Chapter 277: The marriage that cannot survive any longer

Late night, Liu villa.

“Leave me, Jinhai!” Nana slapped away his hand as he tried to stop her.

The gaze, which was always filled with love and warmth for him, was now looking at him with bitterness and hurt. The eyes that held an undying trust in him were slightly red with tears.

Jinhai was doing his all to stop her from leaving. He stood in between her and the door. “Nana! Where are you going?”

Nana clutched the handle of her suitcase. She bit her lower lip as she tried to hold back from crying anymore.

“Please step out of my way, Jinhai.”

“How can I step out of your way when you are trying to step out of my life? Please listen to me-“

Her eyes that had been downcast lifted and glared at Jinhai. “Listen? What should I listen to you? Have you left anything for us to talk it out?”

The panic was rising in Jinhai as he saw her decisive gaze.

‘No…How can I let her go?’

Jinhai raised his hands to hold her shoulders, but Nana took a step back. She lifted her palm. “Don’t touch me. You…you lied to me,” Tears rolled down her cheeks, “I will never forgive you. You broke my trust Jinhai. I cannot live with you anymore.”

“No, how can you say this? I did everything for us. Don’t leave me, Nana.” The dread inside Jinhai was growing stronger. The fear of losing Nana forever crept inside his heart.

But, Nana stepped aside and opened the door. Dragging the suitcase, she walked past him.

‘How can this be the end? How can I let this happen?’

Jinhai desperately followed her and grabbed her arm. “Nana! W-we can sought this out. You can punish me as much as you want-“

“And leaving your side is my punishment for you, Jinhai,” She interrupted. “I cannot live with a man under the same roof who has betrayed my trust. I don’t feel loved. I feel used, Liu Jinhai.”

Jinhai froze. He blankly looked at her.

“Liu Jinhai…? No, Nana…I am your Jinhai. Only Jinhai. D-don’t call me with my full name.”

“Why not?” Her gaze was blazed with fury. “There is nothing left between us to call me by your name. So, why are you expecting me to act like your wife? What I felt as your love was just your calculations all along. I was so stupid…”

Jinhai pulled her towards him. “How can you say this, Nana!? You are saying that I don’t love you? I love you even more than my life.”

“So much so that you were ready to use me? And not only me…even our baby too?” Nana slowly touched her tummy. The thought of their child made her heartache. She shut her eyes, letting the tears flow out.

Jinhai was flustered. He shook his head and cupped her cheeks. A tear slid from his eye too. “Nana…I-I didn’t mean to do that…That night was not a lie, believe me. How can I even think of using you and our child? I…I cannot live without you, Nana…Please don’t leave me…You, our baby, has become a part of my heart. It will cease to stop beating if you both left me.”

Nana touched his hands that held her cheeks, and she pulled them away. Jinhai could only watch her in despair.

“This is the path you have chosen, Jinhai. After trampling on my reality, you have made me realize that it was all just a dream. And now this dream is over, Jinhai. It’s broken, and so is our marriage.”

She took a step back.

“A marriage based on a lie has no roots to survive. You have done just that.”

Nana turned her back at him and walked away. Jinhai saw her back growing farther and farther away from him.

“Nana, come back! Come back to me! I need you. Nana…I really love you.”

Just like that, she disappeared from his sight.

“Nana?”

But he heard nothing.

“Nana?”

No response.

“Nana!”

Jinhai opened his eyes and abruptly got up. He was taking deep, ragged breaths, his chest heaving up and down. His forehead was covered in sweat. He looked around and saw that it was his room.

‘A dream…It was a dream…’

With that realization, he calmed down. That was the worst nightmare he ever had in his whole life, and he felt as if his soul was taken out of him. The dream felt so real.

Nana was leaving him alone forever. The happy life that he dreamt of with Nana and their children was shattered into pieces in that dream.

Eversince the time Huian woke up from her coma, he would sometimes feel uneasy. He thought that everything was in his control, but a certain sense of anxiety would still gnaw his heart with worry and fear.

Jinhai looked at the time. It was 2:15 AM.

‘It was a dream. Nana is here with me. She hasn’t gone anywhere. We are still together.’

He looked at his side and froze.

Nana wasn’t sleeping beside him.

“Nana? Where is Nana?”

Jinhai immediately got up. “Nana?” He went to the bathroom and knocked on the door, but it was open. He went inside, but it was empty.

Panic gripped his chest.

‘It’s the middle of the night. Where can she go? No…no, no, no. She has not left me.’

Like crazy, Jinhai dashed out of the room. He looked in the corridor, but there was nobody. He went into the living room, but it was dark as well.

He was shaking and trembling with horror as he feared for the worst. He couldn’t think of anything. His mind and heart were in a mess. Jinhai ran outside, in the garden to look for Nana. He searched in the whole area but couldn’t find her.

“She is nowhere. No…she has left me…Nana is gone…My Nana is gone…I am all alone.” He mumbled to himself incoherently.

Jinhai collapsed on his knees. His gaze looked blank and lifeless. The past moments spent with her all these months, came flashing by in front of his eyes. Her laugh, her blush, her brown eyes, her soft hands seemed so distant now.

“Such a cheesy line!”

“You are so shameless always…always thinking of that.” He remembered how she was blushing furiously, a tint of red in her cheeks.

“My husband is the best!”

“I love you, Jinhai.”

Before he realized it, tears were already trickling down his cheeks. He looked at the sky laced with millions of sparkling stars, and he recalled their wedding night they spent under their radiance and light.

“Nana…”

Suddenly, Jinhai felt something soft touch his shoulder. “Jinhai?”

Jinhai stiffened. He blinked his eyes rapidly as he recognized the sweet voice of his wife, and her touch that he couldn’t ever mistake for anything else.

Scared and hopeful at the same time, Jinhai slowly raised his head. His gaze met the familiar big, brown eyes where he always loved getting lost in them.

“Jinhai! Why are you crying?”

Nana was astonished to see Jinhai crying. The only time she saw his eyes moist with tears was when she had confessed her love for him that night when the Liu family came to dinner in Natsukashi. Those were the tears of joy.

But the tears now told another story.

She wanted to bend to his side, but her pregnant tummy didn’t allow her to.

“J-Jinhai, what happened? Why are you crying?” She anxiously asked.

Jinhai got up on his feet and grabbed her cheeks in his palms.

“Nana…”

Nana was confused seeing him like that. She didn’t find Jinhai back in the room, so she looked for him everywhere and found him in the garden.

“Nana, you are here…” He caressed her cheeks to feel that this was not a dream.

“Yes, Jinhai. I’m here. What happened? And why are you in the garden? Why are you crying?”

“Where were you!?” Jinhai asked, his tone a little louder than usual.

Nana was a little startled. Jinhai had never spoken to her in that tone, although she could sense his panic and nervousness.

“I…”

“Tell me! It’s the middle of the night! Where did you go? Why weren’t you in the room, sleeping? What were you doing?” He couldn’t even express how relieved he was. But at the same time, he felt a little angry too.

“I…I was in the kitchen.” Nana softly said. She didn’t know what happened, but she knew for one thing that perhaps she did something to upset him.

“Huh?”

“Yes. I was feeling hungry. I was craving to eat something spicy. So, I went and made some spicy curry for myself.”

Jinhai looked at her, shocked and dumbfounded.

He searched in the whole villa, and she was there in the kitchen, making curry? Alright, he didn’t search the entire villa.

‘Kitchen…she was in the house. I didn’t check over there…And I thought that she…’

There he already started to reminisce about their happy memories as he thought that she left him, but here she was happily eating curry.

Nana softly held his hands. “First, tell me, why were you crying? You-“

Before she could complete it, Jinhai crashed his lips on hers.