Fu Cuilian’s eyes were practically popping out of her head!
On the coffee table lay a shocking array of scattered photographs—
In several consecutive shots, Lin Yulan is shown unconscious on the floor, Lin Haojie stuffing a sock into her mouth and tying her up tightly with rope.
In one photo, Lin Juying is crouched beside Lin Yulan, swinging a rock with a vicious expression.
Other scattered photos captured a continuous sequence: Lin Yulan being struck on the head repeatedly by Lin Juying.
One photo of Lin Yulan’s once-beautiful face was especially gruesome, blood splattering everywhere from Lin Juying’s blows.
“No… no way! This is impossible!” Fu Cuilian’s head buzzed, each photo seeming to spin wildly before her eyes.
She could not comprehend why her second daughter would smash her eldest daughter to death.
As for Lin Juying, faced with this ironclad evidence, she remained unusually calm—even coldly detached.
Lin Haojie, ever the loudmouth, blurted:
“Look! You all see it now—Lin Juying killed Lin Yulan, not me! It’s nothing to do with me!”
He scrambled to absolve himself, spitting explanations to the comrade on his left, then babbling to the one on his right.
“Behave!” one comrade raised a hand, wiping away a spittle mark from his face and shooting Lin Haojie a sharp glare:
“Right and wrong will be determined on their own. Your squawking now is useless. Behave!”
Lin Xiwei had just dropped a bombshell and now threw in the photographs like nuclear weapons, blowing the mother and her two children apart, leaving them utterly shattered and in internal chaos.
Fu Cuilian screamed and wailed like a lunatic, Lin Juying laughed and screamed and flailed about like a maggot freshly pulled from a cesspit and burned on concrete.
Amid the chaos, Lin Xiwei calmly refilled her tea cup and leisurely watched the dogs bite each other, utterly unbothered.
Even Lin Haojie, seeing her composure, quickly steadied himself, trying to lower his own profile.
In the noisy scene, only Fu Cuilian and Lin Juying remained hysterical.
“Tell me! Tell me! Why did you kill your sister?”
Faced with Fu Cuilian’s desperate, hoarse demands, Lin Juying became even more hysterical:
“Don’t bring her up! She’s not worthy of being my sister!! That scheming, conniving Lin Yulan was never my sister!!!”
“You little monster!!!”
Fu Cuilian’s emotions completely collapsed. She slapped her second daughter hard, leaving Lin Juying seeing stars, her cheek swollen, and a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.
…
In the raucous world, this single slap finally brought some silence.
The enormous first floor of the Lin residence echoed with the slap.
The old master returned with the steward Zhang Bo, just arriving at the doorway. Seeing the scene from afar, he stopped in his tracks to observe.
Beside the living room sofa, Lin Juying, appearing deranged, tossed her tangled hair and snarled at her mother:
“Since I was little, besides hitting me, what else have you ever done?!”
She glared angrily at Lin Haojie and suddenly accused sharply:
“All you see is that little son of yours! You treat everything Lin Haojie does like it’s gold. No matter how well I behave, how hard I try, how dutiful I am, you just pretend not to see it!”
Fu Cuilian stared at her second daughter in shock, her crimson lipstick smeared across half her face. She opened her mouth a few times and managed only a stale retort:
“Haojie is a boy. In the future, he’ll care for me in my old age. He’s supposed to be a pillar for you two daughters’ family. Isn’t it right that we all treat him well together?”
Lin Juying, pushed further over the edge, screamed in a cracked voice:
“Go to hell with that boy! Go to hell with that family pillar! Why should I treat him well unconditionally?!”
After roaring, Lin Juying finally broke down into full-blown wailing:
“Am I not flesh off your own body? Just because I’m a girl, you trample on my needs. When will you ever show me favoritism even once? Ah—”
Even as her voice grew hoarse from screaming, Fu Cuilian stubbornly refused to see her daughter’s needs.
“Favor you? Why on earth would I favor you? If you want someone to blame, blame the fact that you’re a useless girl!”
Fu Cuilian’s own heartbreak surged up, her emotions collapsing like a torrential river:
“I had hoped you, my second child, would be a boy so I could hold my head high in front of Lin Chengyou.”
“He wanted a son to continue the Lin family line, so I gave him one.”
“Who would’ve thought you’d turn out a useless girl?!”
“You blame me for favoring Haojie? So what if I favor him? With Haojie around, Lin Chengyou would even treat me as a person!”
“Without Haojie, the only son, could I—or even you—have come back to the Lin family with Lin Chengyou?”
“This society is like that—men always reap more, better, bigger benefits than women!”
“The production team records points. A man working a day earns ten points, a woman? At most eight!”
“Go argue with the production team about your missing two points! Go demand them!”
“You’re yelling at me for nothing! If you could bring me greater benefits, then as your mother, I’d favor you too. But Lin Juying, do you have that? Huh? Speak!”
…
Fu Cuilian vented hysterically, and Lin Juying finally fell silent.
Lin Xiwei leisurely sipped her tea while watching this poisonous mother-daughter duo fight.
Pitiful?
Yes, pitiful.
But what did it have to do with Lin Xiwei?
She hadn’t caused this tragedy, so why should she bear the brunt of Fu Cuilian’s gang’s schemes?
People live their lives, each with their own lessons, each with their own family karma.
Fu Cuilian’s unfinished life lessons were being passed down to her children.
Family karma stretches across at least three generations, and the third generation might not even be able to escape it.
Lin Xiwei had no obligation to enlighten Fu Cuilian, nor any duty to give up her own interests to satisfy this family of bloodsucking leeches.
In her past life, she’d made one careless mistake—inviting wolves into her home—and paid the harshest price.
In this life, Lin Xiwei had a fresh start. How could she let them off?
Layer upon layer, she had set the trap, waiting for the perfect moment to close it:
“Ms. Fu, a mother’s love extends to all her children. I still suggest you love Lin Juying, just as you favored Lin Haojie last time. This time Lin Juying killed Lin Yulan—you can take the blame and go to prison for her.”
Fu Cuilian immediately jumped up, pointing at Lin Xiwei, cursing furiously:
“Your twisted, snake-like mouth! Why on earth would I go to prison for her?”
Snap!
Lin Juying’s fragile nerves finally broke completely:
“Then why did you take all the blame for Lin Haojie? Clearly, it was him who killed Fu Xinghan! Just because he’s a boy? Am I not flesh from your own body?!”
Lin Haojie, seeing the situation spiraling against him, hurriedly intervened:
“Mom! Don’t follow Lin Xiwei’s lead…”
Too late.
Fu Cuilian and Lin Juying went back and forth, saying everything that could be said:
“You brat! Useless child! Why do you even compare yourself to a boy? Haojie killed Ah-Han, wasn’t it to save you?”
Lin Xiwei seized the perfect opportunity and shouted:
“Comrades, listen! Fu Xinghan wasn’t killed by Ms. Fu Cuilian—he was killed by Lin Haojie!”
Oh!
Lin Xiwei had been waiting for this moment!
Lin Haojie turned pale in shock and repeatedly denied it:
“No! No, that’s not true! That’s not how it happened! The Fu Xinghan case is already closed. Comrades, don’t listen to their nonsense. I… I… it has nothing to do with me!”