Chapter 236: I Mind (Thanks to “It’s Time to Pick a Name” for the 10,000 reward!)

Liu Ying hated Cao Jun to the bone in her heart, feeling that he was largely responsible for her current unfortunate life.

Seeing her so full of righteous indignation, Chen Feng felt a little strange.

Back then, Liu Ying had misunderstood and wronged him, and had lost her temper with him twice. Once was in private, and the other time was in class, which made him lose a lot of face.

At that time, Chen Feng’s defense was useless. Although he was very angry, he could only endure it silently.

Later, he found out that the mastermind behind this was Cao Jun. He directly fought with him in class and had a big quarrel, which also made everyone see Cao Jun’s insidious and villainous face, making him lose all face in class.

At that time, as a classmate, Liu Ying of course also knew that she had wronged Chen Feng. Logically speaking, she should have apologized to Chen Feng at the first opportunity, but she didn’t. She didn’t apologize to Chen Feng until after four years of university graduation.

Now, after several years of graduation and not seeing each other for several years, she suddenly contacted him, asked him out for coffee, and apologized to him, and even cursed Cao Jun so angrily.

This was a bit interesting.

Chen Feng remembered very clearly that when he exposed Cao Jun’s behind-the-scenes tricks and wronged him, she had been very calm and had not gotten angry at Cao Jun, the mastermind.

It had been so many years, and only now was she so angry about Cao Jun’s rumors back then. Didn’t that seem very strange?

Chen Feng could still tell whether she was really angry or pretending to be angry. Just now, Liu Ying’s expression and tone could not have been fake. She was really very dissatisfied and angry with Cao Jun.

Chen Feng gave her a meaningful look and asked seemingly casually, “Is that guy Cao Jun married and has children? I really don’t know. What’s his job now?”

Hearing Chen Feng’s question, Liu Ying finally restrained the anger on her face and said with a disdainful tone, “Yes, he got married a few years ago. I heard he has a son who is four or five years old. This person is insidious and cunning, and he does things unscrupulously, so he’s doing quite well. He’s a department manager of an IT company, with an annual salary of hundreds of thousands.”

Chen Feng commented matter-of-factly, “Putting aside this person’s character, his academic performance is still quite good. He’s one of the few people in our class with the best professional level. He also went to graduate school, so it’s normal for him to find a good job and get a good position.”

Liu Ying smiled, “You’re quite generous. I admire your magnanimous character.”

Chen Feng shook his head, “I’m just being matter-of-fact. It can’t be considered magnanimous. I can forgive you for misunderstanding me and getting angry at me back then, but I can’t forgive Cao Jun for slandering and framing me behind my back back then.”

“Right.” Liu Ying quickly nodded in agreement. “I can’t forgive him now either. He treated me like a fool back then and used me to target you. In addition, he has always had lustful thoughts about me. Thinking about it now, my back breaks out in a cold sweat, and I also feel disgusted. So, I blocked him not long ago.”

Chen Feng smiled and made no comment. He just changed the subject and asked, “Now that you’re back in the country, what do you plan to do? Go to work or start your own business?”

Liu Ying’s bright almond-shaped eyes blinked, and she asked with a smile, “I haven’t decided yet. Do you have any good suggestions?”

Chen Feng glanced at her faintly and asked, “What kind of work did you do abroad before?”

A trace of unnaturalness flashed across Liu Ying’s face, but she still answered, “I mainly did logistics work in the company my ex-husband was a shareholder of. I also did other administrative work.”

In fact, her so-called logistics work was just a clerk in the office, printing documents, copying documents, delivering documents, or serving tea and water. This was also because of her ex-husband’s face. Otherwise, as a foreigner with not very professional English, she was not very competent even as a clerk.

So, she only lasted in this position for less than a year before returning to her family to be a housewife. Then her husband hoped to have one or two more children with her, which was met with her firm opposition.

Not long after, her husband cheated on her. So, she wanted to go out and find a job again to be self-reliant.

She also wanted to find a good job through her own efforts and abilities, but after looking for several years, she couldn’t find a suitable one. The longest job she had was as an administrative assistant, specifically assisting the human resources department with recruitment and some document organization work. But after five or six months, she was fired because of a work mistake.

After that, she gave up and no longer looked for a job, staying at home to be supported by her husband. But she still refused her husband’s request to have one or two more children. The reason was that her husband had cheated on her. Although she had forgiven him verbally, she felt even more insecure in her heart.

As for her husband’s attempt to have one or two more children to consolidate their relationship and their family, she sneered at it in her heart.

So, from this point of view, the reason why her husband cheated on her again later was definitely partly her fault.

In many cases, an unhappy marriage cannot be solely the responsibility of one party, but of both parties. It’s just a matter of how much responsibility each party bears.

Chen Feng didn’t know her previous work experience, but he could imagine.

Her academic performance in university was not very good, especially in her major courses. He remembered that she had failed a course. She barely graduated with a diploma in four years, which was not very useful abroad. She had originally gone abroad to study, but because of an unexpected pregnancy, she took a leave of absence from school and got married. Later, she simply gave up her studies. And her spoken English was not very good. So, with her personal ability, she might be able to find a good job in China, but it would be more difficult abroad.

“Then are you still willing to go to a company to work and do similar work?” Chen Feng asked with some concern.

Liu Ying smiled bitterly and shook her head, “I’m so old now. It’s meaningless to do this kind of work again. There’s no room for advancement at all, let alone a career prospect. I actually want to do business now. But for one thing, I don’t have experience in this area, and for another, I don’t have any connections. I don’t know what to do. Can you give me some advice? After all, I’ve been away from the country for so long, and I’m not very familiar with the current domestic market, people’s livelihood, and so on. By the way, what do you do now?”

Chen Feng smiled and said, “I’m considered unemployed now. I just occasionally trade stocks at home.”

“Stock trading? Looking at you, you should have made a lot, right?” Liu Ying asked tentatively.

“I’ve made a little, but it’s still far from others,” Chen Feng said frankly. Thinking of the one hundred million entry ticket to Tao Yaoyang’s company, he felt that he was still very poor.

Liu Ying smiled and didn’t ask any more questions. It was better to stop at the right time for this kind of sensitive question. Anyway, she knew that Chen Feng was very rich now.

“Since you have no experience in doing business and no good projects, I think it’s best not to try. If you have enough money, you might as well buy a house or a shop and be a landlady.”

Liu Ying was dumbfounded, “Buy a house or a shop? With the current housing prices in Xiuzhou, how can I afford it?”

“Then how much funds do you have on hand now?” Chen Feng asked very directly.

If she didn’t know Chen Feng’s “background,” he being so direct would definitely make Liu Ying very uncomfortable, and she might even suspect that Chen Feng was after her money.

But now that Chen Feng asked this, she didn’t feel offended at all. On the contrary, she felt that Chen Feng was concerned about her. She immediately said, “When I got divorced, my ex-husband and I divided our property. I only got more than 70,000 US dollars, which is about more than 500,000 yuan.”

“With this little money, if you really want to do business, you can only do a small business. For example, opening a convenience store, a small supermarket, or something like that. But this is obviously not suitable for you. At most, you can find a reliable person and partner with them.”

At this time, the things they had ordered were brought over. After the waiter left, Liu Ying stirred her coffee with a coffee spoon and said with a troubled face, “Where can I find a reliable person to partner with in business? I don’t have many relatives. Although some of them are in business, they are all big businesses. They definitely can’t take me with them, and I don’t have that capital. As for friends, I’ve been living abroad for so many years and have been out of touch for a long time. Now at most, they are just ordinary friends.”

Chen Feng looked at her and smiled, “Then it seems that your best choice now is to find a rich man to marry.”

Hearing this, Liu Ying was stunned for a moment. Looking at Chen Feng’s half-smiling eyes, she suddenly felt a little guilty, but she still managed to smile, “I’m thirty years old now, have had a child, and am divorced. I’m old and faded. Where can I find a rich man?”

“How about I introduce a few to you? I just don’t know what your specific requirements are.”

“Are you serious?” Liu Ying looked at Chen Feng seriously.

“Of course.” Chen Feng also nodded seriously.

After hesitating for a while, Liu Ying finally shook her head and said, “Forget it. Although I’m confident that I’m not bad-looking, those rich men are not short of younger and more beautiful women than me. I still have this self-knowledge. What’s more, I care more about the feelings between us than money. If I marry someone just for money, I don’t think I will be happy in the future. If I want to find someone again, the first thing is that we must be in love with each other. Money is secondary. I don’t want to get divorced again.”

Liu Ying’s appearance of confiding in Chen Feng almost made him believe her.

But you’re a divorced woman who’s planning to remarry, and you don’t have much money yourself. How can you repeatedly emphasize that your standard for a second marriage is not about money?

When a woman gets married for the first time, she may not care about the man’s financial situation because she is young, has not seen much of the world, or has no experience.

But for a divorced woman, a large part of the reason is that she is dissatisfied with the man’s financial situation. So, if she plans to remarry, the first thing she will definitely look at is whether the man is rich. Other things like appearance and age are secondary.

This was especially true in China now. Not to mention a second marriage, many first marriages now only looked at whether the man had money. Only if you had money could you talk about feelings. What marriage could you talk about without money?

Of course, there was also a matching problem. If a woman’s own conditions were very average, and she still wanted a villa, a sports car, and to marry a tall, rich, and handsome man, then she was dreaming.

“What you said makes a lot of sense. It’s a pity that I happen to know two tall, rich, and handsome men who are about our age. If you’re interested, I can introduce them to you.”

What Chen Feng said was not a lie. Tao Yaoyang and Cai Zhixin were both readily available. Cai Zhixin was also divorced and had no official girlfriend yet. And although Tao Yaoyang was in his thirties, he had never been married.

Of course, they were not short of young and beautiful women around them.

Hearing this, Liu Ying was very moved and almost couldn’t help but break her composure, but in the end, she held back.

She knew that Chen Feng was very rich, so the tall, rich, and handsome man he introduced would definitely be very rich, and maybe even richer and more handsome than Chen Feng.

But if she showed interest, Chen Feng’s side might be a lost cause.

“Thank you for your kindness. But I’m not interested for the time being. It’s only been a few months since my divorce.” Liu Ying smiled and shook her head slightly, looking calm and completely unmoved by the tall, rich, and handsome man.

Chen Feng said casually, “It’s been a few months. What’s there to be taboo about? I found a woman a few days after my divorce. This is a very normal thing.”

“You’re really… But you’re a man, and I’m a woman. It’s different. After you men get divorced, you can find women casually. Can we women do that?”

Chen Feng smiled, “It seems you’ve been abroad for a few years for nothing. Aren’t men and women more open abroad?”

Liu Ying immediately retorted, “What you said is a bit one-sided. In the United States, they attach great importance to family and marriage. The mainstream traditional values and morals have a strong binding force on married men and women. At least stronger than in our country. If one of the married men and women cheats, the social public opinion and moral pressure they suffer will be very great, and they may lose everything, including work, reputation, credit, interpersonal relationships, and so on. It’s different in China. They are too tolerant of the cheating party. At most, they will only have some loss of reputation.

“If they are not married, it’s different. The relationship between single men and women is often more casual. They break up when they say they break up, and they go to bed when they say they go to bed. But it also depends on the individual. Some people, because of their family beliefs, have never had sex before marriage. Some will mess around everywhere.”

Chen Feng was a little disapproving of her words, but he didn’t argue. He just turned back to the topic and asked, “Then do you plan to stay single like this? You don’t plan to find someone again?”

Liu Ying raised her coffee cup and took a sip. After pursing her lips, she looked at Chen Feng and smiled gracefully, “I’m not in a hurry for now. I can only see how it goes. What about you? Aren’t you also divorced? You haven’t thought about finding someone again?”

Chen Feng said very frankly, “I have no plans to remarry for the time being, but I’m not short of women around me.”

Although she was mentally prepared, hearing Chen Feng say this fact in person, Liu Ying’s expression couldn’t help but freeze. After a long while, she finally managed a smile, “It seems your charm is still great.”

“Thank you for the compliment. I think so too,” Chen Feng said with a pretentious smile.

Liu Ying rolled her eyes at him, then sighed and said with a disappointed face, “I was originally thinking of trying to date you. After all, we were classmates for four years in university, and we know each other’s background. And we’re both divorced. We should cherish our fate even more.”

Her sudden directness made Chen Feng stunned for a moment, but he quickly reacted and looked at her with a half-smile, “Although I’m not short of women around me, I don’t mind dating you.”

Liu Ying glared at him, “I mind.”

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