"Won"t you talk to me?" Chen Linyun spared a side-glance at Xue Jinxu one morning while taking a bite off his sandwich. They were eating breakfast together, but Xue Jinxu did not pay him any mind.
That night they had not gotten into a resolution. Chen Linyun managed to evade the situation by postponing the discussion. The wife reluctantly relented out of tiredness, but nevertheless, she had made her position clear. That night, Chen Linyun was forbidden to sleep with her.
"I don"t want to see you, or be with you in the same place." Xue Jinxu said as she threw his pillow and a blanket at him.
"For real?" Chen Linyun"s face was crumpled like a shrunken fruit. "Honey…" He wrapped his arms around her as he rubbed her arms.
"Get your hands off me."
The husband stiffened and nodded. "As you wish."
He picked up the pillow and blanket and left for the guest room.
Currently, they were eating breakfast, seated across, but the lady was giving the husband a cold shoulder. He had been coaxing her with little nudges here and then, but she remained unfazed.
Aside from the infrequent clanking of the utensils, cold silence enveloped the sweethearts. They were in cold war.
Nurturing their own wounds in their own side of the table, both jerked when their respective train of thoughts was disrupted by the vibration coming from Chen Linyun"s smartphone. He just received a text message. The screen prompted an unknown number but Chen Linyun"s face turned sour.
"Who is it?" Xue Jinxu, not being able to reign her gossipy nature in, took a peep.
"Nothing." Chen Linyun brushed her off easily and even turned the cellphone upside down. Changing the subject, he pointed out, "So you"re talking to me now. Are we good?"
"Hmph." Xue Jinxu folded her arms under her bosom and glowered at her husband. "Is the issue at hand resolved already? Only then will we reconcile. Give me an answer."
"I already gave you an answer last night and it"s final. It"s a no." The husband wiped his mouth with the napkin on his lap. His face remained stoic, unnerved by the wife"s aggression.
"Because? Care to explain? I"m not dumb. I can understand it whatever it is." She pressed.
"She"s starting again." Chen Linyun"s brows met together in an involuntary scowl.
He exhaled sharply. "Alright. I got to go." He stood up and squeezed a kiss on her forehead hurriedly. "Hopefully when I come home later my tolerant wife is back."
"You"re evading!!!" Xue Jinxu flared and shouted at Chen Linyun"s shadow. "IS THAT AN ULTIMATUM???!!!"
The husband heard it alright, but he did not stop in his tracks nor turned around. He just raised his left hand in salutation.
"Dammit, Chen Linyun!"
The lady stood up as well and called the maids to clean up their breakfast before preparing to leave for her shop, furiously but helplessly though.
For days their cold war went on. And for days, Xue Jinxu observed, that Chen Linyun had been receiving anonymous texts and calls. Since they were still on cold war, she couldn"t worm her way towards her husband"s heart and coax him to spill the beans. She knew that something was off the moment she saw his reaction during breakfast the other day when he read the mysterious text message. In truth, their cold war was taking its toll on her and it was affecting her mood and her confidence. To add fuel to the fire, the mysterious texts and calls her husband receives did not help.
She was at her wits" end and was always extremely nerved out at the end of each pa.s.sing day. However, unlike the first night they quarreled, she had not once shed tears again. Instead, she spent sleepless nights getting agitated at the mysterious sender"s ident.i.ty.
"Is Chen Linyun cheating on me?" She even thought one night, while rolling and fiddling on her bed before sleepiness and exhaustion visited her.
One time when Chen Linyun was taking a shower, she took a peek on his phone"s call logs and jotted the number down. The problem was she discovered that there were lots of unknown numbers on his phone log. Which one was it? Or perhaps all of those numbers?
She even checked his inbox; however, no unknown foreign number was recorded. It seemed that Chen Linyun already deleted the messages from the mysterious sender. "Isn"t he secretive?"
It made Xue Jinxu feel more uneasy than before.
The wife tried to talk it out and asked Chen Linyun about her observation – him receiving quite interesting calls and texts from an unidentified number.
She asked nicely. "Linyun dear~", she started. "I know we aren"t in good terms now, but I"ve noticed, is something, or someone bothering you?" The wife murmured one night through their pillows when they were both lying down side-by-side on their matrimonial bed. She allowed her right hand to caress his chest and roam on it with the objective of making him feel home and not alone.
But.
In response, Chen Linyun grabbed Xue Jinxu"s hand in an apparently hurtful attempt to stop what she was doing, and retorted a simple, monotonic, robotic, "Nothing." He looked at her in the eyes for a moment before he turned his body facing the other side of the bed.
Xue Jinxu balled her fists and clenched it tight until her nails dug into her palms. It certainly hurt but it would never compare to how much her heart was hurting. Only her rage could compare to it. Furious, she scurried out of the master"s bedroom and slammed the door shut.
The more Chen Linyun refused it despite its evident nature, the more furious Xue Jinxu got.
She was silent all throughout the ordeal but in her mind, she was already las.h.i.+ng several profanities heading towards her husband"s way. "What does he think I am, just props in here, in his house?! Am I still a wife – his wife – in his eyes? Dammit! Darn! @#%#@ Ugh!!!"
As she poured her sentiments in her thoughts, she continued balling her fists and digging her nails into her palms. She seemed numb towards the pain in her palm.
"He doesn"t trust me. He doesn"t share with me anything. He doesn"t want me to enter his company. He wants distance!"
As she left the master"s bedroom, she settled into the guest room for the night.
"Maybe…" Several ideas come into her mind, but she shook all of those of it. It"s the devil"s advocate, adding fuel to the already burning furnace.
"No."
"But what if…"
"NO!!!"
She was furious but she was nowhere near tears.
Instead, she was angry beyond words.
Chen Linyun might have noticed, but he did not appear to have any plans of addressing it.