In the first month of winter, while every household was immersed in the festive joy of the Lunar New Year, the Shen family alone was in complete chaos.
Before the New Year, Shen Shiqiu and his wife discovered that the daughter they had raised for nearly twenty years was actually the daughter of one of the Shen family’s former servants. Meanwhile, their real biological daughter had been suffering miserably all those years in that servant’s household.
Enraged, Shen Shiqiu became determined to drive out the fake heiress, Shen Muyan, and bring back their real daughter, Lin Jiaojiao, to make up for everything she had endured.
Overnight, Shen Muyan fell from being the pampered young miss of the wealthy Shen family, one of S City’s great financial powers, into the dust, becoming the child of a poor family and the enemy of the Shen household.
Just yesterday, after much effort, Shen Shiqiu and his wife finally brought Lin Jiaojiao back to the Shen family. They quickly renamed her Shen Jiaojiao, acknowledged her ancestry, and removed Shen Muyan from the household registry.
Watching the family reunite, Shen Muyan could not accept it for a moment and actually threatened self-harm in hopes that her parents would let her stay.
Fearing that Shen Muyan might truly do something reckless and die in the Shen household, Shen Shiqiu and his wife reluctantly allowed her to remain there temporarily.
【What a scheming green tea bitch. A fake heiress through and through. She’s really good at manipulation, using a self-pity act to force the Shen couple to keep her around so she can continue enjoying the life of the rich.】
【Chairman Shen and Madam Shen are still too kind. They should’ve kicked her out immediately. That servant mother of hers was vicious enough to switch the children. A fake heiress like her is rotten at the core. Keeping her around will only bring trouble!】
【She spent twenty years living as a wealthy young lady. She’s already used to a life of luxury and excess. How could she willingly go live a hard life? If I were her, I’d shamelessly refuse to leave too. After all, she was their daughter for twenty years, there has to be some emotional attachment.】
【This is ridiculous! This is an apocalypse novel! Someone like her absolutely cannot be kept around…】
【……】
Shen Muyan groggily opened her eyes, her head pounding violently. Before she could fully regain her senses, she saw the ceiling covered with dense scrolling bullet comments. She skimmed through them briefly, and the more she read, the more alarmed she became.
What were these bullet comments about? What apocalypse novel? Natural disasters, human catastrophes, all kinds of bizarre things?
Why were they constantly cursing at her? Calling her a scheming bitch, a slut, and an ungrateful wretch? She clearly hadn’t done anything at all.
Yesterday, she had suddenly been told that she was a fake heiress. The shock of that news was no less than someone telling her that after living as a human for twenty years, she was actually a dog.
The parents who had loved her for twenty years, the family that had lived together happily all this time, how had she suddenly become the child of an enemy?
【She’s probably plotting something again. Just looking at that aggrieved expression of hers pisses me off. She stole Jiaojiao’s identity as the Shen family’s daughter for twenty years, and now she’s the one acting wronged?】
【Exactly! Hurry up and let the apocalypse come already. Once our Jiaojiao gets her golden finger, we’ll see how much she cries then!】
The bullet comments never stopped. Shen Muyan remained half doubtful and half convinced when suddenly there was a knock at the door. Madam Shen had come.
“Lin Muyan, are you awake? I’m coming in.”
Unlike the gentle tone she used in the past, Madam Shen’s attitude toward Shen Muyan was now as cold as ice. She had even changed her surname back.
Madam Shen pushed open the door and, upon seeing Shen Muyan sitting on the bed, felt that pent-up resentment surge up again.
The daughter she had raised for twenty years had turned out to be swapped by a vicious servant who schemed to let her own daughter rise from obscurity and become a phoenix. Meanwhile, her real biological daughter, the true jewel of the Shen family, had been taken to a rundown urban village and raised in poverty and hardship for twenty years!
Yesterday, when her husband brought Shen Jiaojiao home, she could hardly believe her eyes. In this day and age, there was actually still a girl in S City dressed in such ragged clothes.
Her figure was so thin she was practically skin and bones. Her deeply sunken eye sockets and pale, cracked lips made it obvious at a glance that she was severely malnourished.
At the time, Madam Shen had trembled with rage, feeling as though a blazing fire were burning in her chest. Why should her daughter have suffered like that? And meanwhile, completely unaware of the truth, she had lovingly raised the enemy’s daughter for twenty years.
In a moment of overwhelming anger, she could not stop herself from slapping Shen Muyan across the face.
That slap was delivered with such force, as if she wanted to make Shen Muyan repay all the suffering her real daughter had endured over the past twenty years.
Even now, five finger marks still stood vividly on Shen Muyan’s face, shocking to look at.
“You’re up?” Madam Shen took a deep breath, suppressing the complicated emotions in her heart, and spoke coldly to Shen Muyan.
“You shouldn’t have used your life to threaten us into letting you stay yesterday. You have no right to do that!”
“Jiaojiao suffered for twenty years in the Lin family in your place, yet she doesn’t blame or hate you. She even spoke up for you, but instead you threw a tantrum.”
Madam Shen became more emotional as she spoke, her face flushing red.
As expected of the child born to an uneducated servant with rotten morals, once faced with real hardship, her true personality and character were exposed.
Fortunately, although her biological daughter had been raised weak and frail, her heart was exceptionally kind. The harsh environment had not stripped away her integrity. She truly was a child of the Shen family.
“I can see there’s nothing seriously wrong with your health. Come downstairs for breakfast. After you eat, clean up this room. Jiaojiao is back now, so naturally this room should go to her. You’ll move into the guest room on the first floor.”
Shen Muyan froze for a moment and slowly raised her head.
“Mom, you’re not driving me away anymore?”
Unexpectedly, Madam Shen immediately snapped at her.
“Don’t call me Mom. I’m not your mother! From now on, you should address me as Madam. We originally planned to send you back, but Jiaojiao was kind enough to persuade us to let you stay.”
“However, you are no longer the Shen family’s young miss. From now on, you’ll serve as Jiaojiao’s attendant. She still hasn’t finished her education, while you relied on the Shen family’s resources to earn a degree from a top university. To make it up to Jiaojiao, you’ll work as a maid from now on and take responsibility for looking after her.”
After saying all this, Madam Shen felt somewhat relieved.
That servant had used such disgraceful means to push her own flesh and blood into the position of a rich young lady while treating the true heiress of a wealthy family like worthless trash. Since that was the case, she would drag the fake heiress down into the mud and make her serve her precious daughter as a maid, working like a beast of burden to repay that sinful debt!
The hope in Shen Muyan’s eyes gradually dimmed.
Her parents truly hated her now. They were actually making her become Lin Jiaojiao’s maid.
【There she goes acting again! Seriously, what gives her the right?】
【Our Jiaojiao really shouldn’t be such a saint. Does this scheming bitch look like she has any awareness of being a servant? Once the apocalypse arrives, she’s definitely going to stir up trouble again.】
【Let her jump around for a few more days. Our Jiaojiao isn’t someone to be trifled with. Her good days are almost over. I’m just waiting for her to get herself killed with all her antics!】
Madam Shen slammed the door and left. After finally composing herself, Shen Muyan went downstairs, only to see that the seat at the dining table that had once belonged exclusively to her was now occupied by a girl as thin as a skeleton. Tears uncontrollably streamed down her face.
“Mom, Dad… do you really not love your Muyan anymore?”
Shen Shiqiu was carefully removing fish bones for Lin Jiaojiao. Seeing Shen Muyan like this, he became so angry that he slammed down his bowl and roared:
“Stop acting pitiful in front of me! Look at what that vicious mother of yours did to my Jiaojiao! And you still have the nerve to cry?”
Shen Muyan was so frightened by Shen Shiqiu’s shout that she forgot to cry altogether. Twisting the corner of her clothes in her hands, she stood there at a loss.
She did not understand. She had done nothing wrong, so why did they seem to be placing all the blame on her?
Was it her fault that she had occupied the magpie’s nest? Was Lin Jiaojiao being raised so thin and frail something she had personally caused?
Even if the child swap had happened, it was not her fault. She had never intended to become an ungrateful wretch who, after enjoying twenty years as a wealthy young lady, would spread her wings and abandon the people who raised her.
She would acknowledge their kindness in raising her and repay them a hundredfold.
Just then, Lin Jiaojiao, who had been keeping her head lowered and acting timid the whole time, suddenly reached out and grabbed Shen Shiqiu’s arm, speaking softly and cautiously:
“Dad, don’t blame Sister Muyan. She didn’t want things to turn out this way either. She’s actually a victim too. We can’t put all the blame on her.”