Qin Yinan stood up immediately to push the chair away. He picked up the dirty ball of paper that was caught in the dust.

He flattened it and spread it out. Cheng Qingchong's clear handwriting appeared before his eyes.

"Yinan, I'm sorry… Yinan… Yinan…"

The whole page was filled with his name interspersed with several apologies. There really wasn't much content to the page, but Qin Yinan still looked through every single word closely, and he even spotted a question that was hidden between the lines. "If I admit every bad thing that I've done to you, will you forgive me? Yes or no?"

Yes or no?

From the color of the handwriting, it seemed to have been written quite some time ago.

He had rushed home in such a hurry, hoping to find something left behind by her, but who would have thought the only thing he could find was piece of paper with her apology?

In other words, this piece of paper and all those words written on it were telling him, when Cheng Qingchong was his wife, she had already considered telling him that she was sorry and confessing her wrongdoings, but afraid that he wouldn't forgive her, she didn't dare open her lips.

Therefore, all this time, she had been tormenting herself with anxiety and guilt.

Qin Yinan looked at the paper for a long time before he moved his eyes away. He looked at the ceiling and became intensely quiet like a machine powering down.

If, at the beginning, she really did confess to him, would he have forgiven her?

He probably would…

He believed, he would.

So why didn't she?

Was it because of fear?

Fear because she cared about him?

Then what about him? Why was he so angry then? Was it because of her deceit?

She was the one who started this rivalry between them; he was merely returning the favor. He admitted, looking back, that he was unnecessarily cruel to both her and himself.

He didn't consider himself a heartless person; after all, so many years ago, Tang Nuan had played him for a bigger fool, and after he found out, he had merely cut all ties from her. He didn't hurt her in any way.

Cheng Qingchong became the exception to his rule… Why was that? Even now, he couldn't tell why he was so filled with anger and resentment when he discovered her deceit.

All this while, he had been unwilling to face this particular question. Due to Mrs. Cheng, his interaction with her became more constant for the first time after their divorce. Just like the reason behind so many of his actions that he couldn't explain to himself, he refused to figure out why.

When all these questions piled up in his heart, he knew it was time to finally face the truth.

If he had known about her secret when they were first married, what would he have done?

He believed, he would have asked her out for a talk, laid everything out on the table, and asked for a peaceful divorce.

However, he found out she had tricked him after she had taken care of him so perfectly and kindly for eight full months. Even though their marriage was built upon a fake pregnancy and had no emotional foundation, when he was lying in bed, tormented by physical pain, she would sit down beside him to comfort him by talking to him in her soothing voice, and miraculously, he would become quiet again.

Many times, when he woke up from his afternoon nap and saw the woman sitting quietly wreathed in the sunlight reading her book, he would smile to himself.