“What do I mean? You ask what I mean? If you came to know this owner as the Shen family’s young miss, then this house shouldn’t be yours.”
“If the transfer was initiated earlier than your departure, then you were still a member of my Shen family at the time. What capacity do you have to manage a mansion this size? It ought to be taken over by my Shen family.”
Mrs. Shen’s robber’s logic refreshed Lin Muyan’s understanding of her adoptive mother all over again.
Ever since she’d jumped clear of the Shen family and become the fake heiress standing opposed to them, her adoptive mother seemed to have turned into a different person, frighteningly unfamiliar.
【Huh? Did I hear that right? How does Mrs. Shen even say something like that out loud?】
【Whoa, fam, is this right? Is this still that dignified, gracious high-society matron?】
【Looks like as long as you’re a human being, you can’t escape the law of profit above all. This mansion’s worth billions, and the moment you sell it you can cash out on the spot, who’s going to think a few billion is too little? Even a rich matron who sleeps in a pile of money every day would turn green with envy.】
The bullet comments started analyzing the current situation for Lin Muyan, and a lot of them felt Mrs. Shen’s scheming was so loud the abacus beads had practically pinged her in the face.
【If the mansion’s transfer paperwork was processed before Lin Muyan broke from the Shen family, then Mrs. Shen really might pull this off, after all, back then they were still Lin Muyan’s legal guardians.】
【But my guess is this mansion is something Lin Muyan “dug up” with the Golden Shovel, so Mrs. Shen’s scheme is probably going to come up empty. With this house, Lin Muyan can finally get her safe house sorted, right?】
【Oh man, neighbors with both the Shen family and the Rong family, now there’s a show to watch.】
Lin Muyan’s gaze swept across the bullet comments, then came to rest on Mrs. Shen.
Shen Jiaojiao gave it some thought just then, and tugged Mrs. Shen aside for a whispered word.
“Mommy, why not have Daddy come over? They’ve surely had the documents and paperwork all prepared from the start, so they’re not afraid of those people checking. We two women have no real intimidating power, we need Daddy to come and talk to Sister Muyan.”
“Mommy, you don’t know, the Lin family owes a lot of money. My adoptive mother, she…” Shen Jiaojiao trailed off, wearing the look of someone with no end of complaints about her adoptive mother.
She didn’t need to keep going. Mrs. Shen could roughly guess the character of that Lin family mother. With a frown, she already had her phone out, sending a message off to Shen Shiqiu.
“Sister Muyan is, after all, just a fresh graduate. You all protected her too well before, so she’s easily deceived. If the house really does get transferred to her, the Lin family is sure to seize it for themselves, they might even toss Sister Muyan out the door in the end. Then Sister Muyan would be too pitiful for words.”
At this Mrs. Shen nodded along again and again, and patted the back of Shen Jiaojiao’s hand, looking thoroughly consoled.
“My good girl, you’re just too kind-hearted. But you’re right. As for Muyan, well, we really did protect her well before, but she didn’t learn a single one of the Shen family’s virtues. There’s no telling but that she’ll be swindled by the Lin family, and a mansion that size falling into her hands really would be a waste.”
Mrs. Shen thought to herself: the Shen family had commanded the business world for years, every one of them a commercial elite, every one of them keenly shrewd, and yet, having raised Lin Muyan for twenty years, the moment she went back to that petty-bourgeois birth family of hers, she let herself be played like a puppet. Truly useless.
Fortunately, her biological daughter seemed to be different. Jiaojiao had both a kind character and a sharp, decisive mind, even after suffering twenty years in that shabby Lin household, she was still this outstanding.
A hundred times better than Lin Muyan.
Lin Muyan watched calmly as the mother-and-daughter pair whispered in their corner, then turned and confidently asked the several executives:
“How does it look? Is there any problem with my transfer paperwork?”
The few of them looked it over again and again, and made several phone calls as well, all of which confirmed the situation was genuine and the procedure properly done.
So the one in charge said with a smile:
“No problem at all. Miss Lin, if you should need anything, feel free to come to the estate management anytime.”
Hearing this, Mrs. Shen immediately raised her volume and shouted.
“How can there be no problem? Did you check carefully or not? This house sat empty for ages, and then all of a sudden she’s had it transferred to her name, don’t you find that strange?”
The few of them exchanged glances. The documents really were in order, and they’d all heard about the Shen family’s baby-swap business too. So this Miss Lin was the fake heiress the Shens had raised by mistake for twenty years. Mrs. Shen’s current attitude plainly suggested she didn’t want this fake heiress to have an easy time of it.
But the whole string of procedures genuinely had no flaw to be found, and they had no enforcement authority.
“Mrs. Shen, if you dispute the ownership of this house, perhaps you should bring in a lawyer. Though…”
Before he could finish, Mrs. Shen gave a cold snort.
“A pack of useless rice-buckets [1] good-for-nothings, 饭桶 jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2620906_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2620906_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. I’ll have my husband bring the company’s legal team over right now. There absolutely is a problem with this transfer.”
“Lin Muyan, I know you’re sore over being driven out of the Shen family, but for the sake of the twenty years I raised you, you’d best hand this mansion over, otherwise you’ll surely come out the loser.”
Mrs. Shen swept Lin Xiao with an unfriendly glance. Jiaojiao had said the Lin family owed an enormous debt, so not only did she have to find a way to wrest this house from Lin Muyan’s hands, she also had to guard against the Lin family coming to extort and blackmail.
Lin Muyan’s brows knit tightly, and she couldn’t help letting out a sigh.
“Mrs. Shen, there must have been a misunderstanding between the Lin and Shen families over what happened back then, that’s why you’ve always disliked the Lin family, and now you don’t much like me either. But you shouldn’t take your bad temper out on me by trying to seize a house that belongs to me.”
Mrs. Shen blew her top.
“Your house? Lin Muyan, do you want to listen to what you’re saying? Where would you get the means to buy a mansion like this? Why would the former owner kindly transfer the house to you? If you weren’t the Shen family’s young miss, would they have given you the time of day? Would you have even known them?”
“All of this is something you only got because you were once the Shen family’s young miss. Now that you’ve broken away from the Shen family, you turn around and act like you don’t know us?”
Lin Muyan was provoked to anger too. Mrs. Shen really was being unreasonable to the point of absurdity.
“First of all, the house was only transferred after I left the Shen family, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Shen family. And secondly, weren’t you the ones who wanted to drive me out?”
Lin Muyan had no desire to waste more breath on her, so she simply tossed one of the pages down in front of Mrs. Shen. On it, plain as day, was the date of the transfer application, just a few days ago, by which time Shen Muyan had already become Lin Muyan.
At the sight, Mrs. Shen’s heart gave a lurch, and she clenched her fists.
Shen Jiaojiao’s expression shifted, and she suddenly murmured something into Mrs. Shen’s ear. At once Mrs. Shen’s eyes lit up, and she rallied her spirits again.
She looked at Lin Muyan with a cold sneer.
“Can you even come up with all the various fees for this transfer? Do you think, with your current financial means, you have the ability to obtain this mansion?”
“And let me put the ugly truth out there first, don’t you dream of taking another cent from the Shen family!”
Lin Muyan was beyond disappointed, not because of Mrs. Shen’s jeer, nor because she’d said Lin Muyan couldn’t take another cent from the Shen family, but because of that arrogant, looking-down-from-on-high attitude, which left her feeling she didn’t know this person at all.
She remembered clearly that Mrs. Shen had once even taught her that, even as the young miss of a great house, one must maintain a proper measure of magnanimity and tact, that one mustn’t, on account of one’s high standing, put on the foul temper of a wealthy young miss out in public and bring shame upon the Shen name.
And now? With this face Mrs. Shen was showing, where had she put her own poise and dignity?
References[+]