Lin Hai immediately put on a cold face, his tone slightly alienated as he said, "President Ouyang, did you not come home last night?"

"I, I, I didn't!" Ouyang Xiaoya vehemently denied, but her flustered expression deeply betrayed her.

"Then why are your stockings torn to shreds?!" Lin Hai's voice was icy, his face was full of alienation as he pointed at her legs and asked.

Ouyang Xiaoya looked down and realized in a daze. In her hurried return home, her stockings had been torn by Yu Haijing. She herself had failed to notice, but now it had inadvertently drawn Lin Hai's attention to something.

Suddenly, Ouyang Xiaoya's former imposing attitude as the ice queen CEO plummeted into the negatives.

Ruoshuang looked shocked, timidly probing, "Cousin, did you really not come home last night?"

Han Qin'er also pretended to be surprised.

Ouyang Xiaoya dared not look at the two women, but when she moved her gaze to Lin Hai's face,

she found Lin Hai looking back at her with a cold gaze, filled with an expression called heartache and deep disappointment.

"President Ouyang, you should go and rest. Don't interfere with my plumbing work."

Lin Hai dismissed her with a foreign tone, turned his head away, threw the rubber stopper on the ground, and walked out of the bathroom with a wooden expression towards the second floor. In the middle of the staircase, he nearly stumbled as if he was about to fall.

Ouyang Xiaoya bit her lip tightly, looking at Lin Hai's forlorn figure, not knowing why, but it felt as though something blocked her chest, an intense feeling of suffocation.

"Lin Hai..." Ouyang Xiaoya wanted to shout to stop him, to explain.

"Heh, CEO, good night. I'm a bit tired. I got up early to deal with the plumbing. Tomorrow is Saturday. I'm not your employee during my off-hours. If you want the rent, I'll settle it immediately!"

Lin Hai spoke as if he was dealing with official business.

Ouyang Xiaoya felt a pang in her heart, as if pricked by a needle.

The atmosphere instantly turned icy.

Lin Hai's forlorn figure was heart-wrenchingly pitiful to anyone who saw it.

Han Qin'er remained expressionless, knowing that this was the time for her to quietly leave.

"Brother-in-law!" Ouyang Ruoshuang couldn't believe it as she looked at her cousin, calling out dryly.

Lin Hai paused, trembling as if struggling with his emotions, and without turning his head, he said word by word, "President Ouyang, remember to change your stockings!"

That sentence, like a thorn, pierced deeply into Ouyang Xiaoya's heart.

Is this still the sloppy, casual, cheeky security guard Xiaobao who used to obey my every beck and call?

There seemed to be an illusion before her eyes, Lin Hai's silhouette was filled with an extreme sense of loneliness, that figure brimming with vicissitudes.

Until Lin Hai disappeared at the stairway,

Ouyang Xiaoya felt as if all her strength had drained, collapsing onto the floor, clenching her teeth on her red lips.

"Cousin, you couldn't really have..."

Ruoshuang's words were only half-finished when she saw the tears welling up in her cousin's eyes, ready to overflow, and ultimately, she did not continue.

"So he does care about me."

Recalling Lin Hai's indifferent attitude toward her just now, Ouyang Xiaoya was both heartbroken and touched.

"He seems casual on the surface, but he cares about himself exceptionally in his heart."

"Getting up early in the morning to fix the bathroom for himself, yet he wrongly blamed him."

"He had good intentions, but she always misunderstood him, thinking he was up to no good."

Ouyang Xiaoya suddenly felt that if Lin Hai shaved his beard and put on clean, tidy clothes, he would definitely have a mature man's charm.

"Cousin, I think you're sometimes a bit too harsh on your brother-in-law. Men actually care a lot about their pride," Ouyang Ruoshuang whispered.

"Yes, men do care the most about their dignity and pride, yet he willingly endured temper and misunderstandings for you," Ouyang Xiaoya suddenly felt quite remorseful deep down.

"Your brother-in-law is actually a nice person, despite sometimes being lecherous, as men are," Ouyang Ruoshuang added.

Lin Hai, hiding in a corner on the second floor, felt incredibly smug upon hearing the first half of the sentence, but the second half nearly made him spit out.

Ouyang Xiaoya suddenly remembered that no matter when, Lin Hai never really lost his temper with her.

No matter how she teased him, even sometimes saying too much, Lin Hai always had an easy-going and joking expression.

Thinking about it now, as a man, he was willing to be a security guard at the company, isn't it also for her?

"It's my misunderstanding, I shouldn't have questioned him."

"He has always trusted me so much, yet I let him down."

A woman's mind is as elusive as a needle at the bottom of the sea, once the emotional side takes over the rational, it is often easy to be moved.

"I shouldn't have treated him that way, he's a man, he has his dignity, he has hidden hardships."

"He only smokes four-yuan packs of Hongmei and never is willing to buy clothes for himself, he doesn't even have a razor, and all this time, I have been looking down on him, thinking about it now, he is trying to quietly save money, right?"

"I've let him down, I haven't done well as a fiancée."

"Ouyang Xiaoya, how could you also be blinded by a society obsessed with money, when looking at a person one should see the true nature deep within, not just appearances, from the start, you prejudged Lin Hai as a rural bumpkin, a rogue loser, but..."

After these thoughts quickly flashed through Ouyang Xiaoya's mind, tears started brimming in the corners of her eyes.

"He must be a proud person, even if he has fallen to the bottom of society, he still stubbornly refuses to give in, those slick, frivolous, sloppy behaviors are just him pretending, right?"

Ouyang Xiaoya suddenly felt terribly guilty towards Lin Hai.

Upstairs, Lin Hai quietly retreated back to his room.

Having seen the changing expressions on the face of the CEO's wife, Lin Hai knew that his strategy of retreating to advance had won completely.

"No, I can't hurt him anymore; it seems he's an orphan and needs someone to warm his heart right now; I can't be a bad woman!"

Thinking this, Ouyang Xiaoya seemed to have made a significant decision.

The CEO's aura was restored, and the earlier panic and irrational weakness were swept away.

In those tear-filled eyes were now replaced by tenderness and determination.

"Ruoshuang, it's okay now, go do whatever you need to do," Ouyang Xiaoya straightened her disheveled clothes and regained her composure.

"Cousin, are you... okay?" Ruoshuang, the young girl, looked at her cousin in surprise as her demeanor suddenly changed, and asked in astonishment.

Ouyang Xiaoya gave her cousin a faint yet charming smile: "Cousin is fine. Now, I need to go up and comfort your future brother-in-law. Although we may not end up together, your cousin does not wish to be a bad woman who hurts a man's pride."

Having said this, ignoring the shocked expression of her cousin, Ouyang Xiaoya, in her high heels, went upstairs to Lin Hai's room.

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