During lunch, Huo Jingyan unexpectedly joined the others at the dining table.
“Why is our darling willing to eat with us today?” Fang Zhenlin asked, looking quite surprised, considering that in the past, Huo Jingyan was always someone who wouldn’t voluntarily step foot out of her room for an entire day or even stretches of long periods.
Yet, as expected, after Fang Zhenlin asked this question, Huo Jingyan ignored her completely. Instead, she silently sat down to Li Mo’s left, remaining tight-lipped even at the dining table and only eating from the few dishes placed directly in front of her.
Seeing this, Huo Jingsi even proactively helped her switch dishes a few times, moving plates that were farther away right in front of her.
Li Mo had never eaten a meal with Huo Jingyan before. At first, he thought she was just a picky eater, but later he realized this girl simply had severe OCD: she would eat whatever dishes happened to be laid out right in front of her, but she would absolutely never reach across to pick up food from a dish separated by another plate.
He remembered a teacher mentioning this kind of phenomenon during his psychology classes back then, though he couldn’t recall the details very clearly anymore.
At present, he only felt a chilly draft blowing against his left hand, having no idea what Huo Jingyan was actually trying to pull.
Wasn’t it just that he had accidentally stumbled upon Huo Jingyan’s secret? He didn’t even know what she was trying to accomplish with all that sneaking around; did this little girl have to pressure herself this much over it?
Li Mo’s heart was filled with bitterness.
“Since Jingyan is here too,” Huo Chengbi coughed twice and suddenly spoke in a manner that looked very formal.
Li Mo involuntarily lowered his chopsticks and halted all movement. Facing this meritorious old marshal of the empire, the sense of awe in his heart still outweighed everything else.
“In the blink of an eye, Xiao Mo and Jingsi have already been married for three years. The feelings between the two of you are things we’ve all seen with our own eyes.”
“However, the matter of the prenuptial agreement has always been a thorn in our hearts to a greater or lesser degree.” Huo Chengbi no longer spoke as bluntly as he used to; he meandered around in circles before finally getting straight to the point. He looked toward Li Mo and said, “So we were thinking, you two youngsters should live your lives properly from now on, and the agreement and all that—let’s scrap it entirely.”
The meaning behind these words was crystal clear.
Upon hearing this, Fang Zhenlin immediately cast a look of eager anticipation toward him.
Meanwhile, Huo Jingyan also paused her chopsticks. Her gaze still revealed no discernible emotion as she just stared fixedly at him.
Consequently, Li Mo immediately put on a pleasantly surprised smile, turned his head to look at Huo Jingsi, and took hold of the other man’s hand as if he were genuinely overjoyed, exclaiming with delight, “Of course we can.”
Of course my ass!
When he and Huo Jingsi first got married, they didn’t even know each other, let alone have any foundation of affection. If he hadn’t signed that agreement, Huo Jingsi wouldn’t even have been willing to register their marriage certificate back then.
Putting aside other aspects, when it came to eating one’s words and experiencing “true love’s slap in the face,” Huo Jingsi was always remarkably swift.
The contract was up for renewal every three years. If Huo Chengbi hadn’t spoken up just now, counting the days, the renewal date would have arrived in a few days. When Li Mo had been counting down the days on his fingers earlier, he had actually been quite happy; as long as he and Huo Jingsi maintained this contractual relationship, his psychological burden when killing him wouldn’t be too heavy.
But what about now? Look at how things turned out—the agreement was scrapped, and he was supposed to become a true married couple with Huo Jingsi. If not for his top-tier professional training, he probably would have long since developed genuine feelings for the Huo family as well.
Besides, looking at Huo Chengbi’s expression, it was obvious he was extremely pleased, and his tone admitted no room for refusal. Even if Li Mo wanted to decline, from every possible angle, he lacked any grounds to refuse. Therefore, although he agreed on the surface, inside he felt slightly dead inside.
When on earth was the suitable opportunity mentioned by the Boss going to show up…?
If it didn’t show up soon, he was truly going to waste his entire life tangled up with Huo Jingsi…
Li Mo finished this lunch looking full of joyous anticipation on the outside while feeling utterly dead inside.
Everyone else was extremely happy, save for Huo Jingyan, whose face remained habitually expressionless.
Right until they were about to leave, Huo Jingyan finally took the initiative to intercept Li Mo.
Turning around, Li Mo found the little girl standing beneath a tree, her expression unexpectedly revealing a hint of unnatural tension.
As he walked over, Huo Jingyan said to him, “Don’t tell anyone about what happened this morning. Not even my brother.”
He knew it was about this.
“I won’t.” Li Mo smiled at her and added out of concern, “But don’t do something so dangerous ever again.”
Huo Jingyan didn’t answer his remark. Instead, she changed the subject, suddenly bringing up something out of nowhere: “Actually, you don’t want to marry my brother, do you?”
There was no one else around the two of them, but Li Mo instantly heightened his guard, even though his exterior remained as calm as usual. Meeting Huo Jingyan’s gaze with a gentle smile, he replied, “I certainly didn’t want to at first.”
Everyone knew that the two of them had initially entered into a contract marriage. Coupled with Li Mo’s civilian background, people naturally defaulted to assuming that Li Mo had only married Huo Jingsi at the start for money, to ensure a worry-free latter half of his life.
His words were versatile enough to advance or retreat: everyone knew he hadn’t wanted to at first. Building on the acknowledgment of that established fact, most people would default through cognitive inertia to interpreting it as he didn’t want to before, but he wants to now.
Yet if this statement were interpreted as he didn’t want to at first, and he still doesn’t want to now, it didn’t contain any logical flaws whatsoever.
It entirely depended on how the listener chose to understand it. But even if interpreted as the latter, they wouldn’t deliberately press the issue, because naturally, no one would ever suspect that Li Mo didn’t want to be married to Huo Jingsi.
Li Mo was adept at and fond of lying by telling the truth, because the final right of interpretation remained entirely in his hands anyway.
However, that wasn’t the most important thing right now. What mattered most was that he had now finally confirmed that Huo Jingyan was indeed, just as he suspected, a ticking time bomb.
“That’s good.” Huo Jingyan nodded. Before turning to walk away, she dropped one last sentence to Li Mo: “By the way, I really like that dress. Thank you.”
Back inside the car, Huo Jingsi took hold of Li Mo’s hand and asked, “What were you and Jingyan chatting about?”
You couldn’t blame him for meddling; ever since Li Mo married into the Huo family, this was the very first time Huo Jingyan had proactively initiated a conversation with him in front of others.
“We didn’t chat about much. Didn’t I give her a dress today? She came over to tell me she really liked it,” Li Mo replied without changing his expression, putting his gentle smile back on to tease lightly, “I suppose Jingyan finally acknowledges me as her sister-in-law now.”
This remark proved remarkably effective on Huo Jingsi. He stopped pressing further about why Huo Jingyan had pulled Li Mo aside just now, instead pulling him straight into his embrace, rubbing affectionately against his neck before murmuring, “My sister’s had that weird temper since she was a kid. Don’t lower yourself to her level.”
Li Mo wanted to say that of course he was going to lower himself to her level; not only did he have to mind it, but he also had to stay vigilant at every turn, lest some day something got exposed and cost him his life right here.
The only person among everyone present whom he couldn’t bring himself to lower himself to was Huo Jingsi.
After all, this guy’s behavior was truly too much like a dog’s.
Especially this current habit of rubbing against his neck—it made him ticklish all over.
If possible, he genuinely wanted to punch Huo Jingsi flying with a single blow.
Yet he couldn’t. He could only feign reluctance while yielding, gently pushing against Huo Jingsi’s hand as he said, “Alright, alright, stop messing around.”
“I’ll stop.” Huo Jingsi halted, though he still kept Li Mo wrapped in his arms as he shifted back to business. “Have you looked over the guest list for tonight’s banquet?”
“I have.” Li Mo raised a hand to drape it around his neck.
He had looked over the list the very day he returned. The banquet was being held under the guise of a private Huo family gathering, and everyone attending was a high-profile aristocrat.
In fact, connecting this with the situation in District Sixty-Nine, Li Mo could roughly guess most of it.
With Huo Jingsi’s popularity surging so high among the commoners right now, those aristocrats were naturally dissatisfied in their hearts, terrified that Huo Jingsi might follow in the footsteps of the former governor and threaten their status in order to safeguard the rights of the common people.
Therefore, they had to strike first while the iron was hot.
Tonight’s banquet was where Huo Jingsi intended to placate the dissatisfaction of these aristocrats.
As for how he would specifically handle it, it boiled down to nothing more than squeezing the rights of the common people to satisfy the demands of these aristocrats. What the common people wanted was equality, whereas what the aristocrats wanted was status.
In truth, while the former governor had demanded the protection of commoners’ rights and advocated universal equality during his tenure, under the suppression of various aristocratic factions, this initiative had never been properly implemented. Over all these years, they had merely abolished the regulation prohibiting intermarriage between aristocrats and commoners, permitted commoners to enter aristocratic academies for education, and allowed commoners to participate in voting for the next governor.
Everything else was just empty talk.
Moreover, although intermarriage between aristocrats and commoners was permitted, not a single aristocrat was willing to marry a commoner; although commoners were allowed to enter aristocratic academies for education, commoners were forbidden from purchasing property in jurisdictions inhabited by aristocrats. Common people students had to bear enormous economic burdens while enduring the psychological pressure of being looked down upon by aristocratic classmates.
It was nothing more than a hollow facade.
Consequently, Li Mo didn’t ask Huo Jingsi what he planned to do; he simply figured that at least after tonight, those aristocrats would finally be willing to cough up money to support District Sixty-Nine.
“Then tomorrow morning, I’ll have to head back to District Sixty-Nine,” Li Mo said.
Huo Jingsi froze, tightening his grip around Li Mo even further.
Leaving Fang Zhenlin aside, he was actually the one least willing to let Li Mo stay in District Sixty-Nine. Not to mention how dirty and chaotic the environment there was, according to feedback from his subordinates, there were people there blinded by lust who secretly fantasized about Li Mo behind his back, even bragging about how they had managed to secretly brush against Li Mo’s hand while serving porridge though their words lacked any genuinely offensive intent.
It matched his stereotype of lower-class commoners to a tee.
Just imagining those people leering at Li Mo made Huo Jingsi’s blood boil.
Fortunately, by the time his subordinates reported these matters to him, they had already secretly disposed of all those individuals.
However, with so many people in District Sixty-Nine, picking out such individuals one by one and killing them all was definitely impractical, yet he had no choice but to let Li Mo go to the site in person. After all, only by doing so would his image in the hearts of those commoners become even more deeply ingrained.
As for Li Mo, he deeply cherished any chance to get away from Huo Jingsi. He couldn’t afford to miss an opportunity to spend several days away from home, because that meant he wouldn’t have to sacrifice his body to humor Huo Jingsi. At the same time, deep down he knew Huo Jingsi was reluctant to part with him.
“Alright, I’ll be back in a few days,” Li Mo offered a gentle smile to comfort him.
Simultaneously, he comforted himself inwardly.
Alright, my good days are coming to an end in a few days too.