Chapter 78 I find her disgusting even to look at.

Gan Tai arranged to meet Yu Yan at a high-end Western restaurant, in the same shopping mall where she and Shao Muyan had gone shopping last time.

Upon arrival, they discovered that not only was Mrs. Gan there, but Mrs. Xiang was also present.

It seems that he was afraid he wasn't important enough, so he specially called for reinforcements.

But... Yu Yan raised an eyebrow rather coldly, confirming that this was reinforcements, not someone who would only make things worse?

To show her sincerity, Mrs. Gan arrived a little early with Mrs. Xiang. When they saw Yu Yan come in, they waved to her warmly, but when they saw the two burly bodyguards behind her, their hands froze in mid-air.

Mrs. Xiang was also slightly taken aback.

Although Yu Yan's attire was no different from before—a white shirt, blue jeans, and a neat high ponytail that made her look like a female student—her presence with bodyguards gave her an inexplicable air of authority.

At this moment, Yu Yan truly looked like a proper rich heiress in their eyes.

Although the Yu family does not engage in business, from the old master Yu to his three sons, each of them holds a bunch of patents, and as for technology stocks, that's unimaginable.

Take the divorce of Yu Yan and Xiang Jingheng as an example. In a fit of anger, the Yu family took back the patents and shares, and Xiang's Technology almost suffered a devastating blow. Xiang Jingheng has been working hard for three years, but has yet to recover.

Its destructive power is simply too great.

"Mrs. Gan, Mrs. Xiang."

Yu Yan knew that the food was never good, but since she was there, she still treated everyone politely and tried to communicate as politely as possible.

"Please sit down."

Gan Tai, abandoning his usual aloof and arrogant demeanor, smiled warmly and appeared extremely amiable. He even personally poured tea for Yu Yan, saying, "Order whatever you like."

"I'll take it." Yu Yan took the teacup.

Mrs. Xiang sat down next to Mrs. Gan, but frowned in displeasure. "Is this how you serve tea to elders? Don't you know how to stand up? What kind of manners are these?"

Yu Yan paused slightly in her hand holding the teapot.

At this moment, she felt as if she had returned to three years ago, when she was a daughter-in-law in the Xiang family, and her mother-in-law always reminded her of the "rules" in everything.

She looked up and glanced at Mrs. Xiang. Mrs. Xiang was provoked by this dark and cold gaze. Her face hardened, and she made a move to get up, but Mrs. Gan grabbed her in time.

"Oh dear, I'm treating Yu Yan to dinner today. She's a guest, so let's not be so formal..."

Gan Tai secretly tugged at Xiang Tai's sleeve, telling her to tone it down and not to ruin the platform she had worked so hard to build.

But actually, Yu Yan was already unhappy when she saw Xiang Tai.

Hearing that sentence again brought back a wave of nausea and disgust from all the past oppression and humiliation, making it even more unbearable.

Yu Yan's expression turned cold. She put down the teapot in her hand, raised her eyes, and spoke in a gentle and calm voice.

"This meal is on me."

The away game turned into a home game in an instant.

After Yu Yan finished speaking, the bodyguards who were standing not far behind her stepped forward as ordered. One served tea and water, and the other took orders. They quickly got things done.

Mrs. Gan and Mrs. Xiang were stunned.

“Principal Mu called me, and I know why Ms. Gan came. Gan Xiaoxing has already learned her lesson about the thesis incident, so I have nothing else to say.”

Yu Yan said calmly, "As for this trending topic, it has a very bad influence. She not only smeared me, but also attacked the entire academic and scientific research community, which naturally aroused public anger and led to a group attack against her."

Mrs. Gan nodded awkwardly in agreement, but inwardly she sneered: Isn't that because your Yu family is all-powerful? Everyone is afraid of offending the Yu family, so they ganged up to bully my daughter.

"She has now deleted the statement because she was warned by the authorities. A warning is the least of her worries. If she goes in again, it won't just be a matter of deleting the post. I'm afraid the entire Gan family will be implicated."

Upon hearing this, Gan Tai turned pale. Principal Mu had said the same thing, and it was only after hearing this that she became afraid.

They couldn't fight city hall, so they advised their daughter to slow down and not to be so stubborn. They warned that if she continued to act recklessly, she would get into big trouble sooner or later.

When that time comes, neither she nor her father can protect her.

"You don't need to scare people like that."

Unable to bear it any longer, Mrs. Xiang scoffed, “A clear conscience fears no accusation. If you haven’t done what Xiaoxing is talking about, why make such a big deal out of it and call for violence? Justice will prevail, and the eyes of the masses are discerning. Those netizens all support Xiaoxing, saying that your Yu family is using your power to cover up the truth. Why don’t you reflect on yourselves? You only know how to pick on the weak.”

As Yu Yan listened to Xiang Tai's words, she once again felt her ability to distort the truth.

They're the ones who did the bad thing, but they're trying to pin the blame on others.

Yu Yan recalled a time when she was in the Xiang family, when Xiang Tai wronged her. She argued until her eyes were red, and she didn't know how much effort she had to put in to prove her innocence. When the truth was revealed, Xiang Tai turned around and said that she didn't know the rules and was shouting at her elders. She was so angry that she felt tightness in her chest and pain in her heart, causing chaos in the whole family.

Her sister-in-law scolded her for disrespecting her elders, saying, "It's such a small matter, why are you calling Mom that? Is this the kind of upbringing your Yu family has? A scholarly family, huh? It's laughable!"

When Xiang Jingheng returned, he saw her red eyes, frowned slightly, and after learning what had happened, he said casually:

"It's nothing serious. Just apologize to Mom, be more careful next time, and we'll move on."

Yu Yan looked at her husband in disbelief.

She was wrongly accused, her face was smeared with a bucket of dirty water, and the person who threw the water at her even turned around and accused her. Instead of cursing the perpetrator, the passersby encouraged the victim to be more magnanimous.

...They should be a family.

She, as the daughter-in-law, was an absolute outsider.

Pulling her thoughts back, Yu Yan's usually deep and unassuming eyes sharpened as she looked at the silent Gan Tai and said coldly, "Then next time Gan Xiaoxing goes in, let those discerning netizens bail her out."

These words left Mrs. Xiang speechless, and she immediately recalled how much effort her son, Xiang Jingheng, and the Gan family had put in to get Gan Xiaoxing out of trouble.

Gan Tai suddenly jolted awake, remembering the purpose of his visit today, but it seemed... to be going in the opposite direction.

"My purpose in coming here today is very simple: I want to reveal my hand to the Gan family."

Yu Yan was too lazy to waste any more words with them, so she laid it all out directly, unsealed the brown paper bag, and briefly showed it to them: "These are all the academic papers that Gan Xiaoxing has published over the years."

Mrs. Xiang curiously leaned closer, but Yu Yan handed the paper directly to Mrs. Gan and said to Mrs. Xiang, "Mrs. Xiang, you don't need to look at it. You won't understand it."

"..." Mrs. Xiang blushed and glared at Yu Yan.

You, you, you can't even say the proper polite form. All the manners I taught her before have been wasted!

Gan Tai's research field is different from Gan Xiaoxing's, but she has also read her daughter's published papers. "What's wrong? Is there a problem?"

"There are many problems, and they are very big."

Yu Yan stepped forward and pointed, "These are her master's and doctoral dissertations. They're not very high-quality; a lot of the content is pieced together and can't stand scrutiny. To be honest, I don't even know how her supervisor allowed her to pass them. Of course, if you investigate these closely, it will involve a wide range of issues. These two are articles published in journals, and they highly overlap with a paper published by one of my senior classmates. I've had him look at them; if we're going to find out about plagiarism, he'll be right. He's currently doing a color-coding analysis of the two papers. And these few were all ghostwritten..."

She calmly recounted everything to Mrs. Gan, while Mrs. Xiang listened in astonishment.

Gan Tai was already trembling. "No, that's impossible. You're lying!"

Yu Yan collected all the papers and resealed them in the paper bag.

"Believe it or not, you can check it out later, or go home and ask your daughter."

"The reason I showed these to you is to tell Gan Xiaoxing, and the Gan family, that if I were as ruthless as she said in her statement, and wanted to plunge her into the abyss, I would indeed have that ability; it just depends on whether I want to do it."

Yu Yan took a sip of tea to moisten her throat, looked at the two astonished and pale faces opposite her, and spoke calmly but sharply.

“I don’t want to get entangled with petty people, but that doesn’t mean I’m afraid of her. To be honest, if it weren’t for the fact that I married Xiang Jingheng back then and was forced to meet her, I would find Gan Xiaoxing’s lowlife disgusting. She’s the real scum of academia, and everyone should kill her.”