Li Xiang’s eyes turned red, and tears streamed down her face like rain.
Shang Yang nodded and replied, "I didn't remember wrong. I indeed brought this medicine back from abroad."
"Xiangxiang suffers from chronic insomnia and nightmares. Hearing that a friend abroad had developed a medicine to regulate psychological stress and relieve insomnia, I brought some back for her."
Li Li understood, and she pulled on Fu Xiao's sleeve, as he was still looking ready to argue.
Fu Xiao was confused, and his eyes asked, "What's going on?"
Li Li shrugged.
She should have guessed it sooner. Li Xiang did everything with airtight precision, so how could she possibly leave such glaring loopholes in a surveillance blind spot?
It turned out to be a mere illusion.
They had all been played.
Sure enough, Li Xiang sobbed, yet still bravely explained, "I used the medicine A-Yang brought back for me for a while, and I found it exceptionally effective."
"Hearing that Lili also suffers from insomnia, and thinking that we both shared the same traumatic childhood experience of being lost, I figured this medicine might work for her too."
"It's just that Lili has always disliked me, and she wouldn't have accepted it if I gave it to her directly, so I came up with this clumsy method."
"I never expected this whole mess to happen..."
Fu Xiao: "Huh?"
He tilted his head to look at the composed Li Li: "You figured it out?"
And yet there he was, charging into battle like an absolute fool?
Li Li said nothing, lowering her gaze as if deep in thought.
Over on the other side, seeing the tables turning, Madam Li and Patriarch Li immediately stepped forward to defend Li Xiang in every possible way.
Ignoring the chaotic commotion around her, Li Li recalled the details of last night's dinner.
Patriarch Li was already prepared to sweep the matter under the rug: "Alright, since it was just a misunderstanding, let's drop the whole thing right here."
"Li Li, you ruined your sister's engagement party. You need to apologize to your sister for this."
Li Li lifted her gaze and gave Patriarch Li a disdainful look: "Apologize for what?"
"In a moment, the lot of you will be lining up to apologize to me."
Her knife-like glare left Patriarch Li utterly speechless.
She was getting too spoiled.
Seizing the opportunity to fan the flames, Madam Li chimed in, "I told you not to hand the company over to her. Riding on the coattails of those few tricks she knows, she doesn't even put you in her eyes."
Struck right where it hurt, Patriarch Li glared fiercely at Madam Li: "Shut your mouth. If your precious son had even an ounce of competence, would I have let her into the company in the first place?"
No matter how unwilling he was to admit it, Li Li was naturally gifted in business.
Every single project the Li family placed in her hands over the years had been stellar. By contrast, that good-for-nothing Li Siyou lost money on everything he touched, leaving Patriarch Li constantly cleaning up his messes.
Madam Li fell silent.
Li Li stepped forward and walked up to the waiter.
The waiter knelt on the ground, covered in bruises.
Hearing the sound of high heels clicking step by step closer across the floor, his scalp tightened for no apparent reason.
Within his field of vision, a pair of white high-heeled shoes stopped right in front of him—luxury heels encrusted with fine diamonds, looking as though a pair of palms were gently cradling slender ankles.
The next moment, a delicate, elegant fragrance washed over him.
Li Li squatted down halfway, her fair, soft hand with its red-painted nails hooking him by the chin. The waiter was forced to meet her half-smiling gaze.
It felt as though a hand had clutched his heart; the moment their eyes met, a wave of suffocation washed over him.
The waiter instinctively tried to avoid her gaze, but Li Li just smiled.
"You're lying."
She released the waiter's chin, brushed her fingers against his clothes, and her smile gradually grew bright and radiant.
The setting sun projected through the dilapidated door crack, falling upon her.
Fu Xiao's gaze unconsciously drifted toward her.
A swan holding its noble head high, with bewitching eyes and a playful smile hanging at the corners of her lips—radiant yet unbridled.
He finally understood why everyone said Li Li was a siren.
A sparkling, vibrant rose, a bewitching seductress.
Born with an alluring bone structure.
Shang Yang watched in a daze, for the first time directly realizing that Li Li had grown up.
She was so breathtaking that he felt a misguided sense of being unworthy of her.
Giving a slight cough, his tone took on a gentleness he hadn't even noticed himself: "You don't believe me?"
He said, "I still have some of that medicine here. It was originally prepared for you. If you don't believe—"
"No need." For the first time, Li Li interrupted him.
She glanced at Li Xiang's tense expression, then offered a distant, detached smile: "Mr. Shang should take good care of his own fiancée."
After all, her sharp blade was aimed right at his fiancée.
She suffered from insomnia, and he wasn't the only one who knew.
The medicine he brought back a month ago, and now she was only getting a share of it—was this supposed to be charity?
Was she, Li Li, someone lacking affection and care?
In Wucheng, countless people chased after her, offering whatever she wanted on bended knee. There was only what Li Li disdained; there was nothing she couldn't have.
Using the distant and cold address "Mr. Shang" was Li Li's way of drawing a clear line between herself and Shang Yang for the very first time.
A crack appeared on Shang Yang's habitually calm face.
He took a step forward, his brow furrowed deeply: "Lili, are you blaming me?"
Li Li took a step back to put some distance between them, her already cold and haughty demeanor appearing even more unattainable at that moment.
Facing this older brother she had harbor a secret crush on for many years, Li Li ultimately didn't push things to the absolute extreme.
Ignoring Shang Yang's hesitation, Li Li lowered her gaze to look at the waiter on the ground: "You have one last chance. Was the medicine planted by you?"
"I didn't..."
"I'm not talking about the one in the bottle. Think carefully before you speak."
Li Li's tone turned abruptly icy.
The words stuck in the waiter's throat. He snapped his head up, staring in disbelief and panic at Li Li's cold and gorgeous face.
Li Xiang clenched her fists as well, a flash of surprise sweeping across the depths of her eyes.
Even Fu Xiao was completely baffled now.
Huh?
The medicine wasn't the medicine.
Then what on earth was he doing here?
The waiter subconsciously went to look at Li Xiang.
Li Li shifted her position, blocking him from view.
Word by word, she said, "What I'm talking about is the incense."
The aromatherapy in the private dining room.
Recalling everything that had happened yesterday, the only abnormality was the incense.
Yupuyuan was an upscale restaurant under the Li family's banner.
Previously, because Li Li had found the restaurant's private room fragrances too vulgar, she had blended the scent herself.
If there was anything unusual about yesterday's events, it was that the fragrance contained an imperceptible trace of sweetness—so subtle that even Li Li had almost overlooked it.
She really ought to thank Li Xiang for ruling out the possibility of the food being poisoned, which had led her to connect the dots to this almost forgotten detail.
As soon as these words were spoken, the waiter felt as though a fishbone was stuck in his throat, and he was completely struck dumb.
Madam Li hadn't expected there to be another plot twist.
Seeing the waiter standing there blankly, she hurriedly stepped forward: "What nonsense are you spouting again? You have no proof and yet you're trying to shift the blame again."
"Just admit it if you did something wrong. You've already been taught a lesson, and no one is going to blame you. Honestly confess, and do you really think your father and I would throw you out of the family?"
"Whose wretched morals taught you this? When you do something wrong, you only think about splashing dirty water onto others. Where is your basic upbringing?"
"Upbringing?" Li Li laughed bitterly. "That's right, I have a father who begot me but no mother to raise me."
Her tone was as light as if she were telling someone else's story: "Lost by my own biological brother since childhood, and after coming back, I have a father who doesn't care and a mother who doesn't love me. My father is a stepfather, and my mother is a stepmother."
"In this whole family, who ever taught me a single thing?"
"You?"
Right after Li Li returned, Madam Li had despised her for being too flamboyant and headstrong, casually remarking that she was already an adult and she didn't want to bother managing her anymore. For seven whole years, she hadn't bothered to look at her even once.
This was something everyone in Wucheng knew. Li Li had never mentioned a word of it before, but now, throwing the question back in Madam Li's face in front of everyone, she left her unable to get off the stage.
Madam Li flushed with anger, and it was a long while before she managed to speak: "Are you blaming me?"