The Villain's Contracted Lover

68-70

Chapter 68 - "I know. It wasn't you who said it." (1)

Mu XiYuan stood up as well and, with a cold voice, he said, "I'll pass on dinner... I don't want to die from poison."

He gave Mu ZhenYu a meaningful look as he said that, turned around, and returned to his room.

Xu WanZhi watched him left, lifted her head up, looked straight into Mu ZhenYu's eyes and said to him, "Mr. Mu, that recording earlier, I..."

Mu ZhenYu spoke before her and interrupted her effort to explain herself. "I know, that wasn't you who said it." His lips curved upward and he said, "Don't worry too much, WanWan."

Xu WanZhi's body froze for a second. She was a little stunned. He did fake drunk the other night and tricked her into telling him the truth.

It seemed he had figured out a while back that she was no longer the original Xu WanZhi.

Seeing that she had remained silent, he carried on, "And, I think Mu XiYuan had suffered enough and you can let him off the hook now. Why don't you find a chance and cure him? He is still of use to me."

Xu WanZhi was no longer surprised by his mightiness. She nodded and said softly, "Okay, I will."

Mu XueLin wasn't home tonight but that was expected. At the dinner table was the old madam, Aunt Hu, Mu ZhenYu's stepmother / Mu XiYuan birth mother Wang LiZhen, and Mu ZhenYu's second aunt Mu Ling.

Wang LiZhen was Mu XueLin's second wife. In the novel, every move that she made was made with personal gain in mind. She would have "taking over all of the Mu's fortune" carved onto her forehead if only she could.

At the dinner table, she maintained a smile that was neither too friendly nor too distant but, for the most part, she was watching Mu ZhenYu and Xu WanZhi the entire time.

Mu ZhenYu took a look at her out of the corner of his eye and put a piece of sparerib into Xu WanZhi's bowl in a very poised manner. Xu WanZhi understood that he was doing it for show so she, too, picked up a piece of shrimp with her chopsticks and fed it to him.

Mu ZhenYu smiled at her and ate it with no hesitation. He even purposefully bit down on the chopsticks so she couldn't retrieve her chopsticks right away. And the two of them just went back and forth like that throughout the entire meal. Their acting successfully ruined both the old madam and Aunt Hu's appetite. Aunt Hu rolled her eyes the entire time and was just short of making a loud retching noise.

Xu WanZhi purposefully avoided looking in her direction and simply played along with Mu ZhenYu the entire time.

Over the entire table, Mu ZhenYu's second aunt was the only one who didn't have any problems with them and she even kept putting food into Xu WanZhi's bowl.

After a long while, Wang LiZhen finally said to the old madam. "Aiya, I wonder when our XiYuan will shape up and find me a daughter-in-law. Mom, he's the youngest in the family. You must help set him up."

The old madam gave her a look and said while looking into her bowl, "Set him up? I have been looking this last couple of years. There are quite a few girls whose families rival ours. Take the daughter of Jinwei Corporation as an example. She is candid and cheerful and has a strong family background. And then there's the daughter of Zhengqing Corporation. She was very cute too. But, both of them are of ZhenYu's age and a bit too old for XiYuan."

Everybody at the table knew what the old madam meant after she had said that. The old madam still favored ZhenYu more and, one way or another, she disapproved of Xu WanZhi and insisted of splitting up the two of them.