Lina looked at Sheng Jiaoyang with a hint of worry in her eyes. “Do you know who helped Lin Yan stand out amongst the many compet.i.tors fighting to become Bruno"s successor?”

“You mean… that person was Sven?” Sheng Jiaoyang turned cold as various thoughts flashed past her mind.

Lina nodded her head gravely.

With each nod from Lina, Sheng Jiaoyang"s heart sank further and further into the dark abyss.

“I don"t think that Lin Yan would stand on the side of outsiders instead of helping you out…”

“Don"t lie to yourself,” Lina laughed, “Lin Yan and Sven are obviously in cahoots. Otherwise, how did you think he could have easily divorced Julia?”

“Lin Yan isn"t like Sven. Our unreliable Casanova father does not even have a voice in our family. So, no matter how much Lin Yan tries, he would never be able to stand out in the eyes of the clan head if he relied purely on his own ability. It was Sven who helped him suppress his compet.i.tors and rise above them to catch the eye of the clan head.”

Lina asked Sheng Jiaoyang, “Did you think that their relations.h.i.+p is the same as ours? Don"t be silly. In their eyes, there was never real friends.h.i.+p between the two of them.”

Sheng Jiaoyang was silent.

She could not refute Lina"s words at all. Sheng Jiaoyang was brought up in a simple environment. Her mother had only taught her how to live comfortably, and she never had to live a life only to become a successor of the family, but she could understand how it must have felt.

Lina held Sheng Jiaoyang"s hand and said, “I shouldn"t have told you about these matters. Instead of making things better, I only got you to become more worried.”

Sheng Jiaoyang recalled something, and she quickly took her phone out of her pocket.

“Don"t bother, the signal"s been cut off. You won"t be able to call anyone.”

Sheng Jiaoyang took a look at her phone, only to see that the signal was indeed cut off.

“Before you came over, did you tell your Mr. Shen that you were coming over?” Lina asked.

Sheng Jiaoyang slapped her forehead in frustration. “No.”

“You didn"t ask for his help?”

“…No.”

Both Lina and Sheng Jiaoyang looked at each other in silence.

“Previously, I tried to ask him for help with Sven, but he didn"t do anything as he was concerned about Sven"s backing. That"s why I did not mention it this time.” She did not even inform Shen Zhining that she was coming to Italy.

“Shen Zhining made the right choice when he decided not to do anything. Sven"s family is an old aristocratic clan with multiple centuries of history. You don"t know how much power they have hidden behind the shadows.”

“What should we do now?” Sheng Jiaoyang was at a loss.

“You"re lucky that Lin Yan isn"t as crazy as Sven. Unlike Sven, who is straightforward and violent, Lin Yan prefers to beat about the bushes.”

Knock knock knock.

Sheng Jiaoyang stood up, but she was pulled back by Lina.

“Don"t open the door.”

The person knocking on the door continued knocking persistently.

Sheng Jiaoyang looked at the door, and suddenly felt an extremely dangerous aura coming from beyond the door.

“What"s bound to come will come eventually. Mei Niu, you can"t continue on your hunger strike or you"ll harm your own body. Let"s head down for some food first.” Sheng Jiaoyang became determined, as she knew that being afraid or trying to escape reality would never solve the problem at hand.

Lina smiled as she looked at Sheng Jiaoyang, “You have always been more courageous than me, regardless of the time or place.”

“It"s not that I"m more courageous than you.” Sheng Jiaoyang grabbed Lina"s hand and added, “It"s just that fear comes from excess worrying. Mei Niu, do you think you will experience anything worse than divorcing George? Is carrying Sven"s child worse than divorcing George?”

“On the contrary, you can use the fact that you"re pregnant with Sven"s child as capital to turn the tables on the pa.s.sive situation you"re in.”

“Capital?” Lina frowned slightly.

“Come, let"s face this situation together.” Sheng Jiaoyang pulled Lina towards the door.

Sven"s butler was standing outside the door.

Seeing the ladies walk out of the room, hand in hand, the butler smiled and said, “Master asked both of you to head down for dinner.”

“Let"s go.” Sheng Jiaoyang nodded.

The butler looked at her in surprise. He had expected to be rejected again, but the situation changed after this lady went into the room.

Back in the luxurious dining room, Sven smiled when he saw both ladies walking in, hand in hand.

“It seems like I have to keep Ms. Xu here for a while longer. Otherwise, my Darling would go on hunger strikes again once Ms. Xu leaves. How else would my little baby grow bigger?”

Lina subconsciously touched her belly, and a complex expression showed on when she had the thought that the child, who was supposed to be aborted, was still sleeping in her belly.

Sheng Jiaoyang pulled Lina to her seat and glanced at Lin Yan. Lin Yan still had the same gentle appearance she was familiar with, but now, she found that she could never believe that he was the same old Lin Yan that she used to know.

If it was the old Lin Yan, he would not take the initiative to ask her to visit Lina together with him, because he would be worried that bad things might happen. She had never thought about it while they were on the way here, as she was too busy worrying about Lina. But now that she had time to think things through, she recalled that there were signs of Lin Yan"s change everywhere.

“Rather than keeping me here to accompany Lina, why don"t you just let Lina return with me? How can she nurture the child well whilst she"s here?” Sheng Jiaoyang said her words straight to Sven"s face.

Sven did not get angry. Rather, when he saw that Lina was eating everything that Sheng Jiaoyang placed on her plates, he became jovial. “While she is here, at least she wouldn"t be able to abort the child without discussing it with me.”

Lina shot Sven a cold glance and said, “Did you think that abortion can only be done at the hospital? Even a fall could lead to miscarriage.”

“Nana, since it has come to this, why don"t you look at the situation through a positive lens?” Lin Yan sighed and persuaded.

“Look at the situation through a positive lens? Is there anything positive about this situation?” Lina stared back at Lin Yan. She had every reason to believe that Lin Yan held partial responsibility for putting her into the situation that she was in now.

“Sure there is. If you give birth to my child, I"ll take care of both of you forever. Isn"t that great?” Sven said.

A huge ball of rage rose within Lina, and she started panting angrily. She was about to tell him to find someone else to have his child when Sheng Jiaoyang opened her mouth and spoke.

“Mr. Sven, will you marry Lina?”

Silence enveloped the dining room.

Lina fixed her gaze at the dishes in front of her, and even after a long while, she did not s.h.i.+ft her gaze to look at anyone else. The longer the silence in the dining room dragged on, the more depressed she felt.

“Darling…”

All of a sudden, Lina stood up and ran out of the dining room.

Sheng Jiaoyang also stood up hurriedly, but someone else was much faster than her.

“Jiaojiao,” Lin Yan called out to Sheng Jiaoyang, “Let them solve their own problems.”

Sheng Jiaoyang stopped in her tracks and turned around to look at Lin Yan with a complex look “Lin Yan, Mei Niu needs your help now. Are you really not going to care about her or do anything?”

The look in Lin Yan"s eyes changed slightly, but it quickly returned to his previous gentle look, “Jiaojiao, how do you want me to interfere in this situation?”

Sheng Jiaoyang cast a final disappointed gaze at Lin Yan, before turning around and walking out without saying a single word to him.

After running out of the dining room, Lina took a few more steps before she stopped momentarily and held her head. All of a sudden, she felt that her eyelids became too heavy to open, and she felt that her brain had become dull as well. Before she knew it, her body swayed, and she was just about to fall when a pair of hands caught her from behind.

Lina turned around and shouted out in anger, “Why are you following me? Don"t worry, I won"t attempt suicide.”

“Darling, are you angry because I didn"t answer Sheng Jiaoyang"s question?” A smile crept up the corners of Sven"s mouth as he got closer to Lina.

“Haha, stop joking. Sven, it doesn"t matter if you want to marry me or not. I don"t wish to have any connections with you, and I will never allow myself to become like my mother, whose entire life only revolves around one man.”

Having said her piece, Lina did not even give Sven one last glance before heading back into her room and slamming the door shut.

After thinking through a bunch of random thoughts for a long while, Lina finally calmed down. It was only then she realized that Sheng Jiaoyang did not follow her up to her room. She bit her lip and went downstairs, only to find that no one was left in the dining room. Even the tables were cleaned up already, and it looked as if no one had dinner here earlier.

“Ms. Lin.” The butler soundlessly appeared at the door to the dining room.

“Where are they? More specifically, where is my friend?” Lina asked.

“They"ve left.”

Lina heaved a sigh of relief, as she thought that it was better for Sheng Jiaoyang to leave. However, she suddenly felt worried again after mulling over the butler"s words.

The butler said that they had left, and this meant that Lin Yan and Sheng Jiaoyang had left together. She still felt uneasy about leaving Jiaojiao alone with Lin Yan.

She left the dining hall, but the direction she was headed in was not the direction of her room.

“Ms. Lin, your room isn"t in that direction,” The butler who followed behind reminded her.

Lina stopped in her tracks, “I"m going to look for Sven. You"ve got a problem with that?”

The butler was stumped for a moment, before he replied with a smile, “Please go ahead then.”

However, Lina didn"t continue walking. In the two days she had been here she had never gone anywhere else besides her room. So, how would she know where Sven"s room was?

“Lead me there.”

“Alright, please follow me.” The butler led her towards Sven"s room.

Knock knock. The butler rapped on the door.

“Master, Ms. Lin is here.”

The door was quickly opened.

Sven stood by the door, dressed in a bathroom and holding a gla.s.s of wine in his hand. A drunken smile appeared on his face as he stared at Lina.

“Looking for me at this time, Darling? Have you finally thought things through?”

Lina moved past Sven and walked straight into his room.

Although her room was quite s.p.a.cious, it could not be compared to his.

However, she was not in the mood to check out how luxuriously decorated the room was. After Sven closed the door, she turned around and looked him in the eye as she said, “Sven, let"s strike a deal.”

Light flashed across Sven"s eyes, and a smirk crept up his face. He asked with considerable interest, “Oh? What deal is it?”

Lina walked up close to Sven. So close that she could smell his fresh scent that showed he just came out of a shower.

With a calm expression and an even calmer tone, she said, “Don"t you want me to give birth to this child? I"ll give birth to him, but you must promise me that you will fulfill three conditions.”

Sven caressed her cheeks, and Lina did not move away from him this time. She let his fingers run along her face.

“What are the conditions?”

“First, I don"t want anything to happen to Jiaojiao. Regardless of what deal you have with Lin Yan, I want you to stop him from hurting Jiaojiao.”

Sven raised his brows, “You"re still worried about your little friend? Alright, I can accept this condition. What about the other two?”

Lina drew in a deep breath and looked straight into Sven"s eyes, “You can have the child, and that will be the end of the relations.h.i.+p between us. You must never interfere with my life ever again.”

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