After the context of the matter was finally brought to light, John suddenly fell in deep contemplation.
Truth was, Nina had been calculatingly framed by Isabella.
After he had rashly given the video recording to the Zhang family, they must have sent people to make trouble for Nina. That would be the reason why she hit him with a vengeance at the hotel.
'She must hate me very much right now.'
"What should I do?" he asked, completely at a loss. John changed to a more comfortable sitting position and continued to brainstorm about how to make up for what he had done.
Henry knocked on the door and came in quietly, but John was too absorbed in this thoughts and didn't hear him.
"Mr. Shi?" Henry was already speaking loudly, but John still didn't take any notice of him. John looked so alarmingly depressed and Henry surmised correctly that John's worry did not stem from his business.
There was no difficulty in the company that John could not solve with confidence and ease. At present, there was only one person who could make John behave in an abnormal and unexpected manner.
And that was none other than Nina.
Henry was still having misgivings if he should tell John that Nina was actually his lawfully-wedded wife.
After having thought for a while, John came back to his senses. Caught unaware, he was surprised to see Henry standing in front of him. In a serious tone, he asked, "Have you solved the matter at hand?"
"Yes, but Mr. Glenn Zhang wants to see you," Henry quickly reacted and replied, unprepared by John's sudden question.
Henry had been working for John for a while now and he felt that he could always keep up with John's train of thought.
"No need. Tell him I won't see him," John replied cynically. "He dared to offend my family. It is obvious that he has not taken that into consideration. Tell the public that from now on, we will never cooperate with Zhang Group any longer."
"Yes, Mr. Shi." Henry nodded with respect and silently mourned for the Zhang family. From then onward, few people would ever dare to cooperate with Zhang Group again since the Shi family had announced that they would cut all collaboration with them and never cooperate with them anymore.
This would be the start of the inevitable bankruptcy of the esteemed Zhang family.
But he had a more pressing question. Was the family John referred to his nephew or Nina?
If he was referring to Nina, then now was the best time to divulge John the truth.
"Mr. Shi, I have something important to say, but I am not sure if I should say it," Henry probed.
"If you are not sure, then keep your mouth shut,"
John retorted impatiently. Sure enough, the reply from John was just as what Henry had expected. Disappointed, Henry left the room dejectedly after a short while.
Meanwhile, in the Zhang family mansion
Isabella's loud screams and lewd curses echoed all over the house.
"Ouch, it's so painful. Be gentle! I already told you several times to be gentle. Are you deaf or what?" Isabella chastised the middle-aged female doctor without regards to her age and forcefully kicked her away. "You're nothing but a quack doctor! Go away! I don't want to see you!"
Stunned, the doctor fell to the floor. The pain was so unbearable that she gritted her teeth in agony, and sweat dripped from her forehead.
'What an arrogant brat! If not for the high medical fee, I wouldn't tolerate her and take this job.'
"Miss Zhang, the medicine must be applied on your bruises. Otherwise it will be too painful and you will have a hard time sleeping tonight," the doctor calmly explained, stumbling as she stood up. Although she was fuming silently, she had no choice but to endure Isabella's bad attitude because she badly needed to receive the money.
Isabella raised her hand to cover her ugly swollen face, but stopped in midair. She didn't dare to touch it because even a slight touch would cause intolerable pain.
She swore that if she met Nina again, she wouldn't spare her even an ounce, and vindictively take revenge for the insult inflicted upon her today.
Seeing how enraged Isabella was, the female doctor trembled with fear. Would she take out her pent up anger on her?
A doctor's oath and duty was to save lives and heal the wounded. But now, being a doctor had become a high-risk profession. They were always at risk of being hurt by their violent, unreasonable patients.
The female doctor sighed deeply with regret. No matter how high the medical fee was, she decided she would never step foot in the Zhang family ever again. Exasperated, she gently coaxed Isabella, "Miss Zhang, let's apply some medicine. Only after applying medicine on your face can you recover fully."
Isabella viciously glared at the doctor impatiently and stormily threatened, "Be gentle, or I'll let you know the feeling yourself."
"I know." The doctor looked at Isabella and sat down, fearing for her safety. Then, she leaned over and carefully applied medicine to Isabella with trepidation. She observed Isabella's expression, all the while afraid that she would get into trouble if she unintentionally irritated Isabella again.
As she was about to finish applying the medicine, Amelia arrived in a huff.
"Where is Isabella? How is she now?
Isabella..." Amelia had not yet seen Isabella's condition and was looking for her.
She loved her daughter very much.
As soon as Amelia entered the room, she saw her daughter's red and swollen face, which had been covered with medicine by then. Isabella's eyes had already been red because of her incessant crying, and Amelia's heart broke in a million pieces.
"Isabella, my sweetheart. What's the matter? What happened?"
"Mom..." Isabella bawled even more loudly, her grief beyond words. As soon as Isabella saw her mother, she relentlessly cried again and threw herself into Amelia's arms to gather her sympathy.
Regardless of the medicine on her face, Isabella cried and complained loudly, "Mom, you must help me this time. It's Nina. She slapped me three times in a row. The pain is so unbearable, Mom..." Although it was Isabella who slapped herself in the face first, she lied that Nina was the one who had slapped her thrice.
"Nina again?" How could Nina be so rebellious? Amelia had not yet avenged the last problem Nina had caused on the school forum, and now she dared to hit her daughter again!
"Yes, it's Nina. Mom, she keeps on bullying me," Isabella said while nodding hear head in grief.
Amelia slowly pulled her daughter out of her arms and tenderly wiped her tears. "Isabella, don't worry. Even if she is under the protection of the Song family, I simply won't let her go this time around. I want her to feel our wrath and suffer the consequences of offending us."
"Really?" Isabella sobbed even more vigorously to rile her mother up. Only when she saw her mother nod in agreement did Isabella finally let out a smile.
'Nina, just you wait and see. Once my mother has made up her mind to teach somebody a lesson, that person will eventually come to an extremely miserable end, ' Isabella thought, rejoicing in silence.
After the two of them had sat down, Glenn suddenly rushed into the room in anger. Seeing how the two of them had the audacity to still talk and laugh, he became furious.
Before he got to sign the contract, the Shi family abruptly announced out of the blue that they would cancel the collaboration. As a result, he instantaneously lost three hundred million. All because Isabella had stupidly offended someone from the Shi family!
How could she still have the nerve to laugh now?
"Dad? Why are you back so early?" Isabella caught sight of Glenn first and was about to howl in agony again. She failed to notice his anger.
"Dad, I have been..."
Pak!
Another hard slap unexpectedly landed on Isabella's red and swollen left face. With a buzzing sound in her ear, she abruptly fell to the floor and was dumbfounded by her father's sudden rage.
"Isabella, look at what you have done!"
"Glenn, what are you doing? Didn't you see that our daughter was badly hurt?" When Amelia came to her senses, her daughter had already collapsed on the floor in shock, and she was too scared to even cry.
"Isabella, Isabella, my dear, are you okay? Let me have a look at you." Worriedly, she held her daughter's face in a hurry. Amelia raised her head and gave her husband a stern scolding, "Glenn, have you gone crazy? Why did you hit our daughter?"
"You have the nerve to ask me why I hit her?" Glenn bellowed as he trembled with anger. He pointed at Isabella in frustration and exclaimed, "You ask her yourself what she has been up to today!"
Feeling anguished, Isabella innocently replied, "Dad, I haven't done anything wrong."
"Well, if you have something to say, why don't you come down and talk to us to clarify it first? Why did you have to hit our daughter all of a sudden without any reason? Don't you know that your daughter has just been badly beaten today? Why did you get so furious at her?" Amelia retorted with indignation, while holding her pitiful, trembling daughter in her arms.
"Why did I get mad?" Glenn had no words to express his disgust and left out a bitter sneer instead. He sharply pointed at Isabella's nose and berated her, "You can offend anyone else in this city. But why did you have to be so rash and offend James Shi? Because of you, the Shi family cancelled the cooperation that I had worked so hard on and we have consequently lost three hundred million in a flash! Furthermore, Mr. John Shi has also let it be known in the business circle that he would never cooperate with us in the future. Now, tell me. Shouldn't I have hit you?"
Isabella couldn't stop crying and her shoulders shook uncontrollably all the time. She looked at her father with panic and fear in her eyes.
She didn't expect that the little trick she had played at noon had offended James so indignantly. Definitely, she had made a grave mistake.
"No, it's not my fault. It's not my fault." Isabella vehemently denied and pushed the blame on Nina. "It's because of Nina. Nina lied to Mr. James Shi. He was deceived by Nina, not me. I had nothing to do with it."
The root of all her misery had been caused by Nina. It was all her fault.
Why should she be the one to get slapped again and again?
Isabella stood her ground and explained unwillingly, "It's not my fault at all. This is all caused by Nina. Why don't you go beat Nina up? Why did you have to go home and bully your own daughter instead?"