Nana was shocked to see the woman in front of her, who exactly resembled Huo Xiao Fan.
Liang Xiao Dan was equally puzzled and stunned to hear the name from her.
Xiao Fan…How does she know her?
Nana’s reaction reminded her of the pregnant woman she had met in the market when they had just returned to Beijing. The anger and resentment and how she blamed her was exactly the same as what Nana was doing.
“You…you are misunderstanding something, dear.”
Nana frowned.
What was there to misunderstand? She was the woman who plotted against her five months back and who wanted her to separate from Jinhai.
And meeting her after so long reminded Nana about how she had hurt Jinhai so much.
Liang Xiao Dan wanted to clear the confusion, but she was still focussing on the realization that the pregnant girl in front of her could be her lost daughter.
She tremblingly stepped forward with tears in her eyes. Nana was a little, no, very, very confused.
Why is Huo Xiao Fan acting so emotional on seeing me? She must hate me, right?
Liang Xiao Dan asked, “Who are you? What is your name?”
Nana widened her eyes.
Okay, something is definitely wrong here. She is behaving like she isn’t Huo Xiao Fan at all.
Tears were trickling down Liang Xiao Dan’s cheeks. Her eyes and lips were stretched into a wide smile that also showed happiness and disbelief at the same time.
She wanted to say so many things, she wanted to ask so many questions to Nana, but she felt tongue-tied at the moment.
She once again carefully looked at her.
“Zou…Shin…We found her. We found our daughter. She is the one,” she mumbled.
Liang Xiao Dan held Nana’s hand in hers. “I…I…come with me. I want you to meet someone.”
Nana blinked her eyes. She quickly withdrew her hands. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Huo Xiao Fan!”
Liang Xiao Dan was taken aback by her sudden outburst.
Once again, she took her name.
She said, “I’m not Xiao Fan.”
She wondered why Nana was taking Huo Xiao Fan’s name with so much hatred.
Huh?
Nana looked at her, dumbfounded.
If not her, then who?
Nana glared at her. “I don’t know what you are planning this time, but stay away from my family and me!”
Liang Xiao Dan frantically shook her head. She didn’t want this confusion to stay any longer in her mind.
“I’m telling the truth. I’m not Xiao Fan. You are mistaking me for her. I’m her sister, her twin sister Liang Xiao Dan.”
—
Outside, Jinhai was calmly holding onto Huian’s wheelchair.
“Since when did Nana start calling you just by your name, Huian?”
Huian froze. She remembered that she had told Nana that she could address her by just her name, dropping the honorific.
She felt as if a huge boulder just fell on her. A chill enveloped the surrounding as his aura had turned colder than the Arctic.
Did Nana call me like that in front of him?
“‘Uncle and Aunt Xiang and HUIAN are also coming to the banquet.’ Where did the ‘Miss’ part disappear? Care to explain?”
Huian clutched the handle of her wheelchair. Her hands were slightly shaking. She felt difficulty in swallowing. Her heart rate accelerated as if it would cross all the charts of normal reading.
Jinhai said, “That day when I called Nana, and she said that she was in the hospital, she was there to meet you, right?”
Huian’s lips were trembling. She wanted to deny it, but the pressure he put was so intense that she couldn’t speak anything.
Jinhai stared at her. He took out something from his pocket. It was Nana’s phone. He unlocked it and opened the messages app.
He read a message.
“‘Nana, I’m Huian. Can you please meet me in the hospital? I have something important to tell you. Please don’t tell Jinhai.’”
Huian stiffened.
Jinhai smiled. He leaned in till his face was just beside hers. He whispered, “What is that important thing, Huian? You can tell me. I will convey it to my wife. Oh, I forgot. You don’t want to let me know about it. Then let me guess.”
“L-let me go….” Huian weakly mumbled.
Jinhai ignored her plea and continued. “Was it along the lines of how you fell from the balcony that night?”
Then his gaze turned cold and menacing. His aura was so dangerous that everybody would simply run for their lives.
Jinhai grabbed her wrist and squeezed it tight. Huian winced in pain.
“How dare you call Nana? You still don’t understand who you are messing with. Or are you taking me too lightly? Do you think that I cannot hurt you anymore? Even now, you were coming here to meet Nana, right?”
Huian was looking for some help, but there was nobody around them.
Jinhai laughed. “Nobody is here to help you. Do you want me to show you that I can push you again if the need arises? Do you want to feel that pain again? Of your body hitting the ground?”
Huian turned as white as a sheet.
“You-“
Then suddenly, from a distance, Jinhai saw Liang Xiao Dan come out of the kitchen. She was rushing out in excitement and a little agitated. He squinted his eyes.
So they already met? I thought it would be after dinner.
He stood up and released his hold over Huian’s wheelchair.
Jinhai quietly spoke, but his every word carried a heavyweight of his power. “This is the last warning, ex-wife. If you do anything unnecessary again, I will send you back to that state from which you have tried so hard to come out. And you know I will do it. If I can do it once, then I can do it again.”
With that said, Jinhai left her side. Huian was still frozen to the spot. It took a while before she realized that she was holding her breath all along.
She was trembling as the tears silently stained her cheeks wet.
—
Jinhai entered the kitchen and saw Nana in a stupor.
He quickly went to her side. “Nana. What happened? Are you alright?”
Nana looked at him and softly said, “That woman…is Liang Xiao Dan.”
Jinhai was silent. “En.”
“She said that Huo Xiao Fan is her twin sister. So…that is how I look so similar to her, yet I’m not her daughter. Because I am Liang Xiao Dan’s daughter.”
Jinhai took her in his arms. “Yes. I told you, didn’t I? You will figure it out yourself once you meet your mother. I saw her coming out. Where did she go?”
“Sh-she just said to wait here.”
She must have gone to bring Liang Zou and Liang Shin, Jinhai thought.
“Let us go outside. The work is almost done, right?”
He glanced at Meiling.
Meiling straightened up in attention. “Yes, sir! I will handle the rest.”
Jinhai held Nana’s back and said, “Come.”
They slowly stepped outside, making their way to the banquet hall. In the hall, they saw some guests were talking to Liang Zou while handing him his gift. Liang Shin was also grudgingly standing beside him.
Liang Xiao Dan just reached his side, huffing, and puffing and grabbed his arm. The father-son duo was confused as she forcibly dragged them to aside.
At the same time, Huo Shen and Huo Xiao Fan also saw Jinhai and Nana coming. Liang Xiao Dan’s reaction made it clear. They both stiffened.
It was time…
Huo Xiao Fan was sure that the Liu family wouldn’t be a part of this banquet. But who knew that fate brought Nana here through Natsukashi?
She did her best to hide Nana from them for all these years. But if fate had other plans, then right now, she was too tired to go against it. She didn’t have the strength anymore to fight.
If everything was going to be revealed tonight, then so be it. She had already lost everything. There was nothing more left to lose.
The Liu and Chen family and all the other guests were perplexed as to what happened. It felt like the banquet came to a sudden pause.
Liang Xiao Dan whispered something while crying. The expressions on Liang Zou and Liang Shin’s faces were that of utter shock and bewilderment.
Liang Xiao Dan turned and pointed towards the way from where Jinhai and Nana were coming.
Liang Zou and Liang Shin looked that way.
They froze when they saw Nana coming.
They blinked their eyes rapidly to see the young woman before them clearly. They got utterly speechless.
Liang Zou looked back at his wife with disbelief, and a whole lot of complicated emotions etched on his face. He somehow found his voice. It quivered as he spoke. “She…Is she…That girl looks just like you…T-this cannot be possible…Is she our…”
Liang Xiao Dan nodded as more tears gushed out.
“Yes, Zou. She is our daughter whom we lost that night twenty-three years ago.”
