Wang Ma tugged at Lin Yulan a few times but couldn’t stop her.
“Lin Xiwei, come out! Come on, what have you been doing so long?”
Lin Yulan rushed in, zigzagging through the gallery like a headless fly, searching for her.
Lin Xiwei quickened her pace up the stairs, hurrying out of the basement.
Even so, she was a step too slow—Lin Yulan blocked the doorway and demanded,
“What are you doing down here?”
Lin Xiwei’s heart pounded like a drum—not just from climbing the stairs quickly, but from nervousness and fear.
“Of course… I was looking for paintings,” she replied.
Lin Yulan frowned suspiciously, craning her neck to peek into the darkened basement, and scoffed:
“It’s pitch black down there. How could your mother’s portrait be in the basement?”
Lin Xiwei took a deep breath, calming her heartbeat, and shook her head:
“No, the basement is completely empty—there’s nothing down there.”
All the treasures had been stored in her personal space, so of course there was nothing left to see~
Lin Yulan waved her hand near her nose in disgust again:
“Smells musty, cobwebs everywhere, dust all over the floor—so dirty! And you’re willing to go down there? Hah, you really do love your mother deeply, huh?”
Lin Xiwei sneered, pushed past her, and stepped over the basement threshold into the gallery.
With her personal space advantage, it didn’t matter if Lin Yulan saw anything—even if she went back to tell her scumbag father and brother, they’d have no proof that Lin Xiwei had taken anything from the basement.
Her main goal in coming to the gallery was to take some valuable paintings; the basement treasures were purely a happy accident.
If there were treasures, there was no way she wouldn’t take them!
Lin Yulan hurried after her and asked, “Still looking for your mother’s portrait?”
“I didn’t find it,” Lin Xiwei lied; her mother’s portrait was already safely in her space.
“Never mind, I won’t look anymore. All these were painted by my father anyway—maybe it’s fate that I can’t find it. After all, things change and people pass on.”
Lin Chengyou had once been deeply infatuated with his first wife, seeing her as a muse, and had painted many portraits of her.
But! That didn’t stop him from chasing other women, flitting from one affair to another.
A scumbag? Even that doesn’t fully define Lin Chengyou.
…
Exiting the gallery, Lin Xiwei deliberately raised her arms and called out to Lin Yulan:
“Hey, come on. Weren’t you going to frisk me? Come on then!”
Lin Yulan, full of indignation, knew it wasn’t necessary but insisted on coming over to pick a fight:
“Fine, frisk me! Even if it’s just a pencil from the gallery, you won’t sneak it out!”
Wang Ma rolled her eyes skyward:
“What’s wrong with you? My young lady might need to take a pencil out, you know!”
Lin Xiwei: …-_-||”
Not to mention, she had actually brought an entire set of paints, canvases, brushes, and an easel into her space—just in case she got bored while following the army, she could draw to pass the time.
Sure enough, Lin Yulan started frisking her all over, making Wang Ma grit her teeth and push her back:
“My young lady only has this one cheongsam on—what’s there to feel… ah!”
With a shout from Wang Ma, Lin Yulan actually managed to tear Lin Xiwei’s cloud-patterned cheongsam.
“You little brat! Why did you tear my young lady’s cheongsam?”
Wang Ma’s fingers trembled with anger as she pointed at the smug Lin Yulan and scolded:
“Jealousy makes people crazy! Shameless little wretch! Using a frisk as an excuse to deliberately ruin her cheongsam—you planned this from the start, didn’t you?”
Lin Xiwei realized what had happened—no wonder Lin Yulan had insisted on frisking her when she came out. The malicious intent had been right there all along!
Wang Ma exposed the truth, and Lin Yulan merely raised her eyebrows, feigning innocence with a self-satisfied grin:
“Nope! I was raised well. How could I deliberately damage your young lady’s cheongsam?”
Looking at Lin Xiwei’s torn cheongsam, Lin Yulan felt extremely pleased. Hmph—if I can’t have it, neither will you!
She was consumed by jealousy.
Everyone shared the Lin surname and came from wealthy families—so why had Lin Xiwei grown up in splendor, adorned in cloud-patterned silk garments?
In contrast, Lin Yulan had grown up either starving or being beaten, either taking care of her younger siblings or being bullied and ostracized by the other children in the village.
Lin Yulan hated Lin Chengyou, resented Fu Cuilian, and envied Lin Xiwei!
Especially her one hope in life—Qin Nancheng—had been taken by Lin Xiwei.
Lin Xiwei could roughly guess Lin Yulan’s thoughts—this girl was insanely jealous, especially toward her.
Could Lin Xiwei indulge her? Of course not.
“This is a Jinling cloud-patterned cheongsam worth its weight in gold! I personally designed the sketch, wove the gold threads, and hand-cut and stitched it for my coming-of-age ceremony. Do you know how difficult it is to repair it?”
Repairing cloud-patterned brocade is even harder than weaving it.
Cloud brocade isn’t embroidered; ultra-fine gold threads are woven into silk. Every inch is precious, hence the name.
Imperial dragon robes for emperors and phoenix robes for empresses mostly used cloud brocade.
Even today, a single cloud brocade garment starts at at least one million yuan!
Lin Xiwei’s cheongsam didn’t have a high slit, but Lin Yulan’s malicious mind targeted the slit and tore it.
A once-elegant, dignified cloud-patterned cheongsam was ripped into a scandalously high-slit, tavern-style version.
Lin Xiwei gave Wang Ma a look, and the latter understood immediately.
“You little brat! I’ll beat you to death!” Wang Ma lunged forward and pinned Lin Yulan down, delivering a thorough beating.
…
At the Lin mansion, ancestral hall.
Lin Yulan, her face swollen beyond recognition, limped inside.
“Huh? What happened? It wasn’t this bad before going out!” Fu Cuilian hurried over, raising her hands awkwardly, unsure where to touch her daughter:
“Did they hit you? I’m so angry, so angry!”
She only complained verbally and did nothing else.
Lin Yulan irritably waved her off, her resentment deep—no one had ever had her back. Growing up, it was always fake sympathy.
“I’m fine,” Lin Yulan said sullenly, walking over to report to her father:
“Lin Xiwei didn’t find her mother’s portrait…”
Lin Chengyou anxiously interrupted:
“Did she go to the basement?”
“Yes, she did.”
“What?!” Lin Chengyou jumped up, smacking Lin Yulan across the face:
“Weren’t you supposed to watch her? How could you let her go to the basement! You useless fool, I’ll—”
“There’s nothing in the basement! What’s the problem with going down there?” Lin Yulan’s head was ringing from the slap, her patience at its limit, and she burst into tears:
“You never said Lin Xiwei couldn’t go to the basement. How was I supposed to know she couldn’t? All my life, besides hitting me, what else have you done?”
Fu Cuilian hurried forward, poking her daughter’s temple, frustrated beyond reason:
“How dare you talk to your father like that, you unfilial girl!”
Lin Yulan shoved her mother away, her eyes full of hatred:
“You’re no better! Helping the scoundrel, abusing me, exploiting me, squeezing me dry—what else can you do? He hits me, fine, but you too?”
“You little brat! How dare you yell at your mother—ah!” Fu Cuilian was shoved hard to the ground by her eldest daughter.
“I’m done with you all!” Lin Yulan declared. She was in college—any college, even a mediocre one, would ensure she could eat and live comfortably in the future.
In this era, attending college came with living allowances. Lin Yulan received five yuan per month, enough to live on.
She wanted to break free from this group of bloodsucking leeches!
Lin Yulan got up and left, planning to seek out Qin Nancheng and bring along all those love letters to prove she hadn’t lied.
Naturally, the fastest ones were Lin Chengyou and Lin Haojie, each pedaling their bicycles as fast as possible toward the gallery.
Outside the gallery, the two threw down their bikes and rushed inside, straight to the basement.
When they looked inside, they were dumbfounded. The treasures were gone. The countless priceless antiques had all vanished!