Shen Shiqiu found his real daughter almost too kind-hearted, so understanding and reasonable that his mood lifted considerably.
Mrs. Shen reached over and took Lin Jiaojiao’s hand, her voice earnest and edged with tenderness:
“Jiaojiao, you don’t need to defend her. The real victim in all of this is you, that much is plain. Child, from now on you’ll have the entire Shen family at your back. You can speak your mind without ever having to defer to anyone again. Do whatever you want, there’s no need to spare a single thought for her feelings.”
Mrs. Shen lifted her eyes and shot Shen Muyan a withering glance, then went on:
“I’ve already told her: if she wants to stay in the Shen household, fine, but only as your personal maid. From now on, whatever you need, you send her to do it. This is what her parents owe you. A child pays the father’s debts, so it serves her right.”
At those words, Shen Muyan’s heart clenched with pain all over again, a bone-deep chill spreading through her.
Her mother had always been such a gentle person, for her to speak so harshly now… They really were furious. They hated her birth parents, and that hatred had spilled over onto her, too.
Lin Jiaojiao knit her brows, at a loss. “Huh? Make Sister Muyan my personal maid? That… doesn’t seem right, does it?”
“You don’t like her? Then let her crawl back to where she came from, Mommy will pick out a better one for you.”
Mrs. Shen paid no mind whatsoever to the deepening anguish on Shen Muyan’s face. Bent on venting her fury on her real daughter’s behalf, she had no intention of ever showing Shen Muyan a kind face again.
Now, the moment she laid eyes on Shen Muyan’s pretty, delicate features, she thought of the torment her own flesh and blood had endured in that family of animals. She could not forgive the Lins, and she dared not dwell on what her daughter had been suffering during all those years she’d lavished a mother’s love on Shen Muyan.
Just then the bullet comments came flooding up the screen, almost all of them cheering and applauding.
【So satisfying! Mrs. Shen is such a boss. From now on our Jiaojiao is a precious darling with people to love her and take her side~】
【Look at that wretched green tea [1] “green tea bitch”, a girl who acts sweet and innocent while scheming underneath jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620850_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620850_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, sniveling away and milking the pity, putting on her little show again. Good thing Papa and Mama Shen see right through her and won’t coddle her.】
【Rattled, red-hot, all cracked up, Lin Muyan, you could cry yourself to death and not one person would pity you. That’s what you get for being a drama queen and standing in Jiaojiao’s way.】
Eyes rimmed red, Shen Muyan suddenly spotted, amid the avalanche of abuse, one comment that didn’t sting quite so much.
【Setting things back the way they ought to be isn’t wrong in itself, and you can’t really fault Papa and Mama Shen for wanting to make it up to Jiaojiao. But honestly, I feel a little sorry for the green tea too. Her own birth parents still haven’t come to take her home, they don’t seem to want anything to do with her, and yet here she is, singled out by the Shens like this. What exactly did she do wrong?】
The instant that opinion appeared, it was set upon from all sides, and a full-blown bullet comments flame war broke out.
【The world’s turned upside down, listen to you, all high and mighty. So why don’t you go suffer in Jiaojiao’s place, then?】
【Six-six-six [2] “666,” sarcastic mock-applause here jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620850_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620850_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, are you one of Jiaojiao’s anti-fans? What is there to defend about a fake, scheming little witch like Shen Muyan? She’s dark and venomous inside, she’s turned the whole Shen household into a poisonous mess, and you pity her?】
The person who’d just spoken up in Shen Muyan’s defense went quiet for a moment, then posted again, this time in full self-preservation mode:
【Ugh, I’m not trying to whitewash her, but going from luxury back to hardship is hard. Her whole life’s just been turned upside down, and she’s so young, it’s got to be hard to take all at once…】
The bullet comments crowd promptly buried her under mother-insults [3] “paying respects to someone’s mother” = cursing them with crude jabs at their mom jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620850_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620850_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, and she didn’t dare show her face again, diving off to lurk in silence [4] “diving”, going quiet online and just reading, no longer posting jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620850_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620850_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Watching the stream of vicious comments tear into her, Shen Muyan felt as though she were waking from a dream, as if something had struck her square in the head.
It seemed she really had no business staying on in the Shen household, much less any right to resent them for being so heartless.
Put herself in their shoes: her adoptive parents had cherished and cared for her for twenty years, only to discover they’d raised their enemy’s child, while their own flesh and blood had been carried off by her selfish birth mother to some urban slum and brought up a pitiful, skin-and-bones little thing.
If she were in their place, she wouldn’t be able to bear it either.
That commenter was right, let everything go back the way it should be. She wasn’t the Shen family’s real young miss, she was nothing but a counterfeit.
Now that the real young miss had returned, she ought to make room for her and go back to her own birth parents. However she looked at it, she couldn’t shamelessly cling on here any longer.
Seeing Shen Muyan stand frozen at the dining table like a block of wood, Mrs. Shen felt her appetite curdle and was about to bark a few words of reproach, when Shen Muyan suddenly lifted her head, then abruptly dropped to her knees.
“Director Shen, Mrs. Shen, I, Lin Muyan, thank you for twenty years of raising me. I know this is all my birth mother’s fault, that Jiaojiao suffered for twenty years because of it, and I feel terrible about it. I won’t go on taking up the Shen family’s resources. I know that every time you look at me, you think of everything Jiaojiao endured out there, so I’ll leave. I’ll go back to my original home.”
“You raised me for twenty years and poured so much of yourselves into me. Once I’ve earned the money one day, I’ll pay you back every bit and repay your kindness. No matter how much harm my birth mother did you, to me you will always be the parents who raised me. This debt of gratitude I will never, ever forget!”
Through her tears, she finished pouring out these heartfelt words. Shen Muyan, no, she was Lin Muyan now.
Lin Muyan kowtowed to Shen Shiqiu and Mrs. Shen three times, knocking her forehead hard against the floor with each bow [5] kowtow, kneeling and pressing the forehead to the ground, a gesture of deep respect or contrition jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620850_1_5').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620850_1_5', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Shen Shiqiu and Mrs. Shen had never imagined Lin Muyan would say any such thing. She was actually willing to leave of her own accord, to let go of the great shade tree that was the Shen family and go live a hard life with her birth family?
Even the bullet comments boiled over.
【Holy crap, is this for real? She’s acting like a completely different person, did the side characte just wake up to herself?】
【Owning your mistakes and changing for the better, that’s the spirit. Good for you, kid. Auntie’s rooting for you.】
【Wake up, people. This is definitely another one of her green-tea performances, she’s up to no good. The Shen fortune is so vast that a few stray crumbs of it would last an ordinary person a whole lifetime. You really think she’d walk away from it willingly? Don’t be naive.】
The screen filled with 【holy shit】, everyone crying “good grief,” the mother-insult level spiking clean off the charts in an instant.
【The audacity! Almost fell for this wretched green tea’s act again, good thing us sharp-eyed folks caught the tell.】
Lin Muyan watched the comments calmly, too drained even to cry.
What on earth did these people want from her? Stay, and they cursed her, now that she was ready to leave, they spewed at her anyway. They were honestly starting to leave her at a loss.
Still, by now Lin Muyan saw her adoptive parents’ attitude clearly. Staying would only be a thorn in their side and make her own life wretched, leaving was the only right choice.
By now Mrs. Shen had come back to herself, and asked, a little uncertainly, “You really are willing to go? You won’t be thinking of threatening us with anything drastic again?”
At the mention of it, Lin Muyan couldn’t help stealing a few glances at the faint scar on her wrist, a touch of self-mockery on her face.
She must have terrified them yesterday, they’d thought she was slitting her wrist to end her life. In fact, she’d simply been so distraught and worked up that she’d cut herself by accident.
Whatever happened, she would never gamble with her own life. She was twenty, in the very flower of her youth, even stripped of her young-miss status, life still had to go on.
She would just treat those twenty years as a dream of being a rich family’s young miss. Now that the dream was over, it was time to turn back into Cinderella.
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