The thought made a wicked smile spread across her face, and seeing it, Wu Hongfei couldn’t help but feel a chill of fear.
Whoever the young miss was planning to deal with, it didn’t look like things would end well for them. There was nothing he could do—he could only silently mourn for that poor soul for three seconds.
“Then Xiao Bai and I will take our leave,” he said. “Young Miss, enjoy yourself.”
He pulled Song Zhibai to his feet. They clearly didn’t want to interrupt the young miss’s fun.
Lu Shiman nodded. Once they left, Li Weimian could no longer hold herself back and rushed forward.
“What dirty trick are you plotting now?!”
“Did you tell them to go after my mother and me?!”
She spoke excitedly, her eyes blazing. Ever since a few days ago, Lu Shiman had become different—no longer treating her with fake kindness. She was still brainless, sure, but something about her was unmistakably different.
She’d even tried to drive a wedge between her and Father. If her mother hadn’t smoothed things over, she would’ve already been thrown out.
Why hadn’t someone just dragged a person like this off to the cowshed already?
Why was she still walking around freely?
If Father hadn’t forbidden her, she would’ve attacked her today no matter what.
“What are you, exactly?”
“Don’t flatter yourselves. You’re nothing more than a nanny Father hired to take care of me. Worth targeting?”
“I can make you pack up and get lost with a single sentence. Don’t think too highly of yourselves.”
Lu Shiman spoke slowly and calmly, casting her a glance filled with contempt—like she was looking at a stray cat or dog by the roadside.
Li Weimian trembled with rage. She clenched her fists tightly, bit down on her lip, tears surging into her eyes.
She was Father’s child too—so why could she only be introduced as a nanny?
Why did she have to live beneath Lu Shiman?
“What are you staring at? Have you swept the floor? Wiped the dust? Washed the clothes? Bought groceries?”
“You can’t even do basic things properly—how do you have the nerve to ask for wages?”
Lu Shiman gently set her teacup down and stood up.
Perhaps Li Weimian was malnourished, or perhaps the author deliberately made the heroine petite and fragile—but when Lu Shiman stood up, she carried an inexplicable pressure that bore down on Li Weimian.
Li Weimian pressed her lips together and tried to straighten her back, but no matter how hard she tried, the difference in height was impossible to make up.
“Heh. Some people can struggle their whole lives and still never catch up to others.”
The words carried a double meaning as Lu Shiman smiled sweetly at her.
After all, yelling and hitting got boring after a while. Cold mockery worked far better—especially on someone with a strong sense of pride like Li Weimian.
Li Weimian’s tears spilled out instantly. Red-eyed, she sniffed hard, countless retorts flashing through her mind, yet none of them could make it out.
That pitiful, fragile look would’ve made any man’s heart ache—but Lu Shiman’s heart was made of stone.
“How many times have I told you—crying too much wastes your good fort—”
Before she could finish, Li Weimian’s mental defenses completely collapsed. She turned and ran straight out.
“As expected of a little white lotus,” Lu Shiman muttered. “Can’t even curse properly. So stupid.”
Li Weimian ran out of the Lu residence. As for Xiang Hongmei, she was truly doing the work of a nanny—washing clothes, cooking, mopping, sweeping—the whole household depended on her. She’d already gone out to buy groceries.
Thinking about it carefully, Li Shichuan was quite the schemer: hiring a hardworking, devoted nanny without spending a single cent, enjoying companionship in bed, yet refusing to give her any status. In that sense, it was pitiful.
But no matter how pitiful, it still wasn’t worse than her own situation—her family fortune stolen, and she still had to take the blame.
She clicked her tongue, pulled the key out of her storage space, and looked down at it. A faint smile curved her lips as she leisurely headed toward the most inconspicuous room in the Lu house.
She entered the room, locked the door, and opened the hidden chamber.
Once the secret door swung open, the Lu family’s century-old fortune lay before her. Most of the contents had been converted into gold.
“So greedy. Carrying this much gold all the way to Hong Kong without incident—if not for author favoritism, he’d have been killed and robbed on the ship.”
She opened one chest, her eyes flashing with amazement at the neatly stacked gold bars inside.
And it wasn’t just one chest—there were nearly ten of them.
Another large chest contained jewelry, all easy to liquidate.
There were also smaller boxes filled with deeds—this house, along with several villas and arcaded buildings.
Lu Shiman closed the chest and chuckled softly. Li Shichuan must’ve started planning his escape to Hong Kong the moment Lu Hansheng died. Selling off this much property would’ve taken years.
She swept a glance around, closed all the chests, and with a wave of her hand, stored everything into her space.
Afterward, she shut the door, erased all traces, and locked it again.
“Done. Now comes the framing.”
She dusted off her hands, satisfaction filling her eyes.
With this handled, one major worry was finally gone.
Holding the key, she strolled toward Xiang Hongmei’s room. Seeing the door wide open, her smile widened.
How convenient—no need to think about picking a lock. She could just walk right in.
She scanned the room and hid the key inside a shoe Xiang Hongmei had set aside.
But that alone wasn’t enough. You had to risk something to catch something.
She glanced around again and pulled a gold bar from her space, tucking it into the bed frame.
“Next…”
Leaving the room, her gaze settled on Li Shichuan’s bedroom.
If she wanted to watch dogs bite dogs, how could Li Shichuan still have money?
Xiang Hongmei and her daughter must be holding quite a bit of money he’d given them. The question was—
What mattered more?
Money, or affection?
A teasing glint flashed through her eyes. She boldly opened Li Shichuan’s door and swept away everything valuable inside—including every last bit of cash.
After finishing, she picked up a pen and paper from the desk.
I was short on cash, so I took the money from the room. (￣︶￣)
After thinking it over, she stuck the note in the most conspicuous place, afraid Li Shichuan might miss it.
Only then did Lu Shiman slowly leave the house.
The stage was set. Now all that remained was to wait for the show to begin.
As she stepped out of the Lu residence, Xiang Hongmei came rushing back in, too hurried even to greet her.
“Looks like Li Laizi has entered the stage.”
Lu Shiman’s smile grew even brighter. She wandered around outside for a while, timing it perfectly before heading home for lunch.
The moment she entered, she saw Li Shichuan’s face—dark as the bottom of a pot.
“Dad, your face is so dark—are you sick or something?”
She smiled sweetly, not feeling guilty in the slightest.
“Shiman,” Li Shichuan asked grimly, suppressing the urge to slap her, “what have you been doing lately that you’re so short on money?”
“I went out to be a good person,” she replied cheerfully. “Wasn’t Grandpa the same? Helping others makes you feel better.”
“Besides, our family isn’t short on money. Isn’t it nice to do some good deeds?”
“And if we really run out, we can just open the secret room. Grandpa left plenty of money in there.”
Her tone was casual as she deliberately steered the conversation toward the hidden chamber.
“Don’t tell me there’s no money left in the secret room?”