Chapter 88: How Many Other Men Are You Sneaking Around With?!

“Stop making trouble, all right?” He caught her wrist in his palm and pinned her against the wall, his breath spilling over her cheek. “How many days has it been since I last touched you? Don’t you want this?”

He had never been a man of restraint to begin with. After all these days of torment, she had kept him at arm’s length, guarding him like a thief, or else turning cold as ice. If he had endured until now, it was only because he had intended to coax her into good spirits first and take things further afterward. But her brows were always drawn in anger, her slender waist swaying before him while never allowing his hands to stray near. Who could stand that?

Especially when she had once indulged him so much in this respect; even thinking of it made his heart itch.

Yet now she met him with a cold tone, provoking him, angering him, all but carved from ice. She would cast him a frosty look at every turn, and from those vivid red lips came nothing but “Mr. Gu” again and again. There was not the least trace of tenderness in her.

Soft words did not work. Force did not work. Even coaxing failed.

Gu Pingsheng had run out of patience. Today, by any means, he was going to get her into bed.

“Go find your little school junior,” she snapped, furious. “Get off me.”

Gu Pingsheng drew a deep breath. His throat moved, his eyes darkened, and he looked down at her. “You’re doing this on purpose to disgust me, aren’t you? Fine. Today, I’m having you.”

With that, he swept her up in his arms, kicked open the bedroom door, and tossed her onto the bed.

When she tried to flee, he seized her leg and dragged her back toward him, pinning her down with his knee so she could not move. “Behave. Don’t make me angry.”

Wen Zhixia laughed in exasperation. “Gu Pingsheng, refusing the divorce—is it because you can’t bear not having me in your bed?”

At her words, Gu Pingsheng’s dark eyes, deep as night, fixed on her. A storm rose in his gaze, only to be reduced to dust in the next instant. His thin lips lifted. “Since that’s what you think, then why should I hold back? You’re my wife. Am I not even allowed to touch you?”

He chose force, and Wen Zhixia was naturally no match for him. He pressed down on her like an iron wall, leaving her with no room to resist.

“Gu Pingsheng, don’t touch me!”

“Zhixia, you’re my wife. I’ll give you time to throw your tantrum, but on this one point, no.” His narrow eyes half-lidded, and in the next second he sucked in a sharp breath.

Like the cat they kept at home, she raked his face with the perfectly trimmed curve of her nails. Because the scratch landed close to the corner of his eye, he reflexively shut his eyes.

Wen Zhixia used the chance to shove him away. The scratch on her neck had not yet faded, and now there was another mark on her face. Tomorrow, when she went to work, who knew how many people would stare and speculate?

Gu Pingsheng stood by the bed and touched the corner of his eye. “Are you a cat or something?”

Wen Zhixia turned her face away. “None of your business.”

Gu Pingsheng took a long breath and looked at her for a long while.

One stood beside the bed, the other sat upon it, and neither spoke first.

“Let’s talk, Zhixia,” Gu Pingsheng said at last.

Wen Zhixia lay on her side, pulled the blanket over herself, and closed her eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about except divorce.”

So long as she still remembered that day of first snow, when she had survived a brush with death and fled the hospital covered in wounds, only to see him embracing and kissing another woman in front of his car, she would never be able to forgive him.

Gu Pingsheng listened to the firmness in her voice and slowly clenched his hand.

“Mr. Gu, your face…”

Aunt Wang looked at the scratch marks on his face and neck, then glanced at Sweet Bean, who was obediently lying on its climbing frame licking its paw, and found herself wondering when exactly Gu Pingsheng had been scratched.

That little kitten had always been unbelievably well behaved. How had it suddenly become so troublesome?

“Bring the first-aid kit,” Gu Pingsheng said without further explanation.

Aunt Wang nodded. But while applying the medicine, she still paused and said, “Mr. Gu, some of these spots have broken skin. You should probably go to the hospital for a vaccine. Just putting ointment on the surface won’t do much. When you’re scratched by an animal, the incubation period can be quite long. It may not flare up right away, but who knows when it might become a problem…”

Gu Pingsheng lifted his dark eyes. “A vaccine?”

Aunt Wang glanced at Sweet Bean. “I’ll trim its claws again later. It can’t keep scratching Madam like this.”

Gu Pingsheng’s black gaze dimmed for a moment. “She’s not as easy to take care of as Sweet Bean.”

Aunt Wang had not caught that. “What did you say, Mr. Gu?”

Gu Pingsheng rose. “Nothing.”

“Mr. Gu…”

Aunt Zhao came over and tugged at Aunt Wang. After Gu Pingsheng went upstairs, she lowered her voice and said, “Mr. Gu didn’t even touch Sweet Bean today. I just gave Sweet Bean a bath, so it never came into contact with him. How could it have been the one that scratched him?”

Aunt Wang said, “You mean… Madam? Surely not.” Wen Zhixia had always been gentle and quiet, nothing like the sort to scratch someone, and certainly not twice, and in such an obvious place.

Aunt Zhao coughed softly. “All right, mind your own business. That’s the couple’s affair; we’d best not meddle. Didn’t you notice that Mr. Gu wasn’t even angry?”

In truth, Gu Pingsheng was not really unafraid of anger. For a man like him, his face mattered enormously in public; appearing with two claw marks on it was bound to cost him some pride.

It was just that anger did not solve anything. He could not hit her, could not scold her, and even when he tried to coax her, she still wanted a divorce. Now, looking at that icy face of hers, he felt only a deep and helpless frustration.

“Don’t touch me. Go to sleep,” Gu Pingsheng murmured as he gathered her from behind, his long arm resting at her waist, drawing her into his embrace until she filled his arms completely. That feeling soothed him.

Wen Zhixia was a little sleepy. After struggling twice, her eyelids began to close of their own accord. Her eyes turned sore and heavy, and she yawned, lacking the strength to keep arguing with him.

At dawn, the phone rang.

Gu Pingsheng answered it casually, thinking it must be a work call, or it would not be coming this early. After glancing at Wen Zhixia, who was still sound asleep, he lifted the blanket and stepped onto the balcony to take it.

On the other end was a man’s unfamiliar voice. Seeing no caller ID, Gu Pingsheng assumed it was a nuisance call and was about to hang up when the man suddenly spoke.

“Zhixia?”

Gu Pingsheng paused slightly. His thumb slowly rubbed along the edge of the phone, and only then, as the last trace of sleep faded, did he notice that he was holding Wen Zhixia’s phone.

“Can you come over today? I’d like you to help me pick out a few outfits for work,” the man said.

Listening to that voice, Gu Pingsheng roughly judged that the caller was not very old.

Only young people just entering society would speak of choosing clothes for work in that way.

“…After all, Mr. Gu is no longer like those twenty-three- or twenty-four-year-old boys,” her mocking words echoed suddenly and without warning in his mind.

Since when had he known that she liked these boys with no more than a trace of youth on them?

One nuisance had left, and the situation with the Xu family was still unclear. Now there was Zhang Zhiyan buzzing around like a fly, and on top of that, another one had appeared. Gu Pingsheng ground his back teeth together. “And you are?”

After hearing no response from Wen Zhixia for a long while, Shen Wenyan had been hesitating over whether she was unavailable today and whether he should find another excuse. Then, quite abruptly, he heard Gu Pingsheng’s low, heavy voice questioning him.

“Who are you? Why are you holding Zhixia’s phone? Where is she?”

Gu Pingsheng asked three questions in a row.

“She… is still asleep. I wore her out a little yesterday. If there’s anything, I can pass it along for her,” Gu Pingsheng said evenly, his deep eyes narrowing.

Shen Wenyan’s face went pale. “You… she…”

Gu Pingsheng said, “Sir, what business do you have with my wife?”

At that, Shen Wenyan fell completely silent.

Clearly, he had not expected the person answering the call to be Wen Zhixia’s husband.

When Gu Pingsheng continued pressing him, Shen Wenyan hung up.

Looking at the ended call screen, Gu Pingsheng tapped the display twice with his thumb and sent the number to his own phone.

“Check who owns this number.”

Wen Zhixia woke to hear that sentence faintly.

But because her mind was still not fully clear, she could not tell whether it was a dream or reality.

The moment she opened her eyes and saw Gu Pingsheng sitting beside her, idly playing with her phone, she knew it had not been an illusion.

At first, Gu Pingsheng had only wanted to look through the number to see whether the two of them had exchanged any messages. But by chance he had opened the chat records between her and Xu Qichen. Seeing the familiar, intimate words there, his eyes narrowed, concealing a surge of stormy waves.

“What are you doing with my phone?” Wen Zhixia frowned.

Gu Pingsheng’s gaze moved slowly across her face, carrying restraint and suppression. “Your phone. Am I not allowed to look at it?”

Wen Zhixia got out of bed and took it back from him. “That’s my privacy.”

“Hah.” Gu Pingsheng gave a bitter laugh, anger flashing in him. “What privacy do you need with me?”

She had never spoken of privacy before. Why did it suddenly exist now?

Was it privacy, or was it another man?

“Before, I didn’t need it. Now…” she said, “I do.”

“Then why don’t you explain carefully how many wild men you’re hiding outside?” Gu Pingsheng gripped her chin. “If you don’t like the young ones, Xu Qichen is two or three years older than me. What, do you think he’s too old?”

She deliberately found younger men to anger him, yet in secret she was so close with that old man Xu Qichen.

“Compared with Xu Qichen, am I not much better than him? You spend all day getting worked up with me—what is all this about, hmm?”

The way he held himself made it clear that if she could not give him a proper explanation, he would not let this matter rest.

Wen Zhixia curved her lips. “Doesn’t Mr. Gu know that the old can never compare with the thrill of the new? It’s been so many years. I look at you every day—what difference does age make? I’m simply tired of looking at you.”

Whether it was a young man in his early twenties or a mature man nearing thirty, they were all just freshness to her. Did she really have to choose him?

Gu Pingsheng’s brows gathered with cold frost. His deep dark eyes were filled with shadow. He lowered his gaze and saw his own reflection in her clear, striking features. His brow was tightly furrowed, as though a furious blaze burned within him.

“What did you say?”