"Are you jealous?" Tianyi asked her with a smile.
"Of course not. If you don't want to talk about it, then don't," Susu turned to look out the car window, her curiosity still burning.
She had seen the girl's expression; she was clearly attracted to Tianyi.
Tianyi stopped teasing her. "An Jing and I met at a bar. She's a resident singer there at night. An Jing particularly liked that bar and took me there a couple of times. That's how we met."
Susu said "oh" and looked at him again. "Even if someone greets you, you usually ignore them. How did you even know her surname was Xi?"
"Last time, because of Lan Yu's matter, An Jing got drunk and didn't bring her phone or wallet. Fortunately, this girl stepped in to help. So when she introduced herself, I also told her my surname and An Jing's surname," Tianyi explained in detail, afraid Susu might misunderstand.
Susu smiled. "So you're saying you're that polite to the opposite sex now."
"That doesn't sound right. It makes me feel a bit sour."
"Who's sour? You're the one who's sour! When have I ever stopped you from interacting normally with the opposite sex?" Susu pouted, refusing to admit it.
Tianyi focused on driving, no longer playing with her.
She couldn't help but look at herself in the mirror above the passenger seat. She had come out without makeup today, and she looked alright, but her skin didn't have the same glow as those younger girls. She had to admit she wasn't young anymore.
Depressed, she turned on the car radio. She heard the announcer on the broadcast speaking in a teasing tone about the news.
"Today, there's a bombshell piece of news that everyone should know by now. The sixty-something-year-old chairman of Xie Group is divorcing his wife, who has a mental illness, to marry his assistant, who is forty years his junior. It's said that this assistant is a real-life Cinderella, showing everyone how to go from a mere assistant to a wealthy man's beloved wife..."
Tianyi found this kind of news boring and switched channels.
Susu sighed. "Zhan Jiayi finally got what she wanted. But when did Xie Zhendong's original wife go mad? How did she develop a mental illness? I've never heard of it before."
"Father and son are cut from the same cloth," Tianyi said dismissively. "Xie Zhendong is even more ruthless than Xie Qining. It's fortunate that Lan Yu didn't end up with Xie Zhendong back then."
Susu asked in shock, "Did Xie Zhendong drive someone who wasn't crazy into madness?"
"It's highly likely."
Susu hadn't expected Xie Zhendong to be so cruel. Did Zhan Jiayi know about this?
Did she instigate Xie Zhendong to do this, or did she aid and abet him?
Susu had previously thought Xie Zhendong wasn't completely unreasonable, and that Zhan Jiayi had her own difficulties. She never imagined they could be so terrifying, together labeling a normal person as insane, or driving them to insanity.
...
Feng Rou's cousin, Jin Dan, was greatly shocked upon hearing this news and called Feng Rou over.
Last month, Feng Rou had played cards with her, and everything seemed normal. Such a monumental event had occurred so suddenly that even her husband, Huangfu Sishu, was inquiring about it.
Previously, Jin Dan had heard gossip about the Xie family from other wives and had seen some unofficial news online. She had dismissed it as mere rumors and hadn't taken it seriously.
But she never expected it all to be true, and that Feng Rou had even been in a mental hospital.
She absolutely could not tolerate this. From childhood, her family's environment was not as good as the Feng family's, so her mother often sent her to her aunt's house, which was Feng Rou's home. She and Feng Rou had grown up together as close sisters.
It was also because she often attended high-society events with Feng Rou that she met her current husband and married into the Huangfu family.
The Feng family hadn't told her about such a significant matter, and Feng Rou had kept it from her, making her both anxious and angry.
Before going to her cousin's place, Feng Rou brought her second sister-in-law and also called her eldest sister-in-law. Knowing that it was time to tell her cousin, she believed her eldest and second sisters-in-law's presence would be helpful.
In Jin Dan's small villa, the four women sat together, each with a frown on their faces.
"Rou Rou, what exactly is going on? Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Jin Dan asked her with a heartache.
"Sister, I also didn't expect things to escalate to this point with Xie Zhendong," Feng Rou said sadly. "By the time I wanted to tell you, Xie Zhendong had already locked me up in the mental hospital, completely cutting off my contact with the outside world."
"But you didn't show any signs when you played cards with me last time!"
"I was afraid," Feng Rou said timidly. "I was afraid you would all think I was mentally ill, and I was afraid Xie Zhendong would do something even more ruthless to me."
"This is outrageous!" Jin Dan exclaimed angrily. "This is going too far. You divorced him like this? That's letting him off too easily!"
"I didn't want to either," Feng Rou said, looking at her second sister-in-law. "My second brother and sister-in-law know best how I divorced Xie Zhendong."
Jin Dan and the eldest sister-in-law both looked at the second sister-in-law, waiting for her to speak.
Feng Yan's wife was taken aback. Under their scrutinizing gazes, she had no choice but to reveal the truth of what happened.
"How could you do this? Your elder brother and I knew nothing about it," the eldest sister-in-law quickly distanced herself, and at the same time, echoed Jin Dan's resentment.
The second sister-in-law felt wronged as she spoke. "Do you think we wanted this? The Feng family still needs to be supported, and you and your elder brother can't help. Cousin, you don't have real power in the Huangfu family... What help can you offer us..."
Her voice grew quieter as she spoke, daring not to look at Jin Dan anymore, but she felt she wasn't wrong in her heart.
Jin Dan stared at her, her anger turning into helplessness. "Fine, I shouldn't have meddled. You've handled it very well."
"No, no, that's not what I meant," the second sister-in-law said, lowering her head. "We've wronged Third Sister, but now that it's like this, what else can we do?"
Feng Rou remained silent, looking at them. "There's something else you don't know. Qining is actually no longer with us."
"How can that be? Wasn't Qining abroad expanding business?" the second sister-in-law asked in surprise.
The others also looked disbelieving. Jin Dan asked, "When you say no longer with us, do you mean no longer in Lancheng, or... or...?"
"He committed suicide in a prison abroad," Feng Rou said, her eyes now numb.
The eldest sister-in-law exclaimed, "Prison? Suicide? What on earth happened?"
Feng Rou calmly recounted the entire incident involving Qining. She had never told anyone about it before to save face.
She always felt that she had lived a more privileged life than her eldest and second sisters-in-law, and no worse than her cousin. She had always been an object of their envy, and she didn't want to shatter this pride.
Now she didn't care about anything else. As long as she could take the Xie Group away from Xie Zhendong, she would no longer hold back.
For Xie Zhendong, the most important thing was the Xie Group. Only by taking away what was most important and most cherished by him could she exact her revenge.
After listening, Jin Dan said, "Qining's ex-wife is truly a menace, and that Xiao An Jing, what kind of people are they to dare harm Qining like this!"
Feng Rou said indifferently, "Sister, I don't care who Xie Zhendong marries next. I don't want to remarry him either. My heart has died. I just want to get justice for myself."