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Huo Tingzhen's eyebrows twitched with anger. She stretched out her hands and shoved Mike's shoulders hard. "I told you back then, don't let me see you again."
Mike stumbled and bumped into the wall. "You won't even forgive me? We've been friends for so many years."
"Back then, you helped your brother deceive me. Did you ever think about being friends with me?"
Mike's eyes were red and swollen. "I'm sorry, that's my brother, my only sibling. It was wrong of him to cheat on me with other women, but he said he only loved you and asked me to keep it a secret. I didn't want him to lose you, so I chose to hide it. Later, that woman left on her own, and I thought that was the end of it, but I never expected..."
In just a few words, Jian Yu had a clear understanding of what happened back then and why Huo Tingzhen was unwilling to see them.
He couldn't help but sneer, "Mike, when you choose to help someone cover up Tingzhen's secret, you lose the right to be her friend."
Mike, "..."
“If I were Tingzhen, I wouldn’t have sat at the same table with you for drinks just now, nor would I be catching up with you at the hospital now.”
Huo Tingzhen still left.
Merlin was not seen.
Even after walking a long way, Jian Yu could still hear the old lady calling Huo Tingzhen's name from behind.
"Ting, Meilin will be out soon, can you wait a moment?"
Huo Tingzhen walked even faster.
The car drove for a long time before finally arriving at the winery.
The bedroom has been cleaned and is ready for the two of them to go in and rest.
Seeing Huo Tingzhen preparing to go to the bedroom, Jian Yu pulled her back from behind, "Let's eat something first? My stomach is growling."
Jian Yu was joking, but Huo Tingzhen subconsciously glanced at her abdomen. "I didn't hear that!"
Jian Yu: "Just kidding."
Huo Tingzhen nodded. "That's right, we haven't eaten for over ten hours."
The servants hurriedly set the food out.
The two of them wolfed down their food.
After dinner, Huo Tingzhen had someone bring over the most expensive red wine, and he and Jian Yu sat down on the carpet to drink. "This wine isn't very intoxicating, you should try it."
Jian Yu took only one sip before realizing that Huo Tingzhen's cup was empty.
Then, Huo Tingzhen poured one cup after another into his mouth.
Jianyu, “…”
Is he drowning his sorrows in alcohol?
Jian Yu put down his wine glass, determined to get to the bottom of it, "Is your refusal to accept Bao Yanbai's marriage proposal related to Merlin?"
Huo Tingzhen shook his head, "Not entirely. I've seen enough of my parents' marriage since I was a child, and then Merlin dealt me another blow when I grew up."
Jian Yu then asked, "Do Bao Yanbai and Mei Lin look alike?"
Huo Tingzhen was clearly surprised by Jian Yu's question. "Why do you ask that?"
Five years ago, you broke up with Merlin, and it wasn't until you met Bao Yanbai that you started a new relationship. Was it Bao Yanbai's personal charm that attracted you, or was he just like Merlin?
Huo Tingzhen frowned and thought for a long time, "It doesn't seem like it."
Jian Yu breathed a sigh of relief; at least it wasn't a stand-in.
Huo Tingzhen said, "Bao Yanbai is very robust, while Mei Lin is rather weak and scholarly, and Bao Yanbai is not as intelligent as Mei Lin."
"......So Merlin has many advantages?"
Huo Tingzhen held up two fingers. "I'm not trying to praise him, but Mike and Merlin are both geniuses with IQs of 200 or higher. Most people can't compare to them."
Jian Yu said, "No wonder you think Bao Yan is stupid."
Huo Tingzhen drank another glass of wine. "He's pretty silly. He has to share every little thing with me, and he tells me gossip about his family members every day."
"Huh?" I didn't realize Bao Yanbai had such a big mouth.
"The gossip about his relatives is so interesting! Every time I hear it, I can't help but laugh, hahaha..."
Jian Yu stared at the smile on Huo Tingzhen's lips, her gaze complex. "You like being with him that much?"
"Yes, I quite like it."
"Do you like it even more than being with Merlin?"
Huo Tingzhen suddenly fell silent.
After a long pause, he finally spoke, “Because of their high intelligence, Merlin and his brother were given great expectations by their parents. Their family was of modest means, owning only a small company with an annual income of less than 500,000. Despite these circumstances, their parents took out a loan to send them to our school. Later, unable to bear the enormous tuition burden, their parents transferred them out of the school.”
"These conditions must be considered unusual at your school, right?"
“Yes! Everyone laughed at them, but I didn’t, so they had a really good impression of me. When they dropped out of school, they left me their social media accounts, and we chatted occasionally. I admire their intelligence, self-reliance, and ambition, and I genuinely consider them friends.”
Well, they've become childhood sweethearts.
"Later, Merlin was admitted to one of the world's top universities. Although he tried to raise money everywhere, he still couldn't raise enough tuition fees by the time the semester started. When I heard about this, I offered to pay his tuition fees for him. He was embarrassed at first, but I told him that he would pay me back when he earned money in the future, and he accepted. In the second year of Merlin's university, his family couldn't repay their loan and the bank foreclosed on their only house. His parents were getting old and couldn't afford to be homeless, so Mike had to ask me for help. I lent them one of my large apartments to live in, charging them only $100 a month in rent. His whole family was very grateful to me."
So that's what houses are all about.
“After graduating, Merlin started his own business. I invested some money to help him. At that time, my father was managing my family company. I could only invest some money and couldn’t do anything else. I was prepared to lose money. Unexpectedly, he was very smart. Without anyone to guide him, he built his business on his own and entered the Fortune Global 500 in just two years.”
Jian Yu gasped. This wasn't just a genius! This was a genius among geniuses.
Jian Yu, "How did things start between you two?"
Huo Tingzhen: "After Meilin left our school, he would often leave me messages. Starting from college, he would chat with me online every day. Sometimes when I was too busy to reply, he would still insist on sending me a goodnight message. He didn't change this habit even when he started his own business."
Jian Yu, "And then you were attracted to this genius?"
Huo Tingzhen nodded. "Yes, he confessed his feelings to me after he became successful in his career. I really admired him, and I agreed after considering it for two days. After we got together, he took meticulous care of me. I thought we would continue like this forever, but unexpectedly, in the third year of our relationship, I accidentally discovered that he had betrayed me. The other woman was his college classmate. I heard that his company had just been established, so she switched jobs to work there. You want to ask how I found out? With his intelligence, I really didn't notice anything amiss. That woman switched her birth control pills to vitamins, got pregnant, resigned under the pretext of family matters, and then appeared at his company in a high-profile manner when her due date was approaching."
"......"
"He settled Allison in while he started proposing to me."
"......"
"The ridiculous thing is, I actually agreed."
Was Huo Tingzhen previously engaged?
Jian Yu frowned. Why hadn't he heard about this from the Huo family?
"Is it because of Merlin's proposal that you're now rejecting Bao Yanbai's proposal?"
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