Two bunches of grapes were in a red plastic bag on the dining table.
Next to the red plastic bag was a white plastic bag containing a few apples and some bananas.
Somehow, this made the two bunches of grapes seem much more expensive.
Luo Meihong’s expression darkened further as she observed the scene.
The friends she had invited today were all elderly ladies she met while square dancing in the neighborhood. As for relatives, she wouldn't dream of inviting them; they were all from the countryside, wouldn't bring good gifts, and would only eat her out of house and home.
The moment Hu Qian saw Liu Chen, she shot Liu Chen a glare, wanting to go to her grandmother and have her scold Liu Chen a few times. Usually, after her grandmother’s scolding, Liu Chen’s tearful expression would make her happy for days.
However, today, although she didn’t know the cause or effect, Hu Qian sensed that something was wrong from Luo Meihong’s look towards her and immediately glanced at her eldest aunt, who was sitting beside her grandmother.
Hu Jin’s heart skipped a beat when she saw the bag of fruit. Zhang Lili was going to die if she dared to fool her mother like this. Although unwilling, she thought about what she had done. If she angered Zhang Lili…
With that thought, Hu Jin still smiled and said, “Oh dear, our Qianqian must have spent all her allowance on these fruits. This child is so filial to you, Mom! She even specially prepared a gift just for you.”
Hu Qian’s smile froze. Her mother didn’t have any other gifts. This bag of fruit was the gift for today. Her mother was at home doing a face mask and told her to come first and appease the old lady. After all, the old lady owned three apartments, and the Hu family only had one male heir. Liu Chen and her mother had never been favored by the old lady. If she appeased her, wouldn’t all three apartments be hers?
But her eldest aunt had always been on her mother’s side. Since her eldest aunt had spoken, she could only nod along and say, “Yes, yes, Grandma. Qianqian spent all her allowance on fruit.”
Liu Chen couldn't help but chuckle at Hu Qian’s stiff smile.
“Pfft!”
Seeing that the more than ten people in the living room were all looking at her, Liu Chen then said with a smile, “It’s nothing. I’m just curious about what kind of good gift Aunt Zhang is going to give.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the sound of a key turning in the lock was heard again from the security door that had just closed. All the old ladies present turned to look towards the main entrance.
This made Zhang Lili, who was wearing a new dress and new high heels with her hair permed at home, smile and say, “Mom, everyone’s here? Let’s walk to the restaurant together. I booked a private room for seven o’clock.”
Lin Chen also smiled faintly and said, “Hu Qian said Auntie, you have a gift for Grandma. Everyone is a bit curious about what it is.”
Zhang Lili was worthy of being a woman who could patiently lurk for over a decade before being accepted. Hearing Liu Chen’s words, although her heart skipped a beat, her expression remained unchanged, and she smiled gently and said, “I forgot to bring the gift. Mom, I’ll take you all to the restaurant first, and I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”
Luo Meihong’s expression softened upon hearing this. She waved her hand, stood up, took Hu Qian’s hand, and said to Zhang Lili with some anticipation, “It’s fine. Let Qianqian take us to the restaurant. You go back and get it. You’ll arrive just in time.”
Having lost face in front of these square dancing friends, she hoped Zhang Lili’s gift would impress them. Her eldest son was filial, and her new daughter-in-law knew how to speak and act, unlike the previous bumpkin Liu Fang.
Hu Min, with her high ponytail, walked at the back of the group with her little niece. Seeing the vixen’s retreating figure in high heels, she couldn’t help but smile. She turned her head and looked at Liu Chen, who seemed to have grown a bit taller, beside her and said, “That’s more like it. For someone like Zhang Lili, ten words from you are not as effective as one action. I see you’re carrying a bag from a cram school. When will you finish?”
“I’ll finish on the tenth of next month.”
Hu Min nodded. “Then next month I’ll take you to Beijing to watch the Olympics.”
“Ah? Auntie, you don’t blame me for talking like that just now?”
“Why would I blame you? If I were you, could I have tolerated this long? If I didn’t get child support in the first month, I would have kicked down the door. Besides, I know your grandmother, my mother, very well. If she scolds you, just scold her back. After she scolds enough, she’ll be normal.”
Hearing this, Liu Chen remembered her past self. It seemed that every time she was scolded, she would just sit awkwardly in a corner without a word, and then leave with the leftover food her grandmother forced into her hands after the gathering ended.
Hmm, her past self was so cowardly…
Don’t worry, seventeen-year-old Liu Chen, this time, we’re going to live happily!
“Don’t worry, I’ll take you, and your mother will definitely let you go. Be good when you’re at cram school. When I take my annual leave, I’ll take you to play for a few more days.”
“Huh? Then will Auntie’s boyfriend also go?”
Hu Min raised an eyebrow, looked at her little niece, and playfully ruffled her hair.
“What boyfriend? Liu Chen, you’re becoming mischievous now, aren’t you? Learning to tease me? If I had a boyfriend, would it be your turn to accompany me to the Olympics, you brat?”
Now it was Liu Chen’s turn to be dumbfounded. It was already July, and her aunt’s boyfriend from her previous life hadn’t appeared yet?
But it was better if he hadn’t appeared. In her previous life, as soon as her aunt was diagnosed with an illness, that boyfriend disappeared without a trace, causing another blow to her aunt, who was already vulnerable due to her illness.
Liu Chen had even secretly thought, what if that man was hit by a car and died?
However, when she was working part-time later, she saw a wedding photo of that man. That time, eighteen-year-old Liu Chen did the boldest thing in her life: she secretly unpicked the stitching on the waistband of the groom’s pants.
Then, standing in the shadows of the wedding, she watched as the groom’s pants came loose and fell down halfway down the aisle, revealing his boxer briefs.
“Hehe, no good. I’ll introduce someone to you, Auntie~~”
Hu Min gently rubbed Liu Chen’s head and said, “Okay, as long as it’s someone our Chenchen introduces, Auntie agrees!”
They walked and talked, and soon arrived at the restaurant outside the neighborhood.
By the time all the dishes were served, Zhang Lili arrived. She stood by the table, smiling, and handed the jewelry box in her hand to Luo Meihong.
Luo Meihong glanced at Liu Chen, who was sitting in her chair, then smiled and said to the old ladies sitting at the table, “Our Lili is so filial, and the Qianqian she taught is also so well-behaved that it pains this old lady’s heart! Unlike some ill-fated stars, whose children are the same!”
As she spoke, Luo Meihong opened the jewelry box.
Liu Chen coldly glanced at Luo Meihong. She didn’t believe that someone as shrewd as Zhang Lili would really give Luo Meihong anything good, and she waited for Grandma to open it to see the truth.
Luo Meihong opened the jewelry box. Inside, a green bracelet was secured by clasps, with a small tag attached that read "Grade A Jade, Price Twenty Thousand."
Luo Meihong didn’t understand jade, but she recognized the price. Seeing this price, her eyes immediately narrowed into a smile.
“Oh dear, Lili, why did you buy a bracelet worth twenty thousand for an old lady like me! I don’t go out, who would see it! It would have been better to buy a gold bracelet worth ten thousand!”
Liu Chen was sitting far away and couldn’t see the bracelet, but she was somewhat disbelieving when she heard "twenty thousand." She tilted her head and whispered to her aunt, “Could she bear to spend twenty thousand yuan on a bracelet as a gift?”
Meanwhile, Luo Meihong, while saying this, reached out to take the bracelet out of the box. At this moment, a gust of cold air from the air conditioner blew past, causing Luo Meihong’s wrist to ache slightly. She involuntarily twisted her wrist, and the jade in the box slipped directly out of the jewelry box and fell downwards.
Seeing this, Luo Meihong quickly bent down to try and catch the bracelet before it hit the ground.
“Oh dear!”
In 08, most of the private rooms in restaurants outside the neighborhood had tiled floors, and there was no habit of laying carpets. Luo Meihong bent down too quickly and stumbled forward, falling to the ground. The bracelet that had fallen naturally was not caught.
The bracelet, worth twenty thousand yuan, shattered into two pieces upon falling from a height of over a meter onto the tiles. One piece rolled from one end of the table to Hu Min’s feet at the other end.
All this happened so quickly that everyone present didn’t even have time to help Luo Meihong up.
It was Hu Min who picked up the "valuable" bracelet worth twenty thousand yuan from her feet. Upon seeing it, she burst into laughter.
“Zhang Lili, it seems you’ve been tricked. This is not jade, it’s just dyed stone. Oh, where’s the box? I’ll put it back in, and you can go find the boss and get your money back, and exchange it for a twenty-thousand-yuan gold bracelet. My mother-in-law prefers those gaudy gold bracelets. She might knock and chip the jade.”
Luo Meihong, who was groaning on the ground, heard that the jade bracelet she had almost risked her life to hold onto was actually made of stone. This meant it was just a rock! She immediately forgot about the pain and, mustering all her strength, got up from the ground, wanting to get a better look at the bracelet.
“Crack!”
With a crisp sound, Luo Meihong froze. This time, it wasn’t the sound of the bracelet.
“Ow, ow, my lower back!” she immediately followed up with, “Hu Min! You said it wasn’t jade, but made of stone. How can that be? It looks green!”
The elderly ladies beside her also stood up and crowded around Hu Min. One of the old ladies even lifted her own wrist and carefully compared her jade bracelet with Hu Min’s. She nodded and said, “Meihong, your daughter-in-law seems to have been scammed. If this bracelet is made of scrap material, it’s worth at most one or two hundred yuan. Now that the jade bracelet is broken, it’s not certain if they’ll honor it!”
Zhang Lili, seeing her "gift" exposed by her sister-in-law, who was also directly demanding a gold bracelet, could only grit her teeth.
What was the use of the old lady wanting a gold bracelet?
She had used her mother-in-law’s birthday as an excuse to ask for twenty thousand yuan to buy a gift, but this old lady from the countryside wanted such a valuable gift without fear of incurring bad luck!
But if she didn’t appease the old lady now, and she went to complain to Hu Xingfa, she would be in trouble! She had done many such things before!
So, she could only grit her teeth, her face filled with shocked anger, and said, “I’ll go find the boss tomorrow to return it. Who dares to sell fake goods for twenty thousand yuan!”
“I say, for twenty thousand yuan, why not just call the police? That way, if you go to return it and they refuse, you’ll have evidence.”
“Right, Auntie?” Liu Chen said, winking at her aunt.
“Yes, yes, I think calling the police directly is the best idea!” The old ladies, looking at the bracelet already broken into two pieces, also felt that only calling the police could get their money back.
“No!”
Zhang Lili quickly stopped them. What a joke! The place where she bought the bracelet was specifically chosen for fake jade. If they called the police, wouldn’t she also be arrested?
Therefore, she absolutely could not call the police!
Hu Min picked up the two pieces of stone and then opened the jewelry box on the table. However, she didn’t place it correctly when opening it.
As she opened it, a thin red receipt fell out.