"My mom's here?" Bai Le raised an eyebrow and looked at Bai Huizhang's strange expression. Apparently, he hadn't known either.
As soon as he entered, he sensed something odd about the atmosphere. Two women occupied opposite ends of the living room sofa, while Bai Yin sat between them, innocently munching on fruit.
"Mom." Bai Le spoke first to the impeccably groomed woman sitting on the left, dressed in a sharp business suit.
The frost on Wu Xueying's face melted a little when she heard her precious son's voice.
"Lele, where did you go? Mom called you, but you didn't answer."
Only then did Bai Le notice the missed calls on his phone.
"I left my phone behind just now, so I didn't hear it."
Wu Xueying chided him. "Honestly, you."
Bai Huizhang held back his anger. "Why did you come back to the country?"
Wu Xueyin glanced sideways at him. "To see my son, of course. Did you think I came to see an old thing like you?"
A vein throbbed on Bai Huizhang's forehead at her words.
"I heard you let Lele go to the company. You old thing, you finally decided to give your son some real authority. Before, you clung to your little family business and were stingy even with your only son. I'd say, if you really had fathered an illegitimate son back then, would you have disowned my son altogether?"
"Stop being unreasonable!"
"Oh, are you angry already? Even when I found out you were keeping a woman on the side, I wasn't as angry as you are now."
Faced with this familiar confrontation, Bai Le actually found it somewhat comforting. He sat down beside Bai Yin, picked up a grape, and began peeling it.
Bai Huizhang and Wu Xueying had come together through a business marriage. Wu Xueying was ethnically Chinese but held foreign citizenship. She came from a well-off family, had received a higher education from a young age, and had graduated from Oxford University. During the first few years of her marriage to Bai Huizhang, they had enjoyed some sweet and happy times.
But gradually, the problems caused by their incompatible personalities became more and more apparent. Wu Xueying was a typical career-minded
strong
woman whose way of doing things gave no consideration whatsoever to Bai Huizhang's pride.
Bai Huizhang, meanwhile, was an old-fashioned man with a severe chauvinistic streak. So, in the second year of their cold war, he took a young mistress who was obedient, well-behaved, and catered to his every whim.
"Wu Xueying, you've got some nerve accusing me of not handing the company over to Bai Le. Look at what you've spoiled your son into! He spends all day running around with his good-for-nothing friends. We're lucky if he shows up at the company eight days out of ten."
Wu Xueying defended her son without the slightest regard for reason. "Who are you to lecture my son? I think Lele is just fine. He's smart and sensible. Who wouldn't like him?"
When the topic turned to him, Bai Le felt a little wronged. Compared to how unreliable he used to be, he had clearly changed a great deal.
"Like him? Then why hasn't your son found a single girlfriend yet?"
"Stop calling him 'my son' every other word. I couldn't have given birth to him on my own. Besides, Lele just doesn't want to find one. Otherwise, I'd have a grandson in my arms by now."
Caught off guard by her words, Bai Le nearly choked on a grape seed and coughed with difficulty a few times.
Bai Yin noticed and rubbed his back to help him catch his breath. She asked casually, "Bro, since when do you like grapes? I remember you don't like sour things."
The two people arguing suddenly stopped and turned to look at him in unison, their gazes piercing.
The author has something to say: Guess whether Lele's parents will notice~
I checked my stockpile, and the sweet stuff is coming soon! Let's get the Yan-Bai CP going! Thanks to the little angels who gave me Overlord tickets or irrigated me with nutrient solution between 2020-02-02 00:33:20 and 2020-02-03 23:24:37~
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated me with nutrient solution: Yinqu Gui, 10 bottles;
Thank you all so much for your support. I'll keep working hard!
Chapter 8
Bai Le's Adam's apple bobbed nervously, and he gave an awkward laugh. "Haha, I just wanted a change of taste."
Oh no. He hadn't noticed that the original owner's eating habits differed from his own. Anyone close to him could notice it, so now he could only hope to bluff his way through.
Bai Huizhang and Wu Xueying slowly looked away. Neither seemed to have thought much of it. Apparently, those "piercing gazes" just now had been a result of his own nerves and guilty conscience.
"I'm going to take a shower."
Afraid the flames of war would only grow fiercer, Bai Le hurriedly made an excuse to slip away. When Bai Yin saw that he wanted to escape first and leave her alone, she quickly grabbed his arm, wanting to follow him, and spoke without thinking.
"I want to go too."
Bai Le stared at his sister, black lines on his face. Bai Yin's expression said, "You're not allowed to betray me and leave first."
"Xiaoyin, how old are you? Stop fooling around!" her biological mother, Chen Suqiu, scolded in a low voice.
Bai Yin glared at her but stopped in her tracks nonetheless. She could only stare resentfully at Bai Le's retreating back as he went upstairs.
After his shower, Bai Le heard that the arguing downstairs had stopped. Presumably, they had argued and entered an intermission. Just imagining the awkward scene downstairs, with everyone staring at one another, made him sympathize with Bai Yin.
His mother hadn't come to see him at all. She had clearly seen that his father was living too comfortably and had come especially to make trouble for him.
After closing the door, Bai Le plopped down on the bed, wiping his wet hair with a towel as he looked at his phone.
His phone kept vibrating with messages from the group chat.
Wu Hua: "My dad's nagging me to find a girlfriend again. When we have the New Year's family reunion dinner, they'll definitely nag me about it again."
Not only did the others offer him no comfort, they even took pleasure in his misfortune.
"Haha, my parents saw me changing girlfriends every few days. At first, they told me to find a good one and settle down, but now they've given up altogether."
The friends in the group chatted about other things for a while, but eventually returned to the original topic.
"Let's see who among us gets married first."
"I bet on Xiaozhouzi. When the time comes, his brother won't care whether he's willing or not. If he refuses to enter the bridal chamber, his brother will beat him into it."
Xiaozhouzi sent an expressionless smiley.
"I bet on Lele."
Seeing Wu Hua suddenly send that message, Bai Le sent back a question mark.