Surrounded by the Billionaire's Deep Doting-Chapter 339 - 304: Different Lives in the Same Family 2
"I didn’t."
Zhu Lan was stunned, then stared blankly at him for a long time, tears sliding down from the corners of her eyes.
She was wrong...
She thought she also had no feelings for him.
But that’s not true.
She was just deeply hurt, just unwilling to be gradually abandoned by him...
She loved this man, her husband; no matter how bad her temper was, it was he who spoiled her that way.
He said he liked her to act spoiled like a child, liked how she always spoke her mind openly, liked her willfulness like a Miss...
Clearly, it was him who said those things...
When he loved her, all of her flaws were so endearing, so worth cherishing, so unique and different.
Now that he doesn’t love her...
The turnaround was so cold and decisive, it could freeze a person’s heart.
That was probably the first time Su Xiaomeng saw that ivory rod land on a person.
Three strikes...
Yin Shiqing didn’t strike very hard.
Everyone understood that hurting Zhu Lan wasn’t the goal; even if those three strikes landed gently on Zhu Lan...
To Zhu Lan, it felt like the Five Elements Mountain pressing down.
"Bowen, come inside with me, Grandpa has something to say to you."
After Zhu Lan took the three strikes, Yin Shaohui said to Yin Bowen, and then, supporting himself with a cane, he turned and headed upstairs with his heavy, aging body.
Yin Shiqing handed the ivory rod back to Housekeeper Lin.
Yin Bowen glanced at Yin Shiqing, and when Yin Shiqing nodded, Yin Bowen followed Yin Shaohui to the study.
In the living room, Zhu Lan lay on the ground, her head buried in her arms, no one could see her expression.
But her small shoulders shook slightly... unable to conceal her current pain and sadness.
Su Xiaomeng couldn’t bear it...
She got up and walked over to Zhu Lan, "Stand up, the ground is cold."
"I don’t need your kindness! Go away!"
"...You know I mean well, why not accept it?"
Zhu Lan lifted her head, her hair falling across her tear-streaked face.
The door to the house remained open, the room felt chilly, and her tear-streaked face blushed fiercely.
Xiao Meng still remembered the first time she met her, how proud and unreasonable she appeared.
Yin Bowen almost bumped into her, yet they seemed to have no remorse at all, the arrogant attitude was deeply detestable.
But she also remembered, they had a child, that child had a bad temper and poor character but was inherently kind-hearted.
That child would be very happy, and cautiously call her "Little Grandma."
That child liked Shuangshuang and Huang Huang very much.
That child... was only seven years old.
"Zhu Lan, did you do it or not, tell me."
Su Xiaomeng really despised Zhu Lan, truly despised her.
Zhu Lan never treated her like an elder akin to Yin Shixiu, not only that, because of her, Yin Bowen was suspended, even detained by the police station.
Yet even so, Zhu Lan had no apology, no regret towards her.
She knew, such a woman was really terrible! And her husband wasn’t much better!
But...
That seven-year-old boy had only this one mother.
Su Xiaomeng couldn’t bear to see a child lose his mother or lose his father just like that.
Moreover, given the influence of the Yin Family, plus Zhu Lan wronged Yin Bowen and would be kicked out,
losing a mother was far more probable than losing a father.
"Did you do it or not?"
Zhu Lan looked at Su Xiaomeng, finding her ridiculous, her expression was so annoying, yet tears continued to flow from her eyes.
She understood more than anyone...
Receiving three strikes and being expelled meant...
She would lose her son.
"Zhu Lan, did you do it or not?"
Su Xiaomeng asked again, while Yin Shiqing beside her turned cold, suddenly speaking, "Sister-in-law, you’re meddling a bit too much."
"We’re all part of the Yin family, asking a few more questions, how does that count as meddling too much?"
Su Xiaomeng raised her eyes to Yin Shiqing, her voice also cold.
She didn’t like Zhu Lan, but she liked Yin Shiqing even less!
In Su Xiaomeng’s mind, this elder brother named Yin Shiqing was like a ticking time bomb, nobody knew when he would explode.
"Furthermore, she’s also your daughter-in-law, she gave your family a grandson. For so many years, if not merits, she at least has endured hardship. Yet those three strikes... you could actually deliver them?"
"Deep love, severe responsibility. Sister-in-law, how do you know I don’t feel any pain in my heart?"
Come on, the way you protect your son, you’d love nothing more than to clear him completely of this matter!
Little Mengxin inwardly criticized, thinking that the middle-aged man before her, behind that smiling face, hid the fangs of a wolf, the eyes of a demon.
"If you truly felt pain, at the very least you should ask your daughter-in-law a few more questions, it’s not like you caught the adultery yourself, your son did! How can you be so certain?"
"It seems..."
Yin Shiqing’s gaze slid from Su Xiaomeng to Yin Shixiu, "Sister-in-law holds quite a prejudice against me!"
"Big brother, don’t be so obvious in protecting your son. If you weren’t, Xiao Meng might not have such a strong prejudice against you."
Yin Shiqing chuckled lightly, "I’m afraid even if I didn’t protect Bowen, my sister-in-law’s prejudice against me wouldn’t be any less."
Yin Shixiu raised an eyebrow, presenting an indifferent expression.
Yin Shiqing’s eyes turned cold, and in an instant, a blade-like blue light flashed through them as he glanced at Yin Shixiu, then turned with his wife to leave.
Su Xiaomeng tried to get Zhu Lan to stand up, but Zhu Lan seemed determined to defy her, shaking her hand repeatedly.
"Only a sinner needs to stay kneeling like this!"
"I am a sinner!!"
Su Xiaomeng took a deep breath; at this moment, she didn’t know what to do either...
She wasn’t trying to absolve Zhu Lan.
She knew in her heart...
Yin Bowen’s accusations against Zhu Lan were close to the truth.
But the matter had happened, and sitting on the floor crying like this wouldn’t solve anything.
"I am a sinner!!"
Zhu Lan shouted again, hitting the floor with her hand, each thump resonating with the despair in her heart.
"But... didn’t Yin Bowen abandon me first? Why is it that he can leave me, but I can’t find someone else?!"
"Why... sob sob..."
"I’m a sinner... isn’t he also one? Sob sob... Why must I bear the consequences? Why... can he continue being the young master of the Yin family, while I must leave with nothing?"
"My son is still so young... sob sob..."
Su Xiaomeng pressed her lips tightly, "If you had thought about Yin Junjie earlier, this wouldn’t have happened at all."
"What do you know!"
Zhu Lan glared at her, "What do you know! You think Yin Shixiu will always treat you this well? You think... you think you can trust a man’s words!"
With a distorted face, Zhu Lan roared crazily like a mad lion, spewing spit mixed with tears.
"You’re young now, you’re beautiful now, so he’s good to you... but what about later? Haha..."
"When wrinkles start forming on your face, when mundane matters turn you into a housewife, when you’re tied down by kids with no energy left for yourself, that’s when... you’ll realize that everlasting love never truly existed in this world!"
"It never existed!!"
After Zhu Lan finished shouting, the living room fell silent...
Su Xiaomeng stared at Zhu Lan in a daze.
The words she spoke were the kinds of things many girls would say after becoming women, then wives... 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
How could Su Xiaomeng not know that eternal love, undying devotion, seemed like something only heard of but never seen?
People admire it, people long for it, yet no one can ever depict it vividly.
But—
Su Xiaomeng was just a bit luckier.
Eternal love, she had seen it, she had felt it...
"Do you know? My mom is over forty this year, and my dad is in his forties too. They’ve been together for over twenty years, and still love each other like they did at first sight."
"Heh... how do you know they’re still in love? Maybe they’re just putting on a show for you!"
Zhu Lan scoffed.
Su Xiaomeng wasn’t angry; she just continued calmly, "Just recently, my dad got attacked by some enemies, was chopped and sent into the operating room for almost ten hours, and even then his life was uncertain."
"That night... my mom wrote a will."
This was something Su Xiaomeng hadn’t even told Yin Shixiu before.
She couldn’t describe what she felt when she found that tear-stained will under her dad’s pillow...
Yin Shixiu fixed his gaze on Su Xiaomeng, half-squatting as she spoke with Zhu Lan.
He had a momentary sense of daze, seeing this petite figure slowly settle...
"I feel they are not right, to be honest... from my perspective, I don’t understand, at least not now..."
"If there comes a day when Shixiu dies, I don’t know if I would have the courage to follow him..."
Su Xiaomeng was speaking the truth.
In this world, no one is indispensable to another’s survival.
Until that day comes, no one knows what choice they will make.
She loves Yin Shixiu very much, there’s no doubt about that, but... Does she love him enough to die with him?
She dared not say.
Yin Shixiu listened quietly.
Su Xiaomeng never lied; she was speaking her true feelings.
The night Su Chengji’s life was uncertain, he didn’t know Su’s mother wrote a will.
Now he knew, he could imagine the bitterness Xiao Meng felt upon finding the will.
As a daughter, her deepest feeling was probably that she had been abandoned by her parents...
If Su Xiaomeng passed away...
Would he unhesitatingly follow her in life or death?
It’s hard to reach a conclusion; until that time comes, he has no answer.
But the only thing he’s certain of is...
In this life, he will only fall in love with this one person.
In the coming decades, so long that no one can see the road ahead.
But he just knew, besides Su Xiaomeng, he wouldn’t fall in love with anyone else.
If one day Su Xiaomeng disappeared, perhaps the heart in his left chest would turn to glass...
"But my mom loved my dad so much, she left home for a strange city for twenty years."
"My dad loved my mom so much, the first thing he said when he woke up was... ’With you here, I’m going nowhere.’"
