“Just wait! I’m going to report this to the police right now!”
As soon as those words were spoken, one of the neighbors took off running toward the police station.
The others gathered around Song Jinyue, comforting her nonstop. After hearing her describe the miserable state of the house, someone grew curious and ran over to take a look.
The moment they saw the completely empty house, their jaw nearly dropped to the floor.
Good heavens!
Those thieves had cleaned the place out!
Old Master Song had once been the richest man in all of Shanghai. Now that the family home had been completely emptied by thieves, just how much money had they lost?
The thought alone was painful.
Heartache, money-ache—everything hurt!
After receiving the report, the police officers quickly followed the neighbor back to the scene.
Before Song Jinyue even had a chance to speak, the neighbors who had already seen the inside of the Song residence began talking over one another.
“Officer, you have no idea how thoroughly those thieves cleaned out the Song family! Tables, chairs, sofas—anything that could be carried away is gone! They didn’t leave a single thing behind!”
“Exactly! They even smashed all the pots, bowls, and kitchenware. Old Master Song and his family have always treated people kindly. Just who could possibly hate the Song family this much?”
Song Jinyue, the person who held such a “deep grudge” against the Song family, quietly lowered her head to hide her expression.
Ahem.
It was all a misunderstanding.
She hadn’t smashed all those pots and bowls because she hated the Song family.
She simply couldn’t stand the thought of using anything those ungrateful leeches had touched.
“Miss Song, when did you discover that your home had been burglarized? Did you see what the thieves looked like or what kind of build they had? Was anyone else at home?”
After listening to the neighbors’ accounts, one of the officers turned to Song Jinyue.
Song Jinyue shook her head and explained with reddened eyes, “My father, Aunt Shen, and her two children went back to the Lu family’s ancestral home to pay respects to their ancestors. I was the only one here. I got hungry earlier, so I went out to get something to eat. When I came back, I discovered that someone had forced open the lock. Everything inside had been taken away.”
“Officer, everything in this house was left to me by my grandparents and my mother. Every day, when I looked at those things, it felt as though my grandparents and my mother were still here with me.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Please, you have to help me get them back. I’m begging you.”
Overcome with emotion, Song Jinyue grabbed the arm of a female officer and looked at her pleadingly.
Her helpless appearance was enough to make anyone’s heart ache.
Aunt Zhang and Sister-in-law Liu wiped the corners of their eyes, their faces filled with righteous anger.
“It’s true what they say. Once a man gets a new wife, he becomes a new father too! Ever since Shen Yurou brought those two children into the family, Weiguo has cared less and less about Jinyue. Now he’s even left Jinyue home alone while taking Shen Yurou and her two children back to his ancestral home to worship his ancestors. Just who is his biological child here?”
“Exactly! Thank goodness Jinyue happened to go out for a meal. If she’d been home alone when the thieves broke in, who knows what might have happened!”
“If you ask me, Weiguo has been pretending all these years! Back when Old Master Song, his wife, and Wanqing were still alive, everyone praised him for respecting his elders and loving his wife. But only a month after Wanqing died, he married Shen Yurou and brought her two children into the family. You really can know someone’s face without knowing their heart.”
“Poor Jinyue. She lost her grandparents when she was eight and her mother when she was ten. Weiguo is the only blood relative she has left in this world, yet he treats his own daughter like this. What a sin.”
“I think he’s lived here for so long that he’s forgotten the owner of this house is surnamed Song, not Lu!”
The neighbors chimed in one after another, condemning Lu Weiguo for living off the Song family while trying to seize its wealth.
After hearing everything they said, the officers’ brows furrowed even more deeply, and their sympathy for Song Jinyue grew.
“Don’t worry, Miss Song. We’ll do everything we can to catch the thieves as soon as possible and recover your missing belongings.”
“Come on. Let’s inspect the scene and see whether the thieves left any clues behind.”
Song Jinyue nodded and followed the officers back inside. The neighbors eagerly followed along as well.
They searched every room from the first floor to the second.
There truly wasn’t so much as a hair left behind.
Anything that could be carried away had been taken.
When they reached the bedroom shared by Lu Weiguo and Shen Yurou, someone with sharp eyes noticed what looked like a small bundle lying on the floor.
They hurried over and picked it up.
“This is… underwear?!”
And it wasn’t only Lu Weiguo and Shen Yurou’s room.
There was also a pair of underwear left on the floor in both Lu Manman’s and Lu Guangzong’s rooms.
Everyone looked at one another in bewilderment.
Could they call these thieves considerate?
They had smashed the family’s cooking pots.
But could they call them completely heartless?
They had at least left everyone a pair of underwear…
While everyone whispered among themselves, the female officer entered Lu Manman’s room and discovered a box beneath the underwear left on the floor.
“Miss Song, have you seen this box before?”
Song Jinyue glanced at the box in the officer’s hands and nodded.
“Yes. It belongs to Lu Manman. She treasures that box and normally won’t let anyone touch it.”
“Everything else in the house was taken by the thieves, leaving only a few pairs of underwear and this box. Since you’re the sole heir of the Song family, Miss Song, this box should naturally be handed over to you.”
Even the female officer felt somewhat embarrassed mentioning those pairs of underwear.
“That box looks pretty valuable. Why didn’t the thieves take it?”
“Jinyue, hurry up and open it! Let’s see what’s inside.”
The neighbors, determined not to miss a moment of juicy gossip, eagerly urged Song Jinyue to open the box.
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Song Jinyue lifted the lid.
Inside was a pile of letters.
“This is Wenzhu’s handwriting! I was wondering why he hadn’t written to me for such a long time. So Lu Manman had been receiving my letters for me.”
Song Jinyue’s face lit up with joy as she hurriedly opened one of the letters.
But the instant she read its contents, her face turned deathly pale.
The box slipped from her hands with a clatter.
Letters scattered all over the floor.
“Jinyue, what’s wrong? Did something happen to Wenzhu?”
The neighbors all knew that Song Jinyue and Li Wenzhu had been betrothed since childhood. Seeing her expression, they assumed something terrible had happened to him.
“N-No… It can’t be…”
Song Jinyue shook her head in disbelief.
“Wenzhu would never do this to me. He’s clearly engaged to me. How could he possibly be involved with Lu Manman…”
Song Jinyue trailed off before covering her face and bursting into “tears.”
Seeing this, the neighbors quickly picked up the scattered letters.
Some had been written by Li Wenzhu to Lu Manman, while others had been written by Lu Manman but had yet to be mailed.
After reading the sickeningly sweet contents, everyone felt goosebumps rise all over their bodies.
“Lu Manman knew perfectly well that Jinyue and Wenzhu had been engaged since childhood, yet she still deliberately seduced someone else’s fiancé? Th-This… this is absolutely shameless!”
“Like mother, like daughter! Shen Yurou isn’t any good either. Who knows? Maybe she was the one who encouraged her daughter to do it!”
“Wenzhu is a university student! How could he secretly do something so disgraceful? If he doesn’t like Jinyue, then he should simply break off the engagement! What kind of man keeps two women hanging at the same time?”
“Jinyue, don’t be sad. A three-legged toad may be hard to find, but there are plenty of two-legged men in the world! We don’t want an unfaithful man like Wenzhu. When the time comes, your auntie here will introduce you to someone much better!”
…
After today, the matter of Lu Manman seducing another woman’s fiancé would be firmly established as fact.
As the saying went, good news rarely traveled beyond the door, while bad news spread a thousand miles.
From now on, wherever Lu Manman went, as long as someone recognized her, they would remember this scandal.
She would carry this stain on her reputation for the rest of her life!
Having successfully achieved her goal, Song Jinyue sniffled with a touched expression.
“Thank you, aunties and sisters-in-law, for caring about me. I won’t waste my tears or energy on someone who isn’t worth it. In a few days, I’ll go to the capital and officially break off the engagement.”
“That’s the spirit! Whenever you decide you’re ready to settle down, Auntie will introduce you to someone. If you don’t like the first one, I’ll keep introducing more until you find someone you’re satisfied with!”
Outside the Song residence, the hooligans assigned to keep watch on Song Jinyue were craning their necks, trying to see what was happening inside.
“Why haven’t they come out yet? Did they catch the thieves or not?”
“Those thieves sure have guts. They even dared to rob the Song family! Compared with them, the houses we stole from before were nothing.”
After learning that the Song residence had been robbed, the hooligans had also become engrossed in the excitement.
Seeing that Song Jinyue and the others had been inside for so long without coming out, they were growing increasingly impatient.
As the hooligans continued muttering among themselves, Song Jinyue finally emerged from the house with the officers and the neighbors.
The officers were asking whether anyone had noticed suspicious people nearby.
At the question, Aunt Zhang nodded vigorously.
“Officer, now that you mention it, I really did see several suspicious-looking men wandering around here today! Thinking back on it, the place they kept watching seemed to be the Song residence!”
The officer’s expression immediately changed.
“Where are they?”
“Right under that old locust tree up ahead.”
Just as she said this, the group happened to reach the entrance of the Song residence.
Aunt Zhang was about to point out the location to the officers when she came face-to-face with the hooligans crouching beneath the tree, eagerly waiting for more gossip.
Her eyes widened.
“Officer, it’s them! Those are the men! Hurry and arrest them!”