Divorce Application - Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Humiliation
Li Jinping had directly ordered people to throw Zhao Qiran into the pool. As she was in a disheveled state, Li Jinping specifically turned her back to Liu Sinan, lowered herself, and whispered a chilling, murderous warning in her ear to stay as far away from Liu Sinan as possible.
“Stay away from her. If I see you lay a hand on her again, I will make sure the Zhao family is permanently out of H City.”
This was the ultimate contempt of a powerful person towards a less influential one.
Zhao Qiran had never seen Li Jinping like this. Every word Li Jinping said made her tremble with fear.
The Zhao family had a partnership with Li Jinping, and Li Jinping never liked to be confrontational. Her style in business was more like a slow, steady stream of water. At first, you wouldn’t feel any pressure, but if you let your guard down, she would surround you from all sides, permeating every space.
You can’t cut a river with a knife. It’s difficult for anyone targeted by Li Jinping to escape. Once Li Jinping made a move, she rarely had an opponent.
Zhao Qiran and Li Jinping had some social interaction. If it hadn’t truly touched on their core interests, Li Jinping’s way of handling things would never have led her to a public confrontation or humiliation.
Zhao Qiran hadn’t even had the chance to do anything to Liu Sinan, she hadn’t even touched her more than a few times, yet Li Jinping had lost her composure like this. She was willing to turn against the Zhao family just to warn her to stay away from Liu Sinan.
Li Jinping truly cherished this new little trinket she had acquired.
Her affection had reached a level that was difficult for an ordinary person to comprehend and was even a little frightening.
Liu Sinan didn’t know what Li Jinping had said to Zhao Qiran, but her keen intuition told her that Zhao Qiran coming to see her now was a bad sign.
“Lan Qi, I…” Liu Sinan got up, wanting to ask for Lan Qi’s opinion, but she saw Lan Qi’s cold, stiff back and swallowed the words she was about to say.
She had been very willful before and had made things difficult for Lan Qi and the others. Now was not the time to cower out of fear. She couldn’t afford to offend Zhao Qiran.
With that thought, Liu Sinan tidied herself up and went downstairs to Zhao’s car.
She knocked on the back car door and asked politely, “President Zhao, you were looking for me?”
The back door opened. Zhao Qiran sat on the other side, crossing her legs. She took the cigarette out of her mouth and stared at Liu Sinan expressionlessly. “Get in.”
The moment she got in, the car doors locked. Liu Sinan then realized that there were only the two of them in the car; not even a driver was present. The windows were made of a special material, so the outside world couldn’t see in.
She felt a little panicked inside, but her face remained calm. “President Zhao, is something wrong?”
Zhao Qiran flicked the cigarette ash onto the expensive carpet, blew a puff of smoke towards Liu Sinan, and said with an unclear expression, “I heard that Li Jinping divorced you? Is she really not looking out for you anymore?”
When she mentioned “Li Jinping,” Zhao Qiran’s tone was a little gleeful and held a hidden sense of satisfaction.
Liu Sinan didn’t want to talk about her in front of others. She lowered her head and said, “That’s a private matter between the two of us.”
“Private matter?” Zhao Qiran sneered. The hand holding the cigarette suddenly grabbed Liu Sinan’s shoulder and pulled her hard. “Li Jinping’s company stocks haven’t fluctuated at all. She must have signed a prenuptial agreement with you, so you probably didn’t get much money from the divorce, did you?”
“But Li Jinping isn’t short on money, and she’s not a stingy person, so she won’t let you starve,” Zhao Qiran said, pressing down on Liu Sinan’s neck, pulling her closer, and lowering her voice. “But I can give you a chance. Follow me, and I’ll make sure you have the same prestige and wealth as before.”
Li Jinping’s wealth involved too many people. Their marriage couldn’t have a normal split of assets after the divorce because it would cause stock fluctuations and get them entangled in too many lawsuits.
So the divorce agreement, besides the gifts Li Jinping had given her over the years and the voluntary compensation she received after the marriage, contained nothing else.
But Li Jinping was Li Jinping; everyone else was just everyone else.
Zhao Qiran wasn’t even fit to be compared.
Liu Sinan refused without much thought. “I… I don’t want to start a new relationship yet.”
“Relationship?” Zhao Qiran scoffed. “Do you think I’m talking about a relationship? I’m talking about being your sugar mommy, got it?”
Zhao Qiran’s other hand was holding a metal lighter. She used it to pat Liu Sinan’s face. “Don’t pretend to be so clean. Li Jinping was blind to marry you in the first place, but now she’s kicked you out, hasn’t she?”
Everyone was saying that Li Jinping was blind. With her status, she could be with anyone she wanted. If she just raised her hand, countless good women would come running to her.
She wasn’t just rich; she was also talented, beautiful, had a strong personal charm, and had a superior character.
Such a person didn’t need to get married at all.
And the person she chose to marry was Liu Sinan, who was subpar in every way.
“My lady is not like you,” Liu Sinan said, her arms braced on the car seat. The crisp slaps on her face made her feel humiliated and afraid. “I… I don’t want to.”
For some reason, when others approached her, she only felt fear and disgust and subconsciously wanted no part of them.
“Don’t you dare play hard to get!”
Zhao Qiran grabbed Liu Sinan’s hand, yanked it up, and grabbed her hair with her fingers, forcefully smashing her head to the floor.
Liu Sinan’s forehead hit the car’s center console, and her vision instantly went black.
Zhao Qiran didn’t think that was enough, so she lifted her head and smashed it down again.
Liu Sinan struggled a few times, but Zhao Qiran used her physical advantage to pin her to the floor.
During the struggle, she felt a cracking sound in her wrist, but immediately after, another kind of pain erupted and intensified infinitely.
The cigarette butt in Zhao Qiran’s hand landed on her body and she ground it in.
A searing, sharp pain spread across her skin.
“You looked down on me before and flirted with Li Jinping, humiliating me in front of everyone. I bet you never thought this day would come, did you?”
“Who do you think she is? To have a crush on you, go look in a mirror. Without Li Jinping, killing you is no different from killing an ant.”
“You little b1tch, I’ll give you time to think about it. If you don’t give me a satisfactory answer next time… I’ll burn your ear. Next time, it’ll be your face.”
Liu Sinan was thrown out of the car. The cold night wind raged, relentlessly stealing the warmth from her body and blowing away her last bit of strength.
With a trembling hand, Liu Sinan called Lan Qi and told her to go without her.
She walked alone on the street, her legs feeling stiff as if they weren’t her own. After turning a corner, she couldn’t help but curl into a ball, clutching her head and crying.
Her hand covered her ear, which hurt too much to move. A small patch of skin had been burned by the cigarette butt, leaving a circular scab.
The humiliating posture, the branded scar, the powerless struggle… everything she had just experienced awakened the darkest corners of her memory.
“Don’t hit me. I’ll give you all my money, all of it!”
“I’m not a prostitute. You’ve got the wrong person. Don’t come any closer!”
She was once the cherished princess of a family, but after her family went bankrupt, her parents sent her to the US to avoid creditors and then committed suicide. She was left alone in a foreign country without a penny. The hardship and torment of those years caused her to have nightmares whenever she closed her eyes. She would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in tears.
Later, in Li Jinping’s arms, every time she woke up with a start, she would receive meticulous comfort and guidance. Day after day, she gradually stopped thinking about the past and no longer had nightmares.
But now, Liu Sinan’s thin shoulder blades trembled like two shaking butterfly wings. She couldn’t stop shaking. She didn’t even have the strength to curl up into a ball, like a clam that had been pried open, its vitality gone, on the verge of death.
Liu Sinan cried for a very long time. It wasn’t until she could no longer produce any tears that she raised her head, letting the moisture on her face air dry.
The cold wind had reduced the swelling around her eyes. When Liu Sinan got up again, she saw her reflection in a shop window and couldn’t help but think that this was just how her body was. Her eyes rarely swelled, and even after crying a lot, it would be completely unnoticeable after a little while.
Li Jinping once said that seeing her cry was like having a shower of diamonds fall in her heart. The hard diamonds could cut a person, but she just wanted to pick up every single one from the mess on the ground and keep them in her private collection.
Liu Sinan couldn’t bear to make her feel bad, so she rarely cried in front of Li Jinping after that. Even if she did cry, she would secretly reduce the swelling so Li Jinping wouldn’t notice.
And now, at least this way, she could deceive herself into being strong.
She held her already swelling wrist, hailed a taxi, and went to the private hospital she used to frequent.