Chapter 3456

Xiao Churan went upstairs to her room in a despondent state, and neither her father nor her mother noticed anything abnormal about her emotions.

For this, Xiao Churan had long been accustomed to it; her parents seemed to be naturally inattentive to others, and in this household, apart from Ye Chen, no one would care about her emotions and feelings.

Xiao Changkun and Ma Lan at this moment had their minds full of how to have fun in the Maldives to get their money's worth, and no one had noticed that Xiao Churan had cried until her eyes were red and swollen.

After returning to her room, Xiao Churan washed her face with cold water, tried to calm her emotions as much as possible, and then began to consider how to leave Ye Chen while minimizing the impact on him.

However, the first thing to confirm was what arrangements Ye Chen had for the day of the dragon raising its head on the second day of the second lunar month.

So she picked up her phone and sent Ye Chen a WeChat voice message: "Husband, how do you plan to spend your birthday this year?"

At this moment, Ye Chen was idly bored backstage at the Tawana performance.

Upon receiving Xiao Churan's WeChat, he had no hesitation and directly replied: "Wife, you have always liked Gu Qiuyi, haven't you? Gu Qiuyi's final farewell concert happens to be on the second day of the second lunar month in Yanjing. I was thinking we could go to Yanjing together for a private getaway, and by the way, I'll take you to see the concert. What do you think?"

Xiao Churan received this message and was stunned for a long time.

If she had not already met Tang Sihai, she would not have thought there was anything wrong with Ye Chen's arrangement, and might even have been moved by the fact that Ye Chen still thought of taking her to a concert on his birthday.

But now she knew that Gu Qiuyi was Ye Chen's fiancée, so upon hearing Ye Chen's arrangement, her heart inevitably felt a twinge of pain.

Gu Qiuyi had twice chosen to hold her concert on Ye Chen's birthday, and the thought behind this was naturally self-evident.

At this moment, deep in her heart, Xiao Churan felt some resistance and opposition to Ye Chen's arrangement.

However, after calming down and thinking carefully, she realized this was actually a good opportunity to leave Ye Chen.

By then, when she and Ye Chen went together to Yanjing to see Gu Qiuyi's concert, her parents could be arranged by Tang Sihai to leave first.

After her parents left, she would then think of a way to see how she could detach herself from Ye Chen's side.

By then, the three of them would directly vanish from Ye Chen's life, and she would leave Ye Chen a letter. In their home in Jin Ling, when Ye Chen returned and saw the letter, he would know the specific situation.

Xiao Churan also did not intend to hide anything from him in her reasons for leaving, after all, he had concealed his identity from her for many years, and she did not want to be like him, continuing to conceal things from him.

She planned to tell Ye Chen in the letter that she knew his identity and background, and also knew about the path of revenge he faced, and that she decided to leave him so as not to affect him, allowing him to concentrate fully on dealing with his enemies without any worries.

As for whether they would have a chance to meet again in the future, Xiao Churan thought for a long time and finally decided that when she left, she would tell Ye Chen in the letter not to look for her again, because their marriage had always been mixed with too many things beyond love, not only an arranged marriage but also concealment, deception, and a huge mismatch in social status. Since Ye Chen's actual identity was Ye Chen of the Yanjing Ye family, and not the orphan Ye Chen of Jin Ling, their marriage certificate likely had no legal validity, and thus this marriage would end here, for the better of both.

The reason for ending this marriage was, first, because Xiao Churan had already told Ye Chen that if she were truly deceived, she would choose divorce, but the second reason was more important.

Xiao Churan clearly knew in her heart that the gap between her and Ye Chen was too great; once Ye Chen returned to the Ye family, if he still maintained a marital relationship with her, she would become the object of envy for women all over the world, and the reason they envied her would surely be that they thought she was too fortunate, that such an ordinary girl could actually marry one of the world's top rich second generations.

Xiao Churan was also a strong-willed woman, and she did not want to bear the title of a wealthy family's wife, a real-life version of Cinderella, in the future.

Rather than becoming an appendage of a wealthy family, she would prefer to live a simple and relaxed life.

Moreover, Gu Qiuyi was obviously more suitable for Ye Chen than she was, and Gu Qiuyi had spent so many years searching for Ye Chen, paying too much.

For both emotional and rational reasons, this was a girl worthy of respect and deserving to be fulfilled.

By ending her marriage with Ye Chen, she could fulfill them, and this could also be considered accomplishing a good deed.

So she replied to Ye Chen: "Then let's go to Yanjing together on the second day of the second month for a private getaway, and by the way, let's take a look at Miss Gu's concert. After the concert ends, I might need to go out of town on a business trip, and by then you can just go home directly; I will fly from Yanjing to Rongcheng."

Ye Chen curiously asked: "Why suddenly go to Rongcheng on a business trip?"

Xiao Churan thought for a moment and answered with the excuse she had just come up with: "A client introduced me to her close friend, who has a very large detached villa in Rongcheng that she wants to renovate, hoping I can provide a design plan, so I need to go there for an on-site inspection."

After saying this, she felt both nervous and guilty in her heart.

Nervous because she did not know whether Ye Chen would see through her lie; guilty because this should still be the first time she had lied to Ye Chen.

But she soon realized that these years Ye Chen had always said he needed to go to various places to look at feng shui for people. Perhaps this was the same mentality and motivation as her lying this time about needing to go out of town to do design work for someone.

With this thought, she could not help but feel moved, thinking that her marriage with Ye Chen was truly deformed, to the extent that in life they had to use countless different lies to maintain stability.

Come to think of it, whenever Ye Chen previously needed to do his own things and could not conveniently let her know, he would have to think up all kinds of reasons to lie, and even had to find all sorts of people to come to their home to act for him; he himself must also be quite tired.

Ye Chen and Xiao Churan absolutely trusted each other; Xiao Churan said she would go on a business trip, and he had no suspicion, only asking her: "Wife, do you want me to come with you? Anyway, I won't have anything to do then."

Xiao Churan said: "No need to trouble yourself, I'm going to work, not to travel. Bringing my husband to discuss the project might instead make the client think I'm unprofessional, and I won't be gone for long—just doing an on-site inspection, measuring the land and dimensions, then coming back. By then, I'll do the design plan back in Jin Ling and send it to her online, and that will be enough."

Ye Chen also didn't think much of it, smiling and saying: "Alright, then after watching the concert, you go to Rongcheng, and I'll return to Jin Ling."

Xiao Churan breathed a sigh of relief; since the itinerary was now set, she planned to find some free time to go to Qixia Temple and tell Tang Sihai the specific arrangements.

By then, when she and Ye Chen set off for Yanjing first, she would just find an excuse and have Tang Sihai take her parents away afterward.

After she separated from Ye Chen in Yanjing, she would then have Tang Sihai quietly take her away from China.

Her family of three actually had not many ties; her grandmother and such relatives had long since passed away and had no contact, and as long as the three of them were together, going anywhere was the same.

These years, the whole family had relied on Ye Chen's care, and now it was also time for her to consider him a little.