Leo gazed at him coldly, remaining silent.
Emmanuel, taking Leo’s silence as approval, continued, “To marry such a beautiful wife like Sophia, you must have had incredible luck in your past life to deserve this fortune in this one.”
Leo’s gaze grew colder.
“Emmanuel, mind your language, or I won’t be polite to you,” Sophia, who knew Emmanuel well, warned.
Emmanuel nonchalantly retorted, “Sophia, you have quite the temper. So, how do you plan to be impolite to me?”
As Emmanuel spoke, his eyes were shamelessly fixed on Sophia’s chest.
Leo took a step forward, blocking Sophia, and an icy chill filled the air. “You have three seconds to disappear from my sight, or you will regret it,” he warned.
Leo’s words made Emmanuel suddenly burst into laughter. “Did you hear that, everyone? A freeloader like Leo dares to threaten me.”
Solomon walked up to Emmanuel and, with a condescending tone, glanced at Leo. “The Freeloader King, I’m beginning to admire you. You dared to threaten even Emmanuel. It seems like you don’t plan to freeload much longer.”
“Three!” Leo coldly pronounced, initiating a countdown.
Emmanuel didn’t take Leo seriously. He thought Leo’s threats were a joke.
“Sophia, why keep such a useless man around? I think you should divorce him and marry me. I would treat you well. Think about it,” Emmanuel said, his attention more focused on Sophia because of her striking beauty.
“Two!” Leo’s voice was as sharp as a needle.
Sophia instinctively tugged Leo’s sleeve. She didn’t want him to do anything rash in this situation.
Sophia knew that as soon as Leo made a move, Emmanuel would be severely beaten.
“Emmanuel, you better leave now, or you won’t have a chance to beg for mercy later,” Sophia said, disgust evident in her voice.
But Sophia’s words only fueled Emmanuel’s anger. His eyes sparkled with a menacing light. “Sophia, are you suggesting that your useless husband here would dare to lay a hand on me? This piece of trash, I wouldn’t need him even if he had a hundred times the courage.”
At this point, more people entered the hall, and upon hearing about the situation, they began gossiping.
“Who would’ve thought that Sophia would bring her useless husband, and he would dare to provoke Master Emmanuel? This is going to be interesting.”
“Do you think Sophia might have a problem with her head? Someone like her, beautiful and wealthy, why would she marry a freeloader?”
“Can’t figure it out. Anyway, women like us must take Sophia as a cautionary tale. If your husband doesn’t measure up, your whole life could be ruined!”
“It seems Sophia’s useless husband has successfully angered Master Emmanuel. The next scene might be quite bloody.”
Emmanuel pointed at Leo’s nose and taunted, “Hey, freeloader, you were counting down, right? Keep going!”
“One!” Leo uttered the last word.
Following that, there was a crisp “smack” sound.
Everyone, except Sophia, thought that Leo had been solidly slapped by Emmanuel.
However, as the crowd’s eyes fell on Leo, they were shocked to find him standing unscathed, with no signs of being hit.
Their gazes lowered to the ground, where Emmanuel lay, blood dribbling from his mouth. There were two teeth not far from his head.
A good-for-nothing freeloader actually smacked out two of Emmanuel’s teeth with a single slap. If you told anyone, who would believe it? Even many of the people present, despite seeing it with their own eyes, were unwilling to believe it.
Solomon and Paula were even more dumbfounded. They couldn’t fathom that Leo would dare to actually hit Emmanuel.
Feeling the blood flowing from his mouth and the absence of teeth, Emmanuel, who was in a half-dazed state, finally let out a wail of misery.
“What’s going on here?” a very charismatic male voice called out, and then a young man in a deep blue suit walked over. When he saw Emmanuel lying in agony on the ground, he furrowed his brow and asked, “Solomon, what’s happened to Emmanuel?”
Solomon involuntarily glanced at Leo, sensing the alarming anger emanating from him, and hesitated, “I, I’m not sure, it seems like he, he might have tripped or something.”
As the saying goes, those with nothing to lose aren’t afraid of any consequences. In Paula’s eyes, Leo was one of those people. She was afraid that Leo might do something horrifying in his impulsiveness, and she hesitated to report it, opting instead to say, “Mr. Winifred, Emmanuel is injured. You should have someone take him to the hospital.”
Brook Winifred wasn’t a fool; he understood that Emmanuel had been beaten, but he didn’t want Emmanuel’s situation to affect today’s meet-and-greet. He ordered his subordinates to have Emmanuel taken to the hospital.
Emmanuel wanted to tell Brook that Leo had attacked him, but his mouth hurt too much to speak.
After Emmanuel was taken away, Brook’s gaze first circled Leo and then settled on Sophia. He smiled and said, “Sophia, welcome to this year’s fan meet.”
Because they were both fans of Marico Kingsley, Sophia and Brook were, in a way, friends.
Sophia was about to say a few polite words when Karen walked in, waving and calling out, “Sophia, I’m here!”
Sophia immediately approached Karen, holding hands, looking very close.
Seeing that the scheduled time for the meet-and-greet had arrived, Brook waved his hand and announced loudly, “Everyone, follow me.”
Brook led everyone into a quite luxurious and spacious private room.
The room had already been prepared with various drinks and delicious food, and servers with trays roamed about.
Leo wasn’t particularly interested in celebrity chasing. He quietly followed Sophia and Karen.
Those who had come to this Marico Kingsley fan meet were stylish, attractive men and women, most of whom were the children of well-off local families.
Brook took a microphone from a server and declared, “Since the establishment of Wind, Flowers, Snow, and Moon, we’ve organized no fewer than twenty fan meets in various forms. During these meets, many people, I’m sure, went from being strangers to becoming friends. Today, I have the honor of introducing a guest!”
Brook’s words prompted everyone to turn around to see who this guest was that Brook valued so much.
They quickly noticed that Brook’s gaze landed on a beautiful woman.
“The guest we have today is none other than Langstel’s number one beauty and my personal goddess, Sophia!” Brook pointed in the direction where Sophia was.