Chapter 28: You Can Have My Body, But Not My Heart

He watched as her cool gaze swept past him, and she said quietly, "I won't marry you."

Xia Xiran's expression immediately turned grim.

Everyone else was stunned.

A fairy this beautiful, and he could refuse her?

Was this young man's taste about to reach the heavens?

An uncle immediately tried to advise Jiang Muye, saying, "Think it over carefully. This girl is deeply devoted to you. How could you bear to refuse her? You're being a bit too cruel."

Tears streamed down Xia Xiran's face. "Uncle, don't say that about him. He's not that kind of person."

"If refusing her once counts as cruel, then her refusing me must be utterly wicked," Jiang Muye said with a self-mocking smile.

"It's not true that every deep devotion receives true feelings in return. At least, my sincerity was once cruelly betrayed. What I've lost, I won't try to win back. What I've missed, I won't turn around for."

His gaze fixed on Xia Xiran. "What you can't have is forever stirring your heart. Ask yourself honestly—do you love me, the person, or do you love the bitter refusal to accept that you can't have me?"

A belated infatuation—he didn't need it.

What he had already decided on, no matter what happened, he would have.

But what he had decided against, no matter what, he wouldn't keep.

Xia Xiran was desperate. "Of course I love you, the person!"

"Is that so." Jiang Muye smiled mockingly. "Then why did you only come looking for me after refusing my proposals ninety-nine times?"

He pressed his lips tightly together. "From beginning to end, I was just a Spare Tire to you. When that Spare Tire might fall into someone else's hands, you got nervous, you started to care, you couldn't accept it, you wanted to win me back, you wanted to snatch me back—right?"

Perhaps without his giving up and Leng Ruoli's pursuit, Xia Xiran would still have paid him no mind.

He was utterly disheartened, unwilling to entangle any feelings with Xia Xiran.

Jiang Muye's sharp words gave Xia Xiran no face at all.

Xia Xiran panicked. A painful shudder ran through her whole body, tears wildly ravaged her cheeks, and her voice went hoarse on the spot. "No, that's not it. I never treated you as a Spare Tire. If you'd made a hundred proposals, I would've said yes, but you never gave me that chance."

"Why should I have? How could I be sure the hundredth proposal would be the last? What if it needed another hundred, another thousand, even ten thousand? Since you'd decided you'd say yes at a hundred, then the first ninety-nine confessions were you playing me!" Jiang Muye rebuked.

Xia Xiran wept uncontrollably, shaking her head. "I…"

But she couldn't manage a single word in reply.

Jiang Muye said decisively, "Please don't disturb my life anymore."

Then he turned to his cousin and said, "Sorry for disrupting your wedding."

"It's fine." His cousin was especially magnanimous.

"I'll treat you to a meal another day. I wish you and your wife a hundred years of harmony and a child soon. I have things to do, so I'll be going." Jiang Muye spoke coolly, then left the wedding venue.

"Jiang Muye! I really do love you!" Xia Xiran shouted at that tall, slender figure, but the other party didn't spare her even a single glance, simply leaving the venue decisively.

Xia Xiran clutched her chest, feeling a heartrending tearing sensation.

She cried bitterly, her eyes swollen from crying, her makeup ruined, clutching that sparkling DR Ring the whole time as she wept in haggard misery.

Everyone looked at Xia Xiran with sympathy. Some comforted her, but Xia Xiran kept crying.

Heartbroken, she even picked up a wine glass from the table and took a sip.

She couldn't drink. The first sip hit her with a particularly sharp, spicy burn, and she immediately choked and coughed.

Xia Xiran hesitated for only a few seconds, then—goaded by Jiang Muye's merciless demeanor—gritted her teeth and drained the whole glass.

After finishing one glass, she wanted another.

Seeing Xia Xiran wounded by love, his cousin advised, "Drink less. Actually, what my cousin said was unintentional too. Maybe you hurt him too deeply before."

A bitter smile appeared at the corner of Xia Xiran's mouth. "Yes, I hurt him too deeply, so I deserve it. I brought it on myself. It's normal that he ignores me."

As she spoke, she downed another glass in one go.

By now her beautiful face was covered in tear streaks. Only when the alcohol went to her head and her cheeks flushed crimson did she collapse drunkenly onto the table, crying and laughing at once. "I deserve it, who told me to be so cheap! Wuwuwu, it's all my fault…"

Those who saw pitied her; those who heard felt heartache.

But what could be done?

matters of the heart were hard to understand and even harder to force. A one-sided wish couldn't lead to growing old together. Even if your heart was torn to pieces, it was nothing more than your own sleepless agony.

Xia Xiran thought that if she cried and made a scene, he would turn back.

Yet until the wedding ended.

He never appeared.

Xia Xiran knew she had lost completely.

…

After leaving the wedding venue, Jiang Muye returned to his aunt's house.

His aunt had already had the boutique send over a pile of luxury goods—if it wasn't clothes, it was men's bags, watches, or designer sneakers.

"Come, these are all picked out by your aunt. Take a look, which one do you like? Wear it to the banquet tomorrow." His aunt smiled as she asked Jiang Muye.

All of it made Jiang Muye's eyes dazzle.

He hadn't expected such treatment.

"Auntie, isn't this too much?" Jiang Muye actually had no pursuit of luxury goods. Clothes just needed to be comfortable; he didn't much care whether they were expensive.

Now such a pile of luxury goods had arrived all at once, which was still beyond Jiang Muye's expectations.

His aunt burst out laughing. "How is this a lot, my silly nephew? I've already had a whole bunch custom-made. I'll have them all sent over to you."

"There's more?" Jiang Muye was dumbfounded.

"Of course. What others have, my nephew definitely has to have. If there's anything else you like, just tell your aunt, and she'll buy it for you." His aunt beamed.

She was serious about spoiling her nephew. After all, her nephew was her future heir. If she didn't treat him well, who would she treat well?

Jiang Muye felt like he'd suddenly reached the peak of life.

These things that ordinary boys dreamed of had all become things within his easy reach.

"Auntie, these are enough for me."

"As expected of my nephew, so easily satisfied. It's really pitiful. You must've suffered a lot of hard days before to be this sensible. Now that your aunt is here, I definitely won't let you keep suffering."

His aunt instinctively handed Jiang Muye a bank card and said, "Keep this card. Every week I'll transfer you ten million as your pocket money. By the end of the month you have to spend it all—don't you dare save money for me."

Jiang Muye was shocked. That worked?

Ten million a week—wouldn't that be forty million a month?

Forty million as pocket money? That was a bit too extravagant. It could buy a villa.