“That’s enough. I’ll pretend that I don’t know what you and Mother did,” Helan Fangnian interrupted, frustrated. “Xiuse… As a woman, first, you must be kind; second, you must be composed…”
Helan Xiuse’s eyes reddened. “You tell me to be kind, but what about Qingsi?” she said. “She’s so rotten. How could you still like her?”
Helan Fangnian paused to look at Helan Xiuse for a while. “She’s not rotten… She was once the kindest girl in the world,” he said, expression stony. “She went through things that you have never experienced, and you wouldn’t want to experience. Her character today was forcefully shaped by the people around her. Don’t compare your circumstances to hers.”
Helan Xiuse blinked; tears streamed down her cheeks. She calmed down and extended a hand to clutch onto Helan Fangnian’s. “I’m sorry, Brother,” she said. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t be comparing myself to Qingsi. Please don’t be mad at me.”
“You’re all grown up. When it comes to Mother’s words, you have to learn to differentiate between the right and the wrong yourself,” Helan Fangnian sighed. “Listen to what should be right, but you cannot heed her words when they are wrong.”
Helan Xiuse nodded. “Okay.
“But Mother said that we have to invite Mrs. Yue and Tingfeng to the charity auction dinner. But we don’t know if they’ll go. What should we do?”
“It’s their choice to go or not. We don’t have a right to dictate their decision.”
“Okay…”
…
Only the trio was left in the living room. Yan Qingsi quietly ate a slice of watermelon. “Aren’t you going to talk to me?”
Yue Tingfeng cleared his throat. “Hmm, we should be talking, eh? Mom, let’s not go to this charity dinner. There’s no point in going.”
Mrs. Yue nodded her head in agreement. “I agree. Let’s not go.”
Yan Qingsi cast a side-glance at Yue Tingfeng. “Don’t think that I’m stupid.”
Yue Tingfeng rubbed his nose. “It’s nothing. It’s none of my business anyway. I’ll tell you what happened…”
He told Yan Qingsi what happened during the night before he went to Hai city when he encountered Helan Fangnian. “And that’s what happened,” he said. “I never touched a single hair on her head from beginning to end. Later I saw right through that little scheme she pulled at the door, so I didn’t fall from it from the start. But I didn’t do anything though. It’s strange that those two siblings apologized.”
Yan Qingsi and Mrs. Yue both looked at Yue Tingfeng, silent.
Yue Tingfeng shivered under the two’s stares. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m telling the truth. It has absolutely nothing to do with me.”
Yan Qingsi reached out to pinch Yue Tingfeng’s chin. “Gee… How did I not notice that you were this attractive?”
Yue Tingfeng grabbed Yan Qingsi’s hand. “Don’t speak such nonsense. I don’t think she likes me. She just wants to sabotage me.”
Mrs. Yue’s expression darkened.
Yue Tingfeng noticed it. “Mom, what’s wrong?” he asked.
Mrs. Yue slammed a hand on the table. “Zhang Suya—that b*tch. She tried to sabotage even you—I won’t let her get away with it. We’ll go to that charity dinner. We must.”
“Mom – You—”
“You idiots,” Mrs. Yue huffed coldly. “And you call yourselves clever. It’s so obvious that she wants to blame you for everything, then marry her daughter off into the Yue family. This scheme has been used so often it’s getting dull.”
Mrs. Yue knew, not because she was clever enough, but because Mrs. Helan happened to use this ruse before. That was why… Mrs. Yue remembered it so clearly.
However, Mrs. Helan only told her daughter to probe around this time. She was not really scheming.
Still, who knew if the real deal would come later?