More and more people gathered around, all of them having heard the voice coming from the phone.
Everyone present was stunned.
Although the Lin family wasn’t the richest in Haicheng, they were still one of the city’s most prominent wealthy families.
It was perfectly normal for the children of such families to receive hundreds of thousands, even millions, in monthly allowance.
But no one had ever heard of a wealthy family’s true daughter receiving not a single cent of pocket money each month.
The Lin family was one of a kind.
No wonder Lin Qian was dressed so shabbily—she didn’t even have a decent gown to wear to the banquet.
Even if she hadn’t been raised by their side, she was still the Lin family’s true daughter. Yet her own parents gave her nothing, while the adopted daughter received a million a month and was pampered beyond measure.
For the Lin family to allow something this outrageous to happen, the whole family must be utterly clueless.
The guests whispered among themselves. Lin Yanshu felt as if thorns were pricking his back, his face flushed red with shame and anger.
He refused to believe such an embarrassing thing could happen to the Lin family.
Their family was vast and prosperous—they couldn’t possibly be so stingy as to withhold a mere few hundred thousand in allowance from their own flesh and blood.
Lin Yanshu immediately questioned Lin Qian coldly, “Even if Finance didn’t transfer the money, Mom and Dad would surely have given you an allowance, right?”
Sarcasm flickered across Lin Qian’s face. She looked toward Father Lin and Mother Lin in the crowd and said flatly, “Whether Mr. Lin and Mrs. Lin ever gave me an allowance, Young Master Lin, why don’t you ask them yourself? After all, you don’t believe me, but you’ll certainly believe your own parents.”
Father Lin and Mother Lin stiffened, too ashamed to meet her gaze.
“Dad, Mom, you must have given her an allowance, right?” Lin Yanshu looked at them earnestly.
Father Lin’s eyes darted away. “I thought you two would give her money, so I…”
Mother Lin’s face was full of guilt, tears welling in her eyes. “I thought so too… Qianqian, why didn’t you tell us you had no money? If you’d told Mommy earlier, Mommy would definitely have given you money.”
“It’s all Mommy’s fault for not noticing sooner and letting you suffer such grievances. But you have to believe that Mommy treats you and Wan’er exactly the same.”
Lin Qian looked at her with a half-smile. Under that indifferent gaze, Mother Lin awkwardly lowered her eyes.
Only today did Lin Qian learn that it was her own birth mother who had forbidden Finance from transferring her money. Not only that—she had even raised Lin Wan’er’s allowance to a million, terrified that her precious adopted daughter might be shortchanged.
With such blatant favoritism, she still had the nerve to claim she treated them equally.
A noble lady of a wealthy family, dressed in the finest clothes, spending hundreds on a single pair of socks—could she really not tell that her own daughter’s outfit, head to toe, was made of fabric worth less than a hundred yuan altogether?
It wasn’t that she couldn’t see it. She simply didn’t care.
The apology was nothing but a performance for outsiders.
Fortunately, Lin Qian had long seen through this family’s ugly true faces. Her heart had been tempered to be immune to all poisons. As long as she expected nothing from them, she was unbreakable.
Seeing Lin Qian ignore her mother’s apology, humiliating the Lin family before everyone’s eyes, the tiny flicker of guilt Lin Yanshu had felt vanished completely.
He snapped, “You have a mouth—why couldn’t you just say something? We’re not mind readers. How would we know what you were thinking? If you’d spoken up earlier, do you think we’d have let you go without money?”
“I did tell you.” Lin Qian’s voice was soft, but it carried a chill. “You just never took it seriously.”
Lin Yanshu frowned and was about to deny it when a memory suddenly surfaced in his mind.
It was an afternoon. The four of them were sitting around the sofa, chatting and laughing.
Lin Qian had come over, fidgeting nervously. She clutched the hem of her school uniform tightly, her face flushing red before she even spoke.
She held it in for a long while before finally saying softly, “Dad, Mom, could you give me five thousand? For tuition…”
“Slam!”
He had thrown the newspaper in his hand onto the coffee table, glaring at Lin Qian with accusation. “Money, money, money—that’s all you know! Did you come back to this family just to ask for money? If the Lin family were poor, would you never come back at all? I really don’t know why Mom and Dad insisted on bringing you home.”
“If you’ve got nothing to do, spend more time on your studies. Wan’er got tenth place in the whole school on the first monthly exam of her first year. What rank were you?”
“I… I was first…”
“Oh, enough. Last place, and you still have the nerve to bring it up.”
He was already having the accountant transfer five hundred thousand into her bank card every month, and she still had the gall to open her mouth and ask for fifty million.
Even Wan’er didn’t have that much money. She should take a look at herself and see what gave her the right.
Lin Qian’s tears had immediately spilled over, as if she’d suffered some enormous injustice.
He had only felt irritated, losing even the mood to read his financial newspaper.
Thankfully, Wan’er was sensible. She had shaken his arm and cooed, “Big brother, I got tenth place this time. Don’t I deserve a reward?”
How could he resist his sweet, adorable little sister acting cute? He immediately cast aside the unpleasantness Lin Qian had brought, pinched her cheek, and said dotingly, “What reward does Wan’er want?”
“I’ve got my eye on a bag worth a hundred thousand. Big brother, will you buy it for me?”
“Of course, of course. As long as Wan’er likes it, forget a hundred thousand—I’d buy it for you even if it were a million.”
After coaxing Lin Wan’er, he had turned and snapped at Lin Qian in displeasure, “What are you still standing there for? Go back to your room and study.”
Utterly aggrieved, Lin Qian had turned and run off.
Father Lin and Mother Lin had sighed in unison.
“If only Qianqian were half as sensible as Wan’er.”
……
……
“Has Young Master Lin remembered now?”
Lin Qian’s voice pulled him back to the present. His heart was being torn to shreds by her repeated “Young Master Lin.”
He was her brother—her own brother—not some “Young Master Lin.”
Yet ever since she got out of prison, she refused to call him “brother” even once.
His eyes darkened as he said resentfully, “That’s because your grades were so terrible. You got last place—you had the nerve to ask for money, and I didn’t have the nerve to reward you.”
At his words, Lin Qian’s eyes grew even colder. Under that heartless gaze, Lin Yanshu felt inexplicably guilty. He gritted his teeth and snapped, “I criticize you a couple of times and you won’t take it?”
“For three years of high school, I ranked first in my grade every single year. How did I become last in the grade in Young Master Lin’s mouth?”
Seeing the look of disbelief on Lin Yanshu’s face, Lin Qian’s lips curled into a cold smile, and a trace of vindictive satisfaction rose in her heart. “Right, of course. Young Master Lin doesn’t even know which school I attended. It’s only natural you wouldn’t know my grades.”
Lin Yanshu stood frozen, as if struck by lightning.
As if he’d just heard something out of a fairy tale, his voice carried a barely perceptible hoarseness. “Weren’t you attending Shenghui High School?”
Shenghui was the best aristocratic high school in Haicheng, and Lin Wan’er had graduated from it. Every child of a wealthy or powerful family in Haicheng was sent to this school.
Lin Yanshu had simply assumed that Lin Qian attended Shenghui as well.
He whipped his head toward Father Lin and Mother Lin, his voice trembling badly. “Dad, Mom—after Lin Qian came back, did you transfer her school records here?”
“……”
Father Lin’s face turned bright red. He opened his mouth, but only a few muffled syllables came out, as if the spine had been pulled from his body—all his usual authority gone without a trace.
Mother Lin’s lips trembled slightly, her eyes full of panic and helplessness. Even her carefully applied makeup could no longer hide the embarrassment on her face.
The two of them stood frozen in place, and the air around them seemed to solidify.
Lin Yanshu’s face grew pale inch by inch. Everything he had believed about Lin Qian collapsed like a crumbling tower. All that past contempt and disdain, once so certain, now turned into sharp blades, mercilessly stabbing at himself.
He could barely find his voice, his throat as if gripped tightly by someone else’s hand. When he finally spoke, his voice shook terribly. “Qianqian, those three years of high school—where did you actually go to school?”