Chapter 199: Liang Wenfei’s Twisted Logic
Shen Lichuan’s expression changed slightly. Their eyes met, and his held a sharpness. “What do you want to say?”
Liang Wenfei’s throat felt like it was burning. Mother Liang was departing for the airport and refused to take her. The Shen family’s servants were afraid to approach her or give her anything to consume, lest they cause trouble.
Every word she spoke now hurt her like a rough scratch. “Actually… my brother truly protected her. With her kind of self-important personality, running around for four years, my father didn’t perceive the slightest hint.”
She could no longer stand, so she leaned on the armrest and sat down.
“Don’t find it ironic. You’ve now experienced the marketplace, you think you can push your advantage to the extreme, be so busy with work that your feet don’t touch the ground, and all the while support her, be stabbed in the back by her at any moment, clean up the messes she creates, cover up all traces, and then persist for four years to surpass my father?”
“I can’t,” Shen Lichuan said, each word chillingly steady. “And I won’t.”
Liang Wenfei understood what he wouldn’t do. “So my brother thinks you never fight for things.”
Shen Lichuan offered a wry smile.
Liang Wenfei seemed unhurried, but her nerves were taut. She steered the conversation back. “You all accuse me of bullying her, but what constitutes bullying? Every time I insulted her, didn’t I get insulted back? She always wins.”
“If I had gone to my mother every time, she would have been dealt with long ago. But I was foolish. I thought my brother doted on me and went to him every time. The result was just a simple ‘I’m sorry’ that brushed it all aside, and my mother couldn’t defend me anymore.”
“Moreover, as long as she spoke, and if she spoke, my brother would unconditionally agree to her wishes, force me to apologize, and refute my mother’s decisions.”
Shen Lichuan leaned against the windowsill, the sunlight embracing him fiercely. In the light and shadow, he looked down at her. “Are you trying to prove your innocence? Tell me, are you truly wronged?”
His eyes held a look of absurdity, as if facing a clown who was self-pitying. “Liang Wenfei, bullying others and then being resisted by them is not being wronged, nor is it innocence. It is deserved punishment. It is what you get.”
Liang Wenfei could tell that if Liancheng wasn’t involved, he would have already called the bodyguards to throw her out of the Shen family’s main gate, sparing her even a single word or glance.
Her throat felt even drier, so dry it reached her innermost being, her blood drained, leaving only scorched earth.
But she couldn’t stop. A great fear consumed her every moment. That matter, buried for so long, might suddenly become the soil that buried her.
“Is that so? I deserve it, but what about her?” Liang Wenfei laughed sadly. “Do you know how it feels to piece together the cause and effect?”
“You don’t have to suffer hardships,” she clenched her fists unconsciously, her knuckles turning white. “Why is she like this? Because she hates that my brother broke up with you. She still has feelings for you. She loves you, so naturally, she finds everything about my brother bad. These subtle things that outsiders can see at a glance, she completely ignores, harbors malice, and accumulates hatred.”
“Enough—”
Shen Lichuan stopped her. His gaze was deep. Because his eye sockets weren’t deep, his double eyelids were delicate, and when he looked at someone, he naturally had a gentle demeanor. Now, there was not a trace of warmth left; it was the most ruthless coercion, the most piercing warning.
“Your insinuations are all twisted facts. It’s simply insane. Evil is evil. If it happened to Liancheng, should she then thank Liang Chaosu for showing mercy in abusing her?”
Liang Wenfei immediately restrained herself. In just two months, she felt as if she had returned to her humble beginnings in the mountains, where she had to pay attention to everyone’s gaze and try to please them all.
“No need to be angry—”
She spoke softly, feigning weakness. “I’m just talking about those four years. She always feels like everyone has wronged her, but the truth is, if I really hurt her as she claims, and my brother forced her, with my brother’s true methods, Liancheng would have long ago had nowhere to turn for help and would have been submissive. Let alone having the courage to argue with me for four years.”
“That is Liancheng’s resilience, and it has nothing to do with your brother or you.”
Liang Wenfei said, “But Shen Lichuan, my brother only acted once before going to Iceland. You struggled in the Shen family’s dilemma for so long, and in the end, it was my brother who helped you rescue yourself. You have experienced his methods yourself. If it were a real fight and you were at this level, how long could she have been resilient?”
Twisted logic. The perpetrator’s violence is justified, and the victim is wrong if they don’t die.
Shen Lichuan completely gave up on conversing with her and turned to walk to the desk, using the landline to dial an extension.
Liang Wenfei hastily got up to stop him. “I’m five months pregnant. When the child is born, I’m willing to give it to you.”
Shen Lichuan grasped the handset, his face as cold as frost, freezing a kind of unusually serious gloom.
He remained silent, and Liang Wenfei felt uneasy. She had used too many tricks before; Shen Lichuan had no trust in her.
“It’s true,” her voice trembled as she cradled her belly. “Shen Lichuan, don’t think I’m so wicked that I deserve to die. Since returning to the Liang family and having everything, I actually have nothing. You all love her, protect her, and are willing to help her unconditionally, give her money, whatever she needs, even if she doesn’t ask, you offer it. And I am just a tool.”
Liang Wenfei gradually began to break down, her fine trembling turning into spasms. “The Liang family belongs to my brother, and it will belong to Liancheng in the future. He never intended to give me anything. He even decided my fate in his heart long ago. You let me live in the Shen family and protect me for six months. After I’ve recovered, you won’t keep me, and I can leave.”
Shen Lichuan suppressed his impatience and coldly scrutinized Liang Wenfei.
Liang Wenfei had feigned illness multiple times, and trembling and twitching were her specialty. However, this time was different from before. Panic filled her eyes, and hopelessness was rooted in her soul; it was something that couldn’t be faked.
Recalling Liang Wenfei’s previous actions, it seemed like a display of weakness, downplaying Liancheng’s suffering and shifting it onto herself, all to tug at his soft heart and keep her living in the Shen family.
Shen Lichuan slowly put down the phone and slowly approached, closing the distance to just two steps. He raised his hand, able to touch Liang Wenfei’s swollen belly.
“When you returned to the country and dared to reveal that Liang Chaosu was investigating Liancheng’s background, it shows you weren’t that afraid of Liang Chaosu. What has happened now to make you so terrified?”
Liang Wenfei shuddered, mustering all her strength to remain standing. “Nothing has happened.”
Her face was ghastly white, her voice choked with tears. “I’m in my late pregnancy, alone in the suburbs. Security isn’t good, and the Liang family has too many enemies. I’m scared.”
“Is it Hu Tiande?” Shen Lichuan hit the nail on the head. “Liang Wenfei, I’m not as sharp-eyed as your brother, but your level is too low. I can see through you.”
Liang Wenfei trembled violently, goosebumps erupting all over her face. “No—”
“You have secrets with him, and you don’t want to be with him.” Shen Lichuan analyzed the look in her eyes. “I know you won’t confess if I ask now. So I’ll let you stay in the Shen family and wait for Hu Tiande to find you.”
A fatal blow. Liang Wenfei completely collapsed, her body and bones rotting into mud, slumping at Shen Lichuan’s feet, grabbing his trouser leg.
“You’re not like this—you’ve changed—”
Shen Lichuan remained silent, stepping back to the desk and dialing the butler’s extension, instructing him to take Liang Wenfei to the guest room.
Outside the window, tree branches withered infinitely in the wind. On the windowsill, there was a small and comfortable bird’s nest, but those two little birds had never reappeared.
Whether he had changed or not, the Liang family members had the most say.
