The loud slap stunned Zhang Qingqing, but it also “slapped” clarity into the minds of everyone around them.
However, Zhang Qingqing had come prepared.
Covering her face, she stubbornly insisted,
“Sister Mu Cheng, you asked me to help fill in the characters and pinyin you didn’t know. What did I do wrong? For the words you couldn’t write, I even guided your hand while you wrote them. Why are you hitting me now?”
She grabbed Zhang Qingguo’s arm.
“Dad, I already tried to persuade Sister Mu Cheng not to do this. It would ruin both her reputation and Brother Qi’s reputation. But she said she liked Brother Qi’s family conditions.”
Qi Heng also admitted that while chatting, he had indeed mentioned to Mu Cheng that his family was planning to buy a new house along with a television and other expensive appliances.
Gu Yunche pressed his fingers against his brow, disappointment surfacing in his eyes.
A bitter smile touched his lips but failed to reach his eyes.
Clenching his fist, he silently turned past the doorway to look outside the window.
Mu Cheng understood.
After hearing Zhang Qingqing’s and Qi Heng’s words, combined with everything she had done before, Gu Yunche naturally believed what he had personally witnessed and experienced.
He was disappointed in her.
A faint blush of frustration spread across Mu Cheng’s porcelain-white face.
She glared at Zhang Qingqing while rapidly thinking of how to resolve the situation and prove her innocence.
At the time, when she had entered Zhang Qingqing’s room, no third person had been present.
As long as Zhang Qingqing insisted Mu Cheng had asked for help, then even if Mu Cheng admitted she was illiterate, she could not deny involvement in the matter.
After all, Zhang Qingqing was adamant that Mu Cheng had begged her for assistance.
Without witnesses, people would naturally believe Zhang Qingqing more.
Those were the most fatal points.
Since Zhang Qingqing and her cousin Bai Lin were both acting so manipulative and “tea-like,” then Mu Cheng decided she would let them witness the true elegance of a tea master.
Mu Cheng ruthlessly pinched her own thigh hard enough to force tears from her eyes.
When she looked up again, she appeared utterly pitiful, like pear blossoms drenched in rain.
“Sister Zhang, how could you bully me like this? Is it because you wanted to go to the capital and take my household registration quota? Since I refused, are you trying to ruin both me and Qi Heng now?”
Qi Heng froze.
Zhang Qingqing wanted to steal Mu Cheng’s registration quota?
Gu Yunche also paused.
Everything earlier had been so chaotic that he had momentarily forgotten Zhang Qingqing’s scheme regarding Mu Cheng’s household registration.
Zhang Qingqing’s face turned ugly.
She realized both Gu Yunche and Qi Heng were now looking at her with icy expressions—
One filled with disgust.
The other with hatred from being manipulated.
After all, Zhang Qingqing had openly announced her intentions before and publicly humiliated Mu Cheng, which had even prompted Gu Yunche to give Mu Cheng a new name for her registration.
In a weak and guilty voice, she muttered,
“I didn’t!”
Mu Cheng wiped away her tears, her nose reddened.
“Sister Zhang, when I first visited your house, you showed me a television I had never seen before. I learned that clothes could be washed with a washing machine. Everything felt so new to me, and I was truly grateful to you.”
“You invited me into your and Bai Lin’s room. Only then did I realize how enormous the gap between us was. I had never seen such clean bedding or such soft blankets before…”
Her voice trembled into sobs.
“You all have everything, while I’ve had nothing since the day I was born. My life had only just started getting a little better. Brother Gu finally came to take me to the capital, but… why do you still want to take even this away from me?”
The more Mu Cheng spoke, the sadder she became.
The more she spoke, the more heartbroken she sounded.
“I have no family. No home. Just when someone was finally willing to take me in and treat me kindly, you deliberately harmed me like this and made Brother Gu misunderstand me.”
She looked at Zhang Qingqing with tearful eyes.
“Do you want to tell me that my existence itself is unnecessary?”
Watching Mu Cheng cry with tears and snot all over her face while throwing one accusation after another onto her head, Zhang Qingqing grew so anxious she nearly stomped her feet.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you! Brother Qi is a really good man! You should already feel lucky to find someone like him! Besides, some of those words were written by you! I couldn’t possibly write handwriting that ugly!”
Qi Heng handed the note over to Mu Cheng.
At this point, he already believed Mu Cheng’s explanation.
“Xiao Mu, look at this note. Which words do you recognize?”
If Mu Cheng claimed she recognized absolutely nothing, people unfamiliar with the original Mu Guiying might suspect she was pretending.
So she pointed at the letter “e.”
“This one. I recognize this character. I saw it before in Ergou’s schoolbook next door.”
Gu Yunche glanced at the letter.
“You recognize this character? Hmm?”
Mu Cheng nodded seriously.
“Yes. Isn’t this from a poem?”
She wiped away another tear.
‘Goose, goose, goose,
Curving neck toward the sky it sings.
White feathers float upon green water,
Red feet stir clear ripples.’
“Ergou taught me that one!”
Some of the guesthouse staff who had gathered to watch could no longer hold back their laughter.
Gu Yunche turned toward Zhang Qingguo and Zhang Qingqing.
In a deep voice, he asked,
“Zhang Qingqing, what else do you have to say?”
Zhang Qingqing burst into tears too, pointing accusingly at Mu Cheng.
“She’s lying! She was the one who asked me to write it for her! I’m a high school student—why would I replace words with pinyin in such a short note? Besides, she admitted herself that she recognizes pinyin!”
Gu Yunche sneered coldly.
“And who can prove you didn’t deliberately write pinyin to create a distraction?”
As everyone around them began whispering and pointing fingers at Zhang Qingqing, Zhang Qingguo suddenly raised his hand and slapped her.
“You unfilial girl! Have you gone mad? How could you joke around with Mu Cheng like this?”
Deep down, Zhang Qingguo still sided with his daughter.
But appearances had to be maintained.
Otherwise, if the matter escalated, Zhang Qingqing’s reputation would be destroyed, and she might even be taken away for investigation and forced labor education.
Mu Cheng glanced at the father and daughter pair and thought silently:
You want to dismiss all this as a harmless joke?
That’s far too easy for you.
She wiped away her tears again.
“Brother Gu, I’ve caused you more trouble again. Back in the village, Liu E ruined my reputation too. She said I was greedy, malicious, and an ungrateful white-eyed wolf.”
Mu Cheng lowered her head tightly, clutching the corner of her clothes, looking nervous and heartbroken.
“After arriving in the provincial capital, Zhang Qingqing framed me again. Now I’ve become a shameless village girl trying to marry herself off through despicable tricks!”
She lifted her tear-filled eyes.
“I truly don’t deserve to go to the capital with you anymore. Thank you for treating me so well during this time and making me feel like I could actually live properly too.”
After speaking, she bowed deeply toward Gu Yunche before turning and running upstairs.
Gu Yunche reached out to catch her—
But missed.
Qi Heng suddenly looked upward and shouted,
“Oh no! The rooftop is upstairs! Comrade Xiao Mu isn’t thinking of doing something foolish, is she?”
Everyone fell silent.
Gu Yunche clearly felt a sharp wave of panic pierce through the left side of his chest.
Without time to think further, he immediately sprinted upstairs with his long legs.
Meanwhile, Mu Cheng, who had been running ahead, suddenly slowed down and muttered quietly to herself,
“Seriously, Gu Yunche, why are you so slow? I already contributed eighty percent acting skills and two hundred percent effort here. If you still can’t realize I’m supposedly trying to commit suicide, then this rooftop scene really can’t continue!”
Suddenly hearing footsteps behind her, Mu Cheng quickly sped up again and rushed straight toward the rooftop on the fifth floor.
Tonight, the moon shone brightly among sparse stars, while the summer wind brushed gently across her face.
Blue-and-white checkered bed sheets from the guesthouse hung from the clotheslines on the rooftop, swaying softly in the wind.
Mu Cheng froze for several seconds.
“Oh my god, this backdrop is actually kind of artistic. I suddenly feel like one of those melodramatic romance heroines. ‘You are the wind, I am the sand…’”
Remembering internet jokes from her previous life, she could not help muttering under her breath.
Upon reaching the rooftop edge, she quickly stopped herself at a safe distance.
She widened her eyes deliberately, allowing the wind to blow into them until tears naturally streamed down fiercely.
Gu Yunche pushed through the fluttering bedsheets and chased after her, the sound of cloth snapping in the wind behind him.
“Mu Cheng!”
Looking at the trembling girl beneath the moonlight, fragile as an autumn butterfly, Gu Yunche’s voice softened into pleading.
“Stay right there. Don’t move! I’m coming to get you!”