They Jilted the Broken Scholar, So I Married Him novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Release Paper

My mother laid the paper on the Lu family's table after supper, and nobody touched their tea.

It was the magistrate's yellow sheet, and it had a red seal at the bottom as big as a coin.

"This ends the marriage," my mother said. "Both families are named, and the reason is written: the term has run and the husband is no better. There is no blame on it for anyone."

Madam Lu sat very straight at the head of the table.

I sat across from her with my hands in my lap.

Chengzhi sat on the stool in the corner, drawing circles on the floor with a wet finger.

"Sign it, and you come home tonight," my mother said to me. "Your bed is made. Your father's blanket is on it."

"I'm not signing."

"I know you aren't." My mother pushed the brush across the table to me anyway. "I had to ask. I told myself I would ask once, with the paper in front of you, so you could not say afterward that I did not."

"Is he better?" Madam Lu said abruptly.

She was looking at my mother and not at me.

"Better than what?" my mother said.

"Than before. You were at the stall this morning. You saw."

"I saw him draw the word for person in the flour," my mother said slowly. "I saw a retired teacher cry into his noodles."

Madam Lu was quiet.

Then she folded her needle-roughened hands on the table, and I saw her take a breath that went all the way down.

"Lanxi," she said.

It was the first time she had said my name.

"Yes, Madam."

"On your wedding night I said something in the passage. About a noodle seller's girl." The color rose in her face, but her voice stayed level. "The paper doors in this house are thin. I have been told so by the maid."

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