Slap Her a Few Times

Jiang Shuqin saw Lin Qingwan and the others return home and smiled, saying, "Wan'er, Yan'er, Xiu'er, you're back. Come, let's eat. I cooked all these dishes myself today. I'm in such a good mood—that unfilial son Lin Xuan is finally getting his comeuppance, so I thought I'd prepare this feast to celebrate."

The three sisters remained silent, their expressions heavy with tension.

Finally sensing something was amiss, Jiang Shuqin frowned and asked, "What's wrong with all of you? Why do you look like that?"

Lin Chang's face darkened as if ink could drip from it.

He strode over and—smack!—slapped Jiang Shuqin hard across the face.

Jiang Shuqin was stunned.

After a moment, she clutched her right cheek and turned to him. "Lin Chang, how dare you hit me? Did your secretary upset you, so now you're taking it out on me at home?"

Lin Chang's expression turned even darker.

This shrew had the nerve to bring up that matter in front of their children!

Lin Qingxiu asked in confusion, "Mom, what secretary? What's going on?"

Smack!—Lin Chang couldn't hold back and delivered another harsh slap to Jiang Shuqin’s left cheek.

"Lin Chang!"

Jiang Shuqin pointed at him accusingly. "Do you think just because I left the Jiang family, I’m easy to bully? How dare you hit me?"

"How dare I?" Lin Chang sneered. "Fine, I’ll tell you exactly why I hit you!"

His voice was icy. "Jiang Shuqin, answer me—who told you to go make trouble at Skyline Group?"

Jiang Shuqin retorted defiantly, "Isn’t this for the good of our company? Haven’t we always been suppressed by Skyline Group? With this incident, we can finally deal them a heavy blow!"

"And you and Li'er have suffered so much at Lin Xuan’s hands, yet he walks away unscathed, even protected by the police! Wasn’t I just trying to get justice for you? How is that my fault?"

"Lin Chang, everything I did was for the sake of our family! And you still have the nerve to accuse me of provoking you? Or are you just looking for an excuse to throw me out so you can marry that secretary of yours?"

As she spoke, tears of indignation rolled down her cheeks. She had once been the dazzling heiress of the Jiang family, while Lin Chang was nothing but a penniless nobody.

Back then, he had sworn to her that she would be the only woman in his life, the only one he would ever love.

But what happened? First, there was Wang Yajun, and now he had some vixen by his side—even shielding another woman right in front of her!

How could he treat her like this?

"For the sake of our family?" Lin Chang scoffed. "Then explain—how exactly does this benefit us?"

Jiang Shuqin said, "Lin Xuan will soon be arrested by the police! And with Skyline Group being boycotted, everyone’s rallying to watch our company’s upcoming movie!"

"Isn’t this a huge advantage for us? Oh, and weren’t you and Wan'er worried about our stock price? I just checked—it hit the limit up!"

"Are you sure it hit the limit up?" Lin Chang asked grimly.

"Of course I’m sure," Jiang Shuqin insisted. "Go check for yourself if you don’t believe me."

She had checked the stock before cooking—it was firmly locked at the upper limit, unlikely to drop for the rest of the day.

And given the current situation, Starlight Group’s stock would probably open with another limit-up tomorrow.

"Mom, maybe you should take another look at this."

Lin Qingwan handed her phone to Jiang Shuqin.

Starlight Group’s stock had plummeted in the last few seconds of trading—straight from limit-up to limit-down.

Jiang Shuqin hadn’t seen the nosedive on the chart and still thought the stock was at its peak.

Her initial worry eased.

Seeing Wan'er’s expression earlier, she had feared something terrible had happened—but it was nothing.

Wan'er really knew how to scare people.

"See? Isn’t this the limit-up?"

She passed the phone to Lin Chang.

Lin Chang let out a cold laugh, his face still dark with fury.

"Mom, maybe you should look again," Lin Qingwan urged, tugging at her sleeve. "Is this really the limit-up?"

"What else could it be?" Jiang Shuqin frowned.

She took the phone back and scrutinized it carefully this time.

Wait.

Something was off.

Shouldn’t the right side of the stock interface show red "buy" orders? Why was it displaying "sell," with millions of shares piled up?

Her eyes darted to the stock chart, and only then did she notice the twenty-centimeter freefall at the closing bell.

The stock wasn’t at the limit-up—it had crashed to the limit-down!

"What in the world happened?" Jiang Shuqin muttered in disbelief. "It was supposed to be limit-up! How did it end up limit-down?"

"Mom," Lin Qingwan explained, "the Yundu Police released details of the investigation, proving that Dad and Li'er’s injuries weren’t caused by Lin Xuan."

Lin Qingwan was baffled.

Were Dad and her brother’s injuries really Lin Xuan’s doing?

Li'er and Dad had no reason to lie.

But the evidence clearly showed Lin Xuan had an alibi, and there was no proof that the attackers were hired by Little Xuan…

Besides, no matter how much Little Xuan resented Dad, he was still his own father—would he really go so far as to hurt him this badly?

"The Yundu Police are still protecting Lin Xuan!" Jiang Shuqin clenched her fists.

"Just how much influence does Lin Xuan have? Even after all this, they’re shielding him!"

"No!"

She muttered to herself, "I won’t let Lin Xuan get away with this. We have to escalate this further—hire online trolls, buy trending hashtags, run promotions! I want the entire country to know what kind of person Lin Xuan is!"

Jiang Shuqin had clearly lost all reason.

"Mom, listen to me," Lin Qingwan said, gripping her shoulders to calm her down. "Let’s just drop this. If we keep pushing, it’ll only backfire on us."

Lin Yan'er added quietly, "That’s right. The whole internet already knows how terribly Little Xuan was treated in our family—forced to live in a cramped storage room, denied tuition, given only 400 yuan for living expenses, not allowed to eat at the table, surviving on scraps… and if we finished everything, he’d go hungry."

"After school every day, he had to wash dishes at a restaurant until his fingers cracked from the cold."

"So, Mom, now that people know the truth, if you keep trying to play the victim, they’ll just see you as despicable."

That’s why… it’s better to end this here.