That longevity lock was made when her daughter was a month old.
Her father, Jiang ManCang, had emptied his life savings of silver to have it specially crafted at the best silver building in Peng City.
No wonder Chen Huaiyuan wanted to trick her out of the lock.
He was afraid this longevity lock would expose Lin Yingxue’s true identity!
She forced her emotions down, though her voice remained heavy.
“Don’t worry.
Mother will definitely get it back for you.”
Lin Yingxue nodded obediently.
“Then I’ll wait.”
She turned and brought over the bowl of chicken soup that had long since grown cold.
“You haven’t eaten anything.
I’ll go heat this up for you.”
“How can I let you go to the kitchen!”
Jiang Baozhen stopped her, feeling both a warm glow and a bitter ache in her heart.
She realized that ultimately, her own daughter was the most considerate.
She clasped Lin Yingxue’s hand and carefully instructed, “From now on, you don’t have to do a single chore in this house.
Just rest easy.
Mother is going to pamper you!”
After giving her instructions, she raised her voice and shouted toward the door, “Qiaoqiao!”
The moment the words left her mouth, Wu Qiaoqiao pushed the door open and walked in.
Jiang Baozhen handed her the bowl, her eyes sharpening with unquestionable authority.
“Qiaoqiao, take this chicken soup and heat it up.
If so much as a single piece of meat goes missing, I’ll tan your hide!
“And once it’s hot, bring it back with two pairs of chopsticks.”
Wu Qiaoqiao took the bowl to the kitchen.
After thoroughly heating the chicken, she brought the bowl back into the room.
Lin Yingxue quickly reached out to take it.
The dazzling pair of silver bracelets on her wrists caught Wu Qiaoqiao’s eye.
The flames of jealousy FLARED in Wu Qiaoqiao’s heart, and she couldn’t help but shrill, “Mother!
Why did you give her the bracelets?”
She had coveted those bracelets for who knew how long and had schemed to get them countless times in secret.
She never expected them to end up in Lin Yingxue’s hands.
Upon hearing this, Jiang Baozhen’s temper WHOOSHED up.
She pointed right at Wu Qiaoqiao’s nose and scolded, “You shallow wretch!
My things are mine to give to whoever I please.
Since when is it your turn to spout nonsense here?
Put the chicken down and get out!”
In her previous life, Jiang Baozhen had sympathized with Wu Qiaoqiao’s hardships and given her quite a bit of her private savings, only for Wu Qiaoqiao to backstab her in the end.
Wu Qiaoqiao rushed out with a face full of grievance.
She suspected her mother-in-law had been possessed by something foul to actually give her most prized possessions to Lin Yingxue.
She decided she needed to find Huang Qiuju and figure out if they should hire a witch to exorcise the evil spirits.
Inside the room, the “mother and daughter” couldn’t care less about what Wu Qiaoqiao thought.
Jiang Baozhen picked up the bowl and used her chopsticks to carefully sift through the greasy chicken.
Her brows furrowed tighter and tighter.
“Where are the chicken legs?
Let me guess, they went straight into the belly of that ungrateful wretch!”
The ungrateful wretch she referred to was, naturally, Chen Tianhao.
Jiang Baozhen silently fumed, vowing that from now on, that wild bastard would never get a single good thing under her watch.
Lin Yingxue was too embarrassed to admit that she had already gnawed the two chicken legs clean, so she simply let Chen Tianhao take the blame for being a glutton.
After picking out the best pieces of meat, Jiang Baozhen handed a bowl to Lin Yingxue, her eyes filled with deep, unwavering affection and pity.
“Hurry, eat it while it’s hot.
Look at how skinny you are!
You don’t even have two taels of flesh on your bones.
You really need to nourish your body!”
Having just devoured two chicken legs, chugged some soup, and eaten a flatbread, Lin Yingxue genuinely couldn’t stuff down another bite.
She pushed the bowl back and said to Jiang Baozhen, “You eat it.
You were unconscious for two days, so your body is the one that’s truly depleted.
You are the one who needs to nourish yourself.”
Jiang Baozhen placed the bowl on the table, turned around, and let out a loud HOWL as she burst into tears.
Lin Yingxue was speechless.
She wondered what kind of drama this was.
Lin Yingxue muttered in her heart.
“I work myself to the bone for this family, and in the end, you’re the only one who knows how to care for me,” Jiang Baozhen cried, tears and snot streaming down her face, though her heart felt entirely warm.
In the end, her biological daughter was simply different from everyone else.
She even knew to yield a bowl of chicken to her.
Seeing how heartbroken Jiang Baozhen was crying, Lin Yingxue consoled her, “This family relies entirely on you to hold it together, so you have to nurture your health.
Since I promised to stay, I’ll be relying on your protection.
If you collapse again and others bully me, who will back me up?”
These words acted like a perfect remedy, instantly awakening Jiang Baozhen.
She abruptly stopped her tears and haphazardly wiped her face with her sleeve.
Her daughter was right.
She had to live well and live a long time so she could become her daughter’s strongest pillar of support.
If something unexpected happened to her right now, wouldn’t Chen Huaiyuan and Chen Tianhao, those two black-hearted scoundrels, swallow her precious daughter alive?
At that thought, Jiang Baozhen immediately picked up her chopsticks, shoved another pair toward Lin Yingxue, picked up a tender piece of meat, and said resolutely, “Eat!
We mother and daughter will eat together!”
She thought to herself, why shouldn’t they eat?
If they didn’t, wouldn’t it just cheaply benefit those ungrateful monsters outside?
From this day forward, in this house, she, Jiang Baozhen, and her daughter were the most important.
Whatever good food or nice clothes there were, they would prioritize the two of them first!
Lin Yingxue patted her perfectly round stomach and said, “To be honest with you, I already ate in the kitchen.
I’m not hungry.
Please stop trying to yield it to me.
By following you, there will be plenty of days ahead where we eat like queens.”
When it came to sweet-talking, Lin Yingxue was highly skilled.
Jiang Baozhen was coaxed into a smile.
She picked up the bowl and started eating.
Because her stomach was severely lacking in rich food, she polished off the soup and meat until the bowl was spotless.
In the evening, the Chen Family gathered around the creaky, dilapidated wooden table.
Dinner had been cooked by Wu Qiaoqiao and Huang Qiuju.
On the table sat two bowls of dark, pickled vegetable chunks, a bowl of wilted boiled greens, and in the center, a large pot of wild vegetable porridge so watery you could see your reflection in it.
The table full of bland, watery food caused Chen Huaiyuan and Chen Tianhao to frown, killing their appetites entirely.
The Chen Family had just survived a war, and their savings had long been depleted.
Hiding in the mountains all these years, they had survived on this kind of watery sustenance.
Yet in the past, no matter how tough things got, Jiang Baozhen always found a way to secretly prepare something extra for Chen Huaiyuan and Chen Tianhao—steaming an egg custard or baking a white flour flatbread.
In short, she would do her utmost to ensure the two of them ate a bit better.
But today, that fragrant extra dish was placed right in front of Lin Yingxue.
It was a bowl of tender, steamed egg custard.
The father and son instinctively cast expectant glances at Jiang Baozhen.
Usually, whenever there was good food in the house, it was guaranteed to go to them first.
It had been half the day already; no matter how angry she was, her temper should have faded by now.
After waiting a long while without seeing the slightest movement from Jiang Baozhen, Chen Tianhao finally lost his patience.
SMACK!
He slammed his chopsticks down and raised his voice to ask, “Mother, where is my steamed egg?”
Jiang Baozhen lifted her eyelids, her gaze sweeping over him coldly.
“Steamed egg?
Do you not know what state this family is in?
You should consider yourself lucky to have some watery porridge to shut your mouth.
You want to eat well?
Go earn it yourself from now on!”
He was a wild bastard from who-knows-where, yet he had freely eaten her refined grains for all these years.
She was going to make him spit out every last bit of it, with interest!
Choked by her words, Chen Tianhao’s face turned livid.
He muttered under his breath, “This food isn’t even fit for pigs.”
Before his voice could fade, a crisp SLAP rang out!
A solid, heavy blow struck viciously across Chen Tianhao’s face!
The strike knocked Chen Tianhao’s head to the side.
With his mouth half-open, his entire body froze on the stool, looking exactly like a clay statue that had suddenly lost its voice.
A deathly silence instantly fell over the dining table.
Looking at Chen Tianhao’s comical and pathetic state, the corners of Lin Yingxue’s mouth couldn’t help but twitch slightly.
Everyone was completely stunned.
Chen Tianhao was Jiang Baozhen’s favorite child.
Even when she had hit him a few times during the chaos at noon, everyone just assumed Jiang Baozhen had been blinded by anger and injured him by mistake.
After all, her other sons had also taken a beating.
But this slap just now was clearly and unequivocally aimed at Chen Tianhao alone!
“Eat it if you want, or get lost if you don’t!
From now on, this is what we’re having for every meal.”
Jiang Baozhen retracted her hand with a cold sneer.