Qin Mingzhi suddenly felt as though all the blocked energy and blood in her body had been cleared.
She could distinctly feel something moving through her meridians.
The heavy-headed, weak, almost weightless feeling disappeared, and strength surged back into her arms and legs.
Her condition had suddenly recovered. Her vision became exceptionally clear.
Qin Mingzhi’s gaze fell on the hand Zhu Caiyan still had wrapped around her arm.
She abruptly shook it off—
Zhu Caiyan let out a scream and fell hard onto the ground with a thud.
Qin Mengxue screamed in shock as well and hurried over to help her mother up.
“Mom, are you okay?”
She turned her head and glared at Qin Mingzhi.
“You shameless bitch! You really have gone crazy! My mother has always treated you so well, like you were her own daughter, and this is how you repay her? You’re nothing but an ungrateful wretch!”
Zhu Caiyan’s eyes shifted, and she immediately took advantage of the situation, wiping away her tears.
“Mingzhi, even if you’re unhappy with me, you don’t have to use something like this as an excuse to bully me!”
Hearing the commotion, the nosy neighbors gradually gathered around again, knocking on the door and asking what had happened.
Zhu Caiyan began wailing even louder.
In the blink of an eye, Qin Mengxue’s eyes filled with tears, as though she had been pushed to the brink by anger.
“Sister, you’ve gone too far! Before this, even Grandma Sun and the others suggested that Mom send you away. It was Mom who insisted on keeping you. And now this is how you treat her?”
“If you’re really this heartless, then you’re obviously not fit to continue living with us. Pack your things and get out!”
“Get out! Hurry up! Are you trying to make Mom sick with anger?!”
Qin Mengxue screamed at Qin Mingzhi desperately, afraid that she might actually refuse to leave.
Qin Mingzhi glanced at the wound on her body that was still bleeding.
Instead of getting angry, she laughed.
“The ones who should get out are you!”
“For years, I was too sentimental and let you deceive me. I actually believed that you, Zhu Caiyan, genuinely cared about me and truly took my side.”
“Even many of our neighbors said that if it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have survived this long.”
“But the truth is, every time you appeared to be taking my side, you were actually protecting Qin Mengxue.”
“Whenever Qin Mengxue caused trouble, as long as you could pin it on me, you did. You made everyone believe that everything was my fault.”
“You were really good at your little scheme of praising me on the surface while secretly destroying me. After all these years, you acted so convincingly that even I almost believed it!”
If Qin Mengxue hadn’t tried to steal her wedding in this life, giving her the chance to calm down and examine everything that had happened in the past, it might have taken her even longer to see through them.
Qin Mingzhi’s eyes were ice-cold as she let out a mocking laugh.
“Zhu Caiyan, your little performance ends here.”
“You’ve occupied my family’s home for all these years. It’s time for you to leave. Now, pack up everything that belongs to you and get out!”
Zhu Caiyan’s eyes widened.
“This is my home! Why should I leave?”
“Your home? You certainly have some nerve.”
“Do you think I don’t know? My maternal grandfather left this house to my mother before she got married. And when my father married her, he promised that the house would be left to their child in the future—to me.”
“This house doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t even belong to my father. It belongs solely to me!”
Qin Mingzhi had only learned the truth about the house in her previous life, when she happened to find out about it during one of her conflicts with Xiao Xingjie.
At the time, Jiang Yuying had been certain that Qin Mingzhi had nowhere else to go, so she bullied her without restraint.
When Qin Mingzhi angrily left the house, Jiang Yuying had even mocked her from behind, saying that she had neither father nor mother, and that even the only house she had was now Zhu Caiyan’s. She had nowhere to go.
Back then, Zhu Caiyan had invited a whole group of relatives and friends to stay in the house. They had even taken over Qin Mingzhi’s room and remodeled it beyond recognition, leaving her with nowhere to stay.
When Qin Mingzhi had helplessly prepared to leave, a kind-hearted neighbor had happened to mention that the house seemed to have been bought by her maternal grandmother for her mother back then. Her mother had also said that the house was meant to be left to her daughter.
Before her father left back then, he had locked the property deed and other relevant documents inside a wooden box. Qin Mingzhi was the only one who had the key.
She had always known what was inside, but she had never bothered to look through it carefully.
Afterward, Qin Mingzhi immediately went to investigate and discovered that it was all true.
Over the years, Zhu Caiyan had deliberately never asked Qin Mingzhi for the property deed, trying to make it seem as though she wasn’t interested in money.
After all, she was living in the house, and as the family of a fallen martyr, she believed that regardless of whose name was on the deed, she would still be entitled to half of the property.
Once Qin Mingzhi got married and moved out, wouldn’t the entire house naturally become hers?
She simply hadn’t expected that her carefully laid plans would come to nothing.
Zhu Caiyan stared in disbelief, unwilling to accept it.
In her panic, she could no longer maintain her usual gentle and virtuous facade.
“How is that possible?! You’re lying! You simply don’t want to share the house your father left behind with me!”
“I’m telling you, it’s impossible! I’m the widow of a fallen martyr. I’m entitled to half of this house!”
Qin Mingzhi sneered.
She walked straight inside, opened the wooden box her father had left behind, took out the property deed, and held it up in front of Zhu Caiyan.
“Look carefully. Whose name is written on it?”
Zhu Caiyan didn’t even have time to get up properly. She scrambled over on her hands and feet and looked at it.
Her pupils contracted sharply.
“Yan Tong?”
“How is this possible…? How could this house not belong to Qin Shaoyang?”
Zhu Caiyan simply refused to believe it.
“There’s nothing impossible about it. This is the truth.”
“Even if you really were my father’s unmarried wife, this house would still have absolutely nothing to do with you.”
“You have half an hour. Take all your things and get out.”
“If you stay even one minute longer, I’ll have someone throw everything that’s left out. And I mean it.”
All of Zhu Caiyan’s carefully calculated plans collapsed at once, leaving her completely panicked.
She had originally planned everything perfectly.
Once Qin Mingzhi married and moved away, the house would belong entirely to her.
Even if Qin Mingzhi tried to fight for it, Zhu Caiyan had assumed she could at least get half.
But now, she wouldn’t even get half.
Qin Mengxue had always been impatient, and she certainly couldn’t stand being driven out like this.
While Qin Mingzhi wasn’t paying attention, she suddenly rushed forward and grabbed Qin Mingzhi’s clothes tightly.
Then she raised her hand and swung it toward Qin Mingzhi’s face.
Qin Mingzhi probably wouldn’t have time to react. She would just have to take the hit, right?
Qin Mengxue was completely confident.
She put all her strength into that slap.
But unexpectedly, before her palm could even touch Qin Mingzhi’s face, Qin Mingzhi suddenly dodged to the side—
Because of her momentum, Qin Mengxue couldn’t pull her hand back in time.
Her slap missed completely.
She had used far too much force, and with a loud crack, her palm slammed straight into the tree behind Qin Mingzhi.
A sharp wave of pain immediately shot through her hand.
Qin Mengxue doubled over in agony, tears of pain streaming uncontrollably from her eyes.
Qin Mingzhi curled her lips into a faint smile.
Before Qin Mengxue could pull her hand back, Qin Mingzhi grabbed her wrist.
“What? Lost your temper because you’re embarrassed? You still want to hit me?”
“Do you know what it means to try to steal the chicken and end up losing the rice?”
“That’s exactly what you just did.”
“You—Qin Mingzhi, you bitch—”
Qin Mengxue raised her head, about to curse at her.
But before she could finish, a hand suddenly reached toward her.
Qin Mingzhi grabbed a fistful of Qin Mengxue’s hair and yanked hard, pulling her scalp backward—