My Alleged Husband

Chapter 296 - 276 Pleading Ineffective_1

Time ticked away, second by second. Xia Jing waited and waited, yet still, there was no response from Old Master Zhang. She had a bad feeling—had her persuasion failed? Or was her husband’s resolve so strong that even his father was out of options?

Two days blinked by, and during that time, Zhang Zhentian sat alone on the couch, lost in thought. He pondered over the choices before him: on one side was his marriage, on the other, his guilt towards his father and his remorse towards his son. He had no idea what to do. If he chose one side, he knew it would be a devastating blow to the other. He didn’t want to cause any more hurt to the ones he loved.

He could choose to never set foot in the Zhang family home again, to never again disturb the life he had with his son, to leave this place forever. But he couldn’t accept that his wife had caused so much pain—to his son, to his father, to himself.

In the end, he made his decision. He had to divorce Xia Jing. He felt that as long as he and Xia Jing stayed together, his family would never have peace. As long as they lived together, it would only be his father, his son, and his future daughter-in-law who would suffer. He couldn’t bear to see his family hurt even a little bit. The scars of over a decade of hurt and absence of love couldn’t be healed. He couldn’t let these baseless injuries continue any longer.

Today was the third day Xia Jing had been waiting at home, and she finally received a phone call from her husband. But the result left her bitterly disappointed.

"Hello, Zhentian, have you changed your mind? Are you not going to bring up divorce anymore? Rest assured, as long as you continue to live with me and never mention divorce again, I will never trouble our son, nor will I trouble that girl. I won’t let them be together happily ever after. They’ll never get their fairytale ending, as long as you don’t divorce me..."

"Are you negotiating with me?"

Xia Jing didn’t understand why her husband’s first words were so cold. Had her father really failed to persuade him?

"Zhentian, what’s wrong? Are you not feeling well? Why do you sound so strange today? Your voice has never been this cold when you’ve spoken to me before?"

"Really? Then tell me, how did I use to talk to you? As far as I remember, my attitude has always been the same when I’ve spoken to you. Is there something different now?" Zhang Zhentian asked Xia Jing in return.

Xia Jing was caught off guard by her husband’s question. She didn’t know how to answer.

"Why are you not speaking now? You’ve always been so fluent in delaying, why can’t you say a word today? Could it be that you’ve done something to wrong me?"

Xia Jing had not expected that Zhang Zhentian would become so aggressive when he spoke. Had it really been because of her that he’d turned out like this? She hadn’t done anything too outrageous, so why did it seem so serious in his eyes? He wanted to divorce her over this, speaking to her with such a cold and aggressive tone.

"Zhentian, what’s happened to you? Why are you speaking so strangely today? You were never aggressive in the way you spoke to me before, and yet today, every word you say is charged with aggression. What’s going on that allows you to treat me like this? Is it truly impossible for us to go back to how things were?"

"Go back? That’s easy for you to say. Think about it, once words are out, like water spilled, can they really be taken back? Your lies, one after another, I really can’t accept them. If you had chosen to be honest with me, instead of making me find out the lies you told, I could have continued to forgive you. But not once did you choose to come clean, and though I discovered your lies, I didn’t want to reveal them, because I didn’t want to rip off the mask you wear. I feel that once I tear off that mask you wear on the surface, it would be too hideous to bear!"

"Everyone makes mistakes; you know that. No one is perfect—why, then, do you treat me this way because of a minor error? Has my place in your heart truly vanished? Or have you found a lover outside and are eager to bring her home, so you’re in a hurry to divorce me?" Xia Jing, infuriated by Zhang Zhentian, spoke without filtering her words. She didn’t know what she could do to salvage this hard-won marriage. She really knew she was wrong now, but Zhang Zhentian had no intention of giving Xia Jing any chance to turn things around.

"Even now you accuse me unjustly. Do you really want me to disclose every single lie you told before? So many things, you should be clear about it yourself. Leaving aside the severity of the lies you’ve told me before, let’s talk about our son. How could you be so heartless? A girl in the prime of her youth, and you pushed her down a cliff—do you understand? Do you realize how much harm you’ve caused our son? He was so in love with that girl that he jumped off a cliff after her. When you used that girl’s parents to threaten her, did you see the anguish in our son’s eyes? Yet, you showed no mercy; you still went through with harming them, tearing them apart. Is this what parents should do? People say a mother’s love is greater than a father’s, but from what I see, your ’love’ is not only unbearable for our son, your love is unbearable for me. It’s deceit after deceit, hurt after hurt. You’ve never considered us, your family—don’t you understand? Our son needs his parents’ companionship, and I need my wife’s utmost sincerity, and my father needs his daughter-in-law’s filial piety. You’ve attained none of these!"

"Am I really not sincere enough to you? After over a decade of marriage, can’t you feel my sincerity?" Xia Jing, unwilling to accept that she was being called disloyal and insincere by her own husband.

Zhang Zhentian found it laughable, to say the least—here he was, at this point, and his wife still showed no remorse, arguing with him unreasonably.

"Ask yourself, over all this time, what have you done that was honest with me? Dare you say you’ve kept nothing from me? Dare you say you’ve told me everything? I actually know about all the things you’ve done, but I’ve always chosen to stay silent. I didn’t want to hurt our relationship, because after so much struggle, we finally came together. I gave up so much for you, but what have you done for me? This time I’m telling you explicitly: no matter who tries to persuade me, it will be useless. Pleas won’t work. Accept my divorce proposal. Only then can you still obtain alimony from me; you can still pursue the freedom you desire with your head held high. Otherwise, don’t blame me for disregarding marital ties and taking you to court. When that time comes, you won’t just have a legal responsibility, you’ll also face jail time for intentional injury..."

Zhang Zhentian simply hung up the call. Xia Jing truly could not have anticipated that her husband would take such a harsh action against her, that he would actually threaten to take her to court and sue her for intentional injury.