Yu Zhining said expressionlessly, “If you want to repay a debt of gratitude, you should ask your benefactor what they want—not decide what you want to give them.”
“…” Huo Mian was stunned again.
Yu Zhining continued, “There’s nothing I want. You don’t need to give me anything. Let’s just call off the engagement.”
Huo Mian took a deep breath, her voice already trembling with tears. “But my mother is still staying at the wellness center under your management. She may not have treated me well, but she’s still my mother. I can’t just abandon her. She hasn’t been doing well lately. If she finds out that we’ve called off the engagement, I’m afraid she won’t be able to take it.”
Yu Zhining remained expressionless. After thinking it over seriously, he looked somewhat puzzled. “How did that become my responsibility too? You’re putting the possible consequences of your mother being upset right in front of me.”
“Either I refuse you, and I’m ignoring the risks to an elderly person, or I accept you, and it means the engagement continues.”
“No matter which option I choose, the responsibility falls on me.”
Huo Mian’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Zhining, I just didn’t expect that after all these years, you’d still be so guarded around me. You always assume there’s some hidden meaning behind everything I say…”
Yu Zhining said, “Look at you. You’re turning yourself into the victim again. I merely rejected your request reasonably, and you immediately defined my refusal as an act of harm and seized the victim’s position.”
…
Behind the flower bushes, Yu Xiaxing struggled to hold back her laughter.
She hadn’t expected Yu Zhining to be completely immune to emotional pressure.
He could dissect the hidden meaning behind every one of Huo Mian’s words.
Fortunately, she hadn’t acted rashly and tried to harm him. Otherwise, she might have been seen through very easily!
The two of them fell silent for a long while.
Huo Mian’s eyes were red, filled with grievances she couldn’t bring herself to voice. “Is it because of Yu Xiaxing? Are you calling off our engagement because of her?”
Yu Xiaxing silently raised a hand and pointed at herself.
Me? Why am I involved now?
Huo Mian and I haven’t even been close for years!
Yu Zhining was silent for a moment before saying, “The three of us do have conflicts, but none of us interferes in the others’ affairs. My conflict with her is just an ordinary quarrel between siblings. Your conflict with her is much more serious. Don’t lump the two together.”
Huo Mian gave a bitter laugh. “Is that so? I thought that because of what happened with that puppy back then, you and Yu Xiaxing would hate me for the rest of your lives… But at the time, I was suffering from psychological abuse at my mother’s hands too, and Yu Xiaxing took revenge on the spot. She made me pay a terrible price. She made it so that I could never…”
As she spoke, Huo Mian raised a hand and gently covered her lower abdomen. Tears spilled uncontrollably down her face.
Hearing those words, Yu Xiaxing’s sealed-away memories were brought back to life. Her arms instinctively tightened around Diandian.
Diandian yelped in pain.
At the edge of the pool, Huo Mian and Yu Zhining both turned around.
“…”
Yu Xiaxing decided to stop hiding and stood up. “What a coincidence.”
Yu Zhining said nothing.
Huo Mian stood first. Looking at the little dog in Yu Xiaxing’s arms, she greeted her warmly. “Yu Xiaxing, long time no see. Is this your new puppy? How adorable.”
Yu Xiaxing hugged Diandian tightly and said nothing.
Huo Mian said with concern, “It’s good to see that you can still raise a dog. I’ve always worried that what happened when you were little would leave you with psychological trauma.”
Yu Zhining’s expression shifted slightly. “Huo Mian!”
The air instantly turned icy.
As though only then realizing that she had said something wrong, Huo Mian immediately lowered her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up. It’s just that this puppy looks so much like Tang Tuan. I thought Xingxing had already moved on…”
Before she could finish, Yu Xiaxing had already walked up to her.
She raised her leg and kicked Huo Mian straight into the pool!
Huo Mian floundered in the water for a moment before finally surfacing.
Yu Xiaxing had already jumped in after her. She grabbed Huo Mian by the hair and viciously forced her head beneath the water.
As she did, she cursed, “How dare you bring that up!”
“You were suffering because of your mother, so you turned the knife on someone even weaker than you!”
“Do you think I wasn’t suffering too?”
Huo Mian choked and coughed frantically. “I… glug glug… didn’t… glug glug… do it… glug glug… on purpose…”
Huo Mian’s drenched hair clung to her cheeks, making her look utterly miserable and pitiful.
She looked up at Yu Zhining by the pool, tears mixing with the pool water, hoping he would hurry over and save her.
Yu Zhining saved neither of them.
Diandian paced anxiously along the edge of the pool.
Seeing that his owner still hadn’t come out of the water, he barked twice. Then, with a sudden splash, he jumped in too.
Diandian was tiny. Once he hit the water, he paddled desperately with his short little legs, swimming toward Yu Xiaxing.
He bit down on the sleeve of Yu Xiaxing’s soaked shirt and pulled toward the edge with all his strength.
Yu Xiaxing was both angry and touched. She immediately scooped him up. “Why did you jump in? You only weigh a few pounds—did you really think you could save me?”
Diandian was soaked from head to toe, yet he continued clinging stubbornly to her sleeve. He kept jerking his head toward the edge of the pool.
Yu Lingyi came hurrying over after hearing the commotion. When she saw what was happening in the pool, she froze in shock.
“Third Brother, why are you just standing there? Hurry up and save them!”
Yu Zhining replied calmly, “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Yu Lingyi stared at him. “What wouldn’t be appropriate?”
Yu Zhining said, “One is my cousin, and the other is my fiancée, whose engagement hasn’t been formally called off yet. Whoever I save will be overanalyzed. So I’ll simply save neither of them.”
“…”
So he was just standing on the sidelines, looking pristine and aloof? Was he really going to let them drown without lifting a finger?
He cared so much about protecting his reputation—was he planning to enter show business?
Yu Lingyi couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. She quickly turned around and called for the servants and security guards.
Several servants and guards soon came running over.
Some went to rescue the women, while others brought towels.
Yu Xiaxing could swim. Seeing that she could no longer beat Huo Mian, she simply carried Diandian and climbed out of the pool.
Before long, both women and the dog were out of the water.
A servant brought over clean towels.
Holding the soaked Diandian in her arms, Yu Xiaxing lowered her head and dried him.
Crouching behind her, Yu Lingyi lowered her head and began drying Yu Xiaxing’s hair.
Then Yu Lingyi noticed that no one was attending to Huo Mian. She suddenly remembered that, as a refined heiress who had always taken charge of situations since childhood, she needed to maintain proper etiquette.
She hurriedly instructed a servant, “Sister Wang, go dry Miss Huo.”
Huo Mian lowered her head and pressed her lips together.
The contrast was obvious to everyone.
The Yu family’s hosts cared only about Yu Xiaxing, while she was merely someone they had ordered a servant to dry off.
Before long, the eldest uncle, eldest aunt, aunt, uncle-in-law, and Grandpa were all startled by the commotion and came rushing over.
When the eldest aunt saw the chaos by the pool, her expression changed dramatically.
“What happened? How did both of you end up in the pool?”
Huo Mian hurriedly said, “It was my fault. I thought that what happened when I was young had been an unintentional mistake and was already in the past. So when I saw Yu Xiaxing, I complimented her puppy, saying it was adorable. I never imagined she’d get so worked up and kick me straight into the pool.”
Seeing Grandpa there, Yu Xiaxing held back from cursing outright and patiently explained, “That’s not what happened. That wasn’t the full story. What she said was incredibly vicious. She deliberately brought up the psychological trauma I suffered as a child, and that’s why I wanted to hit her!”
