Tang Xiaonan grimaced and looked over at Adrian Hawthorne. The future big shot’s expression was calm, betraying no joy or anger. His gaze was just as placid, leaving Tang Xiaonan feeling even more insecure.

’So moody and inscrutable.’

’There’s no way a mere mortal like me could ever know what a big shot is thinking. I just hope Adrian Hawthorne isn’t keeping a tally in his head, planning to settle all these scores one by one in the future!’

"Jim, if Aunt Green had tried to break up the fight, would you have actually stopped?"

"Of course not!"

Jim Thorne lifted his chin proudly. ’Hmph. Stop just because she tried to intervene? Why the hell should I?’

’Don’t I have my pride to think about?’

Tang Xiaonan glanced at Adrian Hawthorne again but still couldn’t read his expression. Feeling even more anxious, she started winking frantically at Jim Thorne, trying to signal him to stop talking. But Jim Thorne acted as if he hadn’t seen a thing. He even reached over and rubbed her forehead hard, pressing down until it ached.

"Xiaonan, one of your eyes was bigger than the other. A little rub and they’re back to the same size."

Jim Thorne very seriously pressed down a few more times. Tang Xiaonan’s face was squished out of shape, and she kicked out at him in anger. Jim Thorne just brushed it off with a grin.

"Cousin Jim, you wouldn’t have stopped even if Aunt Green had tried to talk you down, so why are you blaming her?"

Amanda Chapman couldn’t help but defend Rosalind Green. She was completely captivated by Rosalind’s beauty; the young girl was a firm believer in the principle that good looks equaled justice.

Jim Thorne flicked Amanda Chapman hard on the head a few times. "Trying to stop it and failing is one thing," he said irritably, "but being too scared to even try is something else entirely. A mother hen can’t beat a hawk, but she’ll still take it on, won’t she? If it were my mom, hmph, even if a tiger came for me, she’d charge in and chop it to pieces. But all *she* does is cry. She can’t even protect her own kid. How can she call herself a mother?"

Rosalind Green, who had been crying silently, felt her heart lurch. The color drained from her face, and she instinctively glanced at her son. But Adrian Hawthorne’s face was as calm as ever. Even as his mother, she had no idea what he was thinking.

"I... I was too scared..."

Rosalind Green whispered in her own defense. She really had been too afraid. She had never been part of the workforce, neither as a young woman nor after she married. Her father had been a private tutor before the Liberation and became a middle school teacher afterward. Her mother ran the household, and their family was well-off enough that Rosalind never needed to work. Her path to marriage, however, was not as smooth.

Relatives and neighbors introduced her to many potential suitors, and the men were always taken with her, but her parents always refused. They wanted Rosalind to work after getting married, and her parents claimed that only an incompetent man would let his wife work in public. Such a man, they said, was unworthy of becoming a son-in-law to the Green family. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

As time went on, Rosalind Green developed a reputation for being stuck-up. Despite her ethereal beauty, fewer and fewer suitors came to ask for her hand. This continued until she was twenty-four, when she finally met her husband, Ethan Hawthorne.

Although Ethan Hawthorne was a capitalist, the Hawthorne family was still living a very comfortable life back then. They received a monthly payment of one to two thousand yuan from the government. In contrast, Rosalind Green’s father earned a salary of just forty-two yuan a month, and that was enough to provide a good life for her and her younger brother.

When she first married, she still lived in a Western-style house, drinking coffee with milk and eating steak with buttered bread. The maids handled all the chores; she was even more pampered than she had been in her own family’s home. She never had to lift a finger. All her childhood friends were green with envy, telling her how well she had married.

Recalling those sweet days only made Rosalind Green feel more bitter and wronged. ’I really have tried my best!’

"Cry, cry, cry... You think crying is going to scare those thugs away?" Jim Thorne was getting extremely frustrated. "You need to grab a knife and hack at them, like my mom would! One good chop and they’re dead! Let’s see who dares to show their face after that!"

The last time he’d been ordered to protect Rosalind Green, some thugs had come to cause trouble. Rosalind Green had been just like this then, too—unable to utter a single harsh word, only knowing how to cry. It was completely useless.