Still Frame Chapter 82
byChapter 82: Pity or Loveliness
The reason Wen Jin gave was so absurd, yet Zhang Liuxin found himself wavering as he looked into Wen Jin’s eyes.
He felt anger, disappointment, and sadness, but these emotions were all rooted in his affection and love for Wen Jin, and in the seamless intimacy they had shared recently.
“I speak very little, and I have a solitary personality,” a flash of lightning outside momentarily illuminated Wen Jin’s face, making it look ghostly, cold, and pale. “Before coming here, I thought it was enough to simply take care of your needs in life.”
“You subconsciously always thought I was someone who needed to be taken care of, didn’t you? Wen Jin, did you pity me? Did you marry me because you pitied my disability?” Zhang Liuxin was engulfed by immense sorrow, speaking recklessly.
“I have always thought of you as someone who needs to be taken care of. But Zhang Liuxin, I would not marry someone out of pity. My parents were together because of a family arrangement. I was raised with that kind of education, and I knew that once I became an adult, I would be arranged into a marriage completely out of my control, just like my parents. I didn’t care who the spouse was. My parents provided me with a privileged environment, resources, and the freedom to conduct research. The sacrifice of marriage seemed insignificant to me.”
They had never been so candid with each other. Zhang Liuxin’s fingers, gripping the chair cushion, loosened slightly.
“But you are the person I chose to marry. Everything I said that day was true. I planned the wedding, and I cherish this marriage very much.” Wen Jin took his hand. This time, Zhang Liuxin did not pull away. Their cold palms met, but the meager warmth they might have shared was scattered by the wind blowing in through the window.
“After coming here, I realized my perception was flawed. You can take very good care of yourself, even in an unfamiliar environment, and you can also take good care of me. You have things you like and are good at. It turns out your dream was to be a reporter. The expression you had while chatting with Da Ping was the happiest I’ve seen you look in these seven years.”
“As for things in bed,” Wen Jin exerted a little force, interlacing his fingers with Zhang Liuxin’s. “You… didn’t seem to like it much? The first time, you kept crying, kept pushing me away, and looked very distressed.”
Somehow, the atmosphere, which had finally turned tender, shifted to this topic. Zhang Liuxin withdrew his hand and awkwardly rubbed the cushion beneath him. “You say that as if you didn’t keep doing it later.”
Wen Jin was completely different when it came to that, compared to his usual self. The only thing that hadn’t changed was that he still spoke little, but his actions were forceful, sometimes bordering on violent, which Zhang Liuxin found hard to bear. He truly hadn’t felt much pleasure the first time.
Wen Jin curved his lips, about to say something, when the doorbell rang. He got up to open the door and returned shortly with a pot of steaming ginger tea. He poured a cup for Zhang Liuxin, touched the side of the cup to ensure it wasn’t too hot, and then placed it in Zhang Liuxin’s hands.
Zhang Liuxin held the warm teacup. The scent of ginger and brown sugar steamed up, making his face feel hot and blurring his vision.
He hadn’t expected Wen Jin to say so much—from the “conspiracy” they had planned within their families to the topic of divorce, and then to their marriage and his admission of fault.
In such a short time, they had clarified things that had remained unspoken for so long—his long-term coldness toward him.
Zhang Liuxin found it hard to describe his current mood. If he were his former self—the one who harbored hopeless affection for Wen Jin during college—he would have been deeply moved and flattered to hear Wen Jin speak so sincerely, looking at him with an almost reverent gaze, saying he was the person he chose to marry.
But the current him seemed to have shed those vibrant emotions, worn down by seven years of marriage. As a result, after the hysterical questioning and tears, his heart felt unprecedentedly calm.
“I’m going out for a walk.” Zhang Liuxin still didn’t drink the ginger tea, placing the cup aside.
“Where are you going?” Wen Jin grabbed his hand. “There’s a typhoon outside. It’s dangerous.”
Zhang Liuxin gently shook off his hand. Wen Jin seemed to follow him silently. Zhang Liuxin could see the other man’s shadow closely trailing his own on the floor.
“I won’t go outside. I’ll just walk around the guesthouse.” Zhang Liuxin closed the door.
Wen Jin stared at the closed door, reaching out to grip the doorknob. He held that posture for a moment, then Zhang Liuxin’s melancholic eyes flashed before him again. Finally, he dropped his hand as if exhausted.
His phone screen flickered with a message from Duan Chengzhi, asking if he needed him to come over and explain. Wen Jin replied, “He went out.”
Duan Chengzhi immediately called. “Liuxin went out? Where? It’s raining outside. Did you say something wrong again and scare him away?”
“I don’t know.” Wen Jin tossed his phone aside and sat on the sofa, stretching his legs out casually. His eyes were like a pool of stagnant water.
Duan Chengzhi noticed the subtle change in his tone and said, “I’m coming over now.”
The doorbell rang shortly after. Wen Jin found a jacket in his suitcase and put it on. The sleeves were a bit short, and it carried a faint, clean scent of pine and lemon. It must have been Zhang Liuxin’s.
“You two talked without closing the window?”
Duan Chengzhi looked at the chairs and table near the window, damp with rain, the suitcases scattered on the floor, and Wen Jin, wearing an ill-fitting jacket, looking exhausted and powerless. He clicked his tongue, poured himself a cup of ginger tea, and seeing the other cup was completely cold, he took a fresh cup, refilled it, and offered it to Wen Jin.
Wen Jin didn’t reach for it. Instead, he picked up the cold cup from the table and slowly took a sip.
Duan Chengzhi occasionally met his gaze and was startled by the emotion in his eyes. He dropped his joking demeanor, sitting properly across from him. “What’s wrong? Is he very angry? What did you two talk about?”
“We talked about everything,” Wen Jin’s eyes were unfocused. “He is very angry.”
“Brother, did I do a terrible job?”
Wen Jin rarely called him “Brother,” and Duan Chengzhi had never seen him look at him with such a pleading gaze.
“I am not a qualified husband or partner. I did a terrible job in Yinzhou. I only realized after coming here that Liuxin hasn’t been as happy in the past seven years as he is now.”
“A-Zhuo, it’s not your fault,” Duan Chengzhi patted his shoulder and sat beside him. “You might just have been influenced by Aunt and Uncle. It’s not your fault. Brother knows how much you like him and how much you love him.”
“If it wasn’t spoken, wasn’t expressed, and wasn’t felt by him, does it still count as love?”
Duan Chengzhi paused, unable to answer.
“It probably doesn’t,” Wen Jin shook his head to himself. “Brother, do you know he actually wanted to be a reporter? He doesn’t like his current job. I thought he loved it. I knew he always wanted to get into the TV station, so I pushed aside work to specifically pick him up there, hoping he would see me when he got off work. But maybe he wasn’t happy. Maybe he found me disgusting, because he also found this marriage disgusting and fake. But it’s not.”
Seeing the self-loathing creep onto Wen Jin’s face, which then began to turn gloomy, Duan Chengzhi felt a sense of dread. He had seen Wen Jin wear this expression when he was a child. At first, no one noticed anything wrong, until Wen Jin’s grandmother realized he hadn’t spoken for too long and took him to a psychologist, where he was diagnosed with psychological issues caused by a lack of companionship and communication.
“No, of course not, A-Zhuo. Liuxin definitely loves you too. I can see it. Your relationship is getting better now.”
“Really?”
Duan Chengzhi nodded. “Of course. You made a mistake with this matter. He is your partner, someone very important to you, and you really shouldn’t have hidden it from him. When he comes back, can you apologize properly again?”
“A-Zhuo, you didn’t eat much at noon. Wait here. I’ll ask the kitchen to send up something hot.”
Seeing the unspoken words hidden in Wen Jin’s phoenix eyes, Duan Chengzhi quickly added, “Don’t worry. I’ll go find Liuxin now.”
After leaving the room, Zhang Liuxin didn’t know where to go. The wind was howling outside, and he wasn’t foolish enough to go out and risk his life.
The temperature had dropped sharply, and he instinctively pulled his jacket tighter, only then remembering that the jacket he was wearing was Wen Jin’s. A trace of cold pine scent lingered on the collar—the scent he used to be obsessed with, and still was.
He leaned against the corridor wall, staring helplessly at the patterns on the carpet. The things Wen Jin had just said nearly overwhelmed him. When he met the other man’s reddened phoenix eyes, Zhang Liuxin, spinelessly, began to blame his half-hour-ago self. Why did he have to hear those words? If he hadn’t known, could they have returned to Yinzhou without any hard feelings, and Wen Jin would continue to treat him as he promised?
But he quickly dismissed the thought. No one would want to be deceived. Zhang Liuxin’s love for Wen Jin should not be built on lies.
How did he fall in love with Wen Jin? Zhang Liuxin tried to recall, finding it hard to pinpoint an exact moment. He only remembered the first time he saw Wen Jin was when he was twelve. He heard the nanny say that a distinguished young master was coming to teach Zhang Qiannan piano today, and he was told not to wander around, locked in the nanny’s room. Zhang Liuxin couldn’t sit still and climbed out the window into the back garden because he remembered Madam Ren had planted beautiful, fragrant lilies. He wanted to sneak a look. Accidentally looking up, he saw the young man by the window of the piano room on the second floor.
Maybe he fell in love then. Zhang Liuxin felt this was beyond dispute. In fact, it was more puzzling why he wouldn’t fall in love with Wen Jin.
“Zhang Liuxin?” Levi walked over with a pack of cigarettes, seeing him standing lost in the corridor. “What are you doing here?”
As he got closer, he saw that Zhang Liuxin’s eyes were dull and gray, like the expression he had after the car accident when he learned about his leg injury. Levi instinctively looked at his legs, then realized the man was trembling all over.
“Where is Young Master Wen? Are you cold?”
“Levi, can I stay in your room for a bit?”
Levi nodded. Once in the room, he first boiled a kettle of water and then turned on the heating. Zhang Liuxin sat on the sofa, watching him do all this.
“What exactly happened…” Levi thought for a moment before tentatively asking, “Did you go talk to Young Master Wen?”
Judging by his face, the result of that conversation was certainly not optimistic.
Sure enough, Zhang Liuxin slowly nodded. After a while, he suddenly looked at Levi sharply, his gaze like a sharp ice blade, stabbing mercilessly at him.
“Why did you say those things, Levi? Do you want Wen Jin and me to divorce?”
Levi instinctively denied it. “Of course not. What good would your divorce do me?”
After the water boiled, he poured a cup and placed it in front of Zhang Liuxin. “I just thought the matter was suspicious, and I happened to know you consulted a divorce lawyer. I wondered if there was a connection. Wen Jin cares about you a lot, and his status is so high. Of course, I hope you two stay together forever.”
“So, was your plane crash really an accident?”
Zhang Liuxin tried to discern the truth from his expression, but Levi was older and more experienced. He couldn’t tell, so he simply gave up, deciding to spill everything Wen Jin had confessed to him.
After hearing it, even someone as seasoned as Levi was speechless. He stared at Zhang Liuxin for a long time, unable to speak, finally racking his brain to squeeze out one sentence: “You’ve truly been through a lot.”
Duan Chengzhi: These young lovers are driving me crazy…