Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty-Two

"What are you trying to do again?" she said, somewhat flustered.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks, you can disappear now."

"I just returned from England and didn't prepare anything to celebrate your opening, but..." he said sincerely.

"You're giving me an opening gift?" Bai Bai Ziling interrupted urgently. "If you disappear, that would be the best gift."

"Who hired that idol group?" Jiang Jie chatted with her.

"Han Ze."

"Looks like you have quite a few connections."

"Are you done?" Bai Bai Ziling feared Xia Zhen and Sima Sima Xingchen would discover Jiang Jie was here, so she grabbed his arm and dragged him to a less conspicuous spot.

"Bai Bai Ziling, I am not your lover; is it necessary for you to hide like this?" Jiang Jie said, quite displeased.

"I don't want them to see you." She let go of him.

"Am I not presentable?"

"No! You are very presentable, but I don't want them to think we still have ties. Did you bring the divorce papers?"

"No divorce papers." He told her bluntly.

"No?!"

"I don't want a divorce."

"You don't want a divorce?!" Bai Bai Ziling nearly fainted. "What exactly must you do to me before you'll be satisfied? Jiang Jie, I want freedom! I believe you need freedom more than I do!"

"I miss you." Jiang Jie confessed suddenly.

Bai Bai Ziling nearly suffocated; what did he say?! He said he missed her?! Was this her "hallucination," or had he really spoken those words?

"Bai Bai Ziling, perhaps I did indeed hurt you terribly, but it was never intentional." He apologized to her.

"Not intentional?" She refused to forgive him. "What did you say back then? That if I gave myself to you, I could leave with a check the next morning; what was your state of mind then? And think about what my state of mind would have been! Jiang Jie, you treated me like a prostitute!"

"I didn't treat you like a prostitute!" he retorted.

"Then what was it?"

"At that time, I hadn't thought it through clearly."

Bai Bai Ziling felt no sense of clarity; other women might have embraced him because of his confession, putting old grievances aside, but not her! She was not so easily deceived.

"Jiang Jie, do you understand me?" Bai Bai Ziling asked coldly.

"I..."

"Do you know what I'm thinking?"

"I don't know." He spoke plainly.

"You don't know, you don't understand me, so what are you doing here? Looking for a rejection? Are you really this dull?" she scolded without hesitation.

Jiang Jie was speechless.

"Don't provoke me again, or else..." Bringing Di Di Zhiwei into this now was somewhat immoral, but to make Jiang Jie give up, she had to be a bit despicable and shameless. "Or else I will truly pair up with Di Di Zhiwei; then... I will also have to call you 'Cousin'."

"You wouldn't dare!" Jiang Jie suddenly roared like an angry lion.

"I wouldn't dare?" Bai Bai Ziling became arrogant in turn. "Marrying Di Di Zhiwei doesn't seem bad; I can help him get the inheritance your grandfather wants to give him, and I can... truly get pregnant!"

Jiang Jie raised his hand; he hadn't expected to hit a woman, let alone that the first woman he would hit would be Bai Bai Ziling.

"You..." Bai Bai Ziling showed an expression of pain reaching her heart; she didn't cover her face, but she could feel her face burning hot, showing his force was not small.

"Bai Bai Ziling..." Jiang Jie was filled with regret; if time could flow backward to before he raised his palm, he would rather cut off his own hand than give her that slap.

"I hate you..." she whispered low.

"You won't be with Di Zhiwei."

"You can't stop me!"

"You are still my wife."

"You'd better publish it in the newspaper, you'd better tell the whole world I am your wife, I don't care!" she shouted in anger and willfulness. "I don't just want to be with Di Di Zhiwei; I want to swap men one after another; I want to make myself available to all men, how about that?! Kill me then!"

Jiang Jie just glared fiercely at her.

"If you don't want to 'wear a green hat,' then quickly tell your lawyer to send the divorce papers!" she issued an ultimatum.

Jiang Jie still said nothing; he truly didn't know what he could say now.

【Chapter Nine】

Although Bai Bai Ziling, who could no longer bear the harassment, had a coffee shop to run, to avoid Jiang Jie and even Di Di Zhiwei, she made herself temporarily disappear; her cousin Tong Yiwen had opened a kindergarten on the mountain in Xindian, so she went up the mountain to seek refuge with her.

Tong Yiwen was only two years older than Bai Bai Ziling, but she was the kind of woman who was loving yet conservative and rigid; she always buttoned her shirt to the very top button, wore dark trousers, tied her long hair into a ponytail, wore no makeup, and seemed like a woman from the early Republic era.

Regarding Bai Bai Ziling's sudden appearance, she didn't ask much; her home was inside the kindergarten; having Bai Bai Ziling meant having an extra helper and an extra companion.

Bai Bai Ziling greatly admired her cousin, not only for her ability to run a kindergarten alone, but also for her personality that didn't pry or nag; Tong Yiwen neither asked why she suddenly appeared nor asked what was wrong; they seemed to have known each other for a lifetime.

The nights on the mountain were somewhat boring and dull; apart from the starry sky and the silence of the room, there seemed to be nothing else; at first, Bai Bai Ziling would read books or listen to the radio because Tong Yiwen didn't have cable TV, but as the days passed, Bai Bai Ziling also felt that time dragged on endlessly.

Seeing this, Tong Yiwen one night suddenly brought her two balls of yarn and four knitting needles.

"Cousin, this is—"

"I'll teach you to knit a sweater."

"Knit a sweater?!" Bai Bai Ziling's eyes nearly popped out; she had grown up, and aside from some needles and threads in home economics during middle and high school, she had never even sewn a button herself, let alone learned to knit a sweater now...

"You don't want to learn?" Tong Yiwen glanced at her without forcing her.

"Isn't buying one faster?"

"Buying one and knitting one have different meanings."

"But..."

"I just want you to use knitting to let your emotions settle; you will have something to focus on, so you won't be scattered every day, not knowing how to endure." Tong Yiwen possessed worldly wisdom and maturity beyond her years.

Bai Bai Ziling felt a bit embarrassed by what she said.

"Knitting sweaters is actually very interesting. There are so many styles and stitch patterns, with endless variations. Every sweater you knit yourself can be unique, so you never have to worry about wearing the same outfit as someone else."

"I have no interest in these things..."

"Never have?" Tong Yiwen finished for her.

"My home economics grades have always been on the borderline of passing."

Tong Yiwen did not press her; instead, she quickly and skillfully began knitting. She looked calm and peaceful. After spending the day dealing with a group of rascals, she still had the energy and could settle her mind to knit sweaters. At her age of twenty-five or twenty-six...

"Cousin, why did you hide up in the mountains?" Bai Bai Ziling suddenly asked curiously. Actually, she was not very close to this cousin. If it were not for Jiang Jie's "doing," she would still be staying properly in Taipei.

"Hide?"

"To be honest, at your age, no one would exile themselves to such a remote place where you even have to drive to buy groceries. Don't talk about that nonsense like 'educating the future pillars of the nation.'" Bai Bai Ziling wanted to have a proper chat with her cousin, after all, there were only the two of them in such a large house.

Tong Yiwen just smiled faintly.

"Did you get hurt in love?" Bai Bai Ziling guessed.

"It's not what you think."

"Then what is it?"

Tong Yiwen's expression showed she did not really want to mention it.

"No woman nowadays dresses as conservatively and as stiffly as you do, as if trying to wrap her whole body up. Showing a little skin appropriately is also a kind of sexiness, a kind of elegance."

"I am used to dressing this way."

"Dressing like this is unhealthy."