Bai Ran spaced out to think through his list of conditions, but Quan Rui began to speak again, slowly in his calm, businesslike voice,
“Consider what I say carefully. You’re in no position to plead with me under the name, Bai Ran. But if you do so under the title of Mrs. Quan… I’m sure you’re clear about the differences between the two.”
Quan Rui had accompanied his father and helped to negotiate all sorts of business deals since he was young. Thus, he was one of the best negotiators in Sanjiang City.
He had become accustomed to the styles of negotiation used in the business world and it was this he used with Bai Ran now.
In this manner, he had never failed to strike a satisfactory deal.
Bai Ran frowned at his curt manner and thought about it for a very long time.
She knew that she did not really have any other choice.
Only Quan Rui was willing could save her mother, so she was left with no choice but to agree to whatever he asked of her.
She felt thankful though, that Quan Rui was asking her to be his wife instead of his lover.
Although Bai Ran knew that she was not in any position to turn him down, she could not help but ask, “Are you using me to restrain the Jiang Family? Am I right to say that you’re only marrying me because I’m the daughter of Jiang Yuanshan?”
Bai Ran did not understand why she was asking such a question.
She convinced herself that she only wanted to seek clarification about his motives but in her heart, she knew that her feelings had already betrayed her.
Subconsciously, she was holding on to her fantasies.
“Quan Rui had ditched Jiang Bangyuan, with whom he had an arranged marriage for a long time. Could it be that—”
Before Bai Ran could continue to fantasize, Quan Rui immediately cut her off.
“If you aren’t a daughter of the Jiang Family, then everything would be meaningless.” Quan Rui’s intentions were clear.
Indeed, he was in a hurry to marry her only because she was useful to him as a daughter of the Jiang Family.
Through this union, he could win over the influential people who were on friendly terms with the Jiang Family. The citizens of Sanjiang City would also be able to look kindly upon the Quan Family because of their union with the scholarly Jiang Family whom they looked up to. This would make everyone in Sanjiang City respect and fear the Quan Family even more.
Because it was Bai Ran, Quan Rui could restrain the Jiang Family and assert his will over her to ensure this.
Jiang Bangyuan and Jiang Hao were ambitious individuals with schemes of their own. Quan Rui did not want to marry a woman who would pit herself against him all the time.
Instead of that, Bai Ran, who had no interest in the Jiang Family’s power or politics, would let him do as he pleased. Also, she was more pleasing to the eye.
“Got it.” Bai Ran nodded her head. She was surprised to find herself feeling a little down.
To be precise, she felt disappointed.
But she did not understand why she was disappointed. Perhaps it was because Quan Rui’s motives were perfectly in line with his bad personality and were therefore not the sort of things she liked to hear.
But she already knew that she had no choice in the matter.
“I will fulfill all of your conditions and do as you have asked, but you have to save my mother. She…is the only family I have left in this world.”
Bai Ran gritted her teeth tightly. She clenched her hands on either side of her body, standing up more rigidly.
Her knuckles turned shockingly white.
“Father’s gone. I only have my Mum left now.
“The three siblings of the Jiang Family have never treated me as their sister, so I don’t see them as family at all.”
Bai Ran’s experiences taught her very clearly what was right and wrong, along with the fickleness of human nature.
Quan Rui listened to what Bai Ran said with a calm and composed face, but his handsome brows knitted into a frown.
“From now on, your home is wherever I am.”
He found that he did not like that sad expression in her eyes.
He wanted to see her eyes blazing with life like they had been when he saw her on the lawn at the Jiang Family’s residence searching for her ring.
Quan Rui was someone who valued marriage.
He could have as many women as he liked but he only wanted one wife.
Bai Ran was the one in a million whom he had chosen.
Quan Rui was not young anymore; it was time for him to start his own family.