The luxurious Mu residence was exquisitely decorated, making it look even more splendid.
Countless flowers and champagne were placed from the door to the main hall. The moment the guests entered, it felt as though they were in a sea of flowers.
There were a lot of guests and everyone was chatting.
However, it was completely quiet in an exquisite building in the backyard.
“My dear daughter, are you ready?” Zhang Man sat on the couch looking at the newest bracelet on her wrist.
“All set, Mom.” Mu Xiao’s voice came from upstairs.
Mu Xiao came downstairs dressed in a couture gown by Clover. It was a custom-made pink strapless dress and looked absolutely stunning. Its wide skirt was embellished with countless rhinestones and looked dazzling under the light.
Mu Xiao always looked frail and sickly, but her pale complexion was concealed by makeup today. The diamond tiara on her head made her gorgeous.
Zhang Man raised her head and scrutinized her daughter before she nodded satisfactorily. “You look pretty. It was well worth the long wait for this custom-made couture dress. It sure brings out your beauty.”
She had invited everyone in high society tonight.
More importantly, Li Ming was coming as well.
She had to ensure that Mu Xiao got successfully engaged to Li Ming.
“Have you contacted Young Master Li? What time is he coming?” Zhang Man stood up and walked over to Mu Xiao and helped her straighten out her necklace.
“I will call him now.”
The moment Mu Xiao finished her sentence, her phone rang. Li Ming was calling her.
Mu Xiao answered the phone, but Li Ming sounded annoyed.
“How could your mother invite Mu Sheng?” Li Ming sat in the car as he looked at the silhouette at the entrance and frowned hard.
“Mom said that Big Sis is family, so we ought to invite her over since we are holding such an important event.” Mu Xiao pursed her lips and could not tell what Li Ming was thinking.
Li Ming sounded furious. “Did you invite her so that she could make trouble at the banquet?”
“Let me talk to my mother about it and tell Mu Sheng to leave then?” said Mu Xiao as she looked at Zhang Man.
“Hang on.” Li Ming’s eyes lit up as a plot rose in his mind. “Let Mu Sheng in, but don’t let her enter the main hall. Keep her in the side hall.”
“Okay.” Mu Xiao was preoccupied, so she agreed right away without giving it any thought.
After hanging up the phone, Mu Xiao told Zhang Man about Li Ming’s request. Zhang Man did not object. “Enough. Forget about her and go welcome Young Master Li.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Mu Xiao noticed people looking in amazement, but she realized they were not looking at her when she got to the entrance.
She looked in the same direction and spotted Mu Sheng standing at the door quietly.
Everyone was luxuriously dressed for the banquet, but Mu Sheng came in casuals and light makeup. However, she stole everyone’s attention effortlessly.
A look of envy swept across Mu Xiao’s eyes. Mu Xiao was playing home court today, so she could not let the guests notice anything amiss. She composed herself and smiled as she walked over to Li Ming.
“You can’t enter. Everyone came dressed in their best for the banquet. How could you appear in casuals?” The butler smiled with a look of contempt.
Mu Sheng lowered her head to look at her coat.
She had given Li Hanchen her design, and the black gown cinched at the waist had arrived earlier today.
After Mu Sheng tried it on, Li Hanchen glanced at it and said nothing.
The tailor came over and apologized about the dress and said he would rework it.
It was not a competition for Mu Sheng, so she did not mind coming to the banquet dressed in casuals, so she told the tailor to take the dress back.
“I am not here for the banquet. I just want to go to my room.”
The original owner of the body was under the Mu family’s utter control.
Even though she was already kicked out of the residence like trash, they refused to return her official documents and kept them at home.
Mu Sheng was mainly here today to retrieve those documents.
Just as the butler was about to say no, someone suddenly whispered to him. The butler nodded before looking at Mu Sheng. “Follow me.”
The butler proceeded to lead Mu Sheng into the house.
Everyone gossiped from behind as Mu Sheng left.
“I have never seen such a gorgeous woman in town. Is she the Mu family’s relative? I find her face a little familiar. Isn’t she an artist? Was she invited to perform or something?”
“How could they? The Mu family would never go so low as to hire a small-time actress to perform. She probably came as some guy’s date.”
Mu Sheng was the Mu family’s young mistress. However, Zhang Man and the rest of the Mu family kept disregarding her, so she was only a young mistress in name.
Also, only Mu Xiao attended the high society events on behalf of the family, so everyone thought there was only one daughter in the family.
“I heard the Mu and Li families are going to be in-laws soon. Miss Mu is so lucky.”
“Really? How could the Li family agree to this?”
Everyone kept speaking in hushed tones. Li Ming got out of the car nearby with Mu Xiao smiling as she walked beside him.
Considering their social status, Li Ming was honoring them by showing up at the banquet. Everyone looked envious now that Li Ming was happily chatting with Mu Xiao.
He was the crown prince of the Li family. If Mu Xiao ended up marrying him, she would have a bright future ahead of her.
Now that Li Ming had arrived, things started to get lively in the hall.
Mu Sheng sat in the living room in the private quarters.
The butler who previously pretended not to know Mu Sheng finally showed his true colors. He said in contempt, “Young Mistress Sheng, didn’t Young Madam prepare an outfit for you? Why did you come dressed in this?”
The butler glanced at Mu Sheng’s outfit in disdain. Fortunately, no one knew Mu Sheng was a member of the Mu family. Otherwise, it would be a major embarrassment for the clan.
Mu Sheng couldn’t be bothered with the butler. Instead, she tapped into the memory belonging to the original owner of the body and found her way to the room only to find it locked.
“Young Mistress Sheng, what are you doing? Young Madam said you can’t walk around while the banquet is going on.”
PAH!
Before the butler could finish his sentence, Mu Sheng kicked the lock open. The broken chain clanged as it fell. Everyone was left in shock.
Mu Sheng entered the room and went through all the cabinets, but she was unable to find the purse belonging to the original owner of the body.
Mu Sheng turned her head. “Where are my stuff?”
The butler stood with his hands on his hips. “Young Mistress Sheng, since you are already married, you do not have a right to enter this room. Do you have any respect for the family at all? How could you just barge in? How could you be such an ingrate? You are just like your dead mother.”
Mu Sheng took some tape, pulled the butler by his arm, bound him swiftly, and taped his mouth before she headed to Zhang Man’s room.
Zhang Man’s room wasn’t locked. Mu Sheng scrutinized the room as she stood outside and quickly recalled the layout of the room.
Her eyes landed on the oil painting hanging over the bed.
Mu Sheng walked over and pulled the painting aside a little. Sure enough, there was a safe behind it.
The safe required a password for access and came equipped with an alarm system. The moment she entered the wrong password, the alarm would get activated.
Mu Sheng retrieved her laptop from her bag and sat on the bed as she entered some code onto her laptop.
Lines of code kept jumping on the screen as Mu Sheng looked at them.
The butler kept struggling to shout in the room next door, but it was futile.
He had already given the orders for the other servants to steer clear of the building so that he could take care of Mu Sheng, so no one was around to help him.
The building was completely quiet and only the sound of Mu Sheng tapping on the keyboard in Zhang Man’s room was audible.
Mu Sheng stopped typing 30 minutes later. She stood up and entered a string of numbers into the safe.
The safe opened with a click.
Sure enough, Mu Sheng’s bag was inside the safe. She retrieved the bag and found all her official documents inside.
Mu Sheng replaced her official documents with a fake set. She cleared her tracks and left the room before tapping on her laptop to reactivate the surveillance system.
“Woo woo woo.” The butler promptly shouted at Mu Sheng the moment she came back to the room.
Mu Sheng stood in front of him coldly. The butler inexplicably felt intimidated, so he quietened down.
Mu Sheng reached her hand out to pull the tape from his mouth. “Leave.”
The butler was so intimidated by her powerful aura that he immediately left the room.
Mu Sheng went downstairs to the living room a minute later.
The living room door happened to open and people entered the room.
Zhang Man and Mu Xiao looked like they were out for trouble. They walked in with dozens of doctors dressed in white robes behind them.
Zhang Man waved her hand when she saw Mu Sheng. She gestured for the doctors to wait outside the door before she put on a loving smile. “Sheng, why didn’t you go to the main hall? I already saved you a seat.”
Mu Sheng ignored Zhang Man and walked out with her bag.
Zhang Man felt annoyed when she detected Mu Sheng’s cold attitude.
From the looks of it, Mu Xiao was right. Mu Sheng was no longer as easy to fool.
She reached her hand out to stop Mu Sheng. “Sheng, I heard Young Master Li has a weak constitution. You must have a hard time taking care of him. I hired a medical team to help examine him and they are waiting outside.”
Mu Sheng halted in her steps and glanced at Zhang Man so coldly that Zhang Man trembled.
Mu Sheng smiled ambiguously. “Do they happen to specialize in kidney transplants? Save them for yourself.”
The moment she finished her sentence, Mu Sheng walked out, but Zhang Man stopped her.
Since they had already fallen out and no one else was around, Zhang Man did not even try to conceal her detest towards Mu Sheng. “I don’t care how you feel about this. You can forget about leaving today.”
Mu Sheng did not stop. “Why don’t you just try? If you force me to stay, I will make sure every news outlet reports about how you secretly transferred the Mu family’s assets.”
Zhang Man looked shocked. She went after Mu Sheng and wanted to find out what she knew. “What do you mean? Explain yourself.”
Mu Sheng did not answer her. She simply stood in front of the tightly shut front doors. “Aren’t you going to open the doors?”
Zhang Man looked at Mu Sheng’s cool profile anxiously. “Explain yourself. What did you mean by that?”
“Three, two…”
“Open the door!” said Zhang Man before Mu Sheng finished counting down to one.
Mu Sheng walked right out of the villa. Zhang Man glanced at the servant standing at the door, and he quietly let Mu Sheng pass.
“Mom? What was Mu Sheng talking about? Why are you so anxious?” Mu Xiao looked at Zhang Man quizzically. What asset transfer was Mu Sheng talking about?
Zhang Man forcibly composed herself before she smiled. “Nothing. Enough about me. Why did Li Ming suddenly leave? Didn’t we plan on discussing your engagement today?”
Mu Xiao looked upset the moment she brought up Li Ming.
Mu Xiao was very happy that Li Ming appeared at the banquet. She had intended on fixing a date for their engagement, but Li Ming kept making excuses and eventually left the banquet early.
What went wrong? Did Li Ming change his mind about marrying her?
The butler ran in gasping. “Young Mistress Sheng just entered your room and touched your things.”
“What?” Zhang Man stood up anxiously and rushed to her room.
After inspecting her room, she confirmed that everything was where it was.
The butler mentioned that Mu Sheng had kicked the lock off the bedroom door, but it was completely intact.
“Young Madam, you should check the surveillance. She definitely went upstairs earlier.” The butler broke out in cold sweat as he spoke.
Zhang Man checked the surveillance footage quizzically, but she did not detect anything amiss. All she saw was footage of the butler heading downstairs hurriedly.
Zhang Man looked at the butler suspiciously.
The butler hurriedly waved his hands. “Young Madam, I have been working for you for over a decade. I would never betray you!”
Zhang Man narrowed her eyes. The surveillance footage was iron-clad evidence. Did the butler tell Mu Sheng about her secrets?
Despite her suspicion, she kept smiling as she said, “Don’t worry. How could I ever suspect you of anything? You may leave.”
“Thank you, Young Madam.” The butler kept bowing before turning to prepare Zhang Man’s supper.
He failed to detect the smile disappearing from Zhang Man’s face.
By the time Mu Sheng got back to the villa, it was already very late, so Auntie Lin and Li An had already gone to bed.
The living room lights were still on. Li Hanchen sat on the couch with soft light scattering down on him, covering him in faint gold light.
Li Hanchen raised his head when he heard her footsteps. “Are you home already?”
“Uh huh.” Mu Sheng nodded. “Haven’t you gone to bed yet?
Li Hanchen opened the box beside him. “The dress is done. I just received it. Want to try it on?”
“Already?” Mu Sheng walked over to check it out. “Okay. Let me try it on.”
Mu Sheng went to the changing room upstairs.
Before long, Mu Sheng walked out dressed in the altered dress. Li Hanchen had unknowingly entered the changing room.
Li Hanchen looked at Mu Sheng deeply, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. His eyes glinted when he saw the half-done zipper at the back of her dress, and he waved Mu Sheng over.
“Come over.”
