Jing Sheng went to Mu Lin's room. The Head Butler the knocked the door first and then announced Jing Sheng's presence.
Jing Sheng sighed. It was just a meeting with mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. She didn't understand why the formalities were needed in their own house talking to their own family members. She couldn't understand these people.
A maid opened the door and Jing Sheng entered. Mu Lin was reading a fashion magazine. She didn't look at her daughter-in-law when she came inside.
Jing Sheng greeted her and said, "Mother-in-law, I heard that you asked for me."
Mu Lin elegantly closed the magazine and put it on the table and then she signaled the maid to move out. The maid went out of the room and closed the room politely.
Afterwards, Mu Lin calmly looked at her. "I did ask for you, but that was half an hour ago. What was more important to you other than your own mother-in-law?" Her voice was colder.
Mu Lin was an aristocrat lady. She was pampered since she was a child and her husband Mu Cheng gave in to her every tantrum. Thus she wasn't used to people be rude to her or never listen to her. She didn't like if someone younger than her was impolite to her. Especially when it was her own daughter-in-law. She felt humiliated.
Jing Sheng politely said, "Mother-in-law, Xiao Lan is suffering from fever and she wished to have some food cooked by me. When you asked for me, I was busy in cooking. It was almost done and I wanted to serve them by myself. That's why, I'm late. Please don't feel offended. That wasn't my intension.
"Intension? You knew the rules and regulation of the Mu Household. Knowing the rules, you broke them and you said that it wasn't your intention? You dared to break them when your future daughters-in-law are here. What will they learn from you? Are the rules and regulations joke to you?" Mu Lin was trembling in anger. As the elder of the household, she deeply cared for the rules.
But that wasn't the end. She continued, "And you cooked for Xiao Lan? You don't even like her. Not only I but also your father-in-law and husband saw that you wanted to hit her. Now you are showing that you cared for her. Why sudden change of heart?"
Who was Jing Sheng?
She was caged in this castle. Nobody cared for what she wanted. Everyone pushed their own opinions and judgments on her shoulder. She felt like a bird without wings, fish without fins, human without rights. She didn't feel like a human anymore.
Not until she met Mu Lan. That girl made her feel like a true mother, a real mother. Without politeness, without mannerism, Mu Lan embraced the heart of Jing Sheng. There as no boundary or wall between them unlike it was with her sons and herself.
Mu Lan made her remember what she was. She made her feel that she deserved to breathe, she deserved to be loved, she deserved to get her rights back, she deserved a normal family, she deserved to live like a normal human being.
She noticed how her son treated Mu Lan,. She also earned for it from her husband, but her husband didn't look at her like he was used to before. What could be more suffering than this one, her husband's heart was somewhere else and she could never have it.
So why should she suffer? Why should she act like a lady of the household? If she couldn't keep her husband for herself, if she couldn't love her children as she wanted to, then why were all the properties, money, jewelries, rules and regulations needed?
They weren't needed because she didn't want them.
If she couldn't cook for her own daughter-in-law when she was sickly in bed asking to eat her cooked food, what kind of mother-in-law was she? She couldn't even cook for her own son when they were sick. She felt so pathetic back then. She didn't want to feel it anymore.
So from now, she wouldn't care anymore.
Thus, Jing Sheng replied to her mother-in-law's question, "Because only Xiao Lan treated me as a normal woman. She treated me for who I really am. Not a wife of an aristocrat family, not a lady of a household. She saw me as a normal mother, a regular woman, a human being."
Mu Lin wanted to laugh at her answer, "Normal woman? You are the wife of Mu Jin, lady of the Mu Household. You are beyond a normal human being."
Jing Sheng tried her best to act normal. She wanted to burst in anger but she controlled herself. "If I can't take care of my own husband or my own children, then what's the use of a wife or a mother? I don't feel like a wife or a mother, let alone a human being."
Mu Lin couldn't help it anymore. She glanced at her daughter-in-law as if she was looking at a fool. "Why will you work when you have servants to do that for you?"
"Only aristocrat people think this way because they were born with silver spoon in their mouths. A regular woman like me wants to be with her husband and children in need, to help them to study, loves to cook for them and decorate her own house just like she wants, loves to take her children and husband to the amusement park when it's weekend." Jing Sheng's eyes became dreamy and yet wet at the same time.
Jing Sheng vented, "Alas! I didn't have that normal married life. I was only caged. I was caged in a castle where I could do nothing but only put on a mask that I'm happy when I'm not. My husband can think of other woman when I'm having tea parties. My husband can spend nights with girls when I sleep alone in the cold bed. I can't cook for my children when they beg me to cook for them. I can't do anything when my husband calls for other woman in his dreams. I don't want this sort of life anymore. I'm fed up."
Mu Lin asked, "What do you want then?"
"I want divorce."