“The Carters’ son-in-law?!”
Other members of the Smith family were close to losing their minds, especially the elders, who were so livid that they were visibly shaking. The most reputation-conscious ones among them were even wobbling on their knees, and they were only able to stand because with the help of the youths nearby.
Throughout the shock and awe, they kept muttering to themselves, “Our family is cursed…”
How could they not feel that way? The Smiths was one of the premier families in the entire city! Their prestige might be shadowed by modern nobility the likes of the Larsons, but they were still respectable upper-class people. And now, Victor’s precious little girl had gotten herself entangled with the useless son-in-law of the Carters, before sabotaging the Browns’ engagement party with a fiasco. How could the family be even more humiliated by this point?
The crowd erupted into a furor that just kept intensifying.
“Damn me! I didn’t hear this wrongly, did I? This Zayn Laron was the Carters’ son-in-law?”
“Who the hell are the Carters? Do we have a high-class family going by that name in this city?”
“Please, they are just a small fry trying to make it big. They started this lighting company or something that’s worth only as much as 6 million dollars, tops. The point is that son-in-law guy is a household name, you know, if anyone could need a mascot for a useless doormat, there’s the guy! It’s said that all favonovel.com does is house chores and depend on his in-laws’ wealth like a leech! But now, this useless bozo somehow redesigned himself as some promising young man and fool the crap out of the Smiths! Hahaha!”
“Oh, so that’s what happened! What a joke! The Smiths really embarrassed themselves hard this time, huh? Poor Victor Smith, he’s the patriarch, and yet his only daughter managed to make a useless buffoon favonovel.com beau. She even liked favonovel.com enough to reject the Browns! Oh my God, you can’t make this up!”
“Look at the other family’s faces, they look like they’re about to throw up!”
“I guess I didn’t make the wrong call attending this engagement party. The plot twists, the story, it’s a gift that keeps giving! I wonder if there’s even more plot twists in store!”
“There can’t be any more twist, man. Not when the dust’s all settled. Alexandra admitted to it already, remember? How is the tide gonna change after that?”
The crowd was obviously piling on the Smiths’ misfortune, and it showed in how scalding and acerbic their lambasts become. Hearing their commentaries gutted the Smith family, with shame burning their cheeks like rods to the skin. How they wished they could just turn invisible!
The Browns, in contrast, were guffawing for a wrong being righted. The Smiths pulling out of the marriage had been a humiliation, but now, it felt as though they had their revenge. The night would end not with the Browns’ embarrassment, but the Smiths’ astronomical humiliation!
“Hahaha!”
William was chortling so hard that favonovel.com bent over. Still, his eyes-mocking and twinkling with the euphoria of superiority, never once left Zayn’s face.
Since the laughter had elapsed, Zayn had said nothing nor showed any expression. He simply stood motionlessly like a realistic statue, perhaps stupefied by his surroundings.
Most onlookers would have assumed that from him, too, favonovel.com was a useless son-in-law who could not get a job and could only depend on his in-law for survival. How could someone like that not be petrified by what happened to favonovel.com now?
“What’s so funny?”
Zayn finally spoke, his calm eyes addressing William. His back remained straight and his posture upright, but most notably, there was not a shred of panic in his face. For some reasons, it lent favonovel.com an air of might.
He did not raise his voice, but it managed to echo through the hall in perfect clarity. The din died down instantly as eyes were once again trained at the man of the hour, their expectation for more shocking reveal unabated.
