"Ye Jianming, you'd better put away your temper later. If you keep that sour face, you'll be on your own from now on!"
In the luxuriously decorated villa, a middle-aged beauty whose age was indiscernible but whose appearance was still captivating, spoke to the middle-aged man in front of her.
The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow and was about to speak when he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps.
He and the middle-aged beauty turned their gaze towards the door.
"Dad! Mom!"
Although Ye Huijuan had imagined countless scenarios of meeting her parents before coming, when she walked in and saw her parents after a long time, she couldn't help but choke up and call out with a sob.
"Huijuan!"
The middle-aged beauty's eyes also turned red, and she hurried to Ye Huijuan, embracing her tightly.
As Ye Huijuan and her mother hugged, both were quite emotional.
After holding each other for several minutes, the mother and daughter finally separated.
"Oh, Huijuan, look how forgetful Mom is! I forgot you're pregnant. Come, come, sit down quickly."
As soon as they parted, Ye Huijuan's mother, Bai Lu, quickly pulled her to sit on the sofa.
Then, with joy evident on her face, she placed her hands on Ye Huijuan's belly. "By the way, have you found out if it's a boy or a girl?"
Ye Huijuan shook her head. "No. Su Hao said it doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl, and I think so too, so we didn't go to the hospital to check the gender."
As she said this, Ye Huijuan gave Su Hao, who was still standing there, a look.
Upon seeing this, Su Hao immediately stepped forward with the gifts.
"Dad, Mom, this is a small token of our appreciation from Huijuan and me. We hope you find it useful."
As his words fell, no one responded for a moment.
Bai Lu glared at Ye Jianming, who was sitting there silently. He grudgingly grunted in response.
Following Bai Lu's invitation, Su Hao found a sofa by the side and sat down.
Ye Huijuan wanted to say something to her father, but seeing his slightly cold expression, she ultimately said nothing.
As the saying goes, a daughter is a father's cotton-padded jacket.
From the moment Ye Huijuan was born, her father treated her like a precious jewel, fulfilling her every wish.
The father-daughter relationship was exceptionally good, but all of that changed after Ye Huijuan met Su Hao.
One day, Ye Jianming found Ye Huijuan and asked her to break up with Su Hao, saying that the family had arranged a blind date for her. Although the suitor was not as good-looking as Su Hao, his family background was a perfect match for the Ye family, far beyond what Su Hao could compare to.
However, Ye Huijuan, who had always been obedient to her father, refused him on the spot. She also told Ye Jianming that she would not meet the family's arranged blind date and intended to marry Su Hao.
This enraged Ye Jianming to no end, and he flew into a towering rage.
The reason Ye Jianming was so angry was that although the Ye family was not well-known in Beijing, it was still considered a third-rate family with assets of over ten billion.
If this were not the capital of China, Beijing, the Ye family's assets would undoubtedly make them a significant presence in other cities.
As a second-generation member of the Ye family, Ye Jianming had only one daughter, Ye Huijuan. However, because Ye Huijuan was intelligent and sensible from childhood and excelled in her studies as she grew up, Ye Jianming had high expectations for her.
In his eyes, even if his daughter Ye Huijuan couldn't become the head of the Ye family in the future, she would at least be one of the most powerful people in the family.
But Ye Jianming never dreamed that his daughter would find a boyfriend at school, and moreover, he was a penniless boy.
For a mere penniless boy to want to marry a daughter of the Ye family was simply impossible.
In Ye Jianming's dictionary, the word "love" was something used in television dramas to fool naive young girls.
In the real world, finding a partner of equal social standing was the best choice.
Furthermore, only by marrying someone of equal social standing could Ye Huijuan solidify her position in the family.
If Ye Huijuan truly married a penniless boy, she would be ostracized from the core power circle by other members of the Ye family.
Seeing that Ye Huijuan adamantly refused, Ye Jianming, enraged, slapped his daughter.
It was this slap that caused his daughter to not return home for five years.
It wasn't until Ye Huijuan became pregnant not long ago, and five years had passed since the incident, that Bai Lu informed Ye Huijuan and asked her to come home.
Since Ye Jianming had remained silent the entire time, the atmosphere in the living room was somewhat awkward.
Ring ring.
Ring ring.
A mobile phone rang in the living room.
"Hello..."
"What?"
"I'll be right there!"
Ye Jianming picked up the phone, but after only a few sentences, his expression changed drastically.
Then, he stood up abruptly and prepared to leave.
Bai Lu asked, "What happened?"
"The Old Master is in trouble. I need to go over there immediately."
With that, he left in a hurry without even saying goodbye to Ye Huijuan.
"Huijuan, now that you and Su Hao are back, you must stay home for a few more days. Mom wants to have a good talk with you."
After Ye Jianming left, Bai Lu sat back down beside her daughter, holding her hand.
Ye Huijuan hesitated for a moment, then said, "Mom, is Dad still angry with me?"
From the moment she returned until her father left, he hadn't said a word to her. Ye Huijuan felt that her father was still holding a grudge about her leaving home that year.
"Alas, you are father and daughter; there are no grudges that last overnight. It's just that your father had such high expectations for you, insisting on grooming you to be one of the Ye family's leaders. However, you shouldn't have just left then, and you didn't even call back. Do you know how worried Mom has been all these years?"
Bai Lu looked at her daughter, and in their reunion after a long separation, she held her daughter's hand tightly, as if she might fly away at any moment.
Hearing Bai Lu's words, Ye Huijuan also felt a deep sense of guilt.
When she was young and had been slapped by her father, she felt immense hatred for Ye Jianming, so she didn't call home for two full years after leaving.
Later, after she got married, at Su Hao's persuasion, she gradually re-established contact with her mother.
However, due to what happened back then, Ye Huijuan stubbornly refused to go home.
The reason for returning home this time, besides Bai Lu's repeated persuasion, was also that Ye Huijuan was now pregnant and finally understood the feelings of being a parent.
Thus, she began to vaguely understand why her father had been so angry back then. He had wanted her to have a better life, but his methods were not quite right.
So, after discussing it with Su Hao, Ye Huijuan made this trip home today.
The mother and daughter, having not seen each other for five years, seemed to have endless things to talk about.
As they chatted for over an hour, Bai Lu's phone rang.
"What? The Old Master is on his deathbed? I'll be right there."
After Bai Lu hung up, she told Ye Huijuan, before her daughter could ask, that the call was from Ye Jianming.
Ye Jianming had told Bai Lu on the phone that the Old Master was close to death, that all the family members were rushing over, and that she should also go as soon as possible.