【Mrs. Shen went way too far with that. What’s wrong with being a carpenter? And how did being a nanny ever offend her? How is that “lowly”? My dad does renovation work, and I think my dad is the greatest dad in the whole world, he holds up our whole family.】
【Right. Working people earn their bread with their own two hands, there’s nothing lowly about it at all. Mrs. Shen really lost her class this time. There’s a whiff of high-society-matron arrogance to her now, even her face has changed.】
【I think it’s fine, honestly. She’s from a wealthy family, in her eyes, carpenters and nannies are simply the bottom rung. And it was Wang Yanqin who was shamelessly despicable first, swapping the kids. It stands to reason Mrs. Shen would resent them.】
【The truth still isn’t clear. I don’t think Wang Yanqin seems like someone with an evil heart. Mrs. Shen, on the other hand, has rubbed me the wrong way these last few times.】
【……】
This time the bullet comments argued themselves blue in the face. It was no longer a one-sided affair, the camp had split right down the middle.
But on the whole, the people supporting Lin Muyan and the Lin family were still in the minority.
This time Rong Muchen had gotten dragged in too, and when the shippers of the Jiaojiao-and-Muchen CP [1] the couple/pairing they “ship” jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620904_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620904_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); saw Lin Muyan climb into Rong Muchen’s car, they cursed up a storm.
The Rolls-Royce swept off grandly right under the noses of Mrs. Shen and Shen Jiaojiao. Mrs. Shen was so furious she stamped her feet on the spot.
“That cheap little wretch, banking on having grown up alongside Rong Muchen, she actually thinks she can be Mrs. Rong. As if she’s worthy!”
Compared to Mrs. Shen’s foot-stamping, Shen Jiaojiao seemed a great deal calmer. She asked, with studied nonchalance:
“Mommy, who was that handsome guy just now? What’s his relationship with Sister Muyan? Are they engaged?”
“Of course not! Rong Muchen is the Rong family’s next successor. The Rongs are one of the top households in the whole country, even our Shen family might not be able to marry up to them. Lin Muyan grew up alongside him from childhood, and Young Master Rong seems to like her a great deal.”
A hard glint shot through Mrs. Shen’s eyes, and then all at once she broke into a smile.
“Don’t you worry, Jiaojiao. This match, Mommy and your daddy will do everything we can to bring it about for you. The Rongs used to be our old neighbors, and they too have a mind to forge a marriage alliance with our Shen family. Lin Muyan is no longer the Shen young miss, so the Rongs are certain not to accept her.”
Shen Jiaojiao’s heart fluttered. She bowed her head, turning some calculation over in her mind.
So they were childhood sweethearts. No wonder they looked so close.
But her mother was right, wealthy families set the greatest store by a match of equal standing. Marriages among the younger generation were usually driven by profit, so how could the Rong family ever permit a carpenter-and-nanny’s daughter through their door?
These past few days she’d come to feel it firsthand, what it meant to belong to a great house, to stand a cut above everyone else.
From here on, she was the true young miss, and Lin Muyan had been reduced to an ordinary person. A wall already stood between them.
“Oh no!” Mrs. Shen suddenly smacked her forehead, her expression going tense.
“Mama, what is it?”
“Let’s get home, fast. I heard a while back that the Rong family is planning to move back to their Half-Mountain villa for a stretch. We can’t let Lin Muyan go to the Rongs.”
**
With a car to ride in, Lin Muyan’s two legs could finally get a bit of a rest.
Rong Muchen kept staring at her, staring until she felt uncomfortable all over, so she just came out and said it.
“If you’ve got questions, go ahead and ask. No need to be so cautious about it.”
Rong Muchen licked his thin lips. He really did have a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but for the moment he didn’t know how to begin.
Seeing him hem and haw, Lin Muyan let out a sigh.
“Muchen, I’m not the Shen family’s young miss anymore. Twenty years ago my birth mother really was working as a nanny in the Shen household. She and Mrs. Shen gave birth one right after the other, and somehow the babies got swapped. Neither side noticed, and so, by some twist of fate, each of them ended up raising the other’s daughter.”
Hearing this fact confirmed once again, Rong Muchen didn’t know for a moment whether to comfort Lin Muyan or how else to react.
He thought it over and asked:
“Did the Shen family… drive you out?”
Lin Muyan knit her brows. “I chose to leave on my own. Mrs. Shen and the others think my birth mother engineered the whole thing, that she swapped the children on purpose. They hate the Lin family.”
“If I’d stayed on at the Shen house, my position would have been very awkward. Leaving was the best option.”
Rong Muchen opened his mouth, then closed it, some emotion he couldn’t put into words stirring in his chest.
Lin Muyan’s own feelings were a tangle too, and she felt a little nervous. She couldn’t help turning her head to look at Rong Muchen.
“Muchen, my standing has plummeted now. Will you still think of me as a friend?” What she really wanted to ask was: is there still a chance for us?
But then she felt she no longer had the standing to ask such a thing. They’d never quite torn through that last thin sheet of paper between them, meaning, at most, they were just a guy and a girl in the ambiguous stage, not yet each other’s partner.
Lin Muyan looked at Rong Muchen expectantly, desperate to hear an affirmative answer from him. If she could hear something like he didn’t care about her status, that he’d set his heart on her, she thought she’d burst into tears on the spot.
Unfortunately, she didn’t.
Rong Muchen hesitated.
She’d only asked whether they were still friends, and he’d hesitated. That alone said everything.
After a moment’s silence, Rong Muchen suddenly smiled. “Of course. Whether your surname is Shen or Lin, I don’t care. We’re the same as we’ve always been. From now on, whenever you run into trouble, you can come to me anytime, and I’ll definitely help you.”
Rong Muchen spoke sincerely, but the burning gaze with which he’d once looked at Lin Muyan seemed to have left his eyes.
Lin Muyan let it go with a smile.
【Oh my god, he hesitated. He definitely minds, deep down. It’s totally over between Lin Muyan and him.】
【How could a rich young master ever marry someone of lowly status as his wife? Wake up, there’s no such thing in this world as a Cinderella marrying the prince. Reality is often brutal.】
【Young Master Rong and Jiaojiao are the heaven-made couple. Lin Muyan can step aside.】
【Rong Muchen is the Rong family’s next heir, after all, how could his vision possibly be so short-sighted? There can’t be more than a handful of people on this earth who could be played for fools by a woman like Lin Muyan.】
【That actually reminds me of that one guy. Shame he was nothing but a small-time cannon fodder, once the apocalypse hits, none of them survive past the first phase.】
The inside of the car fell so silent in an instant it set everyone on edge. Several times Rong Muchen wanted to open his mouth again, but in the end he said nothing.
“Sis, we’ve arrived.”
Lin Xiao spoke up at just the right moment, breaking the awkward standoff and handing Lin Muyan a way out. She got out of the car at once.
Seeing the villa before her, Lin Muyan’s expression abruptly went still. This place wasn’t far from the Shen house, and it was even closer to the Rong family’s Half-Mountain residence.
The standalone villas on Half-Mountain were terraced, stepping up the slope: the Shen villa sat at the bottom, the Rong family’s in the middle, and the one they’d come to view was at the very top, each separated from the next by nearly a hundred meters of vegetation buffer.
How could it be such a coincidence?
“Sis, I’m off to work now. Do you want to come in with me?” Lin Xiao was a little worried about Lin Muyan. Though he didn’t know what exactly was going on between her and that rich young man, he could sense that his little sister was very sad right now.
Lin Muyan drew a deep breath and was just about to answer when she suddenly sensed it, the nameless key she’d tucked away into her White Space had moved.
References[+]