Hearing the door open, Meng Zihan looked up from her bowl of noodles and asked indistinctly, "Auntie, you're back? Weren't you at work? You're back just in time. I bought some steamed buns, would you like some?"
She pushed the plate of steamed buns toward Meng Xueyun.
"Uncle and Xiao Nan and Xiao Bei don't eat it, Aunt, you can't complain."
After saying that, he sighed again.
"Sigh, the noodles at the shop downstairs are really bad, much worse than yours. I've been craving your cooking. You'd better show me your skills for lunch today."
Her matter-of-fact tone made it seem as if she were still the beloved little princess of the family.
Hearing this, Meng Xueyun was so angry that her heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys ached, but she managed to force a cold smile onto her face.
They're going to bring misfortune to their whole family, and they might even end up in jail, yet they still crave her cooking!
That's shameless!
Too lazy to beat around the bush anymore, she tossed the cloth bag in her hand onto the cabinet by the door and asked directly, "Meng Zihan, tell your aunt the truth, did something happen to you in Hong Kong and you couldn't stay there any longer, so you ran back to Jiangcheng?"
Meng Zihan's movement of picking up noodles visibly stiffened for a moment.
Her smile froze, a hint of panic flashed in her eyes, and she immediately lowered her head, mumbling as she ate her noodles.
"How could that be? Auntie, what are you saying? I'm doing great in Hong Kong, my business is thriving, it's just that I haven't seen you all in so long and I missed you, so I came back."
Seeing her stubbornness, Meng Xueyun's anger flared even more, and her expression grew increasingly cold.
"Really? Everything's really fine? Your company really has no problems at all?"
When she heard her ask about the "company," Meng Zihan sensed something was wrong.
Why would my aunt suddenly ask about company matters?
Could it be that that bitch Ye Linchen said something?
But now that things have come to this, she has no choice but to grit her teeth and persevere.
She put down her chopsticks and forced a smile.
"No, that's not true. My company is doing great, it's very popular in Hong Kong now! Many socialites and ladies are scrambling to buy the clothes I design. I had to come back in a hurry this time, otherwise I would have brought two pieces for each of you. They are all the most fashionable styles in Hong Kong right now."
She was still thinking of using these vague and illusory things to shut Meng Xueyun up.
But Meng Xueyun found these words incredibly harsh and ironic.
She couldn't hold back any longer and slammed her hand on the table.
Ye Zhenghua was dozing off on the balcony when the sudden noise startled him awake. He turned around in confusion and exclaimed, "Huh? What happened?"
Meng Xueyun ignored him and focused on questioning Meng Zihan.
"Trendy styles?"
"The money you used to make clothes is of dubious origin, and our family wouldn't dare take anything from you! Meng Zihan! Stop pretending in front of me! I'll be blunt with you today, have you been laundering money for someone else?"
The moment the words "money laundering" were uttered, Meng Zihan's face turned deathly pale, devoid of any color.
She suddenly stood up and screamed.
"What...what nonsense are you spouting!"
"Who told you all this? Was it Ye Linchen? I knew it was that bitch! She can't stand to see me doing well, so she talks badly about me behind my back!"
"Making fun of you?" Meng Xueyun laughed angrily. "He's a respectable college student with a bright future ahead of him. Why would he need to make fun of someone as lowly as you? If you're upright, what are you panicking about?"
Meng Zihan realized she had overreacted and quickly lowered her voice, saying aggrievedly, "Auntie, I'm not panicking!"
"Not flustered?" Meng Xueyun pressed closer, walking up to her and bombarding her with a series of questions.
"Then tell me, where did you get the money to start a company? How much of the severance pay you took from our family was, at most? Enough for you to open a shop in a place like Hong Kong? Don't tell me it was your deadbeat father, Meng Xuejun, who gave it to you! If he had money, would he have abandoned you to our family for so many years without caring about you? Would he have owed someone 100,000 and come to my house to collect the debt?"
These questions all struck at Meng Zihan's Achilles' heel.
She was speechless, her lips trembling, unable to utter a single word in rebuttal.
Ye Zhenghua, who was on the balcony, understood the gist of it.
His face, already stiff from the stroke, was now filled with shock and anger.
He tried to speak, but after opening his mouth for a long time, he could only utter some indistinct syllables like "ah... ah..." and his face turned red with anxiety.
His only movable left hand was trembling with anger.
Ye Linbei and Ye Linnan exchanged a glance, stood up from the sofa, and walked to Meng Xueyun's side, as if to support her.
Ye Linbei asked, "Mom, what exactly happened? What money laundering?"
Looking at her two sons' worried faces, Meng Xueyun could no longer suppress her grief and indignation, and tears welled up in her eyes.
She pointed at Meng Zihan and cried to her sons.
“Ask her! Ask your good cousin! She’s hooking up with a rich boss, acting as his puppet, and running a company to launder money! If that guy gets investigated, she won’t be able to escape either! The money she gave me back isn’t clean money at all, it’s embezzled money! When they demand we return it all, we have to return it all! If we don’t, our whole family will be implicated and go to jail!”
"What?"
Ye Linbei and Ye Linnan both gasped in surprise, their eyes filled with anger as they looked at Meng Zihan.
"Meng Zihan, you venomous snake! My mother has been so good to you, why did you repay kindness with enmity and harm us?"
Ye Linnan was more impatient than Ye Linbei, and she clenched her fists and questioned him first.
Meng Zihan was so flustered by the question that she kept backing away.
Looking at her angry aunt, shocked uncle, and disgusted cousin, she felt as if she had been stripped naked, with all her lies and shame exposed to the light of day.
She finally broke down, explaining herself with a sob in her voice.
"No...that's not it! I don't know! I don't know anything! He lied to me! He said he liked me and wanted to invest in my business. I didn't know there was anything wrong with the money! Auntie, I was scammed, I'm a victim too!"
"Victim?" Meng Xueyun wiped away her tears and sneered, "You wear clothes that cost thousands of yuan, carry bags worth tens of thousands of yuan, and live a life of luxury, and you're telling me you're a victim? Meng Zihan, do you think we're fools? If you're truly innocent, why did you come back?"
She glared at Meng Zihan and unleashed the "trump card" that Ye Linchen had taught her.
"Ye Linchen told me that your only way out now is to turn yourself in immediately! Hand over all the dirty money and things, and try to get leniency! Otherwise, you can expect to rot in jail! Our Ye family won't be collecting the corpses of someone like you!"
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