Zhu Lili was about to speak again when Zhu Gongjia slapped her hard across the face. “Shut up!”
The slap sent her sprawling to the ground, clutching her face in disbelief.
Her father had never hit her before—it was, in fact, the first time in her twenty years that she had been struck.
Staring at Zhu Gongjia kneeling on the floor, Zhu Lili opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Zhu Gongjia, of course, understood exactly what Li Xiaohan meant, so he shifted closer to his master.
“Sir, Lili is still young. Please forgive her. I’ll make her leave and I promise she will never appear in front of you again.”
Although the head butler was considered an elder in the Li household, Li Xiaohan clearly had no intention of showing him any leniency this time.
Zhu Gongjia clung desperately to Li Xiaohan’s leg, begging, but Li Xiaohan remained unmoved.
Having lived so many years, Zhu Gongjia’s mind was sharp enough to know this was useless.
Seeing that he couldn’t sway Li Xiaohan, he turned to look at Xia Zhiwan, still sitting in Li Xiaohan’s arms.
He lowered his head and banged it heavily against the floor.
“Miss Xia… no, Madam, please show mercy and spare my daughter this once.”
Xia Zhiwan looked down at the man kneeling before her, old enough to be her father, and couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy.
She had only intended to stand up for Aunt Wang and to teach the arrogant Zhu Lili a lesson. She had never meant to seriously harm her.
Looking up at Li Xiaohan, she said softly, “Ah Han, let her go. I’m so hungry—I want to eat.”
“Lili…”
Just as Xia Zhiwan finished speaking, a middle-aged woman entered the room—it was Zhu Lili’s mother.
She carried several large packages, her face smiling as she stepped into the living room.
Because the bodyguards blocked her view of Li Xiaohan and Xia Zhiwan, she hadn’t seen them yet.
But as soon as she entered, she saw the father and daughter of the Zhu family kneeling on the floor.
“Old Zhu… Lili… what’s going on? Who dared—”
She panicked and ran halfway toward the kitchen, only to suddenly notice Li Xiaohan standing there.
Startled, she stumbled, dropping everything she was holding.
Only a few intimate pieces of clothing and a maid’s outfit were scattered across the floor, coming into everyone’s view.
Zhu Lili’s eyes darted to the ground, avoiding the mess, while her half-swollen, red face betrayed her guilt.
The two-hundred-plus-pound woman screamed in pain as she hit the ground, entirely ignoring the mess.
When she finally reacted, she saw Zhu Lili’s resentful expression and the scorn of everyone else.
She hastily shoved the clothes into her bag and tried to explain, “What are you looking at? This is just fun between my husband and me!”
After saying this, she even lowered her head and called out to Li Xiaohan, “Sir.”
Xia Zhiwan, standing there fully grown, simply ignored her.
???
Zhu Gongjia, still kneeling, turned to look, completely shocked by the mother and daughter’s antics.
One was recklessly courting death, and the other blindly doing the same.
His mind was about to explode.
No one believed the middle-aged woman’s explanation, especially Li Xiaohan and Xia Zhiwan.
They recalled the knocking on the next-door room the night before and immediately understood what was happening.
Someone had been trying to climb into bed.
Last night, no one answered. Tonight, they came prepared.
And as for who it was—everyone knew.
“Sir, Madam, it’s my fault. I brought them to Wanhan Courtyard and failed to restrain them.”
The butler, seeing the mother and daughter’s ridiculous behavior, bowed his head in resigned submission.
“I’ll bear all the punishment. Please spare them.”
Just as the living room fell silent over the butler’s plea, Zhu Lili suddenly sprang up, glaring viciously at Xia Zhiwan.
She grabbed the hairpin in her hair, disheveled, and lunged at Xia Zhiwan like a madwoman.
“You crazy woman! How dare you steal my Han-ge? Die!”
The scene happened so suddenly that even the bodyguards standing nearby didn’t react in time.
When the hairpin was only a hair’s width from Xia Zhiwan’s chest, a hand tightly gripped it.
A moment later, with a sharp scream, Zhu Lili was hurled to the ground.
Shaken, Xia Zhiwan stared at the flying figure, unable to process it for a long time.
In her previous life, Xia Zhiwan had no impression of this woman, since she had always been cared for by Aunt Wang at Wanhan Courtyard.
Back then, she had no leisure to go to the dining room and had never seen Zhu Lili at all.
At Wanhan Courtyard, apart from Li Xiaohan, she only knew Aunt Wang.
So she had never expected this woman to want to kill her on sight.
“Wanwan… Wanwan…”
Seeing Xia Zhiwan dazed, Li Xiaohan steadied her by the shoulders and called her name.
Xia Zhiwan looked up at him but could only vaguely make out a blur of bright red in front of her eyes.
She reached out for the moving object and was immediately shocked by a sticky sensation.
“Ah Han, your hand…”
Li Xiaohan’s hand had been cut by the hairpin, blood gushing out, yet he only looked anxiously at Xia Zhiwan.
“Wanwan, are you hurt?”
Xia Zhiwan shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m fine, Ah Han. Your hand is bleeding—I’ll get the first aid kit and bandage it.”
She hurried to go upstairs, but Li Xiaohan still held her waist.
“No, it hurts too much if you leave me.”
Worried, Xia Zhiwan didn’t want to pull away and simply stood quietly in place.
Everyone present was stunned by the reality of what had just happened.
The bodyguards quickly formed a circle around Zhu Lili on the floor.
“Lili… Lili…”
The butler and the middle-aged woman, staring at the girl sprawled on the ground, couldn’t hide their concern. They hadn’t expected Zhu Lili to be so insane.
She had actually tried to commit murder in Wanhan Courtyard.
But when the bodyguards flipped her over, they finally saw it:
The hairpin had plunged straight into her forehead…
And the red flower on it was now embedded between Zhu Lili’s brows.