.

“This should be a good learning opportunity for you.”

“But Chuan Ya…” Did that mean he wouldn’t be able to see his wife again?

“Chuan Ya said that, if we were to force her to see you, she would rather divorce you. You don’t want to go this far, do you?” Mo Li Yi argued softly. “Why don’t you stay away for a while, waiting for Chuan Ya to calm down, and then see what to do. At least it’s better than divorce, right?”

He was dumbfounded. It took a long time before he could force a hoarse voice out from between his teeth. “Does she… hate me that much?”

“She said she couldn’t forgive you.” Mo Li Yi sighed softly.

And that sigh was like a long steel wire wrapped around his throat. Slowly, minute by minute, tightening and suffocating!

_____________

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“Are you really going to banish your husband to the United States?” A week later, Jian Yi An came to Mo’s house to visit her friend. Mo Chuan Ya was sitting in front of a white piano, stroking the keys smoothly with her jade hands, playing a lyrical piece of music.

Jian Yi An stared at her incredulously, wondering how she could still play the piano so calmly. Her husband was flying out of Taiwan that day and she didn’t care at all? After her best friend finished playing the song, Jian Yi An put a notebook in front of her. “He asked me to give this to you.”

She glanced at it indifferently and didn’t take it.

“He said he would write you an EMAIL and if you would like to see him, you can write or call him at any time and he will fly back immediately. He also asked me to CALL him as soon as you have any intention of forgiving him.” As she relayed Dai Xingren’s message, Jian Yi An watched her friend’s expression carefully, not missing the slightest change in her expression.

But her face seemed to be frozen solid, so emotionless and unfeeling it was.

“He actually cares about you, Chuan Ya.” Jian Yi An could not help but speak up for Dai Xingren. “I think he’s in love with you. Can you really bear to drive him away like this?”

She turned away her snow-white face.

Suddenly, a short ring sounded and Jian Yi An took out her phone and tapped open the text message. “It’s from your husband. He says he’s at the airport.”

Mo Chuan Ya’s torso visibly shook slightly at her words, but she still pursed her lips stubbornly. “So what?”

“Aren’t you going to go after him?” Jian Yi An advised anxiously. “Don’t think it’s okay to be separated for a short time. Who knows how many years he’ll be gone for? Maybe he’ll come back and it won’t be the same. Maybe you’ll miss him forever, can you live with that? Think about it, can you really let him go?”

“I don’t want to see him.” Mo Chuan Ya whispered harshly, still indifferent in the face of her friend’s barrage of hard questions. “There’s no way I can be a couple with him now.”

“Won’t you regret it?”

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“I’ll never regret it.”

“You fool!” Jian Yi An was furious. She didn’t mean to scold, she just felt heartbroken. She knew how much her best friend loved her husband, but she couldn’t understand why the couple had to live apart. “I can’t believe you won’t miss him. Yes, the baby is gone, and I know you’re angry with him for taking matters into his own hands, but you can have another one later, so why do you have to do this?”

“You don’t understand.” Mo Chuan Ya bit her lip sadly. “It’s not just about the baby.”

“Then what else is it?”

She didn’t answer, but played the piano again, this time a poignant ditty which made the listeners sad.

Half an hour later, she sent off a still worried Jian Yi An, before picking up the notebook he had sent her, hesitant to open it.

It was only after a long time that she managed to open the cover with her trembling hands. And one look at it brought tears to her eyes. It was the egg fried rice recipe. He ended up drawing it himself. He explained each step in detail, drawing each ingredient in colored pencil so that she could understand it at a glance. When you’re in a bad mood, just make it and eat it. He left a message at the end, as it were, and signed it.

She stroked the pale, strong handwriting. His handwriting was not beautiful, it was somewhat scrawled. But as she touched it gently, each stroke was like fire, burning into her fingertips and imprinting itself into her heart.

“Xingren, Xingren…” She murmured her husband’s name. A wave of sorrow suddenly rose in her throat and all of a sudden she hugged her husband’s notes tightly, knelt softly on the ground, and sobbed.

After an unknown amount of time, her tears still wouldn’t dry up. She tried desperately to gather all her strength and managed to suppress her grief a little. Then she looked out of the window in a daze, her gaze going beyond the misty night and catching up with a certain figure that she had banished with her own hands.

“It’s okay, I’ll be fine.” She murmured heartbreakingly. “No matter how many years we are apart, no matter how far you are from me, I will get through it, I will be able to…”

Because she was the strongest woman.