Battered Young Miss

Shortly after Sheng Henian and his wife knew of their daughter-in-law"s pa.s.sing, he made the decision to step down as President of Sheng Pharmaceuticals, so that his son would be elected the new President. It was all in the name of not making his son hold on to a more powerful position as he announced the death of his wife to the press. Everything the Shengs did was calculated to the "t" if the headline had read Vice President, it would not have carried as much weight as the t.i.tle of President.

Both family of the deceased was thrown into mourning, the little girl dressed in black waited each day at her brother"s door to be let in by her mother. The Luos were the last to know that something had gone wrong with their daughter, the moment they knew the circ.u.mstances of her death, they called for an autopsy to be carried out. Sadly, the husband did not want any speculations about the death of his wife, he told his in-laws that his wife and son would not have an autopsy.

"He is definitely hiding something!"

Luo Fei was very angry with his son-in-law whom he suspected to have a hand in his daughter"s death.

"We have to ask for Liena! There is no way we can leave our grandchild to him! We already lost Yu and little Xi!"

Luo Xue pleaded with her husband to fight for the custody of their grandchild in court.

"The only thing that can work is by threatening him, especially his parents!"

The Luos didn"t care if they were entangled in a scandal or not, they didn"t want their grandchild near her paternal grandparents and father. Luo Xue and her husband already drew up the doc.u.ment for child custody, the only thing that was left was to get Sheng Jinzhe to sign his daughter away to their care.

Almost a week had pa.s.sed after the funeral of Sheng Yu was held, which was attended only by family, not even her friends from university knew where she was laid to rest. Luo Fei and Xue swallowed their anger and went to knock on the door of their son-in-law on a late Wednesday night.

"Good evening Judges."

The maid greeted the in-laws of the Shengs in a tepid tone.

"Hmm"

Luo Xue made a pa.s.sing sound, while her husband outrightly ignored the maid.

"We came to see Sheng Jinzhe, is he home?"

"President Sheng is at home, I will let him know you are waiting for him downstairs."

The Luos went to take a seat by the sofa while waiting on Sheng Jinzhe to show up. It wasn"t that they didn"t know that he was in, since his car was parked in front of the house, but they wanted to see if she would say something contrary to what they eyes saw outside the home of the Shengs.

Upstairs the sound of a door being knocked was heard, as the occupant called out, "What is it?"

"President Sheng! small madam"s in-law"s are waiting downstairs to speak to you.

"What do they want again this time?!"

"..."

The maid began making faces at the door, as though telling him to stop asking her the purpose of their visit when he could easily go downstairs and ask them by himself.

"Ms. Buo?!"

"Yes? President Sheng?"

"Tell them I would be out there shortly."

"Okay."

The maid let out a sigh of relief, as she made her way to deliver the message to the visitors downstairs.

"I told Vice President Sheng you are waiting for him and he said he would be joining you shortly."

The couple looked from one to the other, they kept quiet as the maid walked away after speaking to them.

"I told Yu to have her sent away a long time ago, if anyone had seen the two of them, they would have found it difficult to determine would was the Madam in the house."

"That"s why it is all going to change, if she wants to play the role she now has it."

The couple was dressed in all black to show they were in mourning, almost half an hour later Sheng Jinzhe began making his way down the stairs to see his in-laws.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

The expression on his face was anything but sorry, it was clear he didn"t care that he had kept them waiting, but neither of them took offense by the look they saw on his face, because in the leather bound briefcase of Luo Xue was the doc.u.ment that would strip him of his parental privileges.

"It"s okay, we haven"t be here long. How is Liena?"

"She is probably asleep by now."

"Let her be, we don"t want to wake her up since she has school tomorrow."

"Son-in-law there is something we both want to discuss with you...."

The warning alarm went off in the head of Sheng Jinzhe, in all the years that he had known his father-in-law, he had never for once referred to him directly as son-in-law, it was Sheng Jinzhe. He knew that in their eyes he was considered a worthless husband to their daughter.

"I"m listening."

Sheng Jinzhe took a seat from across his in-laws, he could feel the air of seriousness and tension in the room. Luo Xue reached down to open her briefcase pulling out a white envelope with a stamp on it.

"We want you to take a look at it and tell us what you think."

Sheng Jinzhe look at the faces of his in-laws and couldn"t remember the last time they had asked him for his opinion about anything. He rose up from where he sat to take the doc.u.ment that was stretched out towards him. Tearing the flap open, he pulled out a few stacks of paper and what he read in them made his blood pressure sky rocket.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Child custody papers, you don"t have to sign them if you don"t want to."

His eyes narrowed when he heard his mother-in-law"s veiled threat, anyone that didn"t know her would have missed what she meant, but three years was enough to know the type of people his in-laws paraded themselves to be.

"What do you want?!"

"Now you are just talking, sit down. I don"t like when someone stands over my head."

In a daze, Sheng Jinzhe went to take a seat on the same sofa that he got up from, looking at his in-laws across from him.

"I want Liena out of this house. Our conditions are quite simple. We would not conduct an autopsy on my daughter and grandson, but in exchange you have to let us have our granddaughter with us. I will quit my job as Judge to focus on her upbringing since that"s what Yu would have wanted."

"You can"t do this!"

"Young man! My wife and I are giving you a way out, you are lucky I haven"t pulled some strings to get the press on your back. Do you think we didn"t know that you were having an affair behind our daughter"s back? You are a fool if that is really what you thought! The only reason we held back was because of the heartbreak our daughter would have felt when she discovers your deceit!"

"But Liena is all I have!"

"Are you serious?! Yu was our only child and we treasured her, you are two children for heavens sake! Yet your wife, our own daughter did not feel her life was worth living when her son died, did you even sit down to think why she did such a thing?"

Luo Xue was already felt up with his posturing, the liar knew that their daughter would not see through his lies and double life. That"s why he had the audacity to live the way he was and he would have kept up with it had she not face an untimely death.

"It"s your choice, you either sign the paper or wait for the press to hara.s.s you day and night. Not only would you lose your company, but we will still end up having Liena on grounds of your incompetence!"

"I"m not buying what you are saying, fine! The press keep bombarding me, I"ll go ahead and hire more security, as for the company, people would always be sick and in need of drugs, moreover Sheng Pharmaceutical has networks in major countries all over the world. The company isn"t going to close down that easily!"

"Have you considered your shareholders? Wasn"t it not too long since you became the President of Sheng Pharmaceuticals?"

Luo Fei"s words struck a nerve in Sheng Jinzhe, it was true that he was newly appointed as the President of Sheng Pharmaceuticals, he was barely able to make the board of directors agree to the plans he had brought forth to them since he took up the new position. Some of them still "mistakenly" called him by his previous t.i.tle. If the board caught wind that there was trouble in his family, there was no telling how they would use the information.

"If I sign the doc.u.ment, would I still get to see Liena?"

"That depends, if we see a change in you that is satisfactory then we would make plans to have the two of you meet, but if not.."

Luo Xue shrugged her shoulders to let her son-in-law know that he was on his own if they decided it was not worth having him near their grandchild. The couple had visited the Shengs home a few times and on those occasions, they never saw their son-in-law at home. It was as if their daughter did not want them to meet him, they always came in the afternoons or late mornings when he was said to be at work.

Sheng Jinzhe pulled out the gla.s.s stool to sign the papers in his hand, forgetting he had nothing to sign it with.

"You seem to be missing something."

"What?"

"Your stamp, where is it?"

A stamp was a slender object with the impression of the person"s signature, usually made from hard wood and rubber.

As though in a trance, the young man left the stacks of paper on the stool to go upstairs where his stamp was in a cabinet in his room.

"Now he knows we mean business."

A pleased look came on the face of Luo Fei when he knew that his sneaky son-in-law was now under leash. In less than four minutes, he was back down to stamp the doc.u.ments with his personal stamp that was engraved with his signature. If he had signed it with anything other than his stamp, it would have been invalid in the court of law.

"I already signed on the doc.u.ment, would I get a copy of it?"

"Absolutely! Bring out your phone and take a picture of them."

"That"s like ten papers that you want me to snap!"

Sheng Jinzhe looked her his mother-in-law his eyes full of disbelief at what she was asking him to do.

"Hurry up! We don"t have all day!"

Angry and frustrated by the way his in-laws were treating him, but he had to give in to their demands, how else would he get the evidence that his daughter was stolen from him? They thought him a fool for giving in easily to their demands, but what other choice did he have? One one hand he just took up the position as Sheng Pharmaceuticals President, on the other hand his wife just died and if it got out that she died from suicide, that would be end of his relations.h.i.+p with his parents! He wasn"t about to let his affairs be exposed! So what if he gave his daughter up? That was only a little price to pay for the comfortable life that he was enjoying. He had a woman to woman his bed, one to cook is meals on a daily basis, a position that many would kill to have and parents that stood firmly by him. A daughter whose value couldn"t be determined, was best left in the hands of people that would make the best use of her.