My Alleged Husband

Chapter 486 - 465 Life Without Love_1

Everyone’s life is different, the path they walk is different, and their ultimate choices are even more varied. When choices vary from one person to another, so too do the outcomes. Many people choose to walk the path of sunshine, allowing themselves to lead a life of ease and safety, happily living the life they desire. Yet for some, they would rather wander the world than allow their fate to be dictated by someone else, to let others take control of their so-called destiny. The hearts of these people are forever strong; they wish to hold the reins of fate in their own hands, granting no one the authority to overshadow them. They long to live a life where they can sleep soundly at their own side, joyously living the life they want, not wanting their fortune to be dominated by the lives of others. Is there really no one who can happily live the life they wish to live? Who doesn’t face trials and tribulations, learning to finesse the art of life, stumbling along the way without being able to seize whatever they desire simply by following their own whims? People’s lives are always filled with pain and agony. Maybe today you are still agonizing over whether to do something, but tomorrow has already arrived. Today’s tasks are yet incomplete, and tomorrow’s challenges pile up like a mountain. Never is there a day when all chores are done, never a day to live happily the life one desires. Always busying oneself with the pursuit of happiness and chasing after the things one yearns for—such a life, in truth, is exhausting and never free.

"For me now," Zhang Zhentian said, "whether you love me or not no longer matters. I have received the answers I was looking for, and I know how aggrieved you felt having to live with me. Perhaps initially I was too autocratic, never asking for your feelings, let alone changing my way of life to accommodate them. A person’s life is bound to change; it won’t always remain as it was in the beginning. We slowly learn to grow. Perhaps we will all understand what we really want. The love between us was so profound. After so many years together, how can the affection of a marriage simply be forgotten? Why should we bother staying together then? As time went by, I gradually realized that the kind of affections we sought when we first got together was not what we truly wanted. The excitement we initially felt had faded. People are always changing, and I myself have changed beyond recognition. How could I expect you to remain the same forever? Actually, your transformation is all related to me, step by step I pushed you to a dead end, making you what you are today. I hope you can give me a little more time to properly protect you. Please, don’t change anymore. Don’t become someone I can no longer recognize. Such a change fills me with real fear."

Xia Jing said to Zhang Zhentian, "You always think I am the one who has changed, but have you not noticed? Have I really changed, or is it your heart that no longer sees things the way it used to? Many things are still under your decision, like before, but when it comes to important decisions, you avoid me like the plague. Haven’t you thought about how much that hurts me? I know what you are thinking, regardless of your thoughts, but I hope you can follow your heart, okay? I know why you came to me trying to reconcile, and I have repeatedly refused you. It upsets you, but you don’t need to vent your frustrations on me. Doing so not only hurts me but also yourself. You feel I am changing, but you will never realize that the one who is really changing isn’t me, but you. When one person tells another that they are constantly changing, in truth, it may not be the other person who has changed, but the accuser himself, unable to believe the results are due to their own changes, and preferring to pin the outcome on someone else. Saying the other person has changed, they only manage to catch the process of that change. People are always like this, always afraid of others seeing their moments of weakness, always wishing others to only see their most dazzling selves. How many can truly admit the hardships and efforts undertaken to present their best selves to others, to understand how difficult each step has been. People are like this, always blind to others’ journeys; even if they have two pockets, they forever display others’ faults while hiding their own, never seeing their own actions clearly, never realizing who they might have hurt. They are always so selfish!"

"In fact, what you said makes sense," Zhang Zhentian continued, "but do you understand? The day you started changing, that very moment, I became a person without love, because you had already taken back all your love for me. Every word you said to me was casual, and everything you did for me was simply an obligation. But did you know how happy, how difficult, each day was being with you? Indeed, I have sacrificed so much to be with you, yet I savored it because it was you, being with you is the greatest joy of my life. But now, it’s destined that my life will be without love, because my love has left me, thinking I am unworthy of it. Therefore, I too am unworthy of standing before her. If I have no reason, no right to stand before her, then how can I make her continue to live the happy life she desires because of me?"

It’s well-known that a life without love is painful; a lifetime without love means living a life without meaning. A life without love is as if one has simply passed through this world for nothing—learning nothing. Yet a life with love is even more agonizing, tangled up in love and hate until the very end, never finding release. Perhaps when true freedom arrives, it will be when one has completely lost their life. But who would wish for such liberation? No matter what, it’s better to suffer through life’s days than to become someone living a loveless life.