Meng Yi then asked, "Would those research findings you made before also be in your original room?"
"Perhaps. But in our current state, we can't go back to my original room to find out what's going on." Quan Zhi said, her expectant gaze falling on Song Mian.
Song Mian cleared her throat, then casually picked out a light blue evening dress from the wardrobe. Looking at the butler, she said, "This one will do. Excuse me, could you please find me a guest room to change? Miss Quan Yanyan's room has too many valuables, and I'm worried I might accidentally break them."
Not to mention Song Mian, even the butler was very cautious after entering Quan Yanyan's room. He immediately agreed to Song Mian's request, and after taking her away from Quan Yanyan's room, he went to the guest room next door.
After telling the housekeeper that she could go directly to the banquet after changing her clothes, Song Mian pretended to enter the room, but actually kept an eye on the housekeeper's movements outside the door.
As the butler's footsteps faded into the distance, Song Mian, once she was certain he had left, quietly pushed open the door: "Quan Zhi, where exactly is your room?"
"Upstairs, on the top floor," Quan Zhi said, already walking forward in the direction she remembered.
Watching Quan Zhi stumble away, Song Mian quickly followed.
The family's villa has five floors. When Song Mian went up to the fifth floor, she found that most of the rooms were used to store miscellaneous items.
"Quan Zhi, which room is yours?" Song Mian glanced behind her cautiously as she spoke, afraid that the Quan family would realize she was missing and come looking for her while they were talking.
"No, my room is upstairs." Quan Zhi said in a daze, slowly floating upstairs.
"What else is upstairs? Isn't upstairs the attic? What young lady would live in an attic?" Meng Yi said, her words tinged with disdain.
Quan Zhi didn't respond to Meng Yi's question and drifted towards the attic.
Song Mian followed Quan Zhi and they arrived at the pavilion.
The vermilion door to the attic was locked with a small padlock.
"Young boss, the key is under that little flowerpot on the ground by the door."
As Quan Zhi said, Song Mian indeed found a small key under the flowerpot.
Song Mian successfully unlocked the small lock with the key, pushed open the door in front of her, and heard the tightly closed door creaking.
A thin layer of dust had accumulated in the attic, which had been unoccupied for more than half a year. When Song Mian entered the room, she found a simple table and chairs, a small bed about 1.2 meters wide, and a worn-out wardrobe.
The room, which was only about 20 square meters in total, was visibly simple and even less luxurious than the guest room that Song Mian had just visited.
The small attic was completely incomparable to Quan Yanyan's room.
"Quan Zhi, are you sure this is really the room where you lived in the Quan family?" Song Mian's eyes were filled with deep shock, unable to believe her eyes.
“Yes.” Quan Zhi walked to the very simple bedside table, pointed to it and said to Song Mian, “Miss Song Mian, I remember there is my diary in this bedside table. Could you please take a look and see what is written on it?”
Song Mian immediately opened the bedside table and was surprised to find that there were indeed many diaries inside.
These diaries are the simplest notebooks, stacked up neatly and orderly.
Song Mian took out the bottom diary, unfolded it, and began to read it carefully.
"May 12th, 20xx, today is my eighth birthday. I was dreaming of a cake and my family being with me, but unexpectedly, my parents came home and suddenly said that I am not actually a child in the family. My parents won't let me get close, and I'm so scared."
I wanted to go to my brothers, but they scolded me, saying I stole their place as their real sister. But what does "real sister" mean? I'm their sister too, so why are they saying that about me? I don't understand…”
When Song Mian read this far, she also noticed tear stains shaped like water droplets on the paper.
Her heart clenched uncontrollably, and Song Mian looked up at Quan Zhi: "The Quan family knew whether you were their daughter or not when you were eight years old?"
Quan Yanyan and her family never mentioned this to her.
They had mistakenly thought that Quan Zhi was only kicked out of the Quan family after Quan Yanyan was found and returned, and was forced to give up her princess-like life.
Now it seems that she had clearly been neglected by this family for a very long time!
No wonder, no wonder the Quan family was able to so decisively drive Quan Zhi away after finding Quan Yanyan.
It turns out that they never treated Quan Zhi with the same care and concern they would show her as family!
Quan Zhi blankly accepted the diary handed to her by Song Mian.
Song Mian continued reading her diary.
These diaries began on Quan Zhi's eighth birthday and continued until she turned eighteen.
Over the past ten years, Quan Zhi's experiences in the Quan family have been simply recorded in ten diaries.
These ten diaries record the past, and more importantly, the ten most important and difficult years of Quan Zhi's short life.
Over the course of ten years, Quan Zhi gradually grew from an eight-year-old helpless child, to one who was suddenly abandoned by the Quan family, to a numb one.
During this time, Quan Zhi tried not only once, but thousands of times, to get along well with the Quan family again.
However, her parents hated her, and her three older brothers in the Quan family regarded her as the culprit who stole Quan Yanyan's wonderful life.
She tried her best to study, earn scholarships, and buy gifts for her family.
The result was insults and ridicule, and he was even labeled a 'thief'.
It was all because she unknowingly took Quan Yanyan's place and was pampered by the Quan family for eight years.
She quickly realized that her efforts would not be reciprocated by the Quan family, and Quan Zhi even considered going to an orphanage.
However, the Quan family could not tolerate the scandal of their lost daughter being exposed, so they signed a contract with Quan Zhi, stipulating that Quan Zhi could not leave the Quan family until she turned eighteen.
Before that, she needed to stay in the Quan family to atone for her sins of monopolizing Quan Yanyan's affection.
Fortunately, Quan Zhi is a genius. She not only excels in her studies, but also possesses extraordinary talent in various fields.
So she came up with a way to 'repay the favor'.
She subtly and overtly helped her three brothers become big shots in their respective fields.
The three young masters of the Quan family only knew that someone had been providing them with help, but they did not know that this person was Quan Zhi.
Quan Zhi could have told her family about this on her eighteenth birthday.
However, Quan Yanyan appeared at that time and plagiarized her paper.
That paper summarized all the details of how she helped her three brothers so far, and it was also the paper's argument that perfectly proved that Quan Zhi was the one who had been silently helping her three brothers all these years.
Unfortunately, it was this very paper that was plagiarized by Quan Yanyan.
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