Dare? "What wouldn’t he dare?"
"Back then, he was already talking about marriage with Xiao Jing, but in the end, he came to visit us and ended up getting hooked up with Xiao Lei."
"Think about it, what’s so good about Xiao Lei?"
"Can you guarantee that Ho Zhen, that kid, didn’t set his sights on Xiao Lei just because of our family’s background?"
"What if one day, a woman with better qualifications appears by his side, and she’s interested in him, too? Just think about what he would do."
They’re all men, they definitely know each other’s vices, "If Xiao Lei could snatch away Ho Zhen, someone else could just beckon with their finger and snatch him away just as easily."
"What does Xiao Lei have?"
"Education? Job? Gentleness? Virtue? The ability to flatter?"
"It’s not that I look down on Huang Lei, but she really has nothing."
"I’m not being heartless, but without us, who can she rely on?"
"Huang Jing can say she doesn’t rely on family, but can Huang Lei do the same?"
Huang Lixin knew that to stop Zhang Xiaoya from always keeping an eye on him, he had to greatly exaggerate the tough times Huang Lei would face in the future.
Only then could he prevent Zhang Xiaoya from siding with Huang Lei. A single grumble from him wouldn’t stay in her mind, but if he mentioned it often enough, she would have to take it into consideration.
Zhang Xiaoya, hearing these words again, also fell into contemplation, "I’ve been thinking, after Xiao Lei has the baby, she won’t go back to work for at least two years. I’ll have to work harder."
"Over there, in the big city, there are plenty of jobs and the pay is good, but it’s busy. You know what kind of girl Xiao Lei is."
Listening to Zhang Xiaoya’s words, which seemed to consider Huang Lei’s well-being, she knew better than anyone the taste of being without money.
Huang Lei likes to wear nice things and use quality items, isn’t Zhang Xiaoya the same?
Without money, they could only look and satisfy their cravings or just try things on once or twice, but these were experiences she had when she was young.
Why must she return to such a life now that she’s about to retire? Zhang Xiaoya couldn’t accept it.
Once this decision was taken, Huang Lixin felt overjoyed inside. It sounded like he was thinking of Huang Lei, but the reality of the situation was something only Zhang Xiaoya knew.
"It’s good you’ve made your decision, but if you take care of Xiao Lei, won’t she get angry?" Huang Lixin was in no rush; he had to work and, as a man, it was impossible to expect him to take care of someone in confinement.
"Xiao Lei said she wants to go to a postpartum care center."
"Since she wants to go, then we’ll send her to stay for two months."
"As for the money, I’ll pay." Zhang Xiaoya knew that asking Huang Lixin to pay tens of thousands would certainly meet with his refusal.
Since that was the case, she might as well earn the money and pay for this kinship. "After the baby is born, we’ll hire a nanny."
Indeed, she had been foolish to think about taking care of her herself and had forgotten Xiao Lei’s temperament, which wasn’t easy to deal with.
Truly taking care of Huang Lei would be exhausting to death and wouldn’t even earn her thanks. Thus, it would be better to spend money on a nanny. Anything that could be solved with money wasn’t a problem in the first place.
"If you’ve decided, then it’s settled." Huang Lixin repeated his words, yawned, and turned over to rest.
Huang Lei was sulking in her room, and what made her even angrier was seeing the university group chat buzzing with discussions about where to go for the May Day holiday.
Then someone popped up saying they were getting married, and everyone sent their blessings, asking where they planned to honeymoon.
Huang Lei would normally join in and comment, but now she didn’t dare to speak up. Some classmates knew she was getting married and would refute her later by asking where she was holding the banquet and where she planned to honeymoon. What could she do?
In the past, she would have all sorts of expectations, dreaming about how her wedding should be, where to honeymoon, and truly making one look forward to marriage.
But now, when she asked Ho Zhen where they would honeymoon, his response was blunt, saying there was no money; wherever they went, it would be her paying.
She was willing to pay, but the money she had was provided by Huang Lixin and his wife. Due to the house matters, there was no money left for them to go abroad to honeymoon in the Maldives.
They didn’t even have enough to honeymoon in Southeast Asia. Huang Lei looked at the classmate in the group about to get married, whose honeymoon was amazingly set in Europe.
The key point was that their trip was a real honeymoon, planning to stay there for a whole month.
Seeing everyone’s reaction in the group, it was unanimous: apart from envy, jealousy, and hate, even Huang Lei herself felt the same.
Just then, Huang Lei saw someone in the group mentioning her, talking about her upcoming wedding and where she might honeymoon, wondering if she, too, would go to Europe and America for a month.
Huang Lei thought if she stayed quiet and just lurked, nobody would talk about her, but even though she hadn’t spoken up, someone still brought her up.
Truly, there was a moment when she really wanted to jump out and ask, "Do you find enjoyment in watching people’s misfortune?"
But even though she typed her response out, she ended up deleting it, knowing that if she actually spoke up, so many would mock her.
As she pondered what to do, dozens more messages piled up in the group chat, and Huang Lei knew they were mocking her; she really didn’t want to scroll up and read them.
She didn’t scroll back through the messages, but the chat box kept jumping with everyone’s talking voices.
The general consensus was that her fiancé wasn’t very impressive. If she was marrying well, she would have already been showing off in the group about the proposal, the designer brand wedding dress, whether the marital home was a villa or a big house, and how luxuriously furnished it was.
There were also discussions on which star-rated hotel the wedding would be held at, how lavish the ceremony was going to be, and where the honeymoon would take place; all were expected to be flaunted.
As for the groom, one must indeed show off whether he was a rising young talent, someone from a second-generation fortune, or an heir to a wealthy family.
According to what Huang Lei’s classmates insinuated, that would be the level of her marriage prospects.
Huang Lei looked at everyone’s discussion, sighing softly. If possible, she, of course, would also wish for such a treatment.
Yet, no male that met her standards existed; it’s not that there were none who met her criteria, but those who did didn’t fancy her.
Otherwise, why would she have set her heart on Ho Zhen? Yet the result was that such a carefully chosen man turned out to be worthless.
With no other choice, Huang Lei could only quit the class group chat, unable to continue watching; if she did, she felt she might break down.
What saddened her more was that the classmate about to get married, who frankly wasn’t pretty and had a bad figure, not to mention a lesser family background than hers, unexpectedly managed to marry into a wealthy family and lead such a great life.
Huang Lei took a deep breath, "Don’t get angry, don’t get angry."
"Let them mock, the life I live is my own."
"A wealthy family isn’t that great to live in; once inside, you become a baby-making machine, a make-belief housekeeper, while the man continues to play around."
Huang Lei had seen too many such couples, and precisely because she had witnessed so much of this, she gave up on marrying into a wealthy family.
It may look glamorous, but no one knows just how bitter the reality can be unless they’ve lived it.
Huang Lei, lying in bed, began to wonder how Huang Jing was doing now.