"Exactly. And that true daughter of the Qiao family? She comes off so petty. You have no idea—last time at a charity gala, she dressed up like a peacock, practically wearing every piece of jewelry she owned. Tacky doesn't even begin to cover it."
"I know all about it. The worst part is, those three Qiao brothers were actually proud of her, acting like their sister was the star of the whole event."
The chatter reached Qiao Shiyue's ears, and she wished she could crawl into a hole.
"Let me say it again, publicly, today: I have nothing to do with the Qiao family anymore, and I'm never going back. Please, Miss Qiao, stop making things hard for a nobody like me. You wanted all of Mom and Dad's love—I gave it to you. To avoid conflict, I left that house for good. You had your eye on my fiancé—I handed him over, even changed my surname. I have zero connection to the Qiao family now. What more do you want? Are you trying to drive me to death? You paid people to blacklist me, to keep me from working—are you planning to starve me to death?"
Shen Yunyun was saying all this based on what Qiao Shiyue had done in her past life. She wasn't sure if Qiao Shiyue had done the same in this one.
After all, in this life, she wasn't slaving away anymore—well, not exactly. She was still slaving away, just inside the trading system.
But that didn't stop her from throwing mud at Qiao Shiyue. She couldn't just keep dodging forever, could she?
Qiao Shiyue was the kind of woman who could corner her until there was no escape. If it hadn't been a matter of life and death, would she have been willing to take her down with her?
The crowd's expressions shifted again. They didn't have much influence in Goose City, but hearing Shen Yunyun's words still struck them as hard to believe.
Qiao Shiyue's head was still ringing from the slap, her mind slower than usual.
By the time she thought to retort, Shen Yunyun was already pressing on: "You're always hung up on what happened in the past, thinking I stole your life. But how am I not innocent in all this? I made it clear last time—we weren't deliberately swapped. You were lost by your own parents. For whatever reason, they never came looking for you, and instead went to an orphanage to adopt me."
The guests started murmuring again.
The incident from the last auction was being dredged up and rehashed.
Shen Yunyun saw Qiao Shiyue's pale face, took Lin Mengxing's hand, and said, "Sister, we don't need to keep this temp job anymore. Let's go."
"Alright, we'll bow and leave."
"Okay."
The two each pulled a golden chrysanthemum from the flower baskets at the entrance and stopped in front of the ice coffin.
Truth be told, they were both curious—who was inside that coffin?
The Sheng family had stuck to their story: Lin Qingyu had severe depression and died by suicide.
The father and son had even put on a show of grief, announcing a donation of thirty million for depression research and intervention, scoring points with the depressed community.
The authorities had praised their actions highly, calling them responsible entrepreneurs.
In the public's eyes, Sheng Sinian was a man of loyalty and love.
Lin Mengxing quietly squeezed Shen Yunyun's hand. She suspected Sheng Sinian might have arranged a mangled corpse—suicide by jumping off a building was a strong possibility.
But to her surprise, the person in the ice coffin looked just like her, around fifty years old, having died peacefully.
Maybe from blood loss, the exposed skin was unnaturally pale.
Yet her face was perfectly made up.
"This can't be," Lin Mengxing muttered, confused.
Where had Sheng Sinian found a corpse like that? Even the scar on her chin was identical.