The elderly housekeeper's surname was Wang. She was a kindly-looking woman in her sixties who had come with Lin Xiwen when she married into the Su family. Having watched Lin Xiwen grow up, she naturally cared a great deal about her health.
Although Lin Xiwen knew Housekeeper Wang meant well, she was still falling apart at that moment.
Everything had been exposed!
She smiled awkwardly and explained, "Don't worry, Auntie Wang. I'm fine. There's just been a lot going on lately, and something finally wrapped up yesterday, so I rested a little longer."
Ye Jin naturally picked up on the hidden meaning in their exchange.
[Aaaaah! So Mother-in-law stayed up late last night too! And it looks like she stayed up even later than I did. Sure enough, no one can resist the allure of eating melons.]
Ye Jin was happy inside, but out of politeness, she did not look at Lin Xiwen. Instead, she lowered her head and pretended to keep eating.
[Forget it. I won't expose her. How could a good daughter-in-law embarrass her mother-in-law?]
Lin Xiwen: ...Well, thank you very much! Aren't you the whole reason I stayed up eating melons?
Still, it was a good thing that Ye Jin did not expose her. Lin Xiwen let out a long breath of relief and began ordering food.
She always ate at regular times and had long since grown hungry.
Although their tastes differed, each ate her own food, and both were satisfied with the meal that followed.
After eating, the lazy Ye Jin planned to slip back to her bedroom for an afternoon nap. Just as she was agonizing over how to bring it up, the housekeeper brought in a middle-aged man dressed in a suit, every inch an elite professional.
"Madam, Mr. Xu You is here."
Lin Xiwen's eyes lit up at the sight of Xu You. She had not expected him to arrive so quickly either. Brother Xu You was as dependable as ever!
A rare, genuine smile blossomed on her face, the first in quite some time, and she extended a hand to welcome Xu You. Just then, however, Ye Jin's startled shriek rang in her ears.
[Aaaaah! Why did Mother-in-law contact Xu You so early?! He's an undercover agent sent by that bastard male lead!]
Chapter 5
Alarm bells had been ringing in Ye Jin's head from the moment Xu You appeared, and she frantically recalled the novel's plot.
In an old-school novel spanning several million words, the male and female leads' parents naturally had their own tales of love, hate, affection, and enmity.
Xie Haoyu's parents, Xie Tianyu and Gu Jingxian, had been given the script of a pair who only got to know each other through clashes,
a pair of bickering lovers.
And a script like that always had a vicious female supporting character and a devoted second male lead. Lin Xiwen and Xu You filled those two roles.
Lin Xiwen's family and Xie Tianyu's family were longtime friends. On top of that, both sets of parents wanted to match them up, so the two could be considered
childhood sweethearts,
and even attended the same school.
Naturally, everyone assumed that the two would get together when they grew up. Even Lin Xiwen herself had once thought so.
That lasted until Gu Jingxian, who had been raised in the countryside because her father had remarried, was brought back to City A and enrolled in Lin Xiwen and Xie Tianyu's school.
Like a wild weed that had grown freely in the countryside, Gu Jingxian could not stand Xie Tianyu's rich young master airs, while Xie Tianyu looked down on Gu Jingxian for her lack of manners. The two got to know each other through their clashes, beginning a Meteor Garden-style
campus
romance.
And Lin Xiwen, whom everyone saw as Xie Tianyu's girlfriend, had no choice but to come into conflict with Gu Jingxian. Even though Lin Xiwen did not want to fight another woman over a man, she was pushed into competing with Gu Jingxian, reduced to a supporting female character in their love story. In the end, Xie Tianyu came to loathe her, and she went abroad.
As for Father Su, Su Wei? He was a few years older than Lin Xiwen and the others, so he had already gone abroad to study.
He and Lin Xiwen were both overseas, and their families were well matched. In the end, their elders arranged a blind date, and they married.
The original novel described Su Wei and Lin Xiwen's marriage as a union purely for mutual benefit, with little affection between them. They always treated each other with the courtesy of guests. And this was the author's greatest punishment for Lin Xiwen, the vicious female supporting character: she would never receive her husband's love in her entire life!
Ye Jin could not help rolling her eyes inwardly. Not receiving so-called love was a punishment?
If she remembered correctly, Father Su never fooled around with other women. He devoted himself to working and making money, shared his assets with Lin Xiwen without ever guarding against her, and supported all her hobbies and work.
They had a son and two daughters. Although not all of them could be called sensible and obedient, they had all been brought up very well and could be counted among the elite of the second and third generations of wealthy families.
It was just a shame that, under the plot's influence, Su Wei died a little early, and the male lead schemed to bankrupt the Su Group, leaving Lin Xiwen without peace in her later years.
As for Xu You, he was the traditional second male lead who silently gave his all for the female lead.
He came from an ordinary family and entered an aristocratic school. Although his grades were excellent, his background inevitably subjected him to considerable discrimination and suppression.
Gu Jingxian, who proclaimed herself "overflowing with a sense of justice," naturally stood up for Xu You. As time went on, she became the white moonlight in his heart.
And Xu You, knowing his own humble origins made him unworthy of the young lady Gu Jingxian, chose to silently protect the love between Gu Jingxian and Xie Haoyu, never once voicing his own feelings.
Thus, Lin Xiwen did not know that the white moonlight in Xu You's heart was Gu Jingxian. In fact, quite a few outsiders thought that the person Xu You had loved all along was Lin Xiwen.
After Gu Jingxian committed suicide, Xu You secretly took Xie Haoyu abroad and painstakingly raised and educated him, joining forces with him against the Su Group.
Later, he even exploited Lin Xiwen's trust in him to coordinate attacks from within and without, bankrupting the Su Group together with Xie Haoyu.
At the end of the story, on the anniversary of Gu Jingxian's death, Xu You brought a bouquet to her grave and said with deep affection, "A-Xian, I did it. I protected your child and avenged you."
And he had completely forgotten that the members of the Lin family, who had saved his entire family, lay buried not far away.
After going through the entire plot, Ye Jin immediately let loose a torrent of curses.
[Xu You really is a fucking white-eyed wolf! Gu Jingxian did him a few small favors, and that made her his white moonlight? Without the Lin family, Xu You would probably be hauling bricks on a construction site right now. Would he even have had a chance to meet Gu Jingxian?]
*[And that dumbass Xu You clearly already had a white moonlight in his heart, yet he still climbed up the social ladder by marrying his boss's daughter and having
children.
Hehe, but his wife didn't lose out either. She picked him precisely because she knew he wouldn't dare control her, so she could fool around outside however she pleased. I just wonder whether Xu You knows neither of those two kids is his.]*