Chapter 727: I'm Still Young, What's There to Worry About Delaying?

Xiang Shan's eyes were filled with longing.

Almost unconsciously, Leng Qihua said to her, "Xiang Shan, actually… I understand how you feel, but it's all too late."

The smile that had been on Xiang Shan's face froze.

After hearing Leng Qihua's words, she clearly felt a chill in her heart.

"So what you mean is… it's a no?" Xiang Shan let out a hard breath. "It's fine. If it's a no, then it's a no. I won't force it. I was the one who went too far before, anyway. Today doesn't work, but what about tomorrow? I have time."

Leng Qihua said to Xiang Shan, "I'm grateful that you've had a change of heart toward me now, but not every change of heart gets a response. At the very least, I can't give you one. I can't treat you like a spare tire."

He took a deep breath. "After spending this time together, I think I still have no way to truly accept you. I tried going back to how things used to be, but I later realized that neither of us is who we were before."

Time had passed quickly—so quickly that in the blink of an eye, they had become parents, their child had grown up, and now their child was already married to someone else and pregnant.

Before long, they would be upgraded once again, becoming grandparents.

"Even though we both have the title of parents, that doesn't mean we have to be together," Leng Qihua said, staring deeply at Xiang Shan. "It wouldn't be fair to you, and it would hold you back."

Tears were already glistening in Xiang Shan's eyes. "I'm still young! What's there to be afraid of being held back?"

"You need to see things clearly. No matter how well you take care of yourself, you're already forty-three," Leng Qihua said, drawing a sharp breath. "Neither of us is young anymore."

He could have kept stringing Xiang Shan along, but there was no need.

After all, they had been husband and wife. She was, at the very least, a woman he had deeply loved, and he still wanted her to be happy.

Besides, only if she was well could he be well, and only then could the whole family be well.

Xiang Shan fought hard to hold back the tears welling in her eyes. She forced out a smile. "Leng Qihua, I'm still young. There's no difference between me and a young girl. I dare to love and dare to hate. I hated you before, and later I realized that was a particularly ridiculous thing. Now I love you—is that a ridiculous thing to you?"

So the love you didn't care about really does disappear.

The moment you neglect someone, it vanishes in a puff of smoke, and you have to watch that love disappear with your own eyes. For Xiang Shan, that was an absolutely, incredibly cruel thing.

Leng Qihua's gaze was very deep. "I've never thought you were ridiculous. I was even proud that I once liked you."

Xiang Shan wanted to cry. "Then why can't you like me, just a little? Just a little bit—a tiny bit is enough. You don't have to like me as much as I like you… That shouldn't be hard for you, right?"

She pleaded bitterly with Leng Qihua.

All her former queenly airs were cast aside.

"I really did wrong in the past. I don't know how I turned into that person. Just getting married changed everything. I became selfish and self-serving, thinking you'd always be there and wouldn't leave."

"But I was wrong. I used your love to bully you, to do whatever I pleased, even to trample on your true feelings. The matter with the secretary was my fault. I drank with him right under your nose, let you misunderstand, refused to explain, and just fought with you out of spite."

"I didn't treat you like a real husband. I didn't respect you. When you turned against me back then, it was my own doing. I truly regret it now. When you wanted to divorce me, my heart really shattered."

"Can you not leave me? Just give me one chance, please? Whatever kind of woman you like, I can play that role. If you don't like me being a career woman, I won't be one. I can come back to the family for you!"

Xiang Shan threw all dignity completely out of her mind.

Again and again she tearfully begged Leng Qihua, crying herself into a complete mess.

Leng Qihua, however, watched Xiang Shan's tearful pleading with sorrow.

For a moment, he saw the way Xiang Shan had been back then—resolute and heartless toward him.

From the moment she began opposing him, she had left that very night, dragging her suitcase behind her.

Back then, he too had cried and tried to hold her back, saying words of deep affection over and over, only to be met with her cold expression.

She pushed his hand aside and left without mercy.

Now, the positions were reversed.

The heartless one had become him.

The whole plot was playing out again.

He had become her, pushing aside her pleading hand, and said to her firmly, "I don't need a homemaker, and I don't need you to change anything for me. What's past is past. We can't go back."

Xiang Shan stared wide-eyed, a sharp pain stabbing through her heart.

She regretted it so much now. She had been too arrogant before, so wildly overbearing and nasty toward Leng Qihua.

She had even given him the cold shoulder.

She had thought that without Ye Shuhua, she and Leng Qihua could return to how things were.

But she had been too naive about it all.

Some things can't be solved with a single apology.

A relationship can't be repaired with a single plea, either.

Some feelings are as fragile as a plate of sand—one moment together, the next scattered.

Completely unreasonable, giving no one room to breathe, striking with brutal force. That's why feelings are the most terrifying thing of all. No reason can convince them, and they're enforced more strictly than law.

Xiang Shan had never imagined she could be so wretched at her own daughter's wedding.

Her eyes were filled with loss, and she gave a faint, bitter smile. "I'm sorry. I thought we could start over…"

"You'll meet someone better, and I'll meet someone suited to me too. Maybe I won't, but it doesn't matter." Father Leng spoke sincerely.

He handed Xiang Shan a tissue. "If you love someone, love them terribly, terribly much, and can't forget them, then give yourself a deadline. If one day isn't enough, then three days. If three days doesn't work, then a week. If a week still doesn't work, then a year. If a year doesn't work, then two or three years. Time will slowly smooth over all your wounds."

Xiang Shan asked, "Then how did you forget about loving me?"

She stared at him persistently.

She just wanted an answer.

Father Leng gave a bitter smile. "Does that matter?"

Even if he couldn't forget her at the bottom of his heart right now, so what.

But he knew clearly in his heart that he loved the person who had once thrown herself into love without looking back, the person who had charged headlong into love.

Not the her standing before him now.

The one whose edges had been worn smooth, who had become humble, who blindly tried to please someone.

Who had even forgotten what she originally looked like.

He was unwilling to see her accommodate herself, and he didn't want her to gradually turn into another version of herself for his sake.

"You never loved me. What you love now is that incompleteness, that refusal to accept it, that image of you loving me so deeply. At the end of the day, you love yourself." Father Leng spoke sharply.

Xiang Shan's lips quivered. "That's not true, I…"

But any words of rebuttal seemed to turn into hollow speech.