Iris had no ti to overthink the French magnate's overly generous apology gifts because Ashandra Knightson called and inford her that she had arrived in Paris.
Iris was happy to see her friend again, so she invited the genius artist to her family's Parisian residence.
Ashandra arrived by dinner ti. The two friends greeted each other with a tight hug.
"Thank you for coming!" Iris said.
"Anything for you, Xiulan," Ashandra replied. "The others would have co here as well but they're too busy."
"That's okay. I'm already happy that you ca." Iris pulled her inside the house.
Ashandra greeted Jin Liwei, Dom, and of course, the adorable twins.
"Ah, Mochi and Matcha!" Ashandra hugged the twins and refused to put them down.
The twins were familiar with the gorgeous foreign woman. Although they couldn't rember the last ti that they t the foreign woman in person, they were familiar with their Auntie Asha because their mother would sotis video call her.
Little Mochi was especially drawn to Ashandra's beautiful face. He couldn't stop looking at her.
"Asha, yah!" Little Mochi said while tapping her face.
Ashandra's big beautiful eyes crinkled with joy. "Yes! I'm your Auntie Asha." Then she looked at Little Matcha.
The other baby hid his face on her neck but peeked at her shyly. Even the usually indifferent Little Matcha couldn't resist Ashandra Knightson's piercing beauty.
Iris and Dom laughed at the twins' reactions.
Jin Liwei's expression didn't change much, but his gaze was soft when he looked at his sons. Unlike most other n, he wasn't affected by Ashandra Knightson's beauty at all.
Although she was srizing like a goddess of darkness, he preferred his wife's captivatingly bright beauty.
Besides, he had seen exactly two won who were more beautiful than Ashandra Knightson. One was his wife's current appearance as Long Xiulan and the other was his wife's past appearance as Evelina Vetrova.
His wife's past appearance as Evelina Vetrova was definitely the kind of out-of-this-world type of beauty.
And this wasn't only because she was now his wife. Even if he took their relationship out of the equation, he would still think that Evelina Vetrova was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Jin Liwei caught himself and imdiately put a stop to the dangerous direction of his thoughts. His wife's past life had always been a painful mory for her.
Even though he had always wanted to have been there for Evelina, he knew that was impossible. For one, his wife's past life background was too dangerous even for a powerful billionaire like him. And finally, he wouldn't trade the life that the two of them built together in her current reborn life for anything in the world.
He forced himself to focus on the present and helped his wife welco one of her dear friends from Cross Academy.
Ashandra loved Iris' twins dearly. If possible, she wanted to carry the babies even while eating dinner. But Little Mochi and Little Matcha had their own high chairs.
The dinner table tonight wasn't as crowded compared to the previous als. It was only Iris, Jin Liwei, their twins, Dom, and their guest Ashandra eating tonight.
Jin Chonglin took Chen Fei out on a date night. Grandpa Lu stayed in his own residence with Yin ixing and Tang Yiyi. Clover was at her own place, probably still busy preparing for tomorrow's launch party.
Ashandra's arrival tonight was unexpected.
Even Iris didn't know the actual ti or day that her friend would co, or if Ashandra would even be able to co in the first place or not.
If the others knew, then maybe they wouldn't have made their own plans for the evening and helped Iris welco her friend. All of them weren't strangers to Ashandra Knightson, anyway.
Even without the others, Ashandra didn't mind. She liked Iris' family and friends, but she preferred spending one-on-one ti with her dear friend.
After dinner, Jin Liwei and Dom carried the babies away to sleep, leaving Iris and Ashandra to catch up with each other.
The two ladies sat in a courtyard-style garden with a glass roof. Ashandra sipped a cocktail with low alcohol content while Iris had a mocktail of tropical fruit juices.
"You have a beautiful family, Xiulan," Ashandra comnted with a sigh.
"Yes, I do." Iris' smile shone under the moonlight.
"I feel a bit envious," Ashandra confessed.
Iris glanced at her.
Ashandra sighed again. "You know that I married very young at nineteen but I still ended up divorcing that son of a b*tch because he was—no, I hear that he's still a serial womanizer and a total gaslighter. Even now, I still have complicated feelings about my ex. Maybe that's why I still fail to have long-term romantic relationships until now."
Iris settled into a more comfortable position on her seat. She didn't say anything and continued listening to her friend.
Ashandra continued, "We are proud Cross Academy students, certified geniuses. We can reach the top of the world just with our status as Cross Academy students alone. But what's the use of extrely high IQ if we're all alone in the world? That's how I feel sotis, Xiulan. No, I feel like that more often these days. Perhaps because I see you and our other friends building your own beautiful families—well, except for Florence, she's too busy travelling and making the world a better place with her sustainable inventions—but you know what I an."
"I know what you an," Iris whispered and thought about her past life as Evelina Vetrova.
What she experienced in her past life should be worse than what Ashandra Knightson was feeling right now. At least, Ashandra was free to do whatever she wanted to do, go wherever she wanted to go, and decide how to live her life on her own terms.
Evelina Vetrova didn't have that right at all.
She was a caged bird dying little by little each day.
Then she died.
But unexpectedly, a miracle occurred.
She was reborn into a different body.
Now she felt like a phoenix that had risen from the ashes.
This life of hers as Iris Long was sothing that she would never trade for anything in the world, especially the beautiful family she built with Jin Liwei.
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