Ji Han Zhuo was quite adept at sensing Jiang Xizhi’s emotional shifts. He spoke gently, “I did that because I missed you too much. If you came with me, I wouldn’t have anyone watch over you.”
“I don’t want to go. I don’t understand anything, and I’d just be in the way.”
Besides, going would mean being under his surveillance. It was better to stay alone in the manor, where she felt more at ease.
Ji Han Zhuo affectionately pressed his cheek against hers and replied, “You don’t need to understand anything, and you won’t be in the way. Just stay by my side and keep me company.”
Jiang Xizhi didn’t want to listen to him talk like this, so she nodded casually.
Suddenly remembering what he had said the night before, she changed the subject. “Last night, you said I was your fiancée?”
She had wanted to ask about it last night, but Ji Han Zhuo had left her in no mood to do so, so she had put it off until now.
Ji Han Zhuo hadn’t expected her to bring this up. He set down the chopsticks he had just picked up and nodded.
“You’re living in my manor. Are you trying to go back on your word?”
There was some truth to Ji Han Zhuo’s words.
Yucui Manor was built the year Ji Han Zhuo returned to the country. He had spent a fortune to purchase the most expensive plot of land in the southern suburbs of the capital. It was said that the government had originally intended to use this land for an administrative base, but somehow, Ji Han Zhuo had managed to convince them to transfer it to him. He even had the surrounding infrastructure renovated, attracting the attention of many developers.
The construction had caused quite a stir, drawing significant public interest. Once completed, it was hailed as the most luxurious manor in the capital.
According to journalists, this was the marital home Mr. Ji had prepared for his future wife. As a result, many noblewomen in the capital vied fiercely for the chance to marry Ji Han Zhuo.
Jiang Xizhi had heard about this report back when she was in school. But if she were to be honest, she hadn’t moved into the manor willingly, so she wasn’t the future Mrs. Ji.
Jiang Xizhi spoke her mind, muttering, “I didn’t come here willingly.”
No matter what Ji Han Zhuo had said last night, she had no intention of marrying him.
In her previous life, around this same time, Ji Han Zhuo had proposed to her. She had refused, and the two of them had argued for quite a while. But arguing hadn’t changed anything—she simply didn’t want to marry him or become part of the Ji family.
So, in her previous life, even after she became pregnant with Ji Han Zhuo’s child, the two of them never married, no matter how many times the proud Ji Han Zhuo lowered his head and proposed to her.
She had never told him the reason, not even until her death.
Even in her previous life, when she had been so much weaker, she had refused him. In this life, she still wouldn’t agree. Since things would inevitably come to this point sooner or later, it was better to face it now.
Ji Han Zhuo’s expression immediately darkened. His voice lost its earlier gentleness, turning several degrees colder. “You don’t want to marry me?”
Jiang Xizhi answered firmly, “No, I don’t.”
Ji Han Zhuo’s eyes turned icy in an instant. He forcefully turned Jiang Xizhi’s head and gripped her chin, his cold, stern black eyes locking onto hers. Suppressing his voice, he demanded, “If you don’t want to marry me, then who do you want to marry, huh? Your little lover?”
Jiang Xizhi’s skin was fair, and Ji Han Zhuo had used considerable force, leaving her chin reddened immediately. Yet, even faced with his roughness, Jiang Xizhi didn’t back down. “I don’t have a little lover. I just don’t want to marry you.”
Ji Han Zhuo closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing his anger before uttering two words, “The reason.”
Jiang Xizhi lowered her gaze and replied softly, “There’s no reason. I just don’t want to.”
Ji Han Zhuo’s expression was extremely grim, the veins on his forehead bulging. An inexplicable fury burned fiercely within him, ultimately directed at the one who had ignited it.
He abruptly released Jiang Xizhi’s chin. Her head tilted from the force, the hair behind her ear scattering to cover the side of her face.
Forcing himself not to look at her any longer, Ji Han Zhuo stiffened his face and said coldly, “Fine, then stay in the room and think it over slowly. You can come out once you’ve figured out the reason.”
“Chen Yi, take Miss Jiang back to her bedroom. She is not to leave without my orders.”
With that, he pushed Jiang Xizhi aside and turned to walk out the door.
Jiang Xizhi knew she was about to be confined again. This man always resorted to such tactics, but it was fine—as long as he stopped questioning her.
Chen Yi had heard the commotion from the kitchen and had a rough idea of what had happened. She led Jiang Xizhi to the bedroom and sighed softly upon seeing the bruise on her chin.
“Miss, why must you do this? The young master has set his heart on you. Acting this way only makes things difficult for both of you.”
The young ladies of the capital were all vying to marry the young master, and some had even attempted suicide for him, yet he couldn’t be bothered to spare them a glance. But here, you don’t want to marry him.
The young master is accustomed to being adored; it’s only natural he’d be angry at being rejected for the first time in such matters.
Jiang Xizhi replied calmly, “Chen Yi, please don’t say any more. I have my own reasons.”
Before leaving, Chen Yi left a bruise-reducing ointment for Jiang Xizhi.
As soon as Chen Yi was gone, Jiang Xizhi wrapped her arms around herself, curled her legs, and slumped onto the carpet, staring blankly at the red string on her wrist.
Ji Han Zhuo had asked her for a reason. She wanted to answer but couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Her mother had abandoned her and her father to joyfully marry into a wealthy family, only to meet a tragic end, dying from an incurable illness. She didn’t want to go through the same thing.
Moreover, the Ji family wasn’t just any wealthy household in the capital—they were the most elite. Even without considering the grievances between her and Ji Han Zhuo, she didn’t dare, nor did she have the courage, to marry into such a family.
Jiang Xizhi’s father was a native of the capital. His family had run a breakfast shop for generations. Due to Grandpa Jiang’s poor health, Father Jiang took over the shop after graduating from high school.
Mother Jiang was a university student who had come to the capital from a small town to study. After her first love ended and her boyfriend went abroad, she met Father Jiang by chance. At the time, heartbroken and with her mother in a distant town having been in a car accident, it was Father Jiang who lent her money for her mother’s surgery.
Feeling she had no way to repay him and thinking her life would amount to nothing more, Mother Jiang married the honest and dependable Father Jiang. The couple had Jiang Xizhi in their second year of marriage and ran the breakfast shop together, living a relatively happy life.
But the change came when Jiang Xizhi was ten years old. Mother Jiang’s first love, Shen Hongjun, returned to the country. His family was originally a wealthy household in the capital. Years earlier, due to the relocation of the family business, they had moved abroad. Now, with the domestic economy thriving, they had returned. Shen Hongjun repeatedly expressed that he still had feelings for Mother Jiang.
Though Mother Jiang usually appeared honest and unassuming, she had harbored resentment all these years. She believed Father Jiang was beneath her—she was a university graduate, while he was just an ordinary man making a living running a breakfast shop. She didn’t want a mundane life.
Besides, she had given Father Jiang a daughter, which she felt repaid the kindness he had shown her years ago. So, on the night of Jiang Xizhi’s tenth birthday, she left behind a birthday gift and divorce papers and left with her first love, Shen Hongjun.
The red string on Jiang Xizhi’s wrist was the birthday gift Mother Jiang had given her years ago.
Mother Jiang had thought she could live as a wealthy lady for the rest of her life, but in her third year of entering the Shen family, Shen Hongjun’s legal wife returned from abroad and drove her out of the Shen household. Only then did she realize that Shen Hongjun had merely been toying with her—she was nothing but a mistress.
After being expelled from the Shen family, Mother Jiang felt too ashamed to return to the Jiang family. The Shen family had ordered her to leave the capital city, but she couldn’t bear to go and instead took on odd jobs to get by. Within a few years, she fell ill with cancer and passed away without receiving treatment.