Free Web NovelChapter 195: DIVORCE HIM AND MARRY ME
No one interrupted, they wouldn’t dare but not of fear or because they agreed, but because they recognised him.
ShangYan continued without raising his voice.
"On what basis is Shen Zihao considered better than Liu Liuxian?"
The question did not invite response.
"Is it because of birth?" he asked calmly, before continuing without waiting. "Then perhaps someone should explain why I am sitting here."
The silence continued further.
"I was also born outside of marriage," he said evenly. "The difference is that I never allowed other people to define what that meant for me."
His gaze returned briefly to Guiying.
"Did he choose how he was born?" he asked. "Did any of you?"
No answer followed.
"The child is blamed while the adults responsible are excused," ShangYan said, his tone cooling slightly. "Deyong is the one who caused this situation. Yet somehow it is easier for everyone to direct their anger toward the person who had no choice in it."
His eyes moved across the table with quiet finality.
"That is not morality. That is convenience."
Then he looked toward the British side of the courtyard, his expression remaining steady.
"You arrived here with arrogance and judgment, forgetting that you are not separate from what you are criticizing. You are not royalty, and you are not above anyone present. Your opinions do not become valuable simply because you speak them confidently."
The courtyard did not respond.
Because there was nothing to respond with.
Xue Mingzhan finally spoke, his voice carrying the authority that ended discussion rather than invited it.
"Everyone is seated where they belong."
A pause.
"If anyone disagrees, the door is open."
No one moved.
"Now we eat."
He gestured toward Butler Hou, and the meal finally began to be served as tension settled into a heavy silence that had not been resolved, only contained.
ShangYan leaned back slightly in his seat, his presence no longer disruptive but firmly established, and for the first time that night the courtyard felt as though it had been forced to acknowledge something it had been avoiding.
Guiying remained still, but something in his expression had shifted subtly, not because the situation had eased, but because for the first time, the cruelty around him was being challenged by someone who understood it too well to ignore it.
---
The dinner wound down the way large family dinners always wound down.
It didn’t have a clean ending but in a gradual loosening, where chairs shifted back, plates were taken away, and conversations broke apart into smaller clusters that no longer held any formal structure.
People slowly drifted toward Liuxian without it ever being discussed or decided, drawn in by habit more than intention.
Uncles and cousins gathering near the main hall as business talk replaced family conversation, as it always did in rooms like this where the boundary between the two had never been real.
Liuxian stood in the middle of it without changing his expression, responding when spoken to and pausing when necessary, but his gaze moved across the courtyard between exchanges, checking the space in brief intervals that did not interrupt his conversation.
Guiying was not at the table anymore.
He had left between courses, during the shift in attention when no one was looking directly at him, and the empty chair had simply been absorbed into the rhythm of the dinner without comment.
The garden sat behind the third courtyard, past a low stone archway most guests passed without turning their heads.
Once inside it the sound of the dinner broke apart into something distant and incomplete, blocked by distance and walls until only fragments of speech reached through.
Lantern light ended partway along the path, leaving the rest of the garden in darker tones, where stone paving ran under bare branches and an old plum tree stood at the far end, its structure thin against the night air.
Guiying stood beneath it.
His shoulders had lowered slightly compared to the courtyard, his breathing became slower, deeper, the kind that came when the body stopped reacting to constant pressure.
His hands hung at his sides, one of them turning the ring once, then stilling.
He looked down at it for a moment.
The sapphire caught a faint reflection from the lantern light behind him, small and steady, before his fingers stopped moving altogether.
The air changed before anything else did.
It tightened in the space behind him first, then moved forward, heavier than the stillness already in the garden, pressing against the quiet in a way that did not belong to the place.
Guiying turned.
Shen Zihao stood at the entrance to the garden.
He was not moving, not yet, but the air around him carried a pressure that made the space feel narrower, as if the garden itself had been reduced in size.
His gaze stayed fixed on Guiying without shifting.
"Was it fun?" Shen Zihao said.
Guiying did not answer.
His jaw tightened slightly, but he did not step back.
Shen Zihao moved forward instead, each step closing the distance between them.
As he did, the air grew heavier, the pressure increasing until it was no longer the air. But his pheromones pushed into the space between them.
"Was it fun messing with me?" he said again, voice lower now, controlled but strained at the edges. "Tang Xiaoyu," he added, then corrected it without looking away, "or should I say Xue Guiying."
The name landed and stayed there.
Guiying’s fingers curled once before relaxing again at his side, a small movement that stopped as quickly as it started.
Shen Zihao’s eyes dropped briefly to the ring on Guiying’s hand, then lifted again.
"You don’t mind being with him," he said. "So you can be with me too." His gaze stayed steady. "There’s no difference between us. We are both Alphas. We are both wealthy."
He stopped closer now, within reach, but did not touch him.
"Divorce Liu Liuxian," he said, "and marry me."
A pause.
"The way it should have been from the beginning."
Guiying lips curved up, as a laugh escaped them.
He could feel the rage bubbling up inside him.
If only he wasn’t an illegitimate child.
If only he wasn’t an Omega.
Then Shen Zihao wouldn’t stand in his front and utter such bullshit.
"Divorce him and marry you? Why the hell would I leave him and get together with an animal like you?" Guiying crossed his arms and took another step back.
"It would be an embarrassment to my husband.."
