The entire family turned to stare at her in unison. After processing what she had just said, Tang Xin’er was so exasperated she almost laughed out of pure fury.
She honestly hadn’t expected Zhao Meifang to be capable of treating her own flesh and blood with such vicious exploitation. Were they planning to squeeze every last drop of life out of her?
“Xin’er…” Zhao Meifang gripped Tang Xin’er’s hands tightly, her sweaty palms nearly drenching Tang Xin’er’s fingers. Repulsed, Tang Xin’er yanked her hands away. “Mom, it’s not that I’m unwilling to help, but do you seriously think that’s even possible?”
Since everyone was already staring at her, Zhou Yaozu was the first to charge forward the moment those words left her mouth. “Are you still my older sister or not?”
“I’m getting married to carry on our Zhou family’s bloodline, don’t you even know that? If you’re not even willing to do this tiny favor for me, do you have any face left to stay in this house?” Zhou Yaozu ranted in a string of indignant accusations.
Hearing all this, Tang Xin’er had a fierce urge to smack the living daylights out of the guy standing right in front of her.
What kind of warped logic was rattling around in that brain of his?
“First of all, my last name is Tang, not Zhou. What does you carrying on the Zhou family line have to do with me, Tang Xin’er? If anyone should be doing that, you should be looking at your sister Zhou Youyou!” Tang Xin’er retorted with an innocent shrug.
The entire family choked in silence. Tang Xin’er pressed on, “Secondly, I never planned on staying in this house anyway, which is why I agreed to take Zhou Youyou’s place and marry Qin Shiyao, right? I’ll be leaving this place very soon. If you think I’m an eyesore, you’re welcome to kick me out right this second.”
“But let me make one thing crystal clear to you first: if you throw me out, I’m calling off the marriage. And if Zhou Youyou still refuses to marry him either, then your whole family is going to be buried under a mountain of crushing debts.”
The faces of everyone in the room darkened instantly. Zhou Zhigang spoke up, “Yaozu, is that any way to talk to your sister!”
Though deeply dissatisfied, Zhou Yaozu caught the warning glare from his dear old dad and had no choice but to clamp his mouth shut. He knew his father wasn’t actually scolding him—he was just trying to keep Tang Xin’er pacified.
Only after silencing them did Tang Xin’er turn back to Zhao Meifang. “Getting back to your previous bright idea, they handed over a bride price of 2,880 yuan, which is already an astronomical sum around these parts—not to mention they also threw in the three-piece gold set. Do you honestly think that even if I went over there on my hands and knees to beg, they would cough up a single extra cent?”
Her words carried a reasonable ring to them, causing the rest of the family to hesitate as doubt crept into their minds.
Terrified that they might try to rope her into another round of emotional blackmail, Tang Xin’er added, “What if I actually marched over there to demand more money, and they decided we as a family were utterly greedy and untrustworthy? What if they demanded we return the bride price in full and called off the marriage entirely?”
The moment she dropped that question, it hit the family like a heavy sledgehammer.
Tang Xin’er raised an eyebrow. Nice try. Did you really think you could emotionally manipulate me?
“Hold on! That’s not right!”
Just as the issue seemed temporarily defused, Zhou Youyou suddenly leaped to her feet. Her eyes fixed on Tang Xin’er with a venomous glare as she stalked toward her step by step.
Tang Xin’er pursed her lips. What kind of circus is this now?
Could Zhou Youyou possibly come up with something even more shameless than Zhao Meifang’s demands?
Stopping right in front of Tang Xin’er, Zhou Youyou locked eyes with her. “Even if a thief broke into the house, stealing this much heavy stuff would have made quite a bit of commotion. We should have woken up. But last night, all of us slept so soundly that we didn’t hear a single sound at all.”
“So, what are you trying to get at?” Tang Xin’er crossed her arms defensively.
Meeting Tang Xin’er’s unflinching gaze made Zhou Youyou’s heart skip an uneasy beat. “You were the one who cooked dinner last night. Did you slip something into the food so we’d all pass out cold?!”
“I have every reason to suspect that you are the one who stole the money!”
“Did you do it because we wouldn’t give you your dowry, so you knocked us all out cold and ransacked the place? It has to be you, doesn’t it?!” By the end of her accusation, Zhou Youyou lunged forward, reaching out to grab Tang Xin’er’s arms.
Tang Xin’er deftly sidestepped her. Hearing those words, a wave of dark amusement washed over her.
As expected of the female lead in a period romance novel—Zhou Youyou’s baseline intelligence was genuinely still functioning.
Still, how was she ever going to admit to it?
She instantly sniffled, switching her acting gear right back on. “How could you accuse me of stealing? I felt awful yesterday afternoon too—it was Mom who forced me out of bed to help cook!”
She put on a masterclass of aggrieved innocence, but Zhou Youyou wasn’t buying a single second of it.
“If you didn’t drug the food, how else do you explain why none of us woke up? Go on, explain yourself!”
Meanwhile, Zhao Meifang, who had just been convinced by Tang Xin’er’s earlier logic and abandoned the idea of sending her to beg Qin Shiyao, felt suspicion creep back into her heart upon hearing Zhou Youyou’s accusation.
After all, Zhou Youyou was a college student with a remarkably sharp train of thought.
Normally, Zhao Meifang always had to wake up to use the bathroom at night, yet last night she hadn’t felt the slightest urge and had slept straight through until dawn. She had simply assumed it was from sheer exhaustion!
Thinking back on it now…
“Xin’er,” Zhao Meifang asked, the thought taking root as she grabbed Tang Xin’er’s hands. “Did you steal that money? If you took it, just hand it back so our family doesn’t have to…”
“Waaah!”
Channeling her inner award-winning actress, Tang Xin’er drew upon every single palace-intrigue and family-drama TV show she had ever binged in her past life. Lowering her voice into a pathetic quiver, she burst into loud sobs. “My life is so tragic!”
“I’m even more miserable than a patch of wild cabbage picked clean in the fields!”
Tang Xin’er wailed at the top of her lungs. “Not only am I being forced to marry in my sister’s place, but now you’re trying to frame me for theft! Where on earth would I even hide the money if I stole it?”
“I’ve been terribly sick these past couple of days and resting at home the whole time. Whether I stepped foot outside or not, you can just go ask the neighbors!”
“Now even my own birth mother refuses to believe me. What did I ever do to deserve this?!” Tang Xin’er cried so heartbreakingly that the group standing around her couldn’t help feeling a twitch of awkwardness.
Especially Zhou Youyou.
Hearing those grievances, Zhao Meifang felt a slight prick of discomfort in her chest, a faint shred of maternal warmth momentarily flickering across her conscience.
Watching the performance, Zhou Youyou couldn’t hold back any longer and interrupted sharply, “If you really didn’t steal a thing, then let us search your room right now to prove your innocence!”
Her reasoning was simple: whoever stole the items last night wouldn’t have had time to smuggle them out of the house yet, meaning they had to be stashed somewhere inside her quarters.
“No way!” Tang Xin’er abruptly stopped crying.
“What do you mean, no way? Why are you refusing a search if you’ve got nothing to hide?”
Initially, Zhou Youyou had only been running on suspicion because she desperately needed a scapegoat. But seeing Tang Xin’er’s sudden, defensive resistance, her suspicions instantly hardened into certainty.
“If you won’t let us search, doesn’t that just prove you’re hiding a guilty conscience?” Zhou Youyou pressed forward relentlessly. “You put on that whole crying act just to milk our sympathy, when you’re the actual thief all along!”
“I am not a thief!” Tang Xin’er retorted righteously. She hadn’t stolen anything; she was simply collecting back-pay for all the suffering the original owner had endured at the hands of this family, converted fair and square into liquid assets.
And since she currently occupied the original owner’s body, she was the original owner!
She was merely taking back what rightfully belonged to her. That didn’t count as stealing!
“Then let us search!” Zhou Youyou gritted her teeth. The others shared the same lingering doubts, all silently falling into line behind Zhou Youyou’s stance.
Watching the family close in around her, Tang Xin’er sneered inwardly. “Fine. But what if you don’t find a single thing? Will you kneel down and apologize to me? Do you have the guts to take that bet?”
Kneel down?
At those words, a flash of pure rage erupted in Zhou Youyou’s eyes. How dare this low-class Tang Xin’er demand that she kneel and apologize?
By what right? Why should a college student bow down and beg forgiveness from someone with no education?
Yet, taking a deep breath to steady herself, she figured she had nothing to lose—she was completely certain Tang Xin’er was the culprit. Even if by some miracle nothing turned up, her family would never actually let her kneel anyway.
And if she backed down now, the nagging doubt would eat her alive.
Bolstered by the presence of her family backing her up, Zhou Youyou snapped, “Fine! Open your door right now!”
Tang Xin’er shrugged indifferently. She turned, shoved open her bedroom door wide, and crossed her arms as she leaned against the frame. “Go ahead and search to your heart’s content. Feel free to tear this entire room down to the bare floorboards if you want!”
Zhao Meifang and Zhou Youyou exchanged glances before the entire family swarmed inside.
Tang Xin’er had always occupied the lowest rung of this household, holding zero presence and living in the poorest conditions. Her room contained virtually nothing of any value.
They tore through her bed, dumped out her modest wardrobe, and checked every corner—they might as well have pried up the floor tiles in search of evidence—yet in the end, they came up completely empty-handed.
As she tossed things aside, Zhou Youyou muttered under her breath in mounting frustration, “How is this possible?”
“If it wasn’t her, why wouldn’t she let us search in the first place?”