It was an hour later when He Haotian found Lu Xinyi at the garden in the inn, leaning at her husband and murmuring words to each other. She didn’t say anything after her win earlier, but he could tell that she was exhausted and chose Shen Yi’s company than to talk about it.
Shen Yi was the first one to notice his presence before telling his wife. Lu Xinyi frowned and lifted her head to look at He Haotian’s direction.
“You two should talk. Call me if you’re ready to go.” Shen Yi placed a chaste kiss on her forehead before leaving the two at the garden.
There was an awkward silence between them once Shen Yi was out of sight. They stared at each other, trying to figure out what was running on their minds. Lu Xinyi broke the gaze and hugged Shen Yi’s jacket tightly to her small body to fend off the coldness of the night.
“I’ve only seen you as a newborn baby before. Who would have thought that the second time I’ll see you, you’re already a married woman.” He Haotian lit up a cigarette and looked up at the dark sky lit by tiny specs of stars.
“My father mentioned you twice. At least now, I can put a face to your name.” Lu Xinyi commented. Her body was aching. She felt like the past events since Silver Leaf’s examination had started affecting her health. She hadn’t really got a good rest except for momentarily resting with her husband after the festival.
“Are you sure you still want to attend Silver Leaf?”
“I don’t understand why you are insisting for me not to attend it. Shouldn’t you be supportive of me? Not only I prove to you that I can cook, but I can also rely on my taste buds.”
He Haotian gave her a side glance before shaking his head. “It’s not that I’m doubting your ability, Xin’er.”
Lu Xinyi blinked. She didn’t expect him calling her affectionately. In all honesty, this was the first time she met an acquaintance of her father. Never in her dreams did she think that the friend his father talking about was this popular chef. Now she wondered how deep his connections within the culinary world were. Was he really that great that these people revere his name?
“What do you mean?”
“The Sun family. They’ll never leave you in peace especially now that you chose to step into the limelight.” He replied, puffing the smoke out of his lungs and tapping the end of his cigarette to remove the ash.
Lu Xinyi snorted. So it ended up leading to that wretched family. “Either way, they’ll not leave me alone. Why not chose to piss them off while claiming achievements that they could never brag?”
After all, her mother had been removed from the family line when she refused the arranged marriage that Chairman Sun prepared for her. It was only because Lu Xinyi was born legally as a Sun granddaughter that the old man sought her out.
“Ah, that despicable family. You should be wary of them, Xin’er. While it’s true that they cannot use you for their own good, it’s also the fact that they wouldn’t allow anyone to have you as their advantage.”
Lu Xinyi squinted her eyes. Did he mean that the Sun family would take their anger out on her husband’s family? Would her marriage to Shen Yi be the last straw between the two families?
“How do you know about these? Did my father tell you about it?” She could sense the deep disdain in He Haotian’s eyes when he brought up the Sun family.
Instead of answering her question directly, He Haotian’s lips twitched and answered her with another question.
“Have you ever wondered why your mother, Sun Meixiu, the fourth miss was the legitimate miss of the family and not her first sister, Sun Mingai?”
Lu Xinyi shook her head. The thought had crossed her mind when she was a teenager, but she never found a logical reason as to why Chairman Sun had older children before having her mother.
“There are rumors about Chairman Sun’s affair. He refused to divorce his wife but kept his other woman and had children with her. Your mother had the same age as his youngest son.”
Lu Xinyi pursed her lips. This was something she couldn’t understand. Why didn’t Chairman Sun divorce and leave her grandmother if he didn’t love her anymore and even chose to cheat on her? Why kept both women when he could only have one?
“You might not know about this, but your maternal grandmother was from the Tang family. Their marriage kept the connection between the two families alive. Your mother had confessed this to me and your father…” On this, He Haotian hesitated a bit, and his eyes darted up to see Lu Xinyi’s confused reaction.
“Contrary to the public’s belief, Chairman Sun wasn’t the one who started the affair.”
Lu Xinyi gasped, her hands covering her mouth in surprise. “Do you mean to say my grandmother…?”
“No—” He cut her off, “Your grandmother was the one proposed to get another woman to bear his children because she couldn’t give him one at that time.”
Lu Xinyi blinked several times. She opened her mouth to reply, but she was lost for words. Who in the right mind would let her husband sleep with another woman? Her grandmother allowed it? She hadn’t really thought of that possibility, but what did it have to do with her attending Silver Leaf?
“There wasn’t really a problem until his wife got pregnant with your mother unexpectedly. The children from his mistress had started to fight aggressively for their rights and tried to subdue your mother.”
“So what does it have to do with me? That was all in the past.”
“Xin’er, there’s no such thing as coincidence when two of his children died in a span of one year.”