If the apocalypse really was coming, these people wouldn’t get to be smug for many more days. Let them be.
The two walked side by side, passersby now and then casting curious looks at Lin Muyan.
Clearly they all knew Lin Muyan by sight, and had all heard about the Shen family’s affair.
Still, they wouldn’t be like those guards at the gate, chattering and badmouthing people in public, though there was no guarantee they wouldn’t badmouth her behind her back.
As they walked, the surroundings suddenly went quiet. Lin Muyan keenly caught a trace of something amiss, and looked up to find Mrs. Shen coming toward them, with Shen Jiaojiao in tow.
The other party had obviously already spotted Lin Muyan and Lin Xiao. Mrs. Shen pulled at Shen Jiaojiao to leave, but Shen Jiaojiao, after a brief blank moment, took the initiative to walk toward Lin Muyan, bringing Mrs. Shen along.
“Sister Muyan, what are you two doing here?”
Shen Jiaojiao saw Lin Xiao too, but she deliberately avoided his eyes and greeted only Lin Muyan, which made Lin Xiao’s heart ache.
Lin Xiao sighed and sighed inwardly. The sister he’d doted on for so many years was a stranger to him now on meeting again, unwilling even to give him a single word of greeting.
Lin Muyan first gave Shen Jiaojiao a nod, then turned her gaze to Mrs. Shen.
She offered a polite greeting, but Mrs. Shen plainly had no wish to acknowledge her, thinking all the while: how does this person cling on like a vengeful ghost? That day she’d said in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t come bothering them again, and now here she was popping up every few days, enough to make anyone read into it.
The Shens had finally reclaimed their true heiress, and she’d already mapped out Jiaojiao’s plans for the next several years, she couldn’t have it ruined by Lin Muyan.
So Mrs. Shen pulled at Shen Jiaojiao to go, adding:
“Jiaojiao, let’s be off. Tomorrow’s high-society banquet needs careful preparation, don’t waste time here.”
Mrs. Shen brought up tomorrow’s high-society banquet on purpose, meaning to remind Lin Muyan that the Shens were wealthy and prominent, while she now had nothing whatsoever to do with any of it, and shouldn’t go coveting what didn’t belong to her.
At this, Shen Jiaojiao gave a soft little “oh.” “I almost forgot. Lucky Mommy reminded me, there are still eighteen gowns I haven’t tried on. Let’s hurry, then.”
Then Shen Jiaojiao stuck out her little tongue at Lin Muyan apologetically. “Um, sorry about this, Sister Muyan. There’s an important high-society banquet to attend tomorrow, you know how it is. It’s my first time at an event of this caliber, and there are still lots of gowns to try on ahead of time.”
“I have to do trial makeup ahead of time too, every gown needs its own special makeup and styling. It’s my first time at such an important occasion, so I’m a bit nervous, actually.”
“Oh, that reminds me, Sister Muyan, those clothes at home that you used to wear, and the bags you used to carry, they’ve all been gotten rid of. I told Mom and Dad I’m not picky, that I wouldn’t mind wearing or using things my sister had used before, but Mom and Dad said they owed me twenty years, so how could they let me wear old clothes? So they just threw it all out.”
“Mom and Dad bought me lots of pretty new clothes and bags and jewelry instead. The things you used to use should still be over at the trash station now, all packed up in cardboard boxes, they shouldn’t be dirty. If you still want them, you could go…”
Shen Jiaojiao prattled on to herself, but the more Lin Muyan listened, the more wrong it felt, and she cut her off at once.
“Mrs. Shen, my brother and I have things to attend to, so we won’t keep you and your daughter from your walk. Brother, let’s go.”
Lin Muyan flatly ignored Shen Jiaojiao, took Lin Xiao by the arm, and left, leaving behind two figures, both stunned and seething.
“Hmph. All those years of upbringing, wasted. Back with them only a few days and already so ill-mannered, inferior genes, just as I thought.”
Mrs. Shen sneered the cutting remark, then turned to find her daughter’s expression a little off, and hurried to console her.
“Jiaojiao, pay her no mind. I really did spoil her rotten before, I never imagined she was such a rude little wretch. From now on you don’t need to be courteous to her when you see her. They owe you, you don’t have to spare a thought for their feelings.”
“Jiaojiao, remember this: we Shen family folk are ten thousand times nobler in station than they are. In ancient times, they’d have had to kowtow and bow to us. Understand?”
Shen Jiaojiao nodded obediently, masking well the surge of superiority at the bottom of her eyes. “I understand, Mommy. But maybe Sister Muyan really was in a rush, that’s why she left before hearing me out. Why would they come here? Should we go take a look?”
At this Mrs. Shen’s first instinct was to refuse, but thinking it over, she found it odd too, what were Lin Muyan and that brother of hers doing here? How could they possibly qualify to get in?
After resting only a short while, mother and daughter turned and followed after them.
Lin Muyan had no idea yet that Mrs. Shen and Shen Jiaojiao were trailing her from behind, neither too far nor too close.
Lin Xiao was downcast, sighing and groaning.
That whole speech of Shen Jiaojiao’s just now had been truly unpleasant to hear. She hadn’t finished her sentence, but her meaning was already plain: she’d actually been suggesting that Muyan go to the dump and pick back up the trash the Shens had thrown away.
The Shen family were a bit too heartless, and more than a bit insulting too, they’d sooner toss everything out than pack it up and let Muyan take it.
Lin Xiao had heard from his mother that when Muyan came back to the Lin house, she’d had only a simple bundle plus an old box of some years’ age, no other luggage at all, and the clothes she wore were ill-fitting old things.
How could the Shen family be like this?
The bullet comments had been very quiet, only the odd line popping out now and then. What startled Lin Muyan even more was that they actually weren’t getting worked up at the sight of Shen Jiaojiao.
Before, the bullet comments would long since have started mindlessly fawning over Shen Jiaojiao, but this time, they were unsettlingly silent, to a degree she wasn’t used to.
【Do you guys get the feeling that something about Jiaojiao seems… different?】
【Those things she just said, why did they sound so…】
The bullet comments fell into a deathly hush. Lin Muyan wasn’t surprised.
Just now, Shen Jiaojiao had deliberately flaunted, in front of her, that she was off to attend a high-society banquet, going on about how busy she was, gowns to try, makeup to test, with a distinct air of meaning to needle her on purpose.
Once upon a time, these were the things Lin Muyan had to do: the eighteen gowns were hers to try on, the makeup and styling hers to test in advance, the high-society banquet a high-caliber affair she’d attended many times.
But now, all of it belonged to Shen Jiaojiao, and had not the slightest thing to do with Lin Muyan anymore.
Returned to its rightful owner, you could say, but Shen Jiaojiao’s little performance just now had been a touch too calculated.
What was worse, she’d gone out of her way to tell Lin Muyan the very fact that the Shen couple had thrown out the clothes Lin Muyan used to wear and the bags she’d carried, and made a point of saying that, though the things had been tossed as trash, they were still at the trash station and could be found.
Was this an attempt to send Lin Muyan picking through the garbage?
Lin Muyan felt rather displeased. The bullet comments still cursed her as a green-tea wretch, yet to her, Shen Jiaojiao was the real green tea, and not a particularly clever one at that. That little speech just now hadn’t been so much as dressed up, anyone with sense could hear at once that it didn’t ring true.
Seeing that Lin Xiao looked thoroughly put out too, Lin Muyan sighed inwardly.
“Don’t dwell on it. Since she’s chosen not to acknowledge that she was ever your sister, then forget about her. Some people simply aren’t worth holding on to.”
Lin Xiao let out a muffled “mm,” understanding in his heart that none of it could ever go back. Shen Jiaojiao had scorned the Lin family for being poor before, now she wanted even less to have anything to do with them. He ought to know his place, and not go disturbing her again.
From here on, they’d be people of two entirely different worlds. The Lin family was at the bottom, while Shen Jiaojiao would climb to the clouds, standing at heights they couldn’t dream of reaching, looking down on them.