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William Hale heard Old Lady Hale’s teasing and could only smile, “I didn’t rush her; she just skipped breakfast, and I was worried she might be hungry.” ~
“Drinking tea on an empty stomach isn’t good.”
“That was neglectful of me.” Old Lady Hale, after all, was advanced in years. She hurriedly had a servant bring some pastries and glanced at Zoe Bell, “Eat something quickly; otherwise, this young man will be worried.”
“If you get a stomach ache, he might just come to me to settle accounts.”
William was at a loss for words.
Grandma didn’t usually talk like this.
It was enough to have Grandpa in the house speaking in riddles, why was Grandma starting too?
“Alright, are you planning to continue staying here?” Old Lady Hale looked at her grandson, clearly hinting
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for him to leave.
“I do have some matters to attend to, actually.”
Before leaving, William gave Zoe Bell a deep look.
Old Lady Hale, sipping her tea, notices and thinks to
herself:
What’s there to look at,
In her own home, she can’t fly away!
At my age, could I really bully a younger one?
After William left, Zoe ate a piece of pastry, only then
1
did Old Lady Hale ask her, “Do you have any plans for
the afternoon?”
Zoe shook her head.
“The tailor who makes clothes for me in the afternoon
will come over; I will have him bring a few dresses for you to try on. If any don’t fit, he can alter them for you right away.”
“This… doesn’t seem appropriate.”
“We’re family, there’s no need for such formality.
Besides, I really liked the Incense Card and sachet you gave me, and they smell good. If you have time, make
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me a few more; I’d like to hang them in my wardrobe.”
Zoe was taken aback at her words.
The Hale Family lacked nothing of good quality, so she had carefully chosen the Incense Card and made her own blend of fragrances, an earnest gesture of her
heart.
In the past, when she gave these gifts, Vivi Lange told her they weren’t presentable, so the things she gave to Mina Bell were also secretly thrown away by her, Zoe
understood all this.
“Did you blend the fragrance yourself?” Old Lady Hale
looked at her.
“Yes, it’s just a trial, not yet perfect.”
“It’s quite good. If you like it, you can learn more and make more. I too had a phase when I was young where I loved making perfumed seals; later, I became lazy and preferred to lie down.”
Zoe never expected that the first person to encourage her in perfume–making would be Old Lady Hale.
“Finding something in life that makes you happy, something you’re willing to spend time on, is very
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precious,” Old Lady Hale reflected.
When Zoe first came to the Hale Family, it was usually Old Sir Hale who spoke, while Old Lady Hale only occasionally offered a few words, always in a gentle tone. Now, she thought…
This was the one with great wisdom.
Indeed, how could the person who could willingly hold the bags for Hale at his age be ordinary?
After she left the tea room, a servant told her that William was in the side hall to the right. As she approached, she heard him on the phone.
“… just staying for a few days, for anything else, we can
talk later.”
William, spotting Zoe out of the corner of his eye, said, “My wife is here; I’ve got to go.”
“Hold on, Hale-”
Zoe distinctly heard from the other end of the phone a man, calling out to him in a strained voice.
“Don’t hang up, wait, Hale, William Hale!”
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In the end,
The call was disconnected.
“Did I interrupt you?” Zoe inquired.
“It’s nothing, just a few friends. They found out I brought you back to the capital and want to meet you,” William said casually, but Zoe caught her breath at his
words.
Meeting friends?
Lately, Zoe had been feeling:
This marriage, he’s serious about it!
Especially after returning to the capital,
Though the time spent was short, the feeling was increasingly real.
And the way he called her ‘my wife‘ seemed to roll off his tongue more and more naturally.
Little did Zoe know that the very earnest–looking William had been bragging to his friends in the group chat, and since they knew he was bringing his ‘sister–in–law‘ back to the capital, they had @‘ed him the night before.
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He only replied this morning upon waking: “Sorry, got up late.”
Everyone was busy, no time to keep texting, and when someone initiated a voice chat in the group, he
declined.
“Sorry, my wife is sleeping, don’t want to wake her.”
Oh come on,
It’s this late and still sleeping?
Everyone couldn’t help but think dirty thoughts:
Could it be that Hale was too beastly last night?
Someone in the group chat clicked their tongue, “Hale, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy.”
William Hale replied, “You might understand after you are married, what ‘Spring nights are short, and the days rise high; henceforth the emperor shuns the early court.“”
If William Hale wasn’t the group owner, he would probably have been kicked out of the chat long ago.
“You’re spaced out. Don’t be nervous, I’m not planning to introduce you to them,” William Hale said as he saw
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Zoe Bell zoning out, “They’re just a bunch of unreliable friends, it doesn’t matter whether you meet them or not.”
The unreliable friends: (_)?
**
William Hale had to go to the office in the afternoon, so Zoe Bell naturally stayed at the old house.
Only the two elders of the Hale Family lived there usually, and today was no different. Old Sir Hale loved tending to the flowers and plants on ordinary days, while Old Lady Hale preferred lying down and listening to the radio. The two elders often bickered, and she just listened by the side.
One time, Old Sir Hale frowned at her, “Girl, you tell us who’s wrong!”
Zoe Bell certainly didn’t dare to say.
Old Lady Hale, “Okay, stop troubling the child. It’s all my fault, happy now?”
“It was indeed your fault to begin, with.”
“Right, right, right, it’s my fault, for being unreasonable and losing my temper, okay now? You
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are right, it’s all you.”
Old Lady Hale turned her face away, not wanting to
argue anymore.
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Old Sir Hale was flustered.
The sky had fallen! *
His partner seemed to be genuinely upset.
Then, Zoe Bell saw Old Sir Hale take a pair of scissors and charge into the garden with a vigorous air. Five or six minutes later, he had snipped several flowers and replaced them in the vase beside Old Lady Hale’s radio.
Old Lady Hale wasn’t angry anymore.
At that moment, Zoe Bell felt that she had misunderstood the Hale Family too deep.
They were all dignified people. Even when William Hale wasn’t by her side, they didn’t ask about her relationship with her foster parents or her past with
Brandon Stone.
Could such a family force a marriage?
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She started to doubt the truth of what William Hale
had said before.
But why would he lie to her? Was there a need?
Her thoughts were interrupted only when the tailor, who was specially there to make clothes for Old Lady Hale, arrived.
**
At the company
William Hale had too much work piled up, and Zac Cruz was also incredibly busy. The boss thought only about how to please his wife every day, making it difficult for his subordinates.
He couldn’t say that the boss had recently been distracted by a pretty face, neglecting work.
When he entered the office with a stack of documents
again, he found his boss staring at his phone.
That expression was not right.
“Sir, there’s an internal meeting at three–thirty,” Zac
Cruz reminded.
“I know.”
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William Hale was staring intensely at his phone,
looking at a photo of a beauty with delicate bones and a slender waist, dressed in a qipao of peach flesh white and willow green, matched with moon gray. Her face was lovely, and her figure was stunning, with the qipao slit opening to the thigh…
The leg that was revealed was fair and slender.
Even more eye–catching.
He took a deep breath and slammed the phone screen
down on the desk!
The noise was so loud that it made Zac Cruz frown.
My dear father,
What’s wrong now?
Just focus on your work, keep at it.
Weren’t you happy when you left the house? What’s with the temper all of a sudden?
Is the mood of married men always this unstable?
Just as William Hale managed to calm down, his phone
started vibrating incessantly…
What on earth did grandma want!
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Old Lady Hale found Zoe Bell looking good in the clothes and gave her several qipaos. They were all altered to fit before their return to Greenland.
But Zoe Bell felt they were precious and wouldn’t
easily take them out to wear.
She rarely encountered occasions requiring a qipao, so the clothes stayed at the bottom of the trunk for some
time. When she wanted to wear them, she found them
and felt they looked good.
As it turned out, the clothes were all ruined by William Hale, but that’s a story for another time.
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