Lin Muyan took in every one of these guards’ ugly expressions, and the feeling in her heart was beyond words.
In the past, when she’d come and gone through Half-Mountain Villa, these guards had vied to salute her, to greet her, every one of them wearing a look of eager flattery.
And now? Their mockery couldn’t be more obvious.
A shift this enormous was a wonder to behold.
In a mere two days she’d come to know what was meant by the warmth and chill of human feeling, the fickleness of the world.
Once a person falls on hard times, even the roadside dogs will bark a couple of times at you.
To all this she could only respond with a laugh, using a careless smile to mask the sliver of helplessness inside.
But a few of the guards had no decency on their tongues and wouldn’t let up, wanting to go on watching Lin Muyan make a fool of herself, they even offered to help her get in touch with the Shens.
“Miss Lin, would you like us to have property management contact Mrs. Shen for you? You may not be the Shen family’s young miss anymore, but what if the Shens agree to let you in?”
“Hahaha, right, just wait, then. And move the little pickup farther off, there are lots of distinguished owners out for a stroll at this hour, and your truck’s far too filthy. Park it well away, and go wait inside the guard booth.”
Get Lin Muyan into the guard booth, sharing one room with this pack of “stinking guards”, wouldn’t that be a good laugh?
The guards didn’t want to miss this chance to kick her while she was down, but Lin Muyan suddenly glared at them, eyes blazing.
“Don’t push it too far! I may no longer be an owner here, but I can still go file a complaint about you with property management. Is this how your staff manual teaches you to man a post?”
“And yes, I’ve left the Shens, so what? You just think I’ve fallen on hard times now, and you’ve all come to watch me make a fool of myself, haven’t you? Go ahead, watch all you like. I don’t care.”
“People like you, fawning on the high and trampling the low [1] flattering those above you while bullying those beneath jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620868_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620868_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, with that petty, small-minded look, even if you got some status, no one would respect you. Clowns!”
By her own measure, when Lin Muyan had been at the Shens’, she’d never once felt herself superior because of her status or her family, never once lorded it over a single other person, never once looked down on these guards. She had a clear conscience toward anyone.
Dressed down by Lin Muyan, the guards lost face, each of them flushing red, at a loss for any comeback.
Lin Muyan paid them no more mind, parked the truck by the roadside, and fished out her phone to call Lin Xiao.
The bullet comments fell silent for a while before a few finally trickled out.
【Tsk tsk tsk, morals in decline, hearts grown cold, the world gone heartless. Suddenly I think she’s kind of pitiable. Now anyone at all can stomp on her, that’s got to be a huge blow.】
【Isn’t it, though? The once lofty young miss is now a down-and-out fake heiress that even the guards can spit at. Someone with a weaker constitution would’ve cracked long ago.】
【Pity her? Are you guys joking? How exactly is she pitiable, I’m asking?】
【Yeah, yeah, get a grip, all of you. How is she the least bit pitiable?】
【She snatched Jiaojiao’s Golden Shovel, unlocked the spaces, dug up treasure and cashed in for over twenty million, so she got needled by a few guards, big deal. It’s not like she lost a chunk of flesh. Our Jiaojiao suffered a solid twenty years of hardship!】
The bullet comments had been on the verge of sympathizing with Lin Muyan, but the instant they brought up Shen Jiaojiao, they all started squawking in unison again, the whole tone reverting to the wall-to-wall cursing of the very beginning.
When Lin Muyan finished her call and returned to the front of the guard booth, the guards were still whispering among themselves, throwing the occasional contemptuous glance her way.
Lin Muyan couldn’t be bothered with them anymore, and quietly waited for Lin Xiao to come bring her in.
After a long wait, Lin Xiao came running over, out of breath, a bright smile on his face, he assumed his sister had come specially to find him because she was worried about him.
“Sis, sorry I’m late.”
Heedless of the sweat he’d worked up running on a cold winter’s night, Lin Xiao was overjoyed beyond words to see Lin Muyan.
“You didn’t have the shuttle cart bring you?”
Lin Xiao shook his head. “The shuttle carts only serve owners and honored guests. Agents like us don’t qualify.”
Not only were they barred from the shuttle carts, they weren’t even allowed to ride in on electric scooters or bicycles, only to go on foot.
Half-Mountain Villa was vast in area, for the villas farther from the mountain gate, it was a walk of several hours!
“But I got lucky, I borrowed a self-balancing scooter. Sis, what did you need me for?”
Lin Muyan hadn’t said on the phone that she wanted to go look at that unclaimed villa together, so Lin Xiao hadn’t thought to scrounge up a vehicle for her.
The guards in the booth pointed and muttered at the two siblings, still with a touch of malice.
“The two of them really do look alike. And her brother’s actually an agent, heh.”
“Just a house-seller. I heard that Lin family’s saddled with a pile of debt too. I bet Lin Muyan keeps coming around here to squeeze money out of the Shens.”
“That’s my guess as well. I heard that the day the Shens swept her out the door, she took nothing with her. Word is her birth mother used to work as a nanny at the Shens, made the swap out of malice, took the real Shen heiress back, and tormented her for twenty years.”
“Tsk tsk tsk, isn’t this just a real-life Swapping the Leopard Cat for the Crown Prince? [2] a classic tale of a baby switched at birth jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620868_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620868_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); This whole family’s revolting. This Lin Muyan’s probably a white-eyed wolf too.”
The siblings naturally heard the guards’ tongue-wagging. Lin Xiao couldn’t bear it, they could talk about him all they liked, but never about the Lin family, and never about his sister.
Jiaojiao and Muyan had both been swapped by mistake. Jiaojiao was pitiable, did that mean Muyan deserved to be cursed? Wasn’t she just a child at the time too?
What was more, all this “tormented for twenty years”, these people knew nothing of the inside story and slandered the family the moment they opened their mouths, with no regard for the facts. The Lins had never wronged Shen Jiaojiao, her mental illness wasn’t something they’d wanted to see either.
If anyone was truly owed, it was perhaps Xiaonuan, in their parents’ eyes.
Not long after Xiaonuan was born, Jiaojiao fell ill, causing trouble all day long. Mom and Dad poured all their energy into her, taking her to seek treatment whenever they had a free moment, and gave little care, in return, to their youngest, last-born daughter.
Jiaojiao turning out the way she had wasn’t from being abused. In the doctor’s words, Shen Jiaojiao’s own cognition had gone awry: she scorned the poor and worshipped the rich, unable to bear in the slightest the fact that she was a poor family’s child.
Some people, perhaps, are born into this world to take revenge.
Eyes red, Lin Xiao wanted to march over and have it out with them, but a single look from Lin Muyan talked him down.
“Let it go. The mouths are on them, let them say what they like. Let’s go in, I want to see that villa you mentioned.”
Lin Xiao drew a deep breath. Seeing that more people were coming and going now, he did as Lin Muyan said and brought her into Half-Mountain Villa.
This time the guards didn’t obstruct them, though their contemptuous eyes never once left the pair.
Seeing that Lin Xiao was still sulking, Lin Muyan couldn’t help laughing.
“You’re not good at arguing either, are you?”
Lin Xiao flushed, then lowered his head.
“It’s all because I’m too slow with my tongue. I can’t throw myself into it like they do, every word a barb.”
Lin Muyan thought to herself: just as she’d figured. She and her big brother were rather alike, neither much good at quarreling or cursing people out. Those guards’ mouths ran filthy, really getting into it with them would only make things hard on yourself in the end.
“Forget it. Every day they’re bowing and scraping to the people here, watching luxury cars come and go, they’ve probably been bottled up so long that, finally catching sight of an unlucky wretch like me, of course they’ve got to grab the chance for a bit of mouth-pleasure. I don’t care, let them talk.”
References[+]