Chapter 521: Chapter 521: Misunderstanding
The girl’s mother sighed. "Oh, sweetie, don’t dwell on it. No matter how poor that man is, he’s married. Didn’t you see? His wife is as beautiful as a fairy."
’And here her daughter was, twenty-two years old and still single. Sigh! What did I ever do to deserve this?’
"Mom, if there was a man that handsome and devoted, I’d marry him in a heartbeat. You can live on love alone."
"Actually, that childhood engagement your grandpa arranged isn’t a bad deal. The way I see it, Xiao Zhang is handsome, his family is wealthy, and you two just have a verbal agreement."
Hearing her mother’s words, the girl’s expression faltered. A sharp pain shot through her heart, and her eyes couldn’t help but redden.
"Mom... I knew we had an arranged engagement, so I’ve had a crush on him ever since I was little. But... but he fell in love with someone else."
At this, the young woman found it difficult to continue. She bit her lip and lowered her head.
More than once, she had seen her fiancé kissing her best friend. When she confronted her friend, she just said they were messing around.
’A best friend would never steal her friend’s partner, no matter what. And I actually believed her!’
She’d wasted her time until she was twenty-two, and her fiancé still wouldn’t come to her family to formally propose. Then, last month, her best friend’s belly inexplicably started to swell.
She wasn’t a complete fool; she knew the baby in her best friend’s belly belonged to her fiancé. And yet, that was when he came to her family to propose.
She only told her parents that her fiancé was in love with someone else. She didn’t dare tell them that he had already gotten her best friend pregnant.
After all, she’d loved him for more than a decade. For as long as she could remember, he was the only one she had eyes for.
Even though he had been heartless, she didn’t want to be cruel and ruin his future. So, she simply told her parents that he didn’t love her.
Seeing this, the mother’s brow furrowed. She patted her daughter’s shoulder comfortingly.
"There, there, don’t be sad. Since he loves someone else, we’ll go to Yun City and find you a reliable man to marry. I’ll support you."
When the girl heard her mother’s words, the pain and sense of injustice in her heart instantly vanished.
’Finding out he wasn’t a good man before the wedding is a much smaller blow than discovering it after.’
"Thank you, Mom. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll find happiness." With that, she stood up to go to the restroom.
"So, you were so eager to cozy up to this young fellow because you’re looking for a husband?" a man in the same row as Su Shuochi asked, breaking the silence in the train car.
’My son is twenty-three this year and still single,’ he thought. ’This girl is not only pretty, but she’s also quite perceptive.’
’After their earlier exchange, she sat on this train for hours and didn’t once try to strike up a conversation with the young man beside me.’
The girl gave him a quiet look, didn’t answer, and turned to leave.
Seeing the official-looking man across from them take the initiative to ask, the girl’s mother immediately lit up with a smile and started explaining.
"My daughter is twenty-two. Her grandfather arranged a marriage for her when she was just a child, so the two of them were practically childhood sweethearts.
Our family was always dropping hints, both subtle and direct, for his family to come and make a formal proposal, but the Zhang Family never made a move.
Then, the day before yesterday, Xiao Zhang suddenly came to our house to propose! My husband and I were overjoyed, but then our daughter told us that Xiao Zhang is in love with her best friend!
I believe my daughter, she wouldn’t lie. So we turned down the Zhang Family. I mean, serves them right—their son was two-timing!
But my daughter is already twenty-two, so I thought we’d go back to my hometown and see if there are any suitable, promising young men there."
The girl’s mother had just finished speaking when the middle-aged woman sitting next to the official-looking man chimed in sarcastically.
"Well, well. Morals really have gone downhill. Your daughter’s fiancé found someone else, so now you’re trying to poach another woman’s husband?"
"You—! That’s not it! At first, I thought the woman who saw him off at the station was his sister."
"But he said it was his wife, and you still kept pestering him with questions. Tsk, tsk... honestly.
You’ve been on this train for hours, you see the young man isn’t eating anything, and you get all upset, looking down on him for being poor.
What he does is none of your business! The man’s already married, and you’re still here picking him apart. How shameless.
Besides, you’re in no position to look down on him. His wife is way younger and prettier than you are," the woman added, clearly displeased.
"Hmph," the man snorted dismissively. "You just go on a tirade without even listening to their explanation. There’s something wrong with the way you think."
"You..." The woman was left speechless, unsure how to respond.
’She and the man worked in the same unit. They’d been colleagues for twenty years, so she knew exactly what he was thinking the moment he opened his mouth.’
’His son graduated from a top university and is twenty-three this year. It’s not that he can’t find a girlfriend; he’s just too picky.’
’She’d introduced several of her own nieces to his son, but he hadn’t been satisfied with a single one of them.’
’By the looks of it, now he was trying to set his son up with the girl across the aisle. That’s why she had been so aggressive.’
"Ma’am, I apologize on behalf of my colleague. Your daughter is an excellent young woman. You really don’t need to go as far as Yun City to find a partner for her."
"Could it be, Sir, that you know of a suitable young man in the Imperial City?" the girl’s mother asked eagerly.
The moment she heard a potential son-in-law might be on offer, she completely forgot about arguing with the woman across the aisle.
"I do. I know many promising young men, including some who graduated from Imperial University," the official-looking man said earnestly.
"To be perfectly honest, Sir, my daughter also graduated from a top university. She’s got brains and brawn—she can give a speech on stage and she can kick a gangster to the curb.
She’s a lady in public and a master in the kitchen, and she’s quite pretty too. A moment ago, we were actually just about to ask the young man over there if he had any suitable friends he could introduce."
"Actually, I have a son myself..." And so, the man and the woman began to chat enthusiastically about a potential match for their children.
Watching the two parents chat with such enthusiasm was enough to set the teeth of the middle-aged woman beside the official on edge.
But there was nothing she could do to stop it. She could only glare at her superior beside her before shooting another vicious look at the mother.
It was only then that Su Shuochi realized the mother and daughter were simply looking for a son-in-law. All their questions had just been a roundabout way of asking if he knew any suitable candidates.
’So I misunderstood them.’ After sitting on the train for several hours, he was starting to get hungry himself.
Although he had drunk half a glass of water mixed with spiritual spring water before boarding, he was still bound to get hungry after several hours without food or drink.
So, he pulled some food out of his small backpack. There were tea-marbled eggs, pork floss buns, and some cookies.
These had all been handmade by Gu Jiaojiao. An especially exquisite thermos caught everyone’s eye, practically dazzling them.
In an instant, a delicious aroma wafted not just through their small compartment, but through the entire train car.
Just then, the young woman returned from the restroom. She could smell the fragrant aroma from a distance, and her eyes landed on Su Shuochi, who was leisurely sipping water and eating a tea-marbled egg.
Her eyes widened in disbelief. Despite her good breeding and relaxed upbringing, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, "So you had food this whole time?"
When Su Shuochi ignored her, the girl assumed he was lashing out in humiliation after being exposed.
She sighed. "What I said to my mom earlier... I wasn’t looking down on you."
