"May I ask, do you and your husband only have this one daughter?" Xu Qingzhu asked, still smiling.
But that smile carried a hint of indifference, apathy, and a barely perceptible tension.
"Enough." Zhou Yi'an, who was standing to the side, couldn't help but speak up, and retorted, "Why is President Xu so concerned about other people's family affairs? Didn't you say you didn't want to know?"
“I suddenly had another thought,” Xu Qingzhu said. “Instead of having someone else tell me, I’d rather ask them myself.”
Xu Qingzhu met her gaze, her dark pupils appearing serious and resolute.
She spoke in riddles with Zhou Yi'an in public.
Zhou Yi'an said coldly, "Then why don't you ask me?"
Xu Qingzhu looked at her, her back straight, and smiled slightly, "Why should I ask you about my affairs?"
One sentence was enough to silence Zhou Yi'an.
Su Yao said gently, "What are you talking about? I don't understand."
Su Meiqi nodded frantically, "Auntie, I don't understand either."
Sheng Yu jumped up and raised her hand, "Me! Me! Me! I don't understand either."
Xu Qingzhu's voice was clear and crisp as she asked, "So you only have this one daughter?"
Su Yao resumed her bewildered expression, her large sunglasses almost completely obscuring her face, but her stiff movements still revealed her confusion.
After a long while, the people on both sides of the road gradually dispersed, the streetlights lit up one after another, and the whole city entered the night.
Su Yao's tone was one of regret and helplessness.
She said, "I don't remember."
"Have you lost your memory?" Xu Qingzhu asked again, "Where can your memory be traced back to? Ten years ago, or twenty years ago? Or do you remember someone called..."
As she said this, Su Yao took off her sunglasses.
Su Yao's left eye was empty and lifeless, while her right eye darted around, looking forlorn and sad. Her face was much paler than before, and she seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Even so, she was still trying her best to listen to what the young lady opposite her was saying.
Su Yao didn't know what was wrong with her.
It's a very strange feeling overall.
Even though the woman opposite her seemed hostile, spoke aggressively, and was extremely cold, she still wanted to hear what she was saying, wanted to know her thoughts, and wanted to get closer to her.
So she took off her sunglasses, wanting to get a better look at the other person's face.
Could it be because of his striking resemblance to Qinglin?
Especially those eyes.
The other person is currently in a state of high tension, so their dark pupils appear serious and stubborn.
She remembered that many years ago, when she and Sheng Qinglin argued about a certain issue, Sheng Qinglin acted the same way.
She had already accepted the impact of amnesia on her life.
To some extent, amnesia makes her remaining memories more vivid.
Those moments she remembered, the moments she shared with Sheng Qinglin, the traces of their love, seemed as if they were just yesterday.
But lately, for some reason, she keeps having dreams late at night.
In my dream, a voice asks her, "Why did you forget me? Why? Shouldn't you love me very much?"
It was a child's innocent voice, followed by the sound of a baby crying, just like when Sheng Yu was first born.
So after waking up, she will treat Sheng Yu even better.
I also asked Su Zhe if she had forgotten someone very important.
Su Zhe's reply was: "No, the most important people in your life are all around you now."
But when they met each other's eyes, the other person suddenly stopped, as if their breathing had been paused.
"Who?" Su Yao asked, continuing her question with encouragement.
Xu Qingzhu pursed her lips, but finally hardened her heart and pronounced the name almost word by word: "Sheng, Qing, Lin".
Su Yao was taken aback, then smiled, a smile tinged with bitterness. "He's my husband. Do you know him?"
After saying that, she immediately denied it, "My husband passed away many years ago, so Miss should be... very young? How old are you this year?"
"Twenty-three," Xu Qingzhu said coldly.
Su Yao paused, then said absentmindedly, "My husband passed away twenty-three years ago."
Xu Qingzhu tried to see any signs of lying on her face, but her expression was wooden, her tone was sincere, and she answered almost every question she was asked.
It also carries a tone of indulgence and pampering.
Even when calling her "Miss", they were very careful.
Xu Qingzhu closed her eyes briefly, then introduced herself to her: "Hello, my name is Xu Qingzhu."
Su Yao's expression was stiff, and tears involuntarily fell again. She shook her head blankly, her movements extremely slow, and she seemed very lost, as if she was searching for something.
Xu Qingzhu's cold voice was tinged with a sob, and it was no longer as sharp as before.
She said, "Sheng Qinglin is my uncle."
//
The argument downstairs at the company building didn't go well.
Su Yao's face was too pale, and she was in a daze. She was clutching her clothes tightly, wanting to say something to Xu Qingzhu, but she couldn't say anything.
It is a state where the patient is on the verge of collapse.
So Zhou Yi'an said sternly, "That's enough."
Su Meiqi, supporting Su Yao, looked at Xu Qingzhu with a hint of reproach: "Sister Xu, what are you saying?"
He said he would take Su Yao into the car, but Su Yao just wouldn't move.
Sheng Yu stood there looking left and right, and finally went over and pushed Xu Qingzhu. Fortunately, Liang Shi supported her, otherwise she would have been pushed to the ground by the child's sudden movement.
Sheng Yu glared at Xu Qingzhu with her aggrieved eyes, "You bad person! You bullied my mother!"
Liang Shi stepped in front of Xu Qingzhu, grabbed Sheng Yu's hand, and was about to reprimand her when Su Yao staggered over, half-squatting down to protect Sheng Yu, and whispered reassuringly, "Mom's alright..."
Before Sheng Yu could even cry, Su Yao pulled her aside and said, "Apologize to this older sister."
Sheng Yu turned her head away stubbornly and said, "No!"
After another long argument, Xu Qingzhu was exhausted and grabbed Liang Shi's wrist, whispering, "Let's go."
As she and Liang Shi were about to leave, Su Yao suddenly shouted, "Miss Xu!"
Xu Qingzhu turned halfway around, glancing sideways slightly, "Hmm?"
"Will we meet again in the future?" Su Yao asked.
With a hint of humility and trepidation.
Xu Qingzhu thought for a moment and gave an ambiguous answer: "Maybe."
This incident caused Xu Qingzhu's mood to plummet. Liang Shi drove away from that office building and that street, and the figures of Su Yao and the others gradually blurred into dots of light and disappeared.
Xu Qingzhu leaned against the passenger seat and closed her eyes to doze off for a while.
Liang Shi thought she was sad, so he played a piece of instrumental music.
As the instrumental music played halfway through, while waiting at a red light, Liang Shi gently comforted Xu Qingzhu, "If you're unhappy, just say so, I can listen."
“I’m not upset.” Xu Qingzhu opened her eyes, which were as cold and sharp as ever, and even her voice returned to normal. “I’m just thinking about what exactly happened back then.”
Liang Shi: "?"
She was taken aback. "Aren't you sad at all?"
Xu Qingzhu calmly retorted, "What's the use of being sad?"
Liang Shi: "..."
Yes, it didn't work.
Perhaps Xu Qingzhu has already passed that painful period. When she couldn't accept the truth at first, she would run away and feel sad.
But once she accepts it, she gets into the zone very quickly.
Liang Shi didn't beat around the bush and asked directly, "So, you're planning to acknowledge them as family?"
Xu Qingzhu shook her head: "I have no plans at the moment."
“It happened more than 20 years ago, and I need to look into it,” Xu Qingzhu said. “But I’m hesitant about whether to do so.”
Once an investigation is launched, it will inevitably uncover some ugly truths.
Liang Shi never expected that Xu Qingzhu's ideas had progressed to this point.
It was as if it had taken a rocket, moving incredibly fast.
"How can you be so sure that something must have happened more than 20 years ago?" Liang Shi asked.
Xu Qingzhu paused for a moment, then her clear, cold voice rang out at the same time as the sound of the car starting, but it completely drowned out the sound of the car.
As the car sped along the road, Xu Qingzhu spoke calmly and methodically, analyzing the situation: "I just saw her, and it's obvious that she doesn't remember ever having a daughter, not even Su Meiqi."
“Zhou Yi’an told me that she had been staying in a mental hospital, which indirectly suggests that she may have developed a mental illness due to strong external stimuli, but she would take that child to see my uncle.” Xu Qingzhu paused when she mentioned this title, and then continued, “And you told me that the child is from a single-parent family and her surname is Sheng, so it is very likely that she is my uncle’s daughter.”
“Your uncle has been gone for many years,” Liang Shi said.
“Sperm can be frozen,” Xu Qingzhu said. “Su Yao still remembers things related to him, so this isn’t too difficult to do.”
Liang Shi: "..."
She had completely forgotten about this before.
Xu Qingzhu continued her analysis, "Haiwei Jewelry's president is now her brother. Recently, I sorted out Minghui's previous information and found that Haiwei Jewelry has been in competition with Minghui in many aspects, mainly starting from 15 years ago when Su Zhe was the president. He repeatedly tried to steal Minghui's business and eventually divided up the market."
"Can't it just be normal competition in business?" Liang Shi asked deliberately.
Xu Qingzhu shook her head: "If it were normal business competition, Haiwei should treat all companies in the jewelry industry equally. But coincidentally, he only targeted Minghui, and even maliciously undercut prices in the industry in order to steal resources from Minghui. He simply squeezed out Minghui."
Liang Shi: "..."
I see.