Divorce Application - Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Fellow Patients
Spring is for new beginnings, summer for wild growth, autumn for silence, and winter for storage.
The spring model was a highly sought-after design and also the most challenging to create.
This watch, which had defeated over a dozen designers and was the culmination of Li Jinping’s design efforts, ticked away on the quiet dinner table.
Wu Haoxue had obviously also seen the eye-catching watch and noticed Liu Sinan’s sudden silence.
She pulled out her phone, searched for something, and her face quickly grew cold.
Wu Haoxue asked her directly.
xue: Do you want to leave? We can go together.
Liu Sinan had never known who the buyer was, and Li Jinping had never explained a word to her.
She was on the trending list for three days, with millions of netizens mocking her for being delusional and in an awkward position, even calling for her to get out of Li Jinping’s life.
She still had her doubts, but she didn’t care as much anymore.
It seemed that all the questions that never got answered back then, all the collapses, meltdowns, anger, heartache, and hysterics that came with them, had lost their power in the noisy and turbulent years.
Liu Sinan calmly looked away.
nan: Let’s eat before we go. Don’t make things difficult for Lan Qi.
Liu Sinan’s generosity made Wu Haoxue feel a little bad.
xue: …Don’t be angry. I really don’t know Lan Ling well. I only helped take care of her for a few days out of humanitarianism. I really thought she was just an admirer of Ms. Li, and a particularly weak and insignificant one at that, not even worth mentioning to you.
xue: Back then, anyone with eyes could see that Ms. Li only had eyes for you.
After saying this, Wu Haoxue felt like a complete idiot. They were already divorced, so why was she bringing up the past? And if Lan Ling were truly weak and insignificant, would this watch be on her wrist?
Ms. Li wasn’t a rash person who would do things carelessly. She knew that designing this watch would be needlessly upsetting, so this watch shouldn’t have existed at all.
xue: I think I said the wrong thing again.
Liu Sinan knew Wu Haoxue wouldn’t hide things like this from her, so she simply put her phone down, gave her a reassuring smile, and motioned that she didn’t mind. “The food is here. Let’s eat first.”
The dishes on the table included both meat and vegetables, with no particularly strong flavors. At a glance, they all looked like “they’re all pretty delicious and suitable” types of dishes.
Wu Haoxue had tagged along with her parents to all sorts of high-end dinners since she was a child, so she knew how to order, but when it came to a private dinner with friends, she wasn’t so extravagant. Even so, Lan Qi had still deleted three of her dishes.
And they were the three dishes Liu Sinan loved.
This meal made Wu Haoxue very uncomfortable.
Liu Sinan didn’t have much of an appetite to begin with. She picked at her food a few times, eating slowly but not much. However, the restaurant’s signature peach juice was quite good, and she drank a lot of it. Now she had to use the restroom.
“I’ll be right back.” Liu Sinan grabbed her phone and walked until she found the restroom around a corner on this floor.
After using the restroom, she absent-mindedly washed her hands at the sink.
The water was a bit hot. Liu Sinan turned the faucet to the other side, letting the cold water completely wash away the warmth in her hands. After they were thoroughly cooled, she dried them with a paper towel and took out some hand cream from her pocket to apply.
As she was massaging her fingers, waiting for the hand cream to absorb, the door opened from outside.
Lan Ling walked straight in and stared intently at her in the mirror.
Liu Sinan casually looked up, met her gaze for a moment, and waited for the temperature in her fingertips to return to normal before shaking her hands and saying, “Little sister, it’s rude to stare at people like that.”
Such a pretty little girl, yet she was constantly staring wide-eyed. It was a little intimidating at first glance.
Lan Ling spoke, being very unpolite. “I know you.”
Liu Sinan lowered her head, wiping off the water that had splashed on her clothes. “So what? Do you want an autograph?”
“Jinping-jie likes you very much,” Lan Ling said this time, her tone a little different. She frowned, clearly showing her disgust. “It was the biggest mistake she ever made in her life.”
She was even starting to comment on her relationship with Li Jinping.
Liu Sinan couldn’t help but laugh. She touched her eyelid. Her slightly cool fingertips made her eyelid twitch slightly. She said mockingly, “Is that so? But little sister.”
Liu Sinan slowly turned around and leaned against the sink to look at her. “Do you know what marriage is? It’s the most intimate relationship between two people based on law. Others know too little about what goes on between us, and with so little information, you don’t need to come and tell me what you think. Because no matter what you say, I won’t listen.”
Lan Ling sneered. “Not listening to anything is why your marriage broke up.”
Liu Sinan paused, feeling helpless. “Yes, yes, yes, whatever you say.”
Seeing her obvious perfunctoriness, Lan Ling huffed and continued her attack. “You’re the one who abandoned Jinping-jie, after all. Your indifferent attitude betrayed Jinping-jie’s affection for you.”
Abandoned? Indifferent? Betrayed?
Liu Sinan felt a turmoil in her stomach. She held up three fingers in front of Lan Ling. “Three things.”
“First,” Liu Sinan said, looking at her, “watch your vocabulary. When you don’t know the specific situation between two lovers, don’t use such melodramatic and dramatic words.”
Lan Ling stared back at her coldly.
Liu Sinan continued. “Second, you call her ‘Jinping-jie,’ and you’re friends with Wu Haoxue. But from the time we sat down to now, I haven’t heard you say ‘Lan Qi,’ nor have I seen you greet Wu Haoxue. What kind of sister is Li Jinping to you?”
“Third,” Liu Sinan said, starting to feel wronged for herself. “Please get it straight who Li Jinping is and who I am. Don’t go around saying someone ‘abandoned’ someone else. You’re not only insulting me but also Li Jinping.”
What a joke. How could a person like Li Jinping be the “abandoned” party? Not to mention they broke up amicably—although it wasn’t exactly peaceful before the breakup—but no one owed anyone too much.
Lan Ling said, “You just don’t understand.”
Liu Sinan was just about to deliver her closing statement, telling her to think whatever she wanted but to do it behind her back and not in front of her, when she suddenly lost her energy.
Alright, alright, she doesn’t understand.
She shouldn’t have started this conversation in the first place.
Liu Sinan sighed. How had she gotten to the point where she was arguing with a child in a bathroom about her relationship with her ex-wife? “I’m leaving now. You’re on your own.”
Liu Sinan turned to leave. As they passed each other, Lan Ling stopped her, sticking her arm out in front of her to block her path.
It was the same arm with the watch.
The arm in front of her was thin and frail. Liu Sinan herself was thin, but not to the same sickly extent as Lan Ling.
She wanted to just push her away, but seeing that skinny arm, she stopped herself.
Lan Ling raised her chin, her tone suppressed and provocative. “Do you want to know about Jinping-jie’s relationship with me?”
Liu Sinan straightened the crooked watch on her wrist for her. The wrist was so thin that the watch face slid all the way down with a slight movement.
Looking closely at the watch, it was clear that it wasn’t worn often; there was not a single scratch on it.
Liu Sinan didn’t know how the watch ended up in her hands or what their relationship was, but she knew that the little girl in front of her was Lan Qi’s sister and a child. All the emotions she had bottled up inside couldn’t manifest.
“I don’t,” Liu Sinan’s tone turned cold. “I’ll give you three seconds. Either I walk right through, or I push you aside and walk out.”
Lan Ling glared at her. Liu Sinan paused, then simply pushed her aside and left.
Just as Liu Sinan was about to leave, Lan Ling yelled out in a suppressed voice.
“She and I are fellow patients!”
Lan Ling’s shrill voice came from behind her. Liu Sinan turned her head. In the mirror, Lan Ling was standing behind her, staring at her back with eyes like a sick beast.
They held a twisted sense of pleasure and obsession, and a hatred that came from who knows where.
Liu Sinan suddenly felt that her earlier assumption that she was a child was a bit off.
Lan Ling walked over with her hands in her pockets, her lips as white as paper. She lowered her voice and said in her ear, “Tomorrow at 4 p.m., at Hengyue Hotel, room 333. If you want to know about Jinping-jie, come alone.”