Su Pei'an was so infuriated by Su Yan that he suffered a heart attack, nearly followed by a stroke. He was forced to remain hospitalized.
Madam Su’s eyes were bloodshot. Upon seeing Jiang Jinyue enter, she stood up and pointed a finger at her, cursing, "Are you incapable of letting this family have a moment of peace? You ruined Yanyan’s wedding the second you got back and turned our Su family into the laughingstock of all Longcheng. Are you satisfied now?"
Jiang Jinyue had long since grown numb to such accusations. Ignoring Madam Su’s furious glare, she walked to the bedside, glanced at Su Pei’an’s ECG monitor, and said coolly, "Uncle Su, I want back the items of my father’s that you took from the accident scene all those years ago."
"You ungrateful, wolf-hearted wretch!" Madam Su, still wearing the slightly wrinkled purple-red qipao from the wedding, pointed a finger adorned with a gemstone ring at Jiang Jinyue. "We raised you for so many years, and now that your uncle is in the hospital, you don’t even care about his health—the first thing you do is demand things from him..."
Madam Su’s voice was cut off by the sound of Jiang Jinyue pulling out a chair. She sat by the bedside and tucked the blanket in for Su Pei’an.
"I am very grateful that you took me in back then. The pension and various insurance payments from my father should be enough to cover the cost of my upbringing over these past ten years."
In fact, it was more than enough. She was grateful for the kindness they had shown in raising her, which was why she hadn't haggled over money. But the things that belonged to her father—she was going to take them back.
Su Pei’an gave Jiang Jinyue an address and, before she left, said, "The Su family will always be your home."
Home. Thirteen years ago, she had thought the Su family was her home, but that hadn't been the case for the past three years.
Stepping out of the hospital, Jiang Jinyue stood in the sunlight and took a deep breath. She still couldn't get used to the smell of the hospital and the incessant beeping of the equipment. But she was doing much better now; there was only a slight tightness in her chest.
Her phone vibrated twice in her palm. Jiang Jinyue opened it to find a WeChat message from her junior, Ding Ning.
[Boss Yue, you’ve been back for three days already. Even if you don’t want to look at the company you abandoned for three years, you should at least come see your adorable junior here.]
Jiang Jinyue had co-founded a small company with two classmates. Ding Ning was a junior from the year below her who had started working at their small company before she even graduated from university.
[I’ll be there in half an hour.]
Jiang Jinyue stepped into the company she had been absent from for three years, carrying coffee and pastries. She didn't see Ding Ning, nor did she see her two business partners, Meng Zanchen and Yan Bocong.
"Hello, who are you looking for?" the receptionist asked politely.
When Jiang Jinyue left three years ago, the company was just preparing to hire a receptionist, but they hadn't posted any job ads yet, so the young woman at the front desk didn't recognize Jiang Jinyue, the owner.
"Why are Ding Ning, Meng Zanchen, and Yan Bocong all missing?"
It was a small company with limited space and few people; one could usually see exactly what everyone was doing within a few steps.
"Are you Boss Yue?" The girl was quite observant.
Jiang Jinyue nodded. The smile on the receptionist’s face vanished in an instant. "President Meng and President Yan are in the conference room entertaining a guest, and Ding Ning went out to get coffee."
Jiang Jinyue arched her elegant, fluid brows and headed toward the conference room. What kind of guest was so blind that they chose to arrive exactly when she did?
"Thirty million—that’s a generous enough price for your tiny, dumpy company," Ye Zhilan said, sitting in an armchair with an air of superiority.
Meng Zanchen tossed his pen onto the table and leaned back in his swivel chair, crossing his legs. "Miss Ye, did you wander into the wrong place? This isn’t your Diamond Club."
Everyone in Longcheng’s wealthy circles knew that the Ye family heiress had splurged thirty million at the Diamond Club to hire three male models, only for things to get out of hand, resulting in a ruptured corpus luteum and a near-collapse.
With the scandal dragged into the light, Ye Zhilan stood up, slamming the table in a fit of humiliation. "Who do you think you are!"
The force of her motion swept a celadon teacup off the table, sending shards across the floor. One piece skittered toward the door, landing right at Jiang Jinyue’s feet.
Ye Zhilan suppressed her anger, sneered, and turned toward Jiang Jinyue. "Miss Jiang certainly has a knack for it. You’ve only just returned and you’ve already managed to grab the eyes of every man in Longcheng again with a lace miniskirt."
"I’m far behind you there, Miss Ye. I only managed to grab their eyes, but you managed to grab their—well, their vital assets!"
Ye Zhilan had never managed to outwit Jiang Jinyue in a verbal sparring match. But so what if she had a sharp tongue? Three years ago, hadn't she still been forced to flee abroad under a cloud of scandal? Now that she was back, she would watch with her own eyes as the company she had founded went bankrupt and folded, leaving her a stray dog with nowhere to go.
Ye Zhilan picked up her handbag from the sofa. Delivering a final blow, she said, "Jiang Jinyue, I’ll be waiting for the day you have nowhere to turn and are forced to sell your body."
"Don’t forget to pay for the broken teacup!"
Jiang Jinyue’s voice rang out behind her. Ye Zhilan let out a cold laugh and strode away.
"Welcome back, Boss Yue!" Putting the unpleasantness behind them, Meng Zanchen opened his arms to Jiang Jinyue.
Jiang Jinyue swatted his outstretched arm and walked over to open the window. "A verbal welcome? Nothing more practical?" The perfume Ye Zhilan wore was too strong—it was stifling.
"He already booked a restaurant; we’ll all go out to celebrate tonight," Yan Bocong added with a smile.
"When you should talk, you’re as silent as a clam, and when you shouldn't, you won't stop yapping. You really have no sense of timing."
"Welcome home, Boss Yue!"
The conference room door was thrown open again. With a few *pop* sounds, a flurry of flower petals rained down from above. Jiang Jinyue stood in the middle of the petal storm. The other employees held empty confetti cannons, and Ding Ning was clutching a bouquet of flowers—her favorite lilies and hydrangeas.
She had no home in Longcheng, but this was her final harbor.
Once the commotion settled, everyone returned to their duties. Jiang Jinyue kept Meng Zanchen and Yan Bocong in the conference room.
"Is our current round of financing not going smoothly?"
"It’s just started, so I wouldn’t exactly say that." Under Jiang Jinyue’s gaze, Meng Zanchen dropped his flippant demeanor. "We had several investors lined up, but I don't know what happened—they all backed out at the last second. I asked around, and it sounds like someone is sabotaging us."
The three of them had graduated from the computer science department at Jing University. Meng Zanchen was the talker—the one who handled the external affairs—while Yan Bocong was socially anxious and handled the technical side.
Seeing Jiang Jinyue remain silent, Meng Zanchen said, "Worst case, we’ll just scrape together our own money. We won't be trapped to death, will we?"
Jiang Jinyue shot Meng Zanchen a sidelong glance. "Keep your own pocket change for now. I’ll figure out the financing."
"Are you going to go ask your brother for a loan?"
The news about Jiang Jinyue and the Su family had spread far and wide, and Meng and Yan were well aware of it. Although Su Jing had always been kind to Jiang Jinyue, his silent acquiescence three years ago when the Su family insisted on sending her abroad meant that Meng Zanchen and Yan Bocong no longer held any expectations for him.
"No."