Chapter 99: You Are Cute
Susan smiled and asked, “Slander, huh? Don’t you think someone’s attitude is so ugly too? If what you heard is the truth.”
Arianna shut up.
“Did I just hear some bubble breaking?” Susan continued.
“The telephone recording without the permission of the other party cannot be used as evidence in the court.”
Susan laughed out loud on the phone, “You are so cute! It’s really bad. I begin to like you very much now.”
Arianna hung up.
After that night in the Hot Spring Manor, Arianna wasn’t surprised to hear the conversation from Susan’s audio player. Now Arianna only felt like some critic (Susan) was explaining a movie she had just watched. Arianna was prepared for anything now.
In business or political circles, the winner always takes all. Arianna could somehow understand Charles.
Arianna once hated Travis so much that she regarded him as the incarnation of the devil. But in another person’s eyes, Travis might seem kind enough to her.
As for Chester’s death… Arianna believed it was Susan who deliberately misled Chester… She believed what Charles said.
And when Susan said she was willing to apply a double standard, Arianna thought it was Susan’s freedom.
Later that night, when Charles called, Arianna chatted with him like usual on the phone, as if nothing had happened.
Still, Arianna felt this elegant and polite Charles was covered in fog from then on.
Life could be like a drama with its own set of formulas. The only thing that surprised Arianna was that Charles and Travis had known each other all along.
Once when Arianna helped clean the room for Charles, she found a photo of Travis hidden in a book. That Travis was in his teenage years. And there was a print of something sharp on the photo, which suggested Charles’s hatred toward Travis was real.
The drama reached a breakpoint when Arianna and Charles met a fortune teller in a park a few days later.
The old, male fortune teller said a few things about them, such as Arianna caught some sickness in the spring that year, and such as Charles was born in a remote location in the country. And he hit the jackpot.
Then the fortune-teller told Arianna to watch out for someone close to her and that someone, who was narrowed-minded and insidious, was by no means good to her.
Charles could hear the content standing a few meters away from them. Arianna stopped the fortune teller and paid the bill for his service.
The old man reached out and dragged her sleeve and said, “Hey girl, I’m just about to cover the vital things in your life.”
Charles went over and hit the old man with his elbow. The old man took a huge step back and almost lost his balance.
When the old man normally stood again, Charles lowered his voice and whispered to him, “How much money did the foolish woman pay you? I will pay you three times. Now get the hell away from my face.”
This incident somehow killed their mood for outdoor sightseeing.
They went out in good weather and went back in small snow. The sky was dark, cars were moving slowly, and they could not open the cab window because the wind outside was chilly and strong. They were mute for a long time. In the car, there was only the sound of the air conditioner and the intermittent radio sound. Both of them felt depressed.
After a long while, Arianna thought she should lighten the atmosphere a little bit. And she said, “Hey, how do you know Susan instigated that person? Are you good at fortune-telling too?”
Arianna regretted saying that, but it was too late. None of them mentioned Susan previously.
Charles was silent for a while. Then he asked, “How do you know it was Susan?”
Charles continued to drive without saying anything, and the air inside the car was more boring than before.
After a while, Charles finally broke the silence. He said slowly, “Arianna, you don’t have to pretend anything. Susan must have come to you, right? I offended her previously. According to her personality, she would not let it go easily.”
Arianna lowered her head. Charles continued, “Actually, I have been waiting, waiting for you to ask me, just like you ran to question Travis. That day, if I guessed it right, you went to Travis to ask him if he was related to Chester’s death, right?”
Arianna looked up outside the car window, not knowing what to say to him.
Charles continued, “You are not a good actor because you always play yourself. You pretend nothing has happened, but your eyes have betrayed you. In fact, I would prefer you to ask me so that I could have an opportunity to defend myself, but you didn’t. You are only hiding it in your heart. Now I want to know, why are you so tolerant of me? Do you believe me so much that you don’t care what I’ve done?”
Arianna took a deep breath and made up her mind. She asked, “Okay, let me ask. Did you tell someone to kill Chester in a traffic accident?”
“I can’t say that it has nothing to do with me, but I didn’t intend to let him die.”
“Did you really have a relationship with Susan?”
“We used each other, and then we broke up.”
“There have been a lot of troubles with Transcendent Jewels. Did you make it happen behind the scenes?”
“I thought that it was just a little conflict between commercial competition and administrative intervention.”
“Well, the last question. Are you trying to interfere with his business competition for your family, for your own interests, or for me?”
“Which kind do you want?” Charles asked coldly.
Charles had never spoken to her in that tone before, although Arianna had known this tone well by then. Arianna’s eloquence was quickly inspired.
Arianna said calmly, “I can’t control your intention. If you do it for your family, I will only feel odd because Travis’s business could not shake your family; if for yourself, I wish you could do it in a nicer and fairer manner; if for me, my debts to him had long been settled, long before you entered my life. He doesn’t owe me anything. You don’t need to do that for me. But if you cannot accept that I had a relationship with him, I will feel sorry for both of us.”NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.
Arianna’s speech was long, and her attitude was firm.
After a long while, Charles said with a low voice, “So, Stockholm Syndrome is not just a medical concept.” Then both of them stopped talking.