Zhan Jinchuan: "..."

There was a hint of unease on his face. He avoided Gu Junzhu’s gaze, rubbing the tips of his thumb, index, and middle fingers together continuously.

Close people who have spent a lot of time together often develop many similar habits.

Gu Junzhu habitually rubbed his fingertips when he was thinking.

Zhan Jinchuan, on the other hand, liked to rub his fingertips both when he was thinking and when he was nervous.

Gu Junzhu glanced at his right hand: "You’d better explain it yourself. If you can’t make it clear, I’ll call your secretary in to see what he says."

"There’s no need for that, right?" Zhan Jinchuan said awkwardly, "You yourself said it, I’m already thirty-five, not twenty-five or fifteen, right?"

As the older brother, how did it turn into a situation where he was being interrogated like a grandson by Gu Junzhu? He felt particularly uneasy about it.

Gu Junzhu gave him a cold look: "Yes, you are already thirty-five! But you should be doing things that a thirty-five-year-old should do! You’re thirty-five, yet you got drunk and were deceived by a girl into getting a marriage certificate. And that’s not all: after getting the certificate, if she hadn’t become pregnant, you still wanted to annul the marriage. Think about it yourself; is this something a thirty-five-year-old man would do?"

Zhan Jinchuan was so chastised that he felt deeply ashamed, wishing he could dig a hole to hide in.

He wiped his face again, covering his mouth and nose with both hands, saying: "We got along very well. I considered her a friend, and I didn’t guard against her at all..."

"That day, I was in a bad mood, utterly drunk... She had studied psychology... I was left with just a sliver of consciousness. She helped me write the marriage application form, guiding me to sign and stamp it."

"She took the marriage application form to her uncle to get approval, then drove me to the civil affairs bureau to get a certificate, and then drove me to a hotel..."

He then vigorously rubbed his face a few more times and said dejectedly: "I really drank too much then... I don’t even know how it happened, but the two of us ended up being intimate..."

"When I woke up the next morning, we were lying in the same bed. She handed me the marriage certificate, saying she was already my wife and would live well with me in the future."

"I was very angry at the time. I said she had tricked me into marriage, and she said she loved me and would manage the marriage well. She said we would surely be happy in the future."

"But I was truly furious. I felt deceived, insulted, and played with."

"I wanted a divorce..."

"But, as you said, military marriages are hard to dissolve..."

"From the time we were intimate until now, more than twenty days have passed. The marriage hasn’t been annulled, and she told me she’s pregnant."

He ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh: "She’s pregnant... I accept it... Actually, I don’t dislike her. As I said, we are friends, we have a lot in common, and we get along well... I just can’t accept that she deceived me into getting the marriage certificate and ended up in bed with me. I really dislike this! I absolutely dislike this!"

"But now, she’s pregnant. I can’t bring myself to ask her to abort the baby. I’ve figured it out, although she was wrong to trick me into registering the marriage while I was drunk, I was also wrong for being so drunk and letting her take advantage to obtain the certificate."

"Since both of us made mistakes, let’s call it even. I’m willing to forget the past, start anew with her, work hard to manage our marriage well, and raise our child together."