Madam Lin gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as her gaze locked onto the torn pieces of the title deed. "What are you doing?!" she shrieked, scrambling to snatch the papers back from the floor. "You can't just—"
But before she could even finish her sentence, Ling Buyi's father held up the torn halves of the document in front of her, his face a mask of calm authority. "This document," he said slowly, his voice steady but with a hint of disdain, "is fake."
Yuan Fei's father, who had been watching the entire scene with a look of smug indifference, suddenly tensed. His eyes flickered with uncertainty as he observed Ling Buyi's father's expression. Something about the way he held the title deed, the conviction in his voice, made Yuan Fei's father second-guess his confidence. Ling Buyi's father had worked at the Ministry of Lands for decades. If he was saying the title deed was fake, then there was a real possibility that it was, in fact, a forgery.
