Chapter 4

“Please, would you like to have dinner?” Xu Zhihuan suggested uncertainly.

“Okay, when are you free?” Zhou Yichuan agreed.

Xu Zhihuan thought for a moment and said, “I’m always free. It depends on you.”

“How about this, you deal with the cancellation of the engagement first, and then treat me to a meal in a couple of days.”

Xu Zhihuan nodded with a stiff neck, “Oh, okay.”

She wondered, could Zhou Yichuan not afford to eat?

In my impression, Zhou Yichuan is not the kind of person who would ask for benefits for helping others.

Forget it, I did help her today, so I should treat her to a meal.

“Brother Yichuan, when did you return to the military region?” Xu Zhihuan asked casually for fear of an awkward silence.

“In the past two days.” Zhou Yichuan said, and then asked Xu Zhihuan, “Are you really going to break off the engagement?”

Xu Zhihuan nodded seriously, “Yes, if the man I want to marry doesn’t only care about me, then I would rather not marry him!”

Zhou Yichuan seemed relieved and said nothing.

Zhou Yichuan sent Xu Zhihuan to the door of her house. Knowing that she had important things to deal with, he did not go in with her. He just asked someone to unload the dowry from the car and put it in the warehouse as Xu Zhihuan asked.

Xu Zhihuan expressed his gratitude to Zhou Yichuan again and again.

Zhou Yichuan said “hmm”, “Let’s go home.”

Looking at the little woman’s back as she left, Zhou Yichuan’s eyes were deep.

…

The family didn’t know that the dowry had been moved into the warehouse. At the dinner table, when all the family members were present, Xu Zhihuan talked about the “broken engagement” in a very serious manner.

Xu’s mother, Wang Wanjun, thought her daughter was just being petty and didn’t take it to heart. She smiled indulgently, “How did Qing’an offend you again? You two are getting married soon. Don’t let the little things hurt each other’s feelings, and don’t even mention breaking off the engagement.”

Her mother came from a “scholarly family” and her grandparents were both university professors. Although the family had encountered some misfortunes in the early years, they have now been rehabilitated. It was during that “turbulent” time that her parents got married.

It was hard to imagine that her mother, who had lived a decent life for half her life, would spend the second half of her life paralyzed in bed, needing care for everything from eating, drinking, defecating to urinating. At that time, Xu Zhihuan knew that her mother didn’t want to live anymore, but she couldn’t even commit suicide. As a daughter, she couldn’t bear to help her and could only endure it year after year.

Now all his family members appeared in front of Xu Zhihuan vividly, and Xu Zhihuan was extremely excited.

Worried that his parents and brother would notice something was wrong, Xu Zhihuan didn’t dare show any sign of abnormality.

“I’ve thought it over seriously,” Xu Zhihuan repeated. “I want to cancel the engagement! Today I’ve brought back the dowry I sent to the Yuan family! From now on, marriage is irrelevant to each other.”

“What?” Xu Guoqiang, Xu’s father, looked at his daughter in disbelief. “You, brought the dowry back by yourself?”

Xu Jinnan also found it outrageous. He knew how much his sister liked Yuan Qing’an, so how could she just break off the engagement? This was too straightforward!

“Tell me the truth, brother. Did he bully you? I’ll help you settle the score with him!”

Xu Jinnan said coldly.

“He doesn’t like me.” Xu Zhihuan said word by word, “At first I thought he was cold to me because he was just like that. But it’s not true. He just doesn’t like me!”

“He gave the Yuan family’s heirloom jade Buddha to my cousin as a full-moon gift. He had clearly said before that this heirloom jade Buddha was for the Yuan family’s daughter-in-law.”

“I also found the wooden box under his bed filled with letters to my cousin that he hadn’t sent yet. He liked my cousin, not me.”

Li Rou’s mother died early, and her father was a scoundrel. He remarried just a few days after his wife died. Li Rou was still young at that time, and Wang Wanjun was afraid that her niece would suffer any grievances, so she simply took her to live with her.

Over the years in the Xu family, no one treated Li Rou unfairly. Wherever there was Xu Zhihuan, there was Li Rou’s.

It turns out that in his previous life, not only did this person not know how to be grateful, he even had an affair with his cousin’s husband!

The key point is that Yuan Qing’an explained to her clearly that “the Xu family was ruined by him”, but Li Rou didn’t care.

However, Yuan Qing’an was wrong in one thing. It was never her mother Wang Wanjun who arranged the marriage for Li Rou.

It was Li Rou’s own choice.

Xu Zhihuan’s eyes darkened. She would protect her family well in this life and would never let this pair of dogs have anything to do with them again!

“This bastard!” Xu Guoqiang raised his hand and slammed the chopsticks down, his face changing immediately with anger.

“Cancel the engagement if you want. I never had any interest in Yuan Qing’an anyway.” Xu Jinnan snorted disdainfully, “What a hypocrite!”

“Huanhuan…” Wang Wanjun cares about her own daughter the most. She must be very sad about the broken engagement, right?

“Mom, I’m fine.” Xu Zhihuan was so happy that he didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

“We have to talk to their family about this matter.” Xu Guoqiang said in a serious tone.

“Engagement is something that both parents have to sit down and discuss, and breaking off an engagement also requires everyone to be present.”

“It’s okay, just call it off. If you don’t like me, just call off the engagement. There are plenty of good men in the world, and my daughter deserves better!”

Xu Guoqiang said, picking up a chicken leg and giving it to Xu Zhihuan. “Eat first! I thought it was no big deal. Even if the sky falls, your mother and I will hold it up for you!”

Xu Zhihuan’s eyes were red and her vision gradually became blurred. If she had not married Yuan Qing’an in her previous life, if she had seen the man’s true face earlier, her family would not have been in trouble.

“My dear, don’t cry,” Wang Wanjun said, and her voice was tinged with tears, because she felt sorry for Zhihuan.

“There’s nothing to cry about,” Xu Guoqiang felt in his pocket and immediately took out a few hundred yuan and stuffed it into Xu Zhihuan’s pocket. “Let’s go to the department store tomorrow and buy two new clothes and forget all these unhappy things.”

Xu Zhihuan nodded heavily, “Okay!”

…

Compared with the “warmth” of the Xu family, the Yuan family felt like the sky had collapsed.

“Cough, cough, cough, cough!” Father Yuan coughed so hard that he couldn’t even utter a complete sentence. “You, bastard! Hurry up and coax Zhihuan back to me.”

The room was empty, with no place to sit. Yuan Qing’an refused coldly, “No!”

Zhu Guiyun’s eyes filled with tears. “Son, it’s okay if you don’t go, but if you really break off the engagement, what will happen to your father’s illness? Will your brothers and sisters still go to school? How will our family live?”

“Without Xu Zhihuan, our family can’t survive!” Yuan Qing’an didn’t believe it. After all, he was a company commander in a military region. Could it be that he still had to rely on a woman for support?!

If he tries to coax Xu Zhihuan, this woman will bully him and act tyrannically in the future!

What’s more, what Xu Zhihuan did today was too much. Not only did he make them a laughing stock in the entire military compound, but he also dragged the innocent Li Rou into this. I wonder if this incident will have an impact on her.

“You’re absolutely right. Without her, our family can’t survive.”

Zhu Guiyun said seriously, “Do you know how much your father’s medical expenses cost every month? With your salary, can you support our family? That Li Rou you like, let alone she’s married now, even if she wasn’t married, you can’t marry her. She has no parents, and her father is a rotten guy. The Xu family has only supported her for a few years, but how much dowry do you think they can give her?”