She felt a wave of dizziness as she was shoved to the front railings.
With a hand on her waist and another on the railing, the man trapped her right before him.
“I’ll give you a chance to retract your statement!”
He lowered his gaze on her and coldly demanded, “Retract that statement now!”
“Retract?” Her face paled. With her lips curling downward, she retorted, “All right. Which statement do you want me to retract?”
“That one about you refusing to like me anymore.”
The corners of her mouth plummeted further at that. She averted her gaze from him and schooled her face into an impassive and cold look.
She remained mum for a long time.
Her silence frustrated him endlessly. As his eyes filled with hidden tears, his hand clasping her shoulder inadvertently tightened.
“Say it!”
Her vision was never once on him. She tried to speak a few times, but her throat was too dry.
“Say it!”
He had lost some of his patience.
This woman was indeed out to infuriate him.
He stared at her cold face while he repeatedly repressed his rage, which was on the verge of exploding.
“Is it so hard to retract that statement?!”
He glared at her fiercely, then gripped her jaw to make her face him, and carefully enunciated, “Yun Shishi, keep this in mind: you are forbidden from leaving me.”
“Just what do you mean by that?!” she snarled. “Mu Yazhe, you want me to be your kept woman – a canary in your cage?”
“You’re my woman – not a canary!” He arrogantly corrected her while he kept his gaze on her. “You don’t need to use those words to put me off!”
“That’s right. Women. You can have a lot of them!”
Although her heart was pounding in pain, she fought to maintain a calm face. She nonchalantly added, “Just like this, I’m not your only one.”
“You are!”
How could this woman continue her one-sided conversation?
He did not have any other woman but her.
With a heavy face, he said, “You’re my only one.”
She looked at him in shock yet managed to question him calmly. “What can you use to prove it?”
“You want me to give you a legitimate title.”
It was a rhetorical question.
Indubitably.
She did not speak but tacitly agreed.
The cold wind blew across the observation deck.
The evening breeze from the lake was bone-chillingly wet.
She backed up against the railings.
Despite his control, his grip on her shoulder was still hard enough to elicit a dull pain from her.
Her face was unchangingly still.
Those black orbs of his focused on her fully. “Is a piece of paper so valuable to you?”
Did this woman trust this paper more than him?
She looked up at him in shock.
In this man’s heart, was the marriage certificate a mere piece of paper?
He, at her silence, continued. “Compared to that piece of paper, am I really unworthy of your trust?”
She laughed hollowly at that and then countered, “You can’t even give me a piece of paper, so tell me how I can trust you?”
This piece of paper was sacred to her and was worthy of her respect.
Alas, something so important to her was deemed by him as worthless.
He inclined his head to ask in a deep voice, “Your trust seems to be flimsy if it’s just reliant on a piece of paper! What can that even guarantee to you?!”