noveldrama
Chapter 33 - 33 33 I Want to Enter Your Fish Pond
Chapter 33 - 33 33 I Want to Enter Your Fish Pond
?Chapter 33: Chapter 33 I Want to Enter Your Fish Pond Chapter 33: Chapter 33 I Want to Enter Your Fish Pond “Invoice.”
It’s not like he always did things by the book.
In business, I pay and you issue the invoice.
It’s perfectly reasonable.
Sheng Xian had not anticipated such a gambit from a schoolchild, and was momentarily caught off guard, standing there dumbfounded.
Having successfully left Sheng Xian speechless, Lu Jingyan raised an eyebrow and asked, “What’s the matter? Looking to dodge some taxes?”
Sheng Xian slightly lifted her eyelids and replied, “No, I’ll give it to you another day.”
Lu Jingyan uttered an “Oh”, then asked, “Which day would that be?”
Without waiting for Sheng Xian to answer, Lu Jingyan leaned his face closer to hers, unabashedly bending his brows and eyes as he asked, “Is it the day I’m very much looking forward to seeing you?”
“…”
Sheng Xian gave no reply, and Lu Jingyan took her silence as acquiescence, slowly sitting up straight and picking at the pattern on the cushion as he asked, “Got plans tonight?”
Sheng Xian: “Hm?”
“Why else would you come to the hotel?”
“…”
When she met with Bo Mu at the café last time, she thought it was a date.
This time, showing up at a hotel, she once again thought it was a date.
Sheng Xian was genuinely curious as to what gave her such impressions, causing these repeated misunderstandings about him.
The reason he appeared at this hotel today was at the request of Chen Kai to assist with a friend’s mother whom he had met online in her divorce case.
Upon meeting, Sheng Xian discovered that the client had no intention of divorcing at all. It was merely that the online friend wished for his mother to get a divorce.
The reason was that the friend’s father had been abusing his mother for over a decade, and Chen Kai’s online friend could no longer stand it; he went behind his mother’s back and decided to act first, talk later by arranging a meeting with a lawyer.
Throughout the meeting, most of the time was wasted with the friend trying to convince his mother to muster the courage to divorce.
Mother and daughter ended up arguing, and in anger, the mother slapped the daughter. The daughter, probably also infuriated by her mother’s weakness and helplessness, clutched her face and let out all the secrets she had buried deep down.
Turns out the father had long been eager to ditch the mother and had been secretly transferring assets away for years.
The daughter accused her mother of tolerating the situation for too long, warning that sooner or later, she wouldn’t be able to hold onto the marriage, money, or even her daughter.
Chen Kai’s online friend’s mother is a very traditional housewife, with no job or social life. Aside from occasionally accompanying her husband to show off a happy marriage when necessary, she devoted most of her time and energy to raising her child and managing everyday household needs.
The mother had endured years of domestic abuse without divorce partly for her daughter’s sake and partly because she had never worked outside the home, fearing that without her husband’s financial support, she wouldn’t be able to survive.
The mother wasn’t afraid of her husband wanting a divorce; what terrified her was the thought of her daughter leaving her. Now that her husband was considering divorce, she felt she had to make plans for the future. The soon-to-be-divorced mother’s first priority was gaining custody of her underage daughter, who was currently in ninth grade, and only secondly the property.
Economically speaking, the husband had a far greater chance of winning the daughter’s custody. However, domestic abuse is one of the legal grounds for definitively proving the breakdown of a marital relationship and for seeking divorce compensation. Furthermore, domestic violence is detrimental to the healthy growth of underage children and significantly increases the chances of obtaining custody of the daughter.
After a thorough discussion, Sheng Xian learned that throughout the ten-plus years of marriage and enduring many instances of domestic abuse, the wife had not once documented any evidence of her husband’s violence.
Her meticulous husband never allowed her to go to the hospital for minor injuries. On a few occasions, when he hit her hard enough to knock her unconscious, he sought private doctors, and the wife, who never even considered divorce, in order to keep the marriage superficially peaceful, even wrote down that she had injured herself accidentally when she was treated.
Looking at the whole situation, if this wife really went through with divorcing her husband, it seemed she wouldn’t have any advantage at all.
It was a massive headache.
After taking down the mother’s contact information, Sheng Xian and Chen Kai took a trip to the restroom.
And that’s when they bumped into Lu Jingyan, who was in the midst of a fight with someone.
The headache just got worse.
…
Lu Jingyan saw Sheng Xian stay silent for quite a while and thought he had guessed correctly, clicking his tongue.
Sheng Xian snapped back to reality and glanced at her with a sarcastic little expression, “Work.”
Lu Jingyan let out an “Oh,” leaving it unclear whether she believed him or not.
After two seconds of silence, Sheng Xian said, “Chen Kai’s client, her mom wants to file for divorce.”
Lu Jingyan sized up Sheng Xian from head to toe, “Are you working by selling your charms?”
Sheng Xian, “?”
Lu Jingyan spoke slowly, “Otherwise, how come your clients are always women?”
Sheng Xian, “…”
He shouldn’t have opened his mouth just now.
Without bringing up this matter, Lu Jingyan would have forgotten about last time when they had late-night snacks together and she accidentally scrolled through his WeChat, only to see messages from all those women.
She hadn’t seen him that often, but on the very first evening she bumped into him on the roadside, pulling and tugging with another girl.
Then there was Bo Mu.
And now, it’s someone’s child’s mother.
Although it was for work, she couldn’t help but find it irritating.
Lu Jingyan clicked her tongue again slowly, “You’re quite the provider, aren’t you?”
Sheng Xian gave her a puzzled look, “Provide what?”
Lu Jingyan, “Fish.”
“…”
Sheng Xian didn’t know what kind of crazy she was spouting now.
The jerks Lu Jingyan knew, nine out of ten were philanderers, and the excessive ones would even schedule eight dates on Valentine’s Day.
She didn’t think much of it, but when it came to Sheng Xian, it just inexplicably irked her.
It was getting late, and he intended to unilaterally end the childish banter, “If there’s nothing else, I—”
The already irked Lu Jingyan, upon hearing this, snapped and threw away the pillow, stretching out her hand to grab Sheng Xian’s collar and yanking him towards her.
The movement was quite sudden, almost as if she was about to pounce and start a brawl.
Sheng Xian was stunned for about three to five seconds, then looked down at her hand clutching his collar.
Lu Jingyan realized what she was doing the moment she made the move, but it was already too late.
She looked at Sheng Xian’s face, then at her own hand, and opened her mouth.
Lu Jingyan, are you crazy?
If you’re annoyed, be annoyed, why get physical?
Have you actually flirted with him to the point where you can casually get physical?
With the way you are, do you still dream about tormenting jerks?
Lu Jingyan blinked, her mind racing as she thought of how to salvage the situation.
Three seconds later, she swallowed and pretended to be calm as she slowly moved her hand from Sheng Xian’s collar to his tie. Meeting Sheng Xian’s questioning gaze, she freed a finger to hook onto his tie and started twirling it round and round, “Big brother, I have something to tell you.”
“A secret.”
While speaking, she moved her head forward, leaning close to his ear, her voice deliberately lowered to be both light and soft, “Big brother, I want to join your fishpond, may I have a chance?”
PS: I wrote too late last night, which caused me not to sleep well during the day. That’s it for today, ha~ Mwah, goodnight~