Chapter 174 Always a Burden

Nina stopped in her tracks, put on a professional smile, and said with utter disdain, "So your family must specialize in haggard housewives and divorcees, then!"

Cai Yirou glared furiously, looking as though she wanted to tear both Nina and Xiaoxiao to shreds. Unwilling to back down, Nina turned to the surrounding crowd with a look of exaggerated concern and said, "Everyone who can't swim should clear out quickly. With someone making such stormy waves here, I'd hate for you to get caught in the crossfire just because you stopped to watch the show."

"Nina, stop talking." Xiaoxiao finally spoke up. Nina inwardly cursed her for lacking a spine; standing firmly on the moral high ground, she still chose to let Cai Yirou hurl insults unchecked, whether out of excessive breeding or sheer cowardice, Nina could not tell.

"What? Did I hit a raw nerve, so now you feel guilty?" Cai Yirou shed her previous gentle and sweet facade, probably realizing her romance was already dead and gone, and had decided to treat a dead horse as if it were still alive.

Xiaoxiao merely shook her head. "I don't want to argue with you until we're red in the face because I feel this time and place are entirely inappropriate. You accuse me over and over, but deep down you know this will only make Lin Shuojian despise you even more. Yet you still persist, which proves just how deeply you love Lin Shuo. I'm a nobody, so it doesn't matter what happens to me, but you're different—you're a person of some status, after all. Screaming and shouting like this is so beneath you."

Cai Yirou was not buying it. Perhaps before coming here, she had already burned her boats, ready to sink or swim. She retorted sharply, "Beneath me? Lin Shuo being with you is what's truly beneath him! Do you think Lin Shuo's marriage is merely a personal matter? Don't be so naive. In this day and age, to maximize the value of a marriage, you don't look at how much affection the couple shares, but rather how much benefit it can bring. Everyone is looking for allies, and I fail to see how you could possibly help Lin Shuo. On the contrary, you will always be a burden to him!"

Unsurprisingly, Cai Yirou had struck at the core. Her words hit the nail on the head, driving deep into Xiaoxiao's heart. It was true; she was a burden. That was precisely why every relationship she had entered over the past four years had ended in failure. In her own mind, it was because she could not forget Lin Shuo; in the eyes of others, it was the fear of dragging someone down. Over time, even she had come to believe that the baggage she carried made it impossible for her ever to find a good home.

Growing anxious, Nina—who had long sensed that Cai Yirou was no simple character, yet had never expected her to come on so aggressively, lying low by Xiaoxiao's side for so long just to know her enemy inside and out and crush Xiaoxiao in one fell swoop—picked up Xiaoxiao's hand, displaying the ring on her finger, and urged her to look at it herself. "Think this through carefully. Never mind whether you're letting Lin Shuo down—ask yourself first if you're letting yourself down."

After a long silence, amid the expectant gazes of the crowd waiting for the next act, Xiaoxiao slowly smiled, carrying herself with effortless grace. "Miss Cai, thank you for your concern, but I don't think behaving like this is very smart. I believe Lin Shuo is a responsible man. Isn't that precisely why you fell in love with him in the first place?"

Without giving Cai Yirou another chance to speak, and ignoring the pointing and whispering of the onlookers, Xiaoxiao turned and left together with Nina.