671 Money Over Love

The first article was about the Mao family providing financial assistance to Long Hui so that he could purchase 5% Long Industries shares under his name to add to the 2.5% he already owned before for a total of 7.5% shares. This was the same shares that Qiao Yu failed to purchase for Iris due to the seller's prejudice against her caused by her past reputation as a good-for-nothing, self-important, spoiled brat.

The article also implied that the real reason Long Hui and Jiang Ying Yue separated was not because she cheated on him with Lin Yehan but because he wanted more Long Industries shares and Mao Qiuyue's family could give it to him. His final decision was to abandon Jiang Ying Yue and essentially sell himself to Mao Qiuyue in exchange for the 5% shares.

Long Hui was the one who chose money over love, not Jiang Ying Yue.

After skimming through the article, Iris and Jin Liwei clicked on the next one. It was a tabloid story consisting primarily of intimate still photos of Long Hui and Mao Qiuyue taken from property surveillance cameras from cafés, restaurants, parking lots, and most damning of all, hotels.

The date stamps on some of the still photos were from when Long Hui and Jiang Ying Yue were still engaged. Granted, those photos were from cafés and restaurants, not hotels, so there was no concrete proof at this point that the two had sexual relations, but it was already apparent that Mao Qiuyue was already acting clingy to Long Hui even then. She could be seen always hugging his arm and pressing her watermelon-sized plastic boobs to his side. Long Hui's expression didn't show any emotion but it was a fact that he allowed the woman to press herself against him in an intimate manner when he was still engaged to another woman during that time.

These photos were a huge contrast to the evidence Lin Yehan provided earlier where it showed in the hospital and mall surveillance videos that he and Jiang Ying Yue kept an appropriate distance from each other at all times.

The other photos of Long Hui and Mao Qiuyue were taken after he and Jiang Ying Yue separated. He was already engaged to Mao Qiuyue at this point. They were shown engaging in intimate acts such as hugging and kissing at hotel lobbies and hallways and even parking lots. The tabloid promised that there more scandalous photos but they were unable to post online because they couldn't pass censorship rules. This statement only fired up the readers' imaginations as to what kind of scandalous photos were not shown.

Iris reached over and scrolled down to the bottom of the story for the readers' comments. As expected, the majority was condemning Long Hui.

"Ah, they're from the Slippers Army," Iris mumbled after seeing a number of mighty slipper emojis in the comments.

Ketchup had informed her a few days ago that Zhou Mei'er (CaptainBlackStar) planned on organizing a group, mostly from the Slippers Army, to head to the courthouse in order to support Jiang Ying Yue, who the Black Stars remembered as Iris' former bodyguard and now friend. And also, they planned to attack Long Hui by throwing stinky mighty slippers at him, especially after the audio and video evidence of him being violent towards Jiang Ying Yue in front of their son was revealed.

Fortunately, Feng Wang (MrsLovePhantom) and her friends, the other posh ladies (JJNumbers1-3Fan) managed to stop Zhou Mei'er in time. They reasoned that it wouldn't be good for Iris' image if her official fan club, the Black Stars, got involved in the custody case which was already receiving wide media coverage.

[This novel is a contracted work with W e b n o v e l . c o m (remove spaces). If you're not reading this chapter on W e b n o v e l, it has been stolen. It's very discouraging to see thieves profitting from my hard work. Please read this novel on W e b n o v e l. Thank you! -Arria]

Iris was relieved upon hearing about it and silently thanked Feng Wan and the other madams. However, it wasn't because she worried about her image but because she didn't want her fans to get into trouble with the law, especially because the group originally planned on attacking Long Hui in front of the courthouse.

Back to the present, she and Jin Liwei continued reading the other news articles and the readers' comments. Public opinion was finally shifting to favour Jiang Ying Yue and Lin Yehan. People began drawing their own conclusions with the most popular one being that Long Hui made the fake cheating allegations against Jiang Ying Yue and Lin Yehan in order to hide his own affair with his current fiancée, Mao Qiuyue.

It could be seen that Lin Yehan's actions was already beginning to bear fruit. Although public opinion was generally still mixed at this point, those who felt confused about who to believe were leaning more towards Lin Yehan because first of all, he looked gentle and trustworthy. Allowing himself to be interviewed and telling his own side of the story with his own voice on TV was working wonders.

Second of all, the fact that he was an agricultural tycoon and was actually wealthier and more influential than Deputy CFO Long Hui and yet still acted polite and humble won him a lot of brownie points from the viewers. He wasn't flashy at all and looked like a regular person. If the news didn't reveal that he was actually rich, then the people wouldn't even know that he was the one producing the food they were eating every single day.

Third of all, a few shooting athletes, both active and retired, came forward to voice out their support for him. Their appearance prompted some to dig up Lin Yehan's past achievements as a pro shooting athlete who won some national competitions before. If he didn't retire in order to focus on his agricultural business, he would've competed in the Olympics and perhaps even brought honour to the country. Right now, he was a licenced coach who sometimes mentored young aspiring shooting athletes. His students and their parents also stepped forward to vouch for his good moral character.

His name and reputation which were dragged through the mud during the cheating allegations were quickly becoming squeaky clean again. In extension, Jiang Ying Yue's own name and reputation were also undergoing the same cleansing.

All thanks to Lin Yehan.