Volume One, Chapter Ninety-Two: Because Ye Sheng Once Truly Loved You

Huo Mingtin knew Ye Sheng was not joking with him. Though unwilling, he still had the flowers taken away.

Watching the returned yellow roses, Huo Mingtin began to make sense of it.

Ye Sheng did not dislike flowers. She simply disliked him.

Nor did she refuse flowers. She only refused to accept him courting her again.

But why?

He did not believe Ye Sheng no longer had feelings for him. There was only one explanation: he had once broken her heart. During those three years of marriage, he really had been consumed by his career and had neglected Ye Sheng and the family far too much.

Huo Mingtin sat in silence with his arms folded, his mind in knots.

Thinking of what Elder Huo, the Ninth, Huo Lindong, had said that night, "Then I wish you luck," his brows tightened even more.

When Chu Yue came in after knocking, he saw his brother staring at a bright bunch of yellow roses with a furrowed brow. Chu Yue lifted a swordlike eyebrow. "Well now, who sent you carnations? Mother's Day was long ago."

Huo Mingtin gave him a cold glance. "These are roses. Are you blind?"

"I wouldn't know. Nobody's ever sent me any."

Today Chu Yue was not in uniform. He was dressed casually: black leather jacket, black jeans, a close-cropped haircut, bronzed skin, a hard-edged masculine air with a trace of roguishness.

Among the young lords of the capital, he was also an oddity out of place.

He sat sideways on the desk, casually plucked a yellow rose and brought it to his nose, then glanced at Huo Mingtin. "Let me guess. You bought these to give to a woman, and she wouldn't take them?"

Huo Mingtin opened a file, his tone stiff. "I'm not your suspect. Don't interrogate me."

Chu Yue snorted. "If you were a suspect, you'd be getting a different kind of treatment."

He hooked a foot around the office chair and turned Huo Mingtin to face him. "Don't be one way with people when you need them and another when you don't. Brother, I suffered a great deal for you. I at least deserve to know what's going on."

Huo Mingtin thought of the confinement and the beating Chu Yue had endured because of him, and felt slightly apologetic. He kept a stern face and said nothing.

They had grown up together, and Chu Yue knew his temper. Expecting him to volunteer anything was impossible; he could only be pressed, sentence by sentence, until he spoke.

"So what's the deal with these flowers? For Qin Minshu? The young lady of the Qin family would never refuse them. If she accepted them, she'd probably post them all over social media to show them off."

Huo Mingtin said, "I broke up with Qin Minshu."

"Oh? Again?" Chu Yue did not take it seriously at all. "How long are you planning to stay broken up this time?"

Huo Mingtin looked up at him, brow furrowed. "I'm serious. It won't get better again either."

Chu Yue let out a laugh. "Back when you two broke up during graduation, the whole thing was a catastrophe too, and I thought you'd never get back together. Then what happened? You got married, she came back to the country, and after your divorce the two of you picked up where you left off again... Young Master Huo, when we used to say Qin Minshu was your white moonlight, we were joking, being sarcastic. But you turned it into the truth and made us have to believe it. You two are absolutely the real thing!"

Now that was sarcasm.

Huo Mingtin said coldly, "Can you speak properly?"

"Fine, I'll speak like a human being." Chu Yue raised both hands in surrender, then glanced at the flowers again. "So who exactly are these for?"

Huo Mingtin was annoyed by the questioning and said flatly, "For Ye Sheng. She wouldn't take them, got angry with me, and sent them back."

"Pfft—"

Chu Yue burst out laughing and clapped. "Good, good. That sounds exactly like Ye Sheng. Returned them beautifully!"

Huo Mingtin ground his teeth. "Chu Yue!"

"You wait a second. Let me hold it in."

Chu Yue really could not suppress the urge to mock his brother. He tried, failed, and laughed even more wildly, infuriating Huo Mingtin so much that he snatched up the flowers and hurled them at him.

"Fine, I won't laugh, I won't laugh... Ow, it hurts my face to laugh this much."

Chu Yue rubbed his face, lit a cigarette, took a couple of drags, and only then grew serious. "If you're really going to pursue Ye Sheng, then brother, let me give you one piece of advice: stop while you still can. You don't stand a chance."

Huo Mingtin frowned, displeased. "Why? On what grounds?"

"On the grounds that Ye Sheng truly loved you before."

Chu Yue's gaze went dark as he looked steadily at his best friend.

"Mingtin, Ye Sheng is not the same as Qin Minshu. Back then, we all thought she was steady and dependable. A top graduate from Capital Medical University, she gave up the chance to go abroad for further study and stayed home to bear your children, raise them, and be your capable wife behind the scenes."

"She suffered so much while carrying twins. Her legs swelled up terribly, and she could barely walk when she went for prenatal checkups. Once I saw her at the hospital, sitting all alone in the waiting area with her belly in her lap."

"Where were you then? You were abroad, expanding your empire. I know you were busy, but if you could find time to fly to Country Y to see Qin Minshu, could you really not spare any time to accompany your pregnant wife to her checkups?"

"I..." Huo Mingtin was left speechless. He instinctively tried to defend himself.

"At the time, Qin Minshu wasn't doing well. She couldn't adapt to life abroad, and her emotions were very unstable, so I..."

"So you pitied her, because you still had lingering feelings for her then."

Chu Yue was skilled in criminal psychology and good at reading people. In this moment, his professional instincts sharpened his words even further.

"But why did you marry Ye Sheng when you still could not let go of your ex? You brought her home and then did not treat her well. All you could think of was that Qin Minshu could not adapt to life abroad, but what about Ye Sheng? Did she adapt to your family life?"

"In her early twenties, married off far from home, and living under the same roof as your whole family—need I say how complicated the Huo household was?"

"Back then Ye Sheng had no one to stand up for her. We went to your house several times and ran straight into your mother and your younger sister speaking coldly to her, looking down on her every which way. Do you really think her emotions were stable?"

Huo Mingtin's heart clenched.

Everything Chu Yue was saying, he knew. Yet somehow he had never truly thought about any of it.

"People only leave after they have gathered enough disappointment. When Ye Sheng wanted a divorce, we were shocked too, but we all admired her in our hearts. After all, it is no easy thing for a person to sever the life they are living and walk another road."

Chu Yue let out a long sigh. "Mingtin, have you ever thought about why Ye Sheng insisted on divorcing you in the first place?"

Huo Mingtin suddenly looked up, a twitch flashing at the center of his brow.