Ye Wanlan slowly raised her head, rolled up her sleeves, and stepped forward alone, "Wenli, wait here for me, I'll be right back."
One minute.
To deal with these people, she only needed one minute.
"They know what's good for them," the leader said, satisfied.
They didn't want to forcefully take Ye Wanlan away at the entrance of Jiangcheng No.1 Middle School; it would look bad and tarnish the Qin Family's reputation.
"You—" Lin Wenli failed to persuade her, watching as Ye Wanlan followed the Qin Family's guards into the alley, his brow furrowed.
Even though he detested Ye Wanlan, he wasn't cold-hearted enough to leave her to die.
Lin Wenli finally stepped forward and took out his phone, ready to call the police.
A minute had passed, and that was when Ye Wanlan emerged from the alley, her hair not even slightly messy and her shirt still pristine white.
But Lin Wenli noticed fresh blood dripping down from the girl's index finger.
Her finger bones were like jade, the crimson blood stark and startling, like a ghost from a gore-soaked nightmare.
Lin Wenli shivered, taking two steps forward, only then did he see the full scene in the alley.
The Qin Family's five guards lay on the ground, one on top of the other, spitting blood, faces bruised and swollen, clearly having suffered inhuman brutality.
It was a one-sided beating.
Ye Wanlan wiped her hands, unconcerned, "It's taken care of, let's go home."
Lin Wenli didn't move.
He couldn't remember the last time he saw Ye Wanlan, but he still remembered how she used to fawn over Young Master Zhou and his circle, acting lowly and sycophantic. How had she suddenly changed?
"They wanted to hit me," Ye Wanlan explained with a slow glance, adding, "But they were unlucky and fell down."
Lin Wenli looked at one of the guards with a broken leg, "You're saying, they fell down like this?"
Ye Wanlan affirmed, "I told you, they fell down like this when they came in."
Lin Wenli: "..."
He was certain, Ye Wanlan had gone mad.
But it was none of his business.
Lin Wenli put away his phone and left expressionlessly.
The siblings continued walking, one after the other.
Silent all the way.
The iris flowers swayed in the wind, and Ye Wanlan said, "I moved back home."
Hearing this sentence, Lin Wenli abruptly stopped, scoffing, "Move back home? Didn't you say that a place that couldn't even give you a Catika bag wasn't your home?"
He had a good memory.
He remembered that time Lin Huaijin had run into Ye Wanlan on the street, merely trying to persuade her to return to continue her studies, only to be struck in the face by a luxury bag she threw at him.
"What good does going back to school do me? I can't afford a Catika bag even if I work hard my whole life. Do you know how much this bag costs? It's distributed for 1.2 million! Can you give it to me? Get lost!"
Thinking back to these words, Lin Wenli's gaze turned colder.
He would never trust Ye Wanlan.
Ye Wanlan's eyelashes lowered, her voice cool, "I threw all those away."
Lin Wenli laughed coldly and quickened his pace.
The two reached home by 7:30 PM, greeted by the aroma of dinner.
"Dad, Mom, I'm back," Lin Wenli nodded slightly and put down his backpack to wash his hands.
Ye Wanlan greeted Khor Peiqing, who had also just returned, "Hello, Auntie."
Khor Peiqing didn't look at her or speak. She clenched her chopsticks, her eyes dark and restrained from erupting.
It was Lin Huaijin who broke the silence, "Let's eat."
The four of them ate with different things on their minds.
After finishing, Ye Wanlan picked up her empty plate and headed for the kitchen.
Khor Peiqing finally spoke, "Don't touch it, let go! This has nothing to do with you!"
"Auntie—"
"Let go!"
Crash!
In the struggle, the plate fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.
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A dead silence.
Ye Wanlan stared blankly at her own hands, her eyelashes trembling slightly.
"That's enough, everyone sit down, I'll go wash the dishes," Lin Huaijin said, somewhat exasperated.
Khor Peiqing took a deep breath and slammed the door behind her as she returned to her room.
Lin Wenli's face remained expressionless as he looked at Ye Wanlan, "You shouldn't have come back."
Ye Wanlan squatted down, clutching a shard in her palm, allowing the blood to seep out. After a long moment, she said softly, "I'll go up to the attic for a bit."
**
"Peiqing," Lin Huaijin pushed open the door to the master bedroom and said in a low voice, "Don't be angry, it's not good for your health."
"Why is she here?" Khor Peiqing turned around abruptly, her voice filled with tears as she demanded, "Lin Huaijin, have you forgotten the pain after a scar heals, have you forgotten how she treated you?!"
Over the past four years, Ye Wanlan had trampled their kindness into the mud countless times.
She couldn't stand living under the same roof as such a person.
Lin Huaijin was silent for a moment before saying, "I think she has truly come back this time, just like six years ago when she was twelve, she..."
Khor Peiqing wiped away her tears, her voice cold, "I don't believe it. Just yesterday the Zhou Family sent someone here looking for her, how do you know she wasn't abandoned by Young Master Zhou and came back as a last resort? She only sees you as a fallback! And yet, you still believe her!"
The matter of Ye Wanlan serving as a substitute for Zhou Hechen had caused quite a stir in Jiangcheng.
Khor Peiqing also knew that Ye Wanlan had left several times over two years, and in the end, it always resulted in her returning to Zhou Hechen's side.
What were they to her?
A mere link in the chain of feelings between Ye Wanlan and Zhou Hechen?
They were also human, with hearts made of flesh!
After a very long silence, Lin Huaijin finally said hoarsely, "Peiqing, one last time, I promise."
Khor Peiqing closed her eyes, "Fine, I can act as if she doesn't exist. I only have one condition, she must not affect Wenli."
Whatever the future held for Ye Wanlan, it had nothing to do with her anymore.
**
Ye Wanlan was cleaning the attic.
It was filled with a lot of clutter, almost all of it her belongings.
The Transcendent Woman who had taken over her body had never returned to the Lin Family, nor would she know about this place.
Aside from books, the most eye-catching item was a seven-stringed zither covered in dust, obviously untouched for a long time.
Ye Wanlan cleaned the zither's body and strings, then gently strummed one of the strings.
"Zeng!"
The string vibrated, emitting a grand sound that was rarely heard.
Ye Wanlan blew the dust off the musical score, and as the dust scattered, the words "Battle-Breaking Music" came into view.
The Transcendent Woman would have never imagined that one of Shenzhou's long-lost top ten classical pieces, a treasure that the World Intangible Cultural Heritage Center had desperately sought but could not find, was in this inconspicuous attic.
Ye Wanlan put away the musical score and moved the seven-stringed zither into her bedroom.
When she returned in the morning, she knew that although she had not been with the Lin Family for four years, Lin Huaijin had still kept her room.
Even when she went out to meet Lin Wenli, new sheets and covers had been prepared.
Ye Wanlan's expression was indifferent.
What was a desperate situation? She always enjoyed turning the tide in the face of death, and doing so decisively.
Her cell phone vibrated, a new message came in.
Cheng Qingli: [Sister Lan, oh my ancestors! What have you done?]
Cheng Qingli was her newly appointed agent, two years her senior, whom she had yet to meet.
Ye Wanlan took a glance.
It was a screenshot of a social media post.
Someone had posted a photo of a Qin Family guard vomiting blood with the caption "Since when did Young Master Zhou's pet become so bold?"
Below were a string of comments.
[Can't be, has she grown to hate Young Master Zhou out of love, gone mad?]
[What's the use of going mad? With one beckoning from Young Master Zhou, she'll still run to him. She's just playing hard to get.]
[Sister Yunyi is back, she doesn't think she can compare to the real lady, does she?]
At the bottom was Zhou Hechen's comment: [Delusions of grandeur.]
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