Chapter 119: Chapter 0119: Eve of the Birthday Banquet (1)
“Wear sunglasses and a hat when you go out from now on,”
Huo Tingxiao suddenly blurted out, leaving Mu Lan puzzled.
“Huh?”
“Just look in the mirror—know what you look like!”
“…”
Mu Lan couldn’t help but blush at this remark coming from Huo Tingxiao; she had received plenty of complints about her looks all her life, but this was the first ti soone had spoken to her in such a vicious tone. Anyone would think she had transford into so sort of monster, too hideous to be seen.
“You were a bit too aggressive when you lashed out just now.”
Huo Tingxiao narrowed his eyes, his gaze icy as he looked at her.
“He’s lucky he didn’t end up dead—that’s all his good fortune.”
A chill ran down Mu Lan’s spine.
“If you had actually killed him, you would’ve broken the law, and stooping to the level of such people is beneath you. The next ti sothing like this happens, you can’t be so impulsive.”
Huo Tingxiao gazed at her for a long while, his eyes gradually softening.
“You’re worried about ,”
she stated with certainty.
Mu Lan felt awkward under his scrutiny and averted her gaze.
“I’m just afraid of being implicated as an accomplice.”
“If any trouble arises, I’ll take full responsibility and won’t let it affect you.”
Huo Tingxiao spoke earnestly, which inadvertently made Mu Lan seem cowardly and heartless.
“Don’t—because I’m the main cause. If it ever cos to it, I’ll go to jail for you.”
There was no hesitation in Mu Lan’s voice as she spoke these words.
After staring at her for a mont, Huo Tingxiao suddenly laughed.
Usually so stoic, his sudden laughter seed almost frightening to Mu Lan, who stared at him fixedly, as if seeing a ghost.
“What are you laughing about?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You think I’m just talking big, and that amuses you?”
Mu Lan felt offended, as if she were being underestimated. She was deadly serious!
“To argue so passionately over an event that will never happen—isn’t such a childish act laughable?”
“…”
Alright then, Mu Lan was sowhat at a loss for words, finding Huo Tingxiao’s comnt not entirely unreasonable.
After a mont of silence, sothing suddenly occurred to Mu Lan.
“Huo Tingxiao, I want to visit my mom. Just park the car outside the complex—I can go in by myself.”
Huo Tingxiao frowned, sensing the underlying ssage in her words.
“Do you not want to co in?”
Mu Lan was taken aback, innocently looking at him.
“Uh… do you want to co in?”
Huo Tingxiao’s expression darkened.
“Shouldn’t I?”
Great, it was another one of those passing the ball conversations. Mu Lan pouted. Was this man seriously sick? Why couldn’t he just say outright that he had plenty of ti and wanted to join her? Was it going to cost him a piece of flesh?
The couple’s sudden return naturally delighted Shen Ying. With Mu Huaifeng away on a business trip to the United Kingdom, she was all alone at ho, which was rather boring.
“You could’ve at least given a heads up so I could’ve prepared sothing,”
Shen Ying hadn’t even finished speaking when Mu Lan threw her arms around her, cooing sweet nothings:
“I just wanted to surprise you, mom. Whatever’s at ho will do—I love all the food here.”
Looking at her daughter acting so affectionately in her arms, Shen Ying teased:
“You—how old are you now, still acting like a child? Aren’t you worried Tingxiao will laugh at you?”
Before Mu Lan could retort, Huo Tingxiao spoke up first.
“No, this is very good.”
Shen Ying was taken aback to hear her son-in-law say such words, and then a tender smile blossod across her face.
Mu Lan took Shen Ying’s hand and walked to the sofa in the living room to sit down, instructing the housemaid to prepare two more dishes with beef as the main ingredient, obviously for her son-in-law Huo Tingxiao.
Huo Tingxiao kept a calm facade, but his heart rippled with an indescribable emotion due to Shen Ying’s thoughtful gesture.
Shen Ying turned to Huo Tingxiao, recalling an important matter, and she began,
“Tingxiao, the old master’s birthday is coming up soon. I have already prepared the birthday gift, but I will not attend the banquet, as the Mu Family’s mourning period has not yet passed. It wouldn’t be right.”
ntioning the mourning period darkened Mu Lan’s eyes. Seeing this, Huo Tingxiao spoke up,
“Mom, the Huo Family doesn’t have such strict customs.”
“It’s you young people who don’t have these customs, but these old traditions still need to be observed.
Lest others mock us for not understanding propriety and beco a laughingstock.”
Shen Ying’s words displeased Mu Lan.
“Who dares to mock? I’ll smash their head!”
“You child, how can you be so reckless? What nonsense are you talking?”
Shen Ying frowned and glanced unintentionally at Huo Tingxiao, chastising Mu Lan for her rudeness with a heavy tone.
Yet Mu Lan did not mind her own bluntness at all, since Huo Tingxiao had long known what she was like; there was no need to pretend.
“Being a bit casual at ho is fine, don’t be angry with Mu Lan, mom.”
Huo Tingxiao, still speaking in his usual unmoved tone, sohow managed to give a great deal of comfort.
Shen Ying had to admit that her son-in-law had indeed changed a lot from before.
“Tingxiao, if you keep indulging her like this, she’ll think she can reach the heavens.”
Mu Lan rolled her eyes, thinking to herself that Huo Tingxiao was too much; he was clearly no good man, yet he insisted on appearing so understanding and reasonable. How irritating that her mother actually fell for it!
“Anyway, if you don’t go because of this, then what about ? Am I not a mber of the Mu Family? I think I shouldn’t go either.”
“You child, you are now the granddaughter-in-law of the Huo Family. How is it the sa?”
But Shen Ying’s logic completely failed to persuade Mu Lan.
“But I still bear the Mu surna, and here’s the deal, if you don’t go, neither will I.”
As Mu Lan grew stubborn, there was nothing Shen Ying could do.
“You speak as though you have cald down a lot since getting married, so how co you are back to your old ways now?”
This casual remark from Shen Ying sohow made Mu Lan avert her gaze guiltily.
“I think my temperant now is just right so that I won’t be bullied.”
Words spoken without intent found intent in their hearing; Huo Tingxiao could not help but reflect upon himself. Mu Lan had not regained her mory yet, and just hearing about such things bothered her so much, if she were to rember the past, he feared…
“With Tingxiao around, who would dare to bully you? Right, Tingxiao?”
Seeing her son-in-law’s discomfort, Shen Ying offered him an out.
Huo Tingxiao appreciated his mother-in-law’s gesture and nodded with a smile.
“You’re right.”
After dinner, on the way back to Maple Forest Garden, Huo Tingxiao could clearly feel that Mu Lan was sowhat distracted.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Thinking about what my mom said, in case soone really makes an issue out of our family’s mourning period at the ti…”
“They won’t, rest assured.”
Mu Lan did not dare ntion the nervous twitch in her right eyelid, feeling it wasn’t a good on.
“And I have forgotten all your family mbers as well, what if it turns into a ss then, what should we do?”
“Apart from so of the direct elders, you don’t need to pay too much attention to the others.”
Huo Tingxiao did not seem overly concerned about this, which earned him an eye roll from Mu Lan.
“If I dared to do that, I would truly beco a laughingstock. People might make excuses for your indifference, but if it were , they wouldn’t hesitate to saddle with an endless list of accusations.
Moreover…”
Suddenly rembering sothing else, Mu Lan felt even more dejected.
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