Thatâs what she said, so what else could Chief of Staff Du say? He spoke: âAlright, Chen Lan and I will be having our dinner first; if you wrap up earlier, then it wouldnât be too late for you to join us.â He then turned towards Supreme Commander Xia: âOld Xia, you two have a good chat; how big of a deal is it? It happens that Lilâ Xia is also here; why donât the three of you sit down and have a nice chat? Thereâs nothing that canât be settled.â
âIn our work, we have to be conscientious and meticulous, but thereâs no need to be like that towards our family; weâll have to suitably give way and canât run a dictatorship.â He said a lot of cushioning words, but the true point was his final sentence, âcanât run a dictatorship.â
Xia Jinyuan was neither humble nor pushy; he smiled elegantly: âMuch thanks to Chief of Staff Du for the reminder, actually, we canât run a dictatorship no matter at home or outside, and we also canât favour certain people.â
Who knew if he meant something else with what he said? Chief of Staff Du only smiled and walked away with his wife in tow.
Mrs. Xiao, who had wiped her tears clean, saw that no outsiders were present; she broke the silence: âWhereâs the private dining room? Itâs been a long time since we sat down and chatted; Ah, Yuan, come and chat a bit with your mother; I wonât take too much of your time.â
âPerfect, I also have some things I wanted to tell Mrs. Xiao, Dad, please escort Mrs. Xiao back to our dining room; Iâll ask the waiters to steep a pot of tea for us.â Xia Jinyuan did not have any intention of reminiscing their mother-son relationship; after he spoke with aloofness, his long legs strode out as he went to order tea.
When the tea was served, the trio who hadnât sat together for who knows how many years sat in a triangle; the distance between each other was pulled far. Mrs. Xiao glanced at her son, who wasnât willing to sit with her, who didnât even want to give her a look; all she could feel was bitterness in her mouth.
Then taking a look at her ex-husband sitting across her, although he had grown older, he had more of a presence when they were younger, after staying in the military for so long, he had become the Supreme Commander of today, and the aura between his brows made her scared to take more than a couple looks.
Old, so old, they were both so old, recollecting the absurdness of their younger times, she only felt that life was a dream; she had made one mistake after the other and didnât even have a chance to correct her mistakes.
She didnât say anything, and Supreme Commander Xia could also hold his silence; he sipped on the just-steeped, hot tea while he allowed his ex-wife to measure him up and down.
Old Six always says that his standards were terrible when he was younger and brought a girl who couldnât face pressure home; in reality, his standards were quite good.
When they were younger, Mrs. Xiao was a famous and talented woman; However, her background was incomparable to the Xia family; she was still a descendant of a family of scholars in the South, thatâs why thereâs a scholarly temperament around her where normal girls didnât have.
Beautiful facial features, pale skin, adept in all Four Arts, during the end of the 1950s, a girl like that was normally every guyâs crush.
He too wasnât an exception, in a group of ashen students, he spotted his ex-wife immediately, talented and beautiful, she also had a gentle personality, and also spoke fluent french, english, in that day and age, his ex-wife was extremely popular, and his standards were still quite high.
However, he had forgotten they werenât suited to make a family together; she was used to the company of family, while he was destined to come home at uncertain times, thereâs no right or wrong; itâs just that they werenât suited for each other.
One wanted to escape the family without her husbandâs presence; the other had lost his will to make amends, a divorce was certain.
However, what he didnât understand was why Old Six disliked his ex-wife, it was because all those years ago when his ex-wife proposed a divorce was when she had just given birth to Old SIx, and he had begged afterward, begged that it wasnât too late to divorce after Old Six had grown up.
When he was three years old, his ex-wifeâs patience had run out, Du Guoqiangâs wife, Li Chenglan brought back an adonis, darn bastard! That adonis wasnât anyone else, and it was precisely his ex-wifeâs neighbor when she had stayed in France between twelve and fifteen years old.