A Guide to Divorce for Middle-Aged Lesbian Couples - Chapter 8

“Me! Me and you! This…!”

Had the technology of the world twenty years later advanced to such an extent?! Such explosive information was difficult for anyone to accept at once.

Even though the room was dark, Su Sixian could clearly see the rare panic in her bedside companion’s trembling eyes. That damn gap moe made her want to reach out and rub her head.

However, Su Sixian hadn’t slept well the night before and had woken up early today. Smelling the familiar scent of agarwood, she felt her eyelids growing heavier. She lost the desire to tease and went straight to the main point.

“She is adopted. It wasn’t convenient on my side, so she’s registered under your household account.”

Shen Xingchuan breathed a sigh of relief, then followed up: “How do I usually… treat her?”

Su Sixian found a comfortable position to lie in, her tone gradually becoming softer. “If she wanted the stars, you’d give her a galaxy. As for my parents, they’d give her the entire universe.”

It seemed she was quite spoiled. No wonder Shen Chuwei seemed more afraid of Su Sixian than her.

“Then…” Shen Xingchuan wanted to ask more details, but she found that Su Sixian had somehow fallen asleep.

“Mm…” It seemed she was half-awake. Hearing her words, Su Sixian’s eyelashes fluttered slightly as if she were trying hard to open her eyes to respond, but she eventually succumbed to dreamland.

“It’s fine, sleep.” Shen Xingchuan lowered her voice, reached out to push the thin quilt toward Su Sixian, and then carefully lay down.

On an autumn morning, the temperature had not yet been baked by the sun.

Su Sixian frowned slightly, subconsciously moving her head toward the source of warmth. Opening her eyes dizzily, she realized she was lying on her side in Shen Xingchuan’s arms. That person’s elegant jawline and fair neck were right within reach.

Shen Xingchuan’s sleeping posture had always been regular, she lay perfectly straight. If it weren’t for the slight rise and fall of her chest and the body heat, one would think she was resting eternally in a coffin.

Enveloped by the familiar scent, for some reason, Su Sixian felt a bit like staying in bed. She was curious what kind of panicked expression this person would have upon waking up to find them entwined like this. Simultaneously, she traced the jawline upward, taking a rare, detailed look at Shen Xingchuan’s face.

Ignoring the gender factor, this person would definitely be an excellent candidate for a wealthy family marriage alliance. Good-looking, capable of making money, and clean-living. Aside from the rare disease of not liking her, everything was perfect.

But it didn’t matter—plastic wives, raising a frog child at will. Focusing on her career was the quality a modern woman should have. Love was something that shouldn’t belong to the world of the living.

Buzz— Buzz— Buzz—

The phone on the nightstand rang at that moment.

Disturbing a peaceful dream! Su Sixian sighed, rolled over, and reached for it.

Seeing the name of the life-claiming demon, Su Sixian lay on her side and tapped the answer button fiercely. She propped her head up with one hand and pressed the phone to her ear with the other.

Before she could speak, Wang Dahua’s voice exploded out with enough volume to be a shockwave.

“You’re actually still sleeping?! How can you sleep at your age?! Do you know that dog-woman Lan Yuyan is back in the country! Dammit! I don’t know what nerve Old Zhao tripped, but he actually wants her to do the music for your movie. I’ll go to his ancestors’ graves!”

Lan Yuyan. That name hadn’t been heard for many years. Su Sixian was instantly wide awake, her mind going blank. Memories sealed for years were suddenly pried open. In her mind, a suffocating cloud of dust swept toward her; her phone unconsciously slipped from her palm.

“What’s wrong?” Shen Xingchuan had clearly been woken up, her lazy voice rising behind her.

It wasn’t until the phone bounced on the bed and then landed with a thud on the floor that Su Sixian snapped back to her senses, leaning down to reach for it.

“Nothing.”

Shen Xingchuan, woken by the vibration and the call, opened her eyes groggily only to see Su Sixian teetering on the edge of the bed. She instinctively reached out to grab her, meeting eyes that hadn’t yet managed to transform deep sorrow into shock. In the next second, she was pulled off the bed by momentum, and the back of her head hit the solid wood floor with a dull thud.

In an instant, those locked memories crashed down like a sudden, heavy rainstorm.

It was probably winter. They were in a vintage-style tea room private booth. Outside the window, goose-feather snow was falling patter-patter. The heater was on inside, and curls of tea mist hung between them like a thin veil.

She watched a twenty-something Su Sixian take off her suede gloves, her reddened fingertips holding the teacup to her lips. The white mist she lightly blew toward Shen Xingchuan blurred her eyes at that moment.

“A beauty like a flower across the clouds”—that was probably what it was like.

Perhaps Shen Xingchuan’s gaze was too burning, as Su Sixian’s eyes, which had been looking down at the tea, suddenly lifted to meet hers directly. Neither yielded; the two of them remained stiff like that.

For a long time—long enough for the tea in their mouths to finally yield some flavor—Su Sixian finally gave a light laugh.

“Although it’s our first meeting, I believe Ms. Shen should have some understanding of me. I personally have only one request: to adopt a girl who is almost one year old. In return, in this marriage, you are free. We only need to occasionally play the role of an affectionate couple so our parents can save face. If Ms. Shen is willing to accept, we can pick an auspicious day to get our license abroad.”

Thump! Shen Xingchuan could feel the joy that was about to burst out of her heart and the boiling bitterness deep within being suppressed simultaneously into a polite smile. She opened a velvet box, inside was a pair of rings. Understated diamonds were cut with a supreme artistic sense.

“Good taste.” Su Sixian’s left hand lowered before her eyes, like a princess waiting for a knight’s hand-kissing rite.

And she had taken that hand, gently pushing the ring to the base of the ring finger.

“Happy cooperation, Ms. Su.”

“Shen Xingchuan, Shen Xingchuan!” The urgent shouting brought Shen Xingchuan back to reality.

The rain of memories stopped, and the throbbing pain vanished in the next instant.

When she came to her senses, she was holding Su Sixian’s hand exactly as she had in that memory.

Su Sixian didn’t dare move her. Seeing her wake up, she picked up the phone in a fluster.

“I’m calling an ambulance!”

“It’s fine. Don’t scare the child. I’ll go for a follow-up check myself in two days.” She used Su Sixian’s hand to stand up and sit on the edge of the bed.

Su Sixian stood before her, watching that hand slide down the back of her own. The texture of the thumb rubbed against her skin, and the cold fingertips traced across her palm before slipping powerlessly from the tip of her ring finger. For some reason, Su Sixian’s heart felt as if it had been brushed by a goose feather, trembling involuntarily.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing… I’m going to wash up.”

Watching that person limp into the bathroom with her cane, Su Sixian could only instruct Bona and Annie to pay more attention to her condition today.

Dressed neatly, she looked in the mirror and felt something was missing. Opening her accessory box, the dazzling array of various rings couldn’t pique Su Sixian’s interest in the slightest.

Possessed by some ghost, she turned around to Shen Xingchuan’s accessory cabinet and took out a velvet box. Their wedding rings, which they only wore when going home to see parents to show off affection, were lying quietly inside.

A trace of the chill left by that person earlier seemed to linger on her left ring finger. She slid the ring on, but in less than three seconds, she quickly took it off again.

On one hand, she marveled at what kind of madness she was having so early in the morning! On the other, she shoved the ring back into the velvet box. Just as she was about to put it back in its place, she suddenly thought of something, tossed it into the bag on her shoulder, and went downstairs to eat with a flourish.

At the dining table, the heartless Shen Chuwei swept away the last piece of bacon like a whirlwind and flashed a brilliant smile at her two mothers.

“Can you both come to pick me up from school today?”

Normally, picking up a child from school is what parents should do, but their identities were special. If they were photographed, they’d probably dominate the charts.

“We aren’t usually around… I guess she counts as a ‘left-behind’ child?”

Clearly, Shen Xingchuan was still immersed in the role of a doting parent, her heart blossoming with joy at Shen Chuwei’s starry eyes. She ignored Su Sixian’s face of refusal and instead tried to persuade her.

“Left-behind child? Have you ever seen a ‘left-behind child’ who lives in a big villa, goes to school in luxury cars, and has nine nannies scurrying around her?”

Faking a sniffle, Shen Chuwei blinked piteously: “Children from disharmonious families will have mental trauma!”

Having gone through years of training, Su Sixian had clearly attained Magic Defense. As the person in the house who still held some modicum of a bottom line, she decisively expressed her refusal.

“The moment you say you have brain trauma, I’ll believe you.”

“…” Shen Xingchuan felt she had been caught in the crossfire.

“Old Shen!” Shen Chuwei lunged into Shen Xingchuan’s arms, whinging and moaning, acting like she wouldn’t go to school unless they agreed.

Well, no one can refuse a cute little oriole fluttering in their palm.

“Mommy and I will pick you up after school.”

“Really?”

Su Sixian, who didn’t want to deal with this at all, shook her head and numbly drank her coffee.

If it was said that she could dress this child like a princess without blinking an eye, then Shen Xingchuan was the person who could spend one-third of a month on a plane, one-third at the company, and one-third on the child’s bed reading stories to coax her to sleep.

When she was in kindergarten, Shen Chuwei had a high fever for three days. When Su Sixian rushed back from filming in a panic, Shen Xingchuan, who was supposed to be negotiating a business deal on the other side of the planet, was already asleep leaning against the bedside in the children’s room. Numerous documents were scattered on the carpet.

Paper airplanes and jumping frogs were placed on the nightstand, and a half-folded paper crane was held in her hand. Looking down, it was revealed that the paper crane was made from a certain company’s acquisition contract.

Compared to herself, who had proposed adopting this child in the first place, Shen Xingchuan had actually taken on more responsibility.

“Mommy~ can we?”

“Fine.” Su Sixian resignedly rubbed her little cub’s head.

“Be good and listen to the teacher. Go to school.”

The two stood on the lawn by the door, watching Shen Chuwei carry her little backpack like a blossoming flower of the motherland, very politely nodding to the driver.

After the child left, Shen Xingchuan and Su Sixian got into their respective cars.

In the car, Wang Dahua gave Su Sixian a guilty, brilliant smile.

“You two didn’t just… This servant deserves ten thousand deaths!”

Su Sixian gave him a look of annoyance.

“Haven’t you heard that if a middle-aged couple kisses once, they’ll have nightmares for several nights!”

She smoothed her hair, unintentionally revealing the ring on her ring finger.

“Besides, attacking a person with ‘brain damage’—am I that much of an animal?”

Wait! Wang Dahua keenly caught the eye-blinding ring and put on a ‘you definitely have a problem’ expression: “Yo! Why are you wearing the ring?”

Su Sixian generously lifted her hand to admire the ring in the light.

“Limited edition for today!”

The car pulled steadily into the company basement. While waiting for the elevator, they saw a bright red Porsche sports car park tightly next to their car.

Before long, a series of thud-thud sounds of Doc Martens hitting the ground came from behind.

“Long time no see, Sixian.”

The person’s voice came from behind, as pleasant as ever, like guitar chords on every summer night of their youth.

“Long time no see.” Su Sixian took a deep breath, turned around to face her damned ex, and revealed a friendly smile.