Chapter 12 — When the House Cheers
Lin Jingran returned to the Lin residence like a man who had been robbed.
His face was pale. His eyes were red at the rims, not from tears but from rage pressed too tightly behind them.
He stormed into the main hall and demanded his horse.
“I”m going to the yamen,“ he snarled. ”I“ll get an answer. I”ll
Before he could step out, his father’s guards moved like a wall.
His mother’s voice cut through the hall, sharp with disbelief.
“Enough!”
Lin Jingran froze, turning as if he couldn’t believe the sound came from her.
Lin Madam strode forward, her silk sleeves swaying with controlled fury. She didn’t look frightened of her son. She looked annoyed, as if he had spilled tea on her best rug.
“What is this nonsense?” she demanded. “You have been dragging that girl for years. Now she”s gone, and you“re acting like the heavens collapsed?”
Lin Jingran’s mouth opened, then closed.
His father’s expression remained stony.
“Lock him in,” Lin Father said curtly.
Two servants stepped in, strong arms taking hold.
Lin Jingran jerked, struggling like a boy, not a man.
“Let go!” he snapped. “You don”t understand!
They hauled him toward his room.
His mother followed, voice turning brisk in the way women spoke when solving household problems.
“This is good news,” she said, as if explaining to a stubborn child. “Rain has cleared. She”s finally stopped clinging. The house can breathe.
The phrase struck Lin Jingran like a slap.
He twisted to glare at her. “You”re happy?
“Of course I”m happy,“ Lin Madam said, unbothered. ”You always said you disliked her. You always said you wanted her to give up. Now she has. Isn“t that what you wanted?”
“I never said” Lin Jingran began.
But his mother cut him off with a dismissive wave.
“Now,” she continued, already moving on, “I know you like Miss Wan”er. She hasn“t married yet. I will send matchmakers tomorrow.”
Lin Jingran’s face went blank.
Wan—er.
The name he had used as an excuse, a weapon, a reason to punish me.
His stomach turned.
He opened his mouth again, but the servants shoved him into his room and slammed the door.
A lock clicked.
He stood there, breathing hard, hands clenched, staring at the wood as if he could burn through it.
Outside, the hall filled with soft, relieved murmurs.
Servants whispered with the giddy ease of people released from watching an unpleasant situation.
“Young Master must feel strange,” one said, voice almost cheerful. “He”s lost someone who served him for free.
“Of course,” another replied. “He”s not used to being without her.
“Good riddance,” someone muttered, then quickly dressed it in politeness. “She never fit this house.”
“She was always too poor,” another added with a sniff. “How could she become our young mistress?”
Their words floated through the door like smoke.
Lin Jingran slid down the wood, back hitting it with a dull thud.
For years, he had made his contempt obvious.
So obvious that everyone around him treated it as law.
No one had stopped him.
No one had questioned him.
They had all watched him drag me and laughed along.
And now, when he finally wanted to reach out
the house cheered.
His fingers dug into his palm until pain flared sharp.
"When did it become this?" he thought wildly. "When did I lose her?"
A voice, quieter than the rest, drifted to the crack beneath the door.
It was his personal attendant.
“Young Master,” the man said softly, as if afraid to be overheard, “stop.”
Lin Jingran“s breath hitched. ”Open the door.
The attendant didn’t.
He spoke through the wood, voice strained with something like pity.
“You can”t fix this by shouting at the yamen,“ he said. ”You can“t fix it by demanding she return.”
Lin Jingran“s throat tightened. ”Why are you taking her side?
The attendant inhaled slowly.
“Because she suffered,” he said simply. “Because you made her suffer.”
Lin Jingran’s eyes burned.
“She pawned everything she brought,” the attendant continued, words spilling now as if he had been holding them for years. “Her wedding dress. Her shoes. Her bracelet.”
Lin Jingran went still.
“She wrote at night to earn coins,” the attendant said. “The bookshop pressed her price down because they knew she had no backing. She didn”t even light a candle. She wrote by moonlight.
The images struck like blows.
Lin Jingran’s mouth opened, but no sound came.
“Her eyes”“ the attendant”s voice roughened. “Her eyes have gotten worse. From all that strain.”
Silence swallowed the room.
The lock on the door suddenly felt like a coffin lid.
The attendant’s voice softened, almost pleading.
“She has nothing left to wait with, Young Master,” he said. “Nothing.”
Pain rose in Lin Jingran’s chest like a knife turned slowly.
He bent forward, breathing hard, as if the air itself had become too heavy.
For the first time, he saw the shape of his own cruelty clearly.
Not as a joke.
Not as a game.
As a chain of small choices that had pushed me out of his reach.
His laughter on the river, his promises in the corridor, his contempt in the academy hall
all of it came back, each word now a needle.
He pressed his forehead to the wooden door and shook.
A sound tore out of him, half-breath, half-sob.
And for the first time, Lin Jingran understood something terrifying:
He had always believed I would wait.
But waiting was not endless.
Waiting had a price.
And he had spent it all.