There was an awkward silence the moment Li Chuntao entered Mu Jianyu"s apartment, the very same one he shared with Ying. Looking around, Li Chuntao wasn"t surprised by the elegant taste of the interior design which she a.s.sumed was her twin sister"s work. Everything around her painfully reminded her of Ying and why she was here pretending to be her. To live as Ying, to lure out the person responsible for her death, Li Chuntao had to cast aside her life for her twin sister"s sake.
A huge wedding portrait hung in the living area, catching the eyes of anyone who visited the place. In it, they seemed like a happy couple, ready to start a new chapter of their life. It would have been their 5th year of marriage if not for the "pending" divorce and Ying"s death.
"Ying?" Mu Jianyu"s voice reached Li Chuntao"s ears. She"d been standing in front of the portrait for a while now. "What is it? Did you recall anything?"
It would be nice if she started remembering some of their happy memories. He barely made any progress in getting on her good graces and he was hoping she would come back to him eventually.
It took Li Chuntao several seconds before she broke in her trance. She might be missing Ying too much because she couldn"t look away from her sister"s smiling face. She couldn"t even remember when was the last time she saw Ying smile.
"Nothing," she responded. "I just think we looked happy before."
Of course, she knew Ying was really happy that day. In Li Chuntao"s opinion, Ying was the most beautiful bride she"d seen in her life, coupled with her wide smile on her wedding day, Li Chuntao prayed in her heart that Ying would always be this happy but who would have thought that this b.a.s.t.a.r.d would crush her hopes?
"We were," Mu Jianyu admitted too easily which Li Chuntao took advantage of.
"We were?" She blinked curiously. "Does that mean we were really not on good terms before my accident?"
"Ah, Mu Jianyu. How could you be this stupid?"
Mu Jianyu wanted to smack himself for being stupid. Ying had just come home after weeks of trying to convince her to move back in with him. Why the h.e.l.l was he giving her a reason to suspect his extramarital affair.
"It"s normal for married couples to argue once in a while, Ying, but we were trying our best to work things out,"
"Ahh," Li Chuntao nodded but didn"t say anything, a reaction that Mu Jianyu had been forced to endure since he discovered about her memory loss. His wife was rarely this silent whenever she was in his company.
In his memory, Ying was a cheerful and kind woman who could always lighten the mood and brighten someone"s day with her warm smile. Mu Jianyu wasn"t used to this indifferent treatment he was receiving from Ying right now.
Had Li Xiuying always been like this before she met him? He had no idea and he couldn"t exactly blame her. Ying must be having a hard time convincing herself to accept the reality that she was married, but not with Shen Zichen.
A woman came with her today, claiming to be her personal maid that will look after her needs from now on. Mu Jianyu wasn"t pleased that the Li family wasn"t making it easy for him to mend his relations.h.i.+p with Ying.
It was pretty obvious that this woman wasn"t just a simple maid that the Li family planted her in his own home. He would need to be careful around her and Ying from now on.
Li Chuntao continued to look around. The books, artworks, and photos her twin had left behind were on display. Mu Jianyu"s house felt like a s...o...b..x to her compared to her huge apartment overseas and to her penthouse, but she supposed this place was large enough for the two of them.
As if sensing her thoughts, Mu Jianyu couldn"t help but comment. It wasn"t lost to him how Ying squinted her eyes whenever she looked at something that got her attention.
"I know it"s not as big and luxurious as your place but we"ve been living here together for years,"
Li Chuntao stopped when she reached the bookshelf in the living area. A photo frame caught her attention and picked it up. It was a photo of her and Ying during their eighteenth birthday. Both were wearing two identical evening dresses, the only thing differentiating them was the colors they were wearing.
Ying was wearing a pristine white dress with a long tailback while Chuntao was the pitch-black version.
"My sister… have you met her?" Li Chuntao was suddenly curious as to how Mu Jianyu perceives her as Ying"s twin sister.
"Your sister Chuntao?" Mu Jianyu wasn"t expecting that Ying would ask him about her sister. "Honestly, I"ve only met her once, and that was during our wedding. I remember she specifically dyed her hair so people wouldn"t be confused about who"s who between the two of you."
Li Chuntao hummed and nodded. What he said was true. After moving overseas, she only came back to attend Ying"s wedding and was forced to be reconnected with Shen Zichen after two years of not having any communication between them.
For those two years, Li Xiuying was the only one who had direct contact with her. Even Li Yuren and Zheng Yue weren"t able to reach her. She didn"t think she would be able to tell them her grievances and pain during those two years of absence and she was sorry for making them worry for too long.
"So you don"t know what she"s like?" She raised a brow at Mu Jianyu. She was reminded of how Qin Linfeng was aware of her existence and was able to recognize her while Mu Jianyu couldn"t.
Mu Jianyu shrugged and buried his hands in his pocket. He never got a chance to be familiar with his wife"s twin sister after all. The woman he"d met years ago shared his wife"s face but the first impression he had of Li Chuntao was like a ticking bomb that he had no idea how to deal with.
Li Chuntao"s impa.s.sive face reminded him of Li Yuren"s indifference. It wasn"t like she was looking down on him, it was more like she was trying to see past his mask. It made him uncomfortable and wary of his sister-in-law, that is why he never bothered to get familiar with Li Chuntao.
"Is that so? My sister… She"s my twin, so she is obviously the closest person to me. Why did you never try to befriend her?"
"It"s not that I don"t want to," Mu Jianyu was starting to feel the sweat trickling down his neck as Ying continued to question him. "There was no opportunity for me and your sister to get to know each other," which was true.
However, he didn"t think he and Li Chuntao would get along well even if she was Ying"s sister. Being with her felt like there was a tigress watching his every move and he didn"t like it one bit. He didn"t know if it was because the Li family was suspicious of him or Li Chuntao was just overprotective of Ying.
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