Chapter 29.2

Because Xu Yuan had slept a lot during the day, she found it hard to sleep at night. It was already eleven o’clock and she was wide awake.

Seeing her unable to sleep, Meng Zhengrong suggested, “Why don’t you have some red wine? It helps with sleep.”

Xu Yuan had already tried milk, but still couldn’t sleep. She had to go to work early tomorrow and couldn’t afford to have dark circles under her eyes.

Meng Zhengrong picked a bottle of red wine from the study’s liquor cabinet and returned to the bedroom with two wine glasses. “I’ll join you for a drink.”

“Yeah.” Xu Yuan got up from the bed and sat with Meng Zhengrong on the bedroom sofa.

She hadn’t drunk this kind of wine before, but it looked nice. Xu Yuan picked up a wine glass, shook it a few times like Meng Zhengrong did, took a sip, and found it much tastier than she had imagined.

“Do you remember when you first drank alcohol?” The atmosphere was right, Xu Yuan nestled on the sofa, sipping her drink. She was in her pajamas, as was he, and they smelled the same.

This wasn’t the time to lie.

Xu Yuan thought for a moment, “It seems like when I was ten.”

Meng Zhengrong couldn’t hide his surprise, “You started earlier than me. I never would have guessed.”

In his memory, Xu Yuan had always been very quiet.

“When I was thirteen, one day I was feeling upset and went to my dad’s study, stole a bottle of wine from the liquor cabinet, and drank it all by myself.” Meng Zhengrong recalled the incident with a hint of amusement, “Then my dad gave me a good beating.”

“Feeling upset? Why?” The so-called troubles of kids these days seemed ridiculous to her.

Meng Zhengrong, too, had times when he felt upset?

“The girl I liked at the time liked someone else, and she even told me specifically.”

Thirteen or fourteen was a time of confusion. At that age, boys’ liking for girls was not really serious. They liked one this month and another the next…

Girls were different. It seemed that no matter their age, if they liked someone, they really liked them and were serious about it.

“That means she is very responsible.” Xu Yuan smiled, “At least she told you.”

Meng Zhengrong thought for a moment, “You’re right. If she liked someone else and didn’t tell me, that would have been worse.”

The atmosphere was good, and sometimes Meng Zhengrong felt that Xu Yuan’s mental age was about the same as his own. At first, he treated her like a child, but in their interactions, he often had the illusion that they were peers.

That was good too. He didn’t like immature girls.

After a drink, Xu Yuan wanted another. As she drank, she began to feel tipsy.

More than ten minutes later, Meng Zhengrong noticed that her face was flushed and her eyes were starting to blur. He quickly took the glass from her hand and set it aside, then helped her onto the bed.

The wine wasn’t very strong, but her body was probably not used to alcohol, and her tolerance was low. Xu Yuan felt her consciousness becoming increasingly fuzzy, her whole body soft like lying in cotton.

Part of her felt it was dangerous to be like this. The last shred of her sanity told her she couldn’t do this again. On the other hand, she couldn’t resist the intoxicating power of the alcohol, and her mind gradually became blank.

Meng Zhengrong came up from downstairs with a glass of warm water. Seeing Xu Yuan lying groggily on the bed, he sat down beside her and watched over her carefully.

She is a good drinker. She wasn’t causing a scene or talking nonsense now…

Just as Meng Zhengrong was marveling that both of them were good drinkers, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind. Talking nonsense? But don’t people usually speak the truth when they’re drunk?

He was too curious about where things stood now, so he leaned closer to Xu Yuan and nudged her, “Xiao Yuan, wake up, wake up.”

Xu Yuan wasn’t completely asleep yet. At this moment, she was completely different from when she was sober. She turned impatiently, murmuring.

Meng Zhengrong was curious and quickly moved to the other side, cautiously asking, “Is Xiao Yuan a boy or a girl?”

Xu Yuan felt like there were bees buzzing in her ears, “A girl!”

Though drunk, she still managed to answer questions. Meng Zhengrong thought this was commendable.

“Does Xiao Yuan like Meng Zhengrong?” Who knew that after asking this question, he would be so nervous that his limbs went numb. He couldn’t believe he was doing something so foolish.

But since he had already asked, he might as well hear her answer.

Xu Yuan’s response wasn’t really an answer; she just chuckled.

Did that mean she liked him, or didn’t like him?

Meng Zhengrong couldn’t quite figure it out. Thinking that he had already done something foolish once, he might as well do it again. “Does Xiao Yuan like Meng Zhengrong? Does she like him?”

Xu Yuan was annoyed by the question. All she heard was someone asking her if she liked Meng Zhengrong. What a joke!

“Don’t like! Don’t like!” She was a bit annoyed, clenched her fists on the bed, and pounded them, “Don’t like!”

Drunk Xu Yuan behaved more like a pampered girl of her age.

“…”

Meng Zhengrong was irritated. He was irritated by Xu Yuan’s answer, but on the other hand, he found her unexpectedly adorable at this moment. She was so cute that he didn’t want to argue with her.

But he still had to retaliate.

He leaned close to her ear, “Oh, Meng Zhengrong doesn’t like you either.”

It was quiet on this side, but the Shen family was in a state of restlessness and crisis.

Shen Ming looked at his oblivious son. Although he resented his son’s lack of ambition, now wasn’t the time to scold him. “Zhengrong seems to want to get rid of me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have accompanied his wife to some impoverished town. If I’m not mistaken, he probably wants to use this as an excuse to push his wife to take over the company charity project.”

Shen Ming’s daughter, Shen Xin, who was Zhengrong’s cousin, was extremely jealous of Xu Yuan. Through gritted teeth, she muttered, “It must have been Xu Yuan who talked to cousin, or he wouldn’t be doing this! It’s all her fault. She just got married and already wants to interfere with the company affairs. Who does she think she is? I’m going to see cousin tomorrow!”

“She’s the young lady of the Xu family,” Shen Ming’s son, Shen Cheng, said. “Just based on that, cousin will probably have to give in to her.”

Shen Ming and his wife exchanged glances, seeing resignation in each other’s eyes.

“How can you all be so naive?” Shen Ming sighed. “Who is your cousin? Do you think he’s easily influenced by others? It’s your cousin who wants to get rid of me, not Xu Yuan. Xu Yuan is just an excuse, a reason. If Zhengrong doesn’t want it, even if he promises, it’s useless.”

Shen Xin shook her head in disbelief. “That’s impossible. If my cousin wanted to take action, he would have done it long ago. Why wait until now?”

“Because he didn’t have the time or the right person,” Mrs. Shen also wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to educate her children. “Now is the best time. He just got married, and Xu Yuan immediately started working at Meng Corporation. I thought it was unusual from the beginning. Now that he has no time, Xu Yuan has the time. She’s the most suitable candidate. If Mrs. Meng takes over the charity project, who would have an objection?”

Shen Xin moved her mouth and saw her parents’ serious faces. After all, she swallowed her words.

“Then what should we do?” Shen Cheng asked anxiously.

Dad told him that after graduation, he would arrange for him to take over his current job at Meng Corporation, and the family’s life had improved a lot because Dad was working at Meng Corporation, and he had added a lot of real estate to his name.

Dad had a private talk with him a while ago and also revealed that Meng Corporation would start a charity project and roughly how much money he could make. At that time, he was moved. If he could stay at Meng Corporation for the rest of his life, they would never worry about their family again.

Maybe his future days would be more chic.

How could such a lucrative position be given to others? He was firmly opposed, and it was impossible!

However, Shen Cheng thought of his cousin’s personality and immediately felt weak. If his cousin insisted on taking this position back, no one in their family could do anything about it. When he thought of this, Shen Cheng’s face looked very ugly.

Shen Ming was also having a headache, he shook his head, “I don’t have a good solution either. After all, Xu Yuan has the Xu family behind her. Zhengrong will also stand on her side. My sister probably won’t be able to hold on for long.”

Once Meng Zhengrong took action, there was no way for him to make amends. Now he just hoped that his sister could hold on a little longer so that he could start preparing.

“Zhengrong will not let you go right away. He will probably let Xu Yuan study with you for a while.” Mrs. Shen thought for a while, “I don’t know what kind of person Xu Yuan is, nor how capable she is, but we still have to–” She paused, looked at her husband and children, and emphasized, “Strike first.”

“What do you mean?” Seeing that his wife had a solution, Shen Ming asked hurriedly.

“Zhengrong wanted to do this because Xu Yuan also agreed. If Xu Yuan didn’t agree, would he be able to force it, would he dare to force it?”

“But we don’t have any contact with Xu Yuan, what can we do?”

When Xu Yuan married Meng Zhengrong, she got along well with the Meng family’s relatives, but had almost no contact with the Shen family. They all guessed that Xu Yuan looked down on them.

Because of this, some relatives from the Shen family secretly have a lot of dissatisfaction with her, but no matter how much they dislike her, no matter how much relatives say they hate her at dinner parties, it’s too late to curry favor with her once they meet.

They had no contact with Xu Yuan, so what could they do to influence her now?

“The two of them must have reached a consensus, which means that they are currently in a good relationship.” When Mrs. Shen said this, Shen Xin snorted coldly.

“If they have a quarrel or a conflict, will this consensus still exist?” Mrs. Shen smiled. Although she was dressed elegantly, the smile in her eyes made people feel uncomfortable. “As long as there is a crisis in their relationship, there will be no crisis in our family.”

Shen Ming pondered, “You are too general. We rarely contact Xu Yuan, so how could there be a conflict between them?”

“Hubby, I don’t know if you have heard a rumor,” Mrs. Shen smiled mysteriously, “Some people in the circle know that Xu Yuan had a boyfriend before she married Zhengrong. I don’t know why, but they broke up. Not long after, the Xu family got engaged to the Meng family. I think we can start with Xu Yuan’s ex-boyfriend.”

Shen Cheng’s eyes lit up when he heard this.  “I know about this, I know. I heard recently that Xu Yuan got angry because of her ex-boyfriend and even intentionally crashed into his car. If she didn’t care anymore or had completely moved on, why would she get angry and go crash someone else’s car? Women, when they can get angry, it means there’s still emotions there.”

“Absolutely shameless,” Shen Xin snorted.

She still felt indignant for her cousin and couldn’t shake the feeling that Xu Yuan was completely unworthy of him. Maybe no one was worthy of him at all.

“I heard they’ve known each other for a long time, even classmates before. Their relationship must be extraordinary. Xiaocheng, you go find out more,” Mrs. Shen stroked the back of Shen Ming’s hand with one hand and whispered to comfort him: “As long as Xu Yuan and Zhengrong have conflicts, our family can still rest assured.”