Love After Divorce: Her Second Chance-Chapter 160; You think you know her better than I do?
Fang Lin’s throat tightened. It seemed like all her memories of pain had been rewritten, and now they were a beautiful dream.
"What about Jin Shuren?" Fang Lin ventured carefully, her heart heavily pounding. "Have you ever fought with him?"
From across the room, Jin Shuren’s hand stilled briefly over the armrest. Jin Zhou, too, froze, both men keenly aware of how fragile this line of questioning had become.
"My husband?" Yueyao’s lips curved into a faint smile, her tone unwavering. "No... never. We have always been a harmonious and happy couple." She paused, fingers absentmindedly smoothing Yueqin’s hair. "But sometimes, I feel there’s distance between us. Perhaps we did quarrel once, and I simply don’t recall..."
Fang Lin leaned closer, almost whispering. "Why do you say so?"
Yueyao’s eyes flickered—soft, uncertain, as though she were groping through shadows inside her own mind. "Because...." she murmured, "his eyes hold things I don’t understand. Like secrets he won’t share with me. And if there was ever a fight... maybe it was over that. Also, look around, we don’t have a family portrait, and if we had taken one, they could have been placed along the walls...."
Look at the sitting area, these can be my favourite colour but not the kind of design I would want, you know, I don’t feel my presence here at all.... It’s slightly cold and slightly warm, do you think I have been in the wrong? Because a woman should be able to make a home warm and cozy.... Do you think I betrayed him?"
Fang Lin’s breath caught at Yueyao’s words. The way her best friend’s gaze wandered over the room, searching for traces of herself that didn’t exist, made her chest ache.
"Yueyao..." she whispered, almost pleading. "You didn’t betray anyone. How could you even think like that?"
"But doesn’t it feel that way?" Yueyao pressed, her tone soft but laced with a desperate edge. Her fingers, still stroking Yueqin’s hair, trembled faintly. "This house feels too much like his and not enough like mine. As if I’m only... borrowing it. Borrowing him."
Her eyes lifted suddenly, locking onto Fang Lin’s with a vulnerable sharpness that made her stomach twist. "Lin Lin... tell me honestly. Do you think he truly belongs to me? Or am I just dreaming he does?"
Fang Lin’s throat constricted. She wanted to lie, to soothe, but the intensity in Yueyao’s gaze held her pinned. Her lips parted, but before she could answer.....
A voice cut through the tension, low and commanding.
"You are overthinking again, Yueyao."
Both women turned their necks around, Jin Shuren’s dark eyes bore into Yueyao from across the room, his tone deceptively calm, but weighted enough to halt the spiral in her thoughts. The laptop screen still glowed before him, executives droning faintly in the background, but his attention had shifted wholly to them.
Yueyao straightened unconsciously, as if his gaze alone could draw her back into alignment. "Shuren..." she murmured, half in relief, half in defense.
He didn’t move, but his next words were sharp, final. "Everything here is yours. Including me."
The room seemed to thrum with the certainty in his voice. Yueqin quieted in her mother’s arms, sensing the shift, while Fang Lin sat frozen, her heart hammering at the raw authority threaded in every syllable.
But even as Yueyao’s lips curved into a fragile smile, her fingers clutched her daughter tighter, and her eyes shimmered with a hunger Fang Lin recognized all too well.
It wasn’t the reassurance she wanted, it was possession.
And as Fang Lin sat there, she realized with a shiver that Jin Shuren’s declaration had not doused the fire in Yueyao’s chest. It had only fed it.
Fang Lin’s eyes hardened as she turned sharply toward Jin Shuren. She rose from her seat with deliberate calm, smoothing her skirt as if to disguise the tension flooding her body.
With measured steps, she crossed the room to the desk where he sat, lowering her voice so it would not carry to Yueyao.
Her hand pressed briefly against the polished wood, steadying herself, though her gaze was anything but steady, it cut straight through him. Jin Shuren immediately muted the microphone of the laptop.
Leaning closer, her words slipped out like a blade sheathed in velvet, quiet enough for only him to hear.
"Jin Shuren, do you think I can’t see what you are doing?" she spat, her hands trembling with suppressed fury. "She is clearly confused, her memories are fractured, and instead of taking her to a hospital, instead of helping her get better, you feed her delusions! You sit here quietly, nodding along, letting her believe lies that only serve you."
Her chest rose and fell with anger, eyes burning into him. "You are taking advantage of her when she’s most vulnerable. You are twisting her reality, making sure she depends on you, and calling it love."
Jin Shuren’s expression barely shifted, his jaw tightened, a shadow crossing his gaze, but he said nothing. His silence only fueled Fang Lin’s rage.
"Don’t look at me like that," she snapped, voice breaking with raw protectiveness. "I grew up with Yueyao. I know her better than anyone and I won’t stand by while you manipulate her into believing in a life that’s only convenient for you."
For a long moment, Jin Shuren simply regarded her, his silence heavy, suffocating. His hand shifted to close the laptop lid, cutting off the faint murmur of the meeting altogether. The quiet that followed was absolute, the kind that made every heartbeat sound like thunder.
At last, his voice came, low and steady, but edged with warning.
"You think you know her better than I do?" His eyes narrowed, unreadable. "Lin Lin... what you see as delusion, she sees as salvation. Those memories you wish to restore? They would break her. Do you want her to shatter before your very own eyes?"
Fang Lin flinched, but held his gaze, her fists clenching at her sides. "What I want is for her to have the chance to heal, not live inside a cage you have gilded with your words. You are not protecting her in this way, Jin Shuren. You are controlling her."
