Chapter 76：The Hong Men Banquet (7)

When Xu Jing stepped out of Spring Leaf Café, he looked left and right before his gaze settled on a familiar sight. It was their family car.

With the car as the focus of his gaze, he soon spotted Joann rushing towards it.

Wasting no time, Xu Jing ran after his wife, yelling, "Joann, wait!"

His loud voice caught not only Joann's attention but also the general public around them. They turned hearing the familiar name but it was a complete surprise when they saw it was really the international superstar who was rushing down the street.

As she felt the crowd's eyes on her, Joann thought resentfully, 'Just how much does he wish to humiliate me today? Hasn't he done enough?'

Joann increased in pace, deterring those who wished to take a picture or ask for her signature from coming forward. It was clear that she was in a rush. At least, they were not crude enough to accost her directly. Instead, they stood where they were and focused on snapping her fleeing picture.

Envisioning the headline on tomorrow's paper made her burn up even more. The fact that Xu Jing had not stopped calling her name for the whole world to hear did not help the situation either.

Joann yanked the car door open and climbed into it. She had just slammed the door close when Xu Jing caught up to her.

The man knocked repeatedly on her window, telling her how sorry he was.

'A little too late for that now, isn't it?' Joann started the engine and the car revved to life.

Through the window, Joann could hear her husband say, "Joann, please listen to me. I have acted rashly and for that I apologize. Hell, I will even apologize to the man as long as you are willing to forgive me. Joann, please just talk to me."

To drown him out, Joann flipped open the radio and she opened the signal light as she prepared to drive into the car lane.

As the car turned, Xu Jing staggered back several steps to get out of the way. However, this did not mean that he had given up. He ran along the moving car, tapping on the driver's side window, decreeing, "Joann, I did what I did only because I love you. I cannot bear the thought of you leaving me! That is all! I really did not mean any harm by it!"

Admittedly, Xu Jing's proclamation of love and passion did touch Joann but it was not enough to make her stop the car.

Human beings are different from other animals because we have the rational faculty of the brain to process and parse emotions as well as feelings. If all of us act the way our hearts desire then how are we different from baser animals?

Joann felt like she had a better handle over emotions compared to her husband but in reality, if she was that rational of an individual, she would have stopped the car to talk it out with Xu Jing. Therefore, while she was indeed more collected than Xu Jing, it was not really by much.

With both parties acting on the fervor of their emotions, neither one could receive what the other wanted to communicate. Joann drove into the traffic and the conflict was forcibly truncated there and then, without a proper resolution.

Xu Jing watched as Joann's car disappeared into the city. As it turned the corner and faded from his view, the rage from earlier left Xu Jing and the man crumbled to the sidewalk like a deflated balloon.

There were many questions on his mind like, 'Are their relationship really strictly professional?'; 'But as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire'; 'But the man doesn't seem like the cheating kind, in fact, he is quite reasonable and friendly'; 'What is the meaning of all this? Who am I supposed to be believe?'; 'What have I done?'

Xu Jing was the picture of despondency, stranded by the sidewalk. Trapped in his problems and thoughts, Xu Jing failed to notice there was another character looking at him and her gaze could not really be described as loving or friendly.

Her Hong Men Banquet was in shambles. Things definitely did not go as planned. 'All the actors were present and her set-up was perfect, so what went wrong?' That was the question that Qing Qing asked herself.

She racked her brain and eventually she settled upon the answer, the truth that it pained her to admit. The one ingredient that had spoiled her foolproof plan was she had overestimated herself. She thought she had done enough insinuation and destruction to cause a deep wedge between Joann and Xu Jing but Qing Qing had underestimated the man's love and devotion to his wife.

Looking at the devastated man that sat on the sidewalk across from her, Qing Qing felt consumed by fire, not because she had fallen in love with Xu Jing and she got jealous seeing how loyal Xu Jing was to Joann. From the very beginning, he was just a pawn and Qing Qing was not that careless to cultivate feelings for a chess piece. When you are busy plotting, there is barely enough time to think about love.

No, she was angry because her plan had been foiled. She had placed plenty of effort into this plan and to see crumble before her eyes was rage-inducing, not unlike watching the sandcastle you had spent the entire afternoon building being flattened by ruffians at the beach. The rage stemmed from failure and it was understandably directed at the party who caused her plan to fail.

'This is all the couple's fault, Xu Jing and Joann,' thought Qing Qing as she gritted her teeth, 'But I still have need for that foolish man so for now, I shall teach that woman a lesson. How dares she mess up my plan?!'

Qing Qing knew just the thing to do. She picked out her phone and made a call to her friend at the papers.