While Jingwei wanted to trust that his father was not capable of these sort of scummy actions, he found his faith in his own father wavering when Li Tai Xuan's words painted a convincing alternate picture.
"Sun Haowei knew the engagement was fake!" Xue Ning burst out. "That wasn't the issue at all! Why would he attack you guys when he needed me to make his son look like a respectable man?"
"Who knows?" Yue Niang turned to look at her daughter, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "Even if he knew the engagement was fake, that's not a guarantee that he wouldn't strike. In fact, he might have just been pretending to agree at first, then do this behind your backs to make you willingly give up on this charade you started."
"That still doesn't make sense," Xue Ning said bullishly. "If you told me he hired the thugs after he recovered from the heart attack, I'd understand, since I was the one that caused the heart attack in the first place."
"WHAT?!" Both her brother and her mother yelled simultaneously in shock.
"Holy shit! Meimei what on earth did you do?"
Her brother looked like he was losing his mind at this knowledge.
"You managed to give Sun Haowei a heart attack? That takes some skill!"
Meanwhile, her mother sounded vaguely proud. Xue Ning refused to read more into that, especially when the man they were talking about was Jingwei's father, and Jingwei was sitting right there in front of them.
"She also saved him though!" Jingwei added, in case Xue Ning forgot this fact. "Without her, my father would have died even before the ambulance arrived!"
"And how did my daughter give your father a heart attack?"
"I made him so angry, his heart gave out." Xue Ning said sheepishly. "Not one of my finest moments, I must admit."
"How?!"
Jingwei wanted to explain, but then he remembered his father got so angry because he didn't approve of Xue Ning marrying into his family, and Xue Ning got so angry at him calling Jingwei a useless son, and then they started arguing and his father threatened to hurt everything she held dear.
Wait. His father did say that, but wouldn't that imply that he actually hadn't taken action yet?
"Well, my father did say he was going to destroy everything important to Xue Ning if Xue Ning didn't listen to him, but then he had the heart attack immediately after," Jingwei mentioned, trying not to quail from the death glares he received from all three members of the Li family.
Yes, even his precious Xue Ning was glaring at him for elaborating on the issue.
"So I don't think he actually sent the thugs to ruin your restaurant! He still needed Xue Ning to agree to his terms."
"And what were his terms?" Her mother asked suspiciously, her eyes darting between Sun Jingwei and her daughter. If they were dating, she could probably guess that he gave Xue Ning a sum of money and told her to scram.
But then again, they weren't dating!
Were they? Yue Niang frowned. Something wasn't adding up.
"Not important Mom," Xue Ning interrupted quickly. If her mother continued her line of questioning, she'd realise there were so many holes in their story. "He's already in the hospital, so it doesn't matter."
"Yeah, and since Xue Ning saved his life, I'm sure he'll be more grateful." Jingwei said, and Yue Niang had to look closely at him, just to see if he had brain damage. She wouldn't put it past Sun Haowei to accidentally drop his son while carrying him as a baby, assuming he actually held his son.
"Is this your first day of knowing your father?" Yue Niang asked with a raised eyebrow. "When has Sun Haowei ever been a forgiving man, especially to those that wronged him?"
Jingwei spluttered. "Well… but… there's no proof he did this!"
"No proof he was innocent either," Yue Niang said, then she turned to her daughter. "You'd better get away from that family before he wakes up and decides to act on his final promise to ruin your life. Out of sight, out of mind! This is the best way to deal with him!"
"Mom, why do you speak like you know Sun Haowei personally?" Xue Ning asked, and Yue Niang froze imperceptibly. Then she took in a quick breath and collected herself. Things were fine. Sun Haowei had a heart attack and was out of commission. His son was sitting in her home, and had an undefined relationship with her daughter. Things were fine!
"Of course I don't, that's preposterous. When would I get a chance to meet him?" All these words flooded out of her mouth in record time.
"Mom, it's just a simple question," Xue Ning replied, nonplussed at her mother's overreaction. "Don't need to yell at me."
Jingwei also stared at Xue Ning's mother. That didn't seem like a normal reaction.
"Okay, but I also know my dad well enough to know that this isn't his style." Jingwei said, when Xue Ning's mother wasn't saying anything more.
"What do you mean?" Tai Xuan barked out.
"He wouldn't hire thugs to just destroy a restaurant, that's just very…" Jingwei frowned, trying to find the right word. "Rudimentary. Like it's a blunt strike. My father has the skill of destroying people down to an art form - if he wanted to destroy your livelihoods, he wouldn't do it like this."
"Explain then, how he would destroy us," Yue Niang asked, just so she could see if Sun Haowei's son had actually gotten an accurate measure of his father.
"Firstly, he'd probably get someone to spread a rumour saying that your restaurant had caused food poisoning, which will cause your restaurant to shut down so that even when it reopens, customers will still be wary, and your business will suffer."
"Then he'll escalate, by getting your suppliers to increase their prices when dealing with you, so you have no choice but to increase your costs. And when you try to look for other suppliers, he'll get them to give you shoddy supplies, so the quality of your food suffers. He'll let you struggle for a while hopelessly, eat into your savings, and then eventually pressure all the suppliers to cut off all working relationships with you, so you have nothing to cook in the restaurant."
"Jesus fuck," was Tai Xuan's eloquent reply. But Jingwei wasn't done!
Follow current novℯls on f(r)eewebnov𝒆l