Chapter 254: Huo Liwei's outburst (1)
Nana asked, “Why do we look so similar? If you are not my mother, then who are my parents?”
Huo Xiao Fan said, “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
Nana pursed her lips.
Jinhai softly said, “Nana. I will find out that. Leave it to me. Let’s go for now.”
The truth was that he already knew everything and all the gaps in Huo Xiao Fan’s story. He knew what happened that night in the hospital when Huo Xiao Fan went into labor. But today was already a rough day for Nana, knowing about her best friend’s betrayal.
That talk about her parents could wait some other time.
Nana weakly nodded.
The twins and Jing followed behind them.
Outside, Nana remembered suddenly, “Jinhai, what about Mom? Is she alright now?”
Jinhai nodded. “Don’t worry. I have shifted mother-in-law into another hospital. We have also caught that nurse injecting the medicine on Serena’s orders. And I have already talked to the doctor. It will take some time to negate the medicine’s effects because of which she couldn’t regain her sanity. It will be a slow process, but she will get there.”
Yu Ichika was getting treated in that hospital for twelve years, and all that time had gone to waste. She would have already been recovered. Nana worried about the twelve years’ worth of medicine in her system, but since Jinhai assured her, she felt a little better.
—
Back at Huo villa, Huo Shen was furious. “Xiao Fan. I told you not to use Serena in your plans. I told you to keep her away from your revenge. You had promised me! Then why! Look at her condition now! She lost such a dear friend, and now her boyfriend and the father of her child hates her! Do you even realize what she must be going through!? She is pregnant, and she is suffering so much!”
Huo Shen loved Serena just as much as he loved his son, Liwei. He never differentiated between them.
When he learned that she admitted Serena into the same school as Nana, he had already warned her not to use their daughter. He also talked to Serena about this.
But later on, she said that she has genuinely become good friends with Nana. She was not with her for revenge.
But she had lied. And that had hurt Huo Shen.
Huo Xiao Fan was quiet.
Huo Liwei snorted. “You are talking to a piece of rock, Dad. All these years, she only cared about her revenge. Both mother and daughter are the same. Even if Zhilan was forced into this by her, she could have stopped giving this woman her support if she had realized what Liu Nana and Chen Jianyu meant to her.”
He clenched his hands into a fist.
Huo Xiao Fan looked at Huo Shen and asked quietly. “Why did you and Grandma lie to me about Yu Tengfei?”
Huo Liwei laughed. “And now look at her. She doesn’t even want to talk about her daughter anymore. She still wants to know only about her dead lover. We are nothing in her eyes.”
“Liwei!”
“Enough, dad!” Huo Liwei yelled loudly. “I won’t listen to you anymore! I had enough of this woman! You want to know the truth, right? Then listen. And listen very carefully.”
Huo Shen interrupted. “I will tell everything to Xiao Fan. Stay out-“
“No. Not this time. I know you are just going to sugarcoat the words. After all, you are blind in her love!”
Huo Xiao Fan widened her eyes. She trembled as she looked up at her husband.
Love?
A memory flashed in her mind of that night after she had given birth and left Nana in the orphanage.
“Shen, I agree to marry you. If you help me in hiding that girl from them, then I will marry you as Grandmother wishes.” Xiao Fan was holding baby Serena as she spoke to him. Her voice was dull and emotionless. Her gaze was distant.
Huo Shen was silent.
“But, there is one thing I have to make clear with you.”
“What is it?”
“Please…I cannot love you. You know that I only love Yu Tengfei. I cannot love anybody else.”
Huo Shen looked at her.
She lowered her head. “And please, don’t love me either. I…will not be able to return your feelings. It would be good for both of us if we don’t entangle love in our marriage. Because I cannot.”
Huo Shen smiled and nodded. “As you say.”
At present, Huo Xiao Fan was looking at him, stunned.
“What are you…I…”
Huo Liwei spoke in a loud voice that brought her back from her daze. “Yes! Yes, Mrs. Huo Xiao Fan, my Dad, Huo Shen, is in love with you.”
He came to know the truth from Huo Shen when he once threatened him to tell what was going on. If he didn’t tell the truth, then he would expose Huo Shen’s feelings to her. Because he understood Huo Shen was hiding his love.
“Liwei, stop!” Huo Shen got panicked.
“They hid the truth from you FOR you. It all happened when your grandmother saw you very depressed one day. She came to know that you confessed to that man, but he rejected you. And then you had just become a zombie. You didn’t eat, you didn’t sleep, you didn’t talk, you did nothing. One day, you collapsed, and the doctor had informed her that your condition was worsening. You showed all the signs of being suicidal.”
Huo Xiao Fan widened her eyes again.
Indeed, there was such a time. She felt lifeless, and she sometimes did have thoughts about cutting or hurting herself. She would just stare at the kitchen knife, imagining that to herself.
“I don’t know what happened with your first love, but your grandmother said that the doctor said that losing your second love too was starting to impact you emotionally. And your grandmother also felt it.”
He continued. “She was trying to get you out of it, but then one day you said you started dating him and was happy. Then she came to China to meet your family but saw that man and his wife together by coincidence. She was shocked. She confronted him, and she got to know that he was married. Naturally, she was furious.”
Huo Xiao Fan was stunned. After that trip, Yu Tengfei had stopped contacting her.
“She knew you wouldn’t be able to handle his betrayal. Plus…you were pregnant too. At that time, she met Dad. I had seen her at our house once. I was four years old. Mom wasn’t in this world anymore. Dad was alone, and he was also your good friend through high school and university. So, your grandmother thought to make you marry him. She thought that one day you would forget that man and live happily with Dad.” Huo Liwei laughed angrily, “But that never happened. Your grandmother was wrong.”
“It might be difficult at first, but Dad would have kept you happy. And he did. But your head was only filled with that bastard!”
“Liwei, enough!”
Now Huo Xiao Fan understood why her grandmother was so adamant in forcing her to marry Huo Shen. It all changed after that trip to China. She stood there, expressionless.
Huo Liwei snarled. His eyes turned misty.
“We knew that three years later into the marriage, you started meeting that man again. You would also take Zhilan to meet with him.”
She froze and pursed her lips.
He mocked. “That was why you were so suddenly happy in the following years. We felt it. You were cheerful than before. You couldn’t hide your happiness from meeting him.”
“I…only went to meet him because of Zhilan. He wanted to meet her.”
“SHUT UP! Zhilan was just an excuse, wasn’t she? How could you not feel anything meeting your former lover? You married my Dad, but you were shamelessly still meeting him. And what right did you have to take Zhilan? She was Huo Zhilan. My Dad was her father, but you let her meet him? Did you feed your sense of shame to the dogs!?”
“Did you ever try to understand how Dad must have felt when you were taking Zhilan to meet that man!? He thought that he wasn’t a good enough father amd maybe he lacked somewhere which made you turn to the biological father!”
“Liwei…”
“Don’t bother lying Dad. I had heard you once talking to old butler Qin.”
Huo Xiao Fan widened her eyes. Her eyes watered. She had genuinely never thought like that. “No! That was never my intention! Shen believe me. I never doubted your love for Zhilan.”
“That is why I said that you lost all your senses! Just how easily you trampled on his feelings for you, on his feelings for Zhilan, only for that man! Even if you didn’t know his truth, there was a limit of being tangled up in that bastard.”
“My Dad did so much for you! He supported you, he stood beside you, knowing that you were doing all of this for your dead lover, but he was still patient. But you! You didn’t even have the basic decency to respect your marriage. You only used him and nothing else!”