Pampered by My Ex's Cousin-Chapter 648 - 640: Maternal Coercion (Part 4)
...
Ji Anning and her group were involved in high-speed rail, and it took less than three hours to reach Hai City.
The press conference had already ended, and all the reporters and J.C.’s minority shareholders had left; the meeting room was deserted, save for the elderly patriarch sitting alone at the presentation table.
He was dressed in a proper suit, his graying hair neatly groomed.
His hands rested on the table, his back slightly hunched, his eyes cloudy as they looked at Ji Anning with a trace of worldly weariness.
Ji Anning’s heart suddenly softened a bit. She walked up to the elder, lowered her eyelids, and her long eyelashes flickered.
"Anning."
Ji Zhengdao stared at Ji Anning for a while before sighing and speaking, "Come and sit."
He patted the seat beside him, signaling to Ji Anning.
But Ji Anning didn’t approach; instead, she lifted her head to look at the elder, and asked indifferently, "Why did you give me the shares?"
Ji Zhengdao replied solemnly, "With them given to you, whether you end up with Jingfeng or not, the shares will still belong to the Ji family."
This explanation was far from satisfactory. Ji Anning frowned, "You could have given them to Ji Xiangting, Ji Ruoqian, Ji Mingyue... Why specifically me?"
Ji Zhengdao smiled. He said, "Because only by giving them to you is there at least a fifty percent chance they would end up in Chicheng’s hands."
Ji Anning was taken aback by his words.
Did this mean the elder was agreeing to her being with Chicheng?
Ji Zhengdao knew what she was thinking and said, "I don’t approve of you being with Chicheng. That’s just me taking a step back. If those thirty-two percent shares are in your hands, Yang Yufang will certainly use your nephew-uncle relationship with Chicheng to threaten you into marrying Jingfeng. If you can ignore the influence, if nothing else matters, there’s absolutely no need for you to care."
As he spoke, the elder suddenly changed the subject, "Of course, you have another option, which is to hand over the shares to Jingfeng, but unless I’m dead, you have no right to transfer them."
Indeed... she had thought too much. The elder was forcing her to make a choice, to confront it head-on.
Ji Anning gazed at Ji Zhengdao’s face, marked by the passage of time, and suddenly felt heartache, "If I am your actual granddaughter, then why push me into this maelstrom? Why be so cruel to me?"
"Chicheng is my everything. What I didn’t manage to give to his mother, I want to give to him," Ji Zhengdao declared, looking straight into Ji Anning’s tearful eyes.
Clear and resigned.
Ji Anning gave a cold laugh, "What you love is not actually him, but the love for his mother that you’ve forcibly placed upon him."
She had lost any warmth she felt towards this so-called grandfather.
After speaking, she turned and left without looking back.
This was the large conference room on the second floor of the J.C. building. Typically, there would be many people passing by the entrance, but it was very quiet since someone was standing guard at the door.
"Anning."
When Ji Anning was about to reach the elevator, a familiar voice suddenly called her from behind.
She paused, her fist trembling by her side, then clenched it tight and turned around.
Standing there expressionless, not moving an inch, watching her approach, hands clenching into fists even tighter.
’Yang Yufang will certainly use your nephew-uncle relationship with Chicheng to threaten you into marrying Jingfeng...’
Would she?
Ji Anning looked at Yang Yufang’s familiar face and asked herself inwardly.
She didn’t know. She couldn’t tell if the look Yang Yufang gave her was the one she recognized, realizing that her memory had become somewhat blurred.
