Jingwei gritted his teeth as everyone continued to chatter around him, excited over the news. He glared at Wei Yan's side, but he smiled on, pretending to be oblivious.
"Oh! Little Xue Ning has finally found a boyfriend! And what a strapping young lad he is!" Mrs Poh said, "although he's not as good as the man my precious oldest daughter found."
"No one is as good as your daughter's husband," one woman exclaimed with barely concealed envy. "That man is a handsome CEO!"
Xue Ning snorted internally. There was no way the man could be handsomer than Jingwei! She chanced a quick glance at his face, and was surprised to see the muscle twitching in his jaw, his eyes dark with jealousy.
Meanwhile, Xue Ning's entire family nearly coughed out blood in surprise! Were they blindsided this whole time? Maybe Sun Jingwei was truly innocent this whole time - and he was just trying to matchmake his bodyguard and Xue Ning? To think they've all jumped on him for nothing!
"You're dating? Why didn't you say anything!" Her parents demanded, giving Jingwei an apologetic look. But that man seemed to be glaring at thin air! How strange, how suspicious.
Yue Niang narrowed her eyes; was Sun Jingwei out to destroy her daughter's relationship? Did he not approve of her daughter distracting his bodyguard?
"Yeah, we were keeping it quiet the whole time," Wei Yan lied effortlessly, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
"We were?" Xue Ning asked in confusion, trying to pry herself away from Wei Yan's hold, but Wei Yan hurriedly winked at her, a signal for her to play along in this charade of his.
"More importantly, does it mean that this handsome friend of yours is single?" Mrs Poh asked, looking at Jingwei up and down. "I can introduce you to my youngest daughter! She's kind and sweet and demure, and of course she's very pretty too! Her teeth are straight and she has beautiful hair! The both of you will look great together!"
Xue Ning scowled, immediately feeling a strange surge of possessiveness course through her like a raging river. She wanted to grab Jingwei's waist and snarl at Mrs Poh - there was no way she'd let her youngest daughter Li Fen near Jingwei! If she did her maths right, that girl just turned 20!
But she held herself back, trying to take deep breaths to calm down. Wei Yan tightened his grip around her shoulders, sensing that Miss Li was very close to committing assault on middle-age women.
Meanwhile, Jingwei could only stare at this woman with barely concealed contempt.
Did she not realise that she was describing her youngest daughter as though she was a prized horse? Jingwei had heard many similar descriptions when he talked to acquaintances with horses.
"And I suppose she doesn't bite, doesn't shit and doesn't fart either, and she can jump on command?" Jingwei replied sarcastically, rapidly losing his calm and good humour.
Yue Niang's lips unknowingly curled into a smile. Good. Let Sun Jingwei call her out.
"Excuse me? What did you say to me, young man?" Mrs Poh glared at him, affronted.
"I'm not interested in your daughter," Jingwei declared fervently, staring straight at Mrs Poh's eyes. He tried to focus on her, instead of turning to look at Xue Ning, but it was difficult, when his head was automatically attuned to face her direction, much like a compass pointing north, or the way flowers automatically grew towards the sun.
"I am not single. In fact, I already have a girlfriend that I love very much, and I want to make her my wife in future, if she would have me. I would move mountains and part the seas for her."
He realised, when he finished speaking, that he was staring at Xue Ning again. Xue Ning's eyes met his, and her cheeks turned red at his declaration, her heart began beating in double time.
Her family didn't know that it was meant for her, but she knew. That was enough. Behind her, Wei Yan once again tightened the hold on her shoulders.
Weird.
"Oh," Mrs Poh said meekly, face falling in the face of such firm rejection, before brightening up again. "Do you have a brother then? I'm sure he's very handsome too. How about introducing him to my daughter?"
Jingwei could only laugh incredulously, imagining Tianwei's reaction if he were to introduce this woman's daughter to him.
"While we love to stay and chat, we still need to clean up the inside of the restaurant," Yue Niang interrupted. "Of course, all of you are free to help! Many hands make quick work, and I'm sure since you love being helpful you'll definitely not refuse?"
Suddenly the group of women began looking around wildly, refusing to meet her eyes, as though she was a teacher asking for a volunteer from class. Typical.
"Oh suddenly I remember, I need to go - "
"I'm sorry, I won't be able to -"
"My back is aching and I -
"Nonsense! It won't take up much of your time or effort!" Yue Niang insisted.
"Exactly, and from what I can see, all of you are such helpful neighbours. Surely you wouldn't leave them in a lurch after everything? What's more, didn't you say you were keeping the neighbourhood safe? Did you purposely let them destroy the restaurant?" Jingwei asked, deliberately bringing up their earlier statements.
If he was going to suffer, he wanted all of them to suffer too!
"Hey! You can't say it like that!" The women squawked among themselves. "Of course we didn't want such a terrible thing to happen! But what can we do? It's already done! No matter how bad we feel about it, we can't do anything to change it!"
"You can help us clean up, if you're feeling so bad about it," Xue Ning replied dryly, following Jingwei's train of thought.
"Unless of course… you were lying this whole time?" Jingwei laid the finishing blow, smiling unkindly.
Follow current novels on freewe(b)novel.c(o)m