Chapter 48: Forty-Eighth Day as a Salted Fish
The slap from Yang Yutong was probably far too hard, as Yang Yuyan was knocked straight to the floor.
When the custom character cake—which resembled a work of art—was knocked over, it had already drawn the attention of everyone in the Yang Manor’s reception hall; now, seeing this sister-versus-sister clash, the entire crowd surged over to watch.
“What happened?”
“How did the cake fall over? Did it hit anyone?”
“Why is the eldest young miss of the Yang family beating people up?”
The guests whispered among themselves, watching the scene unfold with eyes brimming with curiosity.
Not too long ago, when Yang Yuyan was brought back to the family, Father Yang had thrown a grand banquet to introduce everyone to his long-lost younger daughter.
Everyone in the elite circle knew that Yang Yuyan had suffered a lot while living away, but after returning to the Yang family, she was exceptionally filial to her parents. With her pure, white-lotus looks and her timid, obedient personality, she was a girl who naturally evoked deep sympathy.
How could a perfectly fine birthday banquet devolve into this?
The younger sister had accidentally knocked over the older sister’s birthday cake, only for the older sister, Yang Yutong, to instantly fly into a rage, physically beating and screaming at her right then and there.
Rumors had been circulating in high society that Yang Yutong had completely fallen out with her family after her younger sister was brought back—turns out those rumors were true. This rich-and-famous high-society drama was turning out to be quite the spectacle.
Shen Xiaoshan had also been invited to tonight’s banquet by Yang Yuyan. High-society banquets were packed with big shots from various industries, offering a great opportunity to network and build connections. Seeing Yang Yuyan get slapped to the ground, Shen Xiaoshan rushed out and shielded her, shouting, “Yuyan is your younger sister! How could you lay a hand on her?!”
Having taken a harsh slap, Yang Yuyan clutched her face on the floor, looking up at Yang Yutong with a pitiful, tearful expression. “Sister, I really didn’t mean to…”
Shen Xiaoshan had already been holding in a wave of bitter frustration after being mocked and cursed at across the entire internet for the past two days. Seeing Qin Jiaojiao’s best friend acting so domineering and bullying her younger sister only fanned the flames of rage in her heart. Helping Yang Yuyan up, she barked at Yang Yutong, “Yuyan didn’t knock over your cake on purpose! Can’t you speak like a civilized human being? Isn’t physically beating someone going way too far?!”
Yang Yuyan silently shed tears with a deeply aggrieved expression, acting entirely innocent despite being the one who had smashed and ruined the star of the night’s birthday cake.
Watching this scene made Yang Yutong’s blood boil. Ever since Yang Yuyan returned to the Yang family, she had yielded at every turn, yet every time she was provoked by Yang Yuyan’s weak, victim-playing act, she couldn’t suppress her explosive temper and wanted nothing more than to slap Yang Yuyan silly.
Tonight, all she wanted was to celebrate her birthday happily. Setting aside the massive sum of money she had spent, she had personally commissioned a master baker two months in advance to make this character cake of her favorite role—it carried an extraordinary meaning for her.
Yang Yuyan, that damned white lotus, was blatantly doing this on purpose just to ruin her birthday banquet! Yang Yutong didn’t care about her parents’ reactions anymore; all she wanted was to slap Yang Yuyan a few more times to vent this foul mood.
Qin Jiaojiao’s expression was equally terrible. A painstakingly custom-ordered cake, ruined—and all it took was a breezy “I didn’t mean to knock it over” to write it off?
If someone had ruined a cake she had spent a fortune to custom-order, whether it was intentional or not, just thinking about it was enough to spark pure fury. But since she wasn’t the star of the show tonight, she had to see how Yang Yutong wanted to handle it.
“You didn’t mean to?! This hall is so wide, yet you just had to run over and push my cake down?!” Yang Yutong took a step forward, raising her hand high to deliver another slap to Yang Yuyan’s face.
Right at that moment, Father Yang—who had arrived at some unknown point—roared with a dark face: “Enough!”
Yang Yutong’s eyes were bloodshot as she glared at her dad. “She smashed my cake, and I’m not even allowed to hit her?!”
“Your sister didn’t do it on purpose!” Noticing all the surrounding guests enjoying the spectacle, Father Yang barked sternly, “Stop making a scene!”
He didn’t care whether Yang Yuyan had done it on purpose or not; he had to put an end to this farce right now. Any family matters could be argued out behind closed doors, but with a room full of distinguished guests, escalating this would completely ruin the Yang family’s face.
Yang Yutong knew that ever since her sister returned, her parents felt guilty over her decade-plus absence and the hardships she had suffered, instructing her to yield to and take care of her younger sister. Initially, she had genuinely wanted to treat her sister well.
She yielded her bedroom to her sister, gave her belongings away, and backed down time after time—yet what had her concessions brought her?
Her sister and her parents shared endless laughter as a real, complete family, while her parents only barked impatience and lectures at her—claiming she wasn’t sensible, that she was disobedient and hot-tempered, and that giving birth to her was purely their retribution.
Hearing Father Yang’s harsh reprimand, Qin Jiaojiao’s heart sank, and she turned her gaze toward Yang Yutong.
Yang Yutong bit her lip tightly, her eyes wide with utter disbelief as tears welled up and spilled out of her bloodshot eyes. Letting out a self-deprecating laugh, she asked, “I’m making a scene? She ruined my birthday banquet, and you say I’m making a scene, Dad?”
At this moment, Qin Jiaojiao felt as though she could hear the sound of a heart breaking, her own eyes smarting with deep heartache for her best friend.
Most parents were biased, yet they never believed they were. Even if they were in the wrong, they would never bow their heads to their own child.
Yang Yutong pointed directly at Yang Yuyan and said, “Is it true that no matter how many hurtful things she does to me, as long as she puts on a weak, pitiful act, it will always be my fault?!”
Tonight, Father Yang had hosted this birthday banquet for Yang Yutong, inviting the young elites and high-society figures of Beijing, with the underlying motive of matchmaking for his daughter. Seeing Yang Yutong acting so willful, relentless, and shrewish only made his expression darken further.
“I told you to stop making a scene!” he barked in fury.
With tears in her eyes, Yang Yutong looked over at Yang Yuyan, who was supported by Shen Xiaoshan and huddled in her mother’s arms like an ostrich shrinking back to avoid danger; an unbearable, suffocating pain surged through her chest.
Losing her mind completely, she charged over, grabbed Yang Yuyan’s arm, and yanked hard. “Get over here and apologize! Pick up every single piece of cake on the floor!”
Yang Yuyan let out a cry of pain. “Sister, you’re pinching me…”
“Tongtong, let go!” Mother Yang stepped in to stop her with an ugly expression.
Shen Xiaoshan reached out to pull Yang Yuyan back. “Miss Yang, Yuyan already apologized, what more do you want?!”
As the group dragged and pulled at one another, the surrounding guests broke into hushed, lively discussions.
Father Yang’s chest heaved violently. Striding forward, he grabbed Yang Yutong’s wrist with force, yanked her away, and raised his hand to slap her straight across the face. With a loud SLAP, Yang Yutong was struck so hard she lost her footing and crashed heavily onto the floor.
“Tongtong!” Qin Jiaojiao cried out, quickly rushing over to squat down and support Yang Yutong.
She had known that the relationship between Yang Yutong and her parents was strained, but she had never imagined Father Yang would deliver such a brutal slap to Yang Yutong right at her own birthday banquet.
The watching guests were stunned—even for biased parents, this was going way too far.
As Qin Jiaojiao helped Yang Yutong up, perhaps due to repeated disappointments and a shattered heart, Yang Yutong slumped limply against Qin Jiaojiao, inexplicably bursting into laughter.
Her laughter was laced with bitter self-mockery and chilling coldness.
She shouldn’t have held any expectations in the first place. A birthday should have been spent with a few close best friends—then none of this would have happened.
“Are you satisfied now?” Yang Yutong stared at her white-lotus sister, saying coldly, “I will never step foot into this house again.”
Yang Yutong’s icy gaze and severing words triggered Father Yang, who raised his palm high once again. “You unfilial girl! What nonsense are you spewing?!”
Seeing the middle-aged man’s massive hand about to strike down forcefully, Qin Jiaojiao tried to pull Yang Yutong back to dodge, but Yang Yutong stood completely motionless like a stubborn rock.
It was as if she were intent on taking this slap head-on to sever all ties with her parents once and for all.
You silly Tongtong! Move! Don’t you know how to dodge getting hit?!
Suddenly, Father Yang’s wrist was clamped by a hand, holding him so firmly that he couldn’t move a single inch. He turned his head around.
Zhou Shaoli was restraining his hand, his expression cold and detached as he spoke: “President Yang, today is Miss Yang’s birthday. You have already laid hands on her once; do not break your daughter’s heart any further.”
Father Yang had been blinded by rage; even though Zhou Shaoli held an exalted status, he tried to pull rank as an elder, saying in a heavy tone, “President Zhou, this is my family affair. Outsiders shouldn’t interfere.”
Zhou Shaoli held Father Yang’s hand in a vice-like grip, his voice gentle yet dripping with mockery: “It seems the Yang family’s moral code leaves much to be desired—a father resorting to violence the moment his daughter displeases him slightly.”
These words carried heavy weight. In high society, family discipline was strict, and parents only resorted to physical punishment if their children committed severe transgressions; who on earth would beat their child just over minor displeasure? That was straight-up domestic abuse.
Listening to the hushed murmurs among the guests, Father Yang was forced to suppress the surging rage in his heart no matter how furious he felt. Zhou Shaoli was stepping in to handle his family’s affairs, and he couldn’t afford to go head-to-head against Zhou Shaoli—unless the Yang family no longer wanted to make a living in Beijing.
Zhou Shaoli released his grip and stepped to Qin Jiaojiao’s side, standing as her solid support.
Holding up the teetering Yang Yutong, Qin Jiaojiao directed her icy gaze toward Yang Yuyan beside Mother Yang, her voice carrying a chill: “You knocked over Tongtong’s cake—shouldn’t you apologize to your sister?!”
Yang Yuyan was secretly gloating that the relationship between Yang Yutong and their parents had broken down further, but hearing this, her expression turned apprehensive as she looked at them.
“I really didn’t mean to…”
“Is saying you didn’t mean it supposed to make everything fine?!” Qin Jiaojiao coldly interrupted her. “If you make a mistake, you apologize! You ruined your sister’s birthday banquet—are you telling me you don’t even want to offer a single word of apology?!”
Shen Xiaoshan and Yang Yuyan being able to hit it off really was birds of a feather flocking together—whenever they made a mistake, they never thought to apologize or compensate the victim for their losses.
With all the guests watching, Yang Yuyan’s face turned deathly pale as her hands gripped her dress tightly.
Apologizing in front of so many people would turn her into a laughingstock in high society, constantly brought up as a joke.
Yang Yuyan looked toward Father Yang, hoping her father would step forward to back her up again.
If the person forcing Yang Yuyan to apologize were Yang Yutong, Father Yang would have definitely scolded Yang Yutong instead. But now, Zhou Shaoli and Qin Jiaojiao were stepping into the Yang family’s business to back Yang Yutong up—who would dare to clash directly with Zhou Shaoli?
Besides, Yang Yuyan had indeed ruined the cake; regardless of whether it was intentional, ruining someone’s birthday cake meant she truly owed the host an apology.
Yang Yuyan bit her lip, reluctantly offering an apology to Yang Yutong: “Sister, it’s all my fault for ruining your cake. I’m sorry.”
Yang Yutong watched this scene coldly. In the past, she had always been the one forced to offer a begrudging apology; now that it was finally Yang Yuyan’s turn to bow her head, she felt not a single trace of joy in her heart.
“Jiaojiao, let’s go.” Yang Yutong was already thoroughly heart-broken.
Qin Jiaojiao whispered near her ear, “Don’t rush, wait a moment.” She then turned her gaze to Yang Yuyan, who had just apologized, and said, “Just apologizing isn’t enough.”
Shen Xiaoshan stepped up to defend her: “Yuyan already apologized, what more do you want?!”
Qin Jiaojiao gave a light chuckle. “Compensation, of course. Custom-ordering a cake took Tongtong so much time and effort—Tongtong must have spent a lot of money on such a beautiful cake.”
She turned to Yang Yutong and asked in a gentle voice, “How much was it?”
Yang Yutong said with a cold face: “Two hundred thousand yuan.”
Two hundred thousand yuan??!
A flash of shock passed through Yang Yuyan’s eyes. To think Yang Yutong was rich enough to spend two hundred thousand yuan custom-ordering a single cake—she was almost dying of jealousy inside.
The high-society figures attending tonight’s banquet possessed immense assets. When wealthy young masters and heiresses celebrated their birthdays, plenty spent millions on custom cakes, so two hundred thousand for a lifelike character cake was truly not considered excessive.
Qin Jiaojiao looked at Yang Yuyan: “If you break something, you should pay double compensation, right?”
Yang Yuyan’s face turned pale. She had lived in poverty in the past, and even after returning to the Yang family, she relied on her parents for living expenses. While Father and Mother Yang had bought her a car and a house after her return, they only gave her ten to twenty thousand yuan per month for living expenses.
Two hundred thousand yuan was her entire year’s living allowance!
Paying double the price meant four hundred thousand—where was she supposed to get that much money?!
Yang Yuyan had originally assumed that by playing pitiful, no one would pursue the matter of the ruined cake to the end, which would also allow her to sour the relationship between Yang Yutong and their parents. Now, she was forced to apologize AND being hounded for compensation.
Qin Jiaojiao had a smile on her face, yet her eyes were filled with frost: “Transfer the money now.”
“I… I…” Yang Yuyan looked toward Mother Yang with a pale face, “Mom, I don’t have that much money.”
Mother Yang had been a stay-at-home housewife ever since marrying, relying on her husband to give her money to live. She had spent a lot of money over the past few months buying clothes and jewelry for Yang Yuyan, so she had almost no spare cash left beside her.
“Didn’t your dad give you five hundred thousand earlier?”
Over the past few months, in order to blend into the elite Beijing circle, Yang Yuyan had spent a great deal of money hosting gatherings, eating, drinking, playing around, and sending gifts to socialite sisters. The entertainment industry wasn’t easy to navigate; she had only landed a supporting role in a web drama through Shen Xiaoshan’s connections after spending a considerable sum.
Right now, she only had a few tens of thousands left in her bank card, which wasn’t nearly enough to compensate Yang Yutong.
Father Yang frowned as he looked at Yang Yuyan. Under the current circumstances, as long as Yang Yuyan paid up quickly, the matter could be put to rest.
Qin Jiaojiao let out a light laugh: “What’s wrong, Second Miss Yang? You can’t even produce four hundred thousand yuan?”
Yang Yuyan felt deeply humiliated as she said, “I don’t have that much money on me right now. Can I transfer it to Sister later?”
Qin Jiaojiao’s gaze swept over Father and Mother Yang as she said, “Second Miss Yang had better mind her behavior when she goes out in the future; who knows, next time you ruin something without the money to pay for it, you might just get dragged off to lockup.”
This was truly a brutal humiliation.
Father Yang said with a dark face, “I will transfer the money for the cake to Yutong. Mrs. Zhou, this matter ends here.”
Shen Xiaoshan probably recalled her own recent incidents of apologizing and paying compensation, her expression turning thoroughly aggrieved and ugly. She and Yang Yuyan—whose face was equally hideous—looked like two miserable drowned dogs.
Satisfied, Qin Jiaojiao turned around and said to Yang Yutong, “Tongtong, let’s go.”
At this moment, Yang Yutong desperately needed a quiet environment to heal the wounds in her heart.
Yang Yutong nodded. She didn’t want to stay in this house for a single second longer, desperately wanting to escape and breathe fresh air.
From behind them came Father Yang’s voice: “If you walk out of this house today, don’t you ever come back!”
Yang Yutong’s footsteps paused, and her slightly slouched body slowly straightened. Without needing Qin Jiaojiao’s support, she walked out of the Yang Family Public Residence step by step.
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