On the other side, after replying to her messages, Jiang Lai returned to He Feng Villa.
She stood quietly in the entrance hall, watching as the servants roughly dumped yellow paper, cinnabar, and even a needle-pierced clay doll onto the coffee table.
“Madam, these were all found in Miss’s room.”
Song Qin looked at the items with disgust. “Throw them all away!”
That morning she had already heard from Nanny Wang that strange noises had been coming from Jiang Lai’s room. She ordered a quick search — and all these “harmful things” were dug out.
“Yes.” The servant immediately took out a trash bag to collect everything.
“Don’t touch them.” Jiang Lai’s sharp voice stopped the servant mid-motion.
Song Qin shot up from the sofa, her resentful gaze almost burning through Jiang Lai.
“Don’t touch what? Who told you to mess with this stuff in my house? Haven’t I warned you before?”
She pointed directly at the clay doll full of needles — Gu Qianhe’s name was pasted on its head.
“The yellow paper and cinnabar are bad enough, but you even made a voodoo doll of Qianhe! What exactly are you trying to do?”
When Jiang Lai first returned to the Gu family, Song Qin had ordered all the yellow paper and cinnabar she brought to be burned. Jiang Lai meekly promised she would never touch such things again.
Yet after only one year, she had completely broken that promise.
Jiang Lai stepped forward, gathered the yellow paper and cinnabar together, and glanced coldly at the doll.
“This isn’t mine.”
She had countless ways to deal with Gu Qianhe — she would never use such crude, low-level tricks.
“Check the surveillance. I also want to know who put this doll in my room.”
Song Qin sneered. “Do we even need to check? In this whole Gu family, who else would harbor malice toward Qianhe besides you?”
Jiang Lai didn’t argue and asked the butler to pull up the hallway surveillance outside her room.
The butler stared at his phone, frowning. “Miss Jiang, the footage has been destroyed.”
“Tsk. You really planned this carefully,” Song Qin said sarcastically.
She wanted to see how many lies Jiang Lai could spin.
Nanny Wang hesitantly tried to smooth things over. “Miss Jiang, don’t fight with Madam… you’re all family…”
Jiang Lai ignored both of them. Her fingers moved rapidly over the butler’s phone, lines of code flashing across the screen.
She had once helped a top tech tycoon in China alter his destiny — and learned a bit of computer hacking from him. It was just enough for this moment.
Within seconds, the corrupted video gradually became clear again.
On the screen, Nanny Wang’s sneaky figure appeared outside Jiang Lai’s room. After checking left and right, she tiptoed inside — holding exactly the same clay doll found on the table.
After watching the entire video, Song Qin slapped Nanny Wang hard across the face.
“What are you doing?!”
Nanny Wang had been hired when Gu Qianhe was born and had served the Gu family for nearly twenty years. She had always seemed diligent and honest — which was why Song Qin trusted her.
“I— I…” Nanny Wang’s teeth chattered, lips trembling.
Gu Qianhe had told her the surveillance was impossible to recover, so she could act without fear. Then what was playing on the butler’s phone right now?!
“What? With such solid evidence in front of you, you still want to deny it?” Song Qin slapped her again.
She realized too late that she had trusted the wrong person — now she had humiliated herself in front of Jiang Lai.
The butler immediately called security to take Nanny Wang away.
Jiang Lai looked calmly at the shaking Song Qin. “Since Madam Gu now knows I was framed, shouldn’t you apologize?”
Song Qin’s face turned green and purple with shame.
The harsher her earlier words had been, the more humiliating this moment felt.
“I didn’t investigate clearly,” she admitted stiffly. “But even if the doll isn’t yours — can you really claim those things have nothing to do with you?”
Her eyes shifted to the yellow paper and cinnabar on the table. Her back straightened again.
They showed no signs of use, but who knew what Jiang Lai might do in the future?
She was still in the wrong!
Jiang Lai gave a faint laugh. “I’ll give Madam Gu a satisfactory answer.”
She picked up the yellow paper and cinnabar and went upstairs to pack her few belongings.
When Song Qin saw her coming down with a suitcase, unease surged in her chest. “What are you doing?”
“I’m moving out of the Gu family today.” Jiang Lai set her suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and leaned casually against the railing. “Are you satisfied, Madam Gu?”
Song Qin panicked slightly but kept talking harshly. “Don’t play this trick with me — you just want to make the old madam come back to support you!”
“There’s no scheme.”
Jiang Lai’s tone remained cold.
If people in the Gu family kept trying to pick on her, she would simply leave — no more room searches, no more ugly confrontations.
She glanced upward. Thick black mist hovered over the ceiling, blocked by a faint purple barrier. Behind her back, she silently formed a hand seal and poured the last of her spiritual energy into it.
After finishing this quietly, she said seriously:
“I’ll be waiting for Madam Gu to invite me back.”
Outside He Feng Villa, Jiang Lai called Pei Jingchuan.
Her savings were enough to stay in any hotel in South City, but she needed Pei Jingchuan’s newly drawn talismans to break the restrictions of heavenly law.
Ten minutes later, a black Maybach stopped in front of her.
Pei Jingchuan rolled down the window. Seeing Jiang Lai with her suitcase, he said simply, “Get in.”
She put her suitcase in the trunk and sat in the passenger seat.
“Got kicked out by the Gu family?” he teased, leaning over to buckle her seatbelt. “Don’t forget next time.”
His warm breath brushed her cheek; she turned her head slightly away.
Seeing her silent, he handed her a few snacks he’d bought on the way. “Want to go eat?”
“I already ate.” Jiang Lai slowly opened a bag of chips. “President Pei… for the sake of our engagement, can you take me in for a few days?”
He started the car lazily. “And if I say no?”
Jiang Lai lifted her eyes. Her polite tone vanished instantly. “Objection overruled.”
Pei Jingchuan chuckled. “Fine — I’ll reluctantly agree, little bandit.”