With a shrug of shoulders, he said, "I am sure you know that my father and Uncle Xie are business partners. My father inherited the business from his father but he wasn't great at managing it. Had Uncle Xie not pumped in the money into the business when he did, I think we would have gone under debt. Anyways, the two families interacted enough post they moved from Moganshan to Shanghai. I have seen Chu transform from a wild adolescent into an amazing young woman. She was always the hellion in this otherwise too polite family and I grew fond of her without even consciously realizing it. But I only got to know her as a person earlier this year when I was in New York for a couple of months. We spent some quality time together with her playing the tour and tasting guide for me. Her wicked innocence caught me off-guard, blew me away. By the time I returned to China, I was convinced that she was the one. There were talks going on about Tang and Mei Zhen. Hence I decided to broach the topic up post their wedding. I guess it's too late now!"
"I am confused here. I was under the impression that Chu has been seeing Ethan for some time now. Are you sure she didn't mention anything to you during your stay there?" she enquired.
"I had met him a couple of times in NY but I assumed him to be part of her office friends and never paid any attention to them," he said miserably.
"So what prompted you to come to Moganshan all the way? Actually you don't have to answer that. I just realised that I am being too nosy," she said with a self-conscious smile.
He gave a short bark of laugh, "within fifteen seconds of meeting you, that too only the second time in your life, I vomited out my innermost emotions to you. Then I insulted you by touching upon what seems to be the most sensitive nerve in your ecosystem. And you are worried about being intrusive?"
He continued, "to answer your question, I never got the time to speak with her post the wedding. There was something charged about the whole atmosphere of the wedding. I can't explain it and you may feel that I am exaggerating. But it was as if there was some sort of pressure building up. Tang was hardly the gallant groom. Though he is an introvert otherwise as well, but during the run up to his wedding, he seemed to have been carved out of stone. Not a single emotion leaked out of him. On the other hand, Mei Zhen and rest of the family were oozing out gallons of insecurities and uncertainty. It seemed hardly conducive to have such a conversation during that time. Chu also seemed mighty upset about something and was always hanging around with your friends, engaged in urgent whispered conversations every time I saw her. To everyone's relief, the wedding took place without any incident. Post Tang leaving for his honeymoon, I got to know that Chu had an argument with her parents and left the next day without anyone aware of her itinerary. It was only yesterday that I managed to track her whereabouts and reached here. Now you know it all."