When Ji Yuanhang pushed his luck, Jiang Yuanchuan’s jaw tightened instantly.
Was Ji Yuanhang so sure that he wouldn’t blow up at him in front of Xu Mian’s grandfather?
He indeed would not.
He did not want to upset the elderly man.
Love me, love my dog. Because he loved Xu Mian, he naturally loved and respected the two elderly people who had raised her since childhood. Furthermore, Xu Mian’s grandfather was in poor health, so how could he bear to let the old man get all worked up and angry?
Yet how could Ji Yuanhang be so ruthless and cruel?
As far as he knew, Ji Yuanhang and his grandfather had lived a very frugal life back in the day, receiving a great deal of care and relief from Xu Mian’s grandparents. Even though he had been away for five years, Ji Yuanhang was not blind. He could easily see how frail Xu Mian’s grandfather was, so how could he still show up at their door with an innocent expression to provoke him?
Just as the two men were facing off at the courtyard gate, his daughter Tangtang ran out from inside the house. She happily came over and pulled his hand. “Daddy, will you play on the swing with me at the gate?”
The arrival of his daughter softened Jiang Yuanchuan’s expression considerably. He held the little girl’s hand and answered gently, “Alright.”
The little girl then looked curiously at the cardboard box in Ji Yuanhang’s hands. “Hello, Uncle. What are you holding?”
“These are all your mother’s things. I came to return them to her.”
Facing the little girl, the smile on Ji Yuanhang’s face grew increasingly warm and gentle.
He even opened the box lid right away and pulled out a seemingly ordinary black hair tie, introducing it to the little girl. “This is a hair tie your mother used to tie her hair with.”
Logically speaking, Ji Yuanhang had no reason to say these things to a young girl in kindergarten, nor should he have. However, he had simply lost his composure and was desperate for Jiang Yuanchuan to see the items inside the box so he could provoke him.
Jiang Yuanchuan shot a cold glance at the hair tie. Although there was a ten-year age gap between him and Xu Mian, he had learned from various news stories that some young men would wear a hair tie on their wrists to announce to the world that they were taken.
Evidently, that hair tie had once served that exact purpose for Ji Yuanhang.
The little girl knitted her tiny brows. “This hair tie is really ugly. It is so dark and plain. Uncle, you should just throw it away. Even if you give it back to my mother, she probably won’t like it anymore.”
The little girl was not deliberately targeting Ji Yuanhang. She was only three years old, not quite four, and did not understand the complex dynamics between adults at all. She simply loved her mother dearly and believed her mother deserved the absolute best of everything in the world. Even if it was just a tiny hair tie, she ought to use a pretty one.
The smile on Ji Yuanhang’s face stiffened slightly, but he then pulled out another item to show the little girl. “This was a gift your mother gave me for my birthday one year.”
It was a portrait of a person.
A young man wearing a white short-sleeved shirt sat by the window, lowered his head, and studied intently. His side profile was handsome beyond words, and the artist had observed him so meticulously that even the mole near the corner of his eye was drawn.
Jiang Yuanchuan’s patience had reached its absolute limit, and a terrifying chill erupted from the depths of his eyes.
Xu Mian had a background in fine arts, and he had seen all kinds of paintings she created. After their daughter was born, she had even drawn numerous portraits of the little girl.
However, he had never once entertained the thought of asking Xu Mian to paint him, feeling that such a gesture was childish, and she had never actively offered to paint him either.
At this moment, his rationality was nearly consumed by jealousy. He wanted nothing more than to drag Xu Mian to her art studio right now, forcing her to gaze at him feature by feature and sketch his face inch by inch.
“Yuanchuan.”
A weak call suddenly came from behind him.
Jiang Yuanchuan’s rationality snapped back instantly. Turning around in haste, he saw Xu Mian’s grandfather clutching his chest, his face flushed red, and his expression filled with agonizing pain.
“Grandfather!”
“Great-Grandpa!”
Jiang Yuanchuan and his daughter rushed over immediately.
Having weathered many storms in life, Jiang Yuanchuan assessed the old man’s condition briefly, displaying no hesitation or panic. He calmly pulled out his phone right away and dialed 120 for an ambulance.
Afterward, he gripped his phone tightly, turned his head toward Ji Yuanhang at the courtyard gate, and roared fiercely, “Get out!”
Ji Yuanhang had originally wanted to step forward and check on the old man as well, but seeing that Jiang Yuanchuan was dripping with hostility, he could only press his lips together and stop in his tracks.
Inside the house, Xu Mian and the others heard the commotion outside and ran out in a hurry.
Xu Mian had originally been accompanying her grandmother in the house with her daughter. When they saw Ji Yuanhang visiting earlier, alarm bells immediately went off in her mind.
Jiang Yuanchuan could not even stand hearing Ji Yuanhang’s name, let alone coming face-to-face with him now.
Her grandmother had said kindly to the little girl beside them, “Tangtang, the weather is nice today. Why don’t you ask your daddy to take you to the gate to play on the swing?”
“Okay!” The little girl had agreed happily and run outside.
Xu Mian knew her grandmother wanted to break the awkward tension between Jiang Yuanchuan and Ji Yuanhang this way.
However, no one expected that Ji Yuanhang would say so much to a three- or four-year-old child.
The ambulance arrived with wailing sirens. Jiang Yuanchuan and Xu Mian boarded it alongside the medical personnel, while Auntie Fang stayed home to take care of Xu Mian’s grandmother and the little girl.
Standing near his own doorway, Ji Yuanhang watched from afar as Xu Mian looked extremely worried with rimmed, red eyes, her legs so weak that she could barely walk. Jiang Yuanchuan wrapped his arm around her completely to support her onto the ambulance.
Ji Yuanhang clenched his hands tightly by his side. He knew better than anyone how deep Xu Mian’s bond was with her grandparents, yet he had caused harm to her grandfather.
He had not expected her grandfather’s health to be this poor. He had simply wanted to provoke Jiang Yuanchuan.
Inside the ambulance, Xu Mian held her grandfather’s thin hand tightly, her eyes red as she prayed nonstop for his safety.
Jiang Yuanchuan gently encircled her waist from the side, comforting her in his own way. He understood the pain in Xu Mian’s heart and ached for her suffering. Naturally, he also hated Ji Yuanhang, the culprit who caused all of this.
He did not know whether Xu Mian could sense Ji Yuanhang’s deliberate attempt to sabotage their marriage through this incident. If she couldn’t, he felt it was necessary to remind her.
Yet, if he spoke ill of Ji Yuanhang, would she think he was intentionally targeting and smearing him again?
Although he could command wind and rain in the business world, he truly lacked confidence in whether his five-year marriage with Xu Mian could withstand her decade-long childhood friendship with Ji Yuanhang.
After all, Ji Yuanhang was an expert at playing the good guy in front of Xu Mian, always putting on a gentle, harmless, and refined facade.
Fortunately, her grandfather’s condition was not too severe. He did not require surgery, though he needed to be hospitalized for a period of treatment. Upon receiving the news, Xu Mian’s parents also rushed to the hospital right away.
Xu Mian felt a bit apprehensive about meeting her mother, Ling Mei, because Ling Mei had a very domineering personality and spoke without showing any mercy.
For instance, at this moment, the moment her mother heard Ji Yuanhang’s name, she began scolding her furiously. “I warned you many times before to stop having any interaction with that Ji Yuanhang!
“Now look at what happened! You almost angered your grandfather to death!”
This indiscriminate, head-on scolding, especially right in front of Jiang Yuanchuan, was immensely embarrassing for Xu Mian. She instantly trembled all over with anger.
However, she was not the type to argue or make a scene with others, especially when the person was her biological mother. In the end, she chose to pull her hand out of Jiang Yuanchuan’s firm grip, turn around, and walk away.
“Ms. Ling!” Jiang Yuanchuan called out sternly, stopping Ling Mei just as she opened her mouth to scold her again. “This matter has nothing to do with Mianmian!
“Also, do not talk to her like that ever again. I will not tolerate it!”
With that, he flicked his sleeve and walked away, his anger palpable from his retreating figure.
He had not even called Ling Mei “Mother,” using the distant title “Ms. Ling” instead.