Chen Ziyi grabbed her hand, forcefully pulling her away from their families. Clearly, he wasn't giving her a choice in the matter.
"Chen Ziyi, let go of me!" she whispered sharply.
"I won't! Since you're so cheap now, letting other men touch you, why can't I touch you too? Zuo Aiai, be honest, how much did he pay to be with you last night? I'll give you double!"
At that, her body froze, and she gained enough strength to pull away and slap him across the face.
Smack!
There was a ringing in his ears, and he stepped away from her reflexively.
"Chen Ziyi, calm down. The woman you should be with is over there. Also, I don't want to sleep with a man like you. No matter how much you offer me, the answer will be the same!"
She used the clearest and iciest tone she possessed in her arsenal, straightening her disheveled clothes and hurrying up the stairs.
Chen Ziyi stood there for a long time, frozen and perplexed.
---
Back in her mother's room, she smelled the familiar smell of disinfectant.
Her mother had been bedridden for five years now. The day that Lin Huiyue had brought Zuo Yunyun into the Zuo family, her mother had been so angry that she'd had a cerebral hemorrhage.
From that point on, her body had been completely paralyzed from the waist down. Just like that, one of the most powerful women in Binhai City had been made a cripple. Lin Huiyue brazenly moved into the house immediately after that, treating the servants arrogantly and acting as though she'd lived there all along.
In one move, she'd completely replaced her mother as the mistress of the Zuo family.
As long as her father's heart belonged to Lin Huiyue, she was the one who wielded the true power. Although Zuo Aiai and her mother possessed the family name, they were just decorations, and Zuo Aiai's father treated them as such.
"Zuo Aiai, what's wrong? What's happened? There are so many voices downstairs today! Why are there so many people here?"
Mo Chen had been reading a book when Zuo Aiai walked in. Her slender and withered body looked particularly haggard that day, as if she hadn't slept well.
Zuo Aiai, barely holding back tears, walked over to the wardrobe with a strained smile on her face. She took out a set of clothes.
"Oh, it's nothing. Some members of the Chen family stopped by to talk about the wedding, that's all. It's fine. I stayed at a friend's house last night, so I didn't change my clothes and now I'm tired. I'm going to take a shower. We'll talk more when I'm out."
Finally safe in the shower, Zuo Aiai let out a sigh. She had no idea what she should do.
Ever since her mother had gotten sick, the only consolation she'd had was herself.
When her mother had heard about her engagement with Ziyi, she'd been overjoyed. She'd taken out the Zuo family heirloom from storage, the angel's heart necklace that her father had once given her, and said that she wanted to use it as Zuo Aiai's dowry.
When she remembered how happy her mother looked at the news...
Her heart felt like it was being cut open with a knife.
She had thought that as long as she married Ziyi, she might be able to bring her mother out of this hell. But now...she had no idea how to break the bad news to her.
Her mother was all she had. She didn't want to jeopardize her already fragile health with the shock.
"Sister Aiya, it's been a long time since I've come to visit you! You look wonderful—your body is just as strong as ever!" Lin Huiyue's voice drifted in from her mother's room just as Zuo Aiai was lathering herself up with soap. When she heard her aunt's false tone, her entire body froze. She didn't even have time to finish rinsing off. She jumped out of the shower immediately, throwing on a bathrobe and running out.
Still, she didn't have quite enough time to...
"I don't want to disturb your rest, but I have very important news for you! Tianhao asked me to tell you...it's the family heirloom, the angel's heart necklace? Tianhao said he wanted to give it to Yunyun as a dowry...Oh! Silly me. Has anyone told you? I almost forgot, you must not know...being cooped up in here all the time..."