Stay out of trouble

Lijuan fidgeted in her seat as Jiaying maliciously read the headline of the news for the whole family.

She could only wish the earth would open up and swallow her whole. How was she going to explain her way out of this situation especially after having lied so blatantly?

"Auction? Fiance?" Her father asked with a frown as he moved his eyes away from Jiaying to look at Lijuan.

Even though Rong left the table as quietly as she could it was obvious it had to do with the news.

Jiaying quickly turned her phone's screen to show her parents the picture the reporters captured of Yun and Lijuan.  

Lijuan turned to look at the screen too, she was smiling like she was having the time of life. She could vividly rememner why she was smiling like that..

Yun had been stealing glances at her and when she caught his eyes, she said with a smirk, "You know the items are in the front that way right? You are really making it so obvious that you are staring at me."

"Point of correction I am not here for the auction. And secondly, I do not understand what you mean. I was not looking at you" Yun said defensively.

"Oh really?" She asked as she squinted her eyes to look at him suspiciously. 

"Well... you look beautiful anyway " He decided to be a gentleman and compliment her look. 

"I knew you were staring at me." She said with a cheeky smile that made him scoff. 

It was at that point that the guests at the next table left their seat since they could no longer handle their noise.

"Are you going to tell us what is going on or not?" Chairman Mei asked with in a very cool voice.

He had known Lijuan had lied the previous night but he hadn't imagined something like this.

His family has always lived quietly and the only times they seemed to appear on the news was either business related or something to do with Vice president Wang Yun.

"I attended an auction with him since you said I couldn't attend the 40th anniversary." Lijuan said without looking into her father's face. 

"Was that before or after you went to the hospital?" He asked again but Lijuan couldn't answer. She was already out of ideas. 

"I'm sorry father. I was wrong." She decided to adopt Rong's favourite apology pattern. 

"So how come you didn't come back home with your gown?" Jiaying asked curiously earning her a glare from Lijuan. 

"Did he really tell everyone you were his fiancee?" Mother Mei asked the one question which had been on her mind since she heard the news. 

"Yes mother. It was my fault. He didn't mean to cause any trouble." Lijuan hurried to say making her mother glance at her in surprise. Lijuan wasn't one to take the blame for anything. 

"I guess this is better than your usual troubles." Chairman Mei said reluctantly. He couldn't get mad at her for everything after all.

He was just going to have a talk with the young man. Even if Lijuan didn't know better, he expected the young man to know better. Especially after the show his mother put up at the party the previous night. 

He realized he was usually too harsh on Lijuan but that was only because he was really disappointed in her actions. He couldn't help it even though he knew she wasn't doing it deliberately. He just felt she should at least be able to show true remorse for her actions but she kept putting up the 'I am like this and there is nothing I can do about it' attitude. And that attitude of hers annoyed him to the bones.

That not withstanding he didn't like outsiders talking about his daughter carelessly. He didn't appreciate Madam Wang's opinion concerning Lijuan, and he didn't like that this new scandal might cause more problems for Lijuan and the family. 

"Tell that young man I want to see him. He should give me a call." Chairman Mei said with a sigh before rising from the table. "And tell his younger brother to stop doing cheesy things like faking people's voices. He sounded like a pervert." He added as he began to move away from the dining without sparing her another glance.

"I've noticed you haven't done anything inappropriate since you started going out with him. Even in Jackie's absence you've been well behaved." Mother Mei said loud enough for her husband to hear. He shouldn't just notice everything she wasn't doing right after all. 

Chairman Mei paused in his track when he heard it, his wife was right. "When is Jackie coming back?" He asked. 

"I just returned sir. I'm here now." Jackie who just entered the house said. 

They all turned to look at him in surprise.

Lijuan sighed in relief that the whole thing was over. She would have happily hugged Jackie if she wasn't in deep shits now. All she could do was smile at him as he greeted her parents.

"How have you been? I think you lost weight." Mother Mei said. She was happy for the distraction. 

"Welcome back Jackie. I hope everything went on well?" Chairman Mei asked before walking away. 

"You should join us for breakfast. We were just talking about you." Mother Mei said calling one of the maids to serve Jackie. 

Jiaying angrily left the dining room. She had expected some kind of outburst from their father, why was he handling everything so coolly? Jiaying wondered. 

  ~~~~~~~~~

"So?" Mother Mei asked Lijuan an hour later when they were alone in Lijuan's room. 

"So what?" Lijuan asked with a confused frown. 

"Why didn't you tell me you went for the auction? I asked you not to go." Mother Mei said with a disapproving frown. 

"I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you because I was unable to bid for the necklace." Lijuan said sadly. 

"What happened? How did Yun meet you there?" Mother Mei asked curiously and listened intently as Lijuan told her everything that had happened.

"That means I'll be receiving a call from them soon to retrieve the bag and make payments for it." Mother Mei said thoughtfully. 

"I don't think so. I think Yun gave them his details already." Lijuan explained.

"You mean he went out of his way to do all this for you and you ended up annoying him? You were wrong Juan. Don't you think the first thing you should have done was thank him the moment he showed up at the auction? Or even when he returned with the drug and sanitary napkin? The young man is right... you're ungrateful." Mother Mei said with a disapproving frown. 

Lijuan frowned sadly. She was sure Shan would also give her the scolding of her life if she heard it. She had messed up, she knew it!

"I wasn't thinking. I'm going to do better from now. But how do I fix this issue with the reporters?" Lijuan asked with a frown. 

She knew Yun was going to have a tough time with it especially when he already made it clear he wanted her to stay away from him. Even though he had been the one to say the words which was being used against them she was smart enough to know he had done it because of her. 

"Remember what your father asked you to do." Mother Mei reminded her. 

"Oh God! How am I going to face him? What am I going to say to him?" She asked her mother in distress before her covering her face with her pillow. 

"Don't worry too much about it, everything will be fine. Just try your best to stay out of trouble for the time being." Mother Mei told her before standing up to leave the room.