Qin Mengxue began to cry, making a scene and insisting that Qin Mingzhi was framing her, claiming that Qin Mingzhi had deliberately smashed the glass.
Zhu Caiyan looked at Qin Mingzhi and smiled.
“It doesn’t matter who broke it. I’m not blaming you.”
Qin Mingzhi was too anxious to explain. She desperately tried to pull her hand away, shaking her head over and over.
But somehow, perhaps because she had used too much force, Zhu Caiyan suddenly stumbled backward and fell onto the ground.
The front door was wide open at the time, and quite a few neighbors saw and heard everything.
From their perspective, it looked as though Qin Mingzhi had deliberately pushed Zhu Caiyan down.
Even Qin Mingzhi herself was startled.
She clearly hadn’t used much force. How had Aunt Caiyan fallen like that?
Even so, she didn’t think too much about it. She simply assumed that Aunt Caiyan had only been trying to hold onto her and calm her down, and that she had gotten too worked up and accidentally pushed her over.
Zhu Caiyan quickly got back to her feet and shook her head.
“It’s fine. The child didn’t mean to do it.”
Because of that, the surrounding neighbors praised Zhu Caiyan endlessly, sympathizing with how hard she had it.
Instead, they began to have complaints about Qin Mingzhi, the daughter who had supposedly been “spoiled” growing up. They all felt that she had become somewhat too spoiled and willful.
Whenever the neighbor Grandma Sun saw Zhu Caiyan, she couldn’t help reminding her—
“I know being a stepmother isn’t easy. Even the slightest mistake can make outsiders criticize you. But you’re the head of this household now, so you can’t spoil Qin Mingzhi too much. Otherwise, you’ll only teach that child to be arrogant and unruly.”
“Just look at her now. She’s completely different from the sweet, obedient girl she was when she was little. She doesn’t even recognize you anymore. Wouldn’t all the years you spent raising her be for nothing?”
“I think you should just send Mingzhi to be raised by another relative as soon as possible. That way, you’ll have an easier life too. Otherwise, if something goes wrong in the future, you’ll only end up being blamed.”
Zhu Caiyan turned around and smiled at Qin Mingzhi.
That smile became increasingly distorted in her memory.
And then, the scene abruptly ended.
The pain in her head suddenly eased somewhat. Through the haze, she could vaguely hear voices.
“Mingzhi, are you okay? Does something hurt?”
Qin Mingzhi frowned and raised her head. Everything before her was still spinning slightly.
Yet Zhu Caiyan seemed to be smiling.
That smile…
Why did it look so much like the smile in her memory?
Qin Mingzhi grabbed Zhu Caiyan’s arm and, staggering, pulled her backward a step.
Before she could figure out what was happening, something suddenly slipped out from around Zhu Caiyan’s neck.
The dizziness in Qin Mingzhi’s head was gradually fading. Under the sunlight, she saw that it was a round jade pendant, flawless and white like mutton-fat jade, with exquisite patterns carved across its surface.
Qin Mingzhi froze.
Wasn’t that her mother’s keepsake?
She remembered it clearly.
When she was little, her father had personally hung that jade pendant around her neck and told her that it had belonged to her mother.
Whenever she saw the pendant, it would be like seeing her mother. Her mother would always be there with her.
But at some point, she suddenly discovered that the pendant she had always worn around her neck was gone.
No matter how hard she searched, she couldn’t find it.
She had cried and told Zhu Caiyan about it, but Zhu Caiyan had only said that perhaps she had taken it off herself and misplaced it somewhere.
After that, Qin Mingzhi never saw the pendant again.
Zhu Caiyan had helped her look for it, too, but they never found it.
For a long time, Qin Mingzhi had believed that she had been careless and lost something so important. Whenever she visited her mother’s grave, she blamed herself and cried bitterly.
She never imagined that the pendant would one day appear around Zhu Caiyan’s neck.
Zhu Caiyan felt something swinging against her chest and suddenly realized something was wrong.
She tried to tuck the pendant back inside her clothes, but it was already too late.
Qin Mingzhi lunged forward, grabbed the cord, and pulled the pendant closer so she could examine it carefully.
The patterns and the material were exactly the same as the pendant she had lost all those years ago.
On the back of the pendant was a tiny engraved character:
“Yan.”
It was her mother’s surname.
“This is my mother’s pendant! You said you searched the entire house and couldn’t find it. So where did this come from?!”
Zhu Caiyan hurriedly tried to retreat.
“Mingzhi, what nonsense are you talking about? How could this be your mother’s pendant?”
“Jade pendants all look more or less the same. Maybe you remembered it wrong?”
“I showed you the rubbing of the pendant’s pattern when I was little. The pattern is exactly the same as this one!”
Qin Mingzhi froze.
Then, suddenly, she understood something.
For all these years, she had always felt that although Zhu Caiyan seemed to treat her reasonably well, something about it had always felt strange.
But in her previous life, she simply hadn’t experienced enough of the world. There were many things she couldn’t see through.
When she reached marriageable age, she had married Xiao Xingjie and moved into the Xiao family.
After that, there had been endless chores in the Xiao household, leaving her no time or energy to think about anything else.
But now that she thought about it, all those things Zhu Caiyan had done for her when she was little—those supposed acts of “kindness” and “protection”—were actually very strange.
Zhu Caiyan claimed she was protecting her, but every time Qin Mingzhi argued with Qin Mengxue, Zhu Caiyan would always rush over first and tell her not to hold it against Qin Mengxue.
She called it comforting her, but in reality, she was stopping Qin Mingzhi from continuing to blame Qin Mengxue.
Yet in those situations, Qin Mengxue had always been the one in the wrong.
Then there were the new clothes and toys.
On the surface, Zhu Caiyan always insisted on buying them for Qin Mingzhi first, saying that the family didn’t have enough money to buy a second set.
But just a few days later, Qin Mengxue would swagger around in something nearly identical—sometimes even clothes made from better-quality fabric with finer workmanship.
Whenever Qin Mingzhi asked about it, Zhu Caiyan would simply say that the store no longer had an identical outfit, so she had bought Qin Mengxue something similar instead.
And then there was that time the window had been broken.
There was no way to know for certain whether Qin Mingzhi or Qin Mengxue had actually broken it.
Yet Zhu Caiyan had only told the other person not to make a fuss over it, seemingly deliberately leading them to believe that Qin Mingzhi had been responsible.
Even the time Zhu Caiyan had comforted her at home and ended up being pushed down—it had been because she was trying to stop Qin Mingzhi from confronting Qin Mengxue.
At the time, Zhu Caiyan had grabbed her arm and claimed she was only trying to calm her down.
But now that Qin Mingzhi thought about it, she had clearly used Qin Mingzhi’s momentum on purpose, creating the illusion that Qin Mingzhi had pushed her.
Even the door had been left open beforehand.
It was obvious that Zhu Caiyan had deliberately arranged everything so that outsiders would witness how patient and kind she was toward Qin Mingzhi, while making Qin Mingzhi look stubborn, unreasonable, and rebellious.
All these years, Zhu Caiyan had appeared to be kind to her on the surface, agreeing to everything she asked for and seemingly accommodating her in every way.
Yet even though Qin Mingzhi had clearly done nothing wrong, the opinions of some neighbors had gradually turned against her.
Meanwhile, their sympathy for Zhu Caiyan had grown stronger and stronger.
Now that she carefully thought about it, Zhu Caiyan had clearly been deliberately spoiling her into ruin.
It looked like love and protection on the surface, but underneath, it had all been manipulation.
Perhaps Zhu Caiyan had planned everything long ago.
Once Qin Mingzhi was driven out of the house, the entire family would naturally belong to her.
Qin Mingzhi could only blame herself for realizing the truth too late.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
Unable to endure it any longer, she tightened her grip on the pendant and yanked hard—
Snap!
The cord around the jade pendant suddenly broke.
The entire pendant landed in Qin Mingzhi’s palm.
Zhu Caiyan’s eyes widened in panic when she saw Qin Mingzhi snatch it away. She immediately reached out, trying to take it back.
“How can you steal my things, child? You must have remembered it wrong! This jade pendant definitely isn’t the one you had!”
That was mutton-fat white jade!
It was incredibly valuable!
Zhu Caiyan desperately tried to pry the pendant out of Qin Mingzhi’s hand.
During the struggle, Zhu Caiyan’s sharp fingernails suddenly tore into the back of Qin Mingzhi’s hand.
Bright red blood followed the curve of her index finger and trickled into her palm.
Perhaps it was only her imagination, but in the chaos, Qin Mingzhi seemed to see that drop of blood seep into the intricate pattern on the jade pendant.
The next moment, a warm sensation spread through her palm.
Qin Mingzhi had no time to think about it.
In the very next instant, the pain in her head suddenly eased.