Chapter 187: I Love This Drama
The most frigid people in the room, however, were undoubtedly the two men. Terry Jules shivered and couldn’t help but sneeze. His boyfriend immediately found a piece of clothing to drape over his shoulders, doting on him as if no one else was there.
Terry Jules was panicking. Thinking of the Ulrich family’s wealth and influence, he made a last-ditch attempt to save himself. "Chloe, please let me explain. It’s really not what you think."
"Don’t even bother explaining. It’s not like we’re deaf and blind. Can’t we see what kind of sordid relationship you two have?"
"You shut up! This is between me and Chloe; it has nothing to do with you. I know you’ve held a grudge against me ever since I ’stole’ Chloe from you, but that’s no reason to deliberately target me and disregard her lifelong happiness."
Coco Shane: "..." ’Damn... Talk about turning the tables and blaming the victim. This is a textbook example!’
’And another thing! She and I are best friends, our bond is as pure as it gets! How did you manage to twist that into me being some petty schemer, secretly pining for her and pulling strings in the background because my love is unrequited? It’s true what they say: some people are so twisted, they think everyone else is the same kind of monster!’
Chloe Ulrich was furious as well. "What part of what Coco said was wrong? If you’re capable of doing something this disgusting, then don’t be afraid of people talking about it! Or do you already know you’re not acting like a human being? You clearly have a boyfriend, you clearly don’t like me, yet you still tried to trick me into marrying you just to get your hands on my family’s fortune."
"My lifelong happiness? Pah! The ’happiness’ you imagined for me was just being a baby-making machine, to have a child for you and your boyfriend? What do you take me for? You’re an animal, a piece of trash! Do you even deserve to be called human?"
The other residents on the fourth floor, along with the two middle-aged women who had followed Chloe Ulrich’s group upstairs, finally understood. The girl who’d seemed so distraught earlier was the poor, deceived girlfriend in this whole affair!
They immediately understood Chloe’s earlier breakdown. Feeling a pang of sympathy, one said, "He has no conscience! Doing... *that* is one thing, but how could he trick a girl into having a baby for him?"
"It’s worse than having a baby for *him*! Didn’t you hear? He said he’s not into women. He wanted her to have a baby for *that other one*! It’s a good thing she found out early. Can you imagine how much she would have suffered otherwise?"
"It’s an absolute sin! I have a daughter myself. If anyone dared to do something like this to her, I’d grab a cleaver and hack them to bits! This is taking advantage of someone to the extreme!"
"Isn’t it? People like that should be struck by lightning!"
It had to be said that while these women loved to gossip, they were also genuinely impassioned when it mattered. The more they talked, the more worked up they got, until they looked ready to march over and slap those two scoundrels on Chloe’s behalf.
As Terry Jules listened to the crowd’s murmuring, he felt as if the mask of decency he’d worn for so long had been violently torn off, thrown to the ground, and trampled. His face turned a ghastly shade of pale, a truly ugly sight.
With his head buzzing, he instinctively reached for his only lifeline: Chloe Ulrich.
Coco Shane realized what he was about to do. There was no way she would let that filthy thing touch her best friend again. She immediately shrieked, "What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you come any closer!"
The Shane brothers quickly stepped forward, blocking the two girls and giving Terry Jules a hard shove.
Terry Jules staggered back from the push, nearly falling over.
His boyfriend rushed forward to steady him. "How can you hit someone?" he demanded, then lunged at the two brothers, and a fight broke out.
The scene descended into chaos. The commotion didn’t end until someone downstairs, unaware of the full story, called the police. The officers arrived and took everyone away in one vehicle, finally putting a stop to the farce.
By the time Eugene Jennings and the others finished their animated retelling, Arabella Donovan was so stunned she was left speechless.
[’I knew it was explosive, but I didn’t think it would be *this* explosive!’]
The chatter from the Jennings family died down. They exchanged a look, all in deep agreement.
"Ahem..." Brandon Jennings cleared his throat. "With Coco Shane’s two brothers on the scene, the bodyguards my friend sent over ended up being totally useless. And since everyone got hauled off to the station, he was the one who had to go bail them out afterward."
Lord knows how devastated Quincy Ulrich was when he got the call at his company, telling him to go to the police station and bail out his sister. And later, he was even more shocked as the bodyguards, all talking over each other, explained how they ended up there. The poor guy nearly shattered on the spot.
At the time, Brandon Jennings had noticed Quincy Ulrich seemed off when he took the call. Worried something might have happened to Chloe Ulrich, he went with him to the police station. That’s how he witnessed the entire saga of his good friend’s emotions shifting from confusion and shock to belated fear and finally, sheer rage. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have known the details so clearly.
"At first, Quincy managed to stay relatively calm, thinking his sister had just been blind and had narrowly avoided becoming a gay man’s beard in a sham marriage. But when he found out what they were *actually* planning... he completely lost it. He nearly attacked those two bastards right there in the police station."
[’Hahahaha, I didn’t expect Miss Ulrich’s brother to be such a passionate guy. I love this drama, give me more!’]
The Jennings family was speechless. ’More?’ they thought. ’The man is about to have an aneurysm!’
But then they had another thought. If they had a daughter, and she encountered something like this...
Stop. They couldn’t think about it anymore. Just considering it was enough to make their blood pressure spike!
"You can’t blame him for being angry. Who wouldn’t be furious in that situation?" Mrs. Jennings said. "Young people these days are just too wild. Not only are they... but they’re even trying to pull off such an immoral, wicked scheme. Aren’t they afraid of being struck by lightning?"
Hearing Mrs. Jennings, Eugene Jennings replied awkwardly, "This has nothing to do with being ’wild’ or not, and it has nothing to do with him being gay. It’s purely because those two are black-hearted, rotten people."
Arabella Donovan nodded in deep agreement.
[’Young people shouldn’t take the blame for this! And minority groups shouldn’t take the blame, either! Life is already hard enough for them, but there are always scumbags like this who stigmatize the entire community. It’s because of them that the poor souls who just want to live peacefully are put in such a miserable position, forced to be careful with every breath they take, terrified that one slip-up will lead to them being discovered and publicly condemned, with people practically demanding they atone with their lives.’]
Although Arabella Donovan had spent years on the mountain and didn’t know much about worldly affairs, and had made a fool of herself a few times when she first came down, it didn’t mean she had zero contact with people other than her master during her time there.
On the contrary, their little, rundown Sacred Temple was quite famous locally. Many pilgrims came to pray and make wishes, some of whom were even travelers from all over the country.
Arabella had grown up helping her master receive these pilgrims. During that time, she had seen the children of rich families wishing for their siblings to die horrible deaths over inheritance, and she had also seen ordinary working folks whose lives were hard, but whose families were united as one, praying only for a sick relative’s speedy recovery.
She had seen a despicable scumbag who murdered his wife so he could marry his pregnant mistress, forcing his first wife’s child to flee to the temple gates seeking refuge. She had also seen a deeply devoted man who spent the rest of his life traveling the entire country on foot, just to fulfill his beloved’s final wish: to wander the world together. And as it happened, the beloved of this devoted man was of the same gender.