Lu Weiguo suddenly lost his footing. He stumbled forward and crashed face-first onto the floor!
Looking down at her scumbag father sprawled at her feet, Song Jinyue’s lips twitched.
“It’s not even New Year’s yet, and you’re already giving me such a grand bow? Sorry, but I don’t have any red envelopes for you.”
“Ouch!”
Lu Weiguo grimaced in pain, curling up on the floor.
His piercing cry snapped Shen Yurou and Lu Manman out of their daze. The two hurried forward to help him.
“Weiguo! Weiguo, are you all right?”
“Dad, take it easy. I’ll help you up.”
The mother and daughter each grabbed one of Lu Weiguo’s arms and used all their strength to haul him to his feet.
After being slapped last night, Song Jinyue had returned to her room and thrown a massive tantrum, smashing all kinds of cosmetics across the floor. Now, Lu Weiguo’s Mao suit was smeared with makeup, and one knee had been scraped badly enough to leave a hole in his trousers. He looked utterly miserable.
“Weiguo, your hand is bleeding! We should hurry to the hospital and have it checked.”
Shen Yurou cried out as she grabbed his hand.
“Unfilial daughter! You unfilial daughter!”
Lu Weiguo glared furiously at Song Jinyue. His entire body trembled with rage, and he gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked.
“Song Jinyue, you’ve gone too far! Usually, whenever Dad says one thing to you, you talk back ten times, and we’ve tolerated it. Last night, Dad only slapped you because he was angry, but today you actually plotted to hurt him! Hurry over here, kneel, and apologize to Dad! Just look at what you’ve done to him!”
Filled with righteous indignation, Lu Manman stepped forward and pointed a finger at Song Jinyue’s nose as she berated her.
Song Jinyue narrowed her eyes.
With one hand, she grabbed Lu Manman’s pointing finger. With the other, she cleanly and decisively slapped her across the face.
“I hate it when people point their fingers at me. And since you think getting slapped once is no big deal, I don’t mind giving you a few more.”
Slap!
Before Lu Manman could recover from the first blow, Song Jinyue slapped her again.
“You shameless little pretender who stole someone else’s place. All you know how to do is cry and whine all day. Do you really think shedding a few tears means the whole world belongs to you? You like stealing other people’s jobs, don’t you? Fine! Let’s see you steal mine now!”
Slap!
“You refuse to learn anything decent and spend all your time learning how to seduce men instead. You even wrote shameless love letters to lure someone else’s fiancé! No wonder they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. With a shameless descendant like you, the Lu family’s ancestors must be rolling in their graves!”
Song Jinyue’s fighting spirit was off the charts. She hurled an insult with every slap, and before long, several bright red handprints appeared across Lu Manman’s fair cheeks.
“Ahhh! My hand! My face! Song Jinyue, how dare you hit me?! I’ll fight you!”
Lu Manman screamed at the top of her lungs. Her finger felt as though Song Jinyue was about to snap it off, and she couldn’t even tell whether her hand or her face hurt more.
Like a crazed shrew, she lunged at Song Jinyue.
Then Song Jinyue caught sight of the jade bracelet around her wrist.
She immediately grabbed Lu Manman by the hair and mercilessly raised her hand again.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
“Oh? So after living in a fancy Western-style house for a few years, you really started thinking you’re some wealthy young lady? You even dared to steal the Song family’s heirloom! You black-hearted thief! It’s a miracle you haven’t choked to death drinking water!”
Looking at the face before her—the exact same hateful face Lu Manman had in her original world—Song Jinyue put all her strength into every slap until even her own palm began to ache.
Back in the real world, she hadn’t gotten the chance to settle the score with Lu Manman.
Now that she had transmigrated into the novel, she was going to vent all that pent-up anger!
Song Jinyue had always been arrogant and overbearing, but even she had never openly beaten someone like this before.
The scene left Shen Yurou and Lu Weiguo completely dumbfounded.
By the time they recovered from their shock, Lu Manman’s face had already swollen like a pig’s head.
“Stop! Stop hitting her! Oh, my poor Manman! If I’d known you would suffer such humiliation, I never would have brought you back with me!”
Shen Yurou rushed over and stood in front of Lu Manman. Seeing her daughter’s eyes nearly crossed from the beating, she was horrified and hurriedly shook her by the arms.
“Manman! Manman, are you all right? Don’t scare Mom!”
Lu Manman nearly passed out from being shaken. It took her quite a while to regain her senses.
“Hiss… Mom, my face! My face hurts so much! I’m not going to be disfigured, am I? Boohoo… What am I supposed to do? If Brother Wenzhu sees me looking like this, he definitely won’t want me anymore.”
Even after being beaten into such a miserable state, all Lu Manman could think about was Song Jinyue’s fiancé, Li Wenzhu.
“No, no, that won’t happen. Manman, don’t worry. The swelling will go down in a few days.”
Shen Yurou frantically tried to comfort her.
Seeing her own daughter beaten so badly by Song Jinyue, Shen Yurou could barely maintain her facade as a virtuous wife and loving mother.
“Jinyue, you’ve truly disappointed me. Manman is your own sister! How could you be so cruel to her? If you’re angry, take it out on me instead. Please, I’m begging you—leave Manman alone.”
Shen Yurou shielded Lu Manman with her body, clutching her chest with a heartbroken expression. She played the role of the helpless victim to perfection.
She thought this would make Song Jinyue feel so ashamed that she wouldn’t know where to hide.
Unfortunately for her, Song Jinyue didn’t follow the script.
Song Jinyue blew lightly on her tingling palm and approached Shen Yurou with a faint, mocking smile.
“Sure. You said it yourself.”
Slap!
Shen Yurou’s head snapped to the side, and several bright red finger marks instantly appeared across her cheek.
“You knowingly became a mistress and destroyed someone else’s family, yet you actually think you’re a decent person? Don’t try to pretend we’re family. My mother only gave birth to one child—me. Since when did Lu Manman become my biological sister?”
“And wipe that hypocritical expression off your face. Aren’t you tired after pretending for so many years? You keep saying, ‘If only I’d known.’ Well, you can take Lu Manman and get out of the Song family right now. No one’s stopping you. Watching you put on this fake act is disgusting.”
The slap left Shen Yurou’s head buzzing.
Her eyes widened as she stared at Song Jinyue in disbelief.
Before she could say anything, Song Jinyue frowned.
Something didn’t look quite right.
After thinking for a moment, she raised her hand and slapped Shen Yurou across the other cheek.
Slap!
Ah…
Much better.
She had been wondering what was missing.
It turned out the handprints on Shen Yurou’s cheeks weren’t symmetrical.
As someone who had always appreciated symmetry, Song Jinyue naturally couldn’t leave things uneven.
“You’ve rebelled! You’ve truly rebelled!”
Lu Weiguo was so furious that his anger seemed ready to burst through the top of his head.
“Song Jinyue, you even dare to hit your own mother?! If I don’t teach you a proper lesson today, you’ll think you can do whatever you want!”
Limping heavily, Lu Weiguo charged toward Song Jinyue.
Seeing him coming, Song Jinyue grabbed Shen Yurou and Lu Manman by their collars, one in each hand, and abruptly shoved them both toward him.
“Hiss—my poor back!”