The more she looked at this girl, the more she liked her.
Her looks, her personality, her heart, everything about her was wonderful. Even if Gu Wanshi hadn’t saved her life, Madam Mu would still have adored her!
And on top of that, Gu Wanshi had done her a great favor.
She wanted nothing more than to shower Gu Wanshi with everything good.
“Madam, are you feeling completely well now?” Gu Wanshi asked with a smile.
“I’ve been fine for a while now,” Madam Mu said. “Wanshi, I really owe you so much for that day!”
With that, she took a box out of her bag and handed it to Gu Wanshi.
“This is my token of thanks, Wanshi, you absolutely must accept it.”
Gu Wanshi took it and opened it to find a pair of jade bracelets inside, an even, vivid green all the way through, clearly worth a fortune at a glance.
She thought about it, then didn’t refuse, accepting it directly.
If she didn’t accept it, the Mu family would surely rack their brains trying to find some other way to thank her.
Better to just graciously accept it now.
“Wanshi, I have a gift for you too!” Mu Anqian said, taking out a box of her own.
Mu Anqian’s gift was the latest-model necklace, worth over six million.
But the price wasn’t the point, the real value was that this necklace was the only one of its kind in the entire world, something even people with money couldn’t simply buy.
“Brother, did you prepare anything for Wanshi?” Once she’d given her gift, Mu Anqian turned to ask Mu Zecheng with a teasing smile.
Mu Zecheng nodded and said to Gu Wanshi, “Miss Gu, Mu Corporation owns a tea house. I’ve already transferred it into your name.”
Gu Wanshi: “…”
Wasn’t this just wealth falling from the sky?
Every single business under Mu Corporation turned a profit, without exception!
“Brother, don’t tell me it’s the ‘Lanyun’ tea house?” Mu Anqian looked quite surprised.
The Lanyun tea house was located right here in the city, quite upscale and large in scale, with annual profits of at least several hundred million.
Several hundred million might not seem like much to the wealthy, but that was steady annual income.
“This isn’t right,” Gu Wanshi said quickly. “I can’t accept this.”
Accepting some jewelry from them was one thing.
But taking such a massive business for free like this felt excessive.
“He gave it to you, so just take it!” Madam Mu said cheerfully. “From now on, we’re family, don’t be so formal with him. If you ever need anything, feel free to put him to work!”
“Exactly,” Mu Anqian added. “My brother has no real talent for running a tea house anyway. It’s been sitting in his hands all this time, what a waste!”
Gu Wanshi smiled, she knew perfectly well Mu Anqian was just being modest.
Mu Zecheng was renowned as a business prodigy, managing a single tea house was well within his abilities with room to spare.
The food and wine they’d ordered soon arrived, and once Mu Zecheng had poured red wine into everyone’s glass, he raised his glass toward Gu Wanshi.
“Miss Gu, a toast to you, thank you for saving my grandmother.”
“No need to keep thanking me, Mr. Mu,” Gu Wanshi said with a smile.
Their glasses touched gently, letting out a soft clink.
Compared to the warm, cheerful atmosphere here, the mood at the Gu household was suffocatingly tense.
The servants didn’t dare make a sound, while Gu Wanning knelt in the living room, her eyes swollen from crying.
Gu Lianghui glared at her viciously. “Tell me! What exactly is going on? Didn’t you say Gu Wanshi was involved with some old man?”
“I, everything I said was true…” Gu Wanning mumbled.
“You’re still lying!” Gu Lianghui picked up a cup and smashed it hard onto the floor. “Did you see how Mr. Mu treated Gu Wanshi today? There’s clearly something going on between them! With someone like Mr. Mu around, why would Gu Wanshi bother going after some old man? Do you think I’m a fool?”
Gu Wanning cried, “Dad, I really don’t know what’s going on, please don’t be like this, you’re scaring me!”
Never before, in all her years, had Gu Lianghui ever been this harsh with her.
“What’s the use of being so harsh on Wanning?” Yin Jingyun said, also in tears. “This is clearly all Gu Wanshi’s doing! We never should have taken her back in the first place, look at how much damage she’s brought on our family…”
“Dad, Mom, what exactly happened?” Gu Zihao asked anxiously. “Won’t someone tell me?”
The moment they’d gotten home, Gu Lianghui had started raging, while Yin Jingyun and Gu Wanning only cried, and no one had told him what had actually happened at the restaurant.
Yin Jingyun wiped her tears and gave Gu Zihao an account of what had happened when they ran into Gu Wanshi and Mu Zecheng at the restaurant.
Gu Zihao’s expression shifted repeatedly. “Mr. Mu is actually backing that little tramp? That… that can’t be right! How could Gu Wanshi possibly know Mr. Mu?”
“When we first took her back in, we confirmed her adoptive parents were ordinary people, didn’t we?” Gu Lianghui asked, frowning.
“That’s right!” Gu Zihao said firmly. “I had people investigate thoroughly. Her adoptive father is just a low-level office worker, her adoptive mother doesn’t work, and she has a younger brother too, most of the family’s money went to that brother of hers.”
“In that case, she’s not relying on her adoptive family’s connections,” Gu Lianghui said, his face grim. “So how exactly did she manage this?”
Just a short while ago, she’d still been a timid little thing who didn’t even dare meet people’s eyes.
How had she become a completely different person in just a few days?
“This is all your fault, you wretched girl!” The more Gu Lianghui thought about it, the angrier he grew, and he kicked Gu Wanning down to the ground. “If it weren’t for you, I never would have offended Mr. Mu, and we wouldn’t have lost this partnership! Do you have any idea how much the company stands to lose from this?”
As he spoke, he even pulled the belt from his waist and struck Gu Wanning hard with it.
“Ah!” Gu Wanning screamed in pain. “Dad, stop hitting me!”
“Dad, please don’t hit sister anymore!” Gu Zihao rushed to hold him back. “Hitting her won’t do any good now! Why don’t we go find Gu Wanshi instead and see if she has any ideas?”
Yin Jingyun helped Gu Wanning up while asking worriedly, “That heartless girl, why would she ever help us?”
Actually, Yin Jingyun knew perfectly well in her heart that they’d never treated Gu Wanshi well at all, and had even seized the inheritance that rightfully belonged to her, which was exactly why Gu Wanshi had grown so cold toward them.
But there was no way she’d ever admit that out loud.
Gu Zihao said, “No matter what, we’re still family. We’ve already acknowledged her as our own, I refuse to believe Gu Wanshi would really turn her back on the Gu family entirely. Let me think of a way to talk to her.”
Gu Lianghui nodded, agreeing with Gu Zihao’s suggestion.
Then he turned back to Gu Wanning, furious again. “All you do is cause trouble for me every single day, never doing anything useful! I should have known better and sent you back to your biological parents!”
Gu Wanning’s face went pale with shock, and she shook her head repeatedly. “Dad, please don’t abandon me! I don’t want to go back there!”
That family was so poor, and she had no real skills of her own, how could she possibly survive over there?