SGEIRS -Chapter 5 Irresponsible

After the guests had all dispersed, Gu Jingxi returned to his own courtyard, which was brightly lit.

He had drunk quite a bit that day and was already five or six parts drunk. Rubbing his temples, he glanced toward the main room and couldn’t help feeling how absurd everything was. Clearly, it was his son who was supposed to be getting married, yet through a series of accidents, he ended up marrying his future daughter-in-law himself.

This was the most outrageous thing he had done in his twenty-nine years of life. When Meng Jinyao had chosen him without hesitation and stubbornly insisted on marrying him, meeting her resolute gaze, he didn’t even know what he had been thinking. As if bewitched, he had agreed.

Meanwhile, Meng Jinyao had already removed her makeup and finished bathing and changing. She sat nervously in the room waiting. When she heard the door open, she loosened her tightly clenched hands and looked up, only to see the man walking toward her with a straight, pine-like posture and steady steps.

Without any onlookers watching now, her heart was no calmer than before. Forcing herself to appear composed, she stepped forward and fulfilled her duties as a wife, asking smoothly, “Husband, would you like to bathe first? I’ll have the maid prepare the water.”

She called him “husband” as naturally as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Gu Jingxi looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t expected her to remain so calm when facing him alone, without the slightest awkwardness, as if she had always meant to marry him rather than Xiuming. Instead, it was he, a grown man, who felt uncomfortable.

He replied lightly, “No need. I just came back to get a change of clothes. It’s late—you should rest first.”

Hearing this, Meng Jinyao frowned. Summoning her courage, she looked up at him. Seeing his indifferent expression, she asked, “Husband, so the men of the Gu family are irresponsible by inheritance?”

Gu Jingxi didn’t react at once. “What?” he asked.

Inside her sleeves, Meng Jinyao clenched her fists and then relaxed them. She accused him, “Your son eloped with someone else on his wedding day, and now you’re leaving your wife alone on the wedding night. Isn’t that like father, like son—an inherited irresponsibility?”

She knew Gu Jingxi was probably dissatisfied with being forced into marrying her and was deliberately keeping his distance. But whose fault was that? If he didn’t want to marry her, he should have canceled the engagement earlier, instead of letting her become a laughingstock on her wedding day and leaving her trapped in an impossible situation.

She didn’t think marrying her was some unforgivable crime. After all, it was the Gu family who had wronged her first, and Gu Jingxi himself had agreed at the time. Yet now, on their wedding night, he wanted to leave her alone. If word got out, how was she supposed to hold her ground in the household in the future?

Since he had married her, he should fulfill his responsibilities as a husband. Otherwise, he shouldn’t have married her at all. Besides, since Gu Jingxi wasn’t capable in that way, at most they would just sleep under the same blanket. She wasn’t afraid of sharing a bed with him.

Gu Jingxi understood her meaning and then smiled. With a casual tone, he said, “Before you married me, didn’t you know why I adopted a child from the clan?”

Seeing that he mentioned his condition so openly, Meng Jinyao guessed it was an open secret everyone tacitly understood. She also admired his composure—most men would probably feel humiliated or even fly into a rage.

Since he didn’t mind, she spoke frankly. “Husband only has a hidden illness. It’s not as if you have some strange disease that prevents you from sleeping with a woman. Besides, since I knew the situation and still chose to marry you without hesitation, how could I care about these things?”

After hearing this, Gu Jingxi shot her a strange look. He wondered if he was overthinking it, but it almost felt like she had chosen him precisely because he was incapable.

Thinking this, he frowned slightly.

Then he noticed a trace of barely perceptible grievance in his new wife’s eyes and froze. Being left alone on one’s wedding night was indeed something to feel wronged about. On top of everything that had happened that day, the fact that she hadn’t broken down crying was already a miracle.

In the end, he nodded, his tone softening a little. “Since Madam doesn’t mind, then have the maids prepare the water.”