Lin Shuang didn’t have the time or patience to engage in a catfight with anyone.
Locked outside, Lin Lanlan was kicking the door in a rage.
“Lin Shuang, you bitch, open the door!”
“What right do you have to take my jade pendant?”
She had worn it for three years and developed deep feelings for it.
Furthermore, with the jade pendant taken away, her heart felt strangely empty, as if she had lost a monumental stroke of good fortune.
Lin Shuang had no leisure to appreciate Lin Lanlan’s hysterical madness; she was busy inside her spatial dimension refueling her energy.
Ever since she returned, she hadn’t eaten a single bite of warm food in this household.
Thankfully, before she came, her maternal aunt had stuffed quite a bit of dry rations into her trunk.
Having regained her strength, she noticed the outside had quieted down.
Lin Shuang stepped out of her room and discovered that the family of five had left at some point.
She speculated that they had probably gone to meet up with the Shen family to discuss the upcoming marriage.
Delighted, Lin Shuang wandered around the house, upstairs and downstairs.
Fetching a piece of thin iron wire, she entered the master bedroom and successfully picked the lock, pulling out the household registration booklet.
The current household registration was bound with loose-leaf linen string, so Lin Shuang smoothly untied and extracted her own page.
At that exact moment, she suddenly sensed that something was off.
Given Zhou Qingman’s nature, she should have long since nagged her scumbag father to transfer Lin Shuang’s household registration out.
Suddenly, an old memory bubbled up from deep within her mind.
After giving birth to her, Lin Huanong had no intention of having more children and had prepared a batch of dowry for Lin Shuang very early on, storing it in a bank safety deposit box.
That had to be the reason.
Yet another question arose.
Given this couple’s insatiable, greedy nature, it was impossible for them not to plot after her dowry.
Yet ever since she returned, they hadn’t uttered a single word about it.
In fact, every word out of their mouths signaled a desperate wish for her to get lost as quickly as possible.
Lin Shuang mulled it over without coming to a clear conclusion, so she simply stopped overthinking it.
She smoothly pocketed the entire household registration booklet. There was still a fair amount of cash, coupons, and jewelry inside the drawer, but Lin Shuang didn’t touch them; it wasn’t time yet.
She picked up the bank passbook instead and opened it for a look.
Good grief—over eighty thousand yuan!
Her eyes instantly grew sour and heavy with emotion.
She remembered the time right after she was brought to her aunt’s house. To save extra rations to raise her, her eldest cousin brother and sister would secretly run into the kitchen to gulp down water before every meal. Her youngest cousin brother, a tiny little child, had nearly been swept away by a flood while catching fish and shrimp in the river ditch. Her aunt’s husband had voluntarily worked late shifts for an extra half-pound of grain, only to throw out his back.
Meanwhile, her scumbag father’s family spent the money her grandfather earned, enjoying the glory and protection of his legacy with a clear conscience.
Yet she, the sole legitimate heir of the Lin family, was forced to chew on husks and swallow wild herbs out in the cold.
Lin Shuang suppressed the surging rage in her chest.
She promptly tucked the passbook away as well.
Bank savings certificates back then didn’t require a password; as long as you brought the household registration booklet, you could withdraw the funds.
Lin Shuang paid a visit to the bank and quickly retrieved all the money.
Using her green canvas satchel as a cover, she transferred all the cash directly into her spatial dimension.
“Sister, is your manager here?”
The plump lady in her fifties blushed with bashfulness at being called “sister.”
Look at that—not only was this young girl pretty and vibrant, but her mouth was sweet and sincere. Wasn’t she calling her young?
She pointed upstairs with great patience: “Second office on the floor above. Little sister, do you have business? Do you want me to lead you up?”
If someone offered to guide her, Lin Shuang naturally welcomed it, but seeing a few more customers arriving behind her, she didn’t want to hold anyone up.
“No need, sister, you go ahead and stay busy. I can go up by myself.”
Thanking the counter lady, Lin Shuang headed straight to find the office.
The door stood half-open, and inside, a skinny old man was leaning sideways while talking on the telephone.
His voice was so loud that Lin Shuang was forced to overhear, though the more she listened, the more familiar it sounded.
“Bullshit! No matter who comes, those things aren’t being handed over. Old Lin left them specifically for his granddaughter.”
“That bastard Qin Hongwen can forget about falsely claiming them.”
Qin Hongwen? Wasn’t that her scumbag father?
Lin Shuang finally came to understand that her scumbag father had been running over here quite frequently over the years, all to claim that batch of dowry on her behalf.
If the old man in front of her hadn’t been keeping a firm handle on it, plenty of people would have taken reckless risks.
Lin Shuang guessed that her scumbag father’s true goal in summoning her back wasn’t just the fiancé swap.
Signing the engagement cancellation document was merely a smokescreen; what her scumbag father truly wanted was the dowry Lin Huanong had deposited in the bank for her.
Yet he hadn’t mentioned a single word about it to her, which was extremely fishy.
Wait, the engagement cancellation document?
In a sudden flash of insight, a possibility struck Lin Shuang.
Could her scumbag father be planning to trace her signature, copying and forging it to falsely claim the dowry?
Lin Shuang felt an inexplicable certainty that she had hit the nail right on the head!
The skinny old man happened to hang up the phone at that moment, turning his head only to lock eyes with Lin Shuang.
“You… you’re Shuangshuang, aren’t you?”
The old man excitedly sized Lin Shuang up and down.
Lin Shuang also recognized who he was from his weathered, frost-bitten face.
“Grandpa Zhuang, how has your health been all these years?”
Lin Shuang wasn’t actually accustomed to this kind of sentimental reunion, but luckily Grandpa Zhuang’s assistant served tea and snacks at just the right moment.
Grandpa Zhuang guided Lin Shuang to sit down.
From Grandpa Zhuang’s mouth, Lin Shuang confirmed her suspicion.
To get his hands on this batch of dowry over the years, her scumbag father had indeed pulled plenty of dirty tricks.
Fortunately, her mother had possessed foresight, stipulating that Lin Shuang had to reach the full age of eighteen before she could claim it.
And just earlier, her scumbag father had indeed stopped by holding a power of attorney bearing her signature.
“You didn’t expect it, did you? Your grandfather put a secondary lock on those goods as well. Claiming them requires my personal consent.”
As he spoke, Grandpa Zhuang opened the safe and took out a hand-written last testament left by her grandfather.
After reading through the letter, Lin Shuang suddenly came to a decision.
“Grandpa Zhuang, I want to donate this entire batch of dowry.”
Grandpa Zhuang merely froze for a brief second before immediately nodding in total support of her decision.
With Grandpa Zhuang taking the lead, Lin Shuang quickly completed the handover with the relevant authorities.
When she walked out, Lin Shuang held an extra donation certificate along with a long, itemized inventory list.
Knowing the future’s trajectory, she knew full well that this bright red certificate would serve as her ultimate protective talisman.
Lin Shuang walked with light, breezy steps as she headed straight to the local neighborhood sub-district office.
“Comrade, I want to register for countryside re-education.”
The square-faced lady at the counter heard this, and the smile on her face blossomed wide.
“Young comrade, your political awareness is so high! Building the Four Modernizations needs young people just like you.”
Lin Shuang acted bashful, lowering her head shyly.
“Comrade, it’s not me. It’s my younger brothers and sister who are clamoring to go.”
In Lin Shuang’s depiction, Lin Lanlan and her two brothers had been refusing to eat for several days just to be sent to the countryside.
Hearing this, the square-faced lady’s hand began scribbling across the paper at lightning speed.
Saving a life was like putting out a fire; it could not be delayed for a single second.
“Comrade, they also have a special request. They hope to go to the most remote and grueling places, and they want to be separated. They’re afraid of relying on one another and want to focus on building the motherland with a clear mind.”
The square-faced lady was deeply moved and awed, helping her pick several locations without the slightest hint of doubt.
However, Lin Shuang gently overruled them with a soft smile, her pale finger pointing at a few other locations.
“Comrade, these few places suit them much better. We have relatives over there, so they can look out for one another if anything comes up, right?”
The doubt in the square-faced lady’s mind vanished instantly.
Living in mountain caves, enduring year-round droughts, and suffering frequent sandstorms—my three little wolf cubs, don’t bother thanking your big sister!
To Lin Shuang’s surprise, she even collected a total of two hundred and forty yuan in countryside relocation subsidies.
With her tasks completed, Lin Shuang remembered she needed to drop by the post office.
Unexpectedly, she bumped into Lin Lanlan again at the end of an alley, laughing and chatting with a group of street hoodlums.
Using a low wall as cover, Lin Shuang slipped inside her spatial dimension in a flash.
As if feeling a sudden jolt of intuition, Lin Lanlan abruptly raised her head to look toward the low wall.
Huh? How strange. She had just felt as though someone was watching her.
Feeling uneasy, she sent one of her henchmen over to inspect the spot, but there was no one there.
“Did I see a ghost?”