Sophia rarely gets angry, and it’s even rarer for her to explode like this. This is the first time Christopher has heard her call him by his full name in anger; he’s surprised, truly surprised.

He stared at her for quite a while and, after confirming he wasn’t seeing things, he replied in rebuttal: "How does happiness not relate to those things? Haven’t you heard that poor couples find every aspect of life sorrowful?"

He consistently believes that only with solid material conditions as support can life be good and happiness achieved.

"Can you stop talking nonsense?" Sophia took a deep breath to calm her anger and continued, "Indeed, everyone has this sorrow, poor couples find every aspect of life sorrowful—do you know what this phrase really means?"

She didn’t intend to wait for him to answer, glanced at him, and began seriously explaining: "This phrase means: I truly know everyone has the grief of being parted by death, but because we are a couple who shared hardships, parting by death feels even more sorrowful."

"The author is expressing the ’sorrowful matters’ after the wife’s death, which has nothing to do with what you just said."

Sophia explained clearly and thoroughly this time, only hoping Christopher would understand that the happiness of two people living together doesn’t largely depend on material conditions; as long as there is love between them, everything else is secondary.

Christopher didn’t expect Sophia to be so earnest in debating with him, nor did he expect her to know so much. He stared at her in a daze, unable to snap out of it.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think what I said is wrong?" Sophia felt uncomfortable being stared at by Christopher. What she said was correct—she felt she was indeed making sense. She didn’t fabricate anything; the phrase meant exactly what she explained.

Hearing Sophia’s voice again snapped Christopher out of his daze. He looked at her for a long while and finally spoke: "Does what you said have anything to do with what we’re discussing? We’re talking about Alice and Thomas; why should I care about other people’s opinions?"

He was hearing what she said for the first time, but he could tell she wasn’t making things up to deceive him.

However, he felt those things were irrelevant to him; he only believed that what he held as truth was the real truth.

"Alice being with Thomas has nothing to do with his superior conditions. She fell in love with Thomas as a person, and Thomas truly admires and cherishes her." Sophia spoke with unusual firmness; if Alice cared about material conditions, she wouldn’t have divorced Benjamin.

Although she didn’t know Thomas very well, she had been quietly observing him just now and found that when Thomas looked at Alice, his eyes were filled with affection, which she had never seen from Benjamin.

Besides, their family’s conditions are not bad either; her daughter works hard, and though not the best, she is definitely one of the outstanding people among her peers. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Sophia’s point resonated with Christopher, yet he still did not verbally admit he was wrong and continued to insist his views were valid: "Without solid material conditions as a foundation, what kind of love can there be between two people?"

He kept speaking his reasoning, regardless of whether it would anger her.

"I’m going upstairs to find Alice and Lily." Seeing Christopher stubbornly refusing to comprehend, Sophia didn’t want to say more, so she stood up and left the living room.