Old Master Lu spruced himself up before heading out to show off in front of his friends.
Yan Huan found her phone and dialed a number.
“Aunty Qin? It’s me, Yan Huan. The old man at my house loves the shoes you made for him. Is it possible for you to rush out a few more pairs?”
“Got it, thank you. I’ll pick them up in a few days’ time.”
Yan Huan kept her phone, turned around, and saw Old Master Lu peeking at her with an unerasable smile on his face. When he saw her looking at him, he quickly made a long face and departed with the security officer.
“Why did he give me that look? It wasn’t as if I was mocking him or anything,” wondered Yan Huan in puzzlement.
The old man was getting harder and harder to please, she thought.
The Ye House was looking completely different than before. In the past few years, no one could deny that the Ye Family had garnered the most wealth and developed the fastest.
The Ye Family’s stature in the entire Sea City was creeping up steadily.
The Ye Family that was on the verge of bankruptcy a few years ago had amassed immense wealth from the airport and seaport, and paid off its debts in full. Not only that, they had new ventures in the Sea City, including an amusement park, a wetland park, and Fragrant Mountain Villa, a property located in one of the wealthier areas of Sea City.
These projects had been initiated by the Ye Family, and would become the foundation of their success in the distant future.
The Ye Family would become so famous one day that no Sea City citizen wouldn’t have heard about them.
Ye Chuji studied the young girl before him at length, but failed to spot any features that struck him as familiar.
“Are you sure you are connected to our family?” he asked gravely, his eyes narrowing. “Tread carefully now, young lady. There will be grave consequences if we find out that you are lying.”
She claimed to be his sister’s daughter, which was a good start per se, since that was the person they had been searching for years. If she proved to be a fraud, however… then don’t blame him for not being merciful.
This hadn’t been the first time someone had tried to wriggle their way into the family. Not even the first hundredth time, in fact. They were hopeful at first, but great hopes bred greater disappointment, and eventually despair.
“I’m a cautious person by nature,” smiled Sun Yuhan. She had self-hypnotized herself a thousand times, reciting her script over and over again, and yet she couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Her hands at her side loosened and tightened. In the end, she had to wipe her hands on her clothes to get rid of the sweat.
“Is that so?” Ye Chuji had been a businessman for years, and like most of his counterparts, he was skeptical. In fact, he was very skeptical about this Sun Yuhan.
As he examined her, his doubts grew.
“Yes,” nodded Sun Yuhan. She closed her eyes and exhaled softly. She was much calmer when she made eye contact with the canny Ye Chuji again.
It wasn’t a human she was facing, nor Lu Yi’s uncle, nor the man who could shake the entire Sea City’s economy with a stomp of his feet; he was her uncle, her kin.
“You said you are my sister’s daughter,” said Ye Chuji, looking her up and down. “But you don’t look like her at all.”
“Neither does Ye Xinyu look like you,” said Sun Yuhan. She was prepared for that line. She wasn’t her daughter in the first place, so it would be strange if she actually did look like her.
Touché, thought Ye Chuji. Some children do not resemble their parents, that is so. Ye Xinyu was a split image of his dead wife, but didn’t look anything like him.
If Sun Yuhan inherited her looks from her dad… he wouldn’t want to comment on his sister’s taste.
It wasn’t not that Sun Yuhan wasn’t pretty, or ugly as sin. In truth, she wasn’t ugly at all, especially after blowing loads of money on improving her appearance.
There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.
The problem was — Ye Rong was insanely beautiful. That was especially so during the period when she had gone missing. She was in the spring of her life, a woman’s most beautiful and tender age. To Ye Chuji, his sister was the most beautiful woman on earth, a woman whom no man could hope to match. When putting the two in comparison, it was no wonder that he would find Sun Yuhan plain.
“It’s not your first day in Sea City. If you are my sister’s daughter, why wait until now to come to us?” asked Ye Chuji, a staple question in his interrogations.
How could he not know about Sun Yuhan and Lu Yi’s affair? This was a nuisance that infuriated Ye Shuyun so much that she refused to go home. Even Lu Jin had hidden in the army to avoid her.
Ye Chuji didn’t hold any fondness towards her.
It wasn’t her fault, but everyone could be prone to biases.
Being a supporter of Yan Huan, it stood to reason that he would be biased towards Sun Yuhan.
She dipped her head and looked down, staring at her toes and plucking at her fingers.
“I didn’t know about it in the past. All I knew was my step-parents treated me badly because I wasn’t one of their own, or because I was ugly and stupid. They loved my sister, but never me.”
“It was only recently when I chanced upon some clues that revealed my true birth.”
Ye Chuji was listening. Some things could not be fabricated with a silver tongue. Sun Yuhan wasn’t lying about her background, he knew; they had dug up her antecedents on her first day in the Lu Family.
“My mother had left me a keepsake and a letter,” said Sun Yuhan earnestly, looking up. She rummaged in her pocket and produced an object wrapped in a piece of cloth.
“Here it is. I cannot display the letter, however, because Mother has instructed me not to. There are some things in the letter that’s best left… unknown,” said Sun Yuhan as she straightened herself.
Ye Chuji kept his eyes on her as he picked up the object on the table.
When he unwrapped the cloth, his face changed colors, and his fingers trembled. Without a doubt, this belonged to Rongrong. Their mother had given it to her. It was her favorite accessory in her younger days. There should be a marking on it somewhere.
