With her treasure missing, Ren Ganying was already on edge. Ren Chaomei not only refused to cooperate, but deliberately kept provoking her, sending Ren Ganying straight over the edge.
“Ren Chaomei! I’m talking to you! Where’s my pouch?!”
Panicking, Ren Ganying immediately reached out and searched Ren Chaomei’s coat pockets, pants pockets…
“What are you doing? Are you trying to assault me?! Ren Ganying, that’s going too far! Where are you touching?!”
Ren Chaomei was startled by the sudden movement, but she only put on an exaggerated show of protesting a couple of times. She didn’t actually resist at all, letting Ren Ganying search wherever she wanted.
They were both women. If Ren Ganying wanted to search her, then let her. It wasn’t like she was going to lose a piece of flesh.
Whenever there was trouble in the house, Ren Dahe’s first thought was always Ren Chaomei. Hearing what sounded like the two sisters arguing, he hurried over.
“Why are you two fighting again?! Ren Chaomei, you just got home and you’re already causing trouble again?!”
The whole family rushed over to take sides, but this time, it was Ren Ganying who had started the trouble.
After personally searching Ren Chaomei and failing to find what she was looking for, Ren Ganying suddenly remembered that Ren Chaomei hadn’t been home that afternoon. She had only just returned, while her mother had been home the entire time.
She immediately turned to Wang Xiaoqin and anxiously asked, “Mom, did you go into my room and take my things?”
Wang Xiaoqin had come over to help her daughter. She hadn’t expected the flames of war to spread to her.
“I didn’t take anything of yours. After I finished tidying your room, I took that damaged dress of yours to mend it. What’s wrong? Did you lose something? Money?”
“Not money. A pouch. A gray pouch.” Ren Ganying asked uneasily, “You really didn’t take it to use as a patch, did you?”
When she heard it was a pouch, Wang Xiaoqin barely cared. She even started complaining.
“It’s just a pouch. So what if you lost it? You’re already a grown woman. Can’t you be a little more mature? Your sister just finished making a fuss, and now you’re making another fuss. Do you really not want this family to have a moment of peace? If you’re this jumpy about everything, just wait until you marry into another family. Your mother-in-law will chew you out…”
The nagging was starting to get annoying. Ren Chaomei wrinkled her nose, slipped on her slippers, and wandered into the kitchen to scoop up some warm water to wash her face and brush her teeth.
Ren Ganying glanced at her. Since she had already searched Ren Chaomei, she ignored her and continued trying to confirm with Wang Xiaoqin where her pouch had gone.
“This toothpaste isn’t very good…” Ren Chaomei spat out the foam and whispered, unable to hold back her laughter, “But it doesn’t matter. I have money now. I can buy a new one.”
With foam still clinging to the corners of her mouth, Ren Chaomei planted her hands on her hips and silently burst into laughter.
After laughing to her heart’s content, she slowly rinsed her mouth and washed her face.
When she returned to the room, she saw Ren Ganying crying as she searched through everything, muttering to herself.
“How could it suddenly disappear…? It was still here this afternoon… How could it suddenly disappear…?”
Ren Chaomei folded her arms and watched the tears on Ren Ganying’s face with an unusually cold expression.
When advising others, people loved to say, “When will revenge ever end?” and “Take a step back and the world opens up.”
But when it was their own turn, it became, “A gentleman must avenge himself.”
Compared with the miserable fate of the original Ren Chaomei in the novel, what she was doing wasn’t excessive.
Ren Ganying hadn’t shown any mercy when she had set her up either. It was simply that this time, Ren Ganying had suffered from a lack of knowledge.
If she had read a few more novels, she should have known about the whole “recognizing its master through blood” trope.
Unfortunately, those kinds of frivolous works were banned in this era, so Ren Ganying had nowhere to read them even if she wanted to.
When the pouch had first fallen into her hands, Ren Ganying hadn’t known it was a treasure, so she had washed it thoroughly. After that, she had been terrified that the treasure might get scratched, damaged, or dirtied. The thought of deliberately smearing blood on the pouch would never have occurred to her.
Because she treasured it too much, she had ironically lost it.
No matter how much Ren Ganying searched the room, Ren Chaomei ignored her. She pulled the quilt over her head and went to sleep.
With transportation in this era relying mostly on walking, the amount of exercise people got every day was considerable. So even with all the commotion in the room, Ren Chaomei slept soundly.
“Waaah… Where’s my pouch? Who took it? How could it suddenly disappear…?”
Ren Chaomei could still hear her muttering before she fell asleep.
The next morning, the moment she opened her eyes, she heard the same voice again.
“You didn’t sleep last night?” Ren Chaomei gave her an objective assessment. “You look like a ghost.”
Unable to find her belongings and receiving no response from her family, Ren Ganying was now like the Ren Chaomei of years ago, who had constantly nagged about the house and money.
From night until morning, she kept going on about that pouch.
During breakfast, she asked the entire family again, “Are you really sure you didn’t see my pouch? There’s no way it could have just disappeared.”
Ren Chaomei took a bite of her coarse-grain steamed bun and couldn’t resist replying.
“Why not? Didn’t my five hundred yuan disappear when I was little too? Though I was young back then, and Uncle insisted I wasn’t in my right mind. He said my dad had already given that five hundred yuan to him as my living expenses. Big Sis, have you gone a little crazy too?”
“That was so many years ago. Where would you have gotten five hundred yuan…?”
After telling the lie so many times, Ren Dahe delivered it without even changing expression.
He was about to repeat the same old explanation when Ren Ganying suddenly asked him, “Dad, did you take my pouch?”
Clatter!
Ren Dahe slammed his chopsticks onto the table.
“Pouch, pouch, pouch! What kind of useless piece of junk is so important that you dare talk to your father like this?!”
He had been holding a fire inside for the past two days.
Ren Chaomei infuriating him was one thing, but even his normally obedient daughter was now causing him trouble.
“Dad! Did you take my pouch? That pouch is really important!”
He could endure Ren Chaomei sarcastically implying that he was a thief. After all, he really had stolen from her.
But being questioned like this by Ren Ganying was something he absolutely could not tolerate. He felt as though his dignity as a father had been viciously violated.
“Could that pouch possibly be more important than your parents? From now on, you are not allowed to mention that pouch in this house again.”
Ren Chaomei secretly curled her lip.
Ren Dahe really thought highly of himself.
It might be impossible to compare him with her biological mother, but compared with a father like him, that pouch was worth ten times his value.
Clearly, Ren Ganying thought the same way. She anxiously pressed again, “Dad, did you take it or not?”
The moment she finished asking, the anger Ren Dahe had been suppressing finally exploded.
He slapped his daughter across the face.
“Can’t you hear what I’m saying?”
“Dad!”
Ren Ganying covered her face and burst into hysterical tears.
Whenever Ren Ganying and Ren Chaomei fought, everyone else in the family always took Ren Ganying’s side.
But when Ren Dahe slapped Ren Ganying, not a single person intervened—not even Wang Xiaoqin.
Perhaps Wang Xiaoqin also felt that her daughter had gone too far. Talking back to her own father like that meant she deserved to be disciplined.
The moment Ren Dahe lost his temper, the entire house fell silent.
The words “that pouch” seemed to disappear from Ren Chaomei’s ears.
Not only had the treasure disappeared, Ren Ganying now didn’t even dare mention it at home.
But she was merely afraid to mention it.
When it came to courage, Ren Ganying was actually bolder than the original Ren Chaomei.
Since Ren Dahe forbade her from talking about it, she secretly went into his room to search for it.