“Who else could it be?!” Jacob wiped his tears away and sobbed as he said, “Of course, it’s Matilda!”Charlie frowned and asked, “Aren’t the two of you confidants? When did you get together?”Jacob quickly explained, “We’re not together. I haven’t divorced your mother-in-law yet...”Charlie said helplessly, “You guys are not together, so how can you be lovelorn?”Jacob felt as if he had been humiliated, so he blushed and argued, “We have always loved each other deep down in our hearts! Do you remember the time when she and her son, Paul, came over to our house for dinner when she had just come back to Oskia?”“I remember.” Charlie said casually, “Wasn’t that just a reunion between old classmates? What’s so special about it?”Jacob said solemnly, “Of course, it was special! You don’t know this, but I confessed my love to her when we were in the kitchen that day! I not only confessed my love to her affectionately, but I even hugged her, and she hugged me back!”“Really?” Charlie a
After hearing Jacob’s words, Charlie could not help but ask in surprise, “How did Professor Hart get together with Aunt Matilda? When did this happen?” Jacob said indignantly, “Didn’t it happen during the cultural exchange to Korea this time? The two of them somehow ended up together for some reason!”Charlie asked him, “Are you sure they are together? Have they made an official announcement?”“Yes...” Jacob’s eyes were red and swollen, and he said in distress, “Matilda spoke to me about this matter before. She said that Professor Hart had always been interested in her, and it was not just for a day or two. In fact, he had always been interested in her since we ran into him that time.”After saying that, Jacob then added, “Professor Hart had always been stalking Matilda, and I don’t know what’s wrong with Matilda that she actually agreed to be together with him.”Charlie laughed and said, “Dad, I’m going to say something that you won’t like to hear. I actually think that the two
Jacob did not expect Charlie to say his inner thoughts directly, so he looked extremely embarrassed as he said, “Isn’t it because I want to solve the problem peacefully?”Charlie shook his head and said, “I know. When Aunt Matilda first returned to Oskia, Mom happened to disappear for a period of time. You might not have realized it, but I could see that you really enjoyed the feeling very much during that time. However, you failed to understand that the feeling was only temporary and you cannot regard something that’s temporary as eternal.”Charlie then said sincerely, “Dad, I can actually understand Professor Hart’s situation. To be honest, I think that it’s actually the best choice for Aunt Matilda to be together with him. First of all, both of them are single and widowed. They do not face the psychological burden of destroying the other party’s family or marriage, and they also do not need to worry that the other party will rekindle their relationship with their exes or worry tha
Charlie laughed and said, “Aren’t you simply putting someone down just because you can’t beat them? What’s the use of simply talking about it? If you’re really in the ring, you will lose your life if you carry on fighting for a few more rounds! Tell me, in what way are you better compared to Professor Hart? You can name any point you want! I won’t mention anything else, but Professor Hart dares to declare his love and openly pursue the woman that he loves. He is already way ahead of you in this aspect alone.”“I...” Jacob did not know how to refute Charlie’s words. Yolden was indeed much better than him in all aspects. When they went on the cultural exchange to Korea this time, what Yolden did on the subject really surprised everyone, and he had defeated all the participants on both sides directly with his level.Moreover, when Yolden had given a speech on stage, he could switch between the Oskian dialect, English, and Korean at will. His charismatic personality had even charmed a
“Arguing with the police?!”Charlie asked in surprise, “How did Mom end up arguing with the police?”Claire said in a panic, “I don’t know either. Mom said that she had to go to the toilet, so I helped her in before I came out. After that, I heard her talking to someone on the phone, and the tone of her voice seemed to be getting more and more agitated. She finally started arguing with the other party and even said that he does not deserve to be a police officer...”Charlie hurriedly said, “I’ll go and take a look.”After saying that, he looked at Jacob and said seriously, “Dad, you should digest what I’ve just said. If you still feel upset, I’ll come and talk to you again later.”Jacob was incomparably depressed as he muttered, “Forget it... Stop sprinkling salt on my wounds. No... You’re not even sprinkling salt, it’s sulfuric acid!”Charlie shook his head helplessly. “In that case, you can figure it out for yourself. I’ll go up and have a look first.”After that, Charlie and
“Otherwise, if it’s just one person making a phone call to say that another person is involved in a crime without any evidence and is asking us to arrest the other party, how many people would we have to arrest every day to solve such a problem? What’s more, if we really file a case and find out that the other party has been wrongly accused, we will not let the person who made the false police report off. We will also pursue the other party’s legal responsibility when the time comes.”As soon as Elaine heard that she might be held accountable, she panicked immediately. She had been in prison several times, and she had also been to prison in the United States. In all fairness, she was the Ferocious Ghost of Bedford Hills Correctional Institute, but she really did not want to end up in prison again. So, she could only sneer bitterly and say, “I think you’re just trying to cover up for that bitch, Hannah Queen! I will definitely report this matter to your higher authorities when I fi
Elaine’s description of Hannah surprised Charlie.He really did not expect that Hannah would seize the biggest trend of the internet to imitate others to start a live broadcast to sell goods. What’s more, Charlie did not expect that Hannah knew how to set up a persona on the internet. There were tens of thousands of people doing live broadcasts, but there were very few people who knew how to set up a good persona to make profits. Some people packaged themselves as a success guru and would teach others how to turn ten thousand dollars into ten billion dollars on the internet every day. They would also advertise and boast about how many star companies and entrepreneurs they had built up. In fact, he might not have even finished high school and only sold meat skewers every day, but the city management did not allow him to set up his stall, and his project fell through because he did not have a sanitation permit. When the short videos trend came up, his life suddenly turned around,
At this time, Hannah, who was on the live broadcast, picked up another cell phone and said, “Everyone, I’m going to make the shopping cart go online now, so everyone needs to hurry up and grab the towels! Three, two, one, go!”Elaine muttered, “This towel is not even branded but she is selling five pieces of towels for ninety-nine dollars. I think that’s the price for a good towel made of high-grade cotton. Only a fool would buy the towels she’s selling!”After that, she muttered again, “Let me see how many orders she can get for these towels.”With that said, she clicked on the shopping cart icon on Hannah’s live broadcast room and clicked in to see that the link that was ranked first was this towel—Buy three, get two free, ninety-nine dollars, free shipping. The real-time sales even showed that there were already more than one thousand and eight hundred orders. Elaine was shocked and blurted out, “Damn it, there are actually people who are buying it?! There are even more than on
Charlie was driving Jacob to Thompson First when the latter received the text from Matilda.Seeing that they were reaching the front gates, Jacob promptly snapped at Charlie, "Charlie, stop the car now!"Charlie did so and asked in curiosity, "What's wrong?""Matilda just texted me," Jacob replied, showing the chat log between him and Matilda.Charlie was just glancing at it nonchalantly when he saw that Matilda's contact name was 'AAA July Florist'."Wait, why is that Aunt Matilda's contact name?" He exclaimed in surprise."I changed it."Jacob explained gingerly while reading through the text Matilda sent. "Her profile picture is an iris, so I changed her contact name to a florist since I'm mostly worried Elaine would peek into my phone.""Anyway, she's asking if I'm attending her wedding with Yolden. They would send us an invitation if I accept, extended to our whole family… what do you think I should say?"Charlie asked in return. "You're planning to skip it, aren't you? T
Then, Matilda suggested, "How about this—I'll ask him before deciding." "I'll pass on inviting the rest of my former classmates too. They're too vain and love comparing, so I'd rather not have anything to do with that. Also, there are our Korean friends who have it together, and they were telling us to invite them if we were going to get married. We have to keep our promise, right?""Yeah—then, it's basically decided. Aside from Charlie, we shall invite our colleagues and Korean friends while we wait for an answer from Jacob."Yolden nodded and said, "Now, I'll talk about the honeymoon—cut me short if you have a different opinion."Matilda nodded, resting her chin on her hands and smiling. "Shoot. I'm all ears."Feeling a little embarrassed by Matilda's glowing stare, Yolden took a sip of his ice water before continuing, "My idea is to head to the States for our honeymoon after the wedding…"He trailed off, staring at Matilda and waiting for a response.However, she was merely
"Oh, Jacob…?"Matilda chuckled awkwardly. "Just today, he offered to buy me dinner, but I said I didn't have the time, and I also told him about our wedding… So, we should invite him since he's aware of it.""Jacob offered to buy you dinner?" Yolden exclaimed in surprise. "Did he say why?""Nope," Matilda shrugged, smiling. "Probably just dinner between old classmates."However, she was actually smart enough to guess Jacob's intention even though Jacob was inviting her somewhere near campus. That was why she had also mentioned she was marrying Yolden while turning down Jacob, all so that he would give up on her.After she had managed to get over their past fling completely, she didn't want to give Jacob false hopes before she walked down the aisle.In the same regard, she didn't want to worry Yolden, and therefore, had deliberately discouraged Jacob.Be that as it may, Yolden was smart too.He knew about Matilda and Jacob's past and that her son, Paul's full name was Paul Jam
Before Charlie had arrived, Jacob was still furious that Matilda would soon marry Yolden.After Charlie came, however, he was instead worried that Matilda would send him a wedding invitation.Meanwhile, Matilda and Yolden were discussing their list of guests.They had different social circles, but most of their friends were Stateside, and they only had some distant relatives in this country.Still, they had colleagues in Aurous Hill. Matilda had classmates too, but she was out of touch with them aside from Jacob, whom she often met.Still, as they discussed who should be invited, Matilda first suggested, "Let's go through everyone. First, our Stateside friends… I don't think we should tell them at all since it's a long journey, and inviting them would seem tactless. What do you think?"Yolden nodded, smiling, "I was just thinking the same thing. We're close with our Stateside friends and always keep in touch, but inviting them to our wedding might be a stretch. We'd just hit a wa
With that being said, once Matilda was thrown in the mix, Elaine would suddenly become an African honey badger, with every bit of black air force energy that was implied.As such, if Jacob had managed to be brave and take that one step back then, Charlie would have tried to help, stopping Elaine from harassing Jacob or Matilda.However, the reality was that Jacob had to bungle the chance when Matilda offered it to him.That was why the best option was for Jacob to understand that he couldn't get together with Matilda now so that he would feel much better.And since he had always been a coward, Charlie's slight intimidation cleared his head considerably.He then sighed, "Well, that's just life—you don't always get what you want, and you should never try to claim what you couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to choose Matilda over thirty years ago, so not being together now only makes sense.""Now, I can only pray that Elaine never finds out… or at least that things don't get out of h
Then, Jacob quickly pressed, "Dear boy, maybe you could stay a few days instead of taking more jobs. At least you could be there to stop my wife if she snaps.""Sure," Charlie chuckled, cheerfully agreeing to it. "Don't worry—Claire's returning in a couple of days too, and you'll be fine with us around. You're cheating in your mind, anyway…"Pausing, he then added a reminder, "But if she's really furious, just bear with her beatings and clawings. Live and let live, as they say."That left Jacob sulking, however. "What the hell! If I knew this would happen, I should have just taken her to court and divorced her openly! That way, I'd definitely make things work with Matilda. Yolden wouldn't even stand a chance!"Charlie had to keep a straight face. "Now, you're not quite right there—don't you know what would happen to your wife if you took this to court?"Jacob snorted coolly. "Elaine would just snap at me, hit me, and make sure I don't get a cent in the divorce. That's no big deal—
"Fuck!" When Jacob heard what Charlie said, he was horrified. He nervously asked, "Matilda isn't going to come to our house to deliver the invitation, is she? If Elaine finds out that I've been hiding Matilda's return from her all this time, I'll be so dead!" Charlie, having long seen through Jacob, knew he would never escape the shadow and claws of Elaine. He shook his head and said, "Whether they'll invite you, I have no way of knowing. If you're worried, you can tell Matilda that you don't want to be invited to her wedding and that you don't want to go." Jacob sighed. "That's just a temporary solution. Even if she doesn't know now, she'll probably find out sooner or later. A lot of our mutual friends already know about Matilda's return. You went to the gathering too. But those friends are not really in contact with Elaine, so she hasn't found out yet." Charlie smiled and said, "Matilda's return to the country was at a pretty sensitive time. If I'm not mistaken, she came b
Jacob then realized that Charlie was also driving a Rolls-Royce, and it was a more expensive Phantom. Surprised, he asked, "Charlie, where did you get this car?" Marilyn had prepared the car for Charlie when he left Scarlet Pinnacle Manor. He had driven it to Thompson First, so he had decided to use it today. Charlie replied, "A client lent it to me. You sounded urgent, so I drove it over." Then, he added, "You're something else. You're crying like a baby yet you're still in the mood to ask about the car. What's going on? Your friend said you'd cried twice already?" "That bloody Simon!" Hearing this, Jacob became furious and cursed, "He still doesn't have the slightest clue! He's such a damned fool! The more I try to avoid him, the more he keeps blabbering on and on. Argh, he's so stupid!" Charlie asked, "What exactly is bothering you?" Jacob's face instantly turned dejected, and with a long sigh, he choked up and said, "Charlie— Matilda— She's getting married—" "Gettin
Things were a little different and unique in the United States, though. Westerners tended to approach marriage with greater caution. Many couples stayed together for years, had several children, and yet remained as boyfriend and girlfriend. Being together, having children, and raising them jointly didn't necessarily mean they would get married. In fact, it was not uncommon for some to walk down the aisle only after having multiple kids. Because of this environment, elderly couples in the West often limited their relationships to dating, and at most, cohabitation. Very few progressed to the stage of marriage. However, Yolden, like a young man in the throes of passionate love, had invited her on a trip, secretly prepared a proposal ceremony by the seaside, and gotten down on one knee with a ring to propose. These actions deeply moved Matilda and, at the same time, gave her an unprecedented sense of security. Now, Yolden had moved their wedding up a big step and set the date just on