Chapter 161: Destined
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Mo Han furrowed his eyebrows. “You saw her yesterday?”
“Yeah, just right opposite the company. I met her on the way when I went down to buy coffee.”
Mo Han turned silent, and Liu Zhiyuan next to him rubbed his chin and muttered to himself, “Did anything happen to her? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her for a long time. Didn’t she come to our office occasionally in the past? She’s not coming here anymore lately.”
“You’re concerned about her?” Mo Han said.
Seeing that Mo Han’s expression had changed, Liu Zhiyuan immediately said, “No… no, don’t worry, Boss, Xia Xia and I only friends!”
“You call her Xia Xia?” The tone of his voice dropped by a few degrees.
“No… no, Xia Xia told me to call her that. It’s not… what I’m saying is…” Seeing his boss slowly cornering him, Liu Zhiyuan could not even speak clearly.
He sighed. “In the beginning, I thought her name was difficult to say, so I told her, shall I call you Xia Xia then, she said anything is fine, whatever suits me. So I kept on calling her that.”
“Do you two contact each other a lot in private?” Mo Han asked again.
Liu Zhiyuan shook his head. “Not really, we’ll just chat a bit once in a while.” His heart went cold went he saw Mo Han’s expression, and he decided to stop talking about Mo Han’s sister with Mo Han any longer. He was always the one left speechless in the end, so he started to retreat. “That… Boss I remembered that I have something on, I need to go.”
Far away from Mo & Associates, Chairman Du sat frowning inside a car. He felt furious whenever he remembered the words that Mo Han had said earlier in the law firm. He had heard that Barrister Mo was a cold-hearted person a long time ago, but he only got to experience how firm Mo Han was for himself when he was there today.
The cases he received would not have any changes from then on as long as they had enough evidence. Of course, even if he did not have enough evidence, he could also look for leads and then firmly stood his ground.
In his five years of being a lawyer, he had not had a single case that had a chance of losing.
“This person Mo Han really doesn’t know his own place,” Chairman Du looked in front as he spoke, one hand knocking at the car window.
“Exactly as people said,” the representative lawyer beside him said.
“Do you know whether he has any weakness?” Chairman Du asked.
“I’m not sure. But according to what I know, a few people that wanted his help were rejected in the past few years. Should we change the tactic, and meanwhile I’ll treat the judge to a meal these few days and see whether things can turn for the better?”
Chairman Du stopped him. “Don’t be impatient, we should continue working on Mo Han. If things with the judge do not go well, then it’d be even more disadvantageous for us.”
The representative lawyer said, “But… it was already like this today…”
Chariman Du smiled. “It’s certainly hard to discuss matters with Mo Han, but we can do it from the people close to him.”
“People close to him?”
“I heard that Mo Han has a younger sister.”
“Oh… I heard about it before too. They don’t seem to be blood-related. She was adopted by Mo Han’s parents in America, and just came here a while ago.”
Chairman Du looked delighted as though he had found something interesting. “Not blood-related?”
“Yup. But actually, the siblings’ relationship with each other seems pretty good, his sister often goes to the law firm to play.”
“What’s his sister’s name?”
“Xia Qingyi.”
“It seems like we need to have a good chat with Miss Xia.”
The representative lawyer seemed a little worried. “Will this work? Mo Han doesn’t seem to be someone who’d get tricked by this. I remember that I had a colleague who went to find Mo Han in the past for some matters and got the cold shoulder. He somehow managed to find Mo Han’s girlfriend in America after that, hoping that she could plead for him, but it didn’t work.”
Chairman Du felt that he had already found the perfect solution, and confidently said, “Don’t worry. Dealing with a girl is much easier than dealing with Mo Han. If his sister doesn’t listen to us, then we can do it the hard way, there will definitely be a solution.”
“Then alright, I’ll try contacting her,” the representative lawyer said.
Faraway in F city, Xia Qingyi did not know that she was going to be embroiled in trouble. She was still angry at Mo Han’s indifferent attitude when she told him this morning that she was going out and not coming back.
His confession was rejected, and he became like this? As though he could not wait to cut off all ties with her, and pretend that he did not know her? Was he determined to distance himself from her? Even if they were not in a romantic relationship, did he want to antagonize her and not say a word to her?
Xia Qingyi felt that Mo Han was behaving in a ridiculous manner. As though everything was her fault that she rejected him, and that him wanting to distance himself from her was a consequence that she should bear.
But, had he not thought it through? Mo Han was the only person who she could brazenly talk to, and now that he had distanced himself from her, there was really not a single person that she could talk with any longer.
There were billions of people in this world, and yet she did not have a single person who she could chat with.
So, in a fit of anger, she brought her trip forward, went to F City and accompanied her mother to Song Yuenian’s grave.
Speaking of her mother, she did not seem to be angry that Xia Qingyi had gone back to S City after she found out the truth. When Xia Qingyi saw her again, she was still smiling, and she even came over to pull Xia Qingyi to stand next to her.
When they stood in front of Song Yuenian’s gravestone together, she seemed to have resolved a knot within her heart, and was much more relaxed than she was before.
“I always thought that you’d choose to not see us any longer after you found out the truth,” her mother said.
“You’re my mother,” Xia Qingyi stood before the grave with her and stared at the photo on the gravestone of the girl who looked exactly like her.
Her mother glanced at her, and then smiled as she said, “Do you want to hear about the past?”
“I do, tell me.”
Her mother said, “Oh you, your personality is still the same as it was in the past. Your sister was the kind to laugh everyday and she liked going out to play with others. But at home, she’d keep quiet and didn’t like to talk. You’re different. You’d show a glum face to others the entire day outside, and you’d even bring a book along to read, but in fact you’re actually really kind. When you saw someone being rough to a rabbit, you’d worry that the rabbit would get hurt. At home, you’d even tease us and make us happy occasionally.”
Xia Qingyi smiled. “Really? I was really like that when I was little? I can’t remember it clearly. I only remember crying in your lap.”
Her mother also smiled along with her. “Oh, you’re talking about that time, that was the only time you cried. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you saw a dog get knocked down by a car until it was completely bloodied over when you went to school by yourself. You carried the dog and begged passers-by to accompany you to the vet, but they were cold-hearted and said that the dog had to be dead, that you shouldn’t waste a trip there and that you should go to school. After that, when you thought of all sorts of ways and finally brought the dog to the vet, he said that the dog could no longer be saved.”
Her mother said, “When I went to the vet, you were wailing in the corridor.”
As Xia Qingyi heard her mother’s words, she thought about it dazedly, and traces of memories appeared. This was a rather wonderful feeling. Even if they were only fragments, slowly remembering things from the past made her feel awake.
“Han Liang probably told you before, that we were separated from each other for a period of time.” When her mother said this, the smile on her face disappeared and was replaced by sorrow.
She quietly listened to her mother speak. “I always feel that things in the world are merely a cycle. When you left at that time, only Nian Nian stayed by our side. And now, you’re back, but Nian Nian is gone. This is probably destined, and in the end, only one of you can stay.”
Her mother’s expression looked devastated as she slowly went deep into her memories. “At that time your father’s company was in trouble, cash flow was tight, even paying the employees was a problem. He borrowed from loan-sharks and originally thought that he could pay it back immediately after he earned some profits. But no one would expect that he’d used up all the money he borrowed within a month. After that, the loan-sharks came to our house and kept breaking things outside, trapping us inside the house. Your dad and I knelt down and begged them to let us go, they grabbed him and dragged him to the rooftop on the third floor, which is the house with the cross on top, and wanted to throw him down and cripple him to get some cash from the insurance.”
“You were only 11 years old at that time, your sister was so scared that she kept crying in my lap. You glared at the loan-sharks and asked what would it take for them to let us go.”
Xia Qingyi glanced at her mother, thinking that the words she said were rather unbelievable. Was she like that at that time?
Her mother also glanced back at her, and smiled as she said exasperatedly, “It’s true.”
Her mother continued speaking, “We were shocked. You were like a tiny warrior at that time, standing in front of us and asking the loan-shark with a scar on his face. The scarface saw you standing, and he smiled and said that if you could make them happy, then he’d let us go.”
“I hurriedly went to grab you, afraid that they had terrible things in mind. But you were not scared at all and you even asked them what you could do to make them happy. I quickly covered your mouth when I heard you say that and hid you behind me, but you didn’t want to move back at all and kept standing in front.”
“They came to grab you after that. I refused to let you go, so they came over and broke my arm. Your father was hung on the cross so he could not move. I kept screaming from behind, and had to see them take you away from me with my own eyes.”